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Humanist Spirituality and Ecclesial Reaction: Thomas More's Monstra

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 July 2009

Peter Iver Kaufman
Peter Iver Kaufman
Affiliation:
Associate professor of religious studies in the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, North Carolina.
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Extract

“Do you want to see new marvels (monstra)? Do you want to see strange ways of life, to find the sources of virtue or the causes of all evil; to sense the vast emptiness that commonly goes unnoticed?”

Cornelius Grapheus was responsible for this sales promotion. Along with other prefatory material, it introduced Thomas More's Utopia to readers in 1516. More's friend, Erasmus of Rotterdam, had collected endorsement, and either he or Peter Giles had approached Grapheus, then secretary to the municipal government at Antwerp. It is reasonable to assume that Grapheus jumped at the chance to associate his name with the new work. He had published nothing before this time, save for some devotional verse in 1514, yet careers were launched, patrons found, and reputations ennobled by promotional material as well as by the material promoted.

Type
Research Article
Information
Church History , Volume 56 , Issue 1 , March 1987 , pp. 25 - 38
Copyright
Copyright © American Society of Church History 1987

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References

1. The Complete Works of St. Thomas More (hereafter CWTM), vol. 4, ed. Edward Surtz and J. H. Hexter (New Haven, 1965), p. 30:Google Scholar “Vis nova monstra…”

2. For Grapheus, , Opus epistolarum Des. Erasmi Roterodami (hereafter Oe), ed. Allen, P. S., Allen, H. M., and Garrod, H. W., 12 vols. (Oxford, 1906–1958), 4: 225–226; 5: 97,Google Scholar line 87 “[vir] que nemo melior Antuerpiae.” Also consult Saabe, M., “Erasmus en zijn Antwerpsche Vrienden,” Vlaamsche Academie voor taal- en letterkunde; Verslagen en mededeelingen (Ghent, 1936), pp. 475–480;Google Scholar and Allen, Peter R., “Utopia and European Humanism,” Studies in the Renaissance 10 (1963): 91–107.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

3. CWTM 4: 20–27; 4: 32–37.

4. CWTM 4: 2–15.

5. CWTM 4: 28: “si Theologorum aliquot insignes et invicti in earn insularn se conferant.”

6. CWTM 4: 10–12.

7. The questions are addressed to J. H. Hexter and Quentin Skinner, whose positions on the humanist “program” and the Utopia are somewhat caricatured in the phrasing. See Hexter's essay in CWTM 4: lvii-lxxxi; and Skinner's, “More's Utopia,” Past and Present 38 (1967): 153–168.CrossRefGoogle Scholar See also Skinner's, The Foundations of Modern Political Thought, 2 vols. (Cambridge, 1978), 1: 261–262.Google Scholar Readers interested in a more moderately critical perspective on the positions advanced by Hexter and Skinner should turn to Bradshaw's, Brendan “More on Utopia,” Historical Journal 24 (1981): 1–27;CrossRefGoogle Scholar and to Bradshaw's, “The Christian Humanism of Erasmus,” Journal of Theological Studies, n.s. 33 (1982): particularly 445–447.Google Scholar

8. See, for example, Mesnard, Pierre, “La commerce épistolaire, comme expression sociale de l'individualisme humaniste,” Individu et société a la Renaissance, in Travaux de l'institut pour l'étude de la Renaissance et de l'humanisme, Université libre de Bruxelles 3 (1967): 24–27.Google Scholar

9. Desiderii Erasmi Opera Omnia, ed. Joannes Clericus, 11 vols. (reprint ed., Hildesheim, 1961–1962) 2: 952E;Google Scholar translated in Phillips, Margaret Mann, Erasmus on His Times (Cambridge, 1967), p. 109.Google Scholar For simile, Charlier's, Érasme et l'amité d'après sa correspondance (Paris, 1977), p. 343.Google Scholar For the religious character of Erasmus's belletristic revival, Boyle, Marjorie O'Rourke, Christening Pagan Mysteries: Erasmus in Pursuit of Wisdom (Toronto, 1981), notably pp. 7–11, 72–76;CrossRefGoogle Scholar but also see Seigel, Jerrold, Rhetoric and Philosophy in Renaissance Humanism (Princeton, 1968);CrossRefGoogle ScholarChantraine, Georges, Mystère et philosophie du Christ selon Érasme (Paris, 1971), particularly pp. 250–257Google Scholar (“Arts libéraux et mystère”); and Rabil, Albert Jr, Erasmus and the New Testament: The Mind of a Christian Humanist (San Antonio, 1972), pp. 37–97.Google Scholar

