ERASMUS A N D MELANCHTHON

WILHELM SCHENK

In August 1518, a few weeks before Erasmus expressed forebodings of a

fateful change in human affairs, a young scholar of twenty-one entered
the Saxon university town of Wittenberg. The young mans name was
Philipp Schwarzert, but he was already better known by the supposed
Greek equivalent of his name, Melanchthon. He had already taught
rhetoric at the University of Tiibingen and he had just received the very
honourable call to become Professor of Greek at Wittenberg. This was
the position he continued to hold for the remaining forty-two years of his
life.
Melanchthon was a great nephew of the famous scholar Reuchlin, the
reviver of Hebrew studies. Erasmus devoted one of his Colloquies to the
canonization of Reuchlin, suggesting that God had, by His chosen
servant John Reuchlin . . . renewed to mankind the gift of tongue^'.^
Reuchlin had recommended his kinsman for the vacant post at Wittenberg,
but in doing so he need not have had any scruples about nepotism:
young Philipp had already shown outstanding scholarly gifts and he
quickly increased his reputation beyond any challenge.
Before his call to Wittenberg Melanchthon had lectured on Virgil,
Cicero and Livy, edited Terence, and written a Greek grammar. His work
had been devoted to bonae litterae, and, naturally enough, he looked
up with veneration to the great ruler of letters, Erasmus, as the father
of his studies; when he wished to praise the literary style of a friend, he
simply called it Era~mian.~
It was, in fact, mainly Erasmuss style, his
This article is published posthumously by courtesy of the authors brother, Dr H. G.
Schenk (Oxford). The text has been edited and revised and the notes have been brought
up to date by the Rev. James McConica, C.S.B., F.R.H.S. (Toronto) to whom HJis indebted
for his collaboration.
Wilhelm Schenk was born in Prague on July 26th, 1918, and died in Bristol on June lath,
1949. He was the author of: The Concern for Social Justice in the Puritan Revolution
(London, 1948) and Reginald Pole, Cardinal of England (published posthumously,
London, 1950). He had planned to write a book on Erasmus; two of its chapters were
published in The Hibbert Journal and The Dublin Review in 1950/1-Ed.
2 Opus epistolarum Des. Erasmi Roterodami, ed. P. S . and H. M. Allen, vol. 111
(Oxford, 1913), letter 891: 0 mi Colete, que nunc rerum humanarum scena vertitur!
Ex hominibus deos facimus et sacerdotium vertitur in tyrannidem. Principes una cum
Pontifice, et fortasse cum Turca, conspirant in fortunas populi. Christus antiquatur et
Mosen sequimur. The Opus epistolarum will be cited hereafter as Allen.
Craig R. Thompson, The Colloquies of Erasmus (Chicago, 1965), p. 79 f.
Corpus Reformatorum, ed. C. D. Bretschneider (Halle, 1834-), vol. I, cols. 12,60.

