Portal de Periódicos da CAPES

Humanism and the Reformation in Germany

1976; Cambridge University Press; Volume: 9; Issue: 4 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1017/s0008938900018276

1569-1616

James M. Kittelson,

Reformation and Early Modern Christianity

The tendency of historians to characterize complex phenomena with some single commanding idea is nowhere more evident than in the status of current scholarship on the relationship between humanism and the Reformation in Germany. Beginning with the assumption that Martin Luther (or even his theology disembodied from the man) illustrates in an important sense what is meant by “Reformation,” scholars have analyzed this problem almost exclusively in theological terms. The result has been that, in the judgment of all but a few, the initial alliance between Luther and the humanists was founded upon a theological misunderstanding, and its ultimate breakup came because the likes of Erasmus, Zasius, Reuchlin, and Wimpheling decided to remain true to what had been their own religious convictions all along. Thus, with the queen of the sciences their guide, scholars have found and mapped a vast gulf between humanism and the Reformation, at least in Germany.