To analyze Thomas More’s specific attitude toward Martin Luther, specific according to our 21st century eyes and mind, we must try to put ourselves back into their period, the Renaissance, as it was and as it influenced and even changed the societies in which these two men lived. We must then understand the political, economic, religious and somehow moral context surrounding them.
Coming rather slowly from Italy, Renaissance became synonymous not only of new arts, but also of new overseas discoveries bringing in material wealth for travelers and merchants, as well as to the states. These voyages brought also to their countries of origins new ideas dealing with daily life in general, in societies in particular with the specific religious component. Let us say that these apertures nurtured new questions addressing quasi all the aspects of human beings. People started to dare speak, write, discuss with an open horizon in mind. Renaissance brought about a New Man. But most probably the key to the rather quick spread of changes in Europe has been the invention of the printing press enabling, if not allowing, one to share quickly opinions, ideas, controversies, critics to anyone who could read. A blessing for all these intellectuals called humanists who saw there a door opened ajar to collect new -although Ancient- books in different fields of knowledge from which they will envision a new education fostering a new society. How could they stay still when Copernic sustained that our earth was no longer the center of the universe ? How could they stay mute when these readings showed them the complex beauty of a human being when he/ she is not satisfied with a single question receiving a single answer supposedly giving them the sense to their life ? Therefore, Renaissance has been a seism for many people of that time, intellectuals or not. In Christendom, questions came rapidly up concerning not only the church as an institution, but also, and more importantly, the nature -and content- of the Christian faith in relation with the Church.
Concerning the church as an institution, the questions were legitimate, but not new. Actually, during the last decades of the 15th century, but even before, unrest started in different congregations concerning their way of life -often astray from their founding rules- and lay people, until then quite subordinated to the church, became aware of these often immoral attitudes of the clergy in general. As Francis Rapp says in his book « L’Eglise à la fin du Moyen Âge », lay people were scandalized with monks’ way of life, often quite deviant from the Gospel. They were also starting to question the rigid and very powerful hierarchy of the institution apparently leaving no space for a new Christian attitude. But lay people were not the only ones to think that changes were necessary in the Christian institution and in the State also. For example, in Spain, Bartolomeo de las Casas, together with three other archbishops, demanded a debate on the true nature of Christianity and its presence in this world. They reformed the Church as an institution and the education in general. Indeed, the church of Spain was the first one to work with Rome in a sort of partnership. Therefore, one may say that the spirit of the Renaissance found an already prepared soil on which Reformation could grow and give fruit.
But the spread of the Renaissance did not happen in the same way in all the European countries. If it went up from Italy, to France and England through the arts, or most surely like this, in Germany it follows the merchants from south to north, along some usual trading routes going over the Alps and up to the Baltic sea, leaving aside for a longer time some rather big chunks of the country. In Germany, maybe the first areas of the country’s life to be touched by the Renaissance have been the banks and industries of the south, all dominated by rich industrial families. In the center of Germany, where Luther’s family lived, mining was a flourishing industry and the development of the trade from south to north developed towns there too. Around the Baltic sea, the trade development was accompanied by the development of culture as ports were as many doors bringing exchanges of all kinds with foreigners. This situation in Germany suggests that Luther’s family environment, in the mountains of Harz around Eisleben (where he was born) and Mansfeld (where he grew up), not very far from Erfurt, was not immediately touched by the intellectual Renaissance, and the idea of a New Man was probably limited to his action in the industry and banking. A situation very different from More’s family, educated in letters and law by his father John, in an international city, close to the royal power. Indeed, Renaissance in all its aspects was very much present in London, where More spent all his life. Is that to say that Luther was not a true Renaissance man ? Of course not. Although his childhood seems to have been far from the new ideas, as a student and as an adult he has been in close intellectual contacts with the humanists. Indeed, he discovered them while a student at Erfurt, and when he became a professor at the university of Wittemberg, he was in close relation with Philip Melanchton a humanist, friend of Erasmus. And this friendship led the two men, Luther and Erasmus, to a rather dense epistolary exchange related to their publications. But these exchanges led to no friendship due to their very different personalities, as Lucien Febvre shows it well in his book « Luther – un destin » published in 1928, but certainly still uptodate. Indeed, Febvre stresses that to the let’s say diplomatic intelligence of Erasmus, Luther opposed an at times violent temperament, a born polemist, going forward no matter what if his conscience gave him right. If the humanists like Melanchton saw at first in Luther someone able to push forward their desires to reform the church, this wish was not Luther’s exclusive project : indeed, when they understood that Luther’s objective was to purify people’s heart, to transform their most private dispositions, the humanists found out too that Luther’s analysis was quite close to theirs as they wanted to enlarge and enrich Christianism with the reading of the Classics, and, as a consequence, soften up the attitude of the Church. They saw in Luther an open mind, ready to embrace their approach, but without understanding who he really was, what he was looking for in his revolt against Rome. Erasmus, on his side, knew also well the Roman Church : he knew all its hidden springs, its relations with European kings, in a word its temporal powers. For Erasmus it was out of the question to severe himself from Rome, out of the question to be excommunicated, but his plan was rather to work out the necessary reforms from inside, along the years. Therefore, if Luther was a humanist this was because of his profound desire to reform the Church based on his reading of Scriptures, and give people the power to read them too through the translation of the Bible in the national language. A humanist because of his thirst for new understanding and room given to national language. But a daring humanist ready to go through all the necessary actions, even extreme to fulfill his idea.. So, if Erasmus and his followers believed that Luther could be their champion, of course second to Erasmus, they were absolutely mistaking as the events proved it. And they missed a capital point : Luther never liked Erasmus.
