The Metaphysician of Wittenberg

Philipp Melanchthon is an enigmatic figure of the Reformation, but he made a critical contribution to the reinterpretation of the Pauline epistles by 16th-century Protestants, and to scholastic Augustinian thought. The starry-eyed Greek enthusiast arrived at the University of Wittenberg at the impressionable age of 21 and worked in Luther's shadow for the rest of his life. Melanchthon was one of the leading experts in Europe at the time, corresponding extensively with Bishop Erasmus, who published a Greek version of the New Testament (a "New Greek" version based on the Latin, not on any ancient texts). While a student and defender of Luther to the end (Melanchthon gave the eulogy at Luther's funeral and was buried next to him), Melanchthon disagreed with and pushed back against Luther on points such as his understanding of predestination and even the basic dichotomies of medieval Catholicism used by the Wittenberg Reformation. He challenged the narrative created by the violent reactionary reformers, recognizing that the very idea of Sola Scriptura was rooted in the Catholicism they were trying to reform.

Hegel and his fellow presenters wrote in their defense of their thesis at the university of Tubingen in 1793 and defended Melanchthon as the rightful architect of Protestantism: "To the Loci Communes of Philip Melanchthon we owe the best summaries of our church's dogmatic theology."

Melanchthon: A Metaphysician among Anti-Metaphysicians

Philipp Melanchthon understood Metaphysics perhaps better than any other intellectual did from the Wittenberg camp. His conversations with Erasmus were deeply enlightening to him, and his access to Greek philosophers illuminated the metaphysical nature of the debates. He is very concerned, like Erasmus was, about the Aristotelianism which arose in the Scholastic Theologians, but understood the reformation efforts within the church were trying to address them. The Protestant Reformation was at points trying to do the same, and he was reformed in the basic sense. But he was concerned that the Reformation was committing the same fallacies as the Scholastics, merely with new zeal and direction. Monergistic Soteriology, Sola Scriptura, and Unconditional Predestination to Melanchthon were of great concern, as they seemed to be further reification and abstracted purification of Medieval Catholic thinking and were “throwing the baby out with the bath water”. His refusal to over-simplify theology into mere axioms was due in part to his reading of several early church fathers, such as Irenaeus and Chrystostom, which tempered his dogma.

Melanchthon notes that Luther had an education based on nothing but Medieval Catholic Scholastic thought; that he learned “Dialectica and Physica from Aristotle” but that also Rome had been misled by Aristotle as well. So, he was caught between a rock and a hard place just like Erasmus. He supported the basic thrust of the Wittenberg camp but realized they were creating a nightmarish version of Christianity without limits and without an institution guardian. Rome was wrong, but Wittenberg might be even worse as it was distilling the errors of the Scholastics into new dogmas. Hence, Melanchthon has had a mixed reception for the last 500 years. Calvin hated him, and Luther loved him, despite disagreeing on Predestination. Since then he has been seen as an evil Synergist or as a great reformer.

From his commentaries on Romans, we see a tempered and careful reading based on Wittenberg principles, but not as dogmatic and polemic as Luther’s commentaries. His Humanistic tendencies pull from dozens of ancient authors, and he compares the metaphysical foundations of various heresies and heterodoxies unlike anyone else in the Wittenberg circles. His commentary of Predestination uses the language of the Reformation, but he does preserve a type of free will and thus the Privatio Boni. He is a core figure of the Reformation, but you can see across his works his evolving and complex understanding of what was happening around him. These Manuscripts are fascinating glimpses into the heart of the core Reformation.

Hegel and his fellow thesis defenders of his 1793 “De Ecclesiae Wirtembergicae renascentis calamitatibus” summarize brilliantly the problem with the Reformation’s continuation of Medieval Scholasticism’s replacement of Christian Platonics with Atheistic Aristotelianism, noting that Protestantism is metaphysically indistinguishable from Medieval Catholicism:

Indeed, under the rule of Ulrich, there was already a great desire among many to inform theology and that part of it which consists of philosophizing in a different way, so that it would be less of Aristotle, more suitable and adapted to the nature of things. Even those, whether monks or others, who favored Mysticism, seemed to attribute much to the Platonic philosophy, but the Aristotelian philosophy, more suitable for gladiation, which was more adapted to vanity and display of genius, obtained the preeminence in the schools; The boundaries which the Philosophers had brought into the middle, the right of the state, passed into the camp of the Theologians also, and he could not easily cast them off who wished to be understood by the disciples, of which he gave examples of the universal war which afterwards broke out.

