Milton's Arianism

For more than 150 years, John Milton's interpreters have been struggling, with Milton and one another, to determine into which school of Trinitarian or anti-Trinitarian thought he ought to be enrolled. They have «matriculated» Milton into the schools of Servetus, Socinus, and Ochino, as well as pre-Nicene subordinationism, Unitarianism, Arianism, and orthodoxy. To date, no one view has been able to capture a lasting scholarly consensus. In order to settle this vexed question, and in order to move Milton critics out of this impasse, this text demonstrates the comprehensive affinity of the poet's anti-Trinitarian views with the Arian tenets condemned at the Council of Nicea.