[Milton-L] Re: CORRECTION OF PREVIOUS EMAIL

[Harold Skulsky]

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The archaic exclamatory phrase "for pity" is roughly equivalent to Fr.
"par pitié" ("sake" is redundant); the scandalized speaker of M's line
is invoking a pity not much in evidence in God's treatment of the
infant. Given the exclamatory idiom, the phrase is not syntactically a
candidate for modifying "doom" — fortunately for M; if the doom is
benignly intended, then it is not "strict." 

With "for pity" as an equivalent of "par pitié," the shocked speaker is
asking how a presumably loving God can be capable of subjecting an
infant to a mercilessly exact judgment ("doom") on the infant's formal
share in original sin. The speaker is less complacent than Augustine (in
the Enchiridion and elsewhere) about how this notorious difficulty is to
be resolved. 

"Strictness" as applied to "doom" is a controversial term of art in
17th-c. jurisprudence; its use here compounds the scandal in divinity by
implicating God in an apparent breach of EQUITY as well as mercy;
according to the familiar chancery maxim, the extreme of justice (i.e.,
strictness in interpreting the penal law) is the extreme of injustice
(summum ius summa iniuria est). (The tag is a modification of a line
from Terence [Heautontimorumenos 4.5] ; cf. Cicero in De officiis
1.10.33.) 

Where there is a vivid appearance of mercilessness and unfairness in
God, and a resulting temptation to scandal (a "stumbling block" to
faith), there is a job for theodicy; we know the man for the job.