Luther, the fiercest enemy of Aristotelian philosophy, nor did he himself completely expel. prositeri nand is afraid, from the same epistle 8. he brings the passage that he did not doubt that Luther is memorable: "No one would think so stoteles a devil, unless the mind burns, rather than an actor, that he was a man."

He was not able to drive away, nor to dissuade Melanchthon from it at all, who, being the most expert in all refinements, was able to use Aristotle in another way, as other scholastics used, accustomed to a dark acuity. Hence it came to pass that he himself did not entirely reject the method of causes, which seemed to him to bring with it that clarity, so that he applied it most skilfully. Thus Aristotle appears to have reigned in Tübingen for a whole half-century and that which lasted. The more carefully the Greek letters were cultivated, the more easily Aristotle could be understood, of which there were then only the most defective versions, compiled from Arabic versions, and not from the Greek text itself. From this it appears that the text of Aristotle in the Physica of Albert the Great is miserably distorted, from which therefore the students of Greek literature seemed to deserve e). From which it may be easily judged. He played the game, to reveal it to many, and to show his disgrace to all, if he were at leisure. Acts as a triumph, ep. 27. Aristotle went down little by little in our University, inclined to an almost eternal ruin. Even in his common passages Melanchthon is a little more bitterly attacked by Aristotle, but later he could not do without scholastic philosophy and his father Aristotle…

The First Protestant Systematic and Creed

The Loci Communes Rerum Theologicarum, commonly called the Loci Communes, was originally publish in 1521 in New Latin. This was revised in 1535, 1543 and shortly before his death in 1559, and a German version was translated by Justus Jonas in 1538 and by Melanchthon in 1553. This German versions was called “Loci praecipui theologici: Die wesentlichen Grundbegriffe der Theologie”. In his own words, this book is about “the proper dogmas of the Church about God, about eternal things, about the Law of God, about Sin, about the Gospel, about Grace, Justice, and the Sacraments, and later also the doctrine about the civil life.” It is the first Protestant Systematic.

Philipp Melanchthon was born in Bretten, near Stuttgart in Baden-Württemberg in 1497. After studying at the University of Tübingen (where a school is still named after him to this day), he was made the chair of ancient Greek at the University of Wittenberg in 1518. He was a true Humanist, and focused on increasing literacy in the "three holy languages" ("drei heilige Sprachen“); Greek, Hebrew and Latin. Although self-taught, he was one of the best Greek students in Europe at the time second only to Bishop Erasmus, whom he had a life-long friendship with. When Luther was translating the Lutherbibel from the Vulgate, Melanchthon utilized Erasmus’ Greek New Testament to assist in the translation.

Melanchthon’s work was critical in the development of Luther’s theology and accompanied Luther to the early Leipzig Disputation in 1519. He was Luther’s personal proxy and a chief defender of the Wittenberg Theology. He wrote the Augsburg Confession and associated lengthy apology of it. From a politico-military perspective, he was instrumental in building the Schmalkaldic League and attempted a common doctrinal statement, which ultimately failed between the Lutherans and Zwinglians.

Beyond the Evangelical and Lutheran influence, Melanchthon was deeply influential on Reformed Theology. He has extensive personal correspondence with Calvin (who had mixed feelings about him) and Melanchthon’s pupil Zacharias Ursinus was the main author of the Heidelberg Catechism. Loci Communes, because it defends a type of Free Will, is not as directly crucial to the Calvinist flavors of Protestantism, but his influence on this branch was significant through secondary causes (see what I did there?).

Loci Communes is the first systematic formulation of Protestant theology and is a defense of the Wittenberg Reformation. Finished in 1521, Loci Communes was proofread by Luther and published the same year. Luther wrote "next to Holy Scripture, there is no better book" and at one point he talked about adding it to his Biblical canon. While overshadowed by his friend Luther and the second generation Reformers, Melanchthon is a critical nexus within European Christianity and offers a look 'behind the curtain' at the malevolent motivations and personalities which drove the Reformations of the 16th century. The real value of Loci Communes lies not in its logical reasoning, but its intimate look at the budding Reformations by an honest thinker dedicated to truth instead of power and respect.

Communes is thoroughly polemic, primarily towards the Scholastics, but is well-rounded and nuanced. He avoids the one-sentence absolutist dogmatism characteristic of Luther, encouraging reconciliation and communication “like the bees of the valley, working together”. He is striving to curb “the frenzy of all ages” from all sides. This was a unique characteristic of Melanchthon- he sought reconciliation when Luther preferred picking flights and namecalling anyone he perceived to disagree with any part of his opinions. Despite being largely loyal, he did criticize Luther’s warmongering and arrogance several times: "I also endured an almost dishonorable servitude before, since Luther often followed his temperament, in which there was a not insignificant φιλονεικία, than to pay attention to his reputation and the common good."

