The one Thomas More

Introduction: Non Sum Oedipus Sed Morus

1 Introduction Non Sum Oedipus, Sed Morus More believed, as Socrates believed, that “the god had given him a station.” And he strengthened himself, as Socrates had strengthened himself, with the conviction that no harm can come to a good man after death, and that the gods do not neglect him or his affairs. In Utopia and on the scaffold we have those two great articles of More’s creed. R.W.Chambers, Thomas More, 1935 The Thomas More of the “Tower Works,” and of those last letters to Margaret Roper is, on the face of it, a very different person from the persecutor of protestants, and the hammer of poor Christopher St German—even from the More who translated Latin with Erasmus and dreamed up the island of Nowhere. G. R. Elton, “Thomas More,” 1980 There is an historical Thomas More, but no one really knows where he can be found. He is an enigma. He defies objective analysis. John Guy, Thomas More, 2000 “Non sum Oedipus, sed Morus,” More tells his daughter, Margaret, while in the Tower, “which name of mine what is signifieth in Greek, I need not tell you.” The word mōrus means “fool,” a joke More made often, and the lines in Latin allude to a stock character Terence depicts , a servant who cannot understand riddles like Oedipus can, for he is too simple for that.1 A simple or foolish man—this is just one 1. Quotations from Thomas More’s writings are cited internally according to the list of abbreviations . Full bibliographical information is in the Works Cited pages. For the lines above, see LL, 77, and for discussion of the allusion, 168. See, too, Corr., 519. 2 Non Sum Oedipus of the ways More parries his daughter’s attempt to convince him to take the Oath of Succession, leave prison, and come home. I mention it here because of its contrast with the quotes above it. More, indeed, might find the subsequent controversies over his life’s meaning— from comparisons to Socrates to skepticism about objectivity—an ironic riddle. How did More evolve from Chambers’s heroic unity of life to Guy’s unknowable “man for all purposes”?2 To answer that question requires tracing the progression of particular strands of influential twentieth-century divisions of More’s life and thought. In general terms, earlier critics such as Chambers chose to focus upon More’s early “humanism” and later “devotional” writings, taking these as paradigmatic for More’s intellectual biography . Such divisions of More’s writings, in turn, lead to theorizing multiple Mores. Thus, C. S.Lewis announces that by comparing More’s humanist and devotional writings, a “third More, out of whom both the scholar and saint have been made” could be discovered . For Lewis, that “third More” is a Londoner, a man whose humor and prose belong to the city.3 As the critical fortunes of More as Londoner wane, the suggestion of multiple Mores becomes conventional , especially in how scholars evaluate and organize More’s writings.4 The theory of multiple Mores allows for increased specialization in some one aspect of More’s thought. For Paul Kristeller, there is the humanist, what he calls “Thomas More,” the statesman, a “Sir Thomas More,” and finally, “Saint Thomas More,” a martyr. The proposed divisions permit Kristeller to focus upon More as humanist, defining the studia humanitatis as a “cycle of studies” that includes grammar, rhetoric, poetry, history, and moral philosophy but not 2. John Guy, Thomas More (London: Arnold, 2000), ix, and see ibid., xi: “I no longer believe that a truly historical biography of Thomas More can be written.” 3. C.S.Lewis, “Thomas More,” in EA, 399–400. 4. For a recent biographer who understands London and its importance to More, see Peter Ackroyd, The Life of Thomas More (London: Chatto & Windus, 1998). See, too, Caroline M.Barron , “The Making of a London Citizen” in CCTM, 3-21. Non Sum Oedipus 3 disciplines such as theology and jurisprudence.5 Craig R.Thompson , among others, follows Kristeller’s approach by naming humanism as first and foremost “an interest in classical texts.” To speak of Kristeller’s version of “Thomas More,” then, means discussing Latinity, rhetoric, style, Greek and Roman influences, translation exercises, all that pertains to “Renaissance humanism in its fundamental signification,” which remains “the study of antiquity and the effort to use its legacy to enrich...