249

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WILHELM S C H E N K

graceful eloquence, that attracted Melanchthon at this early stage; there

is no evidence that he was then aware of Erasmuss religious views, or
indeed greatly interested in religious questions at all. Erasmus, for his part,
had publicly welcomed Melanchthon as a young man of the very highest
promise : What inventiveness!, he had written, what purity of language!
what memory ! what reading! what serene and princely endowments !l
There can be no doubt that Melanchthon, at twenty-one, had reached
a degree of intellectual maturity far beyond his years, but the fact remains
that he was only twenty-one and therefore, in a decisive way, more impressionable than at any other age. The odds were that, in his new post,
he would develop into a celebrated Professor of Letters. But he met his very
different destiny in the shape of a colleague in the Theological Faculty.
Professor Martin Luther, having just published his sensational theses
against Indulgences, was about to be interviewed by the Papal Legate
Cardinal Cajetan, when Melanchthon arrived in Wittenberg. Even before
this interview, which took place at Augsburg in October 1518, Luther and
Melanchthon seem to have become friends and this friendship grew rapidly
after Luthers return; with inevitable ups and downs it lasted until Luthers
death nearly thirty years later. The influence of Luther, fourteen years
Melanchthons senior and at the height of his gigantic strength, cannot but
have been overwhelming. And in the summer of 1519 we find Melanchthon
lecturing on St Pauls Epistle to the Romans, the very epistle which had,
once for all, resolved all Luthers agonizing conflicts with its triumphant:
The just shall live by faith (Rom 1:17).
Out of this lecture course on Romans grew Melanchthons major
theological work Loci Communes (something like Fundamental Concepts of theology), published in 1521, the Year One of the Protestant
Reformation. This book, in its earliest form, is quite short and contains
many things which were bound to please Erasmus. The mysteries of
divinity, runs one of its statements, should be adored rather than investigated. Knowing Christ, we read, means knowing Christs benefits, not
the natures or modes of the Incarnation. This is why this book of fundamental concepts does not include anything about the essence of God,
the Trinity, the Creation, or the nature of the Incarnation. It is useless,
Melanchthon holds, to probe into these mysteries ; any such inquiry will
merely lead to the vain speculations of the scholastics to their universals,
formalities, connotations, and what not, and meanwhile the Gospel will
be obscured by these stupid disputations. The Gospel-that is, the good
First edition of the New Testament (Froben, 1516), 11, p. 555.
Allen, V, letter 1496 (to Melanchthon, Sept. 1524): Perlegi Locos omnes. in quibus
perspexi tuum istud ingenium non minus candidum quam felix; ., 1. 32 f.

..

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ERASMUS AND MELANCHTHON

news of the forgiveness of sins. Hence the central section of this book is
called: De Justificatione et Fide. We must not doubt, we are told there,
that Christs justice is our justice, that Christ has expiated our sins, that
His resurrection is ours too. . . . Our works, however good they seem to be
or are, do not justify us. Only faith in the mercy and grace of God through
Jesus Christ can make us just. . . . And what is faith? Steadfastly to adhere
to every word of God.
Of the other doctrines expressed in this book two call for special
mention: the Eucharist is not a sacrifice but a sign of redemption, helping
the communicant to increase and confirm his faith (therefore there can be
no masses for the absent and the dead), and secondly, the bold sentences:
We are all Christian priests . . . we are all Christian kings, because we are
free in Jesus Christ.
Now this is clearly not the kind of book that Erasmus would have
written; some things in it, he wrote to Melanchthon, appeared to him
doubtful, either because he did not believe them to be true, or because
they seemed to him fruitless. But the main tendency against, as he put
it, Pharisaical tyranny was sure of his approval; he, too, was anxious
to restore Christian liberty and a living faith in the Redeemer of mankind.
Melanchthons book, written in a fresh style and avoiding, as far as possible, the use of technical terms, may well have reminded him of the irresistible power of Luthers treatise on Christian Liberty. In December 1520,
at the end of the year which saw the appearance of Luthers three great
reform tracts, Erasmus was asked by the Elector Frederick of Saxony,
Luthers sovereign, if Luther had erred in his preaching or his writing.
According to the recollections of the court-chaplain Spalatin, Erasmus
smiled at first, and then gave a surprisingly definite reply: Yes, in two
things. He has attacked the Pope in his crown and the monks in their
bellies. On the same day Erasmus wrote down a few statements on the
Lutheran question, for the use of Elector Frederick. Here are some
salient sentences from this confidential document: The origin of the
matter is evil: hatred of letters and striving for tyranny. . . . For the Pope
the glory of Christ comes before his own, and the benefit of souls before
any other profit. . . . The world thirsts for evangelical truth, and it seems
to be borne in that direction by a longing ordained, as it were, by fate.
The plain fact is that Erasmus, true to his principle of toleration, did not
Ibid.
Axiomata Erasmi Roterodami pro causa Martini Lutheri theologi, in Erustni
opuscula, ed. W. K. Ferguson (The Hague, 1933), pp. 336-7: Fons rei malus est:
odium bonarum litterarum et affectatio tyrannidis. . .Pontifici prior est gloria Christi
quam sua, et lucrum animarum quam ullum aliud compendium.. . Mundus sitit
veritatem evangelicam, et fatali quodam desiderio videtur huc ferri.
2

