Many of the perennial sources of contradiction in the Christian tradition came to a head in the turmoils of Milton's lifetime. Was sexuality the True Paradise or the destroying serpent? Was Paradise lost forever, or could men "force through the Fire-sword" and regain the Edenic state? These questions were particularly urgent for Milton himself, caught up in the problems of a failed marriage but unwilling to give up his vision of Paradisal sexuality. This study of Milton's confrontation with his precursors and contemporaries, noteworthy for its historical detail and intellectual incisiveness, establishes Milton as a monumental but divided figure--torn between radical and conservative mentalities, between eroticism and hatred of the flesh, and between patriarchal and egalitarian conceptions of Paradisal marriage.