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Religious Freedom in Thomas More's Utopia

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 August 2009

Sanford Kessler
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Extract

Thomas More advocated religious freedom in Utopia to promote civic peace in Christendom and to help unify his fractious Catholic Church. In doing so, he set forth a plan for managing church-state relations that is a precursor to liberal approaches in this area. Most scholars locate the origins of modern religious freedom in Protestant theology and its first mature articulation in Locke's A Letter on Toleration. This reading of Utopia shows that modern religious freedom has Catholic, Renaissance roots. The essay discusses how scholars have treated Utopian religious freedom and considers the much vexed question of whether More actually favored this principle. It also presents the historical context for More's analysis, his rationale for religious freedom, its effects on Utopian religion and politics, and More's strategy for promoting religious reform in Europe.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Review of Politics , Volume 64 , Issue 2 , Spring 2002 , pp. 207 - 230
Copyright
Copyright © University of Notre Dame 2002

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References

I would like to thank the following individuals for help in clarifying the argument of this essay: Elias Baumgarten, Robert K. Faulkner, Michael A. Gillespie, Ruth W. Grant, Jack Riley, Susan Shell, and Gerard Wegemer.

1. More, Thomas, The Complete Works of St. Thomas More, vol. 4, Utopia, ed. S.J., E. Surtz, and Hexter, J. H.. (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1965), p. 19, In. 25.Google Scholar Page and line references in the text are to the annotated Latin and English edition; references hereafter will be by page and line number only.

2. Nederman, Cary J. and Laursen, John Christian,. “Liberty, Community, and Toleration: Freedom and Function in Medieval Political Thought,” in Difference and Dissent: Theories of Toleration in Medieval and Early Modern Europe, ed. Nederman, Cary J. and Laursen, John Christian (Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield Publishers, Inc., 1996), p. 2.Google Scholar Some scholars link modern religious freedom to the secularizing intentions of political philosophers such as Thomas Hobbes (1588–1679) and Benedict Spinoza (1632–1677) see, for example, Kraynak, Robert P., “John Locke: From Absolutism to Toleration,” American Political Science Review 74 (1980): 53–68CrossRefGoogle Scholar and Smith, Steven B., Spinoza, Liberalism, and the Question of Jewish Identity (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1997).Google Scholar

3. Nederman, and Laursen, , “ Liberty, Community, and Toleration: Freedom and Function in Medieval Political Thought” pp. 20–37Google Scholar; Lahey, Stephen, “Toleration in the Theology and Social Thought of John Wyclif,” in Nederman and Laursen, Difference and Dissent, pp. 39–65Google Scholar

4. Lecler, Joseph, Toleration and the Reformation, vol. 1, trans. Westow, T. L. (New York Association Press, Inc., 1960), pp. 105–113Google Scholar; Levine, Alan, “Introduction: The Prehistory of Toleration and Varieties of Skepticism” in Early Modern Skepticism and the Origins of Toleration, ed. Levine, Alan (Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, Inc., 1999), p. 9.Google Scholar

5. The only extensive treatment of Utopian religious freedom appears in Surtz, Edward L., The Praise of Wisdom: A Commentary on the Religious and Moral Problems and Backgrounds of St. Thomas More's Utopia (Chicago: Loyola University Press, 1957), pp. 40–78.Google ScholarOther brief accounts appear in Greenblatt, Stephen, Renaissance Self-Fashioning from More to Shakespeare (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1980), pp. 53–54;Google ScholarLogan, George M., The Meaning of More's Utopia (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1983), pp. 219–20Google Scholar; Marius, Richard, Thomas More: A Biography (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1984), pp. 172, 175–76Google Scholar; Smith, Dominic Baker-, More's Utopia (New York: Harper Collins Academic, 1991), pp. 190–91Google Scholar; Fox, Alistair, Utopia: An Elusive Vision (New York: Twayne Publishers Fox, 1993), pp. 70–73Google Scholar; Wootton, David, “Utopia: An Introduction” in Utopia with Erasmus's The Sileni of Alcibiades, ed. and trans. Wootton, David (Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Co., 1999), pp. 31–33.Google Scholar

