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→Humanism and the Church
The humanists were intellectuals who were mostly interested in scholarly pursuits. They sought to understand the ancient world, in order to find answers and knowledge and they studied ancient texts in order to achieve this. They wanted to go back to the original texts in order to understand the past and in particular wanted to remove medieval corruptions and additions to texts. Their cry was ‘Ad Fontas’ in Latin, which is in English ‘to the sources’.<ref> Payton, p. 57</ref> They studied the ancient texts and developed textual strategies to understand the great works of the classical past. The Humanists were better able to understand the works of the past after developing ways to analyse texts. The development of textual criticism was not only of academic interest but was to change the way that people came to see the Church and was ultimately to undermine the authority of the Pope. The power of the Church rested on the authority of the Pope and the prelates which was ultimately based on tradition.<ref> Patrick, p. 121</ref>
The humanists employed their textual analysis and techniques to the bible and other works and they made some astonishing discoveries and they provided evidence that undermined the claims of the Catholic Church. Ironically, a humanist employed by the Pope, was one of the first to discredit the traditional authority of the Papacy in the Renaissance. The Pope was not just a spiritual leader but he claimed to have real political power. The Pontiffs were masters of the Papal States in central Italy and many even believed that the monarchs of Europe were subject to their judgement. This was based on the Donation of Constantine, a document from the first Christian Emperor, which purported to show that he had bequeathed his authority to the Popes.<ref> Davies, Tony. <i>Humanism The New Critical Idiom.</i> (University of Stirling, UK. Routledge, 1997), p 34</ref> This document was used to justify the Pope’s temporal power. An Italian humanist named Lorenzo Valla began to study this document historically and he found that it was written in a style of Latin that was from the 8th century and long after the death of Constantine. Valla showed that the document was a forgery. This and other revelations, at a time when the Papacy was very corrupt, helped to weaken the authority of the Pope and did much to embolden reformers to challenge the Church. Erasmus did much to discredit the traditional theology of the Church when he discovered that the words in the Catholic bible in relation to the Trinity (that God has three persons) was not in the earliest versions.<ref> Davies, p 67</ref> He argued that the Catholic Church had added the words to support some statements that had been agreed at a Church Council in the Roman era. Once again, by returning to the original sources a medieval corruption was discovered and old assumptions proven to be false and this weakened the position of the Catholic Church.<ref> Davies, p. 134</ref>
==Papal Infallibility==