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WILHBLM SCHENK

wish to silence the voice of Wittenberg. And that voice, surely was worth
hearing. Luthers translation of the Bible, his homely homilies, his great
religious poems, his services to church music, the infectious simplicity
of his private life: these things must not be forgotten. And out of them
grew other precious things: the German language, the chorales which form
the basis of the music of Schutz and Bach, the fruitful influence of the
Lutheran pastors home, the far from negligible achievements of German
Pietism. No one who has been in contact with a lively Lutheran community
will feel inclined to sneer at their founder-the man who, when translating
Rom 8:22 (the whole creation groaneth and travaileth), looked at his
dog and said: You, too, will have a golden tail, or who was capable of
writing a compellingly simple stanza such as this:
Gelobet seist du, Jesu Christ,
Dass du Mensch geboren bist
Von einer Jungjirau, das ist wahr,
Des freuet sich der Engel Schar
Kyrieleis.

So much has been written about the diEerences between Erasmus and
Luther that it is easy to overlook the partial similarity of their aims:
Luther, like Erasmus, wished to Christianize the ordinary lives of ordinary
lay Christians, and in the ways indicated above his efforts were not without success. All the Pietist elements in Luther-and they are strong
enough-are in accord with Erasmuss philosophia Christi. It is in this
sense, too, that we must try to understand Luthers doctrine of the priesthood of all believers: to him, all Christians-that is, members of the Body
of Christ-were of one kind; priests were not, in any sense whatever,
nearer to Christ than laymen.
Here, Erasmus and Luther were bound to part company; Erasmuss
essay on the Three Circles leaves us in no doubt that he did not share
Luthers radical doctrine of spiritual equality. It was the first examplenot, we know, the last-of Luthers tendency to push things to their
extremes. But in spite of that it is not really surprising that Erasmus
refrained from attacking Luthers doctrines for several years. For in yet
another respect the two men were not altogether dissimilar: in their
inability, or reluctance, to express their views in traditional dogmatic
form. Luther, no doubt, was more burdened in his thought by late medieval
scholasticism, but he, too, generally avoided the technical language of
the schools-the quiddities and quoddities ridiculed by Erasmus and
Melanchthon. It may well have seemed to Erasmus that Lutheran doctrine
was therefore not in danger of hardening into dogma; hence his wish to

ERASMUS A N D MELANCHTHON

253

discuss matters with Melanchthon whose book, in its earliest form, did
not indulge in too many cramping definitions.
This discussion with the Lutherans eventually took the form of a treatise
on the most fundamental aspect of Luthers teaching, Free Will (De
Libero Arbitrio, September 1524). For some years Luthers most powerful
opponents had pestered Erasmus to come out against Luther. Here,
at last, was a short theological treatise against the German reformersbut it was written in the tone of a serious discussion among scholars who
respect each other, it was not an orthodox trumpet-call against heresy.
I am not, Erasmus wrote to Melanchthon at the same time, the judge of
another mans conscience. Luther and Melanchthon had taught that
only faith, not works, had a justifying effect; that faith was a free gift of
Divine grace; and that man could therefore not co-operate in his salvation.
Erasmus mainly confined himself to showing that the Bible, the ancients,
the Fathers, the communis sensus of humanity, and our own conscience
all teach or presuppose a measure of free will. Small wonder that this
Erasmian performance did not please the hot-gospellers on either side.
Luther was stung into wild fury by this treatise, and in the following
year (December 1525), he replied with a fanatical book, De Servo
Arbitrio (The Enslaved Will), in which he expounded the complete
powerlessness of man in the face of Gods arbitrary and inscrutable
decrees. Human nature, he wrote, is so utterly corrupt in every way that
man cannot, without Divine intervention, turn towards the good. This
work, in addition, is in a very vehement style and full of invective (the
contents of Erasmuss treatise, for instance, are called rubbish and dung).
Luther, Erasmus complained, has written against me in a manner which
one would not employ against the Turk. But Erasmus himself was,
unfortunately, unable to keep his head and followed Luther into violent
controversy (in his monstrously long Hyperuspistes, 1526-1 527). His
central view, however, remained clear and balanced: Man by himself can
will something good, but he cannot effectively will the good which leads
him to salvation, without the help of grace. We ascribe all to Divine
goodness, not because man does not act at all, but because from God
come all the means of our being.4
Allen, V, letter 1523 (to Melanchthon, Dec. 1524): on sum iudex alienae
conscienciae, nec dominus alienae fidei, 11. 19-20.
Werke (Weimarer Ausgabe), vol. XVIII, pp. 601,786.
Allen, VI, letter 1675 (to Reginald Pole, March 1526): Lutherus offensus mea
Diatriba modestissime disputante, scripsit in me magnum volumen, quale nemo
saiberet in Turcam, 11. 29-30.
Opera omnia Desiderii Erasmi Roterodami (Leyden, 10 vols., 1703-1706), vol.
10, col. 1403 C.

