According to Quentin Skinner, Cicero, one of the most respected classical thinkers and writers among Renaissance humanists, was the first to argue that “‘the noblest way of life is one of virtuous public service’ rather than a life of withdrawal and contemplation” (qtd. in Wegemer 6). In the words of Matteo Palmieri (1401-1475), “he who loves solitude can be neither just, nor strong, nor experienced in those things that are of importance in government and in the affairs of the majority” (“Humanism,” 6). Such was the view of many Renaissance humanists like Thomas More, who stressed practicality in human affairs and a rigorous education—i.e., the study of philology, grammar, and rhetoric using Greek and Latin classics as textbooks rather than “the technical philosophical studies that had preoccupied scholars during the Middle Ages” (Kenny 2)—that deemphasized but did not altogether abandon philosophical contemplation. It is thus no surprise that More’s Utopians highly value education. “[S]uch verbal studies would lead men toward individual perfection while also training them to be ideal citizens through reasoning by Aristotelian pisteis (modes of persuasion)” (Kinney 8). By coupling active virtue and public service with philosophical meditation, some humanists believed that individuals could become “fully” human, or even perfect. Their immediate focus, however, was to make people not only responsive to impassioned rhetorical eloquence but also capable of using rhetoric themselves to motivate others to action—ultimately, to reform society—starting with the individual.
Humanitas, or “the development of human virtue, in all its forms, to its fullest extent” through a synergistic balance between thinking and doing (“Humanism,” 2), was the predominant ideology of the Renaissance. It is curious, then, that Utopia’s protagonist, Raphael Hythloday, lives completely contrary to the humanitas principle—though he often thinks and sounds like a humanist. He is intelligent, eloquent, and has critical insights on the nature of societies, but refuses to participate in politics—even if it benefits others—for he believes that pride, greed, and private property have corrupted the king and his court. He ironically considers Cicero one of Rome’s only valuable philosophers (Utopia 525); but Cicero, who believed that “‘nothing ought to be more sacred in men's eyes than duties governing the welfare of their fellowmen,” would have scorned men like Hythloday, for “salus populi suprema lex—‘the welfare of the people is the highest law’” (qtd. in Wegemer 11; qtd. in Kenny 273). Hythloday nonetheless attempts to defend his views with a conflagration of passionate, eloquent arguments that are startlingly contradictory and hypocritical. One of his main problems is that he merges the Utopian way of life with Christianity by conforming the latter to the former, just as the Christian humanists merged pagan (particularly Greco-Roman) culture and thought with Christianity. Hythloday's attempt to reconcile the Utopian worldview—(1) the abolishment of private property, (2) the assumption that man is inherently good, and (3) the prohibition of public evangelism—with a biblical worldview and with the teachings of Jesus utterly fails, for he mainly derives his principles from Greek philosophy rather than from the “Bible alone” (though he claims the two worldviews are not at odds with each other), which also reveals inconsistencies within Christian humanism and possibly More’s reasons for creating Hythloday.
According to George Logan, “More distances himself from Utopia—by giving the account of it to Hythloday, by the mocking Greek names he assigns to the island itself, its officers, and its advocate Hythloday, and also by expressing reservations about the Utopian commonwealth both before and after Hythloday’s account of it” (5). Many scholars, including Logan, however, agree that Hythloday’s views in Book 1 are largely those of More himself, partly because More was trying to show how much a community built solely on rational principles like Utopia supposedly has in common with the Christian communities (which, unlike the Utopians, have divine revelation) described in the biblical book of Acts. The question is, How much does Utopia really have in common with Christianity? Logan claims that “on the evidence of Utopia, the degree of harmony is great, but it is not complete” (6). However, a close analysis of Hythloday’s presentation of and arguments for Utopia reveal that it hardly resembles a Christian community because it is too pagan, just as Europe during More’s time hardly reflected genuine Christianity because its religion and politics were too corrupt.