Actually, Erasmus was too much of a humanist believing in long studies followed by long and in-depth discussions, a faithful man but a man who seized the concept of individual freedom nurtured by the Greek philosophers : a freedom which could be leading beyond God as it can inferred in his essay « Free Wil »l. This was the absolute limit for Luther. Erasmus wanted a scholar Christianity, Luther wanted a Christianity accessible to all, therefore fundamentally based on well understood Scriptures by all. Erasmus was basing his project of reform on « Scriptures plus », while Luther was basing his on « sola scriptura ». But both wanted purified Scriptures, both wanted believers to be freed from superstitions, abusive authority of the Church, free of lies keeping the clergy its powers. The same conclusions then to both, the humanist and the angry monk, teaching saint Paul and the Psalms at Wittenberg. But although the humanists saw a wind of a new Christianity breathing after the posting of Luther’s 95 Theses, they did not see Luther’s private walk up to their consequences: his discovery of God misericordious bringing him peace after years of pangs of conscience in his monastery, his view of a corrupted Rome in 1511, all this leading him to a quasi-hatred of the Church as a whole, but to a profound faith in God who would always give justice to the sincere believers. What he called justification by faith.
In what Lienhard calls Luther’s anthropology in his book « Luther », published in 2016, he stresses with efficiency that when Erasmus speaks of cooperation with the Grace, in his treaty « Free Will » in order to be justified by God, Luther replies that our salvation is already in God’s hands, no matter what in his « Bondage of the Will » published in 1525. But according to Luther this does not prohibit one to help his neighbor in needs, but this help is a pulsion of love, which does not necessarily plays any role in our final and eternal salvation. Then, if we follow Febvre again when he writes that Erasmus thought that Luther would support his « Christ’s philosophy » we clearly can see that Martin Luther had his own scope : to free all men from the power of the church through their reading of the Bible, and help them not fall into the « prince of the humanists »’s intellectual objectives. Erasmus who was a man of the middle path always looking for peace for, of course, different reasons, some quite personal, has been, in a way, underlining one of Luther’s view of society : the role of princes.
Although Martin Luther did not take part in any political issue, his attitude regarding the princes’ role is rather controversial in our today eyes : he has to be seen as a supporter of a biblical order. As Febvre says in his book « Luther – un destin » Luther is not a supporter stricto sensu of princes whom he calls despots, but he says that these tyrants are here to punish the bad, the makers of troubles, to clean society of any riots in order to keep peace, a peace whished by God. Social order… we are not far from one of More’s anxieties.
As we pointed out earlier, More was from a quite different background. Richard Marius writes in his book « Thomas More », (Marius, 1985) both came from the same aspiring class. Luther entered the monastery against his father’s will, while More was powerfully drawn to a clerical career but decided to marry and aquiesced to his father’s wishes and became a man of the law.(264) One can say that the similarities, more or less, stop here, if we except their excellent education to both. Quoting again Marius referring to Luther : His learning was prodigious, his wit savage and hilarious, his powers of expression stupendous, his brilliant mind fired by a furious energy, his warped, narcissistic character cursed by contradictions with arrogance and despair locked inseparably and fatally together (269).