6. See, for example, Hexter, J. H. “Introduction” in Utopia, The Complete Works of St. Thomas More, 4: cvii, cviii.Google Scholar

7. Wegemer, Gerard B., Thomas More on Statesmanship (Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press, 1996), p. 13Google Scholar; Marius, , Thomas More: A Biography, pp. 386–406443;Google Scholar, Ackroyd, Peter, The Life of Thomas More (New York: Doubleday, Inc, 1998), pp. 297–312.Google Scholar

8. See, for example, Brann, Eva, “An Exquisite Platform: Utopia” Interpretation 3, no. 1 (1973): 1–16Google Scholar; Engeman, Thomas S., “Hythloday's Utopia and More's England: An Interpretation of Thomas More's Utopia” Journal of Politics 44 (1982):131–49CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Nendza, James, “Political Idealism in More's Utopia” Review of Politics 46 (1984): 428–47CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Wegemer, , Thomas More on Statesmanship, pp. 106–107, 77–149 passim.Google Scholar

9. Brann, , “An Exquisite Platform: Utopia” p. 12.Google Scholar

10. See, for example, Surtz, , Praise of Wisdom, pp. 76–77Google Scholar; Duhamel, Albert P., 1977. “Medievalism of More's Utopia” in Essential Articles for the Study of Thomas More, ed. Sylvester, R. S. and Marc'hadour, G. P.. (Hamden, CT: Archon Books, 1977), p. 242Google Scholar; Logan, George M., Adams, Robert M., and Miller, Clarence H., Utopia (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995), p. 223, fn 119.Google Scholar

11. See also Fox, , Utopia: An Elusive Vision, pp. 70–73.Google Scholar

12. Baker-Smith, , More's Utopia, pp. 210,243Google Scholar; Wootton, , “Utopia: An Introduction” p.2.Google Scholar

13. More's choice of names for characters and places in Utopia add to the interpretive complexity Morus and Hythlodaeus in Greek mean “fool” and “learned in nonsense” respectively Utopia means “no place” or, perhaps, “fortunate place” (see More, Utopia, The Complete Works of St. Thomas More, 4: 301–302, 385).Google Scholar

14. Almost all More scholars consider him a believer in the truth of Revelation at the time he wrote Utopia. Popkin, Richard H. argues in The History of Skepticism from Erasmus to Spinoza (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1979)Google Scholar, that some sixteenth-century Christians doubted whether reason provided access to orthodoxy, but that no Christian questioned the truth of Revelation itself until the late seventeenth century. Other scholars suggest, however, that at least some of More's great contemporaries such as Machiavelli were indeed skeptics in this latter sense. See in general Kries, Douglas, Piety and Humanity: Essays on Religion and Early Modern Political Philosophy (Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield Publishers, Inc., 1997)Google Scholar. More indicates in his prefatory letter to Peter Giles that he wrote Utopia in the plain style which, according to classical rhetorical theory, is the appropriate style for a philosophical dialogue (39. 9–15; Logan, et al. Utopia, p. 31, fn. 6).Google Scholar He also claims that Utopia is a “philosophical“ city and gives Morus a decidedly secular cast. Although this sheriff and citizen of London attends a divine service in Antwerp before encountering Hythlodaeus, he never makes a religious argument for a political position (49.17; see, for example, 107.5–16). Hythlodaeus makes religious arguments, but is, by his own account, more a philosopher than a man of faith (51. 2; see 101. 19–36 for example).