This is an erudite work, broad in historical scope, seamlessly weaving in Socrates, Cato, Plato, Cicero, Aristotle, Xenocrates, and other philosophers, but dismisses them as teaching nothing but "philosophic virtues" and caring for nothing except self-praise. Arians, Marcions, Manicheans, the “recent Jews”, Valentinians, Pelagians and the Samosates (turks) are treated briefly several times. He quotes a wide range of Latin authors and weaves in short quotations from Old and New Testaments to prove his logical treaties, oftentimes only two or three word. His understanding of Christianity’s metaphysical roots in the Greek Rationality religions is much deeper than Luther’s.

The historical parallax between Luther and Melanchthon is powerful but not perfectly linear. Luther respected Melanchthon enormously and vice versa yet they disagreed on several critical fields of belief. Melanchthon was drawn to the Wittenberg preacher due to his Humanism-centric philosophy, and Luther to Melanchthon due to his sharp and systematic mind as well as his humble and pious personality. It is believed that Luther never wrote a systematic theology because the Loci Communes was the perfect summary of essential Christian doctrine in his mind. At points, Luther plagiarized Melanchthon word-for-word and continuously praised his friend's contribution to the cause. At Luther's funeral, it was Melanchthon who eulogized his close friend and compatriot. And after Melanchthon died, he was buried next to Luther. Their friendship and intellectual partnership was a formative influence on the budding Reformation as a whole. Luther wrote about wanting to add Communes to his greater Lutheran canon:

We possess no work wherein the whole body of theology, wherein religion is more completely summed up, than in Melanchthon’s Common-place Book; all the Fathers, all the compilers of sentences, put together, are not to be compared with this book. `Tis, after the Scriptures, the most perfect of works. Melanchthon is a better logician than myself; he argues better. My superiority lies rather in a rhetorical way. If the printers would take my advice, they would print those of my books, which set forth doctrine,—as my commentaries on Deuteronomy, on Galatians, and the sermons on the four books of St John. My other writings scarce serve a better purpose than to mark the progress of the revelation of the gospel.

In Human, All too Human Nietzsche has this pose poetry summarizing the Melanchthon-Luther relationship titled "What is truth?":

Schwarzert [Melanchthon]: "One often preaches one's faith when one has just lost it and is looking for it in all the alleys, - and one does not preach it worst then!" 

Luther: "You speak true like an angel today, brother!"

Schwarzert: "But it is the thought of your enemies, and they make the useful application to you."

Luther: So it was a lie from the devil's back.

The Augsburg Confession is one of the founding documents of Protestantism, directly leading to the Edict of Worms and the formal excommunication of Luther and his compatriots. The Confessio Augustana, written by Philipp Melanchthon in New Latin and in Early New High German, was composed by Melanchthon on behalf of the entire Wittenberg Reformation as a polemic against not only Emperor Charles V’s Catholicism, but also other Protestant movements, particularly the Anabaptists and the “enemy of the sacraments” (the Zwinglians). Later editions attempted to include the Zwinglian version of Reformed teachings. Zwingli penned his own version at the exact same time, called the Confessio Tetrapolitana.

This confession was refuted by the emperor in June of 1530 in the Confutio Augustana, the Augsburg Refutation. Melanchthons’ Apologia Confessionis Augustanae was in answer to this document, which Melanchthon completed in 1531. The Roman church agreed with the bulk of the articles (Articles 1-3, 5, 8-14, 16-18 and 20), pointing out that the Wittenberg Reformation was deliberately misrepresenting Catholic teachings. Still, the Confutatio condemned the simplistic dichotomy of Faith and Works, and argued that is was based on an over-emphasis on Paul's letters excluding books such as the Book of James, which Martin Luther believed was "inspired by the Devil".