Hythloday frequently appeals to the Bible and to Jesus to support his arguments: "I have no doubt that . . . Christ our Savior (whose wisdom could not fail to recognize the best, and whose goodness would not fail to counsel it) . . . would long ago have brought the whole world to adopt Utopian laws" (Utopia 588). Yet he flatly contradicts fundamental biblical principles when he vehemently argues that the only solution to greed and political corruption is the total abolishment of private property, just as it is in Utopia. This boldly contradicts the 10 Commandments, which assume that people have the right to own property: "You shall not steal" (New King James Version, Ex. 20.15), and, "You shall not covet your neighbor's house; you shall not covet your neighbor's wife or his male servant or his female servant or his ox or his donkey or anything that belongs to your neighbor" (Ex. 20.17). For Hythloday’s argument to be valid, almost all of the Old Testament law and many other books such as Proverbs and Job would have to be nullified—including several of Jesus' parables and teachings. Nevertheless, “the only cure that Hythloday can envision comes about from the radical elimination of the economic and social underpinnings of all known domestic and civic institutions” (Wegemer 14). Some scholars believe that More may have agreed with Hythloday’s suggestions: “The heavy regimentation of Utopian life presumably reflects not a view that regimentation is a good thing in its own right, but a belief that without it, human society cannot . . . be stable” (Logan 6). In a letter to Erasmus, More says that ambassadors and sovereigns are “wretched creatures” who “stupidly pride themselves on appearing in childish garb and feminine finery, laced with that despicable gold, and ludicrous in their purple and jewels and other empty baubles” (qtd. in Kinney 88). Ironically, the most famous portrait of More shows him wearing a huge gold chain, which the Utopians would consider laughable.
The issue of private property and money as the major causes of greed, however, also rouses decisive questions about human nature and how it should be dealt with. Hythloday thinks people are inherently good, or that they only sin indirectly, which again is the opposite of what the Bible emphatically affirms. According to him, if private property and the temptation of money were eliminated, and if people are properly guided by a good education, then most of society’s problems would be solved; only a little bit of rebellion and pride in some individuals would remain. Even then, Hythloday would blame not human depravity but pride, which he considers an outside influence, "a serpent from hell which twines itself around the hearts of men; and it acts like a suckfish in holding them back from choosing a better way of life" (Utopia 588). In contrast, the Bible explains that, due to the curse of Adam and Eve’s fall and the devastating effects of sin, all humans inherit corruption—genetic, moral, and mental corruption—and are therefore evil by nature. Humans don’t have to be enticed by the devil or by pride to sin because they are already proud and sinful from birth:
The issue of private property and money as the major causes of greed, however, also rouses decisive questions about human nature and how it should be dealt with. Hythloday thinks people are inherently good, or that they only sin indirectly, which again is the opposite of what the Bible emphatically affirms. According to him, if private property and the temptation of money were eliminated, and if people are properly guided by a good education, then most of society’s problems would be solved; only a little bit of rebellion and pride in some individuals would remain. Even then, Hythloday would blame not human depravity but pride, which he considers an outside influence, "a serpent from hell which twines itself around the hearts of men; and it acts like a suckfish in holding them back from choosing a better way of life" (Utopia 588). In contrast, the Bible explains that, due to the curse of Adam and Eve’s fall and the devastating effects of sin, all humans inherit corruption—genetic, moral, and mental corruption—and are therefore evil by nature. Humans don’t have to be enticed by the devil or by pride to sin because they are already proud and sinful from birth:
[T]hrough one man sin entered the world, and death through sin, and thus death spread to all men, because all sinned. . . . Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity, and in sin my mother conceived me. . . . We are all like an unclean thing, and all our righteousnesses are like filthy rags; we all fade as a leaf, and our iniquities, like the wind, have taken us away. . . . All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned, every one, to his own way; . . . There is none righteous, no, not one; there is none who understands; there is none who seeks after God. They have all turned aside; they have together become unprofitable; there is none who does good, no, not one. . . . The heart [i.e the mind] is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked; who can know it? (Rom. 5.12, Ps. 51.5, Isa. 64.6, 53.6, Rom. 3.10-12, Jer. 17.9)
Although Hythloday expresses belief in Original Sin—“Pride,” says he, “is too deeply fixed in human nature to be easily plucked out” (Utopia 588)—he seems to think that humans are perfectible and inherently good enough to overcome its effects without any help from God, which is partly why the Utopians are so “successful.” He even declares that the Utopians “have rooted up the seeds of ambition and faction at home, along with most other vices[;] they are in no danger from internal strife” (588). The Utopians can supposedly achieve this all by themselves because they value education and reason, which, as previously mentioned, was a prominent humanist belief: “[T]he Tudor humanists came to an increasing certainty that they could fashion and refashion themselves, and so fashion and refashion society. Being educable, man might also be perfectible” (Kinney 5). The only biblical solution to the problem of greed, pride, and political corruption, however, is to wipe out sin, not private property, which can be done only by obtaining forgiveness from God, not by radically implementing Greek political theories or by educating people to perfection.
