We’ve all heard about Martin Luther, “father” of the sixteenth-century Protestant Reformation. But how many of us know about Philip Melancthon, Luther’s ablest assistant and the man the arch-Reformer called the Lord’s “learned champion”?
Born in 1497 in Bretten, a small town located in Germany’s Kraichgau Valley, Melancthon (Greek for “black earth,” or Schwarzerd, his family name) enrolled at the University of Heidelberg in 1509, qualifying for his Master’s degree in Greek and Classical studies by the time he was fifteen. Heidelberg denied him the degree on the grounds of his extreme youth, but the University of Tübingen wasn’t so shortsighted and accepted him as an official Master’s candidate in philosophy and humanistic studies, conferring the degree upon him in 1516. Two years later, at the tender age of 21, Melancthon was appointed Professor of Greek at the University of Wittenberg. It was here that Philip’s life would change forever after meeting his colleague from the theological faculty, the fiery, reform-minded Augustinian monk, Martin Luther. Together, Philip and Martin would work together to lay the groundwork for the Reformation that would shake the religious, political, and cultural foundations of Christendom and forever change the face of Western society.
In contrast to Luther, Melancthon was soft-spoken and calm. Luther himself described their differences, noting how their opposing personalities worked together harmoniously: “I am rough, boisterous, stormy and altogether warlike. I am born to fight against innumerable monsters and devils. I must remove stumps and stones, cut away thistles, and thorns, and clear the wild forests; but Master Philip comes along softly and gently sowing and watering with joy, according to the gifts which God has abundantly bestowed upon him” (Luther’s Preface to his Commentary on the Colossians). Luther’s words blasted his opponents and hammered home his notions on reform; Melancthon’s—although no less forceful—were more calmly reasoned and discursive. And while Luther issued his revolutionary writings in rapid-fire succession, jumping from topic to topic as it suited him, Melancthon’s approach to spreading evangelical reform was more methodical. Nowhere is this measured approach more apparent than in his massively influential text, Loci communes theologici (or Theological Commonplaces).
First issued in 1521 and based on his school lectures on St. Paul’s Epistle to the Romans, Melancthon’s Loci was the first systematic explanation of Protestant theology. Whereas authors of earlier medieval systematic theologies like Peter Lombard, Thomas Aquinas and John Duns Scotus (to name only a few of hundreds) explicated faith by analyzing it through the lens of secular philosophy and rationality and a reliance on earlier traditional authoritative writings, Melancthon eschewed the notion that philosophy or the writings of man could reveal truth more fully or clearly than the words of the Bible itself. In his Loci he highlighted the pre-eminency of the Scriptures above all else, claiming that all there is to know about God and correct doctrine is to be found in the Bible alone. Although he published the Loci in 1521, he continued to work on it for years, issuing major revisions and expansions of the text over the next three decades. These subsequent editions witnessed a mellowing of Philip’s attitude toward the utility of philosophy in biblical study, but they maintained a strict adherence to the primacy of the Bible as the root of faith. The various versions of the Loci came to dominate the expression of Lutheran thought and belief, so much so that Luther himself praised the work in the highest possible terms, stating: “You cannot find anywhere a book which treats the whole of theology so adequately as the Loci communes do… Next to Holy Scripture, there is no better book” (from Luther’s Table Talk).
The Rare Books and Manuscripts Library at Ohio State is overjoyed to announce that we have recently acquired two of the major revised editions of the Loci. While we’re still waiting for a copy of the 1521 first edition to enter the fold, we count ourselves lucky to have obtained copies of both the 1535 and 1555 revisions.
These editions were not simple reissues of the text with minor corrections. Rather, in each Melancthon substantially adjusted his earlier thinking, radically rewriting and expanding his own theology. The 1555 edition, for instance, includes a major redevelopment of Philip’s opinions on free will and nearly quadruples the length of the 1521 version. Additionally, Philip also supplied new introductory epistles to his readers in each version. Our 1535 copy was printed in Wittenberg by Joseph Klug; and the 1555 was printed in Basle by John Orporinus. Both copies have come to us in their original, elaborately tooled bindings and, as an added bonus, the 1555 copy includes contemporary marginalia added by an engaged reader.
These two books represent a significant addition to the Library’s wonderful assembly of Reformation materials, The Harold J. Grimm Reformation Collection (http://library.osu.edu/sites/rarebooks/finding/reformhome.php). While the Grimm holdings are particularly strong in German and Lutheran materials, until this year it had not included Melancthon’s Loci. Considering that this text represents the fundamental statement of Lutheran doctrine and the first work to attempt a systematic accounting of Protestant theology and dogmatic, we realized we simply had to acquire copies of its major editions. As well as supplementing our already strong Lutheran holdings, these volumes will also better contextualize and inform other aspects of our collection, such as our copy of John Eck’s Enchiridion locorum communium adversus Lutherum (Ingolstadt: Alexander Weissenhorn, 1543).
Originally published in 1525, Eck’s treatise offered a point-by-point response to the Loci from the Roman Catholic point of view. Over forty separate editions of Eck’s response were published between 1525 and 1576, making it perhaps the most popular Catholic handbook of the Counter-Reformation. Taken together, our copies of Melancthon’s Loci and Eck’s Enchiridion allow us to see Protestant and Catholic teachings (and polemic) in dialogue and help us gain a fuller, more nuanced understanding of the theological issues at stake and the rhetoric the different camps used to score their points. As we build our collections, we build our understanding of and appreciation for the past and all that it can tell us about the present and the future. So, let’s welcome Philip’s Loci to our collections!
Now all that remains is to track down that pesky 1521 edition…
Eric J. Johnson, Associate Curator
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