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WILHELM SCHENK

Erasmuss statements on this question were not without effect. Some

of the humanists who had inclined to Lutheranism, began to reconsider
their position, now that the freedom of the will, one of the central humanist
doctrines, was so clearly at stake. And among those who were greatly
impressed was none other than Melanchthon himself. For some time, it
seems, Melanchthon had not been able to escape serious doubts about the
extreme Lutheran position. Christian Liberty-yes; but what of the
enthusiasticZwickau prophets, what of Munzer and the rebellious peasants,
all of whom appealed to Christian Liberty on behalf of their un-Lutheran
beliefs? Justification by Faith, certainly; but what of his own attempts at
moral education, at the improvement of ordinary civil behaviour, if works
were of no account? And again, what of philosophy and bonae litterae,
if faith was the one thing needful? Was it right to scorn any endeavour of
reason (the harlot reason, as Luther sometimes put it) to help faith?
Melanchthon seems to have realized at this stage that Luthers extremism,
if left to itself, would cut him off from all the wisdom of the ancients and
from much Christian thought as well-from that complex of doctrines
that is connected with such term as law of nature, reason and tradition.
And Melanchthon was right in thinking that the best guardian of these
ideas was Erasmus.
This is why he was determined to remain in touch with Erasmus. There
was a pause in their correspondence during the Free Will controversy
(1525-1 527), but Erasmus re-opened it in 1528 and it was continued until a
few weeks before Erasmuss death. Melanchthon always stresses in his
letters his great admiration for Erasmuss genius, nor does he conceal his
dislike of Luthers vehemence; of a later attack of Luthers on Erasmus
he says explicitly that it is unprofitable. I am, he writes to Erasmus in
1528, a simple soldier under your standard. And that his allegiance
was not confined to literature is shown by his admission that in a number of
controversial questions he had adopted Erasmuss view.
All this, remarkable itself, becomes even more remarkable when we
recall Luthers opinion of Erasmus as recorded in his Table-Talk.From
about 1525 onwards Luther seems to have been convinced that Erasmus
was merely a godless scoffer: Erasmus is the enemy to true religion,
the open adversary of Christ, the complete and faithful picture and image
of Epicurus and of L ~ c i a n . Melanchthon
~
was very far indeed from

* Allen, XI, letter 3120 (Melanchthon to Erasmus, May 1536): De scriptis contra
te hic editis quod fuerit meum iudicium, eo nihil hic dico quia non solum propter
privata officia, sed etiam propterea displicuerunt quia talia scripta sunt inutilia reipublicae. Neque hoc iudicium meum dissimulavi unquam, 11. 50-4.
2 Allen, VII, letter 1918 (Melanchthon to Erasmus, March 1528).
The Table-Talk of Martin Luther, trans. and edited Hazlitt (London, 1857), sec. 680.

