[1123] Responsio ad Lutherum, passim: “Pater, frater, potator Lutherus,” seems to be a favorite expression, but is mild in comparison with others—“novum inferorum Deum,” “Satanista Lutherus,” “pediculoso fraterculo.” Luther’s friends are “nebulonum, potatorum, scortatorum, sicariorum, senatum,” and More winds up his theological argument with—“furiosum fraterculum et latrinarium nebulonem cum suis furiis et furoribus, cum suis merdis et stercoribus cacantem cacatumque relinquere.”
Luther was himself a master in theological abuse, but More’s admiring biographer, Stapleton, boasts that the German was appalled at the superior vigor of the Englishman, and for the first time in his life he declined further controversy—“magis mutus factus est quam piscis.” (Stapletoni Vit. T. Mori cap. iv.) As More, however, published the tract under the name of “William Rosse, an Englishman who had recently died in Rome, Luther’s reticence is more easily to be accounted for”.
[1124] In one passage More describes his Utopians as considering virtue to consist in living according to nature. “Nempe virtutem definiunt, secundum naturam vivere: ad id siquidem a Deo institutos esse nos.... Vitam ergo jucundam, inquiunt, id est voluptatem, tanquam operationum omnium finem, ipsa nobis natura præscribit: ex cujus præscripto vivere, virtutem definiunt” (Utopiæ Lib. II. Tit. de Peregrinatione). In another passage, however, he describes two sects or heresies, the one consisting of men who abstained from marriage and the use of flesh, the other of those who devoted themselves to labor, marrying as a duty and indulging in food to increase their strength, and says of them “Hos Utopiani prudentiores, at illos sanctiores reputant” (Ibid. Tit. de Religionibus).
[1125] Respons. ad Lutherum Perorat.
It should be borne in mind that this was written after his friend Erasmus had publicly given in his adhesion to marriage as the only remedy for sacerdotal corruption.
[1126] Ibid. Lib. I. cap. iv.
[1127] Froude’s England, Ch. x.
[1128] Wilkins III. 669, 678.
[1129] Card. Eboracens. Epist. v. (Martene Ampliss. Collect. III. 1289).
[1130] Strype’s Eccles. Memorials, T. I. App. p. 19.