{"id":25154,"date":"2024-12-04T12:31:32","date_gmt":"2024-12-04T12:31:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.sebpalmer.com\/blog\/?p=25154"},"modified":"2024-12-04T23:47:18","modified_gmt":"2024-12-04T23:47:18","slug":"misc-a-dialogue-of-comfort-against-tribulation-thomas-more-1534","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.sebpalmer.com\/blog\/?p=25154","title":{"rendered":"MiSC: A Dialogue of Comfort Against Tribulation, Thomas More, 1534."},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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A rather hilarious Satan.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

My use of the phrase \u2018clutching at straws\u2019, in my last post, lead me to read about the origins of that phrase. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

If Google\/Wiki are to be trusted, it derives from certain writings of Sir Thomas More, penned whilst jailed in The Tower, by mad serial-killer King, Henry VIII.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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What strange times\u2026<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

What struck me about actually reading bits of A Dialogue of Comfort Against Tribulation, <\/em>is the irony that More – famed as a Humanist, and the author of Utopia<\/em> (which I haven\u2019t read, but would like to) – seems, here at least, far more a prisoner of mind than of body.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Dialogue<\/em> is between the young Vincent and the older Anthony. If we take Anthony to stand for More, he is far more a mental prisoner of Christian Theology than merely the literal corporeal body that was locked in The Tower at Henry\u2019s whim.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Pretty, but bonkers.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Rather than finding solace in the guff that\u2019s played out here, it\u2019s a stark reminder of the parochialism of particular moments in time within an evolving faith.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The picture of the bearded warrior on horseback bespeaks the era, in bloody political truth, far more than any dreams of piety, such as are depicted in the Gethsemane scene, above.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Rather than finding deep truths, it\u2019s disappointing to find pretty low-level \u2018reasoning\u2019, being employed in trying to square real life suffering with a book stuffed full of absurdities (thanks, Frederick The Great). That\u2019d be The Bible, in case that isn\u2019t clear.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Sir Dudley\u2026 er, no\u2026 Thomas More (Holbein).<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

There was only one instance I can recall when More struck a nerve (two, if you also count his superbly pithy \u2018clutching at straws\u2019 image), and that\u2019s when he speaks (or Anthony does) about \u201cthe busyness walking about in the darknesses\u201d<\/em>, which the wiki\u2019 article<\/a> says is More interpreting a particular Psalm as being about \u2018the frantic pursuit of riches or worldly possessions.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

They also discuss suicide, which, having tried to do myself in a couple of times, I was intrigued by. But, once again, it\u2019s mired in the archaic theology of the time (with nonsense about purgatory, the \u2018purchase\u2019 of merit, etc.), and isn\u2019t really interesting at all, alas.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Dud\u2019 could\u2019ve played Tom.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Still, there is some interest in all the odd and arcane history that these threads are woven into. Henry merrily butchering wives and dissenters, and smashing up a massively longstanding religious tradition, with vast and far reaching consequences (still ringing down the years), in pursuit of various expansionist wars and an heir. Meanwhile, \u2018The Turk\u2019 is knocking at the gates of \u2018Christendom\u2019. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Historically it\u2019s a dynamite era. But don\u2019t go looking for deep wisdom in A Dialogue of Comfort against Tribulation<\/em>, you just might be sorely disappointed. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

My use of the phrase \u2018clutching at straws\u2019, in my last post, lead me to read about the origins of that phrase. If Google\/Wiki are to be trusted, it derives from certain writings of Sir Thomas More, penned whilst jailed in The Tower, by mad serial-killer King, Henry VIII. What struck me about actually reading … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “MiSC: A Dialogue of Comfort Against Tribulation, Thomas More, 1534.”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/paGwUa-6xI","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.sebpalmer.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25154"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.sebpalmer.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.sebpalmer.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.sebpalmer.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.sebpalmer.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=25154"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/www.sebpalmer.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25154\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":25156,"href":"http:\/\/www.sebpalmer.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25154\/revisions\/25156"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.sebpalmer.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=25154"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.sebpalmer.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=25154"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.sebpalmer.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=25154"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}