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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 02 January 2019
For Thomas More the topic of suicide clearly had special significance. In his public life he encountered several instances of self-destruction; his concern with suicide in all its aspects is reflected in his major works, including Utopia and A Dialogue of Comfort Against Tribulation; and ultimately he had to decide whether his decision not to recognize Henry the Eighth as spiritual leader of England was equivalent to an act of suicide. More's approach to suicide is consistent throughout his writings, and there is no discrepancy at all between his written statements and the actions of his life. His earliest known contact with suicide occurred at the end of 1514, when a certain Richard Hunne, a wealthy merchant tailor who had been committed to the Lollards’ Tower at St. Paul's on a charge of heresy, was found hanged in his cell.
1 For details see Thomas More, The Dialogue Concerning Tyndale (1528), Book III, Chap. 15; editor's notes in The Apologye of Syr Thomas More, Knyght, ed. with introd. and notes by Arthur Irving Taft, EETS, O.S., No. 180 (London, 1930), pp. 323-328; ‘Richard Hunne’, in DNB, ed. Sir Leslie Stephen and Sir Sidney Lee (Oxford, 1921-1922), X, 261; Chambers, R. W., Thomas More (Westminster, Md., n.d.), p. 134 Google Scholar; Maynard, Theodore, Humanist as Hero: The Life of Sir Thomas More (New York, 1947), pp. 72–75 Google Scholar; Reynolds, E. E., The Field Is Won: The Life and Death of Saint Thomas More (London, 1968), pp. 88– 90 Google Scholar; Pineas, Rainer, Thomas More and Tudor Polemics (Bloomington.Ind., and London, 1968), pp. 93–94 Google Scholar, 166-169, et passim.
2 See Rainer Pineas, Thomas More and Tudor Polemics, p. 167.
3 See The English Works of Sir Thomas More, n: The Dialogue Concerning Tyndale, a facsimile of the Collected Edition (1557) of More's English Works; ed. W. E. Campbell, with introd. and notes by A. W. Reed (London, 1927), p. 238. All quotations are cited from this edition.
4 Page references are to The Apologye of Syr Thomas More, Knyght, ed. Arthur Irving Taft, EETS.
5 The account of the Winchester man may be found in Thomas Stapleton, The Life and Illustrious Martyrdom of Sir Thomas More, Formerly Lord Chancellor of England (Part m of Tres Thomae, printed at Douai, 1588), trans. Philip E. Hallett (London, 1928), pp. 71-72; Ro. Ba., The Lyfe of Syr Thomas More, Sometymes Lord Chancellor of England, ed. Elsie Vaughan Hitchcock and P. E. Hallett, with additional notes and appendices by A. W. Reed, EETS, O.s., No. 222 (London, 1950), pp. 260-261; Bridgett, T.E., Life and Writings of Sir Thomas More, Lord Chancellor of England and Martyr Under Henry VIII, 2nd ed. (London, 1892), pp. 433–434 Google Scholar; R. W. Chambers, Thomas More, pp. 40-41; Farrow, John, The Story of Thomas More, (New York, 1963)Google Scholar, p. 184.
6 Ro. Ba., The Lyfe of Syr Thomas More, ed. Hitchcock and Hallett, EETS, p. 261.
7 The distinction between voluntary and involuntary, or compulsory, euthanasia is an important one. In the one case, the will and consent of the patient are involved; in the other, they are not. We are concerned only with the former.
8 Cited in A Most Pleasant, Fruitful, and Witty Work of the Best State of a Public Weal, and of the New Isle Called Utopia, trans. Raphe Robinson (1551); ed. with introd. by T. F. Dibdin (London, 1808), n, 134-135. (It is generally agreed that More's statement to his daughter Margaret referred to his entering a monastery, not to his committing suicide.)
9 More's Utopia, ed. T. F. Dibdin, II, 135.
10 Dibdin, pp. 135-136
11 ‘Euthanasia’, published anonymously by Thomas Scott (London, 187?), p. 4. No other information is available.
12 Joseph Fletcher, ‘Euthanasia: Our Right to Die’, in Morals and Medicine, with a Foreword by Karl Menninger, M.D. (Boston, 1967), p. 171; Fedden, Henry Romilly, Suicide: A Social and Historical Study, (London, 1938), p. 165 Google Scholar.
13 Page references are to The Utopia of Sir Thomas More in Latin from the Edition of March 1518, and in English from the First Edition of Ralph Robynsons Translation in 1551, ed. and arm. J. H. Lupton (Oxford, 1895). Cf. Lupton's comment: ‘This [the passage just quoted] deserves notice, as indicating the author's own view of freedom from responsibility, as a narrator only, and not an advocate’ (p. 211, n. 1).
