370 THE GERMAN REFORMATION. A.D. 1517 To 1530.
original contributions to the science of Christian ethics in his Philosophie Moralis Epitome (1535).
Under his improving hand, the Loci assumed in subsequent editions the proportions of a full, mature, and well-proportioned system, stated in calm, clear, dignified language, freed from polemics against the Sorbonne and contemptuous flings at the schoolmen and Fathers. He embraced in twenty-four chapters all the usual topics from God and the creation to the resurrection of the body, with a concluding chapter on Christian liberty. He approached the scholastic method, and even ventured, in opposition to the Anti-Trinitarians, on a new speculative proof of the Holy Trinity from psychological analogies. He never forsakes the scriptural basis, but occasionally quotes also the Fathers to show their supposed or. real agreement with evangelical doctrines.
-~Melanchthon’s theology, like that of Luther, grew from step to step in the heat of controversy. Calvin’s Institutes came finished from his brain, like Minerva out of the head of Jupiter.
The Loci prepared the way for the Augsburg Confession (1530), in which Melanchthon gave to the leading doctrines official shape and symbolical authority for the Lutheran Church. But he did not stop there, and passed through several changes, which we must anticipate in order to form a proper estimate of that work. 3
The editions of his theological manual are divided into three classes: 1, those from 1521 to 1585; 2, those from 1535 to 1544; 3, those from 1544 to 1559. The edition of 1535 (dedicated to King Henry VIII. of England, and translated into German by Justus Jonas) was a thorough revision. This and the editions which followed embody, besides additions in matter and improvements in style, important modi-
1 See his ethical writings in vol. XVI. of his Opera, in the ‘‘ Corp. Reform.,’’ and a discussion of their merits in Wuttke’s Handbuch der christl. Sittenlehre, 3d ed. (1874), I. 148 sqq.
§ 64. MELANCHTHON’S THEOLOGY. 371
fications of his views on predestination and free will, on the real presence, and on justification by faith. He gave up necessitarianism for synergism, the corporeal presence in the eucharist for a spiritual reai presence, and solifidianism for the necessity of good works. In the first and third article he made an approach to the Roman-Catholic system, in the second to Calvinism. ,
The changes were the result of his continued study of the Bible and the Fathers, and his personal conferences with Roman and Reformed divines at Augsburg and in the colloquies of Frankfort, Hagenau, Worms, and Ratisbon. He calls them elucidations of obscurities, moderations of extreme views, and sober second thoughts.
1. He denied at first, with Luther and Augustin, all freedom of the human will in spiritual things. He even held the Stoic doctrine of the necessary occurrence of all actions, bad as well as good, including the adultery of David and the treason of Judas as well as the conversion of Paul.®
But on closer examination, and partly under the influence of Erasmus, he abandoned this stoic fatalism as a dangerous error, inconsistent with Christianity and morality. He taught instead a co-operation of the divine and human will in the work of conversion; thus anticipating Arminianism, and approaching the older semi-Pelagianism, but giving the initiative to divine grace. ‘ God,” he said in 15385, “is not the eause of sin, and does not will sin; but the will of the Devil
1 See his letters to his friend Camerarius, 2 Sept. 1535 (*‘ Corp. Ref.”? IL 936), and Dec. 24, 1535 (ib. II. 1027): ** Ego nunc in meis Locis multa mitigavi.”? . . « **In Locis meis videor habere δευτέρας dpovridac.’’? His letters are interspersed with Greek words and classical reminiscences.
2 Loc. Theol., 1521, A. 7: “ Quandoquidem omnia que eveniunt, necessario juzta divinam predestinationem eveniunt, nulla est voluntatis nostrae libere tas.’”’ He refers to Rom. 9 and 11 and Matt. 10:29.
3 In his Com. in Ep. ad Roman., 1524, cap. 8: ‘‘ Itaque sit hec certa sententia, a Deo fieri omnia tam bona quam mala. . .. Constat Deum omnia facere non permissive sed potenter,—ita ut sit ejus proprium opus Jude proditio, sicut Pauli vocatio.’’? Luther published this commentary without Melanchthon’s knowledge, and humorously dedicated it to him,