PHILIP, or MELANTHON, as he was accustomed to spell his name towards the close of his life, was born at Bretten, or Bretheim, a town of the Lower Palatinate, 16th Feb. 1497. His father, George Schwarzerde, or Schwarzerd, was a native of Heidelberg, an armourer of some celebrity in his trade, and a kinsman of the famous scholar Reuchlin. He was a man pious and affectionate, but at the same time stern and unflinching; and his calm, truthful nature seems to have been deepened into a grave and gloomy earnestness by the continued rankling of a sickness begun four years before his death, and by his friends attributed to an accidental draught of slow poison. On his deathbed he committed his son, then a boy of eleven years, to God's guidance, in prospect of "terrible tempests that were about to shake the world." Melancthon's mother, Barbara Reuter, was a daughter of a distinguished citizen of Bretten, who had for some years been mayor of the town. What her husband was from principle she was by instinct; and with her instinctive love of truth and charity there mingled an idealizing grace which seems to have bordered on superstition. She was the author of the popular house-wifely rhyme, beginning

"Aloosen geben armet nicht."

She was passionately fond of young Philip, and remained a widow until the tie which bound them together was loosened, not without many misgivings on her part, by his marriage. On account of the armourer's incessant occupations, the early education of her favourite boy fell into her hands; but she was assisted by her father, and Reuchlin, her husband's kinsman, seems to have taken great interest in his progress. In approbation of Philip's buoyish acquirements this devoted scholar sent him a present of two books, a Greek grammar and a Bible; and it is interesting to note that thus early his talents were turned into their destined channel, Greek literature and sacred learning. At a school at Piertsheim, where George Simler was rector, Philip received his classical education. He lived, along with John Reuter, in the house of Reuchlin's sister, and was thus frequently brought into familiar intercourse with the rugged author of the Epistolae Obscurorum Virorum. From Reuchlin, who had allowed himself to be dubbed "Capnio" (Κάπνιος being the Greek of Rauch, smoke), the young Schwarzerde (black earth) received the Grecized name of Melancthon, by which he is now universally known. In 1509 he was sent to the university of Heidelberg; and in 1512 he removed to Tubingen, where he acquired so great a reputation for scholarship as to deserve a high encomium from Erasmus, who predicted that himself and all the other lights of learning would soon be eclipsed by this stripling of eighteen. In the beginning of 1514 Melancthon received his doctorship in philosophy. He immediately began to give public lectures in rhetoric, and to expound Virgil and Terence and other authors. Of his inner history, as he was now approaching the crisis of his life, we can obtain only a passing glance. At a later period he tells us how he shuddered at the remembrance of his youthful image-worship; but we know that at this time he was a diligent student of the Scripture, and that as he carried the favourite Bible of Frobenius to the church, the monks, who thought every one a Jew who read Hebrew and every one a heretic who read Greek, did not fail to insinuate the heathenism of reading books of suspicious bulk within the sacred precincts.

He had been thus engaged for three years, when, on the nomination of Reuchlin, he was appointed by the elector of Saxony professor of Greek in the university of Wittemberg. "All Tubingen," says Simler, "lamented his departure;" but when he arrived at Wittemberg, after a Journey which was a continued ovation, his slight figure, hesitant expression, and ungraceful gait, created an impression far from favourable. The facility and grace of his inaugural oration, however, quickly dispelled the fears of the professors; and Luther, who had shaken his head with the rest, was among the foremost to celebrate the learning and power of his youthful colleague. Melanchthon, on his part, was not slow to appreciate the depth and warmth of Luther's character. A letter is extant, which seems to have been written about this time, in which Melanchthon says, that "if he loved any man on earth with his whole heart, that man was Martin." And thus began the intimacy of two friends, destined, with their united strength, to roll the religious as well as the literary world back on its axis, but each leaving the impress of his own human weakness on the machinery which they framed to effect the revolution. "Luther," says D'Aubigne, "possessed warmth, vigour, and strength; Melanchthon clearness, discretion, and mildness. Luther gave energy to Melanchthon; Melanchthon moderated Luther. They were like substances in a state of positive and negative electricity, which mutually act upon each other. If Luther had been without Melanchthon, perhaps the torrent would have overflowed its banks. Melanchthon, when Luther was taken from him by death, hesitated and gave way, even when he should not have yielded."

