Philipp Melanchthon: Luther's Right Hand Man
God. This was again attenuated later on: what is necessary, he said, is a new spiritual life or sense of duty. i.e., a righteous conscience.
As years went by he even abandoned Luther's doctrine as to the Last Supper, and looked on Christ's spiritual communication of Himself to the faithful and their internal union with Him as the essential feature of the Sacrament; i.e., he inclined towards Calvin's theory. In 1560 his teachings were introduced into all the churches of Saxony, through the Corpus Philippicum (a collection of Melancthonian doctrinal writings). But there came a change fourteen years after his death. The Philippists or Crypto-Calvinists were thrown into prison and sent into exile. They subsequently identified themselves more and more with Calvinism, even on the question of predestination. Lutheranism, narrow and harsh, won the day with its Formula of Concord (1580). So strong indeed was the opposition that the saying ran: better a Catholic than a Calvinist. From that time on until well into the eighteenth century, Melancthon's memory was assailed and reviled, even in Wittenberg.
Melanchthon assisted Luther constantly in his German translation of the Bible, and also, it is said, in the production of the Latin translation which appeared at Wittenberg, in 1529. In exegesis he stood out vigorously for one sense, and that the literal, (sensus literalis), as against the "four senses" of the Scholastics. Beyond this, he held, there was nothing to be sought in the words of the Bible save the dogmatic and practical applications and development. His commentaries on the Old Testament are not as important as those which he wrote on the New. The most noteworthy are those on the Epistle to the Romans and the Colossians, which have been published repeatedly.
The Reformation thus cannot be imagined without Melanchthon. This is also true with respect to the numerous functions he executed during Congresses and the Religious Dialogues of the 1520s-1540s, in which Melanchthon often served as the leading negotiator of the Reformation movement.
Luther thought so highly of Melanchthon that he wanted to appoint him the leader of the Reformation in case he would not return alive from the Congress in Worms, which, in fact, ended in Luther's banishment. Indeed, Melanchthon would take over this function after Luther's death and would remain the not entirely undisputed head of the Reformation until his own death in 1560.
Melanchthon quickly settled down in Wittenberg.
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