3591396

The Protestant Zeno: Calvin and the Development of Melanchthon's AnthropologyAuthor(s): Barbara PitkinSource: The Journal of Religion, Vol. 84, No. 3 (Jul., 2004), pp. 345-378Published by: The University of Chicago PressStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3591396Accessed: 06/10/2010 14:19

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The Protestant Zeno: Calvin and the Development of Melanchthon's Anthropology* Barbara Pitkin / Stanford University

Writing to his friend Joachim Camerarius in the winter of 1552, the

Wittenberg reformer and professor of Greek Philip Melanchthon com-

plained about the controversy over predestination that was then brew-

ing in Geneva.' The previous October, Jerome Bolsec had run afoul of Geneva's pastors by challengingJohn Calvin's teaching on predestination. As a result, he was thrown into prison. The incident had caught the attention of many outside of Geneva. The Italian humanist Laelius Socinus wrote to Calvin to urge moderation.2 In December, the leader of the Zurich church, Heinrich Bullinger, commended Calvin for plan- ning to write another book in order to make clear that God is not the author of sin, since many people had been troubled by Calvin's pre- sentation of predestination in his famous summary of Protestant faith, the Institutes of 1539.3 For his part, Melanchthon likened the subject of the controversy to Stoic understandings of necessity or fate and re-

* Portions of this article were presented in April 2003 at the Institute for European History, Mainz, Germany, and in the church history Oberseminar at the University of Leipzig. The article has benefited from the comments made by participants on both occasions. I also wish to thank TimothyJ. Wengert, Markus Wriedt, Riemer Faber, and an anonymous reviewer for the Journal of Religion for their careful readings and extremely helpful suggestions.

'On the controversy over predestination in the early 1550s, see Philip C. Holtrop, The Bolsec Controversy on Predestination from 1551 to 1555, 2 vols. (Lewiston: Edwin Mellen, 1993); R. M. Kingdon, "Popular Reactions to the Debate between Bolsec and Calvin," in Calvin: Erbe und Auftrag, ed. W. van't Spijker (Kampen, 1991), pp. 138-45.

2 Calvin responded on January 1, 1552; loannis Calvini opera quae supersunt omnia, ed. W. Baum, E. Cunitz, and E. Reuss, 59 vols. Corpus Reformatorum, vols. 29-87 (Brunswick: C. A. Schwetschke and Son [M. Bruhn], 1863-1900) (hereafter cited as CO), 14:229-30; in English in Letters ofJohn Calvin, 4 vols., ed. Jules Bonnet and trans. D. Constable (vols. 1-2) and M. Gilchrist (vols. 3-4) (Edinburgh: T. Constable [vols. 1-2]; Philadelphia: Presbyterian Board of Education [vols. 3-4], 1855-58) (hereafter cited as Letters), 2:315-16.

3 CO 14:214-15; cf. Holtrop, 2:588-91. Calvin responded on January 21, 1552 (CO 14:253; Letters 2:333-34).

? 2004 by The University of Chicago. All rights reserved. 0022-4189/2004/8403-0001$10.00

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ferred to Calvin as "Zeno," the founder of Stoicism: "But see the mad- ness of this age! The Genevan battles over Stoic necessity are such that a certain person who disagreed with Zeno was thrown into prison."4 What troubled Melanchthon most was not the doctrine of predestination itself but what he perceived to be an obscuring of the central issue of salvation by fruitless philosophical debates.5

Ironically, Melanchthon's own views on these matters were featured in the public debates held in Geneva the following fall. Representing Bolsec's position, Jean Trolliet argued that, in the Institutes, Calvin makes God the author of sin by attributing both the fall of Adam and the necessity of sin to the ordinance and will of God.6 To support his case against these views, he cited passages from the French translation of Melanchthon's Loci communes, which had just been published in its second edition in Geneva the year before.7 Calvin responded that he holds that God is not the author of sin and that though sin is necessary it is never compelled-people sin willingly, and therefore their punish- ment is justified. He also insisted that he and Melanchthon agree on

4 Philippi Melanthonis opera quae supersunt omnia, ed. C. G. Bretschneider and H. E. Bindseil, Corpus Reformatorum, vols. 1-28 (Halle, 1834-52; Brunswick, 1853-60) (hereafter cited as CR), 7:930; Melanchthons Briefwechsel: Kritische und kommentierte Gesamtausgabe, ed. Heinz Scheible (Stuttgart-Bad Canstatt: frommann-holzboog, 1977-) (hereafter cited by letter number as MBW), no. 6322. For a succinct but rich summary of Stoicism and Neostoicism in the sixteenth century, see Christoph Strohm, Ethik im Friihen Calvinismus: Humanistische Einfliisse, Philoso- phische, Juristische und Theologische Argumentation sowie MentalitiitsgeschichtlicheAskpekte am Beispiel des Calvin-Schiilers Lambertus Danaeus (Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 1996), pp. 116-30. On Calvin and Stoicism, see Pierre-Francois Moreau, "Calvin: fascination et critique du stoicisme," in Le stoicisme au XVIe et au XVIIe siecle: Le retour des philosophies antiques d l'dge classique (Paris: Editions Albin Michel, 1999), pp. 51-64.

5 See also Melanchthon's comments on the situation in a letter to his son-in-law, Casper Peucer (CR 7:931-32 = MBW no. 6324) and the discussion of this correspondence in Timothy J. Wengert, "'We Will Feast Together in Heaven Forever': The Epistolary Friendship ofJohn Calvin and Philip Melanchthon," in Melanchthon in Europe: His Work and Influence beyond Wit- tenberg, ed. Karin Maag (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Baker Books, 1999), pp. 30-32. Melanchthon's complaint against those who obscured the central issues of salvation by mixing in other topics was long-standing. For a similar complaint advanced against Erasmus in Melanchthon's 1528 Scholia on Colossians, see Wengert, Human Freedom, Christian Righteousness: Philip Melanchthon's Exegetical Dispute with Erasmus of Rotterdam (New York: Oxford University Press, 1998), pp. 99-100.

6 Trolliet was citing from the 1551 French edition of the Institutes a discussion that had first appeared in the 1539 edition of the Institutes; the same discussions appear in the 1559 edition of the Institutes, 3.23.7 and 3.23.8 (references to the 1559 edition of the Institutes are given as book, chapter, and section). He acknowledged that elsewhere in the Institutes Calvin said that sin did not proceed from God and that these statements agreed with Melanchthon's (and with Trolliet's own opinion) (CO 14:373).

7 CO 14:371-77. The French translation of Melanchthon's Loci communes appeared in two editions, both with a preface by Calvin, published in place of Melanchthon's own preface of 1543: La Somme de Theologie, ou lieux communes, reueuz & augmentez pour la dernierefoys (Geneva: Jean Girard, 1546); La Somme de Theologie, ou lieux communs reueuz & augmentes de nouueau (Geneva: Jean Crespin, 1551).

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these points even if they have different ways of teaching about them. Because Melanchthon does not want to give overcurious people occa- sion to pry into the secrets of God, he speaks-so Calvin-more like a philosopher than a theologian.8 Calvin repeated this allegation in a letter he wrote to Melanchthon just after the debate with Trolliet. Here he was more open about disagreement between the two of them than he had been before the Genevan council: "But to speak candidly, religious scruples prevent me from agreeing with you on this point of doctrine, for you appear to discuss the freedom of the will in too philosophical a manner; and in treating the doctrine of election, you seem to have no other purpose, than to suit yourself to the common feeling of humankind."9 This was an audacious charge to level at the man who devoted his lengthy academic career with unequalled success to defining the theory and practice of the philosophical arts-in particular, grammar, rhetoric, and dialectic-and carefully delineating their relationship to theology!10 After Melanchthon failed to respond, Calvin wrote to him again in August 1554. This time he suggested that Me- lanchthon was dissembling his opinions and stressed the need for them to reconcile their views.1'

Although the disputes over predestination were ostensibly about divine agency, they were also bound up inextricably with questions of human capacities and responsibilities. From Melanchthon's standpoint, the iron logic of predestination advanced by Calvin engaged in useless and potentially dangerous speculation about God's activity and reflected a deficient understanding of human capacities and responsibilities. From Calvin's perspective, Melanchthon's potentially dangerous speculations about human agency reflected a problematic understanding of divine activity. Interestingly, each man accused the other of obscuring biblical teaching through false application of philosophy: Cal- vin, according to Melanchthon, by adopting a Stoic concept of necessity; Melanchthon, according to Calvin, by using Aristotelian and other philosophical categories to analyze human nature.

This was, I suggest, a disagreement both over what constitutes human

8 CO 14:378-83. 9 "Me autem, ut ingenue fatear, religio impedit ne tibi hac doctrinae parte accedam quod

nimis philosophice de libero arbitrio disputare videris." CO 14:417 = MBW no. 6655 (my emphasis). In the 1539 Institutes, Calvin charged that "the philosophers" held that reason was sound enough to grasp the principles of right conduct and that the will was free to resist the lower impulse of the senses and follow the dictates of reason. He also claimed that many of the church fathers had come too close to this philosophical assessment of human capacities (CO 1:315-16; cf. Institutes [1559], 2.2.2-4).

10 For an overview of Melanchthon's philosophical writings, see Heinz Scheible, Melanchthon: Eine Biographie (Munich: Beck, 1977), pp. 86-99.

n CO 15:215-17 = MBW no. 7273.

347


nature and the implications of that understanding for assessments of human responsibility and freedom. Obviously, such questions were

hardly new. Indeed, twentieth-century literature has emphasized the continuity of early modern views of human nature with previous un-

derstandings.12 Renaissance humanists and sixteenth-century religious reformers asked questions about human existence similar to those of their medieval predecessors. However, in their answers to these questions, Christian humanists like Melanchthon and Calvin drew on a

greater pool of classical resources than their scholastic counterparts. Moreover, they utilized this broader classical heritage differently, read-

ing classic and patristic writers not just in compendia but also in new

printed editions of entire writings. Finally, they were concerned to in-

corporate the religious, and especially soteriological, orientation of Protestantism into the way such questions were answered.13 Their re-

sponses to these traditional concerns-and, especially, Melanchthon's

comprehensive study of human nature-helped further a development in the sixteenth century toward the study of human nature as a distinct field, as "anthropology" or "psychology."14 In other words, the study of human nature as a whole was emerging to become the independent and identifiable field it becomes in the modern era.

Melanchthon's important contribution to this development is gen- erally noted, and his anthropology, especially its development in the 1520s, and its role in intra-Lutheran controversies have been explored in detail.15 Moreover, the implications of his debates with defenders of traditional Catholicism (such as Erasmus and John Eck), his engage-

12Jill Kraye, "Moral Philosophy," in The Cambridge History of Renaissance Philosophy (Cam- bridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988), p. 306. On the continuity of medieval and Ren- aissance views, see Charles Trinkaus, In Our Image and Likeness: Humanity and Divinity in Italian Humanistic Thought, 2 vols. (London: Constable; Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1970).

13 See Theologische Realenzyklopddie (hereafter cited as TRE), s.v. "Seele VI," p. 760. 14 In the medieval universities, the study of human nature was implicit in standard fields

of study such as physics, mathematics, metaphysics, ethics, economics, and politics. See Ka- tharine Park and Eckhard Kessler, "The Concept of Psychology," in The Cambridge History of Renaissance Philosophy, pp. 455-63. The word "psychology" was first used to designate the study of the soul byJohannes Thomas Freigas in 1575; the word "anthropology" was also used in the sixteenth century to indicate the subject matter of Aristotle's De anima: Magnum Hundt, Antropologium de hominibus . . . (Leipzig, 1501).

