Commentary on Romans

by Philipp Melanchthon

English (translation)Original German

288 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1992

About the author

Philipp Melanchthon (16 February 1497 – 19 April 1560), born Philipp Schwartzerdt, was a German reformer, collaborator with Martin Luther, the first systematic theologian of the Protestant Reformation, intellectual leader of the Lutheran Reformation, and an influential designer of educational systems. He stands next to Luther and Calvin as a reformer, theologian, and molder of Protestantism. Along with Luther, he is the primary founder of Lutheranism.[1] They both denounced what they believed was the exaggerated cult of the saints, asserted justification by faith, and denounced the coercion of the conscience in the sacrament of penance by the Catholic Church, that they believed could not offer certainty of salvation. Melanchthon made the distinction between law and gospel the central formula for Lutheran evangelical insight. By the "law", he meant God's requirements both in Old and New Testament; the "gospel" meant the free gift of grace through faith in Jesus Christ.

Reviews

[Finn Childers]

Philipp Melanchthon understood Metaphysics perhaps better than any other intellectual from the Wittenberg camp. His conversations with Erasmus were deeply enlightening to him, and his access to Greek philosophers illuminated the metaphysical nature of the debates. He is very concerned, like Erasmus was, about the Aristotelianism which arose in the Scholastic Theologians, but understood the reformation efforts within the church were trying to address them. The Protestant Reformation was at points trying to do the same, and he was reformed in the basic sense. But he was concerned that the Reformation was committing the same fallacies as the Scholastics, merely with new zeal and direction. Monergistic Soteriology, Sola Scriptura, and Unconditional Predestination to Melanchthon were of great concern, as they seemed to be further reification and abstracted purification of Medieval Catholic thinking, and were “throwing the baby out with the bath water”. His refusal to over-simplify theology into mere axioms was due in part to his reading of several early church fathers, such as Ireneaus and Chrystostom, which tempered his dogma.

Melanchthon notes that Luther had an education based on nothing but Medieval Catholic Scholastic thought; that he learned “Dialectica and Physica from Aristotle” but that also Rome had been misled by Aristotle as well. So, he was caught between a rock and a hard place just like Erasmus. He supported the basic thrust of the Wittenberg camp but realized they were creating a nightmarish version of Christianity without limits and without an institution guardian. Rome was wrong, but Wittenberg might be even worse as it was distilling the errors of the Scholastics into new dogmas. Hence, Melanchthon has had a mixed reception for the last 500 years. Calvin hated him, and Luther loved him, despite disagreeing on Predestination. Since then he has been seen as an evil Synergist or as a great reformer.

From his commentaries on Romans, we see a tempered and careful reading based on Wittenberg principles, but not as dogmatic and polemic as Luther’s commentaries. His Humanistic tendencies pull from dozens of ancient authors, and he compares the metaphysical foundations of various heresies and heterodoxies unlike anyone else in the Wittenberg circles. His commentary of Predestination uses the language of the Reformation, but he does preserve a type of free will and thus the Privatio Boni. He is a core figure of the Reformation, but you can see across his works his evolving and complex understanding of what was happening around him. These Manuscripts are fascinating glimpses into the heart of the core Reformation

Free Will & Determinism
While commentators may draw a comparison between Erasmus and Melanchthon on the subject of Predestination, it is in actuality Luther who was influenced directly by Erasmus. Erasmus purported a kaleidoscope of options that did not fit into Catholicism, any of the Reformations nor any of the strains of the Humanism of the day. This included a reliance on free will as an obvious premise of Christian teachings at large and especially morality. Melanchthon agreed with most of Erasmus' views on the subject, in contrast to the Augustinian Bound Will framework Luther purported. But Melanchthon built this understanding from the moral teachings of the scriptures, not from Erasmus; "Ulltra posse nemo obligatur". Erasmus largely agreed with Luther’s criticisms. Luther considered Erasmus a friend and tried to recruit him into his new religion unsuccessfully. It was upon Erasmus' teachings that Calvin and Luther built their philosophies in the characteristic reactionism of the age:

Others, like the Stoics, imagine that God is bound by secondary causes, and that nothing can be done otherwise than as secondary causes. Others, like the Epicureans, put everything to chance and confusion. Both errors arouse great disturbances in human minds.