15. See Skinner, Quentin, “Sir Thomas More's Utopia and the Language of Renaissance Humanism,” in The Language of Political Theory in Early Modern Europe, ed. Padgen, Anthony (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987)Google Scholar; Levi, A. H. T., “Introduction” in Desiderius Erasmus, Praise of Folly and Letter to Maarten Van Dorp, trans. Radice, Betty. (London: Penguin Books, 1993), p. xxxiGoogle Scholar; and Schmitt, Charles B., Cicero Skepticus: A Study of the Influence of the Academicain the Renaissance (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1972), p. 59.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

16. Surtz, , Praise of Wisdom, p. 17Google Scholar; More, Thomas, The Complete Works, vol. 15, In Defense of Humanism: Letter to Martin Dorp, Letter to the University of Oxford, Letter to Edward Lee, Letter to a Monk with a New Text and Translation of Historia Richardi Tertii, ed. Kinney, Daniel (New Haven: Yale University Press. 1986), p. 161.Google Scholar

17. See, for example, Marius, , Thomas More: A Biography, pp. 79–97, esp. 91, 95–97.Google Scholar

18. See Surtz, , Praise of Wisdom, pp. 17–20Google Scholar; Hexter, “Introduction” in Utopia, pp. lvii–lxxxi, esp. lxxi, lxxiv–vGoogle Scholar; Levi, , “Introduction” in Praise of Folly and Letter to Maarten Van Dorp, p. xliiiGoogle Scholar; Wootton, , “Utopia: An Introducion” pp. 6–13, 27–33Google Scholar; Baker-Smith, , More's Utopia, pp. 57, 72.Google Scholar

19. Wootton, , “Utopia: An Introduction” pp. 3–6Google Scholar; Levi, , “Introduction” in Praise of Folly and Letter to Maarten Van Dorp, p. xi;Google Scholar, More, In Defense of Humanism, p. 105.Google Scholar

20. More, In Defense of Humanism, pp. 25, 71Google Scholar; Erasmus, , Praise of Folly p. 88Google Scholar; Levi, , “Introduction” in Praise of Folly and Letter to Maarten Van Dorp, pp. xxi ff.Google Scholar esp. xxx–xxxi. Erasmus, identifies the most important of the partisan sects as the realists, nominalists, Thomists, Albertists, Ockhamists, and Scotists (Erasmus, Praise of Folly, p. 88, see 87n).Google Scholar

21. Erasmus, , Praise of Folly, pp. 110–11.Google Scholar

22. Ibid., pp. 84–85, 96, 107–111.

23. Ibid., pp. 70–71, 153–54; see also Popkin, , History of Skepticism, p. 5.Google Scholar

24. Erasmus, , Praise of Folly, pp. 66, 98, 121.Google Scholar

25. Erasmus, Desiderius, “Letter to Carondelet” in John C. Olin, Six Essays on Erasmus and a Translation of Erasmus' Letter to Carondelet, 1523 trans. Olin, John C. (New York: Fordham University Press, 1979), p. 101.Google Scholar

26. The revised Index of Pius IV (the “Council Index” 1564) moderated this ban somewhat (Mansfield, Bruce, Phoenix of His Age: Interpretations of Erasmus c1550–1750 [Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1979], pp. 26–27).Google Scholar Many of the charges against Erasmus by Catholics stemmed from his publication of a scholarly, annotated edition of the Greek New Testament which was thought to undermine the sanctity of the Latin Vulgate text established by Church tradition (Rummel, Erika, Erasmus and His Catholic Critics: 1523–1536, vol. 2 [Nieuwkoop: De Graaf Rummel 1989], p. 147).Google Scholar On the Protestant front, Martin Luther accused Erasmus in their famous controversy over free will of entirely removing doctrinal belief and, indeed, Christ Himself from Christianity (see Erasmus, Desiderius and Luther, Martin, Discourse on Free Will, trans, and ed. Winter, Ernst F. [New York: Frederick Ungar Publishing Co., Inc., 1961], esp. pp. 101–105).Google Scholar Erasmus, of course, had defenders within the Church during the sixteenth century although their numbers lessened considerably by the 1550s (Mansfield, Phoenix of His Age, pp. 26–27).Google Scholar Modern scholars are divided over the precise nature of Erasmian Catholicism. Some contend that he was a rationalist who saw religion largely as an ethical concern while others hold that he was always a fully orthodox Catholic (see Olin, John C., Six Essays on Erasmus and a Translation of Erasmus' Letter to Carondelet, 1523 [New York: Fordham University Press, 1979], pp. 57–73).Google Scholar