15 See, e.g., Wolfgang Matz, Der Befreite Mensch: Die Willenslehre in der Theologie Philipp Melan- chthons (G6ttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2001); Giinter Frank, "Philipp Melanchthons 'Liber de anima,' und die Etablierung der friihneuzeitlichen Anthropologie," in Humanismus und WittenbergerReformation, Festgabe anlii lich des 500. Geburtstages desPraeceptor GermaniaePhilipp Melanchthon am 16. Februar 1997, ed. M. Beyer and G. Wartenberg (Leipzig: Evangelische Verlagsanstalt, 1996), pp. 313-26; Robert Kolb, "Nikolaus Gallus' Critique of Philip Melanch- thon's Teaching on the Freedom of the Will," Archiv fur Reformationsgeschichte 91 (2000): 87-110; Lowell Green, "The Three Causes of Conversion in Philipp Melanchthon, Martin Chemnitz, David Chytraeus, and the 'Formula of Concord,'" Lutherjahrbuch 47 (1980): 89-114.

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ment with Aristotle, the peasant uprisings and the parish visitations of the 1520s, and conflicts with certain Lutheran colleagues (such as John Agricola in the 1520s) for his understanding of human nature, human

capacities, and moral responsibility have also been the subject of re- search.16 Missing, however, is a sense of the role that the "Protestant Zeno" might have played in shaping Melanchthon's doctrine of human nature.17 Of course, that Calvin and Melanchthon differed on such matters as the freedom of the will and predestination has not gone unnot- iced; Catholic opponents delighted in pointing this out at the time, and, ultimately, the two acknowledged their differences themselves. Yet the full impact of their debate has not been fully appreciated, and with this, the contribution of Calvin to Melanchthon's anthropology has not been given its due. This is in part owing to the fact that the debate was

deliberately muted. But before turning to the debate itself, I want to

explain why this was so. The roots of this subtle debate over human nature and capabilities

lie in the late 1530s and early 1540s. At this time Calvin and Melanch- thon first met as representatives in official religious colloquies and be-

gan an epistolary relationship that continued, intermittently, for the rest of their lives. Until recently, their relationship has been often mis- construed as an intimate "friendship," first, because of the desire on the part of each man, at least in this early period, to establish Protestant

unity as well as "evangelical truth," and, second, because their public encounters and private correspondence were carried out via the nice- ties of humanist conventions.l8 Understanding both the religious-political context of their interactions as well as the rules of humanist eti-

quette allows for a more realistic assessment of their sometimes serious

disagreements over key theological issues, the doctrine of human na-

16 See esp. Wengert, Human Freedom, Christian Righteousness, and Law and Gospel: Philip Me- lanchthon's Debate with John Agricola of Eisleben over Poenitentia (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Baker Books, 1997); Sachiko Kusukawa, The Transformation of Natural Philosophy: The Case of Philip Melanchthon (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995).

17 Gunter Frank notes in passing Calvin's status as a "Schliisselfigur" in assessing the contribution of reformation theology on the origins of the modern understanding of the world and modern anthropology and cites several important studies that have explored the role of his ideas ("Melanchthons 'Liber de anima,"' p. 317, n. 18).

18 On humanist epistolography and polemics, see Judith R. Henderson, "Erasmus and the Art of Letter Writing," in Renaissance Eloquence, ed. J. J. Murphy (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1983), pp. 331-55; Nancy S. Struever, Theory as Practice: Ethical Inquiry in the Renaissance (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1992), chaps. 1-2;John M. Najemy, Between Friends: Discourses of Power and Desire in the Machiavelli-Vettori Letters of 1513-1515 (Princeton, NJ.: Princeton University Press, 1993), pp. 18-57; LisaJardine, Erasmus, Man of Letters: The Construction of Charisma in Print (Princeton, NJ.: Princeton University Press, 1993); Sari Kivist6, Creation Anti-eloquence: Epistolae obscurorum virorum and the Humanist Polemics on Style (Helsinki: Finnish Society of Sciences and Letters, 2002), chap. 2.

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ture among these.19 In the early 1540s, Calvin and Melanchthon pro- fessed public agreement with one another while taking pains to rule out dangers each saw in the other's position-without, however, nam-

ing any names. The more open criticism of one another that subse-

quently surfaced in their reactions to the Genevan predestination con-

troversy is intelligible only when understood in light of these earlier, more moderate, frequently hidden, but nevertheless significant disagreements.

There is one further reason why the period from 1539-46 represents a fertile field for exploring the differences between Calvin and Me- lanchthon's conceptions of human nature. This was also the period in which each was working out his own understanding of human nature and human capabilities and bringing it to fuller expression. In 1539 Calvin published a revised and greatly expanded edition of his Institutes, which contained new and detailed discussions of human nature, the nature of repentance, and the Christian life.20 In 1542 he published a treatise on the nature and immortality of the soul, ostensibly a refutation of the idea that after death the soul either "sleeps" in a state of oblivion until the day of judgment or that it actually dies with the body.21 Finally, in 1543 he defended the bondage of the will in a treatise

19 For the best analysis of these issues, see Wengert, "We Will Feast Together" (n. 5 above). Building on Wengert's analysis, Riemer Faber has investigated Melanchthon's and Calvin's different appraisals of humanism and shown how the variance in their understanding of the scope and goals of the studia humanitatis accounts for their major theological differences ("The Humanism of Melanchthon and Calvin," in Melanchthon und der Calvinismus, ed. G. Frank and H. Selderhuis, Melanchthon-Schriften der Stadt Bretten, [Stuttgart: Frommann- Holzboog, 2004]), pp. 11-28. M. A. van den Berg seeks to show how the "friendship" was repeatedly put to the test ("Calvijn en Melanchthon, een Beproefde Vriendschap," Theologia Reformata [1998]: 78-102); Randall Zachman attributes the tension between them to their different understandings of the proper form and method of teaching doctrine and of the office of teacher in the church ("Restoring Access to the Fountain: Melanchthon and Calvin on the Task of Evangelical Theology," in Calvin Studies Society Papers, 1995, 1997, ed. D. L. Foxgrover [Grand Rapids, Mich.: CDC Product Services, 1998], pp. 205-28). Earlier discussions of their relationship can be found in Philip Schaff, "Calvin and Melanchthon," in Modern Christianity: The Swiss Reformation, vol. 8 of History of the Christian Church, 3d ed. (1910; reprint, Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 1950), pp. 385-98; James T. Hickman, "The Friendship of Melanchthon and Calvin," Westminster TheologicalJournal 38 (1975): 152-65; W. Nijenhuis, Calvinus Oecumenicus: Calvijn en de Eenheid der Kerk in het Licht van zijn Briefwisseling (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1959); cf. Peter Fraenkel and Martin Greschat, ZwanzigJahre Me- lanchthonstudium: Sechs Literaturberichte (1945-1965) (Geneva: Librairie Droz, 1967), pp. 183-84.

20 Chapters 2, 5, and 17, respectively.

21 Vivere apud Christum non dormire animis sanctos, qui in fide Christi decedunt, assertio (Stras- bourg: Wendelin Rihel, 1542); appeared again with minor changes as Psychopannychia (Stras- bourg: Wendelin Rihel, 1545). Modern edition:John Calvin, Psychopannychia, ed. W. Zimmerli, Quellenschriften zur Geschichte des Protestantismus 13 (Leipzig: A. Deichertsche Verlags- buchhandlung D. Werner Scholl, 1932). Two prefaces indicate that the work was in fact written in 1534 and revised by 1536, but no copies of these, if they were published, are known; Calvin

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The Protestant Zeno

expressly dedicated to Melanchthon.22 In the same period, Melanch- thon published the first edition of his commentary on Aristotle's De anima in 1540; his subsequent revisions to this piece resulted in an enormously successful and influential textbook that has been called the first complete theological anthropology since Albert the Great (d. 1260).23 This textbook, the 1553 Liber de anima, was published over forty times in the second half of the sixteenth century, was the only psycho- logical writing of the period to have been itself the subject of commentaries, and continued to be used as a textbook in philosophy courses well into the eighteenth century.24 At the same time, Melanch- thon was laying the foundations for what would become the final edition of his Loci communes, which had initially appeared in 1521 as the first Protestant summary of Christian doctrine. He had already signifi- cantly reshaped his discussions of topics related to human nature for the 1535 edition; now, in the early 1540s, he was rendering his discussions of such issues as the cause of human sin, the freedom of the will, and the nature of sin even more precise. Calvin was well-acquainted with all of these editions; he had drawn upon Melanchthon's 1521 sum-

mary of Protestant teaching for his own 1536 contribution to this genre.

mentions his desire to publish the treatise in a letter written to Antoine Pignet in 1538. For a discussion of this history, see Timothy George, "Calvin's Psychopannychia: Another Look," in In Honor ofJohn Calvin, 1509-1564, ed. E.J. Furcha (Montreal: Faculty of Religious Studies, McGill University), pp. 297-329; reprinted in Calvin's Early Writings and Ministry, vol. 2 of Articles on Calvin and Calvinism, ed. R. Gamble (New York: Garland, 1992), pp. 87-119; cf. Rodolphe Peter and Jean-Francois Gilmont, Bibliotheca Calviniana: Les oeuvres deJean Calvin publiees au XVI siecle I. Ecrits theologiques, litteraires et juridiques, 1532-1554 (Geneva: Librairie Droz, 1991), pp. 113-16.

22 Defensio sanae et orthodoxae doctrinae de servitute et liberatione humani arbitrii adversus calumnias A. Pighii (Geneva: Jean Girard, 1543); CO 6:225-404; in English, John Calvin, The Bondage and Liberation of the Will: A Defence of the Orthodox Doctrine of Human Choice against Pighius, ed. A. N. S. Lane, trans. G. I. Davies, Texts and Studies in Reformation and Post-Reformation Thought, vol. 2 (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Baker Books, 1976) (hereafter cited as BLW). On Calvin's response to Pighius, see L. F. Schulze, Calvin's Reply to Pighius (Potchefstroom: Pro Rege, 1971).

23 Commentarius de anima (Wittenberg: Peter Seitz, 1540); there is an English translation of an excerpt from the 1553 Liber de anima in Philip Melanchthon, A Melanchthon Reader, trans. Ralph Keen (New York: Peter Lang, 1988). On Melanchthon's commentary see Frank, "Me- lanchthons 'Liber de anima,"' pp. 313-26; Kusukawa. On commentaries on Aristotle's De anima in the sixteenth century, see H. Schiling, Bibliographie der psychologischen Literatur des 16. Jahrhunderts (Hildesheim: Georg Olms, 1967); for special importance of Melanchthon, see p. 10. On the use of Aristotelian philosophy in Germany and Melanchthon's role in shaping this tradition, see Peter Petersen, Geschichte der aristotelischen Philosophie im protestan- tischen Deutschland (Hamburg: Felix Meiner, 1921), pp. 19-108; on Melanchthon's Commen- tarius de anima, see pp. 80-85. See also Christoph Hubig, "Melanchthon als Interpret der aristotelischen Ethik," in Werk und Rezeption Philipp Melanchthons in Universitdt und Schule bis ins 18. Jahrhundert: Tagung anlisslich seines 500. Geburtstages an der Universitdt Leipzig (Leipzig: Evangelische Verlagsanstalt, 1999), pp. 161-77.