But the most contradictory and hypocritical aspect of Hythloday's argument is that he sympathizes with the Utopian laws concerning religion and severely distorts Christianity in the process. Hythloday fashions his own idiosyncratic, self-serving version of Christianity because he “rejected authority, avoided institutional ties, and criticized the medieval Church for distorting Christ’s teaching. In fact, his religious independence was so great that he took no Christian literature or Bible with him on what was to be his final departure from Europe” (Kessler 224). For example, one of the Utopians, shortly after he became a Christian, began to
preach the Christian religion publicly, with more zeal than discretion. We [Hythloday and co.] warned him not to do so, but he soon worked himself up to a pitch where he not only set our religion above the rest but condemned all others as profane in themselves, leading their impious and sacrilegious followers to the hell-flames they richly deserved. . . . They arrested him . . . [for] creating a public disorder . . . [He was] convicted and sentenced to exile. (Utopia 580)
Public evangelism, however, is what Jesus and the apostles did and taught other believers to do, and they were likewise rejected and persecuted by both religious and secular authorities because they claimed that Jesus and his teachings were the only true way (Jn. 14.6, Ac. 4.12). Hythloday even confirms this when he, hypocritically agreeing with Jesus, mentions that "what [Jesus] had whispered to his disciples should be preached openly from the housetops" (542). At this point, Hythloday’s justifications are so contradictory that More probably realized he bit off more than he could chew. The relationship between religion and politics is also a major personal conflict for More the humanist, public servant, and Catholic: Should religion—Roman Catholicism—be subject to and moderated by government, even if it is to the point of compromise? Since government, unlike religion, can be universally applied to an entire commonwealth without necessarily having to proselytize anyone in matters of conscience, I think More “the civic humanist” (Wegemer 5) would say yes; but More the zealous Catholic, who eventually persecuted “heretics”—thereby sharply contradicting humanistic and Utopian tolerance—would rather be martyred as “the King's good servant, but God's first.”
Renaissance writers like More who tried to merge paganism with Christianity knowingly distorted one side or the other. One ideology tends to be altered so it can fit the other, just as Christianity is falsified by Hythloday to make it conform to Utopian laws. A major contradiction in Christian humanism is that many of the writers—Spenser, Sidney, Erasmus, More, etc.—relied heavily, almost solely, on rhetoric and poetic skill to will men to do good rather than simply proclaim the Gospel, “the power of God to salvation for everyone who believes” (Rom. 1.16). It seems that they wanted to be remembered as Christian poets and rhetoricians rather than as Christian messengers and ministers, for they believed that “[p]oetry. . . has a unique persuasive force that shatters the inertia and impels readers toward the good they glimpse in its ravishing lines” (Greenblatt et al. 505). However, Paul, apostle to the gentiles, who revered the classics as religious texts, affirms, “My speech and my preaching were not with persuasive words of human wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power, that your faith should not be in the wisdom of men but in the power of God” (1Cor. 2.4-5). He is not necessarily condemning literature, rhetoric, or “human wisdom,” but he is saying that the only adequate resource which can make men believe in Christ is “the power of God.”
Not surprisingly, humanists believed in the power of words. They equated rhetorical eloquence with pure power, and “cultivated rhetoric, consequently, as the medium through which all other virtues could be communicated and fulfilled” (“Humanism,” 3). Even the Church’s “professionals shared some of the same rhetorical skills” as poets and playwrights, and “thought themselves to be in direct competition with professional players” (Greenblatt et al. 507). It seems that Christian humanists evangelized and promoted Christianity primarily through their own methods and personal talent, despite Jesus’ unequivocal teachings: “No one can come to Me [Jesus] unless the Father who sent Me draws him” (Jn. 6.44), for “as many as received Him [Christ], to them He gave the right to become children of God, to those who believe in His name[,] who were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God” (Jn 1.12-13). Despite this, the humanist belief that people are educable and thereby perfectible “is the single, overriding idea which in England found reinforcement and fulfillment at the hands of teachers and writers, mostly if not solely in their development, use, and defense of rhetoric” (Kinney 5).
Works by Christian humanists contain insightful nuggets of truth about culture, human nature, politics, and literature, and are hailed as some of the greatest literary achievements of all time, but these writers saw their works as much more than mere entertainment. Many of them believed that good poetry is far more effective than sermons. Writing poetry and using rhetoric, however, requires talent that, though it may be God-given, must be developed by human effort, while Christian ministry requires spiritual gifts that come only from God, that “God alone” may receive the credit and glory (1Cor. 12, Heb 2.4). Thus, the biblical model of a fivefold ministry—apostle, prophet, evangelist, pastor, and teacher (Eph. 4.11)—does not include poets, singers, dancers, artists, or entertainers, because the credit would go to the latter group for their natural talent rather than to God for the supernatural power He manifests within individuals from the former group who deny themselves (Ps 68.35, Lu. 9.23, 2Cor 12.9ff). This doesn’t seem to have been a concern for prominent Christian humanists because they eloquently defended the use of rhetoric, especially for moral and religious purposes.
