John Milton (1608–1674) Tetrachordon: expositions upon the foure chief places in scripture, which treat of mariage, or nullities of mariage ... (London, 1645). Ee.3.20, title page.
Tetrachordon is Milton’s third divorce tract and was published simultaneously with his fourth, Colasterion, in March 1645. Milton had published Areopagitica (1644) (no. 38) in the interim. The tract’s Greek title means ‘four-stringed’, alluding to the fact that Milton harnesses the four Scriptural passages dealing with divorce (Genesis 1:27-28; Deuteronomy 24:1; Matthew 5:31-32; I Corinthians 7:10-16) in favour of his arguments. Arguing from Biblical precedents, Milton implies that divorce is an inevitable reality of the postlapsarian world.