10. Oe 1: 104: “Tu igitur, mi Corneli, si me amas, ut certe facis, fac amabo tuorum me semper studiorum participem reddas.” For what follows on Gerard, and Hermans, , Reedijk, C., The Poems of Desiderius Erasmus (Leiden, 1956);Google ScholarPfeiffer, Rudolf, “Die Wandlungen der ‘Antibarbari’,” in Ausgewählte Schriften (Munich, 1960), pp. 205–207;Google Scholar and Cavazza, Silvano, “La cronologia degli Antibarbari' e le origini del pensiero religioso di Erasmo,” Rinascimento 15 (1975): 141–179.Google Scholar

11. Oe 1: 113, lines 32–43; and 1: 120, lines 49–51: “Praeterea Laurentium, quem nemo nisi barbarus odit, ne tibi decorum existimes linguae spiculo lacerare, cum sis ipse literarum mystes religiosissimus.”

12. Oe 1: 161, lines 21–26.

13. Oe 1: 162, lines 65–69.

14. See my “The Disputed Date of Erasmus' Liber apologeticus,” Medievalia et Humanistica, n.s. 10 (1981): 148–151.Google Scholar

15. Beaulieu, Benoît, “Utilité des lettres, selon Érasme,” Etudes litteraires 4 (1971): 163–174;CrossRefGoogle Scholar and Henderson, Judith Rice, “Erasmus on the Art of Letter Writing,” in Renaissance Eloquence, ed. Murphy, James J. (Berkeley, 1983), pp. 331–332, 348–355.Google Scholar

16. Opera Omnia Desiderii Erasmi Roterodami (Amsterdam, 1969–), 1.2: 432–463.Google Scholar

17. Ibid. 1.2: 222–223.

18. Ibid. 4.3: 120–124.

19. Ibid. 4.3: 166–168.

20. See my Augustinian Piety and Catholic Reform (Macon, 1982), pp. 124–133,Google Scholar for a more detailed discussion of these controversial propositions; but also consult Kohls, Ernst-Wilhelm, Di Theologie des Erasmus, 2 vols. (Basel, 1966) 1: 91–93;Google ScholarPadberg, Rudolf, Personaler Humanismus (Paderborn, 1964), pp. 63–66;Google Scholar and see Bradshaw, , “More on Utopia,” pp. 10–12;Google Scholar and Payne, John B., Erasmus, His Theology of the Sacraments (Richmond, 1970), particularly pp. 220–222.Google Scholar

21. Desiderius Erasmus Roterodamus; Ausgewählte Werke (hereafter AW), ed. Hajo Holborn and Annemarie Holborn (Munich, 1933), p. 55,Google Scholar lines 22–26: “quarum ductu tanquam fili Daedalei facile queas e mundi hujus erroribus velut e labyrintho quodam inextricabili emergere atque ad puram lucem vitae spiritales pertingere.”

22. See Valla's, De professione religiosorum, in Scritti filosofici e religiosi, ed. Radetti, Giorgio (Florence, 1953), p. 402.Google Scholar

23. Ibid., p. 412; and Colet's, Opus de sacramentis ecclesiae, ed. Lupton, Joseph H. (London, 1867), p.71.Google Scholar

24. AW, p. 58, lines 20–28; p. 99, lines 14–17; and p. 129, lines 18–20. See Kohls, , Theologie 1: 138–140,Google Scholar and his “The Principal Theological Thoughts in the Enchiridion Militis Christiani,” in Essays in the Works of Erasmus, ed. Richard De Molen (New Haven, 1978), pp. 61–82.Google Scholar For a more detailed assessment of spiritual empowerment, see my “Colet, Erasmus, and the Practical Spirituality of the Catholic Reform,” Proceedings of the Patristic, Medieval, and Renaissance Conference 2 (1977): 19–30:Google Scholar and my Augustinian Piety, where I call humanist soteriology “voluntarist mysticism” to distinguish it from late medieval nominalisms. Yet I accept the criticism of that choice offered by in, Nelson MinnichErasmus of Roterdam Society Yearbook 4 (1984): 166–167.Google Scholar

25. Oe 3: 523, lines 47–48.

26. Erasmus occasionally forgot himself, especially when Jacques Lefèvre d'Etaples refused to accept his leadership. In this instance, Budé stepped in ostensibly to umpire the dispute. He begged Erasmus to let insults pass unanswered. Reckless accusations that were overlooked bruised the prestige of humanism far less than replies and countercharges. See Oe 3: 272–277.