We all know how More was well educated, in letters and in law, gifted with a quick and widely open mind. Thomas More did not have Luther’s countryside background as a child, thus his handling of any situation was careful, always measured according to the tenants at hands. Moreover, his formation as a lawyer and all the unsaid life projects linked to it gives right to Ackroyd who writes (Peter, 1998) he could combine ambition and penitence, success and spirituality, in equal measure. … the faith of his nation was a social and political, as well as a spiritual reality .From this awareness of duality (and perhaps the duality within his own nature) springs his wit, his irony and the persistent doubleness of his vision .
This combination of ambition and penitence explains – at least partly- that although a man of world justice, and very much so, he always put above it, divine law. He thought that without this truth in mind, society would become a chaos, an anarchy, inventing here the Greek word « anarchos. » Still according to Ackroyd, More was the one who defended the Catholic Church against Luther, if not the whole Christendom against the German troublemaker. More was a man of measure in that sense that he thought that common sense and usage had to be the basic rules to argue against Luther’s concepts of « sola scriptura », « invisible church » and of the believers’ limits of will, to say it shortly. More was bowing in front of the King and in front of the Church, but with a limit regarding the first one, as we all know.
As an ambitious man – he had a family to maintain, which was not Luther’s case until 1525 and even though- he accepted to climb the social ladder and be a member of the Privy Council. He admired Henry VIII’s intelligence, and was confident in his capacity to change England’s destiny. A quite different approach from Luther’s who considered princes only as necessary despots, although both, Luther and More were pro a social order. Luther definitely saw in the ruling princes God’s will, therefore to be obeyed, as he wrote during the Peasants’ revolt in Germany. In a way, one could say that both men, More and Luther, agreed upon a spiritual freedom, or a freedom given by Christian faith lived within the respect of the society’s rules.
As a humanist, More was a close friend of Erasmus, although not always in agreement with him, especially about Luther whom Erasmus sort of abandoned, while More hunted. Marius says with probably much rightness, that « He and Erasmus had been friends ; they had shared many things. But if a choice had to be made between friendship and the Catholic Church, More had no hesitation in saying what his choice would be. » (289) Contrary to Erasmus’s moderate voice against Luther -Erasmus was aware of all the mysteries Scriptures could hide- in his « Responsio ad Lutherum » More showed his deepest passions of his soul because, as Marius stresses, « When he defended the Catholic Church, he was a tiger, roaring his truth at top voice, threatening to devour anyone who disagreed in the slightest with his narrow and multitudinous canons of orthodoxy. » (289) More kept a large correspondence with the Louvain group. Cranevelt, a member of this group discovered the following opinion about Thomas More : « in the latest collection of Erasmus’ correspondence, the ‘Farrago’, published in 1519 Erasmus presented More as an exemplar of lay spirituality. After describing More’s virtues, Erasmus asks, “What of those people who think that Christians are not to be found except in monasteries?” (KEANE, 2008)
Along their correspondence, the humanists mention More’s generosity, and exemplar spirituality. It is true, as Keane stresses it, that at this time, people did not think much about putting money aside for old age as only a few of them reached old age. But nonetheless, the letters we have between Cranevelt and More show a multifaceted man as in these letters both could speak about private matters as well as intellectual ones. Or of not much, which is a true sign of real friendship. Finally, to add to this portrayal of Thomas More as a man of public action, a man of sincere faith, of clear principles based on deep understanding of the make up of a Christian, let’s say that he showed a certain open mindedness about religion in « Utopia », in which people there do not have the structure of the Church to guide them as Faith comes very spontaneously to them or doesn’t. So, how could be More a ferocious enemy of heretics and of Luther? Not only his deepest Faith and support to the Catholic Church, but also his involvement in politics.
First of all, he was bound by his position as Member of the Privy Council and afterwards Chancellor. This means that he had to go along Henry’s policy. But he was basically in agreement regarding this policy as a faithful, and as a man engaged in the common law, a man who had been under-sheriff of London. At this time in England, heresy was not a new happening. As anywhere else, for that matter. But on the one hand, Luther seemed to have success even in Cambridge ; on the other, Luther wrote a violent letter to King Henry, « Against Henry, King of the English » in 1522, following his « Babylonia captivity ». And in-between these two events, Erasmus sent to More the « 95-Theses » posted by Luther in 1517, thinking that More would take them rather mildly. Indeed, the friendship between Erasmus and More was then at its height : both agreed that society needed a change as Marius underlines The friendship between More and Erasmus was at his height : both had lamented and joked about the moral plight of a papacy to which neither felt large devotion. So there every reason to think that Erasmus expected More to enjoy the 95 theses. And there is every reason to suppose that More did exactly that. The differences between the 3 men became more evident as the forces Luther unleashed grew stronger (269) But with the « Babylonian Captivity »(1520) More definitely saw Luther’s doctrine as a dangerous threat not only for the social order in the country, but also for the Catholic Church that More defended with all his heart and might.
