The Mysticism of St. Thomas More

Extract

“Nec enim arbitror levioris esse operae Morum effingere quam Alexandrum magnum aut Achillem, nec illi quam hie noster immortalitate digniores erant.”

“For I do not think it a lighter task to paint More’s likeness than those of Alexander the Great or Achilles, nor were they more worthy of immortality than this man of ours.”

These words of Erasmus reveal the opinion that the greatest of his contemporaries had of Thomas More. On the friendship of More and Erasmus much history has turned and much history is beginning to turn even in our time. It is of surpassing interest to observe that Erasmus, the friend of More, was also friend of Franciscus de Vittoria, and that in his recent volume on The Spanish Origin of International Law Professor James Brown Scott introduces the work of Vittoria by reference to the Utopia of More and the Institutes of a Christian Prince of Erasmus.