24 Frank, "Melanchthon's 'Liber de anima,"' p. 313; Schuiling, p. 10.

351


He utilized the 1535 edition when revising his own Institutes in 1539.25

Finally, he wrote a preface for the French translation of the 1543 edition of the Loci published in Geneva in 1546.26

The fact that Calvin drew on Melanchthon for his own discussions of doctrinal topics leads me to conclude these introductory remarks with one important caveat. One of the reasons he consulted Melanchthon's

writings was that he simply agreed with much of what Melanchthon said and how he said it. The fact that I focus here on the differences in their understandings of human nature should not give the impression that their overall conceptions were totally opposed. Rather, they shared certain key convictions-in particular, a common redefinition of sin as a lack of fear and trust in God, not an act but a condition of blindness and disorder in the soul: blindness to God's law and to the very cor-

ruption of sin itself; disorder throughout the entire soul. Both believed that humans were responsible for this state of affairs and were, at the same time, unable to initiate spiritual regeneration. Moreover, both held that even those who had been justified by faith were still sinful and that the entire life of a Christian was a process of spiritual renewal. The task here, then, is to show where, despite this common starting point, they disagreed and how they expressed their disagreement. I will

proceed topically, looking first at how they define human nature and, second, at the implications of these definitions for their assessments of human responsibility and freedom. I will argue that the fundamental differences that underlie their answers to the question, What is human nature? are reflected in the divergent portrayals of human responsibility and freedom that emerge in their deliberately muted debate; moreover, that the interaction with Calvin left a lasting impact on Melanch- thon's mature anthropology.

DEFINING HUMAN NATURE

As mentioned earlier, Calvin greatly expanded his discussion of the

knowledge of human nature in the second edition of the Institutes.27

25 Olivier Millet, "Les 'Loci communes' de 1535 et 1' 'Institution de la Religion chretienne' de 1539-1541, ou Calvin en dialogue avec Melanchthon," in Melanchthon und Europa, 2. Teilband, Westeuropa, ed. G. Frank and K. Meerhoff, Melanchthon-Schriften der Stadt Bretten, vol. 6 (Stuttgart: Jan Thorbecke Verlag, 2002), pp. 85-96; Richard Muller, "Ordo Docendi: Melanchthon and the Organization of Calvin's Institutes, 1536-1543," in Melanchthon in Europe, ed. K Maag, pp. 123-40.

26 La Somme de Theologie (Girard, 1546), 2r-4r; CO (n. 2 above) 9:847-50. 27 In the first edition of the Institutes, Calvin had a small paragraph at the beginning on

the knowledge of human nature in which he did little more than assert the need to distinguish between human nature before and after the fall into sin. He did not discuss the nature of the divine image in which humanity was created, but only claimed that it had been cancelled

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This edition attests to his growing fascination with the problem of

knowledge in general. Guided by a heightened concern for how human

beings attain proper knowledge of God, he explores in a new first chapter three possibilities: an inner religious awareness, the external witness of creation, and, finally, the special revelation of scripture. The first two, he determines, are no longer viable for fallen humanity. Only God's word, expressed in scripture and sealed by the Holy Spirit on the human heart, can override human judgment and lead fallen human

beings to proper knowledge of God.28 When he turns in chapter 2 to consider human nature, this conclusion remains in force and is extended. He stresses that common mortal judgment cannot arrive at true

knowledge of human nature any more than it can attain proper knowl-

edge of God.29 In his discussion of what can be known about human nature from

the scriptures, Calvin plays off traditional themes of human uniqueness, dignity, and misery and focuses on the human soul as the defining characteristic of human nature. In speaking of human uniqueness and

dignity, he concentrates on the soul's unique potential for relationship with God. In chapter 1 he had written that worship of God distinguishes humans from other creatures and makes them potentially immortal.30 In chapter 2, Calvin defines the "image of God" in which human beings are uniquely created not as an essential quality or a possession bestowed

upon humanity at creation but rather as a potential to be realized.

According to him, Adam was created "into" (ad) the image of God. The

image is actualized when the soul is conformed to Christ, participating in heavenly wisdom, righteousness, and so on.31 Calvin also defines the

and effaced, and that humanity had been moreover "stripped and deprived of all wisdom, righteousness, power, and life" (CO 1:27-28).

28 CO 1:303; cf. Institutes (1559), 1.10.1. 29 CO 1:305-6; cf. Institutes (1559), 2.1.1-3. 30 Interestingly, Calvin mentions Plato and Plutarch as having grasped this distinctively

human orientation toward the divine, at least in part (CO 1:286; cf. Institutes [1559], 1.3.3). Later in the 1539 Institutes Calvin designates in passing the defining characteristic of human nature as a longing for truth or a power of perception (CO 1:324; cf. Institutes [1559], 2.2.12).

31 "Quo [i.e., quod Adam creatum esse constat ad imaginem et similitudinem Dei] indicatur factum esse participem divinae tum sapientiae, tum iustitiae, tum virtutis, tum integritatis, tum veritatis, tum innocentiae.. . . Vides ut imaginem Dei interpretatur, conformitatem quam spiritus noster habet cum Domino, ubi terrena sorde repurgatus nihil nisi coelestaem puri- tatem spirat?" (CO 1:307-8; cf. CO 1:313; CO 6:263; BLW, pp. 46-47). Calvin greatly expanded his discussion of the image of God in the 1559 edition, describing it as something borne by and manifest in the rightly ordered soul: "From this we infer that, to begin with, God's image was visible in the light of the mind, in the uprightness of the heart, and in the soundness of all the parts"; here he also admitted that some sparks of this image were evident in the human body (Institutes [1559], 1.15.4). On the rightly ordered soul, see B. A. Gerrish, "The Mirror of God's Goodness: A Key Metaphor in Calvin's Doctrine of Man," in The Old Protestantism and the New: Essays on the Reformation Heritage (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1982); for discussions

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faculties of the soul with an eye to the soul's relationship to the divine.

Following Melanchthon's 1521 Loci, he divides the soul's faculties into intellect (intellectus) and will (voluntas), although he reverses their re-

spective duties: in the 1521 Loci, intellect serves the will, whereas for Calvin, it is the job of the intellect to lead and govern in order to bring human nature to its divinely intended end, namely, communion with God. Only this simple definition is needed, claims Calvin, and he criticizes "the philosophers" for their excessively subtle distinctions of the soul's capacities.32

Calvin echoes these ideas about human nature and philosophical un-

derstandings of it in a polemical piece published in 1542. This treatise, which came to be known as Pyschopannychia, was expressly devoted to examination of nature and origin of the soul. Here Calvin speaks positively not only of Plato's but especially Aristotle's descriptions of the faculties of the soul, yet at the same time he claims that it would be fruitless to seek from them any guidance on the nature of the soul and its origin.33 Instead, he argues on the basis of the creation story that the soul is distinct from the body and that the soul alone-not the

body-is capable of bearing the divine image. Since God is spirit, and since the soul is from the "mouth of God," the image of God can be borne only in the soul.34 As in the Institutes, the image of God is defined

of Calvin's mature treatments of the image of God, see Thomas Torrance, Calvin's Doctrine

of Man (London: Lutterworth, 1948); and Mary Potter Engel, Calvin's Perspectival Anthropology (Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1988). On classical philosophy and Calvin's view of the soul and

body, see Charles Partee, Calvin and Classical Philosophy (Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1977), pp. 51-65; see also the recent study by Irena Backus, which challenges and refines Partee's conclusions: Historical Method and Confessional Identity in the Era of the Reformation (1378-1615) (Leiden: E.

J. Brill, 2003). On Calvin's anthropology in general, see Susan Schreiner, The Theater of His

Glory: Nature and the Natural Order in the Thought of John Calvin (Durham, N.C.: Labyrinth, 1991), chap. 3; and J. van Eck, God, mens, medemens: Humanitas in de theologie van Calvijn (Franeker: Van Wijnen, 1992); on the body in Calvin's 1559 Institutes, see Margaret Miles, "Theology, Anthropology, and the Human Body in Calvin's Institutes of the Christian Religion," Harvard Theological Review 74 (1981): 303-24.

32 CO 1:314-15; cf. Institutes (1559), 1.15.6-7. Note that Calvin's criticism of the philosophers in 1.15.6 has been softened in the 1559 revision, where he says that the things that they teach are profitable to learn. At the same time the futility of their approach to human nature is underscored in the new concluding paragraph in 1.15.8. For a summary of Melanchthon's discussions of intellect and will in the Loci of 1521 and 1522, see Wengert, Human Freedom (n. 5 above), pp. 68-69. Calvin appears to have adopted not only Melanchthon's "simplified anthropology" but also his criticisms of philosophical understandings of human faculties. Note, however, that even in these early Loci Melanchthon admits a certain freedom in external matters.

33 "De animae facultatibus praeclare aliquot locis Plato, argutissime autem omnium Aris- toteles disseruit. Verum quid sit anima et unde sit, frustra ab iis et universa omnino sapientum natione quaeras, quamquam multo certe et prudentius et sincerius senserunt quam isti nostri, qui se Christi discipulos esse gloriantur" (Calvin, Psychopannychia, ed. Zimmerli [n. 21 above], pp. 23-24).

34 Calvin, Psychopannychia, ed. Zimmerli, pp. 27, 28. In the 1559 Institutes (1.15.3), Calvin

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as participation in the divine wisdom, goodness, and so on. The soul is the better part of human nature, and during this earthly life it is en- closed in the body. Upon the death of the body, he argues, the soul is still endowed with sense and intelligence and is immortal.35 However, Calvin observes near the end of the treatise, the soul is not naturally or necessarily immortal.36 His concern is to stress the utter contingency of human existence: the soul exists solely by the hand of God, which not only originally created it but sustains it at every moment as well.

These ideas about human nature as originally created provide the

background for Calvin's extensive delineation of the miserable side of human nature. Whereas his discussion of human nature as created in the 1539 Institutes was extremely brief, Calvin's definition of the misery of fallen humanity makes up most of the discussion in chapter 2. He

argues, in essence, that as a result of the fall, the image of God is no

longer manifest; in Calvin's words, it has been "obliterated."37 The faculties of intellect and will have not been destroyed, but they have been so severely corrupted that they are unable to bring humans to their

divinely intended goal, participation in God. As is well-known, Calvin admits that even fallen reason can function adequately to regulate matters in the earthly realm. With regard to its ultimate purpose, however, it fails completely, since it is so "blind" to divine things that it is unable

appears to qualify this earlier view and speaks of the image of God as manifest also in the human body; the ensuing scholarly debate over whether image of God refers to body and soul or soul alone is summarized in Potter Engel, pp. 42-47. See also Wilhelm Schwendemann, Leib und Seele bei Calvin: Die Erkenntnistheoretische und Anthropologische Funktion des Platonischen Leib-Seele-Dualismus in Calvins Theologie (Stuttgart: Calwer Verlag, 1996).

35John Calvin, Psychopannychia, ed. Zimmerli, pp. 31, 33, 34. 36 "For when we say that the human spirit is immortal, we do not affirm that it can stand

against the hand of God, or subsist without his agency. Far from us be such blasphemy" (Calvin, Psychopannychia, ed. Zimmerli, p. 95). On Calvin's rather untraditional views on the immortality of the soul, see Timothy George, "Calvin's Psychopannychia," pp. 314-15; and Heiko Oberman, "The Pursuit of Happiness: Calvin Between Humanism and Reformation," in Humanity and Divinity in Renaissance and Reformation: Essays in Honor of Charles Trinkaus, ed. J. W. O'Malley et al. (Leiden: E.J. Bill, 1993), pp. 267-68. Oberman finds that Calvin expresses his ideas on this more fully in his commentary on Genesis, written in the early 1550s.

