Many scholars follow philosopher Paul Kristeller by distinguishing Thomas More the Renaissance humanist, Sir Thomas More the statesman, and St Thomas More the Catholic martyr. But when it comes to explaining how three Mores can be one More, scholars founder on trinitarian mysteries of the one and the many. Thomas More played so many different roles in his society, wrote in so many different genres, and was so fond of ironic self-concealment, that it is no wonder that scholars cannot agree about who he really was. The religiously tolerant humanist of his Utopia or the hammer of heretics in his anti-Lutheran polemics?
Everyone agrees that in some sense More was “a man for all seasons”—but in what sense? Was there a consistent “inner man” who played many roles and wore many masks? Or did More, in the words of St Paul, “become all things to all people,” as circumstances changed? Is there a real Thomas More? Or are there ironic masks all the way down?
Travis Curtright is a well-known expert on Thomas More who teaches humanities at Ave Maria University. His new book closely follows the line of argument of his first book, The One Thomas More (Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press, 2012), in which he claims that the one true Thomas More is the saint and militant defender of the Catholic faith. According to Curtright, St Thomas made use of humanist learning and rhetoric just as he made use of public office—for the purpose of defending Catholic Christian faith and morals. Thomas More the humanist and Sir Thomas More the statesman, in this view, were merely roles played or masks worn by Thomas More the saint. By examining both More’s humanist writings and his theologico-political polemics, Curtright argues that More consistently defends what he takes to be Catholic truth.
Curtright concedes that St Thomas More is not perfectly consistent, especially in relation to the demands of public office. St Thomas More condemns all intentions to deceive, yet Sir Thomas More did find it necessary to prevaricate, equivocate, and intentionally deceive in order to provide himself with what Curtright calls “plausible deniability” (102). More drew the line, however, at lying under oath.
Curtright’s new book extends the argument of The One Thomas More by applying his thesis to More’s final written works, traditionally but misleadingly called his Tower Writings. Put differently, Curtright expands the final chapter in his first book into a new book about More’s last writings. Many scholars and other writers have thought that, after 1533, More abandoned theologico-political polemics in favor of spiritual contemplation of the Eucharist and the passion of Christ, in writings titled A Dialogue of Comfort against Tribulation and Treatise on the Passion and Treatise on the Blessed Body.
The view that, once in the Tower, More turned his eyes toward Heaven and away from his contemporaries fits nicely with More’s legal argument that he could not be guilty of impugning the King’s titles because, having resigned from office, he remained silent about them. Robert Bolt, in A Man for All Seasons, refers to “the silence” of Thomas More that “thundered across Europe.”
Curtright persuasively argues in effect that we must not judge books by their titles and that the silence of Thomas More is a myth. He shows that, in his final “devotional” writings, More uses thinly veiled tropes to continue his polemic against Henry’s claim to supremacy over the church and against the Lutheran reformers more generally: “What scholars have classified as More’s devotional literature, in other words, is also an example of polemical theology” (46). Across both his books, Curtright rejects the common view that More’s life as a writer proceeded through distinct phases of the humanistic, polemical, and devotional. Curtright’s More was a lifelong Catholic polemicist who simply varied his rhetorical strategies according to the requirements of the moment.
At his trial, even when he ceases argument and prays for reconciliation with his prosecutors in Heaven, More compares himself to Blessed Stephen and his adversaries to Saul, who, before becoming Paul, heinously killed Stephen. To his last breath, More was scoring points.
Curtright explores some of the troubling implications of his findings for a wider assessment of Thomas More. First, More’s ongoing prison polemics make a mockery of his legal arguments that that he never revealed his conscience to anyone except his King and his claim that he never in speech or writing impugned the King’s titles. More clearly violates the spirit and probably also the letter of the Act of Treasons: “under these terms [the Act of Treasons] More’s defiance in his last writings is criminal” (140). Had More truly retired from theologico-political polemics when he left office, he might well have died in his bed. Second, More often claimed to respect every person’s conscientious judgment and hoped that they would respect his, but Curtright shows that in his final writings More condemned the cowardice he saw in the Catholic bishops who swore allegiance to Henry. To the very end, More remained an advocate and a judge.
More’s addiction to polemics raises other disturbing questions about his life-choices not explored by Curtright. More himself expressed regret for having devoted so many years to theological polemics that he did not respect. More conceded that one cannot fling pitch without becoming defiled, and he hoped that the day would soon come when everyone forgot his polemical writings. Indeed, his descriptions of Luther as the anus mundi and of Luther’s wife as a whore just prove that Christian polemics do more to discredit Christianity than any heretical belief.
Moreover, More agreed with Erasmus that Christianity is most effectively preached by actions not words. By his willingness to be executed rather than be pressured into a false confession, Thomas More created more Roman Catholics than all his million words of polemics. He is now honored as a saint even in the Anglican Church, not because he won any arguments, but because of his Christian witness.
The grim truth is that Thomas More devoted the best years of his life to serving the whims of the most infamous tyrant in English history. Henry VIII exploited More’s brilliance and reputation for probity to pursue military and marital ventures that More himself loathed. More’s goodness served to cover and enable Henry’s badness. Like Martin Heidegger and Carl Schmitt, More told himself that he could restrain his master and make things, in his words, “less bad.” No one is more easily duped and manipulated by tyrants than are intellectuals. Can one be a good servant to a bad king?
More was never happier than as a student at Oxford, which he left, it seems, only to please his father, who insisted that he study law. If so, then More betrayed his own true vocation. He will always be best known for his imaginative island of Utopia, where, in his wisdom, he banishes all lawyers and theological polemics.