This Theological document was signed not by church leaders, but political leaders, illustrating the Political and Economic interests underlying the Reformation, including the Duke of Saxony, Philip of Hesse (who favored the Reformation because he could marry multiple wives according to Luther), and Ernest the Duke of Luneburg

This confession was critical for the Religious Wars of the 16th and 17th centuries. The military alliance of the Protestants, the Schmalkaldic League, made the Confessio Augustana the basis of its confederation. After only a few years of violent warfare, the Schmalkaldic League was finally defeated at the Battle of Mühlberg in 1547, although the following century would see a bloodbath of violence between the Reformed and the Catholics, and between Protestant factions, which existed since the very beginning. Even within this Confession, you see the forceful polemics against other types of Protestantism. Melanchthon was personally involved in the imprisonment of Anabaptists, as was Luther, although Zwingli was personally involved in executing them by drowning them in the Zurich River. These are the "men of God" venerated by the Reformed tradition. Melanchthon was one of the most passive, but still advocated for violently confrunting the theological enemies of the Wittenberg Reformation, even against other forms of Reformed Theology.

The Confession deals with a vast number of topics, including intra-Protestant debates. In the Loci Communes, the first Protestant Systematic Theology created by Melanchthon, he notes:

Now the Anabaptists, with similar fury, invent new opinions and new rites. The doctrine of the Church is therefore necessary in this fourth degree. 

Exactly which rites should be kept, and which should be disgarded has never been solved within Protestantism. The Antinomianism, Anabaptists and Adiaphora debates are touched upon in this Confession and many following confessions, but even between Luther and Melanchthon, there was disagreement. This is a deeply Augustinian work, and the Medieval-Aristotelian reading of Augustine’s Original Sin is the foundation of the entire confession. It is a flawless example of a Humanistic text, pulling in a wide range of sources including ancient pagan philosophers, something Melanchthon was uniquely educated on at the time.

Proto-Sola Scriptura

Melanchthon advocates for a type of Prima Scriptura model, as his debates with the Anabaptiststs, non-Trinitarians, Zwinglians and Antinominalists made him realize that the interpretation of the bible is inevitably rooted in pre-conceptions of some kind, i.e. tradition. He understood, thanks to his Greek studies, the influence of Metaphysics in these debates better than perhaps any other Reformer, and pushed back against some of the Wittenberg concepts. He realized the Aristotelan nature of the Scholastics, but also became away of how deeply Aristotelan the Reformed concepts were. He notes that Luther “learned Dialectica and Physica from Aristotle” in his Roman Theological studies. And in his 1519 “Report on the Leipzip Disputation to Oecolampadius”, he takes a balanced view and makes astute observations on how Tautological the Protestant-Catholic arguments were, being both deelpy Aristotelan in nature. Luther believed that the “Bible alone” was against Scholastic Theology, while Melanchthon realized is was a further development of Medieval-Aristotelean philosophy. He attempted to shape the reformation from Monergism and Sola Scriptura, to no avail.

Melanchthon heavily emphesizes the importance of the Bible, but does not go as far as Luther’s Claritas Scriptura concept, which allowed Luther and the following reformers to place their personal interpretations as absolute truth, even if it contradicted all teachings before it. Melanchthon still roots interpretation in the teachings of the historic church, citing the councils in passing. He pulls small excerpts from Gregory Neocaesari (St. Gregory of Nyssa) and Irenaeus, which is perhaps what caused his doubts about some of Evangelicalism’s dogmas as scripture is treated in the Apostolic writings as a product of tradition, not something separate from it as the Reformation considered it. He advocates for reading the Early Church fathers, something Luther would heavily discourage (apart from the “blessed Augustine):

Those who read the Prophetic and Apostolic books and symbols with true pious zeal, and seek the opinion of the purer Church, will easily judge with what human narratives they can then be helped, and understand what usefulness the pious explanations written correctly and correctly, the testimonies taken from the sources, bring.

He was not a fan of Luther’s edits to the Scriptures, either. He treats Esdras and the Maccabees as scripture, as Luther had not yet chosen to remove the 7 books from the bible yet. Melanchthon had translated 1 Maccabees from the Hebrew, and in keeping with all Christians throughout all time including the Reformers before Luther (Wycliffe for example), he considered the Deuterocanonical books to be canonical like all other books. Melanchthon also did not appreciate Luther’s attempts to remove other books from the bible (James, Jude, Hebrews and Revelations), and is one of the reasons Luther did not act on his belief that these books were “inspired by Satan”.

Melanchthon stood halfway in-between Prima and Sola Scripture, realizing that Luther was developing his own version of Christianity based off of his conflations of what the Bible says and his option of what the Bible says. Erasmus came to the same conclusion about the misleading nature of Protestantism that Melanchthon realized at the end of his life. Erasmus writes about the pridef intrinsic to Protestantism in his classic satirical novel In Praise of Folly:

They can deal with any text of scripture as with a nob of wax, knead it into what shape best suits their interest; and whatever conclusions they have dogmatically resolved upon, they would have them irrepealably ratified as an absolute force as the very decree of the papal chair

And later in his 1533 "Explanation of the Apostles' Creed" (essentially a Catechism), he expands on this further, directly addressing Luther

You stipulate that we should not ask for or accept anything but Holy Scripture, but you do it in such a way as to require that we permit you to be its sole interpreter, renouncing all others. Thus the victory will be yours if we allow you to be not the steward but the lord of Holy Scripture.