37 "Hic illa coelestis imago inducta et obliterata fuit" (CO [n. 2 above] 1:308; cf. Institutes [1559], 1.15.5). In 1542, in the first Roman Catholic polemical treatise directed specifically toward Calvin, the Dutch theologian Albert Pighius charged that the idea of the loss of the imago dei in the fall, preeminently asserted in Calvin's Institutes, was to blame for a widespread decay in public morality that even the Protestants themselves bemoaned: De libero hominis arbitrio et divina gratia, Libri decem, nunc primum in lucem editi, autore Alberto Pighio Campen (Cologne: Melchior von NeuB, 1542). The title page is dated August 1542. Pighius specifically wrote against book 2 (knowledge of humanity) and book 8 (on providence and predestination) of the 1539 Institutes. On this work see A. N. S. Lane, introduction to BLW (n. 22 above); H. Jedin, Studien iiber die Schriftstellertdtigkeit Albert Pigges (Mfinster: Aschendorff, 1931). Later scholars have also debated whether the divine image has, for Calvin, been totally wiped out or merely severely deformed in the fall. These controversies are summarized in Potter Engel, pp. 54-61.

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to present the proper goal of human existence to the will for its election. Even though reason retains a sense of right and wrong, the true

purpose of this "natural law" is to render humans inexcusable before God.38 Without the promptings of a sound intellect, the will is not merely too weak to aspire to the good but has also lost the original freedom to do so. Thus, says Calvin, the will is of "necessity either drawn or led into evil."39 Any apparent attempts to strive toward virtue are ultimately attributable to God's grace: among the pagans, any re- markable or honorable deeds result from God's "bridling" the perver- sity of human nature; among the regenerate, God not only creates the

good will but efficaciously disposes it to every work.40 Even civil or external righteousness derives from God's grace and is governed by divine

providence.41 Thus, chapter 2 illustrates Calvin's principle that the knowledge of

God and the knowledge of self are ineluctably intertwined. His exposition of human dignity and misery leads him to assert the utter con-

tingency of human existence upon God, a contingency that is radicalized through the fall and its effects on human nature. According to Calvin, the kind of knowledge of human nature that is needed is that which leads to recognition of this dismal state of affairs. And, as he claims at the beginning of chapter 2, it is precisely this understanding that philosophy and common human judgment are unable to provide.42 Hence he orients his entire anthropology-from the definition of human nature to his assessments of its capacities-around precisely this

soteriological focus.

According to Heiko Oberman, Calvin "intended to develop a new biblical anthropology by redefining its key terms." Oberman finds the major novelty in Calvin's redefinition in the idea that the loss of the

image of God represents not a change in human ontology (i.e., a

change from holiness to unholiness) but a change in orientation from "in communion with God" to "alienated from God."43 As Oberman himself no doubt would argue, this needs to be understood in broader intellectual context. The shift away from focus on the soul's essence was already underway in the thinking of Renaissance humanists,44 and

38 CO 1:330; cf. Institutes (1559), 2.2.22. 39 CO 1:339; cf. Institutes (1559), 2.3.5. 40 CO 1:337-38 and 342-43; cf. Institutes (1559), 2.3.3 and 2.3.9. 41 CO 1:355-56; cf. Institutes (1559), 2.4.6-7. 42 CO 1:305; cf. Institutes (1559), 2.1.2. 43 Oberman, "The Pursuit of Happiness," pp. 252, 265, 266. Calvin uses "a Deo alienatus"

in the 1539 Institutes (CO 1:308). 44 In the Renaissance, the soul was also considered not so much from the standpoint of its

"essence" but rather with respect to its "wirksame Eigenschaften" (TRE, "Mensch VII," p. 512).

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The Protestant Zeno

other theologians, most notably Luther,45 were insisting on scripture as the sole source for speaking about human nature and understanding the fall as a change in orientation. Nevertheless, Calvin, in following these trends, is led to some unconventional conclusions in his definition of human nature. The distinctiveness of these ideas becomes clearer when compared with Melanchthon's simultaneous treatment of this topic.

In the 1535 Loci Melanchthon did not devote a particular section to human nature, although he made relevant observations about this topic in his discussions of creation, sin, free will, and repentance. Yet two

years earlier he had begun a work on the soul, and from very early on he was interested in treating this topic in conjunction with human anat-

omy.46 In the 1520s he had become interested in natural philosophy- that is, a philosophy of the natural world-in order to provide a basis for moral philosophy and to encourage civil obedience. He decided to treat human nature prior to the rest of the natural order, and his Com- mentarius de anima was published in early 1540.47 This reading of Aris- totle's De anima (a standard on the university curricula since the middle

ages) differed both from previous commentaries and from Aristotle's own purpose, which had been to investigate the "soul as 'first principle of animated being."'48 Melanchthon transforms the subject matter from the generic spiritual principle common to all living beings to specifically human nature and, moreover, human nature in its entirety, body and soul. He thus supplements the topics and questions about the rational soul that are the focus of Aristotle's treatise with detailed discussion of the human body, for which he drew on the theories of Galen. While Melanchthon's view that an understanding of human anatomy was important in understanding the soul was not without precedent, the reasons why he held this were new. As Sachiko Kusukawa has ar-

gued, Melanchthon believed that human anatomy was essential for un-

derstanding the Christian soul and indeed the whole human as created

45 Luther's 1536 Disputatio de homine (first published in 1546) has been analyzed in detail in Gerhard Ebeling, Lutherstudien, vol. 2 (Tibingen: J. C. B. Mohr [Paul Siebeck], 1977-89).

46 For a thorough discussion of the origins, character, and influence of Melanchthon's work on the soul, see Kusukawa (n. 16 above), esp. chap. 3.

47 Commentarius de anima (n. 23 above). For discussions of the anthropology in this text and of Melanchthon's understanding of natural philosophy (or science) in general, see Dino Bellucci, Science de la Nature et Reformation: La Physique au service de la Reforme dans l'enseignement de Philippe Melanchthon (Rome: Edizione Vivere, 1998). On Melanchthon's philosophy, see also Giinter Frank, Die theologische Philosophie Philipp Melanchthons (1497-1560) (Leipzig: Benno, 1995).

48 Kusukawa, p. 87, quoting from Aristotle, De anima, I, I, 402a6f; italics in Kusukawa.

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by God for a specific purpose.49 "For Melanchthon, the strength of Ar- istotle and Galen who supplemented him lay precisely in their teleo-

logical arguments: they demonstrated how each and every part of the human being was designed for a specific function."50 Thus for him pagan understandings of human nature provided a useful tool for defin-

ing a Christian anthropology. This is not to say that Aristotle, Galen, and the other secular authors

who figure in Melanchthon's commentary provided him with everything he needed to define human nature. In its correction or supplementation of their views, his discussion evidences much substantial affinity with Calvin's. Like Calvin, and in fact, before Calvin, Melanchthon believed that ultimate self-knowledge comes only through the divine law exposing the spiritual incapacity of fallen humans, and, moreover, that knowledge of the gospel alone can redirect humans thus convicted by the law to their true spiritual good. In defining the soul he discusses Stoic and Platonic notions as well as Aristotle's definitions and Cicero's interpre- tation of them. Yet afterward he stipulates simply that the Christian definition derived from scripture is that the soul is "an intelligent spirit . . which is immortal."51 A similar sort of "correction" appears in the discussion of the soul's faculties, intellect and will. In discussing the intellect, he goes beyond Aristotle to argue that the soul has innate knowl-

edge of two kinds: speculative (such as the knowledge of numbers) and

practical (the knowledge of the difference between civil good and evil, or natural law).52 After he turns to the topic of the will, Melanchthon

digresses to discuss the image of God. Here again he is similar to Calvin in defining the image of God not as a substance, possession, or the dominion over creation, but in terms of soundness of the intellect and will in agreement with God.53 He distinguishes the philosophers' under-

49 Kusukawa, pp. 88, 100. See alsoJuirgen Helm, "Zwischen Aristotelismus, Protestantismus und zeitgen6ssischer Medizin: Philipp Melanchthons Lehrbuch De Anima (1540/1552)," in Melanchthon und das Lehrbuch des 16. Jahrhunderts (Rostock: Universitat Rostock Philosophische Fakultat, 1997), pp. 175-91, and "Die Galenrezeption in Philipp Melanchthons De Anima (1540/1552)," MedizinhistorischesJournal 31 (1996): 298-321.

50 Kusukawa, p. 100. 1 "Anima rationalis est spiritus intelligens, qui est altera pars substantiae hominis, nec

extinguitur cum a corpore discessit, sed immortalis est" (Commentarius de anima, p. 15v; cited in Kusukawa, p. 91, n. 80).

52 Melanchthon bases this view on Rom. 2:15 (see Commentarius de anima, p. 210r) and carefully explains that this natural sense of right and wrong applies only in the civil arena (p. 216v); it is not the traditional idea of "synteresis," which allowed one "some power to avoid sin and aspire toward eternal life" (Kusukawa, p. 95).

53 "Sic condita est imago, & insita divinitus noticia, dilectio Dei, & vera libertas, hoc est harmonia omnium virium" (Commentarius de anima, p. 220v); cf. "Therefore the mind itself is an image of God, but insofar as the true knowledge of God shines in it and true obedience [shines] in the Will, that is, blazing love of God, rejoicing trust in God, and freedom, which

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standing that the object of the will is civil good from the scriptural view that the will is created for infinite good, that is, to love God. The fallen will does not have the power to do this without grace, yet it still has the

ability to restrain the body and abide by natural law. None of this, of course, contributes to one's righteousness before God,54 nor does civil

righteousness come easily. Finally, in discussing the immortality of the soul, he simply asserts this as a teaching of scripture.55

In the Commentarius de anima Melanchthon's assumptions about the fallenness of human nature underlie and shape his discussions of the

image of God and the faculties of intellect and will. The theme of human infirmity receives more explicit treatment in the 1535 Loci, which represents, in effect, the culmination of the position on this issue that he had been developing since his exegetical work on Colos- sians in 1527-28.56 In the new discussion of creation, Melanchthon remarks that the testimony to God in nature would be very clear were it not for original sin, which clouds the mind with darkness. Nonethe- less, the divine light has not been completely extinguished; there remains a knowledge of natural law, and even some pagan philosophers recognized God's existence and affirmed that the natural order is di-

vinely ruled and sustained.57 Similarly, in the discussion of human powers and the free will, Melanchthon asserts that if human nature had not been corrupted by sin, it would have certain and clear knowledge of God and his will and would trust and fear him. Yet even fallen hu-

wholly submits to that knowledge and love of God" (Commentarius de anima, p. 220r; translated in Kusukawa, p. 96, n. 98). In the 1553 edition, he writes more succinctly, "thus I call the image of God the powers of the soul when God shines in them" (Liber de anima [trans. Keen], p. 283). Christoph Strohm has argued that in the 1543 Loci there is for the first time an "indissoluble connection" between natural law and the image of God, such that the image of God consists both in the ability to know God and the ability to distinguish between good and evil ("Zuginge zum Naturrecht bei Melanchthon," in Der Theologe Melanchthon, Melanch- thon-Schriften der Stadt Bretten, vol. 5, ed. Gfinter Frank [Stuttgart: Thorbecke, 2000], pp. 343-44); note that the quotation attributed to Philip Melanchthon, Werke in Auswahl: Studi- enausgabe, ed. R. Stupperich, 7 vols. (Guitersloh: C. Bertelsman, 1951) (hereafter cited as MSA), vol. 2, pt. 1, p. 315, lines 16-23 is actually found on p. 347, line 35-p. 348, line 7.

