74 Facts About Philip Melanchthon

Philip Melanchthon stands next to Luther and John Calvin as a reformer, theologian, and shaper of Protestantism.

Philip Melanchthon was influenced by his great-uncle Johann Reuchlin, a Renaissance humanist, who suggested Philipp follow a custom common among humanists of the time and change his surname from "Schwartzerdt", into the Greek equivalent "Melanchthon".

Philip Melanchthon accepted a call to the University of Wittenberg from Martin Luther on the recommendation of his great-uncle, and became professor of Greek there in 1518 at the age of 21.

Philip Melanchthon studied the Scriptures, especially of Paul, and evangelical doctrine.

Philip Melanchthon attended the disputation of Leipzig as a spectator, but participated with his own comments.

Philip Melanchthon argued that Luther rejected only papal and ecclesiastical practises which were at variance with Scripture.

Philip Melanchthon discussed the "leading thoughts" of Paul's Letter to the Romans and used this platform to present a new doctrine of Christianity; one where faith in God was more important than good deeds.

In 1529, Philip Melanchthon accompanied the elector to the Diet of Speyer.

Philip Melanchthon represented Luther at the conference, as Luther was barred from attending.

Philip Melanchthon wrote a reply to this which became known as the Apology of the Augsburg Confession.

Philip Melanchthon then settled into the comparative quiet of his academic and literary labours.

Philip Melanchthon's increasing fame gave occasion for prestigious invitations to Tubingen, France, and England but consideration of the elector caused him to refuse them.

Philip Melanchthon played an important role in discussions concerning the Lord's Supper which began in 1531.

Philip Melanchthon approved of Bucer's Wittenberg Concord and discussed the question with Bucer in Kassel in 1534.

Philip Melanchthon worked for an agreement on this question, as his patristic studies and the Dialogue of Johannes Oecolampadius had made him doubt the correctness of Luther's doctrine.

Philip Melanchthon discussed Bucer's views with Luther's adherent, but Luther himself would not agree to a veiling of the dispute.

Philip Melanchthon repudiated Cordatus' criticism in a letter to Luther and his other colleagues, stating that he had never departed from their common teachings on this subject and in the Antinomian Controversy of 1537 Melanchthon was in harmony with Luther.

Philip Melanchthon faced controversies over the Interims and the Adiaphora.

Philip Melanchthon rejected the Augsburg Interim, which the emperor wished to impose.

Philip Melanchthon took part in a controversy with Stancaro, who held that Christ was our justification only according to his human nature.

Philip Melanchthon dropped the formula altogether, seeing how easily it could be misunderstood.

Philip Melanchthon's opponents continued to go against him, accusing him of synergism and Zwinglianism.

Philip Melanchthon persevered in his efforts for the peace of the church, suggesting a synod of the Evangelical party and drawing up the Frankfurt Recess, which he defended later against attacks.

Philip Melanchthon never agreed with this, and the personal presence and self-impartation of Christ in the Lord's Supper were especially important for him, although he did not definitely state how body and blood are related to this.

Philip Melanchthon differed from Calvin in emphasizing the relation of the Lord's Supper to justification.

Philip Melanchthon viewed any veneration of saints rather critically but he developed positive commentaries about Mary.

Philip Melanchthon noted that "she kept all things in her heart" which to him was a call to the church to follow her example.

Philip Melanchthon believed that Mary was negligent when she lost her son in the temple, but she did not sin.

Philip Melanchthon believed that Mary was conceived with original sin like every other human being, but she was spared the consequences of it.

Philip Melanchthon declared that the Immaculate Conception was an invention of monks.

Philip Melanchthon saw Mary as a representation of the church and believed that in the Magnificat, Mary spoke for the whole church.

Philip Melanchthon considered that a purposeful God had reasons to exhibit comets and eclipses.

Philip Melanchthon was the first to print a paraphrased edition of Ptolemy's Tetrabiblos in Basel, 1554.

Philip Melanchthon prayed continually and listened to passages of Scripture.

Philip Melanchthon was impelled by Luther to work for the Reformation; his own inclinations would have kept him in academia.

Philip Melanchthon wrote in 1520, "I would rather die than be separated from Luther", whom he compared to Elijah, and called him "the man full of the Holy Ghost".

The distinction between Luther and Philip Melanchthon is well brought out in Luther's letters to the latter :.

Philip Melanchthon had an innate aversion to quarrels and discord; yet, often he was very irritable.

Philip Melanchthon did not look for a reconciliation with Catholicism at the price of pure doctrine.

