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MELANCHTHON, FHILIPP (1497–155o)

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Originally appearing in Volume V18, Page 89 of the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica.
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MELANCHTHON, FHILIPP (1497–155o) , See also:German theologian and reformer, was See also:born at See also:Bretten in See also:Baden on the 16th of See also:February 1497. His See also:father, See also:George Schwartzerd, was an armourer under the See also:Palatinate princes. His See also:mother, See also:Barbara See also:Reuter, a niece of Johann See also:Reuchlin, was shrewd, thrifty and affectionate.' Her father, Johann Reuter, See also:long burgomaster of Bretten, supervised the See also:education of Philipp, who was taught first by Johannes Hungarus and then by Georg See also:Simler at the See also:academy of Pfortzheim. Reuchlin took an See also:interest in him, and, following a contemporary See also:custom, named him Melanchthon (the See also:Greek See also:form of Schwartzerd, See also:black See also:earth). In See also:October 1509 he went to See also:Heidelberg, where he took the B.A. degree, afterwards proceeding M.A. at See also:Tubingen. The only other See also:academic distinction he accepted was the B.D. of See also:Wittenberg (1519). He would never consent to become a " See also:doctor," be-cause he thought the See also:title carried with it responsibilities to which he See also:felt himself unequal. At Tubingen he lived as student and teacher for six years, until on Reuchlin's See also:advice, the elector of See also:Saxony called him to Wittenberg as See also:professor of Greek in 1518. ' Her See also:character is evidenced by the See also:familiar See also:proverb Wer mehr will verzehren Denn sein Pflug kann erehren, Der muss zuletzt verderben Und vielleicht am Galgen sterben- of which Melanchthon said to his students " Didici hoc a mea matre, vos etiam observate." (For Melanchthon's Latin version _ of the saying see Corpus reformatorum, x. 469.)-MELANCHTHON This See also:appointment marked an See also:epoch in German university education; Wittenberg became the school of the nation; the scholastic methods of instruction were set aside, and in a Discourse on Reforming the Studies of Youth Melanchthon gave See also:proof, not only that he had caught the See also:Renaissance spirit, but that he was fitted to become one of its foremost Ieaders. He began to lecture on See also:Homer and the See also:Epistle to See also:Titus, and in connexion with the former he announced that, like See also:Solomon, he sought Tyrian See also:brass and gems for the adornment of See also:God's See also:Temple. See also:Luther received a fresh impulse towards the study of Greek, and his See also:translation of the Scriptures, begun as See also:early as 1517, now made rapid progress, Melanchthon helping to collate the Greek versions and revising Luther's translation.

Melanchthon felt the spell of Luther's See also:

personality and spiritual See also:depth, and seems to have been prepared on his first arrival at Wittenberg to accept the new See also:theology, which as yet existed mainly in subjective form in the See also:person of Luther. To reduce it to an See also:objective See also:system, to exhibit it dialectically, the calmer mind of Melanchthon was requisite. Melanchthon was first See also:drawn into the See also:arena of the See also:Reformation controversy through the See also:Leipzig Disputation (See also:June 27-See also:July 8, 1519), at which he was See also:present. He had been reproved by Johann See also:Eck for giving aid to See also:Carlstadt (" Tace tu, Philippe, ac tua studia cura nec me perturba "), and. he was shortly after-wards himself attacked by the See also:great papal See also:champion. Melanchthon replied in a brief and moderately worded See also:treatise, setting forth Luther's first principle of the supreme authority of Scripture in opposition to the patristic writings on which Eck relied. His See also:marriage in 1520 to Catharine Krapp of Wittenberg gave a domestic centre to the Reformation. In 1521, during Luther's confinement in the See also:Wartburg, Melanchthon was See also:leader of the Reformation cause at the university. He defended the See also:action of Carlstadt, when he dispensed the See also:Eucharist in an " evangelical See also:fashion." 2 With the arrival of the Anabaptist enthusiasts of See also:Zwickau, he had a more difficult task, and appears to have been irresolute. Their attacks on See also:infant See also:baptism seemed to him not altogether irrational, and in regard to their claim to See also:personal See also:inspiration he said " Luther alone can decide; on the one See also:hand let us beware of quenching the Spirit of God, and on the other of being led astray by the spirit of Satan." In the same See also:year, 1521, he published his Loci communes rerum theologicarum, the first systematized presentation of the reformed theology. From 1522 to 1524 he was busy with the translation of the See also:Bible and in See also:publishing commentaries. In 1524 he went for reasons of See also:health into See also:southern See also:Germany and was urged by the papal See also:legate Campegio to renounce the new doctrines. He refused, and maintained his refusal by publishing his Summa doctrinae Lutheri.

