Christian Humanism – a short note

Among humanists, there was a disdain for ecclesiastical corruption and this, combined with a
veneration of ancient literature. This brought forth a new conception of human potential, social
as well as individual. The Christendom of the medieval age was therefore seen in bad light as
compared with the intellectual, political and social achievements of ancient civilization. In the
Renaissance view, both Roman Stoics and primitive Christians were purer and had godlier social
and political ethic as opposed to the despised medieval Church.1
The northern humanists, however, were different. Born out of the Northern Renaissance which
was the Renaissance that occurred in Europe north of the Alps from the late 15th century
onwards, these humanists were rooted in the spirituality of the late fifteenth-century devotio
moderna, the avowed aim of this which was to achieve a reformation of Christendom. Devotio
Moderna or Modern Devotion - a movement for religious reform, calling for apostolic renewal
through the rediscovery of genuine pious practices such as humility, obedience, and simplicity of
life, thus, differentiated humanism of the north from that of renaissance humanism in Italy. 2
It is essential to recognize that for the Christian humanist there need be no conflict between the
teachings off the Bible and a belief in great human potential for achievement (Todd, 1987). To
these Christian humanists, it was the spreading of biblical knowledge which became a primary
goal. They charged that true understanding of the Bible was not being mediated to the people by
the late medieval clergy; rather, the church had for centuries kept both itself and its laity in
unconscionable ignorance of the truth by maintaining a monopoly of the through prohibition of
vernacular translations.
The idea of education, in its broadest sense, resided at the heart of the intellectual movement we
now know as Northern or Erasmian Humanism. Erasmus, the figure whose name the movement
would come to bear, was the chief scholar of his age, and his followers would in turn be deeply
committed to the idea of the liberating power of education. Among these were men such as
Guillaume Budé (1467–1540), Jerome Busleyden (c. 1470–1517), Ulrich von Hutten (1488–
1523), Beatus Rhenanus (1485–1547), Juan Luis Vives (1493–1540) and Thomas More (1478-
1535).
What is significant for us to remember is that while, in many ways, Erasmian humanism was a
continuation of an orientation towards learning that began in Italian Renaissance, it also took on
its own path, in a way that was to be especially pertinent in the development of the Protestant
Reformation.

1
Todd, Christian Humanism and The Puritan Social Order, Cambridge University Press 1987, 22
2
This is not to say that Italian humanists like Petrarch (as mentioned earlier) were not Christian humanists but
rather that Christian humanism took its proper form with the northern Renaissance and authorities like Erasmus
and More