of a corporeal presence and oral manducation of the body and blood of Christ; and laid the main
stress on the spiritual, yet real presence and communion with Christ.
He changed the tenth article of the Augsburg Confession in 1540, and made it acceptable
to Reformed divines by omitting the anti-Zwinglian clause. But he never accepted the Zwinglian
theory of a mere commemoration. His later eucharistic theory closely approached that of Calvin;
while on the subject of predestination and free will he differed from him. Calvin, who had written
a preface to the French translation of the Loci Theologici, expressed, in private letters, his surprise
that so great a theologian could reject the Scripture doctrine of eternal predestination; yet they
maintained an intimate friendship to the end, and proved that theological differences need not
prevent religious harmony and fraternal fellowship.
- Melanchthon never surrendered the doctrine of justification by faith; but he laid in his
later years, in opposition to antinomian excesses, greater stress on the necessity of good works of
faith, not indeed as a condition of salvation and in a sense of acquiring merit, but as an indispensable
proof of the duty of obedience to the divine will.
These doctrinal changes gave rise to bitter controversies after Luther’s death, and were
ultimately rejected in the Formula of Concord (1577), but revived again at a later period. Luther
himself never adopted and never openly opposed them.
The Loci of Melanchthon met from the start with extraordinary favor. Edition after edition
appeared in Wittenberg during the author’s lifetime, the last from his own hand in the year 1559,
besides a number of contemporaneous reprints at Basel, Hagenau, Strassburg, Frankfurt, Leipzig,
Halle, and many editions after his death.
Luther had an extravagant opinion of them, and even declared them worthy of a place in
the Canon.^471 He thought that his translation of the Bible, and Melanchthon’s Loci, were the best
outfit of a theologian, and almost superseded all other books.^472
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 Catholici.^473
(^471) Invictus libellus non solum immortalitate, sed quoque canone ecclesiastico dignus."In the beginning of De Servo Arbitrio (1525),
against Erasmus.
(^472) He says in his Tischreden (Erl. ed., LIX. 278 sq.): "Wer itzt ein Theologus will werden, der hat grosse Vortheil. Denn erstlich hat
er die Bibel, die ist nu so klar, dam er sie kann lesen ohne alle Hinderung. Darnach lese er darzu die locos communes Philippi; die lese
er fleissig und wohl, also dass er sie gar im Kopfe habe. Wenn er die zwei Stücke hat, so ist er ein Theologus, dem weder der Teufel noch
kein Ketzer etwas abbrechen kann, und ihm stehet die ganze Theologia offen, dass er Alles, was er will, darnach lesen kann ad
aedificationem. 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 Büchern, 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 Wäscher [Deutscher?]"
(^473) Eck’s Loci Communes adversus Lutheranos, Landshut, 1525, passed through many editions.