Thomas More: A Life
by joanne paul
pegasus books, 624 pages, $39.95
Writing in the Wall Street Journal, Jeffrey Collins described the new biography Thomas More: A Life as a “worthy addition” to More scholarship that “beautifully captures both the life of a fascinating man and the fading world that he died trying to preserve.” He added that the author—the British broadcaster and lecturer in history Joanne Paul—achieves an admirable and “increasingly rare balance between expertise and style” with her text. I fully agree, which could make this review quite brief. But there’s more to be said about More, and I’ll start with an odd preliminary.
We live in a turbulent time, and anyone looking for the relief of a good laugh might profitably visit Lutheran Satire, a website that offers a menu of Lutheran thought wrapped in wickedly funny videos about Catholics and Protestants alike. Among the best is a clip entitled “The Reformation PiggyBackers.” Here’s the scene. It’s Wittenberg, Germany, 1517. Luther has just posted his 95 theses. Heading for breakfast, he’s stopped by Ulrich Zwingli and then joined by John Calvin. Both want a part in Luther’s great work, but both disagree with Luther, and each other, about what exactly the Reformation should reform.
Into their bickering steps Henry VIII: “Reformation you say? I’d love to get on board.” A surprised Luther asks, “Has your allegiance to the pope changed because you’ve seen the errors of his theology?” “Not really,” says Henry. “It’s mostly changed because he won’t annul my marriage to that half-barren, pig-faced Spanish bride of mine.” He then thanks Luther for creating the grounds for England’s “ecclesiastical Brexit.” And then, despite Luther’s protests, he leads Zwingli and Calvin in a rousing chorus of “The Protestant Song.”
I’ve watched that video at least twenty times over the years. It never gets old. And Lutheran Satire has followers well beyond the Lutheran community thanks to its ingenious humor. But there was nothing funny in the real and often violent theological turmoil of the sixteenth century. An entire understanding of the world and its framework for everyday life collapsed. Both were transformed by fierce disputes internal to the Christian faith. Half a millennium later, we still live with the consequences. Which is why the Reformation—or more accurately, the Reformations—remain a magnet for scholarship, along with the period’s key historical figures.
One such character was Thomas More. A lawyer by trade and deeply Catholic in his convictions, he was a gifted author, a much-admired friend of Erasmus, and an important part of England’s early humanist circle. He rose to become a trusted counselor to Henry VIII. He assisted the king in developing a Defence of the Seven Sacraments, Henry’s response to Martin Luther’s early teachings. He then showed great (and ferocious) polemical skill in his own attacks on Luther and other perceived threats to England’s Catholic commonwealth. Ultimately, he became Henry’s Lord Chancellor, second only to the king. But his influence waned when he failed to support Henry’s divorce from Queen Catherine and marriage to Anne Boleyn. He was beheaded in 1535 for refusing to accept Henry’s break with Rome and his claim to royal supremacy in the Church—despite his own private reservations about the nature of papal authority.
More has played the role of human lightning rod ever since, sometimes in quite unexpected ways. Vladimir Lenin saw More as an early prophet of socialism because of his political fantasy, Utopia. In 1918, he included More’s name on a commemorative obelisk in Moscow as a tribute.
For early Protestants, on the other hand, More was the face of devilish repression and papist idolatry; the torturer and burner of sincere biblical Christians. When a modified Reform Protestantism—retaining some Catholic forms and traditions for the sake of social unity—finally prevailed in England under Queen Elizabeth I, the main and radically different assessments of More became set in cement. Pope Pius V excommunicated Elizabeth in 1570, and Pope Gregory XIII recognized More and his friend Bishop John Fisher, another of Henry’s victims, as martyrs in 1579. Both men were beatified by Leo XIII in 1886. Pius XI finally canonized them in 1935, four hundred years after their judicial murder for “treason.”
Various modern critics have charged More with misogyny, hypocrisy, repressed sexuality, a fascination with excrement, and self-hatred. The list is long, tiresome, predictable, and (arguably) wrong. In an aggressively secular age, Hilary Mantel’s ugly portrait of More in her Wolf Hall series of novels is a classic example of lapsed Catholic poison. It’s worth noting, nonetheless, that the Catholic title “St.” in St. Thomas More deserves some discussion.
The English word “saint” derives from the Latin word sanctus, meaning “holy,” which in turn comes from the Hebrew word kadosh, meaning “other than.” Holiness is a pattern of thought and behavior “other than” and different from the patterns of the world; a manner of life that, in some higher sense, is un-conformed to the world. Holy men and women are always good. But they’re not necessarily nice or civil or gentle, and they’re always—always—imperfect. Their virtues, however great, come wrapped in fallen flesh.
In this world, we’re sinners all; even our saints. St. Jerome, the great doctor and father of the early Church, was notoriously contentious, fighting with even his closest friends and allies. St. Teresa of Calcutta, angel of mercy to India’s poorest, struggled for years with intense doubts about her faith. And Thomas More was a far more nuanced and complicated man in real life than the character Robert Bolt created in his play A Man for All Seasons. Happily, an honest recognition of this fact, and a willingness to explore it fairly, are two of the appealing strengths of Joanne Paul’s new More biography. In a preliminary “note to the reader,” she writes:
Whether you hold More to be a divinely inspired saint or a zealous prosecutor of the innocent—and I hope this book convinces you that both of those positions are reliant on some rather ahistorical mythologizing—we must not overlook him as a man who spoke truth to power even while trembling with fear.
And in the closing lines of her book, she acknowledges that More went to his death in this world
hoping for a better one. A world of unity, where the fundamental equality of people was reflected in its political and social institutions, and money, status, [and] property were recognized for the chimeras they were. His attempts to prevent a descent into divisive conflict had come to nought. As he went to his death, however, Thomas More could comfort himself with the assurance that he had lived his life—and given his life—in service to those things he held most dear.
Simply put, Joanne Paul has written a biography of Thomas More that’s about as good as a modern, secular historian can get. Other such biographies do exist, notably by Peter Ackroyd (1998) and John Guy (2000), not to mention the superb work (from a Catholic perspective) done by Gerard Wegemer. Still, Paul has indeed achieved something worthy. Her book is thorough in its research and beautifully written in a style accessible to anyone interested in a period that profoundly shaped where we are today. So read it. The text doesn’t disappoint.
As for me and my family, Thomas More is, and always will be, a hero; the quintessential “man for all seasons”—a line first penned by his loving friend Erasmus. Yet I find myself returning, with sincere and respectful laughter, to Lutheran Satire, “The Reformation PiggyBackers,” and the site’s equal-opportunity skewerings. I think that our laughter, and its freedom, and a keen awareness of my own and my tribe’s sins and flaws, might say something hopeful about our current moment. History is a great teacher. Maybe someday, with God’s grace and mercy and a little humility, we Christians can recover a zeal for Jesus Christ and the faith we finally do share—this time purer and more forgiving, without the vitriol.
