HUMANISM. The Christian humanism of the Renaissance and Reformation period was a complex intellectual movement, primarily literary and philological in nature, but with important historical, philosophical, and religious implications. Humanism was rooted in the love of classical antiquity and the desire for its rebirth, both in terms of form (primarily a search for new aesthetic standards) and of norm (a desire for more enlightened ethical and religious values). The return to original sources is reflected in a parallel way in the reformers' emphasis upon the scripture as norm and New Testament Christianity as the ideal form of church life. Humanism developed in Italy during the fourteenth century and persisted through the Reformation well into the age of the Enlightenment.

The word humanism came from the phrase studia humanitatis or humaniora, the liberal arts or humane studies, a concept derived largely from Cicero. The liberal arts curriculum emphasized grammar...