The Intellectual Context of the Reformation
The Renaissance Humanists and the Preservation of the Bible
Aug 8, 2009
It was a time of intellectual ferment when universities were springing up in Europe, one of which was the University of Wittenberg (founded in 1502 by Frederick the Wise, the elector of Saxony) where Martin Luther was professor of theology.
With the invention of the printing press, ideas developed in academic discussions in these universities soon affected the entire European continent. The spread of these new ideas prepared the European mind to welcome the message of the Reformation with open arms without much intellectual barriers.
Renaissance Humanism and the New System of Intellectual Inquiry
The dominant intellectual movement at this point in time was humanism. Contrary to the current association of contemporary humanism to atheism, most, if not all, of the humanists of the Renaissance were Christians and had the reformation of the corrupt Medieval Church in mind in their study of language, history and classical literature. However, theirs was a system of intellectual inquiry that deviated from the traditional scholastic approach in education designed to prepare students in the disciplines of law, philosophy and theology (considered back then as the queen of the sciences).
The scholastic approach to the educational system, the humanists argued, were largely abstract in orientation. To accommodate the social context of the day, which they claimed to have already outgrown the older ways of thought that relied too heavily on Roman Catholic traditions, they introduced a more practical system of education.
Humanists Who Preserved the Bible
Nonetheless, not a few of the Renaissance humanists had the recovery of the Bible in the original languages on top of their priorities. Church history professor David Calhoun notes at least four of these humanists whose works were significant to the reformation of the Christian religion.
- Reuchlin and the Preservation of the Hebrew Old Testament. Certainly the most accomplished Hebrew scholar among the humanists, the German Johannes Reuchlin was chiefly responsible for the preservation of the Hebrew Old Testament since Jerome translated the Bible in Latin (also known as the Latin Vulgate). Although resisted by a Jewish Christian convert and by the Dominicans, Reuchlin insisted that the Hebrew Old Testament needed to be preserved and studied as part of the Christian heritage.
- Lefevre and the Translation of the Bible in the Common Languages. The French scholar Jacques Lefevre was probably the most prominent of the humanists who encouraged and pioneered the translation of the Bible more accurately in the common languages against the wishes of the hierarchy of the Roman Catholic Church. Lefevre wrote commentaries on the Psalms (1509) and the Pauline Epistles (1512) where he presented the Protestant doctrine of sola fide (justification by faith alone) to be the same as the teaching of Paul years before Luther first preached it in Wittenberg. He later translated the Vulgate into French in 1530.
- Colet and the Promotion of the Study of Greek. The English humanist John Colet, dean of Saint Paul’s Cathedral in London, was a key figure in promoting the study of Greek. His series of lectures on the book of Romans in Oxford was based on the historical-grammatical exegesis of the Greek text. This encouraged people to start learning the Greek language so as to correctly understand the teaching of Paul.
- Erasmus and the Greek New Testament. Inspired by Colet to improve his knowledge of the Greek language, the Dutch scholar Desiderius Erasmus later came to be known as the prince of the humanists. The greatest among his numerous works in classical and biblical scholarship was the critical edition of the Greek New Testament based on recently discovered Greek manuscripts. He gave scholars a more authentic New Testament to study in Greek and a more accurate Latin translation of the Bible than Jerome’s Vulgate.
Luther himself later gave the German nation a translation of the Bible in their own native language. Church historian Philip Schaff’s comment in this regard is worth pondering: “While the Humanists went back to the ancient classics and revived the spirit of Greek and Roman paganism, the Reformers went back to the sacred Scriptures in the original languages and revived the spirit of apostolic Christianity.”
Sources:
- Calhoun, David. "Reformation and Modern Church History." Covenant Theological Seminary.
- Schaff, Philip. History of the Christian Church Volume VII. Oak Harbor, WA: Logos Research Systems, Inc., 1997.
- "Renaissance." Encyclopædia Britannica. Ultimate Reference Suite. Chicago: Encyclopædia Britannica, 2009.
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