After the first See also:

Diet of See also:Spires (1526), where a See also:precarious See also:peace was patched up for the reformed faith, Melanchthon was deputed as one of twenty-eight commissioners to visit the reformed states and regulate the constitution of churches, he having just published a famous treatise called the Libellus visitatorius, a See also:directory for the use of the commissioners. At the See also:Marburg See also:conference (1529) between the German and Swiss reformers, Luther was pitted against See also:Oecolampadius and Melanchthon against See also:Zwingli in the discussion regarding the real presence in the See also:sacrament. How far the normally conciliatory spirit of Melanchthon was here biased by Luther's intolerance is. evident from the exaggerated accounts of the conference written by the former to the elector of Saxony. He was at this See also:time even more emb'2ttered than Luther against the Zwinglians. At the Diet of See also:Augsburg (1530) Melanchthon was the leading representative of the reformation, and it was he who prepared for that diet the seven-teen articles of the Evangelical faith, which are known as the " Augsburg See also:Confession. He held conferences with See also:Roman divines appointed to adjust See also:differences, and afterwards wrote an See also:Apology for the Augsburg Confession. After the Augsburg 2 He read the usual service, but omitted everything that taught a propitiatory See also:sacrifice; he did not elevate the See also:Host, and he gave both the See also:bread and the See also:cup into the hands of every communicant. See also:MELANESIA conference further attempts were made to See also:settle the Reformation controversy by a See also:compromise, and Melanchthon, from his conciliatory spirit and facility of See also:access, appeared to the defenders of the old faith the fittest of the reformers to See also:deal with. His See also:historical See also:instinct led him ever to revert to the See also:original unity of the See also:church, and to regard subsequent errors as excrescences rather than proofs of an essentially See also:anti-See also:Christian system. He was weary of the rabies theoldgorum, and dreamed that the evangelical See also:leaven, if tolerated, would purify the church's See also:life and See also:doctrine. In 1537, when the See also:Protestant divines signed the Lutheran Articles of See also:Schmalkalden, Melanchthon appended to his See also:signature the See also:reservation that he would admit of a See also:pope provided he allowed the See also:gospel and did not claim to See also:rule by divine right, The year after Luther's See also:death, when the See also:battle of Mtihlberg (1547) had given a seemingly crushing See also:blow to the Protestant cause, an See also:attempt was made to weld together the evangelical and the papal doctrines, which resulted in the compilation by Pflug, Sidonius and See also:Agricola of the Augsburg " See also:Interim." This was proposed to the two parties in Germany as a provisional ground of agreement till the decision of the See also:Council of See also:Trent. Melanchthon, on being referred to, declared that, though the Interim was inadmissible, yet so far as matters of indifference (adiaphora) were concerned it might be received.

