Utopus’s conquest of Utopia is presented as both a territorial transformation and the founding moment of its law of religious toleration. Utopus subdued a population divided by religious quarrels, then made freedom of belief and peaceful persuasion part of the new order; the settlement protected diversity but did not make religious conduct exempt from rules against inciting conflict.

Conquest and transformation

Before the conquest, the island was part of the continent and was called Abraxa. Utopus subdued its inhabitants and brought them under a new government. The account connects their religious divisions directly to their defeat: instead of uniting against him, the different parties fought separately, making it easier for Utopus to conquer them.

Utopus also reshaped the territory. He ordered a channel fifteen miles long to be dug, separating the island from the mainland. The labor was imposed on both the inhabitants and his own soldiers, so that the conquered people were not made to work alone. The channel was completed quickly, and neighboring peoples who had initially mocked the undertaking responded with admiration and fear. The physical separation of the island accompanied the political reordering of its inhabitants.

The law and its rationale

After subduing the population, Utopus enacted a law allowing each person to follow the religion of their choice and to try to persuade others through argument and courteous, moderate means. The law forbade bitterness, reproach, and violence in religious dispute; those who resorted to such conduct could be condemned to banishment or slavery. Toleration was therefore established not as an absence of public rules, but as a rule against coercive and inflammatory efforts to secure belief.

The law had two stated purposes. It was meant to preserve public peace in a society damaged by persistent quarrels and irreconcilable religious passions. It was also grounded in Utopus’s uncertainty about whether different forms of religion might come from God, who could inspire people in different ways and welcome religious variety. Even if only one religion were true, he reasoned, truth should prevail through argument and a gentle, unprejudiced hearing rather than threats and tumult. Coercion could obstruct the very truth it claimed to defend, allowing superstition to smother a better faith.

The boundaries of toleration

The settlement did not treat every belief or every form of religious advocacy alike. Its clearest boundary was conduct that inflamed the population. A newly baptized man who repeatedly preached against Utopia’s rites and condemned their adherents was tried and sentenced to banishment. The stated offense was not that he disparaged another religion, but that his preaching stirred sedition. The case shows the law’s distinction between religious disagreement and actions judged to endanger civic peace.

There was also a limit concerning beliefs about the soul and providence. Those who held that souls died with the body or that the world was governed by chance were not punished, since the Utopians held that a person could not simply compel himself to believe otherwise. Yet such people were excluded from honors, offices, and public trust, and were discouraged from defending those views before ordinary people. They could discuss them privately with priests and other respected men, who were expected to answer them with reason. The law thus protected inward belief from forced recantation while withholding civic standing from certain convictions.

Religious life after the conquest

The later religious landscape reflects the settlement’s effort to contain difference within shared public forms. Utopians held varied beliefs: some worshipped celestial bodies or revered eminent people as divine, while many of the wiser among them worshipped one eternal, invisible, and incomprehensible deity. Across these differences, they agreed that one supreme being created and governed the world, whom they called Mithras. The account describes gradual movement away from some forms of superstition, while also noting that misfortunes interpreted as divine punishment could make people reluctant to abandon inherited worship.

After hearing an account of Christ, his teaching and life, and the constancy of the martyrs, many Utopians were inclined to accept Christianity and were baptized. Raphael Hythloday suggests that this openness may have reflected Christianity’s apparent affinity with communal ownership, an ideal the Utopians particularly valued. Because none of the surviving travelers was ordained as a priest, converts could be baptized but could not receive the other sacraments; they were instructed about them and strongly desired them. Whether one of their own chosen candidates could serve as a priest without authority from the Pope remained under discussion when Hythloday left.

The law’s pluralism also shaped worship in common spaces. Utopia’s spacious temples were few, and their deliberately subdued light was understood to gather the mind and encourage devotion. Although different groups performed their distinctive rites in private, public worship avoided practices that contradicted the beliefs of other groups. The temples had no images of God, and prayers were composed so that people of different opinions could use them without compromising their beliefs. These arrangements extend the founding principle into religious practice: difference remains, but shared worship is organized around what the community can affirm together.