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(Both
names mean "black earth." "Schwarz" means "black," and so does "melan,"
as in "melanin" or "melancholy"; "Erd" means "earth," and so does "chthon,"
as in "chthonic" or "autochthon".) In 1511 (at the age of 14)
Philipp received his B.A. from the University of Heidelberg, and his
Ma from Tuebingen three years later. In 1518 he published
Institutiones rammaticae Graecae (Basics of Greek Grammar), the
first of many school texts that he would eventually write. His
knowledge of Latin, Greek, Hebrew, and the liberal arts won him the
enthusiastic praise of the Dutch scholar Desiderius Erasmus.
In 1518 Philipp was hired by the
University of Wittenberg as its first Professor of Greek. He
rapidly became one of the most prominent of its lecturers. He rose
every day at 2 AM for prayer, study, and writing (he had produced
six books before arriving at Wittenberg, and in the next four years
turned out seven more), and began his first public lecture of the
day at 6 AM, often to classes of 600 students. Within four days
after his arrival, he gave a speech "On the Improvement of Studies,"
setting out a program of study based on the classics and the Fathers
of the Church as a basis for Christian education, for the renewal of
theological studies and the improvement of society. He soon met
Martin Luther, and the two became fast friends. Melanchthon's cool,
organized, disciplined habits of thinking and writing formed the
perfect complement to Luther's brilliant but impulsive thinking and
his fiery, emotional rhetoric. In 1519, when Luther debated at
Leipzig with Johann Eck, the pope's representative, Melanchthon was
Luther's second, and subsequently exchanged a series of pamphlets
with Eck that established his reputation as a principal spokesman
for the Evangelical position. In 1521, his lectures on St Paul's
Epistle to the Romans were published under the title Loci Communes
Rerum Theologicarum (Notes on Theology-- literally, Common Places of
Things Theological). It was the first systematic statement of
Evangelical theology, and it became an instant best-seller, going
into 18 Latin editions alone (plus numerous translations) within
four years. Eventually, the University of Cambridge made it
required reading, and Queen Elizabeth of England virtually memorized
it. To Melanchthon's grief, it brought about a permanent break with
his beloved great-uncle, who remained a loyal adherent of the Papal
position.
Melanchthon also gave a series of
lectures in 1521 on St Paul's Epistles to the Corinthians, but
declined to publish them. Luther stole the manuscript and sent it to
the printers (naming Melanchthon as author, of course). He did the
same thing in 1523 with Melanchthon's lectures on the Gospel of St
John.
Although he did not lack theological
training, Melanchthon was never ordained. He was known in his day
as an educator. In 1528 he wrote a manual for school inspectors,
Unterricht Der Visitatoren (Instructions for Visitors), outlining a
plan of organization and curriculum for a preparatory school. At
least 56 cities asked him to visit them and help them organize their
public schools. He helped to found universities at Marburg,
Koenigsberg, and Jena, and to re-organize the existing universities
at Greifswald, Wittenberg, Cologne, Tuebingen, Leipzig, Heidelberg,
Rostock, and Frankfurt an der Oder. He became known as the
Schoolmaster of Germany, and well into the twentieth century the
German educational system, both university and pre-university, was
run with little variation from the structure he had given it.
In 1520, he married the daughter of
the mayor of Wittenberg, and they had two sons and two daughters.
Melanchthon was of a conciliatory spirit, always trying to find and
emphasize areas of agreement with fellow Christians. Thus, in 1530,
when he drew up the Augsburg Confession (in Latin the Confessio
Augustana), a statement in 28 Articles of the Lutheran position, to
be presented to the Emperor, he began by stating that the Lutherans
differed from Rome in no article of the faith, and affirming in the
first 21 Articles some of the many doctrines that the two sides both
believed. In the article on the Mass, he wrote that Lutherans had
been falsely accused of abolishing the Mass, and that, on the
contrary, they celebrated it regularly and with great devotion, but
that they had added hymns and prayers in the German language, by way
of instructing the people, so that they might better understand the
significance of the service. Only in the latter part of the
Confession, the last 7 Articles, does he discuss what he calls
"reforms of abuses." The seven Articles are devoted to
(1)
Communion in one kind. The
Romanists had recently introduced the custom of giving only the
consecrated Bread to the congregation, and reserving the Chalice for
the celebrant alone.
(2)
Clerical celibacy. The
Romanists had required that all priests be unmarried. No one claimed
that this was a commandment of God; it had never been required in
the East; and Rome permitted a married priesthood in Eastern-rite
churches that recognized the authority of the Pope.
(3)
The payment of fees for the
celebration of the Liturgy as an expiatory sacrifice for the sins of
a designated person. Connected with this we have the
whole question of the sense in which Christ is sacrificed when the
Lord's Supper is celebrated. Theologians officially delegated by the
Roman and Lutheran Churches to meet and discuss the matter have
declared that the positions of the two groups are compatible, but in
the heat of 16th-century controversy this was not obvious.