To start with, let’s again stress that More was very close to Henry VIII. Therefore, he felt that he had to answer himself to Luther in his « Responsio ad Lutherum » published in two parts in 1523 as Bernard Cottret mentions : Une affaire d’importance s’imposa à lui. Il ne s’agissait de rien de moins que de défendre la chrétienté contre le danger constitué par Luther. More souhaita à son tour, comme l’avait fait Henri VIII avant lui, répondre au moine allemand. (COTTRET, 2012) This little book started the polemic. And the basis was not little : Luther, on his side, is thought to accept as true church only a spiritual Church, what he called the « invisible church », to say it briefly, while More refers to the multitude of men who follows Christ’s teaching, although they are not always honest vis-à-vis their Credo. It is true though that More did not know Luther- the – theologian who was anything but Manichean. Because of this ignorance of Luther’s culture, More presented Luther as the Dark Angel, personage of Satan ; for him Luther is questioning, endangering the bases of society itself. Using Luther’s concept of « justification by faith », More wonders what would happen if men would no longer fear purgatory or Hell… Maybe did not More make many efforts to understand Luther in this « Responsio « … Of course, how could he agree to Luther’s cut in sacraments, to take just one of Luther’s points. But if here More shows himself even vulgar, Luther was not tender either as far as vocabulary is concerned. It’s true that at that time there was no hesitation in the choice of powerful words…
More, in this book, as in others later, defends the Church, the Catholic Church with its tradition, the sacraments, the sacrifice in mass. Tradition is another key word for him: Christ never wrote a book, and the understanding of Scriptures, which are extremely dense, goes through an interpretation of them, be it oral or written. So, following Luther meant the destruction of the Catholic Church which founded its teaching not only on Scriptures, but also, and intensely, on our understanding of them, be it oral or written, our respect to the mysteries suggested. Therefore, the limits of the source of Christian Faith established by Luther were enough to set More on a ferocious move as Phelippeau puts it : Le sage et doux Thomas More est devenu féroce. Pourquoi ? More a terriblement peur. L’avancée des idées luthériennes, qui correspondent si bien à l’air du temps, où le citoyen ne veut pas s’en laisser compter mais commence à penser par lui-même, arrive en terrain trop fertile. A few lines down, she writes « Thomas More est entré en guerre ». All the more so because he believed, together with other people, that the sack of Rome in 1527 had been done by mostly lutherian mercenaries…
This war against Luther and his followers started with controlling the books coming from ships, went on with the arrest of sailors (the first ones being 4 German sailors), the burning of all these books, the exile of Tyndale, ecc.). The point is that More saw this battle against Luther and his followers as a Holy war, a kind of crusade. He showed himself harder in this battle than Henry VIII who, by then, was listening to Anne Boleyn more than to him. Of course, to that one must add More’s anxiety to keep social order in the country. Finally, one must emphasize that both men, Luther and More, were convinced that Satan was constantly and everywhere in their life, consequently More fought this war against Satan, forgetting or ignoring that Luther was spending his own life battling against Satan… Indeed two apocalyptic souls convinced of the coming soon of Judgement Day, which incited both to be ready in front of their Lord. Having the same private conviction, keeping at heart the same Faith and waging war against each other : is that to be blind to each other ?
To address this question one must first think of the meaning of blindness in this spiritual context.
