Brutheskas

Brutheskas are Utopian religious orders distinguished by demanding service to others and two contrasting ways of life: one embraces celibacy and renunciation, while the other permits marriage and ordinary pleasures that do not obstruct work. Utopians value both, finding the married path wiser but the ascetic path holier; the orders thus express a religious ethic that esteems service without insisting on a single model of sanctity.

Meaning and Religious Setting

Brutheskas is the Utopian term corresponding to what are called Religious Orders. Their practices belong to a society in which religious conviction takes varied forms, and the account presents their severe disciplines as respected choices rather than compulsory standards for everyone. Utopians are cautious about declaring one form of religion superior to another, a restraint that also shapes their regard for these distinct ways of life.

The orders’ significance is especially clear in how they combine religious aspiration with practical service. Some members set aside learning and leisure, believing that good works secure happiness after death. Their devotion is made visible through useful labor, including care for the sick and maintenance of roads, ditches, and bridges, rather than through learning alone or withdrawal from the needs of others.

Service and Labor

Brutheskas undertake difficult tasks that others may avoid because of their hardship or unpleasantness. They dig turf, gravel, or stone; fell and split timber; and bring wood, grain, and other necessities into towns by cart. They also assist private individuals, in the account serving them even more than slaves do. This comparison emphasizes the scale of their contribution while distinguishing its source: these members choose the work themselves.

Their labor benefits others while imposing hardship on the workers. Yet they neither boast of their exertions nor try to diminish the standing of other people. Instead, taking on servile tasks earns them greater esteem throughout the country. The account links religious merit to concrete public usefulness, while making humility—not self-promotion—the mark of their service.

Two Ways of Life

One order lives unmarried and chaste, abstains from meat, and deliberately relinquishes pleasures of the present life, which its members regard as harmful to their pursuit of future blessedness. Their chosen disciplines are described as among the hardest and most painful available to them; the closer they believe themselves to come to that blessedness, the more cheerful and earnest they become in their efforts.

The other order is less inclined to such severe toil and prefers married life. Its members accept marriage and its pleasures, regarding the begetting of children as a duty owed to human nature and their country. They avoid pleasures that would hinder work and eat meat because they find it makes them more able to labor. The contrast is therefore not between religious commitment and its absence, but between ascetic renunciation and a religious life that accommodates family, pleasure, and productive capacity.

Esteem and Distinction

Utopians judge the married order wiser, but regard the celibate and ascetic order as the holier. They would consider it unreasonable to prefer celibacy to marriage, or a life of labor to an easier one, solely on rational grounds; they nevertheless admire those who make those choices from religious motives. The distinction preserves a place for demanding devotion without turning it into a universal rule for virtuous life.

Brutheskas consequently embody two complementary ideals within Utopian society: service sustained through ordinary family life, and service joined to unusually rigorous renunciation. Their esteem rests not simply on hardship, but on the religious motivation and public benefit associated with their chosen conduct.