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Updated: June 24, 2025
On Melancthon's gradually showing more signs of life, he had some food prepared for him, and on his refusing it said, 'You really must eat, or I will excommunicate you. By degrees the patient revived in body and soul. Luther was able to inform another friend, 'We found him dead, and by an evident miracle he lives.
And, indeed, subsequent events brought this tendency to concession more fully into notice. Certain peculiarities now asserted themselves in Melancthon's independent opinions, with regard both to theology and practical life, which distinguished his mode of teaching from that of Luther.
Ranke's Reformation in Germany; D'Aubigné's History of the Reformation; Luther's Letters; Mosheim's History of the Church; Melancthon's Life of Luther: Erasmi Epistolae; Encyclopaedia Britannica.
Melancthon's work, after having been subjected by the Elector to full scrutiny and criticism in several quarters, was published by his command in March 1528, with a preface written by Luther, as 'Instructions of the Visitors to the parish priests in the Electorate of Saxony. In this preface Luther pointed out how important and necessary for the Church was such a supervision and visitation.
'My dear father, he says, 'maintained me there with loyal affection, and by his labour and the sweat of his brow enabled me to go there. He had now begun to feel a burning thirst for learning, and here, at the 'fountain of all knowledge, to use Melancthon's words, he hoped to be able to quench it. He began with a complete course of philosophy, as that science was then understood.
We know already how his anxiety about the dangers caused by the separation from the great Catholic Church seemed to tempt him to indulge in questionable concessions, and how it was Luther himself, with a disposition so different to Melancthon's, who nevertheless held firmly to his trust in his friend and fellow-labourer, particularly during the Diet of Augsburg.
On the strength of this view, Butzer, the theological representative of Strasburg, sought to make further overtures to the Wittenbergers. He was not deterred by Melancthon's mistrustful opposition or by Luther's leaving a letter of his unanswered. He now appeared in person at the Castle of Coburg, and on September 25 had a confidential and friendly interview with Luther.
Luther, at first moved by Melancthon's wish and the entreaties of French Evangelicals, had earnestly begged the Elector to permit Melancthon 'in the name of God to go to France. 'Who knows, he said, 'what God may wish to do? He was afterwards startled on his friend's account by the severe letter of the Elector, but was obliged to acknowledge that the latter was right in his distrust of the affair.
The modesty which made him willing, even in the early days of his reforming labours, to yield the first place to his younger friend Melancthon, he displayed to the end, as we have seen in reference to Melancthon's principal work, the 'Loci Communes. Whenever he was asked for a really good book for theological studies and the pure exposition of the gospel, he named the Bible first and then Melancthon's book.
It was the first time that a dogmatic dispute threatened to break out among those who had hitherto stood really united on the common ground of Lutheran doctrine. Luther, on the contrary, approved Melancthon's draft, and found little to alter in it. What his opponents said did not disturb him; he quieted the doubts of the Elector on that score.
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