Was Saint Thomas More a Mystic?

Abstract

The whole spirit of Christian humanism, as exemplified by Erasmus, makes one think, in Mesnard’s phrase, of ‘mystique légère:’ plenty of of moralism and reformism, with less room for experience; a fruit of it was the Exercices of St Ignatius, in contrast with the alumbrados or even the Rheno-Flemish masters such as Eckhart or even Denys the Carthusian. More may not have so much as heard of Juliana of Norwich, England’s best-known medieval mystic, whereas he recommends Walter Hilton’s Scala perfectionis, and The Following of Christ, as he calls Thomas à Kempis’s classic. The earliest influences perceptible in his life and writings are Pico della Mirandola and John Colet. The Lutheran challenge led him to stress the role of human cooperation with God’s grace in the business of eternal salvation, and the essential role of the Church as interpreter of the Bible. Prison life with the imminence of a martyr’s death colored his meditation on the agony of Christ, and his stress on God as the only source of comfort.