Theodicy, Depravation Theory and the Privatio Boni

Perhaps there is no topic with greater Luther-Melanchthon unity on than Augustine’s Original Sin model:

as I was formed into an immense mass, and there was sin in me, that is, not only guilt, but an aversion to God and a low inclination arising with me…. The thinking of the human heart is evil childhood. It is confirmed that not only are the offenses committed by custom, but that there is prejudgment in the heart itself in the children who are already born.. sin is both a liability due to the fall of Adam, and also a deficiency, or an inclination, or an action that fights with the Law of God, etc.

In contrast with the later reformers, Melanchthon was quite orthodox in his condemnation of dualism and ascribes all evil to the will of the individual, but dogmatizes his reading of Augustine’s model:

He [God] is not the cause of sin, nor wills sin, nor impels the will to sin, nor approves of sin. He appeared in order to become a victim for sin, to show that the Devil was the author of sin, and to appease the great anger of the Father by his death. Therefore God is not the cause of sin, nor is sin a thing created or ordained by God, but it is the horrible destruction of the work and order of the gods.

This is due to the Wittenberg’s reliance on a specific reading of Augustine. Melanchthon specifically uses the Negation theory of the Reformation’s reading of Augustine here “Sin is a lack or deprivation”. Luther’s double-predestination model would later challenge this idea of the Goodness of God, something Melanchthon rightly refured to as Neo-Manicheanism, but Luther kept this Privatio Boni theory intact. The semi-predestinarianism of his early years, he realized, was based on Naturalistic Rationalism via the Stoics, not Christology, and he recanted his positions later in favor of historic Orthodoxy. He wrote years later "not the cause of sin, and does not will sin, but the will of the Devil and the will of man are the causes of sin". He was deeply concerned about the moral implications of locating the drama of Good & Evil in the nature of God vice the nature of man, which is implied by double predestination.

Melanchthon is clearly using the 13th-century Anselmian Penal Atonement model of atonement, taken from Aristotelian-medieval Catholicism, which would become the definition of Protestantism. Imputed righteousness is taught clearly: “By imputation, because for Christ's sake we receive reconciliation, without which the Law is only a word of condemnation.” He draws a new distinction between the “law” of God and the “Gospel”, creating a new interpretive framework, a vital development for the Reformation. From this artificial dichotomy he re-interprets the whole Bible.

Antinomianism, Anabaptists, and Adiaphora

Melanchthon witnessed the beginning of the Adiaphoristic controversy (Adiaphoristischer Streit), something which to this day has not been resolved, nor is there any hope of resolution even 500 years later. In early Lutheranism, after the death of Luther and Melanchthon, a range of disputes emerged in the once-unified Wittenberg camp controlled by the pair. The antinomian dispute, the Osiandrian dispute, and the conflicts between the gnesio-Lutherans and the Philippists expanded out of control after both men died. We are currently sitting at around 30,000 clear denominations of Protestantism. Even this eulogic account is polemic against their many enemies.

Antinomianism was a constant debate among the Wittenberg circles between Melanchthon, Johannes Agricola, and others, which was put to bed by Luther's 1539 essay on the subject. After both men died, the debate raged again. In Calvinist circles, the debate was dealt with earlier but continued to be resurrected throughout the centuries. Melanchthon argued that repentance in light of the moral law must come before faith, and enshrined this two-part definition of repentance within the Augsburg Confession. The Adiaphoric statement used broadly "In necessary things, unity; in doubtful things, liberty; in all things, charity" attempts to dismiss these debates, which is a red herring since it is precisely the definition of these words that are debated. Since the earliest days, there has never been any kind of unity among followers of “bible-alone” Christianity. All hope of maintaining the Four Marks of the Church within Protestantism died by the end of Melanchthon's life, something he was deeply troubled by. His hope, as he writes in the Loci Communes, was to provide a basis for Protestantism to maintain a coherent set of doctrines through a reliance on the Bible.