(4)
Compulsory confession. The
Lutherans certainly expected their people to go to confession
regularly, and said so in the Augsburg Confession. Luther said that
we come before God, not to list our sins, but to acknowledge our
sinfulness. "The physician does not need to catalog every pustule on
the body before diagnosing smallpox." He accordingly told the
penitent to acknowledge that he was a sinner, in need of God's
grace, and then to name the sins that he was principally aware of.
It is still understood, of course, that omitting a sin because you
do not repent of it and have no intention of stopping it means that
you do not really wish God to be the Lord of your life, and that you
have simply added a fraudulent confession to your other sins.
(5)
Human institutes designed to merit
grace. The reference here is to the idea that (for
example) participating in the fasts prescribed by the Church would
automatically be rewarded by a gift of God's grace. No one was
denying, as far as I know, that fasting can be spiritually
beneficial.
(6)
Abuses connected with monastic
discipline.
(7)
Arrangements by which bishops doubled
as officials of the secular government, and exercised authority
as magistrates and princes.
The Romanists naturally published a
rebuttal to the Augsburg Confession, and Melanchthon wrote an
Apology of the Augsburg Confession (Apology=Defense) in 1531. The
Apology, along with the Confession itself, is one of the great
statements of faith of the Lutheran Tradition. The Confession, the
Apology, the Catechism, the Schmalkald Articles, and the Formula of
Concord are usually published together in a single book, called the
Book of Concord. An appendix to the Schmalkald Articles, written by
Melanchthon, deals with the Papacy. On the one hand, it denies that
the Papacy is of divine institution, and provides theological and
historical arguments for this position. On the other hand, it
states that, for the peace and unity of the Church, it may be judged
expedient that the Bishop of Rome should be conceded a position of
leadership and authority, provided that the essential doctrines of
the faith, including the doctrine of justification by faith, are
safeguarded.
The Augsburg Confession declares
that, in the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper, the true Body and Blood
of our Lord Jesus Christ are received "by the mouth." Calvinists
spoke instead of feeding on Christ in the heart, carefully affirming
that this occurred in a special way in the Sacrament, and was not
simply something that happens whenever a devout Christian thinks of
Calvary. Calvinists were reluctant to accept the wording of the
Augsburg Confession, and so in 1540 Melanchthon drew up a revised
version, in which the statement in Article 10 about the presence of
Christ in the Sacrament was intended to satisfy all parties.
However, his fellow Lutherans regarded this as a sell-out, and today
Lutherans in general pledge their adherence to "the unaltered
Augsburg Confession," meaning the 1530 version, before Melanchthon
"watered it down."
Luther died in 1546. In 1547 the
Lutherans were defeated in a major battle at Muehlberg, and were in
danger of being suppressed altogether throughout Germany.
Melanchthon, for the sake of peace, proposed a settlement, which
would preserve the essentials of the Faith as understood by the
Lutherans, but would make concessions on ritual and practice on
matters of doctrine. For this, he was again denounced as a traitor
by many Lutherans.
On any short list of the men who, in
the troubled years of the sixteenth century, undertook to serve
Christ by working for a spiritual renewal in His Church,
Melanchton's name deserves to be included. He died in Wittenberg,
19 April 1560, and was buried beside Luther.
Although most school history texts
date the beginning of the Lutheran movement from 1 November 1517,
when Martin Luther published his Ninety-Five Theses, most Lutheran
scholars date it from 25 June 1530, when the Lutheran leaders
presented a formal statement of their beliefs to the Holy Roman
Emperor Charles V and his Diet (Parliament) at Augsburg. In April
1530 the Emperor summoned a conference to achieve religious unity
among his people. Since Luther was under ban and could not attend,
the Lutheran statement was drawn up by his colleague Philip
Melanchthon and privately approved by Luther. The statement was
presented in the hope of reaching some kind of peaceful agreement
between the Lutherans and the adherents of the Pope, and it stresses
the beliefs, which the two sides had in common. It repudiates the
notion of change for the sake of change, and (for example) denies
the charge that the Lutherans wish to abolish the Mass, saying that
the Mass continues to be celebrated among Lutherans, but with hymns
and prayers included in German, in order that the people may clearly
understand the significance of what is being done.
It is divided into 28 Articles, with
the first 21 giving a summary of what Lutherans consider essential
doctrine (with Article 20, "On Good Works" being a particularly long
one), and the remaining seven devoted to "Abuses which have been
Corrected."
The Augsburg Confession (using the
word "confession" to mean "statement of faith" rather than
"acknowledgement of guilt") was written in Latin and German
editions, and presented to the Diet of Augsburg on 25 June 1530. It
at once spread widely among Lutherans, with a Danish translation
appearing in 1533 and an English one in 1536.
In the
first few years, even apart from questions of translation, there
were variations and expansions in some copies. In particular, in
1540, Melanchthon himself produced a version that was deliberately
vague on some matters where Lutherans and Calvinists differed, in
the hope of achieving unity with the Calvinists. Today, practically
all Lutheran church bodies include in their charters a statement of
adherence to the "The Apostles' Creed, the Nicene Creed, the
Athanasian Creed, and the Unaltered Augsburg Confession." |