ERASMUS A N D MELANCHTHON

255

sharing these wild judgements. True, at an early date (1522), Melanchthon

had contrasted Luthers Christian faith with Erasmuss insistence on
natural ethics and had inclined to the view that Erasmuss teaching was not
specifically Christian, but thirty-five years later, near the end of his life
and long after Luthers death, he arrived at a very different estimate.
Erasmus, he wrote then, was providentially destined to prepare the
ground for Luther by his translation and interpretation of the New
Testament; there were differences between Erasmus and Luther with
regard to certain controversial points, but the great religious reform work
owed much to both of them. It is clear that Melanchthon did not regard
loyalty to one of these men as incompatible with loyalty to the other.
His life work was, in fact, devoted to the thoroughly Erasmian attempt t o
rescue Lutheranism from radicalism and anarchy by safeguarding its link
with the Christian and classical past.
This endeavour found its most conspicuous expression in Melanchthons
activity before and at the Reichstag of Augsburg (1530). On that momentous occasion Melanchthon was trying very hard to achieve a reunion with
Rome. He always believed, even during the early years of his contact with
Luther, that Lutheranism had not left the sphere of Catholic teaching;
he always insisted that he was neither the author nor the supporter of new
dogmas. Now it fell to him t o draw up the Lutheran Confession of
Faith, the famous Augustana. This document is very moderate in tone
and highly selective in content: it does not mention the Pope, or tradition,
or the priesthood of believers. Its first part rehearses some dogmatic
articles, the second part some questions of ritual and discipline. The articles
on Justification, Faith and Works are phrased in such a way that they were
acceptable to some Catholics before the Tridentine definitions; in 1537
Gasparo Contarini and Reginald Pole, both of them influential cardinals,
believed that the Augustana was no barrier t o the reunion with Luthera n i ~ m It
. ~ is more difficult to understand how Luther, who had just
proclaimed the complete powerlessness of the human will, could accept
the following Erasmian statement contained in the Augustana : The
human will has a certain freedom to achieve civil justice and such things
Corpus Reformatorum, vol. X I , col. 269-70: Etsi autem de quibusdam controversiis, quaedam fuisse iudiciorum dissimilitudo inter Lutherum et Erasmum videtur,
tamen nihil dubium est, Erasmo totam hanc partem emendationis placuisse, quae
taxat errores de ritibus humanis in Ecclesia (1557). Also Philippi Melanthonis de Luther0
et Erasmo Elogion (1522), vol. XX, cols. 699-700.
Allen XI, letter 3120: Deinde toties profiteor me nec autorem novorum dogmatum
nec suffragatoremesse. Sed collegi communem doctrinam religionis quam potui simplicissime. ne nostrorum auidem Daradoxa defendens. 11. 32-5.
Epistolae ReginaldiPoli, ed. Angelo Maria Querini (Brescia, 1744-1757), vol. 2,
p. 68.

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WILHELM SCHENK

as are subject to reason. But it cannot, without the help of the Holy Ghost,
achieve justification. This, surely, is an outstanding example of Luthers
comparative indifference to dogmatic formulae. He trusted Melanchthon
(but not Erasmus) to reproduce the essential thing; for the rest he was glad
that he was not obliged to conduct the negotiations: I, he remarked,
could not tread so softly.
The actual negotiations at Augsburg centred round the second part of
the Confession, concerning ritual and discipline. There were three points
in particular that were regarded as being of primary importance: communion in both kinds, marriage of priests and certain alterations in the Mass.
Melanchthon alluded to these points when he wrote to the Papal Legate
Campeggio: We have no dogma different from the Roman Church.. . .
We are prepared to obey the Roman Church, if only she, with the clemency which she has always used towards all peoples, would modify or
relax some few matters which we, even if we would, could not alter. . . .
It is but a slight diversity of rites which seems to stand in the way of
concord.2 Melanchthon could not help feeling that his efforts were not
likely to be successful and he suffered much, at that time and later, from
moods of black despair. He was very apprehensive of the results that
further dissidia were bound to produce-war, revolutions, anarchy ;
like Erasmus, he was now overwhelmingly aware how difficult it was to
end a tumult once it had been aroused. It is significant that he wrote to
Erasmus from Augsburg, urging him to use his influence for peace.
Erasmus did in fact write several letters with that intention, but without
avail. Rome was not peacefully inclined and hoped to force the Lutherans
to submit altogether; the Emperor was not, at that moment, prepared to
go against Rome; the Protestant princes were jealous of their independence
and afraid to lose the church property they had obtained; and, perhaps
most important of all, Luther had no intention whatever to sanction a
peaceful settlement. Being under the Imperial ban he could not be present
at Augsburg, but on the August 26th, 1530 he wrote from Saxony: DOCtrinal concord is plainly impossible unless the Pope wishes to abolish the
Papacy. It is enough that we have submitted our Confession of Faith
and asked for peace: why do we hope to convert them to truth?3
Documents Illustrative of the Continental Reformation, ed. B. J. Kidd (Oxford,
1911), p. 266. sec. xviii.
Corpus Reformutorum, vol. 11, col. 170 (to Campeggio, July 1530): Parati sumus
obedire Ecclesiae Romanae, mod0 ut illa pro sua dementia, qua semper omnes gentes
usa est, pauca quaedam vel dissimulet, vel relaxet, quae iam mutare ne quidem si
velimus queamus.
Levis quaedam dissimilitudo rituum est, quae videtur obsistere
concordiae.
Kidd, op. cit., p. 296.

