Conclusion

Abstract

This draws conclusions based on John Selden’s acceptance of the Talmud as an authoritative source. His many references to Jewish ancestral custom and opinion reveal his understanding that ancient Talmudic traditions exist independent of the Bible, and of course these include the Adamic/Noachide laws. Despite its dubious historicity, Selden accepts the tradition of a seamless transmission of judicial authority in both sacred and civil issues from Moses to the time of the synedrion, which he regards as a model for Parliament. He regards the sages of the Talmud as legal scholars rather than as religious figures. In the fierce debates in the Westminster Assembly over Deuteronomy 17:8–10, the Presbyterians read the text literally, which gave priority in adjudication to the clergy, while Erastians like Selden followed the rabbinic interpretation, which favored those who were skilled in the law. The conclusion tries to explain why both Selden and Milton (at least in his divorce treatises and in the middle books of Paradise Lost) relied on simile and analogy rather than metaphor and typology. Milton would have found everything he needed to create the laws of paradise in Selden’s De Jure Naturali et Gentium, with its thousands of marginal references and its method of giving a fair hearing to all opinions.