Humanist learning at Wittenberg
Born at Bretten in 1497, Melanchthon studied in Heidelberg and Tübingen. Johannes Reuchlin encouraged his education and gave his surname Schwarzerdt its Greek form. Classical languages, rhetoric, dialectic and the writings of Erasmus helped shape his humanist training.
He became professor of Greek at Wittenberg in 1518, teaching classical authors while entering biblical study and theological controversy. His Loci communes appeared in 1521, organizing reforming arguments about sin, faith and salvation. Repeated revisions reflected his developing positions.
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Schools, universities and translation
He treated languages and reasoned argument as foundations of teaching, helped organize a Latin school at Nuremberg and advised university reforms in Wittenberg, Tübingen and Leipzig. His textbooks and lectures connected logic, ethics, politics and natural knowledge with classical texts and theology.
In 1522 he worked with Luther on revision of the German New Testament. Elector John Frederick built him a Wittenberg house in 1536 to retain his services. It accommodated family and numerous students, joining domestic life with the work of a professor.
Confession, negotiation and controversy
He drafted the Augsburg Confession in 1530 to explain the teaching of reforming princes and cities to Charles V. Emphasizing faith and grace while claiming continuity with the ancient church, he subsequently answered Catholic objections in the Apology and continued doctrinal negotiations.
Accommodation did not eliminate disagreement. His revisions of the confession in 1540 and later positions on the Eucharist and ceremonial compromises provoked fellow reformers. Particularly contentious in 1548 was his treatment of some outward rites as adjustable. He died at Wittenberg in 1560, leaving educational, theological and epistolary work.