Free Will & Determinism

While commentators may draw a comparison between Erasmus and Melanchthon on the subject of Predestination, it is in actuality Luther who was influenced directly by Erasmus. Erasmus purported a kaleidoscope of options that did not fit into Catholicism, any of the Reformations nor any of the strains of the Humanism of the day. This included a reliance on free will as an obvious premise of Christian teachings at large and especially morality. Melanchthon agreed with most of Erasmus' views on the subject, in contrast to the Augustinian Bound Will framework Luther purported. But Melanchthon built this understanding from the moral teachings of the scriptures, not from Erasmus; "Ulltra posse nemo obligatur". Erasmus largely agreed with Luther’s criticisms. Luther considered Erasmus a friend and tried to recruit him into his new religion unsuccessfully. It was upon Erasmus' teachings that Calvin and Luther built their philosophies in the characteristic reactionism of the age.

Others, like the Stoics, imagine that God is bound by secondary causes, and that nothing can be done otherwise than as secondary causes. Others, like the Epicureans, put everything to chance and confusion. Both errors arouse great disturbances in human minds.

Already here in Loci Communes, Melanchthon notes a nuanced understanding of Human Agency and Predestination, carefully avoiding simplistic statements which Luther would be known for. He creates a divide between wills using a mixture of Latin and Greek concepts: “Now, the Free Wills of the Mind are located in lωάνι ἄν & Will” and an internal/ external causality. He asserts: “This is the freedom of the will, which Philosopher rightly attributes to man” but notes that due to the fallen, inherited nature via Augustinian Original Sin, the soul cannot do good without being restored fist, which is the exact same logic that Luther uses to call the idea of free will “Heretical and Unbiblical.” Melanchthon does not differentiate clearly between Soteriological and Cosmological Determinism, and correlates mechanical, Epicurean natural determinism with Stoic theological Determinism:

… that Stoic opinions are by no means to be introduced into the Church. but it is pernicious that which is said in the Tragedy, this is the fault of Fate, No one becomes guilty of Fate, just as Zeno's Sereus said that he was unjustly condemned because he was forced by Fate to sin. A word in the second book of πλιτειῶν [Second Philippians]: We must fight with every contention, lest anyone in the city should say, how well we want the king whether he hears, whether old or young, or in a poem or in another narrative, that God is the cause of evils to anyone. This cannot be said to be holy, nor is it useful to the city, nor does it agree with him in the explanation. For it is objected, The second cause does not act without the first; a subtle one is handed down to slip away, yet another thicker and more conspicuous one is given, which is taken from this foundation: That God is present to creatures, not as the Stoic God, bound by secondary causes, to move simply, as the second ones move: But as the most free agent, sustaining nature, acting differently in others according to his counsel. That is, in corporeal things.”

Melanchthon makes a claim that Stoicism has been wrongly injected into Christianity, and ties what would be called later “Unconditional Predestination” to this heterodox infusion. He writes Christianity has an obvious origin in the Platonic Noumena/ Phenomena divide, but that Christianity developed beyond the Platonic in its Cosmology, which I don’t think would be controversial to any modern scholar. This emphasis on Stoicism is a more unique claim and contradicts Luther’s claims of a purely Biblical basis of Election:

… most of the others take away the freedom of the will of Man, therefore, because all things are done by God's decision. This imagination, arising from the Stoic debates, leads them to remove the contingency of good and bad actions, even of all movements in Animals and Elements.

This correlation of Stoicism to Predestination to Moral Agency is found nowhere in Luther, who taught a strict predestination based on his misreading of Augustine’s anti-Pelagius writings. Melanchthon’s understanding of the church and the Elect is very individualistic, as is the Ecclesiology of all the Medieval Catholic Humanist Reformers from Calvin to Zwingli which was in an Augustinian fashion. But Melanchthon would turn further and further away from what he would call a Stoic understanding of Human agency, coming into conflict with his friend Luther. This text has been critical to the Calvinist tradition in a similar way to the Lutheran and broader Evangelical tradition, but one can see how a reader could ignore Melanchthon’s anti-determinism statements and focus on his notes about sin binding human agency. But he makes statements which deny that there is an antinomy here:

If you refer the human will to predestination, there is liberty neither in external nor internal works, but all things comes to pass according to Divine Purpose... You see, Reader, how much more certain I have written about Freedom of the will than either Bernard or for that matter any of the Scholastics?