54 Commentarius de anima, p. 227r-v; cf. Liber de anima (trans. Keen), pp. 273-75. 55 "Haec dicimus ex coelestibus oraculis, non ex Philosophorum disputationibus" (Commen-

tarius de anima, p. 238v). He notes that both Plato and Aristotle (in one passage of De anima) teach that the soul is immortal, but he does not attempt to demonstrate this philosophically, nor does he engage contemporary Italian debates about the soul's immortality (Kusukawa, p. 98). In addition, he remarks that if human nature had remained in its original integrity, it would have borne witness to eternal life. Yet even in its corrupted state, some vestiges of this testimony remain (Commentarius de anima, p. 238v). For further discussion of this issue, see Gunter Frank, "Philipp Melanchthons Idee von der Unsterblichkeit der Seele," Theologie und Philosophie 3 (1993): 349-67.

56 Wengert traces this development and the key role of Melanchthon's exegesis on Colossians in Human Freedom, Christian Righteousness (n. 5 above); for a summary of the development between 1527-28 and the 1535 Loci, see pp. 139-45.

57 CR (n. 4 above) 21:370.

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man nature is able to do the works of the law outwardly, and secular

philosophers correctly attribute this freedom to humans even apart from renovation, as does scripture.58 However, the gospel also teaches that there is a horrible corruption of human nature that makes it im-

possible to show complete obedience to the law, which is ultimately required. Moreover, humans are unable to overcome this corruption, and, indeed, are so blind that they cannot sufficiently grasp the extent of it.59

When we consider what differentiates these understandings of human nature, we can identify three points at which, for all their over-

arching similarity, Calvin and Melanchthon went about defining human nature differently.

First, they have divergent attitudes toward the utility of philosophy for knowing about human nature and toward the conscious use of secular authors to discuss this topic. Even though Calvin can admit that sometimes the philosophers got things right or nearly right, he nearly always dismisses the relevance of their insights when it comes to an-

thropology. And even where Melanchthon clearly recognizes the limits of philosophical understandings, his correction of their mistakes is firm, but never as critical as Calvin's.60 Yet the differences in their attitudes go beyond this superficial level of overt criticism or lack thereof. Despite Calvin's criticisms of the philosophers, both he and Melanchthon are concerned to appropriate certain elements of classical philosophy for their Christian anthropologies. However, they do this in distinctive ways. For Melanchthon more than for Calvin, it is a

question of using such tools as dialectic and rhetoric properly to define and elucidate the central issues of Christian faith. Moreover, for him

pagan and Christian understandings of human nature are to a certain

degree complementary, as long as one observes the absolutely crucial distinctions between external and Christian righteousness and between law and gospel. Irena Backus has thus distinguished Melanchthon's

"continuity of values" from Calvin's very different way of appropriating pagan moral philosophy. According to Backus, Calvin's recourse to Greek philosophical terms in speaking about human nature suggests

58 CR 21:374; This entire section was completely revised from Melanchthon's treatment in 1521.

59 CR 21:374-75. 60 Some of Melanchthon's most important arguments about proper and improper uses of

philosophy are found in his exegesis of Col. 2:8, and these comments are sharpened as a result of Melanchthon's polemic against Erasmus in his revisions of his Scholia; moreover, in his German translation of the 1528 Scholia Justus Jonas expands Melanchthon's critique of improper use of philosophy (see Wengert, Human Freedom, Christian Righteousness, pp. 100-101).

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The Protestant Zeno

that he found in Greek philosophy a useful framework for his anthro-

pology. Calvin adapts this terminology to his "Christian system."6' This "creative" adaptation is, of course, most fully evident only in the 1559 Institutes, where he expands his definition of human nature and en-

gages Greek philosophy in a more nuanced fashion. In his early writ-

ings, however, the contrast to Melanchthon's use of pagan philosophy and anthropology is unmistakable.

The roots of these divergent approaches lie, according to a recent

study by Riemer Faber, in the distinctive types of humanism that each embodies.62 On the one hand, Calvin and Melanchthon share a common grounding in "particular humanism," that is, humanism viewed as P. 0. Kristeller's cultural and educational program, a method of rhetorical and philological study of classical literature.63 Though their

training reflects the different strains of humanism in Germany and France, both share similar expository and interpretive methods, which are evident not only in their studies of classical literature but also in their theological writings. However, as Faber points out, Calvin's un-

derstanding of the scope of the studia humanitatis in this strict sense was more limited, in contrast to Melanchthon, whose humanistic writ-

ings were highly successful and widely published, enabling him to ex-

pand the scope of his methods beyond the publication of editions, prefaces, and commentaries on the classics. More important, however, Calvin and Melanchthon ultimately diverged in their judgment about the goals of humanistic study. They differed in their response to what has been called "general humanism," that is, humanism viewed as a broader cultural and intellectual movement involving more substantive

engagement with the substance of classical philosophy. The differen- tiation between particular and general humanism helps further illuminate how Melanchthon and Calvin responded differently to classical

understandings of human nature. Second, Calvin and Melanchthon have different ideas about the ob-

ject of anthropology. For Calvin, concerned strictly with the kind of

knowledge that will reveal the human need for grace, the object is the

spiritual nature and capacities of human beings. In short, the soul before God is the defining human characteristic. For Melanchthon, no less concerned that humans recognize their need for grace, and

equally certain that the rational soul is the better part of human nature, the whole of human nature is the object of consideration. Indeed,

61 Backus, pp. 99, 117, 393. 62Faber (n. 19 above). 63 Paul Oskar Kristeller, Renaissance Thought: The Classic, Scholastic, and Humanist Strains (New

York: Harper Torchbooks, 1961), see esp. pp. 9-10.

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he believes that it is precisely by considering the wonders of the human

body that one comes to understand it as God's purposeful creation and, through this self-knowledge, recognize the greatness of the Cre- ator.64 While Calvin, too, regards the human body, when contemplated with the eyes of faith, as evidence of God's existence and goodness, he focuses his doctrine of human nature on the soul and on the recognition of its spiritual poverty and utter dependence on God.

Third, although both define the image of God in terms of human-

ity's relationship to deity and see this image as "lost" or no longer functioning as a result of the fall, they have different ways of speaking about the impact of that loss on the soul's faculties of intellect and will. Not to forget what I said in my caveat earlier: both believe that both intellect and will are fallen and cannot initiate or even know how to initiate spiritual renewal. Both moreover distinguish the human's utter incapacity in spiritual matters from what human reason and will can accomplish in worldly affairs. Yet they argue from these common convictions to different ends. Consistent with his interest in a definition of human nature that reveals the need for grace, Calvin speaks about the capabilities of the will and the intellect in worldly affairs

primarily to stress the utter dependence of humans on God. Melanch- thon, however, can speak more positively of the intellect's innate

knowledge of natural law and the ability of the will to pursue natural law.65 He always warns that this does not contribute to one's righteousness before God, but nevertheless this civil righteousness or Pau- line "righteousness of the flesh" is also commanded by God and rec-

ognition of it encourages moral responsibility. If, as Oberman has said, Calvin was trying to develop a new biblical

anthropology, Melanchthon's anthropology has also been seen as a "new type" of anthropology or "an anthropology in transition" from medieval to modern understandings of human nature.66 For all his conversation with pagan philosophy and anthropology, however, one needs to stress that this is still decisively shaped by what Melanchthon takes to be a fundamental biblical distinction between civil (or external) and divine (or Christian) righteousness. In looking now in more detail at their muted debate over human responsibility and freedom, we can

64 See Kusukawa (n. 16 above), pp. 102-7. 65 The differences between Calvin's and Melanchthon's understanding of the effects of sin

on the human mind come to fullest expression in their commentaries on Romans 1; for a full discussion of the contrast, see David C. Steinmetz, Calvin in Context (New York: Oxford University Press, 1995), pp. 29-32.

66 Frank, "Melanchthons 'Liber de anima"' (n. 15 above), p. 324.

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The Protestant Zeno

begin to see how these differences contributed to the mature shape of Melanchthon's "transitional" anthropology.

HUMAN RESPONSIBILITY AND FREEDOM

Implicit in the three differences outlined above is a fundamental difference in speaking about human and divine agency. Melanchthon's deliberate use of secular sources, his interest in treating the whole of human nature, and interest in encouraging a "righteousness of the flesh" all reflect a concern both to foster human moral responsibility and to defend the Protestant understanding of human spiritual inca-

pacity against the charge that it makes God the author of sin. Likewise, Calvin's more critical handling of nonbiblical authorities, his narrower focus on the human soul, and his interest in establishing human weakness in order to foster dependence on God all reflect a concern to stress human impotency apart from God's grace and to defend this radicalized understanding of God's grace from any hint of human contribution to salvation.67 In short, their different anthropologies are linked to different ways of speaking about how human nature is sustained by an omnipotent deity.

Like the question of defining human nature itself, the concern with human responsibility and freedom was obviously not new. The debate between Calvin and Melanchthon constitutes one chapter in a long history of reflection on the relationship between divine grace and om-

nipotence, on the one hand, and human moral responsibility and freedom, on the other, in the post-Augustinian West. Distinguishing their efforts to articulate the relative activity or passivity of the soul before God while resisting undermining human moral responsibility is the fact that both share classic Protestant theological convictions about justifi- cation by faith in God's promise. Yet despite this common grounding, Calvin tends to stress the "comprehensive nature of God's rule"68 whereas Melanchthon focuses on the issue of human responsibility. In

response to criticism from opponents and from one another, Calvin must seek to delineate the activity of the will and insists on willing per

67 It is important to note that Calvin, like Melanchthon, strongly emphasizes the activity of believers in the process of regeneration and in fact echoes a Melanchthonian delineation of different functions of divine law to do so.

68 "Calvin so forcefully underscored the comprehensive nature of God's rule that no room is left for the traditional distinction between the two realms of divine and human action" (Oberman, p. 255).

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se as part of being human; Melanchthon, in contrast, needs to specify more precisely the character of God's omnipotence and grace.

The beginning of their explicit acknowledgment of their differences and their public expression of it lies in their discussions of human

responsibility and freedom prior and in response to the challenge of the Roman Catholic theologian Albert Pighius. Here I will summarize first Melanchthon's treatment of these issues up to 1535; then I will

lay out Calvin's engagement with Melanchthon and with his ideas in the 1539 Institutes and his 1543 treatise against Pighius on The Bondage and Liberation of the Will. Finally, I will take up Melanchthon's response to Calvin's efforts to enlist his support.

