T he author of The Praise of Wisdom endeavors to study
religion and morality in St. Thomas More's Utopia: their mean-
ing and their import in relation to the contemporary scene. It
is probably the first work to examine the pertinent sections in
the Utopia point by point and to determine the relation of each
point to fifteenth-century and sixteenth-century formulations of
Catholic teaching. Emphasis, of course, is laid upon the doc-
trine of the Christian humanists, especially Erasmus; but, when
necessary and justified, recourse is had to pagan classics, church
fathers, and medieval theologians. More's Catholicism cannot
be reasonably called into question. Here an attempt is made to
define the extent of More's religious conservatism or radicalism,
approval or criticism, submission or rebellion, at the time of
the composition of Utopia, which was published on the eve of
the Protestant Reformation.

The procedure for religious problems differs slightly from
that for moral problems. In general, the order of the Utopia
itself is followed in the discussion of religious or theological
ideas, although it is not perfectly logical and systematic at
times. The method, however, helps to an appreciation of More's
own sequence of thought. Thomas More, of course, does not
treat the moral or ethical problems connected with religion in
one place; consequently they have to be lifted from the sections
where they occur.

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