Under the teaching of Melanchthon, Wittemberg became the school of the nation. The scholastic methods of instruction were summarily abandoned; and in a Discourse on Reforming the Studies of Youth, which Melanchthon gave in the first year of his professorship, the key-note was struck of a deeper earnestness in philology, and of a keener appreciation of truth, felt by minds of fearless truthfulness to be sacred, although buried in the classics of heathen antiquity. During that year his lectures were divided between Homer and the apostle Paul; and it is characteristic of the man that the same devout and reverent spirit guided his studies in both. In reading Homer he announced it as his aim, like Solomon, to seek Tyrian brass and gems for the adornment of God's temple. It is also significant of his tendency to purify where others would destroy, that, though at first carried away by Luther's denunciation of the Peripatetic philosophy, he quickly retracted his opinion, and sought to use the logic of the schools as a wholesome discipline in the service of theology. He was instrumental also, by his advent at Wittemberg, in stimulating and assisting Luther in the translation of the Bible, which was begun as early as 1517, but was progressing somewhat fitfully and slowly. All this happened within the bosom of the Church of Rome, with which his colleague and he were soon to be in open rupture.

Issuing from the patronage of Reuchlin, and deeply imbued with love for the Scriptures, Melanchthon adopted without difficulty the principles of Wittemberg. In proof of his earnestness, he attended Luther and Karlstadt to the disputations of Leipzig. He took no public part in the debate, but, by his private suggestions to the combatants, he attracted the angry sarcasms of Eck, who was indignant that this grammarian, as he called him, should dare to interfere in the discussion. On its conclusion, Melanchthon addressed an account of the debate in a letter to Ecolampadius; and so lightly did the passions of the time agitate his truthful nature, that this epistle contains no exaggerated eulogies of his own party, and even mentions the general admiration entertained towards Eck on account of his varied talents. Yet that vain polemic professed to be offended at this narrative, and affecting to appreciate the superior erudition of Luther, rejected with scorn the tribute offered by so unworthy a hand.

From this time forward Melanchthon devoted himself almost exclusively to theology, and his history becomes so thoroughly interwoven with that of the Reformation, that only those points can be touched in which he stood aloof or alone among the band of Reformers. His life was chiefly spent in writing books, and visiting colleges and churches at the command of the elector. In 1520 he married Catharine Krapp, the daughter of a burgomaster of the town, and by her he had two sons and two daughters, who all survived him. She seems to have been of a very timid disposition. He admired her; was forced often to yield to her entreaties; but he never gave her half the love he gave to his books; and on the marriage-day, conscious of a kind of half-heartedness in the affair, he could not help saying she deserved a better husband. In 1521 he rendered what is his most valuable contribution to theological literature. His Loci Communes Rerum Theologicarum were a sort of summary of Christian doctrine, in which the truths asserted by Luther in his various compositions were reduced to a system, and thus more easily inculcated. The subjects of difference with the Romish church are distinctly stated with reference to scriptural proof, and without controversial argument—a method of persuasion better suited to moderate minds than the most eloquent appeals of impassioned reason. It was the opposite to the method of Luther; yet the latter was so sensible of its advantages, and so little bigoted to his own style, that he bestowed the strongest possible eulogy on the production of his friend; he ranked it incomparably above the writings of the fathers, and pronounced it to be the best book he had ever seen except the Bible. That in the heat of contending parties the exposition should be so calm, is a beautiful proof of the natural bent of Melanchthon's mind to idealize his antagonists; but this necessity of his nature was all the more perilous for his peace and power, when error threw a veil over its practical extravagances, and became attractive only when impersonal. Thus, when Stübner and Cellarius, escaping from among the raving artizans of Zwickau, forced themselves on the peaceful society of Wittemberg, and gave utterance to their solemn impostures in his presence, the mind of Melanchthon was perplexed and shaken. In pensive adoration of the doctrine of heavenly influences, which they put in the forefront of their teaching, he received and protected the men whose whole lives and utterances were a libel on the Spirit's agency. It is even said that he went so far as to advise his scholars to renounce the study of profane literature, and to confine their industry to the reading of the Bible and the practice of mechanical arts. Such power had the simple brightness of delusive doctrine to kindle reverence in his mind. It needed the keen practical instincts of Luther to detect the rent in the skirts of the idol's shining robe, and by a strong hand to expose the human folly and trickery concealed under the mask of mystery before which his companion trembled.

