874 THE GERMAN REFORMATION. A.D. 1517 To 1530.
The Loci became the text-book of Lutheran theology in the universities, and took the place of Peter Lombard’s Sentences. Strigel and Chemnitz wrote commentaries on them. Leonhard Hutter likewise followed them, till he published a more orthodox compend (1610) which threw them into the shade and even out of use during the seventeenth century.
The theological manual of Melanchthon proved a great help to the Reformation. The Romanists felt its power. Emser called it a new Koran and a pest. In opposition to them, he and Eck wrote Loci Catholicis |
Melanchthon’s Loci are the ablest theological work of the Lutheran Church in the sixteenth century. Calvin’s Jnstitutes (1536) equal them in freshness and fervor, and surpass them in completeness, logical order, philosophical grasp, and | classical finish.
It is remarkable that the first and greatest dogmatic systems of the Reformation proceeded from these two lay-theologians who were never ordained by human hands, but received the unction from on high.2 So the twelve apostles were not baptized by Christ with water, but with the Holy Spirit on the day of Pentecost.
dass er sie gar im Kopfe habe. Wenner die zwei Sticke hat, so ist er ein Theologus, dem weder der Teufel noch kein Ketzer etwas abbrechen kann, und thm stehet die ganze Theologia offen, dass er Alles, was er will, darnach lesen kann ad edificationem. Und wenn er will, so mag er auch dazu lesen Philippi Melanchthonis Commentarium in Epistolam Pauli ad Romanos. Lieset er alsdenn darzu meinen commentarium in Epistolam ad Galatas und in Deuteronomium, so gebe ich ihm denn eloquentiam et copiam verborum. Ihr findet kein Buch unter allen seinen Bichern, da die summa religionis oder die ganze Theologia so fein bei einander ist, als in den locis communibus. Leset alle Patres und Sententiarios; so ist es doch Alles nichts dagegen. Non est melior liber post scripturam sanctam, quam ipsius loci communes. Philippus ist enger gespannet denn ich; ille pugnat et docet; ich bin mehr ein Rhetoricus oder ein Wdscher [Deutscher ?]”’
1 Eck’s Loci Communes adversus Lutheranos, Landshut, 1525, passed through many editions.
2 Melanchthon was simply professor, first of Greek, then of theology. Calvin was destined by his father for the clerical profession, and he received the tonsure ; but there is no record of his ordination for the priesthood.
§ 65. PROTESTANT RADICALISM. 375
§ 65. Protestant Radicalism. Disturbances at Erfurt.
I. Letters of LUTHER from May, 1521, to March, 1522, to Melanchthon, Link, Lange, Spalatin, etc., in De Wette, vol. II.
II. F. W. KAMpPscCHULTE: Die Universitat Erfurt in ihrem Verh. zu dem Humanismus und der Reformation. Trier, 1858. Second part, chs. III. and [V. pp. 106 sqq.
III. Biographies of Andreas Bodenstein von Carlstadt, by Fiiss.txn (1776), JAGER (Stuttgart, 1856), ERBKAM (in Herzog", VII. 523 sqq.).
IV. GIESELER, IV. 61-65 (Am. ed.). MARHEINEKE, chs. X. and XI. (I. 303 sqq.). MERLE D’AuB., Bk. IX. chs. 6-8. Kostuin, Bk. IY. chs. 3 and 4 (I. 494 sqq.). RANKE, II. 7-26. JANSSEN, II. 204-227.
While Luther and Melanchthon laid a solid foundation for an evangelical church and evangelical theology, their work was endangered by the destructive zeal of friends who turned the reformation into a revolution. The best thing may be undone by being overdone. Freedom is a two-edged sword, and liable to the worst abuse as well as to the best use. Tares will grow up in every wheat-field, and they sometimes choke the wheat. But the work of destruction was overruled for the consolidation of the Reformation. Old rotten buildings had to be broken down before a new one could be constructed.
The Reformation during its first five years was a battle of words, not of deeds. It scattered the seeds of new institutions all over Germany, but the old forms and usages still remained. The new wine had not yet burst the old skin bottles. The Protestant soul dwelt in the Catholic body. The apostles after the day of Pentecost continued to visit the temple and the synagogue, and to observe circumcision, the sabbath, and other customs of the fathers, hoping for the conversion of all Israel, until they were cast out by the Jewish hierarchy. So the Protestants remained in external communion with the mother Church, attending Latin mass, bowing before the transubstantiated elements on the altar, praying the Ave Maria, worshiping saints, pictures, and crucifixes,