Hythloday believes that an intelligent man cannot be a courtier with integrity because it requires too much moral compromise. Similarly, Hythloday’s Utopian worldview cannot be reconciled to biblical Christianity because it compromises the teachings of Jesus and contradicts rudimentary biblical precepts. Utopia is far from an ideal commonwealth, which undoubtedly was More’s intention, and it is definitely not Christian. Why, then, would More create a character like Hythloday, a passionate and eloquent but selfish and hypocritical old man, and center the entire narrative around him?
A likely reason is that Hythloday serves two purposes: He is a complex, multi-layered foil that More uses to express his own political and religious concerns, and he is More’s alter ego.
Just as Plato banished poets from his ideal commonwealth, yet “made Mistress Philosophy very often borrow the masking raiment of Poesy,” as Sidney tells us, Hythloday selfishly “banishes” all of his social duties, yet he cloaks himself with the “masking raiment” of humanism—philosophy, rhetorical eloquence, passion—to acutely criticize society yet refuse to participate in making things better. Likewise, Europe, the country that clothed itself with the “masking raiment” of Christianity, was actually politically and religiously corrupt and hypocritical. More meant the Utopian community to be a critique of Europe, for the pagan Utopians are more Christian than the Europeans were. In fiction, perhaps, but in reality, Utopia, ‘Nowhereland,’ only superficially resembles Christianity because it primarily models ancient Greece and Rome. And ancient Rome rejected and persecuted zealous Christians, just as the Utopians do. If the reader digs deeper, he will find that Hythloday himself—a political and religious hypocrite—is a better critique of Europe than Utopia.
Hythloday is also a complex foil of Thomas More, an alter ego. In his letter to Peter Giles, More complains about his many civic obligations: “[A]lmost the whole day is devoted to other people’s business and what’s left over to my own; and then for myself—that is, my studies—there’s nothing left. . . . [A] man is bound to bear himself as agreeably as he can toward those whom nature or chance or his own choice has made the companions of his life” (Utopia 522). Hythloday, on the other hand, is completely free of any earthly duties because he arrogantly renounces all of them: “‘I am not much concerned about my relatives and friends,’ . . . ‘because I consider that I have already done my duty by them. . . . I think they should be content with this gift of mine, and not expect that for their sake I should enslave myself to any king whatever’” (527). Perhaps Hythloday is More’s way of “escaping” his many earthly duties. Perhaps Hythloday is More’s way of venting, for if he had more free time, he would study and meditate more often, which sounds un-humanistic. In fact, when More wrote to Erasmus about his daydreams of being king of Utopia, he complained that “rising Dawn has shattered my dream—poor me!—and shaken me off my throne and summons me back to the drudgery of the courts. But at least this thought gives me consolation: real kingdoms do not last much longer” (qtd. in Kinney 88). He sounds just like Hythloday, the superficial “Christian” humanist!
More did, however, want the educated elite to be aware of the critical situation in Europe so that a major cultural, political, and religious reform could take place, and in the process he created a literary alter ego to express some of his concerns and frustrations. Hythloday seems to be created out of deeply personal questions and internal struggles that More pondered on: What if More had never married? What if More never had kids? What if More had become a priest? What if More had more free time to study and write? What if More could have Hythloday’s freedom? What if More could be Hythloday? Well, More is Hythloday, but only in a world of fiction, only in the world of Utopia.
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Works Cited
- Greenblatt, Stephen, et al., eds. The Norton Anthology of English Literature. 8th ed. Vol. B. New York: Norton, 2006. Print.
- “Humanism.” Encyclopedia Britannica. Encyclopedia Britannica Online. Encyclopedia Britannica, 2011. Web. 21 January 2011.
- Kenny, Anthony. A New History of Western Philosophy: The Rise of Modern Philosophy. Vol. 3. New York: Oxford UP, 2006. Print.
- Kessler, Sanford. “Religious Freedom in Thomas More’s Utopia.” The Review of Politics 64.2 (2002): 207-229. JSTOR. Web. 25 March 2011.
- Kinney, Arthur F. Humanist Poetics: Thought, Rhetoric, and Fiction in Sixteenth-Century England. Amherst, MA: University of Massachusetts Press, 1986. Print.
- Logan, George M. “Humanist More.” Thomas More Studies 1 (2006): 2-13. The Center for Thomas More Studies. Web. 5 February 2011.
- Wegemer, Gerard. “Ciceronian Humanism in More’s Utopia.” Moreana 27.104 (1990): 5-26. JSTOR. Web. 5 February 2011.
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