Philip Melanchthon

Philip Melanchthon. (born Philipp Schwartzerdt; 16 February 1497 – 19 April 1560) was a German Lutheran reformer, collaborator with Martin Luther, the first systematic theologian of the Protestant Reformation, intellectual leader of the Lutheran Reformation, and an influential designer of educational systems. He stands next to Luther and John Calvin as a reformer, theologian, and shaper of Protestantism.

Melanchthon and Luther denounced what they believed was the exaggerated cult of the saints, asserted justification by faith, and denounced what they considered to be the coercion of the conscience in the sacrament of penance (confession and absolution), which they believed could not offer certainty of salvation. Both rejected the doctrine of transubstantiation, i.e. that the bread and wine of the eucharist are converted by the Holy Spirit into the flesh and blood of Christ; however, they affirmed that Christ's body and blood are present with the elements of bread and wine in the sacrament of the Lord's Supper. This Lutheran view of sacramental union contrasts with the understanding of the Catholic Church that the bread and wine cease to be bread and wine at their consecration (while retaining the appearances of both). Melanchthon made his distinction between law and gospel the central formula for Lutheran evangelical insight. By the "law", he meant God's requirements both in Old and New Testament; the "gospel" meant the free gift of grace through faith in Jesus Christ.

Early life and education

He was born Philipp Schwartzerdt on 16 February 1497, at Bretten, where his father Georg Schwarzerdt (1459–1508) was armorer to Philip, Count Palatine of the Rhine. His mother was Barbara Reuter (1476/77–1529). His birthplace, along with almost the whole city of Bretten, was burned in 1689 by French troops during the War of the Palatinate Succession. The town's Melanchthonhaus was built on its site in 1897.

In 1507 he was sent to the Latin school at Pforzheim, where the rector, Georg Simler of Wimpfen, introduced him to the Latin and Greek poets and to Aristotle. He was influenced by his great-uncle Johann Reuchlin, a Renaissance humanist; it was Reuchlin who suggested Philipp follow a custom common among humanists of the time and change his surname from "Schwartzerdt" (literally 'black earth'), into the Greek equivalent "Melanchthon" (Μελάγχθων).

Philipp was only eleven when in 1508 both his grandfather (17 October) and father (27 October) died within eleven days. He and a brother were brought to Pforzheim to live with his maternal grandmother, Elizabeth Reuter, sister of Reuchlin.

The next year he entered the University of Heidelberg, where he studied philosophy, rhetoric, and astronomy/astrology, and became known as a scholar of Greek. Denied the master's degree in 1512 on the grounds of his youth, he went to Tübingen, where he continued humanistic studies but also worked on jurisprudence, mathematics, and medicine. While there he was also taught the technical aspects of astrology by Johannes Stöffler.

After gaining a master's degree in 1516, he began to study theology. Under the influence of Reuchlin, Erasmus, and others, he became convinced that true Christianity was something different from the scholastic theology as taught at the university. He became a ''conventor'' (repentant) in the ''contubernium'' and instructed younger scholars. He also lectured on oratory, on Virgil and on Livy.

His first publications were a number of poems in a collection edited by Jakob Wimpfeling (), the preface to Reuchlin's ''Epistolae clarorum virorum'' (1514), an edition of Terence (1516), and a Greek grammar (1518).

Professor at Wittenberg

Opposed as a reformer at Tübingen, he accepted a call to the University of Wittenberg from Martin Luther on the recommendation of his great-uncle, and became professor of Greek there at the age of 21. He studied the Scriptures, especially of Paul, and Evangelical doctrine. Attending the disputation of Leipzig (1519) as a spectator, he nonetheless participated with his comments. After his views were attacked by Johann Eck, Melanchthon replied based on the authority of Scripture in his ''Defensio contra Johannem Eckium'' (Wittenberg, 1519).

Following lectures on the Gospel of Matthew and the Epistle to the Romans, together with his investigations into Pauline doctrine, he was granted the degree of bachelor of theology, and transferred to the theological faculty. He married Katharina Krapp ( Katharina article from the German Wikipedia), (1497–1557) daughter of Wittenberg's mayor, on 25 November 1520. They had four children: Anna ( Anna article from the German Wikipedia), Philipp, Georg, and Magdalen.

Theological disputes

In the beginning of 1521, Melanchthon defended Luther in his ''Didymi Faventini versus Thomam Placentinum pro M. Luthero oratio'' (Wittenberg, n.d.). He argued that Luther rejected only papal and ecclesiastic

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