Melanchthon's discussions of human responsibility and freedom up to 1535 evidence, on the one hand, his expanding concern with the will's ability to pursue a civil righteousness according to natural law. On the other hand, these treatments attest to his greater appreciation of the will's activity also in the spiritual realm. These two concerns are not entirely absent from his early writings, but they were articulated in much greater detail in response to certain challenges in the late 1520s.69 In the 1530s, he nuanced his positions on the possibility of civil righteousness, the nature of human freedom, and human responsibility for sin in the Augsburg Confession,70 the Apology, and his 1535 Loci. This latter text in particular reflects his attention to the questions of divine governance, the cause of sin, and the effects of sin on human nature in light of criticisms that had been voiced by Catholic oppo-

69 These challenges came from both without and within the evangelical camp: from without came Erasmus' critique of Luther's teaching on the bondage of the will; from within came the moral laxity uncovered by the parish visitations of 1527 and a fellow Lutheran's criticism of the document Melanchthon drew up to guide those carrying out the visitations. Melanch- thon responded to these challenges in an important commentary on Colossians, which appeared in 1527 and in a revised version in 1528 (on the Scholia on Colossians as Melanchthon's response to Erasmus, see Wengert, Human Freedom, Christian Righteousness [n. 5 above]; on their connection to the debate withJohn Agricola over the nature of repentance, see Wengert, Law and Gospel [n. 16 above]). Here he defended divine governance while arguing that this does not mean that God is responsible for sin. Against Erasmus, Melanchthon argued for the limits of philosophy and the arts for an adequate understanding of human and divine freedom; he consciously limited his focus to the question of human freedom in spiritual matters. Against his fellow Lutheran John Agricola, Melanchthon stressed the abiding validity of the law in bringing about true repentance. At the same time, in the 1528 edition, Melanchthon gave more attention to the fact that the law guides believers and the role of the Spirit in bringing about obedience. The commentary attests to Melanchthon's concern to uphold the Lutheran distinction between civil righteousness and righteousness before God while at the same time specifying more precisely how humans are active in obtaining each of these.

70 In Articles 18 and 19 (on the freedom of the will and the origin of sin), Melanchthon recognizes a degree of ethical freedom for the fallen will; it is possible for humans to lead outwardly honorable lives (German) or obtain civil righteousness (Latin), even though sin prevents them from turning to God without the help of the Holy Spirit.

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nents. In an entirely new chapter, he addresses directly the question of the origin of sin and the contingency of the human will. Here he

clearly locates responsibility for sin in the will of the devil and in the human will. He also argues that scripture itself attributes, even after sin, a certain freedom in choosing those things "subject to reason" for the effecting of civil righteousness. Finally, he stresses that God is not the author of sin and that sin does not occur by absolute necessity.71 In the ensuing discussion of human powers and the free will, he argues (as we saw earlier) that the fallen will can of its own power, without renovation, perform the external works of the law, stressing, however, that this in no way leads to true righteousness before God.72 This in-

ability, he writes, should not discourage, for even when the fallen will is made aware of its weakness and need for the Spirit, it is not passive. In the terrors of conscience when the soul despairs of its sin, three "causes" conjoin together to embrace God's promise: the Word, the

Holy Spirit, and the human will, "not at leisure, but fighting against its own weakness."73 Melanchthon supports this claim with quotations from Pseudo-Basil and Chrysostom.74 Lowell Green has argued that this

activity on the part of the will should not be taken in the scholastic sense of "cooperation" but rather in the Aristotelian sense of material cause: the human will is the material upon which the efficient cause,

71 This in contrast to his strongly deterministic view of God's superintendence of events in the 1521 Loci.

72 CR (n. 4 above) 21:374. 73 "In hoc exemplo videmus coniungi has causas, Verbum, Spiritum sanctum, et voluntatem,

non sane otiosam, sed repugnantem infirmitati suae" (CR 21:376). Lowell Green's analysis of the 1545 revisions to this discussion leads him to conclude, largely on the basis of Me- lanchthon's discussion of Is. 59:21, that Melanchthon is not speaking of the initial conversion of the not-yet-regenerate but rather attributes this activity of the will to those are already "born again" ("Three Causes of Conversion" [n. 15 above], p. 95); however, it is not clear in the 1535 discussion that Melanchthon is restricting the "three causes" to the ongoing conversion among the regenerate. Importantly, the reference to Is. 59:21 does not appear in the 1535 edition, and the flow of the discussion there appears on my reading to run as follows: Civil righteousness is possible (if difficult); however, because of the blindness in human nature, the human will cannot effect "spiritual affections" without the Holy Spirit. Melanchthon cites scriptural testimony to prove this, and then turns to argue from experience that each one knows that he is incapable of producing the proper spiritual disposition. Then, in order to lead his readers back from the brink of despair, Melanchthon claims that even amid these terrors of conscience "errigere nos debemus, et intueri in promissionem" (CR 21:376). He then introduces the three causes to show how the Word, Spirit, and human will conjoin to enable this. This interest in specifying the activity of the will in obtaining spiritual (as opposed to civil) righteousness is evident also in the 1534 Scholia on Colossians; here Melanchthon replaces earlier comments that the human will has no freedom in obtaining spiritual righteousness with discussions of how the Holy Spirit moves the human to believe and to embrace the promise of God (see Wengert, Human Freedom, Christian Righteousness, p. 142).

74 The quotation attributed to Basil is actually from Eusebius of Emesa; see The Book of Concord: The Confessions of the Evangelical Lutheran Church, ed. R. Kolb and T. Wengert (Min- neapolis: Fortress, 2000), p. 560, n. 96.

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the Holy Spirit, and the instrumental cause, the Word of God, act.75 Nonetheless, it is clear that, as Wengert has claimed, "Melanchthon's perspective [has] undergone an important change,"76 in which the human will is not the passive recipient of the Spirit's regeneration but actively participates in the movement of the Spirit.

In the 1539 Institutes, Calvin is much more critical than Melanchthon of the way that philosophers and church fathers have treated the topic of the free will, and he goes into greater detail explaining the effects of sin on the intellect. Beyond these general differences, Calvin sketches an alternative vision of the activity of the fallen will that specifically criticizes the views expressed in the 1535 Loci. Notably, he im-

plicitly repudiates Melanchthon's description of the "three causes" by rejecting the very same quotation from Chrysostom that Melanchthon had cited to support his view. Calvin writes, "[God] does not move the will in such a manner as has been taught and believed for many ages- that it is afterward in our choice to obey or resist the motion-but [rather God] disposes it efficaciously. Therefore one must deny the oft-repeated statement of Chrysostom: 'Whom he draws, he draws willing."'77 Elsewhere Calvin calls this statement "a false and profane assertion."78 This different understanding of how the will is moved by grace also shapes Calvin's exposition of civil righteousness, which, as we saw earlier, asserts that God's providence "bends and turns men's wills even in external things."79 Here a thinly veiled reference to Me- lanchthon's views makes Calvin's criticisms more explicit:

In [actions pertaining to the physical life], some [i.e., Melanchthon] have con- ceded [human beings] a free choice, more (I suspect) because they would not argue about a matter of no great importance than because they wanted to assert positively the very thing they grant. I admit that those who think they have no power to justify themselves hold to the main point necessary to know

75 See Green, "Three Causes of Conversion," p. 97: Aristotle identified four causes of human action: the efficient, the material, the formal, and the final. Melanchthon's schema is an adaptation of this: efficient cause (the agent that acts); instrumental cause (the means used by the agent); the material cause (that which is acted upon).

76 Wengert, Human Freedom, Christian Righteousness, p. 143. 77 CO (n. 2 above) 1:343; cf. Institutes (1559), 2.3.10. The position Calvin criticizes might

not exactly be that of Melanchthon, who held the causes to be working simultaneously. But they clearly have opposed interpretations and assessments of this statement attributed to Chrysostom; see John Chrysostom, Homilies on the Gospel ofJohn, Homily 10, vol. 33 of Fathers of the Church (New York: Fathers of the Church, 1957), p. 95. Also see note on this citation in the English translation of Calvin's treatise against Pighius, which suggests that Calvin might in fact have known this quote from Melanchthon (Calvin, BLW [n. 77 above], p. 232, n. 164). On Calvin's long-standing difficulties with Chrysostom's views on grace and free will, see Backus, pp. 113-16.

78 See Calvin's comments on John 6:44 in his Commentary on John (1553), in CO 47:149. 79 CO 1:355; cf. Institutes (1559), 2.4.7.

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for salvation. Yet I do not think that this part ought to be neglected: to recognize that whenever we are prompted to choose something to our advantage, whenever the will inclines to this, or conversely whenever our mind and heart shun anything that would otherwise be harmful-this is of the Lord's special grace.80

Despite these differences, however, Calvin, like Melanchthon, underscores human responsibility for sin, for original sin as well as for the

necessary sin of fallen humanity. Yet his defense of human responsibility is pressed when in the discussion of predestination he claims that the fall took place as a result of God's decision.81

In a marvelous display of "Renaissance polemics"82 Calvin sought to

gloss over the differences between himself and Melanchthon and win Melanchthon's approval for his own views by dedicating to him the treatise on The Bondage and Liberation of the Will. This treatise responds only to the first six books of Pighius's extended attack on Protestant

teaching on the will, providence, and predestination.83 In his preface, Calvin claims that he is responding to Pighius because Melanchthon told him to. He describes Melanchthon as "a most zealous supporter" and "a distinguished and very brave champion" of the godly and sound

teaching on the will.84 Moreover, he praises Melanchthon's love of

straightforward propositions, claims to enjoy his personal affection, and says that agreement with Melanchthon is more important to him than anything else.85 Pointing out Melanchthon's brevity, Calvin subtly explains why he failed to treat the topic of the will as fully as he ought to have done. Thus Calvin both claims Melanchthon's agreement and creates room for his own, fuller, explanation.

Pighius had, for his part, condemned two elements of the Protestant

teaching on the unfree will. First, he criticized Luther's doctrine that since the fall free choice was a reality in name only and the corollary that sins are committed by necessity. Second, he challenged the view that nothing happens by chance but everything by "absolute necessity."

80 CO 1:355; cf. Institutes (1559), 2.4.6. 81 "And it ought not to seem absurd for me to say that God not only foresaw the fall of the

first man, and in him the ruin of his descendants, but also meted it out in accordance with his own decision" (CO 1:873; cf. Institutes [1559], 3.23.7); "For the first man fell because the Lord had judged it to be expedient; why he so judged is hidden from us. Yet it is certain that he so judged because he saw that thereby the glory of his name is duly revealed. ... Accordingly, man falls according as God's providence ordains, but he falls by his own fault" (CO 1:874; cf. Institutes [1559], 3.23.8).

82 The term is Wengert's; for an analysis of Calvin's dedicatory preface and the correspondence it inspired, see his "We Will Feast Together" (n. 5 above), pp. 27-28.