14 Utopians who are permitted to take their own lives do so ‘othere wyth hunger, or elles dye in theyre sleape wythowte annye fealinge of deathe’ (p. 224).Various suggestions have been offered for the second alternative: laudanum (Dibdin's Utopia, n, 137); opium (Gilbert Burnet, cited by Lupton, p. 224, n. 1); hemlock or mandragora (Utopia, ed. Edward Surtz, S.J., and J. H. Hexter, The Yale Edition of the Complete Works of St. Thomas More, rv [New Haven and London, 1965], 477; Edward L. Surtz, S.J., The Praise of Wisdom: A Commentary on the Religious and Moral Problems and Backgrounds of St. Thomas More's “Utopia,” Jesuit Studies [Chicago, 1957], p. 88).
15 Durkheim, Emile, Le Suicide: Étude de sociologie, nouvelle Edition, Bibliothèque de Philosophic Contemporaine (Paris, 1960), p. 373 Google Scholar; Fedden, Suicide: A Social and Historical Study, p. 89; Rohde, Erwin, Psyche: The Cult of Souls and Belief in Immortality Among the Greeks, trans. Hillis, W. B., introd. by Guthrie, W. K. C. (New York, 1966), 1, 187–188 Google Scholar, n. 33.
16 Durkheim, p. 373; Rohde, Psyche, 1, 187, n. 33.
17 Quotations are from Laws, trans. A. E. Taylor, in The Collected Dialogues of Plato, Including the Letters, ed. Edith Hamilton and Huntington Cairns, with introd. and prefatory notes, Bollingen Series LXXI (New York, 1963), p. 1432.
18 See, for example, Tusculan Disputations, v.40.17.
19 See Cicero, De Finibus Bonorum et Malorum, m.i8.do; Seneca, Epistulae Morales,. xvn.o; Epictetus, Discourses, m.24.101.
20 For suicide to avoid starvation, see Epictetus, Discourses, rv.10.27; for suicide to end doddering old age, see Seneca, Epistulae Morales, LVIII.34; for euthanasia, see Epistulae Morales, Lvn.35-36, and LXXIV.5-0.
21 Cf. Thomas Lupset, ‘A Compendious and a Very Fruteful Treatyse, Teachynge the Waye of Dyenge Well’ (1529/1530): ‘… Surely no man can dye well, that lyveth not well, for ever deth is a sorowfull thynge to the yvell lyver, by cause he hathe nothynge to laye before the mercy of god wheruppon he maye take hope and truste to be made worthy of the sure lyfe …’. The Life and Works of Thomas Lupset with a Critical Text of the Original Treatises and the Letters, ed. John Archer Gee (New Haven and London, 1928), p. 222.
22 ‘Utopia and the Medieval’, in introduction to the Yale edition of Utopia, ed. Surtz and Hexter, p. xlvi and n. 1.
23 ‘Suicide and Utopian Philosophy’, Ball State University Forum, rx (Winter 1968), 34-36.
24 See The City of God, 1.20. For a complete discussion of suicide, see Book 1, sections 16-27.
25 ‘His igitur exceptis, quos vel lex iusta generaliter vel ipse fons iustitiae Deus specialiter occidi iubet, quisquis hominem vel se ipsum vel quemlibet occiderit, homicidii crimine innectitur’. Latin and English quotations are from The City of Cod Against the Pagans, 1 (Books I-III), ed. and trans. George E. McCracken, Loeb Classical Library (Cambridge, Mass., and London, 1957).
26 The Four Last Things, in The English Works of Sir Thomas More, 1, a facsimile of William Rastell's 1557 edition; ed. Campbell, W. E. et al., (London and New York, 1931), P- 497 Google Scholar.
27 Leland Miles, ‘The Dialogue of Comfort and More's Execution: Some Comments on Literary Purpose’, MLR, LXI (Oct. 1966), 558; A Dialogue of Comfort Against Tribulation, ed. Leland Miles (Bloomington, Ind., and London, 1965), p. xxix. Miles mistakenly believes that in several places in A Dialogue of Comfort More himself says the discussion of suicide is irrelevant. However, it is not suicide in general, but suicide caused by somediing other than fear or tribulation, which Anthony (the speaker) dismisses as irrelevant to the conversation. See More's Utopia and A Dialogue of Comfort, introd. by John Warrington, Everyman's Library (London, 1962), pp. 257 and 260.
28 Page references are to Nicholas Harpsfield, The Life and Death of Sr. Thomas Moore, Knight, Sometymes Lord High Chancellor of England, ed. Elsie Vaughan Hitchcock and R. W. Chambers, EETS, o.s., No. 186 (London, 1932; repr. London, New York, and Toronto, 1963), p. 175. See also More's letter of 14 June 1532, to Erasmus, , in St. Thomas More: Selected Letters, ed. Elizabeth Frances Rogers, The Yale Edition of the Works of St. Thomas More, Modernized Series (New Haven and London, 1967), p. 173 Google Scholar.
29 Natural History, xxv.7.23. Pliny assigned second place to stomach troubles, and third to head ailments.
30 ‘The Design of More's Dialogue of Comfort’, Moreana, Nos. 15-16 (Nov. 1967), pp. 338-339.
31 Page references are to the Everyman's Library edition of Utopia and A Dialogue of Comfort. Page numbers will be cited only for quotations. The entire discussion on suicide is found in Book n, chaps. 15 and 16.
