Monti. THOMAS MORE

Monti, James. THE KING'S GOOD SERVANT, BUT GOD'S FIRST: the Life & Writings of St. Thomas More. Ignatius Press 1997. 497pp. ISBN 089870-625-4. $19.95 (4 cents a page).

(To get out of the way my only complaint about this book: the subtitle should come first. The wearying habit of putting a piece of poetry or rhetoric as the beginning of a title presumes too much on the reader's memory. Such titles are suitable for poetry, or works of fiction, or plays. If I want to find the book in a library or bookshop, I will look for "the new book about Thomas More").

And I will have good reason to want to find it. It is a proper biography. It gives the major places to the major events of the life of a man worth recounting. And to those works and writings which were the main events for the man himself. And to those elements in the background of his life which were the most important; the development of humanism after the recovery from the plague; and the diversion of that development by the break in the Church, and the break-off in England from communion with Rome. Spiritual Isolationism. These are the major elements in our world today. The author has an excellent sense of proportion in his presentation of the biographical details, and in his presentation of the writings of St. Thomas, leading to the final glorious demonstration of his beliefs, which had been but the more strengthened by the effort he put into his writings.

In this book, by the simple and sympathetic examination of his writings, and the presentation of the maturing of his thought from one work to the other, St. Thomas More is shown in his place as one of the great Christian humanists, far superior to the wafflings of Erasmus. More had a purpose and a goal. He did feel, like Jeremiah, "why me?". He wanted to stay at home and do his thing; write Utopia; tease his good wife; raise his children; make merry with his friends.

But it was not to be.

Of the serious matters - St. Thomas' devotional works - there is little that can be added to the author's presentation. Read the works, read this biography, then read the works again. Or if you know not the works, read about them here. It will give you an appetite for them. They are another fine example of faith seeking to understand.

Anent the continuing disputes about the texts of the Bible, and the changes in liturgy, the author provides sufficient good material for our understanding of their modern origin. St. Thomas' disputes with Tyndale show that man for the good stylist but incompetent translator that he was. Why Tyndale acted as he did, we shall never know this side of the next world. But from this book, we quickly learn to undo the lie, all-too-common in our survey courses, that the Bible was not available in the vernacular before Wyclif or Tyndale. It was not available complete because it was difficult to translate complete. And books were difficult and costly to make. The printing press had not yet really got going. The language was in a state of great unsettlement. Into which of the various dialects of the English of the 15th and early 16th Centuries was the Bible to be translated? How was the spelling to be decided? But much was available: indeed, as much as most of us know, or have a yen to know. But read this encounter for yourself in this book.

There are good presentations of More's thinking about the celibacy of priests and the ordination of women; of the matter of sola fides and sola scriptura. Thomas More did not discuss the value of giving women a good liberal education; he just did it. The presentation of his relations with his daughter is the envy of any father of a daughter. When his daughter, Meg, came to plead with him to sign the lie, pointing out that many bishops and learned men &c &c, he replied: "What, Mistress Eve ... hath my daughter [in-law] Alington played the serpent with you and with a letter set you to work to come tempt your father again?". The author sets this in its proper context: the father trying not to hurt his daughter, trying to tease her out of her sadness. The which he was the more able to do because he had insisted on her education.

The great flavors of the life of St. Thomas come through in this book: his learning, his courtesy, his humor, his not taking himself too seriously, and his efforts to forgive. Betrayed by Richard Rich, More did not indulge in condemnation of Rich. Having been a great man in the government, he warned his judges, and warned Richard, of the dangers of lies and betrayal, of underhanded dealing and crooked short-cuts. They are a drug to which we become too easily addicted.

Apart those characteristic devotions which we associate with saints, not the least is the extraordinary courtesy, whose extra-ordinariness only becomes apparent after a man's death. He was never out to "get" somebody. If he could extract the lie, or help to undo the tendency to sin, he did so cheerfully. But he was no man's fool. I take from this biography one fine example. When he was Chancellor, he was speaking to his son-in-law: "I thank Our Lord, son, that I find his Grace [Henry 8] my very good lord, indeed, and I believe he doth as singularly favour me as any subject within this realm. Howbeit, son Roper, I may tell thee I have no cause to be proud thereof; for if my head could win him a castle in France ... it should not fail to go".

One more bit from the book. His wife visits him in prison: She lamented much that he should have the chamber door upon him by night made fast by the gaoler ... "For upon my troth" quoth she "if the door should be shut upon me, I would ween it would stop up my breath". At that word of hers, the prisoner laughed in his mind, but he durst not laugh aloud nor say nothing to her. For somewhat indeed he stood in awe of her, and had his finding there much part of her charity for alms, but he could not but laugh inwardly, while he knew well enough that she used on the inside to shut every night full surely her own chamber to her, both door and windows too, and used not to open them of all the night long.

Every man, standing in awe of his wife, will recognize the truth in that account: the eternal "window open / window shut" dispute. St. Thomas does not fail in his respect to the woman who accepted him in marriage. He acknowledges her great charity - her alms - in accepting his decision that he could not act like so many bishops and learned men. It's the greatness of women that they accept, without understanding, the large decisions, and look for details to absorb their concern. "If you must get your head chopped off, be sure to wear a clean shirt". What man could resist laughing "inwardly"?

But what wife will not hear the echo of Luke 3:48ff.? We say it (thinly) as "a man must do what a man must do". For a woman who will want to know why men tease, and why they laugh, and why they duck when women put up their dukes, this book will help explain. More had come to be a manly man. He gave his word, and was stuck with keeping it. More's exchange of words with the headsman is better stuff than Sidney Carton's rhetoric; it's funnier. The kind of thing real men really do say when up against it: the looking to ease the concern of the man who had to do his nasty job.

The Church's recognition of Thomas More as a role model (the listing in the canon of saints) is reason enough to have at home one good account of his life; the kind of book to have lying around when children want to read "something grown-up". History is but the biography of notable individuals. This biography gives an excellent account of the main points of his life, in true proportion. The author's plain prose - mercifully free of academic cliches and vulgar sexual speculation - sets off the beauties of St. Thomas' own excellent prose. It is well printed, easy on aging eyes, solidly made for several readings, precise in its references for further study. Its reasonable price will quickly amortize itself. And (as noticed) it has a sampling of hilarious stories. And, for the ladies, many touching. It will leave its readers crying for more.