Background
Philipp was born on February, 16 1497, at Bretten, near Karlsruhe, where his father Georg Schwarzerdt was armorer under the Palatinate princess.
(This work has special significance in the history of Prot...)
This work has special significance in the history of Protestant theology in that it was the first work written by a Protestant theologian on doctrinal theology. Hill's work seeks to bring Melanchthon out into the open where he may be seen as a constructive thinker, scholar, and systematizer of a theological worldview of his own.
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(In honor of the 450th anniversary of Philip Melanchthons...)
In honor of the 450th anniversary of Philip Melanchthons death in 1560, a second edition of his Loci Communes (Commonplaces or Common Topics) has been issued. Originally published by CPH in English under the name Loci Theologici 1543, this book is actually Melanchthons last Latin edition, published in 1559. Generations of Lutheran pastors learned theology from this book in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. This revised English edition includes several new features: a new translation of Melanchthons Definitions of Terms That Have Been Used in the Church, a new historical introduction, cross-references to the original Latin, a Scripture index, and an index of persons.
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reformer theologian collaborator
Philipp was born on February, 16 1497, at Bretten, near Karlsruhe, where his father Georg Schwarzerdt was armorer under the Palatinate princess.
Under the guidance of his great-uncle, John Reuchlin, humanist and Hebraist, Melanchthon was educated at the Latin school of Pforzheim (1507 - 1508); at the University of Heidelberg (1509 - 1511); and at TübingenTubingen (1512 - 1514).
Besides extensive classical studies including Plato and Aristotle, he studied Rudolph Agricola, William of Ockham, John Wessel, and Scripture.
When Philipp studied at Tubingen he was teaching there for six years.
His first publications were an edition of Terence (1516) and a Greek grammar (1518), as well as a preface to Reuchlin's Epistolae clarorum virorum (1514).
In the beginning of 1521 in his Didymi Faventini versus Thomam Placentinum pro M. Luthero oratio (Wittenberg, n. d. ), he defended Luther. He argued that Luther rejected only papal and ecclesiastical practises which were at variance with Scripture. But while Luther was absent at Wartburg Castle, during the disturbances caused by the Zwickau prophets, Melanchthon wavered.
The appearance of Melanchthon's Loci communes rerum theologicarum seu hypotyposes theologicae (Wittenberg and Basel, 1521) was of subsequent importance for Reformation. Melanchthon presented the new doctrine of Christianity under the form of a discussion of the "leading thoughts" of the Epistle to the Romans. Loci communes began the gradual rise of the Lutheran scholastic tradition, and the later theologians Martin Chemnitz, Mathias Haffenreffer, and Leonhard Hutter expanded upon it. Melanchthon continued to lecture on the classics.
On a journey in 1524 to his native town, he encountered the papal legate, Cardinal Lorenzo Campeggio, who tried to draw him from Luther's cause. In his Unterricht der Visitatorn an die Pfarherrn im Kurfürstentum zu Sachssen (1528) Melanchthon presented the evangelical doctrine of salvation as well as regulations for churches and schools.
In 1529 he accompanied the elector to the Diet of Speyer. His hopes of inducing the Imperial party to a recognition of the Reformation were not fulfilled. A friendly attitude towards the Swiss at the Diet was something he later changed, calling Zwingli's doctrine of the Lord's Supper "an impious dogma".
he composition now known as the Augsburg Confession was laid before the Diet of Augsburg in 1530, and would come to be considered perhaps the most significant document of the Protestant Reformation. While the confession was based on Luther's Marburg and Schwabach articles, it was mainly the work of Melanchthon; although it was commonly thought of as a unified statement of doctrine by the two reformers, Luther did not conceal his dissatisfaction with its irenic tone.
In lecturing on the Librorum de judiciis astrologicis of Ptolemy in 1535–6, Melanchthon expressed to students his interest in Greek mathematics, astronomy and astrology. He considered that a purposeful God had reasons to exhibit comets and eclipses. He was the first to print a paraphrased edition of Ptolemy's Tetrabiblos in Basel, 1554. Natural philosophy, in his view, was directly linked to Providence, a point of view that was influential in curriculum change after the Protestant Reformation in Germany. In the period 1536–9 he was involved in three academic innovations: the refoundation of Wittenberg along Protestant lines, the reorganisation at Tübingen, and the foundation of the University of Leipzig.
(In honor of the 450th anniversary of Philip Melanchthons...)
(This work has special significance in the history of Prot...)
He married Katharina Krapp, daughter of Wittenberg's mayor, on 25 November 1520.