Philip Melanchthon attributed more value to the external appearance and organization of the Church than Luther did, as can be seen from his treatment of the "doctrine of the church".

Philip Melanchthon believed that the relation of the church to God was that the church held the divine office of the ministry of the Gospel.

Philip Melanchthon did not want a church altogether independent of the state, but rather, in agreement with Luther, he believed it the duty of the secular authorities to protect religion and the church.

Philip Melanchthon looked upon the consistories as ecclesiastical courts which therefore should be composed of spiritual and secular judges, as he believed that the official authority of the church did not lie in a special class of priests, but rather in the whole congregation, to be represented therefore not only by ecclesiastics, but by laymen.

Philip Melanchthon took pains to safeguard unity in doctrine by theological formulas of union, but these were made as broad as possible and were restricted to the needs of practical religion.

Philip Melanchthon's writing was simple and clear; his manuals, even if they were not always original, were quickly introduced into schools and kept their place for more than a century.

Philip Melanchthon was an important figure in the movement known as Christian humanism, which exerted a lasting influence upon scientific life in Germany.

Philip Melanchthon wrote many treatises on education and learning that present some of his views on the basis, method, and goal of reformed education.

Philip Melanchthon believed that the disciplinary system of the classical "seven liberal arts", and the sciences studied in the higher faculties could not encompass the new revolutionary discoveries of the age in terms of either content or method.

Philip Melanchthon expanded the traditional categorization of science in several directions, incorporating not only history, geography and poetry but the new natural sciences in his system of scholarly disciplines.

Philip Melanchthon kept to the practical, and did not look at the connection of the parts, and his Loci were in the form of isolated paragraphs.

Philip Melanchthon's views differed from Luther's only in some modifications of ideas.

Philip Melanchthon looked upon the law as not only the correlate of the Gospel, but as the unchangeable order of the spiritual world with its basis in God himself.

Philip Melanchthon distilled Luther's view of redemption to that of legal satisfaction.

Philip Melanchthon did not focus on the mysticism running through Luther's theology, but emphasized the ethical and intellectual elements.

Philip Melanchthon calls these the law of God, and being endowed in human nature by God, so the law of nature.

Philip Melanchthon therefore made no sharp distinction between natural and revealed morals.

Philip Melanchthon further stated that whatever is looked for in the words of Scripture, outside of the literal sense, is only dogmatic or practical application.

Philip Melanchthon's commentaries are full of theological and practical matter, confirming the doctrines of the Reformation.

Philip Melanchthon worked with Luther in his translation of the Bible, and both the books of the Maccabees in Luther's Bible are ascribed to him.

Philip Melanchthon's was the first Protestant attempt at a history of dogma with both Sententiae veterum aliquot patrum de caena domini and De ecclesia et auctoritate verbi Dei.

Philip Melanchthon exerted a wide influence in homiletics, and has been regarded in the Protestant church as the author of the methodical style of preaching.

Philip Melanchthon stayed aloof from dogmatizing or rhetoric in the Annotationes in Evangelia, the Conciones in Evangelium Matthaei, and in his German sermons prepared for George of Anhalt.

Philip Melanchthon never preached from the pulpit and his Latin sermons were prepared for the Hungarian students at Wittenberg who did not understand German.

Philip Melanchthon produced the first Protestant work on the method of theological study, as well as his Catechesis puerilis, a religious manual for younger students, and a German catechism.

Philip Melanchthon saw the liberal arts and a classical education as paths, not only towards natural and ethical philosophy, but towards divine philosophy.

Philip Melanchthon came to Wittenberg with the plan of editing the complete works of Aristotle and he edited the Rhetoric and the Dialectic.

Philip Melanchthon believed that the relation of philosophy to theology is characterized by the distinction between Law and Gospel.

Philip Melanchthon published De dialecta libri iv, Erotemata dialectices, Liber de anima, Initia doctrinae physicae, and Ethicae doctrinae elementa.

Philip Melanchthon was described as being dwarfish, misshapen, and physically weak, although he is said to have had a bright and sparkling eye, which kept its colour till the day of his death.

Philip Melanchthon did not value money and possessions; his hospitality was often misused in such a way that his Swabian servant sometimes had difficulty in managing the household.

Philip Melanchthon called his home "a little church of God", always found peace there, and showed a tender solicitude for his wife and children.

Philip Melanchthon wrote speeches and scientific treatises for others, permitting them to use their own signatures.

Philip Melanchthon acknowledged his faults even to opponents like Flacius, and was open to criticism.

Philip Melanchthon laid great stress upon prayer, daily meditation on the Bible, and attendance of public service.