Page 1 Page 2 Page 3 Page 4 Page 5 Page 6 Page 7 Page 8 Page 9 Page 10 Page 11 Page 12 Page 13 Page 14 Page 15 Page 16 Page 17 Page 18 Page 19 Page 20 Page 21 Page 22 Page 23 Page 24 Page 25 Page 26 Page 27 Page 28 Page 29 Page 30 Page 31 Page 32 Page 33 Page 34 Page 35 Page 36 Page 37 Page 38 Page 39 Page 40 Page 41 Page 42 Page 43 Page 44 Page 45 Page 46 Page 47 Page 48 Page 49 Page 50 Page 51 Page 52 Page 53 Page 54 Page 55 Page 56 Page 57 Page 58 Page 59 Page 60 Page 61 Page 62 Page 63 Page 64 Page 65 Page 66 Page 67 Page 68 Page 69 Page 70 Page 71 Page 72 Page 73 Page 74 Page 75 Page 76 Page 77 Page 78 Page 79 Page 80 Page 81 Page 82 Page 83 Page 84the church door in Wittenberg in 1517 ended up transforming Europe and the world, triggering conflicts that tore apart church and society. The century of bloody religious warfare that followed laid the groundwork for the modern nation-state system and the rise of secularism. While these geopolitical developments garner much attention, other aspects of the sixteenth century have largely disappeared from view. And yet these neglected histories cast light on questions that are just as urgent today as they were a half-millennium ago. For example, take the first question of all: How should we live? At the beginning of the sixteenth century, this question erupted throughout Europe. People began asking: How should we structure our society? How can we provide justice, peace, and equality for all? When such questions are raised, it indicates that people’s thought-world has changed. All of a sudden they realize that customary practices, things that have always been done a certain way, might actually be improved or abandoned. People gain the ability to look at their own situation from the outside, to analyze their own way of life. Specifically, they become able to take a hard look at how the basic assumptions of their society measure up against the Christian gospel. It was in this sense that sixteenth-century Europeans saw the basics of their faith with fresh eyes. They sought to identify what was essential to living as a Christian. In their writings and publications, they sparked a continent-wide conversation about fundamen- tals among educated readers and thinkers. The sixteenth-century movement that grew out of this new ability to look critically at conventional ways of living is known as humanism. Among its most prominent champions was the English jurist Thomas More, whose masterwork Utopia was published five hundred years ago this year. (Now canon- ized as a Catholic saint, More may be most widely known thanks to the Academy Award– winning film A Man for All Seasons, which portrays his martyrdom in 1535 at the hands of King Henry VIII.) Written in Latin, Utopia is a philosophical dialogue in the form of a short story that has been called “one of the most interesting pieces of political literature ever written.” 1 The book reflects the many conversations that More shared with his fellow humanists, especially his close friend Erasmus of Rotterdam. While Utopia is the title under which the work is best known – More’s neologism would spawn a whole new literary genre of utopias – the book’s original title is consider- ably longer, and hints at More’s real interest: On the Best State of a Republic and the New Island Utopia. While containing abundant social satire, the book’s aim is ultimately to invite readers to reflect: How can society func- tion better than it does now? The narrative’s literary structure is sophisti- cated. Near the end of the first part of the book, the narrator, known to the reader as “Thomas More,” describes meeting a foreign sailor while on a business trip to Flanders on behalf of the king of England. The sailor’s name is Raphael Hythlodeus. The two new acquaintances begin a wide-ranging conversation about England’s and the Continent’s political situation. Raphael then remarks: To speak plainly my real sentiments, I must freely own that as long as there is any prop- erty, and while money is the standard of all other things, I cannot think that a nation can be governed either justly or happily: not justly, Dr. Thomas Nauerth is a professor of Catholic theology at the University of Osnabrück, Germany. 28 Plough Quarterly • Winter 2017