While Luther reacted violently to Erasmus' teachings and took the antipodal position on the Sovereignty of God out of rage, Melanchthon took a less volatile path. He admitted when he was wrong and changed course accordingly. No stubbornness is obvious in his writings, which is bizarre for his time and place in such a reactionary, contrarian, and violent religious landscape. His ability to refrain from the hateful reactionist polemics which characterized this early 16th century period is quite extraordinary and sardonically noted by Luther himself. Part of this is perhaps because he was an academic first and last, and never a Vicar or political figure who needed to resort to radical over-simplification to defeat religiopolitical enemies.

In fact, Melanchthon actually criticized his friend Luther and sided with Erasmus is this conflict. He had been in correspondence with Erasmus much earlier than Luther. In his infamous arguments with Bishop Erasmus, Luther thundered against the idea of human agency, nearly to the point of denying the absolute Goodness of God. Four major works explain his doctrine of Predestination, which he saw as fundamentally linked to his Sola Fide doctrine: Von der Freiheit eines Christenmenschen/ On the Freedom of a Christian (1520) Epistula Lutheri Erasmo / Letter from Luther to Erasmus (1525) and Vom unfreien Willen (De Servo Arbitrio) Das der freie wille nichts  / The Bondage of the Will: That free will is nothing (1526) and most expansively Von der Erbsünde/ On Original Sin (1530).

Educational Reform

Melanchthon’s 1522 Enchiridion sought to teach theology in the family home as a replacement for the state-run religious institutions. Named after Augustine's Enchiridion, which in turn was named after Epictetus' Enchiridion, Melanchthon sought to provide an ethical foundation for Protestantism, which was in disarray. The rampant Antinomianism which rejected all “legalism” and stated there is no moral code to which Christians should adhere to caused a related problem for the reformation. Knowledge of the Ten Commandments and the Old Testament was key to fixing this problem to Melanchthon, so together with Luther they published extensive educational reforms and school material.

Because of Luther's idea of the "priesthood of all believers" and that the Holy Spirit reveals the meaning of scripture directly to the individual, formal education and theological training seemed unnecessary in the Protestant areas of Germany, and attendance sharply declined. The requirement that a Pastor be educated theologically and philosophically likewise seemed absurd in light of this teaching, so Seminary and Theology students fled the universities. Early reformers Karlstadt and Muntzer promoted the idea that secular knowledge was of the devil and theology was useless apart from reading the Bible directly.

Luther and Melanchthon attempted to fix this problem and the sharp decline in attendance to the universities their own teachings had caused. Luther wrote the 1524 The Councilmen of All Cities in German, in which he used a Humanistic view from the Renaissance which taught that the liberal arts, history and literature were useful for all to know. While he argued that the Catholic authorities had no right to teach theology, he conveniently taught that only his ideas should be taught in addition to the reading of the bible. Reading the scripture was enough, but also Protestant theology needed to be taught in addition. Melanchthon and Luther spilled a good deal of ink trying to explain away this contradiction. The Elector of Saxony saw this sorry state of affairs in Protestant Germany in terms of education, and asked Luther to fix it. Melanchthon took lead, and issued this 1527 Instructions for the Visitors of Parish Pastors in Electoral Saxony, and visited the local churches. A great deal of Melanchthon’s work was in the field of education, leading to his title of "Germany's teacher".

Melanchthon’s Hagiography of Luther

When Martin Luther died on February 18th, 1546, Melanchthon delivered the Eulogy in Latin. When Melanchthon died, his casket was set next to Luther's grave, and the eulogy was given there. The bronze headstone is designed just like Luther’s, and he was laid to rest near-by. The two had been inseparable since they met at the University of Wittenberg in 1518. The young Melanchthon, 21 at the time, quickly became the right-hand man of the powerful political figure developing the Wittenberg reformation. Melanchthon was- quite literally- by Luther’s side at the most critical moments. Luther greatly respected his mind, and never wrote a systematic theology because he considered Melanchthon’s Loci Communes to be a perfect summary of Christian doctrine. The intellectual-political relationship between these two men built the foundation of the Protestant Reformation.

This biography was written by a man who knew Luther's life and works the best. Philip Melanchthon’s Die Historie vom Leben und Geschichten des ehrwürdigen Herrn Dr. Martin Luthers published in 1546 shortly after he died. It is part polemic, as the reformation was falling apart without a clear leader like Luther. When Melanchthon died, the movement had even fewer organizing figures and descended further into chaos.

This story reads like a Hagiographic account. It is deeply mythologized; anyone who disagreed with Luther was “in the service of Satan”. Luther himself shone divine light out of every orifice, however, and his anger, rage, and insulting nature go largely unmentioned. The fact that he supported Philip of Hesse’s polygamy, removed 7 books from the Bible and hated many more, and advocated for genocide against the Jews is rarely brought up by Christians in Luther’s tradition. Only in some of his letters do we see criticism of Luther:

I also endured an almost dishonorable servitude before, since Luther often followed his temperament, in which there was a not insignificant φιλονεικία than to pay attention to his reputation and the common good.

