What impact did the Renaissance have on Christianity?

Reuchlin and Erasmus — these famous names — may be conveniently and appropriately introduced here. Although not reformers, they contributed much to the success of the Reformation. They were called "Humanists" — men eminent for human learning. The revival of literature, but especially the critical study of the languages in which the holy scriptures were written — Hebrew, Greek, and Latin — rendered the highest service to the first reformers. As in the days of Josiah, Ezra, and Nehemiah, the great Reformation was in immediate connection with the recovery and study of the written word of God. The Bible, which had lain so long silent in manuscript beneath the dust of old libraries, was now printed, and laid before the people in their own tongue. This was light from God, and that which armed the reformers with invincible power. Down to the days of Reuchlin and Erasmus the Vulgate was the received text. Greek and Hebrew were almost unknown in the West.

The centuries leading up to the Reformation in Western Europe have long been termed the 'Dark Ages' by historians. But a revival of learning took place in Western Europe in the 14th and 15th centuries known as the Renaissance. Accompanying this revival was a renewed interest in the Bible, especially among Roman Catholic clergy. This led in time to the Reformation, with several attempts to take the Church back to Biblical Christianity. The purpose of this article is not to go into the details of the Protestant Reformation, but to remind us of some of the men who produced this kind of reformation and why they did so.

Tidings of these heavy calamities in the East spread a deep gloom over all the West. But that which threatened to arrest the progress of civilization and the spread of Christianity was overruled by an all-wise and good Providence for the furtherance of both in a marvellous way. The falling of Constantinople into the hands of the infidels drove many learned Greeks into Italy, and from Italy into many other countries in Europe. It so happened, just at this time, that the reigning pope, Nicholas V., was distinguished by his love of literature, which he greatly promoted by his position and his wealth. The refugees had brought such books with them as they had been able to rescue from the ruins of their fallen empire. The study of Greek was revived by such means and became exceedingly popular. Among these students it pleased God to raise up men of highly cultivated minds and devout hearts, who did much in preparing the way for the great Reformation.

It was a prominent question of the day, how to settle the text of the Vulgate; and it deeply engaged the attention of scholars in every kingdom. It was one of the concurrent causes that stirred men's minds, made them reflect on the grounds of their faith, and brought in the Reformation. By a combination of circumstances that cannot be regarded as fortuitous, the exile of the Jewish rabbis from Spain had lately scattered a knowledge of the Hebrew Bible and of the Hebrew language over Europe, while almost at the same time, the learned Greeks who fled from the victorious Turks, carried into the West their own tongue, and the Greek Testament. Scholars could now address themselves, with far greater means of success, to the amendment of the Vulgate, than they could do in the middle ages; and biblical criticism began to assume its proper place and dignity.

Henry had also a taste for letters. He delighted in the society of scholars and lavished upon them his patronage. Having been destined by his father for the church, and educated accordingly, his naturally vigorous mind had been greatly improved by education, so that in mental accomplishments he far exceeded the princes of his age. The new study of revived classical literature had for some time been much cultivated in England. This was not the Reformation, but it exposed the ignorance of the clergy, and prepared the public mind for the approaching change. The priests were now as opposed to the scholars as to the heretics. They railed against the invention of printing, the manufacture of paper, and the introduction of such heathenish words as nominatives and adverbs: they were all of Satan, and sources of heresy-but, as the king favoured the most illustrious of the scholars, it was not so easy to have them murdered or burnt as poor Hun and Brown.

But the great work for which he seems to have been specially fitted by God was his Greek New Testament. "Erasmus," says D'Aubigné, "thus did for the New Testament what Reuchlin had done for the Old. Henceforward divines were able to read the word of God in the original languages, and at a later period to recognize the purity of the reformed doctrines. The New Testament of Erasmus gave out a bright flash of light. His paraphrases on the Epistles, and on the Gospels of St. Matthew and St. John; his editions of Cyprian and Jerome; his translations of Origen, Athanasius, and Chrysostom; his "Principles of True Theology," his "Preacher," and his commentaries on various psalms, contributed powerfully to diffuse a taste for the word of God, and for pure theology. The result of his labours even went beyond his intentions. Reuchlin and Erasmus gave the Bible to the learned; Luther gave it to the people."*

We must learn to distinguish two elements in the ecclesiastical revolution of those times. There was, first of all, a most mighty and manifest work of God. The Scriptures, released from their imprisonment in a foreign tongue, began to speak to responsive human hearts, with the decision and persuasiveness that the word of God alone can have. Christ began once more to teach as One having authority, and not as the scribes. The blessed doctrine of justification by faith, everywhere brought souls, held fast in bondage, into liberty and the knowledge of a Saviour-God. The ecclesiastical yoke could not longer hold those whom the truth had freed; and where Christ had become thus the soul's rightful Lord, Rome's authority was but the tyranny of Antichrist.

It is remarkable how much we may and ought to glean from these few words, decisive as they are of important differences among Christians, and not least of all since the Reformation. For the revival then lay more in shaking off the main hindrance in Christendom to free reading of the Bible, and in a measure to the recovery of the gospel, than in any real intelligence of the assembly or of ministry, or indeed of like matters. Men's notions got cleared of gross superstition, but church truth was the less learned, because it was assumed that there was little or nothing to learn; and so traditional error as to what is of such moment rests on the mass of Christians to this day.

It is always a relief to the mind, in studying the history of the church, to be able to trace with any measure of certainty the silver line of grace, and the operations of God's Spirit in those who have taken a prominent part in its affairs. This was a rare privilege during the long dark night of the middle ages; but with the dawn of the Reformation the working of the Holy Spirit became increasingly manifest. The word of God was appealed to as the only authority in matters of faith and salvation; and the great christian doctrine of "Justification by faith alone" became the foundation and corner-stone of the Reformation in the sixteenth century. By means of this truth the power of popery was subverted, and the nations of Europe delivered from its tyranny.

N*. There is a sense, though I do not like the terms, in which that is true; but you forget, Mr. O., that we have not yet found the true church, so that your warnings can have no effect at all. Every true Christian belongs to the church of God, and has to seek to live in its unity; but Romanism you have not shewn to be that church. As yet we have found, outside scripture, no solid foundation for anything. Popes and councils have striven for superiority. The popes seeking ambitiously for the universal authority, the pretension to which they once condemned, and when the progress of Mahometanism in the East, and the decay of the Greek church, left them free, plunging into such wickedness and oppression as roused the clergy, supported by the princes of Europe, to seek to assert the superiority of a council over them, which they confirmed because they could not help it, evaded as soon as the councils were over, and by their wickedness, and at last specially by their sale of indulgences, which was really selling permission to sin, brought about the Reformation, that is, the breaking loose of half western Europe from their sway, Eastern Europe having never been under it. This brought on the Council of Trent, which, in fixing the Romanist in his errors, gave a deeper character of apostasy from the truth to Rome, and left the separation of Northern Europe where it was.