Dealy's thesis is that, influenced by Erasmus's De taedio Iesu and his Enchiridion late in 1504, More allegedly overcame a one-dimensional view of Christianity by embracing a two-dimensional one. By a one-dimensional view Dealy means More's assumed mindset of considering that he had to choose either the strict contemplative life of the Carthusians or the worldly life of involvement in politics, marriage, and the ordinary enjoyments of human life. The two-dimensional philosophical outlook to which he supposedly subscribed after reading those books, amounted to—using Dealy's words—not a matter of either/or, but of both/and—that is, “the contemplative life and the active life at all times require each other.” This, he argues, follows Stoicism: honestum and utile cannot oppose each other; whatever is expedient (utile) must be truly good (honestum).
The author convincingly analyses More's choice of the three dialogues from Lucian that he translated. Dealy suggests a parallelism between the dialogues and Cicero's De officiis: book 1 deals with the honestum; book 2, with the utile; and book 3 considers the unity of honestum/utile: whatever is utile ought to be honestum, and the honestum is always utile. Dealy's interpretation makes a valuable contribution to understanding of More's selection. He shows, however, a lack of understanding of More's life and mind. As manifestations of the alleged one-dimensional mindset until shortly before he married, Dealy offers More's hair shirt, his lectures on City of God, his translation of Pico, and his letter to Colet dated 1504.
Stapleton mentioned that More wore a hair shirt, “even as a youth,” but Dealy omits that Stapleton, Roper, and Cresacre wrote that More continued using it until the “day before his death.” Dealy suggests More did not cover the theology found in the City of God, contrary to what Erasmus (Dealy's main authority) wrote: “priests and old men were not ashamed to seek instruction in holy things from a young man and a layman.” His additions to the Life of Pico manifest More's own spiritual life rather than a one-dimensional approach to Christianity; and his omissions and his selection from Pico's letters are a clear rejection of Pico's choice of Mary's contemplative life to the exclusion of Martha's active life.
The only source of More's supposed state of anguish is the letter to Colet, but that might well be read as a rhetorical parody of a previous letter from Colet to Ficino. The author is right in saying that More and Erasmus differed from Colet's theology. More shared Erasmus's project of revitalizing Christianity by returning ad fontes, through sacred scripture, the fathers of the Church, and the classics. The two might have discussed in 1499 the ideas that Erasmus published in the Enchiridion later. De taedio was the result of a debate with Colet that summer. There is no evidence that De taedio and the Enchiridion provoked a change of More's mindset in 1504, because there is in fact no genuine evidence of More's having had a one-dimensional outlook then.
Dealy writes that Augustine and Chrysostom provided More with that one-dimensional outlook. This is simply not accurate. Augustine writes that the contemplative life of Mary and the active life of Martha are to be practiced by every Christian. Erasmus cites Augustine as an authority a dozen times in the Enchiridion, praising him and recommending his books.
Dealy writes correctly that in Utopia, Hythloday holds abstract values while More recommends alia philosophia civilior, an indirect approach. One follows a unidimensional honestum, while the other has a proper understanding of the utile, which never opposes the honestum. Dealy asserts the behavior of the Utopians is coherent with a Stoic philosophy of the unity of honestum/utile. He says, however, that all other writers have considered the indirect approach as a rhetorical device rather than a philosophical one. That is not accurate. Others have understood it, as More wrote it, as true political philosophy.
