1. explain how interest in ancient texts led to demands for church reform.

In the Renaissance, some high officials of the Church were more concerned with worldly power and luxury than spiritual matters of the people. Many bishops and cardinals wanted to live like princes, so they built their own palazzi, or palaces. Pope Sixtus IV and Pope Julius II reasoned that if wealthy merchants lived in splendor, then why should the head of the Church settle for anything less? Some Christians began to question such reasoning. “Has the Church always been this way?” they asked. To find answers, scholars turned to the Bible and the writings of early Church leaders. These texts were written mostly in Greek. Since the Renaissance had popularized the study of classical Greek, many Biblical scholars were prepared to plunge into the early Greek texts of the New Testament. In these texts they rediscovered a Christianity unconcerned with worldly power and material goods. In the gospel of Matthew, they read Christ’s caution: “No one can serve two masters…. You cannot serve God and mammon”—that is, you cannot be devoted to both God and money. The Renaissance scholars also read about how early Church leaders made personal sacrifices and cared for the sick and the needy. The humility and charity described in ancient texts seemed worlds away from the Renaissance clergy’s grasping for wealth and power. More and more people began to talk about the need for churchmen to change their ways. Their voices grew louder in 1513 when Julius II died and a new pope, Leo X, took office.

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