Hence arose that " adiaphoristic " controversy in connexion with which he has been misrepresented as holding among matters of indifference such See also:

cardinal doctrines as See also:justification by faith, the number of the sacraments, as well as the dominion of the pope, feast-days, and so on. The fact is that Melanchthon sought, not to minimize differences, but to See also:veil them under an intentional obscurity of expression. Thus he allowed the See also:necessity of See also:good See also:works to salvation, but not in the old sense; proposed to•allow,the seven sacraments, but only as See also:rites which had no inherent efficacy to salvation, and so on. He afterwards retracted his compliance with the adiaphora, and never really swerved from the views set forth in the Loci communes; but he regarded the surrender of more perfect for less perfect forms of truth or of expression as a painful sacrifice rendered to the weakness of erring brethren. Luther, though he had probably uttered in private certain expressions of dissatisfaction with Melanchthon, maintained unbroken friendship with him; but after Luther's death certain smaller men formed a party emphasizing the extremest points of his doctrine.' Hence the later years of Melanchthon were occupied with controversies within the Evangelical church, and fruitless conferences with his Romanist adversaries. He died in his sixty-third year, on the ,9th of See also:April 156o, and his See also:body was laid beside that of See also:Martin Luther in the Schlosskirche at Wittenberg. His ready See also:pen, clear thought and elegant See also:style, made him the See also:scribe of the Reformation, most public documents on that See also:side being drawn up by him. He never attained entire See also:independence of Luther, though he gradually modified some of his positions from those of the pure Lutherism with which he set out. His development is chiefly noteworthy in regard to these two leading points—the relation of the evangelium or doctrine of See also:free See also:grace (1) to free will and moral ability, and (2) to the See also:law and poenitentia or the good works connected with repentance. At first Luther's cardinal doctrine of grace appeared to Melanchthon inconsistent with any view of free will; and, following Luther, he renounced See also:Aristotle and See also:philosophy in See also:general, since philosophers attribute everything to human See also:power, while the sacred writings represent all moral power as lost by the fall." In the first edition of the Loci (1521) he See also:field, to the length of See also:fatalism, the Augustinian doctrine of irresistible grace, working according to God's immutable decrees, and denied freedom of will in matters See also:civil and religious alike. In the Augsburg Confession (1530), which was largely due to him, freedom Is claimed for the will in non-religious matters, and in the Loci of 1533 he calls the denial of freedom Stoicism, and holds that in justification there is a certain causality, though not worthiness, in the recipient, subordinate to the Divine causality. In 1535, combating See also:Laurentius See also:Valla, he did not deny the spiritual incapacity of the will per se, but held that this is strengthened by the word of God, to which it can cleave.

The will co-operates with the word and the See also:

Holy Spirit. Finally, in 1543. he says that the cause of the difference of final destiny among men lies in the It must be admitted, however, that See also:Matthias See also:Flacius saved the Reformation. different, method of treating grace which is possible to believers' as to others. See also:Man may pray for help and reject grace. This he calls free will, as the power of laying hold of grace. Melanchthon's doctrine of the three concurrent causes in See also:conversion, viz. the Holy Spirit, the word, and the human will, suggested the semi-Pelagian position called Synergism, which was held by some of his immediate followers. In regard to the relation of grace to repentance and good works, Luther was disposed to make faith itself the principle of sanctification. Melanchthon, however, for whom See also:ethics possessed a See also:special interest, laid more stress on the law. He began to do this in 1527 in the Libellus visitatorius, which urges pastors to instruct their See also:people' in the necessity of repentance, and to bring the threatenings of the law to See also:bear upon men in See also:order to faith. This brought down upon him the opposition of the Antinomian Johannes Agricola. In the Loci of 1535 Melanchthon sought to put the fact of the co-existence of justification and good works in the believer on a secure basis by declaring the latter necessary to eternal life, though the believer's destiny thereto is already fully guaranteed in his justification. In the Loci of 1543 he did not retain the doctrine of the necessity of good works in order to salvation, and to this he added, in the Leipzig Interim, " that this in no way countenances the See also:error that eternal life is merited by the worthiness of our own works." Melanchthon was led to See also:lay more and more stress upon the law and moral ideas; but the basis of the relation of faith and good works was never clearly brought out by him, and he at length See also:fell back on his original position, that we have justification and See also:inheritance of See also:bliss in and by See also:Christ alone, and that good works are necessary by See also:reason of immutable Divine command..

End of Article: MELANCHTHON, FHILIPP (1497–155o)

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