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Dialogue Concerning Heresies

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Thomas More's "Dialogue Concerning Heresies" (1529) is his best book of religious controversy. The Lord Chancellor appears as a character in his own fiction defending Catholic doctrines and devotions against the objections of a university student conversant with Reformation thought. The two men meet in Chelsea in More's study and garden and after a two week break they meet again in the same places. In Book 1 More defends pilgrimages and miracles; in Book 2, praying to saints. In Book 3 More attacks William Tyndale's translation of the New Testament (1526); in Book 4, Luther's denial that human will has any role in salvation (1525).

This Scepter edition (2006) of "Dialogue Concerning Heresies" is a modern-spelling and updated version of the Yale edition (1981). For example, the editor Mary Gottschalk renders the phrase "the lewde loue that is bytwene flecke & his make" (Yale, p. 289) as "the lewd love there is between a lowlife and his ladylove" (Scepter, p. 331). Although it lacks the extensive commentary of the Yale edition, the Scepter version inserts all the many scriptural references into the body of the text in brackets. Even those who have access to the costly Yale edition will want to own the inexpensive Scepter version. Best of all, the modern spelling makes it easier to concentrate on More's argument.

This spiritual masterpiece clearly reflects St. Thomas More's own struggles in life, which of course ended in his martyrdom. This work is a rare combination of practical, earthly, spiritual advice that any person can profit from greatly. It is practical in that it treats of concrete situations that face every person who takes life seriously. It is earthly in that the counsel it offers squarely faces the struggles that arise from wanting to live in the world, but not be of the world. St. Thomas does not offer "pie in the sky" spiritual counsel, but rather counsel that invites the hearer to make moral and spiritual choices that will bring the sort of consolation that only comes from placing one's whole hope in the Passion, Death and Resurrection of Jesus Christ.