27. Kinney, Daniel, “Introduction” in More, In Defense of Humanism, pp. xix–xxi, xli.Google Scholar

28. Ibid., pp. 49, 57, 71, 75, 281.

29. Ibid., p. 283.

30. Ibid., p. 267.

31. Ibid., pp. 49, 275, 277, 279, 303.

32. Ibid., pp. 141, 47, 49, 65–67. More did not condemn scholasticism outright, but rather slothful and arrogant scholastics. He admired Thomas Aquinas, for example (see Kinney, , “Introduction” p. lxxviii).Google Scholar

33. Ibid., p. 89: 2–6; Kinney, , “Introduction” p. lxxv.Google Scholar For other theological differences between More and Erasmus see Kinney, , pp. lxxv, lxxx, lxxxiii, lxxxvii–lxxxviii.Google Scholar

34. Ibid., pp. 215, and 213, 59.

35. Ibid., pp. 59, 61, 89, 75, 79, 279, 281, 303–305.

36. Erasmus endorsed a limited form of toleration in The Education of a Christian Prince (1516). “It is the part of a Christian prince” he wrote, “to regard no one as an outsider unless he is a nonbeliever, and even on them he should inflict no harm” (The Education of a Christian Prince, intro. and trans. Born, Lester K. [New York: Columbia University Press, 1936], p. 220Google Scholar; see also Wootton, , “Utopia: An Introduction” pp. 31–33).Google Scholar

37. See II Kings 2:23–24 and More, In Defense of Humanism, pp. 267, 289.Google Scholar

38. In the ancient Persian religion, Mithras or Mithra, the spirit of light, was the supreme force for good in the universe (Logan, et al. Utopia, p. 219, fn. 114)Google Scholar

39. See Wegemer, , Thomas More on Statesmanship, p. 103.Google Scholar

40. Engeman, , “Hythloday's Utopia and More's England” pp. 134, 147Google Scholar; Wegemer, , Thomas More on Statesmanship, p. 98.Google Scholar

41. Mermel, Jerry, “Preparations for a politic life: Sir Thomas More's entry into the king's service” Journal of Medieval and Renaissance Studies 7 (1977);Google ScholarLogan et. al., Utopia, xxiiiGoogle Scholar.

42. Wegemer, , Thomas More on Statesmanship, pp. 6–7Google Scholar, 117; Ackroyd, , Life of Thomas More, p. 180.Google Scholar

43. Wegemer, , Thomas More on Statesmanship, pp. 184–85.Google Scholar

44. Fox, , Utopia: An Elusive Vision, p. 19.Google Scholar

45. Surtz, , Praise of Wisdom, p. 76.Google Scholar

46. Wegemer, , Thomas More on Statesmanship, pp. 161–82.Google Scholar

47. Hexter, “Introduction” in Utopia, p. xxiv.Google Scholar

48. Locke owned two copies of Utopia (published in 1631 and 1663) and cited certain passages from the work in the “Atlantis“ entries in his Journals of 1676–8 (Harrison, John and Laslett, Peter, The Library of John Locke [Oxford: The Clarendon Press, 1971], p. 192Google Scholar; Marchi, Ernesto De, “Locke's Atlantis” Political Studies 3 [1955]:164–65).Google Scholar It is unclear, however, whether he read Utopia before he first formulated his arguments for religious freedom in his early “Essay on Toleration“ (1667).