The share which Melanchthon had in the transactions of the Diet of Augsburg has been already minutely given in this work under the Life of Luther. He fell under the italities of his enemies at a time when a final blow required to be struck, but when his vision was hemmed in and his spirits oppressed by the dark clouds that overhung the national horizon. He had not the strong faith of Luther either in the warlike mission or the final triumph of truth; and it is no wonder that in such a battlefield the two friends should have parted company. That oppressive love of home, which was a peculiar feature in Melanchthon's character, acting on a spirit tuned from boyhood to superstitious reverence, seems to have asserted its sway in this crisis of home-leaving from the Church of Rome; and in the entire absence of a sublime revenge against error and wrong, which is the birthright of the true reformer, there was no passion left in the mind of Melanchthon to still the struggles of human tenderness, or break the chains of youthful awe. Besides, his catholic spirit, which had strong yearnings, although no prophetic glimpses, shrunk from the sad necessity of converting forts of defense into armed sanctuaries of solid stone, lest the building of the one temple of God should be delayed till not the tottering walls of Babylon, but the too narrow Jerusalem of the Reformed Church, should crumble into the dust. At all events, those who now inherit his hesitancy profess thus to interpret his spirit. The Interim of Augsburg, drawn up by Pflug, Sidoineus, and Agricola, with the view of bridging over the chasm between the Roman Church and the Reformed, although it did not receive the approbation of Melanchthon, is famous as having called forth the Adiaphoristic controversy, in which Melanchthon propounded his views on the obligation of things indifferent to the personal salvation and purity of the believer. This Interim adullterio-Germanicum, as Calvin styled it, contained nearly the entire system of Roman theology; and Melanchthon and the Philippists generally addressed themselves to the hopeless task of so modifying its statements as to accommodate them to the views of the Reformers. He was willing to tolerate both a popedom and a hierarchy, stripped, however, of divine right, and deprived of all power in matters of faith. He thought the church should allow seven sacraments, provided the name of sacrament was not given to those rites only of human origin. The relation of faith to works, and the doctrine of the sacraments, might, in his estimation, be veiled in a judicious obscurity of phrase. The contest assumed a new significance after the publication of the Leipsic Interim in 1548. In this deed the Philippists defined what those things were which they regarded as indifferent; and in which, for the sake of peace and unity, they thought they might be at liberty to obey the emperor. It must not, however, be forgotten, that from the views given in the Loci Communes as the expression of his own faith Melanchthon never swerved; and that he regarded the surrender of more perfect for less perfect forms of truth as a painful sacrifice conscientiously rendered to the weakness of erring brethren.

By this time Luther had been two years dead. From their earliest intimacy he had delighted to call himself the forerunner of Philip, and had compared himself to a storm-wind ushering in the still small voice of his friend. The storm-wind, however, did not cease at Luther's death, and in the general confusion the calm voice of Melanchthon was scarcely heard. The last years of his life were spent in fruitless conferences with the representatives of Rome on the one hand and the more distinguished Reformers on the other, in somewhat feeble replies to the fierce assaults of his enemies, and in the more pleasant duties of his professional office. How much his mild spirit was depressed by the contention of the times may be gathered from the tone of holy happiness which elevates his correspondence whenever, in his later years, he is called to celebrate the death of a dear friend. During the last three years of his life he suffered much from cold and intermittent fever. His wife died in the end of 1557; and the fatal year when he should be 63 years of age—a term to which he had looked forward with a mysterious dread as that beyond which his mortal existence could not possibly be prolonged—was fast approaching. In 1558 he calmly adjusted the desirability of living or dying; and in the one balance he found nothing but sin and the rage of theologians to be weighed against the light of God's face, the unveiling of the mysteries of providence on earth, and the full intelligence of Christ's nature in heaven. On the 12th April 1560 he delivered his last lecture; and his few moments of strength were spent in writing the Chronicon, a narrative of general history from the Creation to the Reformation. On the 19th April of that same year he breathed his last, having lived little more than two months beyond the period which he considered a fatal term. His body was laid in a leaden coffin close beside that of Martin Luther.

Melanchthon's Life has been written by Camerarius, and Melbourne, from his biography we draw almost exclusively the details of his private and domestic history. There are, however, more recent sketches of his life and times by Karl Matthes; and by C. F. Ledderhose, Heid. 1847-8. In English there is a somewhat meagre biography by F. A. Cox, London, 1815; but the most enduring monument of his fame is the Reformatorum Opera, edited by Bretschneider, but still unfinished, the first 22 vols. of which do not exhaust the works of Melanchthon.