32 Augustine stresses that a woman bears no moral responsibility for rape unless her will becomes partially submissive, with the result that she experiences pleasure during the act. At worst she may succumb to lascivious desires, for which she can atone later, but suicide is unpardonable and punished by eternal damnation. See The City of God, 1.16-19, 26.
33 Le Suicide, p. 29.
34 A Treatice to Receave the Blessed Body of Our horde, Sacramentally and Virtually Bothe (1534), in The Workes of Sir Knyght, Thomas More, Sometyme horde Chauncellour of England, Wrytten by Him in the Englysh Tonge, (London, 1557), pp. 1264–1265 Google Scholar.
35 A Treatice upon the Passion of Chryste [unfinished] (1534), in The English Works (i557). p. 1273. See also The Four Last Things and Hythlodaye's eloquent peroration in Utopia.
36 Cf. Erasmus, “The Saiynges of Diogenes the Cynike’, Book I, Section 8 : ‘ … Soche persones as ar werie of their lives, are in soche despaire, that thei would fain be out of the worlde, do many of them by and by hang and strangle theim selves, whereas thei ought rather to have recourse to good communication, that might recomforte their spirites, and bryng them again from despaire. For, to the hart beyng in heavines and utter discomfort: the beste Phisitian is good and wholsome communication’. The Apophthegmes of Erasmus, trans. Nicolas Udall (1564); ed. and ann. Robert Roberts (Boston, 1877), p. 80.
37 See Leland Miles’ discussion in his edition of A Dialogue of Comfort, p. lxviii and p. xciv, n. 9.
38 ‘The Design of More's Dialogue of Comfort', p. 339.
39 ‘A … Treatyse … of Dyenge Well’, in The Life and Works of Thomas Lupset, ed. John Archer Gee, p. 276.
40 ‘Reflexions sur le Suicide’, in Oeuures Completes de Mme. la Barotme de Staël, (Paris, 1820), III, 336-346.
41 Roper, William, TheLyfe of Sir Thomas More, Knighte, in Tudor Prose, 1513-1570, ed. with introd., notes, and variants by Edmund Creeth (Garden City, N.Y., 1969)Google Scholar, p. III .
42 See Eusebius, , The History of the Church from Christ to Constantine, trans, with introd. by G. A. Williamson, Penguin Classics (Baltimore, 1967), p. 169 Google Scholar.
43 Page references are to An Exposicion of a Parte of the Passion of Our Saviour Iesus Christe, trans. Mary Basset, in English Works (1557).
44 A Dialogue of Comfort, ed. Leland Miles, p. lxxii.
45 See Frend, W. H.C., Martyrdom and Persecution in the Early Church: A Study of a Conflict from the Maccabees to Donatus, (Garden City, N.Y., 1967), p. 219 Google Scholar. Subsequent references to this work, hereafter cited as Frend, will appear in the body of the essay.
46 Cited in Early Christian Writings: The Apostolic Fathers, trans. Maxwell Staniforth, Penguin Classics (Baltimore, 1968), p. 104.
47 For the examples that follow, see Eusebius’ History of the Church, pp. 334, 342-343. In his attack on people who rushed forward to face the tortures of the arena (p. 169), Eusebius’ primary concern was that through terror they might renounce the faith. However, in the situations discussed here, Christians killed themselves out of zeal for the faith or out of fear of torture, and their deaths removed them from the possibility of recanting. Eusebius has little or no condemnation for suicide per se.
48 Eusebius, pp. 169-174; Early Christian Writings, pp. 155-163.
49 For details on Tertullian, see Frend, pp. 271-278, et passim; for Origen, who later reversed his thinking on martyrdom, see pp. 288-289, et passim.
50 For Clement, see Frend, pp. 260-264.
51 For Ambrose, see Bayet, Albert, Le Suicide et la morale, Thèse pour le Doctorat-ès- Lettres présentée a la Faculté des Lettres de 1'Université de Paris (Paris, 1922), pp. 342- 343Google Scholar; for Athanasius, see Bayet, p. 341; for Sozomen, see Fedden, Suicide: A Social and Historical Study, p. 123.
52 The City of Cod, 1.22.
53 Letter to Margaret Roper from the Tower of London, 1534, in St. Thomas More: Selected Letters, ed. Rogers, p. 242.
54 See R. W. Chambers, Thomas More, pp. 325-332.
55 The Commission was made up of Archbishop Cranmer, Sir Thomas Audley, Charles Brandon (the Duke of Suffolk), Thomas Boleyn, and Thomas Cromwell. See Rogers, p. 249.
56 Letter to Margaret Roper from the Tower of London, 3 June 1535, in Rogers, p. 253.
57 See Harpsfield, pp. 198-199, and Thomas Stapleton, Tlte Life… of Sir Thomas More, trans. Hallett, p. 129.
58 Harpsfield (p. 199) was, so far as I know, the first of a long line of writers, including Stapleton, to compare More to Socrates.