83 CO 6:404; BLW, p. 244. 84 CO 6:229-30; BLW, p. 3. 85 CO 6:231-32; BLW, p. 6.

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He claimed that Protestants themselves seemed to recant on these

points, as evidenced by the seemingly contradictory positions of Luther and Melanchthon on civil righteousness.86 The bulk of his treatise consists of a refutation of chapters 2 and 8 of Calvin's 1539 Institutes, in which Pighius found a detailed and clear exposition of the very two

points that formed the heart of his condemnation. In his initial response to these two challenges, Calvin insists first on

the correctness of Luther's teaching and justifies his seemingly exag- gerated form of expression. He then says that the second point about the absolute necessity of all events is distinct from the question of free will and should be postponed. In his defense of the coherence and

orthodoxy of what he held to be the Protestant teaching on the will's

bondage he addresses the twin concerns that were becoming promi- nent in Melanchthon's discussions of the human will: the will's capa- bility for civil righteousness and, at much greater length, the activity of the will in the area of Christian or spiritual righteousness. Calvin makes a number of points with which Melanchthon most certainly agreed: he stressed human responsibility for sin (including original sin), distinguished between coercion and necessity to explain how sin is both inevitable but voluntary; and asserted that the whole of human nature, mind and will, is corrupted. Where Melanchthon was to have

problems, as we shall see, was with Calvin's seemingly deterministic view of human actions, which shapes in particular his discussion of the

efficacy of grace with respect to the human will. The issue of civil righteousness emerges only briefly at the beginning

of the treatise. Here Calvin downplays the significance of the apparent inconsistency between Luther's ideas that there is no free will and that all good works are mortal sins and Melanchthon's admission of the will's ability to pursue civil righteousness. Melanchthon, he says, "soften[ed] the outward form" of Luther's language in order to make some, apparently nonessential, aspects of Luther's teaching more pal- atable. In the Augsburg Confession, Melanchthon "lingered" on the key points about salvation and did not dwell too much on what humans can accomplish by natural powers "in public affairs and outward be- havior." Calvin insists, moreover, that Melanchthon employed this ac- commodated language only for things not necessary to faith, and that aside from the less abrasive form of expression, there was no difference between his teaching and Luther's even on these less important points.87 Calvin does not bring up here the argument in his Institutes

6 Pighius (n. 37 above), fol. 6r-v. 87 CO (n. 2 above) 6:250-51; BLW, p. 29.

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that even civil righteousness is a result of God's providence-perhaps because at this early point he both believes or at least wants to believe that the question of civil righteousness should not divide the Protestant movement, or perhaps because he thinks it might actually be possible to postpone all discussion of the necessity of all events until he gets around to responding to Pighius's criticisms of chapter 8 of the Institutes.

Yet Calvin was unable to avoid the issue of necessity, although he blames Pighius for mixing it into the discussion.88 Responding to Pigh- ius's book 2, he defends God's providence against numerous objections that this necessitarian view undermines human morality, social order, and religion. Although Calvin here rejects the charge of Stoic fatalism and claims that he does not make God the author of evil deeds, he nonetheless argues that human affairs "are controlled by the fixed purpose of God, so that nothing can happen other than what he decreed at the beginning";89 God is a "wonderfully expert craftsman who can use even bad tools well."90 Calvin found this comprehensive view of God's activity to be consoling and thought it enabled believers to en- trust themselves fully to God.

In his book 3, Pighius challenged Calvin's use of Augustine and ap- pealed to Augustine's writings to refute Calvin's teaching. Of interest for our purposes are two passages that illuminate Calvin's perspective on the activity of the regenerate will in good works and the activity of the will in assenting to the gospel. With respect to good works wrought by the regenerate soul, Calvin argues that God "steers the mind to choose what is right, he moves the will also effectively to obedience, he arouses and advances the endeavor until the actual completion of the work is attained."91 Interestingly, Calvin also appeals here to Aris- totelian distinctions to explain this movement: "If you want this ex-

plained to you more clearly, think of it like this: the human will is like matter which has been subjected to the working of grace, so that it

may receive its form from it. So it follows that the will with its self- determined movement comes from nature, wickedness from the cor-

ruption of nature, [while] goodness results from the grace of the Holy Spirit and so is his own work."92 As for Melanchthon, the will is the material upon which the Holy Spirit acts, and, at the same time, the will is itself active: it has self-determined movement; it is not a stone.

88 CO 6:255; BLW, p. 35. 89 CO 6:258; BLW, p. 39. 90CO 6:258; BLW, p. 40. 91 CO 6:311; BLW, p. 114. 92 CO 6:312; BLW, p. 115 (my emphasis).

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And yet, Calvin's imagery- grace "steers" (gubernare) the mind and "bends" (inclinare) the will-conveys more vividly than does Melanch- thon's that, in the end, it is all God's work.

These differences are evident also in the second passage, in which Calvin, like Melanchthon in the 1535 Loci, focuses on the issue of how

people come to grasp God's promise. Here again Calvin insists that assent to the gospel is ultimately God's doing: "God bends our heart so that we assent to the gospel. That assent is properly called ours, but not in such a way that it should be understood to derive from us."93 Like Melanchthon, Calvin imagines the human heart as active in em- bracing the gospel. But once again, the will is active only because of the prior action of divine grace. This is underscored in Calvin's clarification later in his treatise of why he rejected the quotation from Chry- sostom cited in the Loci. Calvin explains that he did not reject Chry- sostom for saying that those whom God draws are ready of themselves

(spontaneos) to follow. Rather, he rejects only the assumption that "they follow in a movement that is all their own."94 Instead, Calvin emphasizes, with Augustine, that those who follow do so of their own accord, but only with a will that God has made. Ultimately, of course, for Me- lanchthon, faith is the work of the Spirit and the Word, but his image of three causes conjoined together make up, finally, a different psy- chological picture than Calvin's image of how God moves the human heart and the role of the will itself in that movement. As I have said, in the 1535 Loci, the exact workings of the three causes are a bit vague; that, however, is about to change.

In February 1543 Calvin wrote to Melanchthon to inform him of the dedication and ask him to approve or pardon the work.95 In two letters written in response, as well as in the Loci of 1543, 1545, and 1548, we can see Melanchthon's reaction to Calvin's efforts and the first seeds of his criticism.

In his response of May 13, 1543, Melanchthon praises Calvin's bold and brilliant manner of speaking and urges him to devote his elo-

quence to explaining principle doctrines, including the greatness of human infirmity, repentance, and trust in the promises of mercy.96 He then cautions against Calvin's future plan to write on the part of Pigh- ius's work dealing with predestination and providence. Melanchthon

93 CO 6:314; BLW, p. 120. 94 CO 6:396: BLW, p. 232. 95 CO 11:515-17, no. 454; Letters (n. 2 above) 1:349-52; cf. MBW no. 3169. 96 CO 11:539-42, no. 467; CR (n. 4 above) 5:107 = MBW no. 3245. Melanchthon writes

from Bonn, where he is visiting Martin Bucer. He had received Calvin's letter at the fair in Frankfurt, but did not yet have the book until he found it and read it at Bucer's. Calvin states his intention to write a sequel in CO 6:404; BLW (n. 22 above), p. 244.

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writes that his "learned friend" in Tiibingen, Franciscus Stadianus, used to say that all things happen as divine providence decrees and, at the same time, that there is contingency in events, although he could not reconcile these two propositions. Echoing the 1535 Loci, Me- lanchthon says that God neither causes or wills sin and even in human weakness there is contingency. Using the example of David, he suggests how the will is active in falling away, in turning toward God, and in

clinging to God in spiritual battles. Citing the quotation from Pseudo- Basil that appeared in the 1535 Loci (but not the one from Chrysostom that Calvin had judged false!), Melanchthon underscores the will's action in assenting to God's promises. Despite having just criticized Cal- vin's image of the human will as an instrument of the divine will, he concludes by flattering Calvin and declaring his belief in the congru- ence of their meaning. This, just like Calvin's claim that agreement with Melanchthon was important to him, was a typical strategy in humanist polemics. To declare agreement was often a way of covering up real differences. It is almost as if Melanchthon wishes to say that con-

centrating on the central doctrines of salvation and presenting these in as clear and straightforward manner as possible is not, pace Calvin's foreword, a shortcoming, but instead the theologian's main task.

Calvin wrote back to Melanchthon immediately, apparently to press him about the points raised in the May letter.97 In his brief reply, Me- lanchthon reiterates both that he is pleased with how Calvin refers the

inability (of the will) to original sin and that he wishes that Calvin had not added that part about necessity, for this would mean, in an extreme

example, that Nero committed his crimes necessarily.98 By emphasizing the activity of the will and expressing his dissatisfac-

tion with Calvin's treatment of necessity, Melanchthon points to the

very differences that Calvin perhaps hoped he would play down in light of their more obvious agreement. In short, Calvin's discussions of the will undermine human moral responsibility, misunderstand the psy- chological process of turning to God, and engage in unnecessary and unfruitful speculation about divine agency. Even though Calvin faults

Pighius for mixing up the issue of God's providence with the question of human corruption, in Melanchthon's view, Calvin himself is guilty of this charge.99 For this reason, he warns Calvin against wasting time on his proposed sequel.

At the same time as he was warning Calvin in "private" correspondence not to continue pursuing this path, Melanchthon was also going

97 Calvin's letter is missing. 98 CO (n. 2 above) 11:594-95, no. 488 = MBW (n. 4 above) no. 3273. 99 See BLW, pp. 35-36.

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on the offensive in a more public way. In 1543, printing began for yet another revision of the Loci communes.'0 In this version, Melanchthon rewrote many sections in response to issues raised at the religious colloquies between Catholics and Protestants at Worms and Regensburg in 1540-41.101 In particular, he rewrote his chapter on the cause of sin and contingency, in part to respond to Catholic criticisms raised at the colloquies, which both he and Calvin had attended.102 But many of his additions address concerns raised by this interaction with Calvin, though, again following humanist etiquette, Melanchthon did not name any names.

In this locus, which represents his final Latin revision of the topic, Melanchthon expands his argument that God is not the cause of sin.103 Let me give one concrete example, which picks up on an issue explic- itly raised in their correspondence. In 1535 Melanchthon had simply asserted, "God is not the cause of sin, and [he] does not desire sin." This was the passage that he virtually quoted in his letter to Calvin of

May 1543. But in the 1543 Loci he inserts some further comments un- derscoring this assertion and concludes, "Thus God is not the cause of sin, nor is sin something which was created or ordained by God, but it is a terrible destruction of both the divine work and order."'04 He also adds two new scriptural testimonies to underscore that God hates sin and that the devil is the author of it, goes into more detail about who is responsible for original and actual sin, strengthens his case for

100 Printing was only completed in October 1544. 101 Melanchthon debated the question of original sin with John Eck at Worms (January

1540). 102 The discussion of this topic written for the 1543 edition was carried through unchanged

in all remaining editions of the Loci; thus the discussion in the standard modern edition of the 1559 Loci (MSA vol. 2, pt. 1, pp. 224-36) is virtually verbatim from 1543.

103 For Melanchthon's "final" word on these matters, one needs to consider the German edition of his summary of Christian doctrine that first appeared in 1553. In this version, Melanchthon made most of the changes to the discussions in the first chapters, including the ones on the cause of sin, free will, and the nature of sin (see Melanchthon's letter to George of Anhalt of March 30,1553; CR 8:58-59 = MBW no. 6783; cited inJohannes Schilling, "Melanchthons deutsche Dogmatik," in Frank, ed. [n. 53 above], p. 248). Note, however, that he had already made some significant revisions to the chapter on the cause of sin in the 1542 German edition (Die Heubtartikel Christlicher Lere .. . [Wittenberg: Veit Creutzer, 1542], fol. 32r-35v), which he further supplemented and slightly revised for the 1553 edition. Melanch- thon claimed in correspondence that he judged the 1553 German version to be better than the Latin one; see his letter to David Chrytraeus of November 14, 1555 (CR 8:607 = MBW no. 7636; cited in Schilling, "Melanchthons deutsche Dogmatik," p. 254). An edition of Melanchthon's personal manuscript of this version has been published as Philipp Melanch- thon, Heubtartikel Christlicher Lere: Melanchthons deutsche Fassung seiner Loci theologici, nach dem Autograph und dem Originaldruck von 1553, ed. RalfJenett and Johannes Schilling (Leipzig: Evangelische Verlagsanstalt, 2002). See also Schilling, "Melanchthons loci communes deutsch," in Beyer and Wartenberg, eds. (n. 15 above), pp. 337-52.

