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The Spirituality of St Thomas More

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  30 August 2024

Bernard Fisher
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Extract

St Thomas More, ‘the one genius of England’, to quote Erasmus, is one of the best-loved of Englishmen. His wit and learning led Swift to number him among the seven great men of the world. His gentleness and charity led the Elizabethan London playwrights to name him ‘the best friend the poor e'er had’. Yet his very greatness and the warmth of his humanity have, in some respects, obscured the essential More, to the vast collection of Moreana available there is very little concerning Thomas More the saint, even less on More the theologian and little on Thomas the lawyer. By profession St Thomas was a lawyer, but it was as a theologian that he was admired and criticised by his contemporaries, and it was as the ‘leader of the opposition’ that he was liquidated by Henry.

Type
Research Article
Information
Life of the Spirit , Volume 5 , Issue 59 , May 1951 , pp. 515 - 521
Copyright
Copyright © 1951 Provincial Council of the English Province of the Order of Preachers

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References

1 Gulliver's Travels.

2 Sir Thomas More. A Play by a group of Elizabethan playwrights of whom Shakespeare was one.

3 G. K. Chesterton. Fame of Blessed Thomas More, p. 64

4 Life of Thomas More. Stapleton trans. Hallett, p. 38.

5 and

6 Apology of Seminaries 1581, p. 47.

7 Campion's Opuscula, p. 187.

8 Harpsfield's Life of More, p. 95 and Dialogue of Comfort in English Works 1557, p. 1,224.

9 Roper's Life and Harpsfield, p. 171.

10 English Works, p. 1,416.

11 Roper and Harpsfield, p. 179.

12 Roper and Harpsfield, p. 171.

13 Continuity of English Prose from Alfred to More and his School. R.W. Chambers.

14 English Works, p. 1,416.

15 State Papers of Henry VIII.