.. .

ERASMUS A N D M E L A N C H T H O N

257

Melanchthons peace efforts, at Augsburg and later, were entirely

fruitless, but his Erasmian activities within the growing Lutheran Church
had a considerable measure of success. More than that: the Lutheran
Church could not have come into being without Melanchthon, and Luther
knew it. Philipp, Luther said, is moved by the great affairs of state and
religion. I am moved only by private affairs. And Luther also felt that
he did not know how to express his own message; Melanchthon, he
thought, had both the thing and the words. Luther by himself would
have been unable to formulate the doctrines, or to build up the administrative structure, of the new Church. This fact is too often forgotten: Melanchthonism, while not doing justice to the unique impetus of the founder,
would in some ways be quite an appropriate name for what has come to be
known as Lutheranism. And this insufficiency on Luthers part must be the
deeper explanation of his general approval of Melanchthons activities some
of which were uncongenial or even directly opposed to his own outlook.
In the first days of the movement both Luther and Melanchthon had
insisted that Scripture was the only source of faith, but from the early
1520s onwards Melanchthon began to appeal to the consensus of the
Fathers-his first approach to tradition as a supplementary source of
faith. The next step was the serious consideration of the Roman traditions,
and we have already noted Melanchthons horror of new dogmas and his
far-reaching concessions at Augsburg.
A tradition of a different kind was particularly near to Melanchthons
heart ;the tradition of ancient learning. Among the great ancient teachers,
Aristotle and Cicero appealed to him especially: to him, Aristotle was still
the Master of those who know, and Cicero was, next to Aristotle, the
chief mouthpiece of the wisdom of the ages. Ancient philosophy, Melanchthon insists, is truth itself and, as it were, a voice of nature.2 Man is
capable of hearing the truth because he has within himself a natural light
(lumen naturale, a Ciceronian term), the light of reason. It is this light
which teaches even fallen mankind the rudiments of moral philosophy,
the law of nature; and those universally known precepts have been clarified
by Gods direct interpretation in the Decalogue. These are the indisputable traditions: others must be judged by their conformity to natural
rea~on.~
Thus the Erasmian trinity of concepts became firmly established in
Melanchthons thought : tradition, nature, and reason-the voice of
Table-Talk, sec. 45.
Cf. F. Hildebrandt, Melanchthon: Alien or Ally ?(Cambridge, 1946), p. 5.
Following here the analysis of Melanchthons thought in W. Dilthey, Gesammelte
Schrifen, vol. I1 (Stuttgart-Gottingen, 1914), pp. 162-201.