27. AW, pp. 52–54.

28. For example, Oe 1: 190–193.

29. Chantraine, Georges, “L'Apologia ad Latomum: deux conceptions de la théologie,” Scrinium Erasmianum, vol. 2, ed Coppens, J. (Leiden, 1969), pp. 73–75.Google Scholar

30. Ibid., pp. 66–68; and Chantraine's, ‘Mystère’ et ‘Philosophie do Christ’ selon Erasme (Namur, 1971), pp. 250–252, 328–333.Google Scholar

31. Trinkhaus, Charles, The Scope of Renaissance Humanism (Ann Arbor, 1983), p. 257.Google Scholar

32. Quentin Skinner anticipated this interpretive possibility (see note 7), as did Fenlon, Dermot, “England and Europe: Utopia and Its Aftermath,” Transactions of the Royal Historical Society 25 (1975): 121–127.CrossRefGoogle Scholar George Logan takes that possibility in a rather unusual direction, The Meaning of More's ‘Utopia’ (Princeton, 1983), especially pp. 254–258.Google Scholar

33. CWTM 4: 178–181.

34. CWTM 4: 244: “absurde…instituta.”

35. CWTM 4: 194.

36. CWTM 4: 160–163.

37. CWTM 5.2: 803–823; and Marius, Richard, Thomas More (New York, 1984), particularly pp. 270–291.Google Scholar

38. CWTM 5.1: 118–119; and 5.1: 606–609. Though not exactly pertinent here, the controversy between Richard Marius and John Headley about More's attachment to papal hierocratic theory is enlightening and fun to follow. See CWTM 5.2: 769–774; Headley, John, “Thomas More and the Papacy,” Moreana 41 (1974): 5–10;CrossRefGoogle Scholar and Marius's analysis in CWTM 8.3: 1271–1363.

39. CWTM 5.1: 289.

40. CWTM 5.1: 300.

41. See Hexter's, More's Utopia: The Biography of an Idea (Princeton, 1952), pp. 85–91;Google Scholar but also see Chambers, R. W., Thomas More (Ann Arbor, 1958), pp. 136–138;Google Scholar and Fenlon, , “England,” pp. 124–125.Google Scholar

42. CWTM 4: 130.

43. CWJM 4: 226–229.

44. Statutes of the Realm, 11 vols. (London, 1810–1828),Google Scholar 4 Henry VIII, c. 2.

45. CWTM 4: 228.

46. See Colet's, convocation sermon, reprinted in The Catholic Reformation: Savonarola to Ignatius Loyola, ed. Olin, John C. (New York, 1969), pp. 31–39.Google Scholar

47. Oe 2: 246, lines 1–5.

48. CWTM 4: 58–61. Little is known of Thomas More's own connection with Morton, save that he spent several years in Morton's household. See Holeczek, Heinz, “Die humanistische Bildung des Thomas More und ihre Beurteilung durch Erasmus von Rotterdam,” Zeitschrift für historische Forschung 3 (1976): 166–168.Google Scholar For interpretive problems prompted by Hythloday's eulogy, Logan, consult, Meaning, pp. 44–47.Google Scholar

49. The Correspondence of Sir Thomas More, ed. Elizabeth Frances Rogers (Princeton, 1947), pp. 27–74.Google Scholar

50. Ibid., pp. 137–154, 165–206.

51. Gogan, Brian, The Common Corps of Christendom (Leiden, 1982), p. 10.Google Scholar

52. Headley, John M., “Thomas Murner, Thomas More, and the First Expression of More's Ecclesiology,” Studies in the Renaissance 14 (1967): 73–92.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

53. See, for example, Wimsett, W. K., “Genesis: A Fallacy Revisited,” in The Disciplines of Criticism, ed. Demetz, Peter, Greene, Thomas, and Nelson, Lowry Jr (New Haven, 1968), pp. 198–199, 203, 210, 214, 223–224.Google Scholar Recent biographers of More, however, would disagree with my prognosis, particularly Marius (see note 37) and Fox, Alistair, Thomas More: History and Providence (New Haven, 1983).Google Scholar Note, in this context, the splendid dissent from Fox's “tragic view” of More's abandonment of the Utopia's liberal creed, Bradshaw, Brendan, “The Controversial Sir Thomas More,” Journal of Ecclesiastical History 36 (1985): 535–569.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

54. Consult Mailloux, Steven, “Reader Response Criticism?” Genre 10 (1977): 413–431;Google Scholar and Fish, Stanley, Is There a Text in This Class? The Authority of Interpretive Communities (Cambridge, 1982).Google Scholar

55. Holeczek, , “Humanistische Bildung,” pp. 199–200.Google Scholar

56. See Greenblatt's, Renaissance Self-fashioning: More to Shakespeare (Chicago, 1980), pp. 72–73.Google Scholar