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The Italian Humanists and the Christian Doctrine of Salvation

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The Two Reformations in the 16th Century

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Abstract

The origin of the modified religious views of the Humanists must be sought in Italy, which, in the second half of the 15th century, set the fashion for all cultural life. The new attitude to life of the self-assured and proud citizens of the Italian cities, who more than anyone in the Middle Ages showed a spiritual affinity with the citizen of the Greek polis and the civis romanus, was decisive for the formation of these ideas. Like their spiritual ancestors, they too did not flee from the difficulties and uncertainties of fate into an other world with a miraculously given supernatural salvation as their sole deliverance. These Italians dared to look fortuna in the face, and had accepted the world while trying critically to understand it. They were conscious of having to bear the responsibility of their actions themselves. In the words of Salutati: “it is the act of free will which makes man free ; we deserve no praise for the good which makes us good, but for the good brought about by us, if God gives us the worthiness to work and to perform meritorious deeds.” 1 “The veil of belief, child-like constraint and fancy in which the world was enveloped for those living in the Middle Ages,” says Burckhardt “was first raised in the Renaissance. Man became a spiritual individual, a subject recognizing himself.”2

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  1. H. A. Enno van Gelder
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© 1961 Martinus Nijhoff, The Hague, Netherlands

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van Gelder, H.A.E. (1961). The Italian Humanists and the Christian Doctrine of Salvation. In: The Two Reformations in the 16th Century. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-011-9562-1_2

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-011-9562-1_2

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