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WILHELM SCHENK

enlightened mankind throughout the ages. On this basis Melanchthon built

his educational system, perhaps his most characteristic achievement ;
it was not for nothing that he was called Preceptor of Germany (we shall
discuss the greatness and limits of the Melanchthonian school at a later
stage).
But in addition to being Praeceptor Germaniae, Melanchthon was
also the official theologian of the Lutheran Church. As such he produced
one edition after another of his Loci Communes, the last one in 1559,
thirty-eight years after the first edition. This constant re-editing was in
fact constant rewriting: in the end the fairly short book of his youth
had been replaced by a work over three times its size, which fills 3 17 folio
pages. A handbook had grown into an encyclopedia; an anti-scholastic
challenge had become a new Summa Theologica. Closer inspection of this
tome confirms this. The mysteries of divinity, Melanchthon had written
in the first edition, should be adored rather than investigated. The last
edition does not take this warning to heart. It opens with chapters on
God, the Trinity, and the Creation, and then goes on from one point to
another, carefully distinguishing concepts, warning against errors, answering practically all questions of traditional theology.
Melanchthon, the scholastic theologian : here it becomes apparent that
he was an Erasmian with a difference. He was a traditionalist, and as
such in accord with a part of Erasmuss endeavour. But tradition in the
Erasmian sense, as we have seen, is subject to constant renewal; the
individual judgement of the freely searching mind is as indispensable to
it as the sensus communis. This freedom within the unquestioned limits
of sense is the mark of a first-rate mind, but Melanchthons was not a
first-rate mind. He even had something of the half touching, half ridiculous pedantry not unknown among schoolmasters and professors : he
disliked loose ends of ideas and tried to tie them up wherever possible.
Unfortunately, such mental tidiness nearly always leads to the kind of
lifeless discipline which Erasmus found so intolerable in the university
of his day.
Works like Melanchthons Loci Communes tend to have a doubly
unpleasant fate :contemporaries, exercising their wits in the same direction,
will pay them rather too much attention, and posterity none at all. There
cannot be many people alive now who can truthfully say that they have
read, marked, and inwardly digested the last edition of Melanchthons
magnum opus. But in Melanchthons lifetime and for one or two generations
after his death his book was the centre of bitter and reckless controversies.
Numberless other theologians produced their Loci, filling at least as
many and often more folio pages, insisting on their petty points of

ERASMUS A N D MELANCHTHON

259

difference as if everybodys salvation depended on them. Once again, the

learned lived up to Vivess description of them as being more contentious
than lions or robbers. When Melanchthon felt that his end was approaching, he drew up a list of reasons why he should welcome death, and among
these reasons was: I shall be free from the fury of the theologians (rabies
theologorum). He may have suffered more than many others from this
fury, but he himself, despite his peaceable temperament, had helped to
prepare its outbreak. His later attempts to find a clear distinction between
essential and non-essential dogmas were bound to fail : the fault lay in his
systematic way of thinking, and that he could not alter. Erasmuss characteristic activity was conversation, but Melanchthon was always the
lecturer behind the desk, imparting authoritative information ;he belonged
to the class of worthy but limited teachers who form their pupils without
being formed by them.
And there is another and even more serious side to this limitation. Not
only was Melanchthon all too eager to define his particular orthodoxy,
but he was determined to defend it against all dissenters with the help
of the state. Melanchthon strongly insisted on the duty of the state to
punish all heretics, and the state was only too willing to accept this teaching.
In his political doctrines Melanchthon went much further than Luther
who is usually blamed for the political servility of Lutheranism, but who
was quite capable of calling the princes a lot of uncomplimentary names
when they aroused his anger. Not so Melanchthon: he had an exaggerated,
and certainly most un-Erasmian, respect for the sacredness of secular
rule; the civil authorities, he taught, were part of the Church and charged
with the control and even with the improvement of religion. It is clear,
he wrote to the unworthy Philip of Hesse in 1536, that it is the duty of
secular rulers to punish blasphemy, false doctrine, and heresy on the
bodies of those who adhere to them. When Calvin burnt Servetus, in
1553, Melanchthon sent him a letter of congratulation and declared that
he had earned the gratitude of all posterity. It was only the lack of opportunity, not any hesitation on his part, that prevented Melanchthon from
following Calvins example. Melanchthon wished to exorcize the spectres
of anarchy and rebellion by the power of the state; it never occurred to
him that this would mean casting out Satan by Leviathan.

Corpus Reformutorum, vol. 111, col. 199-200 (to Philip Hass concerning the Anabaptists, 1536): Aus diesern ist nun klar, dass weltlich Obrigkeit schuldig ist, Gotteslasterung, falsche Lehre, Ketzereien und die Anhanger am Leib zu strafen. Cf. vol.
XII, col. 497; vol. XXI, col. 1012.