 This mythologization, which happened to all of the Reformers, is not merely white washing, but ironically indistinguishable from Medieval Catholic veneration of Saints. Both men have stained glass icons in dozens of churches across Europe in addition to many bronze and stone statues, in Wittenberg, Worms and Heidelberg, and many other cities. A church Necrology and veneration of Saints, which the Reformers spilled so much ink against, has proven itself inevitable. Even the most low-church Protestant denominations always venerate saints without knowing it; there is always a shadow Necrology rooted in self-deception in all forms of Protestantism.

Continuation of Trinitarian Heresies

Quite a bit of this work is a defense of the Trinity, which had been a major debate within Protestantism from the very beginning. But Melanchthon, as with Luther, Calvin, Zwingli and all other Reformers after him continued the heterodoxy of the 6th-century Filioque of the Latin-turned-Catholic Church which led to the Great Schism of 1045 between Rome and Athos. He writes here in Loci Communes casually, “the Holy Spirit is the mover, proceeding from the Father and the Son”. Ironically, this statement of double-procession is in the chapter on the defense of the Trinity, while simultaneously clearly denying the Trinitarian Formulation in Canon VII of the Council of Ephesus of 431. The Reformers had no understanding of these nuances, as they were immersed in debating the very existence of the Trinity against the anti-Trinitarian Protestants of the Radical Reformation, a debate which still rages today among “Bible-Believing” Protestants and has no end in sight (Oneness Pentecostalism, JW’s, etc). It wouldn’t be until the 20th century that some protestant theologians became aware of this debate between the Apostolic East and the Latin West over double procession, and views on it naturally varied widely, even within Evangelicalism and on the Reformed side of the house.

Melanchthon, along with Luther and the entire Wittenberg circle, spoke highly of the Eastern Orthodox and corresponded with Patriarch Jeremiah in Constantinople and a few other Bishops. Melanchthon assisted in these efforts later in life. Luther called the Orthodox the “Truest Christians and the best followers of the Gospel on earth” at the Diet of Worms. The nascent conversation went nowhere because the Orthodox could not find any real difference between Protestants and Catholics, despite their insistence on being the antithesis of Medieval Catholicism, and the Reformers had not the slightest clue what the Orthodox were talking about. The fundamental categories and metaphysics of the Reformation were inherently Aristotelian-Medieval in nature, and the Reformers did not understand the roots of the differences of the West and East. The Trinitarian formulas and the Aristotelian collapse of the Noumena-Phenomena divide manifest in the “doctrine” of Sola Scriptura (a further apotheosis and individualization of Papal Infallibility) are merely a handful of the issues that went over the heads of the early Protestants. Here in Loci Communes, Melanchthon cites the ancient Orthodox Church as an example to model, despite committing several Orthodox heresies in this work alone:

Here let them adopt a nation worthy of their piety, and imitate the speech of the orἀκττονῃ of the Orthodox Church. And that answer must be held, some sayings speak of the essence of the external δὰς αἴστς, some of the offices…

Despite having a somewhat nuanced understanding of the Energy-Essence distinctions due to his knowledge of the ancient Greek, he falls short when it comes to procession. He interestingly points out that the Latin language makes it all but impossible to preserve the Trinitarian doctrines composed and delineated in ancient Greek, illustrating at least part of the origins of the Filioque controversy and the roots of the errors of the West.

He identifies the origins of the Non-Trinitarian Protestants as the influence of Stoicism, which is a bit of a stretch. He has a similar half-baked understanding of Islamic Unitarianism: “From Arius arose the furies of the Mohammedans”. But Unitarian Monotheism was the norm in several religions in Muhammad’s day. Muhammad certainly did not learn it from the monks of St. Katherine’s Monastery he stayed with briefly. If anything, this was a result of the Jews Muhammad encountered, not Arianism.

Protestantism resurrected every single heresy that had been extinguished by the Orthodox church- from Nestorianism to Arianism to Donatism. Melanchthon identified some of these, but was powerless to oppose them as the Protestant creed had moved the nexus of truth from Revelation to subjective personal interpretation masquerading as absolutism. With every “bible-believing” Christian their own infallible Pope, there was no hope of ever regaining unity. Melanchthon himself taught Trinitarian heresies, entirely unaware.