Here we have two very brilliant men according to their contemporaries as we said above. They lived both in a moment of great possible changes in all aspects of human life, and they both knew how to use the newly discovered printing press in order to share their own ideas with other people eager to read and listen to them, as the period was a time of transgressing, as Foucault would say, the limits of thinking, knowledge, and attitudes. They did not have any linguistic barrier : Latin was international, even if More’s one was not perfect as Erasmus put it. Finally, they were both profound believers in the Christian faith : Luther became a monk and discovered God’ s mercy and love in his cell at Erfurt while More spent some time at the Carthusians’ before stepping into social life ; but he made his home a kind of lay monastery with a rather strict discipline followed by all the inhabitants of the house. More read the Psalms each day, Luther was commenting on them at the university. Although Luther was a very successful preacher he was also a social man, friendly, enjoying guests at his « Table conversations » held for years at his home. The content of them was not exclusively religious, but concerned also family life, and so on. Of course, one must be cautious with the content of these conversations as they have been written by the guests and not by Luther himself. But people’s memory at that time was far better than ours today. More was also a wonderful host, generous and an excellent listener. Both listened in order to convince, to help, both married. But one left his religious Order to do that, which was almost a perjury in More’s eyes.
More and Luther, at least at the beginning, were respectful of the Catholic Church as an institution and as a way to free oneself from Satan. The two men were also aware of the corruption in this church as all the humanists were, together with all the educated people. The difference has been their love and rage. Luther, a philologist and knowing deep in himself how he became a monk, fought for the truth in the words. The only truth. In a way, he discovered in the words of Christ’s message to the first communities that all depended on the individual’s faith and in God’s mercy – a mercy already planned without one’s knowledge of it. So, no need of all the structure of the Catholic Church.
But More, a fearless defender of the Catholic Church put in this defense his view of the political and social consequences of Luther’s opinion. As a lawyer, although for him divine law was the key of all lives, public law had to be observed in order to keep a peace nurturing or allowing faith to be the major element of people’s life. He was also close to the King who enjoyed his conversations in the evening, especially when Henry was still in good terms with Catherine, and probably he participated into the writing of King’s book « Assertion of the Seven Sacraments » in 1521. More was a man of conscience as his final trial proves it, so he definitely could not accept Luther’s 2 sacraments only (the ones mentioned in the Scriptures) after contributing to the King’s book, although this contribution is not official, but most probable : indeed one can recognize his style and arguments when he answers to Luther in his « Responsio ad Lutheram » mentioned above. A political man, a man of justice, nonetheless considering God’s voice superior to the written law. And as a man of public law, he does not follow Luther who claims that the faithful, through the studious reading of the Bible could build his/ her own conscience enabling him/ her to live as a good social man, as Nicolas Senaillon writes in his article « Justice et Utopie chez More » : … pour l’auteur de l’Utopie, l’éthique ne peut être exercée qu’en référence à une loi écrite parce qu’elle est le fruit d’un consensus et qu’elle le rend public. Il accorde cependant à Luther que les ecclésiastiques ne doivent pas s’emparer de ce droit.
With the last sentence, there could have been an embryo of dialogue between the two great men as they gave the same meaning and source to the term « conscience ». Indeed, although both claimed in particularly dangerous circumstances that they were acting according to their conscience and that nothing could have them change their mind (Luther at the diet of Worms on April 1521 : I am bound by the Scriptures I have quoted and my conscience is captive to the Word of God. I cannot and I will not retract anything, since it is neither safe nor right to go against conscience. (SCHILLING, 2016) and More in his answer to Cromwell at the end of his trial : In matters of conscience, the loyal subject is more bounden to be loyal to his conscience than to any other thing. (BOLT, 1962). Therefore these two exceptional men have not been blind to each other but they both acted according to their faith. Nonetheless, if Luther followed strictly his own conviction that the only truth to be a Christian was to follow the Scriptures to the letter -although he developed a theology out of this conviction- More’s action was threefold : he was a man in charge of keeping order according to human laws, he was a man « bowing to his King » immersed in politics which limited his public decision making, he was a man of profound faith but a faith leaning on the teaching of the Catholic Church itself, leaning on Scriptures and Tradition leading More to wish to follow the « middle path » his friend Erasmus and the humanists tried to follow, or hoped to follow. Although Erasmus kept a reserved attitude regarding Luther. Indeed, More was a man of consensus and usage. Completely away from the vituperative, voicy, free from any political link Luther. Marius underlines well in his biography that Each did battle for principle against an uncompromising and ruthless foe. Each assumed that enemies were inspired by the most depraved wickedness.
In his « Letter to a monk » (1519) More shows that he saw Luther not as a hateful heretic but as an extreme Augustinian… How could the generally moderate More see Luther’s personal path and start a dialogue ? Absolute, personal conviction kept them in the rather strict structures of their Christian faith in a time of doubt. The rest is History.