Already in Loci Communes, Melanchthon notes a nuanced understanding of Human Agency and Predestination, carefully avoiding simplistic statements which Luther would be known for. He creates a divide between wills using a mixture of Latin and Greek concepts: “Now, the Free Wills of the Mind are located in lωάνι ἄν & Will” and an internal/ external causality. He asserts: “This is the freedom of the will, which Philosopher rightly attributes to man” but notes that due to the fallen, inherited nature via Augustinian Original Sin, the soul cannot do good without being restored fist, which is the exact same logic that Luther uses to call the idea of free will “Heretical and Unbiblical.” Melanchthon does not differentiate clearly between Soteriological and Cosmological Determinism, and correlates mechanical, Epicurean natural determinism with Stoic theological Determinism:

… that Stoic opinions are by no means to be introduced into the Church. but it is pernicious that which is said in the Tragedy, this is the fault of Fate, No one becomes guilty of Fate, just as Zeno's Sereus said that he was unjustly condemned because he was forced by Fate to sin. A word in the second book of πλιτειῶν [Second Philippians]: We must fight with every contention, lest anyone in the city should say, how well we want the king whether he hears, whether old or young, or in a poem or in another narrative, that God is the cause of evils to anyone. This cannot be said to be holy, nor is it useful to the city, nor does it agree with him in the explanation. For it is objected, The second cause does not act without the first; a subtle one is handed down to slip away, yet another thicker and more conspicuous one is given, which is taken from this foundation: That God is present to creatures, not as the Stoic God, bound by secondary causes, to move simply, as the second ones move: But as the most free agent, sustaining nature, acting differently in others according to his counsel. That is, in corporeal things.

Melanchthon makes a claim that Stoicism has been wrongly injected into Christianity, and ties what would be called later “Unconditional Predestination” to this heterodox infusion. He writes Christianity has an obvious origin in the Platonic Noumena/ Phenomena divide, but that Christianity developed beyond the Platonic in its Cosmology, which I don’t think would be controversial to any modern scholar. This emphasis on Stoicism is a more unique claim and contradicts Luther’s claims of a purely Biblical basis of Election:

…most of the others take away the freedom of the will of Man, therefore, because all things are done by God's decision. This imagination, arising from the Stoic debates, leads them to remove the contingency of good and bad actions, even of all movements in Animals and Elements.

This correlation of Stoicism to Predestination to Moral Agency is found nowhere in Luther, who taught a strict predestination based on his misreading of Augustine’s anti-Pelagius writings. Melanchthon’s understanding of the church and the Elect is very individualistic, as is the Ecclesiology of all the Medieval Catholic Humanist Reformers from Calvin to Zwingli which was in an Augustinian fashion. But Melanchthon would turn further and further away from what he would call a Stoic understanding of Human agency, coming into conflict with his friend Luther. This text has been critical to the Calvinist tradition in a similar way to the Lutheran and broader Evangelical tradition, but one can see how a reader could ignore Melanchthon’s anti-determinism statements and focus on his notes about sin binding human agency. But he makes statements which deny that there is an antinomy here:

If you refer the human will to predestination, there is liberty neither in external nor internal works, but all things comes to pass according to Divine Purpose... You see, Reader, how much more certain I have written about Freedom of the will than either Bernard or for that matter any of the Scholastics?

While Luther reacted violently to Erasmus' teachings and took the antipodal position on the Sovereignty of God out of rage, Melanchthon took a less volatile path. He admitted when he was wrong and changed course accordingly. No stubbornness is obvious in his writings, which is bizarre for his time and place in such a reactionary, contrarian, and violent religious landscape. His ability to refrain from the hateful reactionist polemics which characterized this early 16th century period is quite extraordinary and sardonically noted by Luther himself. Part of this is perhaps because he was an academic first and last, and never a Vicar or political figure who needed to resort to radical over-simplification to defeat religiopolitical enemies.

In fact, Melanchthon actually criticized his friend Luther and sided with Erasmus is this conflict. He had been in correspondence with Erasmus much earlier than Luther. In his infamous arguments with Bishop Erasmus, Luther thundered against the idea of human agency, nearly to the point of denying the absolute Goodness of God. Four major works explain his doctrine of Predestination, which he saw as fundamentally linked to his Sola Fide doctrine: Von der Freiheit eines Christenmenschen/ On the Freedom of a Christian (1520) Epistula Lutheri Erasmo / Letter from Luther to Erasmus (1525) and Vom unfreien Willen (De Servo Arbitrio) Das der freie wille nichts / The Bondage of the Will: That free will is nothing (1526) and most expansively Von der Erbsünde/ On Original Sin (1530).

The Complete Works of Philipp Melanchthon
Loci Communes: https://bit.ly/3hCsUb2
Commentary on Romans and other Minor works: https://bit.ly/3X7Po42
Enchidirion and Instructions to the Visitors: https://bit.ly/3tvfdgx
The Augsburg Confession & Apology: https://bit.ly/3hAS89Q
The History and Life Stories of the Venerable Dr. Martin Luther: https://bit.ly/3G7icn6