ABSTRACT
As we have seen, in Eikonoklastes Milton demonstrates spiritual reading by doing it, laboring to uncover hidden meanings in Charles I’s Eikon Basilike. In De Doctrina Christiana, Milton presents an accounting of his own interpretative processes, and demands that his readers expend a similar effort in reading scripture and his doctrine. Such effort may help such a reader to develop his own sense of doctrine further. Neither of these texts actually presents a reader in the process of learning to read and interpret spiritually, however. In the final two books of Paradise Lost, Milton shows that process by adding the visions, narratives, and discussions between Michael and Adam to his account of the Fall. Michael’s explicit instructions are to comfort Adam, but in doing so the archangel also gives Adam a lesson in spiritual reading. By making us as readers the audience for Adam’s struggles to read and interpret spiritually, Milton leads us through a similar effort. In the process, our own struggles to interpret may lead us to the same sense of comfort Adam eventually achieves.