104 CR 21:644.

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the freedom to pursue civil righteousness, and adds a long section with

many scriptural citations to explain how God sustains creatures while at the same time humans are responsible for their misdeeds. Here he

heightens his polemic against Stoic necessity, including a subtle discussion of how God works through secondary causes that counters the difficulties he finds in Calvin's language of God as an expert craftsman, using even bad tools well. Instead, Melanchthon speaks of God with-

holding his aid in such cases: "God acts in this way, with his will, sus-

taining and aiding the person who acts [in keeping] with his order, but not aiding one who hastens against his order, even while he sustains [his order]. ... A secondary cause does not act without a first, namely, without something to sustain it. This is universally true, but not always helpful. For the first cause does not support a result which he does not will. Therefore the will of Eve is an independent [imme- diata] cause of her action when she turns herself away from God."105 Here Melanchthon attempts what he believes with Stadianus is ulti-

mately impossible. He continues his nuanced explanation of the

proper, Christian understanding of first and secondary causes and achieves greater-but not complete-clarity on the issue. To ward off undue speculation, he concludes with a reminder to seek and know God only as he has revealed himself.

In the 1543 edition Melanchthon left the discussion of free will ex-

actly as he had written it for the Loci of 1535, but subsequently com-

pletely revised this section. This revised discussion then appeared in the edition of 1545.106 Once again, his revisions reflect concerns raised in the correspondence with Calvin. He opens his discussion with an intensified critique of Stoic necessity, in which he declares the importance of not mixing discussions of divine determination with the question of the freedom of the will.107 This makes even more explicit his

105 CR 21:651. 106 Melanchthon apparently finished this too late for it to be added to the 1543 edition in

time for publication in October 1544, but the revision as well as a new discussion of sin was finished by November 1544 (see his letter to Viet Dietrich of November 1544; CR [n. 4 above] 5:522-24 = MBW no. 3730). That the discussions of human powers and free will and the ensuing discussion of sin thus appeared in their "final form" only in 1545 is often overlooked unless one attends carefully to the notes in the CR edition. The version of this locus appearing in an English translation of the 1543 Loci is in fact the one written first for the 1545 Wittenberg edition; even more problematic, the translation contains an addition to the discussion that was inserted after 1545 (Philip Melanchthon, Loci Communes 1543, trans. J. A. O. Preus [St. Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 1992], pp. 41-47); the post-1545 section begins on p. 43 ("I have seen many non-Epicureans. . .") and ends on p. 44 ("Since our souls rest in the Son of God who is shown to us in the promise. . ."). This 1548 addition contains the Origen/ Erasmian phrase, that "Liberum arbitrium in homine facultatem esse applicandi se ad gratiam" (MSA vol. 2, pt. 1, p. 245, lines 30-31).

107 CR 21:652.

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criticisms in his letters to Calvin from 1543. Second, he underscores human weakness in attaining civil righteousness of the law and stresses that the fallen human cannot remove the inborn depravity of sin. Here he strengthens points on which he and Calvin agree, but perhaps also defends himself against Calvin's charge that he uses "soft" forms of

expression. Finally, in a greatly expanded discussion of the activity of the Spirit, Melanchthon also enlarges and clarifies his understanding of the activity of regenerated will. He rewrites the earlier statement about the three causes, now referring to them as the three causes of "good actions," which have as their causes the "word of God, the Holy Spirit, and the human will assenting, not resisting, the word of God." The will could disregard the Word as Saul did, but when it tries to assent with the help of the Spirit, it is clearly not idle. Melanchthon follows up his citations from Pseudo-Basil and Chrysostom with a new reference to John 6:45: "Everyone who hears and learns from the Fa- ther will come to me." He adds: "[Jesus] bids [us] to learn, that is, to hear the word, not to resist but to assent to the word of God, not to

give way to unfaith."'08 Throughout this section he repeatsJesus' promise to give the Holy Spirit to those who ask. Thus Melanchthon here clarifies and expounds more fully the position on the will's activity that he had raised in correspondence with Calvin.109

In 1548 Melanchthon added one further, significant discussion to the his treatment of this topic. Here he refuted certain "Manichean"

108 CR 21:658. A promising avenue toward a more precise understanding of just how Me- lanchthon conceives of the working of the conjoined causes and the activity of the will assenting to the gospel is opened up by a recent study of the relationship between Melanch- thon's understanding of rhetoric and his psychology of the soul; see Lawrence D. Green, "Melanchthon, Rhetoric, and the Soul," in Frank and Meerhoff, eds. (n. 25 above), pp. 11-27.

109 Melanchthon, for his part, probably revised his section on the free will in light of attacks advanced by Nicolas von Amsdorf against the reformation efforts led by Bucer and Melanch- thon in Cologne. Amsdorfs misgivings about Melanchthon's teaching on the will had a long history (see Robert Kolb, "Historical Background of the Formula of Concord," A Contemporary Look at the Formula of Concord [St. Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 1978], pp. 15-16). Melanchthon complains about Amsdorfs attacks in August and October 1544 (MBW nos. 3646 and 3705). But given his recent correspondence with Calvin, it is extremely likely that he had another, "friendlier" opponent also in mind; Timothy Wengert suggests this in a footnote: "Given this debate, Melanchthon's later comments in the third edition [beginning in 1545] of the Loci could be construed as a correction of his Genevan correspondent" ("We Will Feast Together" [n. 5 above], p. 28, n. 37). One further example: Calvin had discussed the meaning of John 6:45 in his treatise against Pighius. Here, too, the differences from Melanchthon's use of the passage are telling. Calvin cites Augustine's explanation of the passage in The Grace of Christ and Original Sin, 1.14.15, to underscore how God does not merely aid the will through grace but effectually leads it: "For if merely our ability were aided by grace, the Lord would say this: Everyone who has heard and learned can come. But he says not only that [everyone can come] but that he does come." Melanchthon's introduction of John 6:45 and his emphasis on the assent of the will rather than the effectual operation of grace might well be a correction of Calvin (and Augustine!) on this point.

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errors holding that free choice has no role (or responsibility) prior to

grace, that a certain number of people can never be converted, or that the conversion of the heart "take[s] place in the way that a stone might be turned into a fig." Again Melanchthon referred to the example of David repenting after Nathan's rebuke to show that his will led him to confess, to comfort himself when Nathan told him that the Lord had taken away his sin, and to rely on rather than resist the help of the

Holy Spirit to assent to the promise. Yet this activity is not just limited to regenerate wills like David's. Addressing those not-yet-regenerate who excuse their wickedness by saying that free choice has no role

prior to grace, Melanchthon writes:

To be sure, the command of God is eternal and immovable that you should obey the voice of the gospel, that you should listen to the Son of God, that you should confess [him as your] mediator. ... I cannot do it, you say. But indeed you can, and when you strengthen yourself by the voice of the gospel, pray that you will be helped by God and know that the comfort of the Holy Spirit is efficacious. Know that God wills that we convert in this very manner, when aroused by the promise, we contend with ourselves, we pray and fight against our diffidence and other depraved affections [diffidentiae nostrae et aliis vitiosis affectibus]. Therefore, some of the ancients said thus: free choice in man is the faculty to apply oneself toward grace, that is, [free choice] hears the promise, tries to assent [to it] and rejects the sins which are contrary to conscience. . . . Since the promise is universal and since in God there are not conflicting wills, it is necessary that there is some cause within us for the difference as to why Saul is rejected and David received, that is, there must be a different action on the part of the two men.11"

Melanchthon concludes this addition by referring again to the "three causes," which clearly, in this instance, operate also at the moment of initial conversion as well as in the ongoing repentance of believers. At the same time, one should not make too sharp of a distinction between these two senses of the word "conversion." For Melanchthon, both initial conversion and ongoing repentance involved grasping the promise of God through the power of the Spirit. And in both these, as well as

110 CR 21:659-60. Lowell Green judges that in this passage Melanchthon is speaking again of the regenerate ("Three Causes of Conversion," p. 109). However, I find that the language suggests that those to whom this passage is addressed, namely, "illis qui cessationem suam excusant, quia putant nihil agere liberum arbitrium" (CR 21:659) are the same as those clearly non-regenerate "non-Epicurean Manicheans" mentioned at the beginning of the addition, who "cum essent aliquo moerore propter suos lapsus, disputabant, quomodo sperem me recipi, cum non sentiam in me transfundi novam lucem et novas virtutes? Praeterea si nihil agit liberum arbitrium, interea, donec sensero fieri illam regenerationem, de qua dicitis, in- dulgebo diffidentiae et aliis vitiosis affectibus" (CR 21:658). The emphasized passages appear in both sections.

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in rejecting the promise, he holds that the human will has some degree of freedom.

This addition in the 1548 Loci was, to say the least, controversial, especially as it appeared during the time of heightened political and ecclesiastical tension after the defeat of the Protestants in the Smal- kaldic War. Indeed, a number of contemporaries and much subsequent church history judged that this was simply another instance of Me- lanchthon defecting from the pure gospel of Luther and capitulating to the conditions of the Interim."' It, along with the descriptions of the "three causes," fueled charges-perhaps unjust-of synergism that tainted Melanchthon's reputation.1l2 Yet Melanchthon's mature under-

standing influenced later Lutheranism not just negatively but also positively. The "Solid Declaration" of the Formula of Concord upholds Me- lanchthon's doctrine of freedom in external matters and, to a certain

degree, his understanding of the activity of the regenerate will work-

ing, though weakly, with the Holy Spirit.ll3 But it also addressed other elements of his teaching more critically, insisting that the facultas applicandi se ad gratiam was not a natural human power but arises only through the Spirit; that the statement of Chrysostom cited by Melanch- thon should be avoided when speaking of initial conversion; and that

many young people had been misled by the teaching of the three causes of conversion. 14

CONCLUSION

Calvin clearly knew about some of these changes and responded-not yet to Melanchthon directly, for he still continued to hope for his support and agreement. Instead, he warned the French readers of Me- lanchthon of the deficiencies of the author's treatment of issues such as the freedom of the will and predestination in the preface he wrote for the 1546 French translation of the Loci communes.l5 Here Calvin

11 It is true that Melanchthon rejects Luther's "block of wood" analogy for the unregenerate will in the Leipzig Interim (CR 7:51).

112 For details of the Synergist Controversy, see Green, "Three Causes in Conversion" (n. 15 above); and Kolb, "Historical Background of the Formula of Concord."

113 The Book of Concord (n. 74 above), p. 556. See also the passage on pp. 552-53, paragraph 46, which echoes sentiments expressed at the beginning of the 1548 addition to the Loci section on free will.

114 The Book of Concord, pp. 559, 560, 561. 115 This was likely made from the 1543 edition, or from the 1545 Basel edition, which was

identical in substance-that is, bearing the changes to the discussion of the cause of sin and contingency, but not yet with the changes to the sections on human powers and the free will and on sin. It is, however, possible that Calvin knew the changes in 1545 Wittenberg edition when he wrote his preface.

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advises his readers of Melanchthon's orthodoxy and desire for simplic- ity. It is this latter quality, Calvin claims, that has caused the author to concede a certain freedom in earthly matters, to touch only lightly on

predestination, and to number absolution among the sacraments. Cal- vin thus made explicit, this time naming names, three key areas of difference, still convinced that these reflected merely different ways of

teaching and not permanent or insurmountable divisions. Apparently, however, the warning in the preface was not sufficient,

for someone took pains to see that the following sentence did not

appear in the text of the French translation: "Thus God is not the cause of sin, nor is sin something which was created or ordained by God, but it is a terrible destruction of both the divine work and order." This sentence was simply expunged from Melanchthon's discussion of the cause of sin and contingency, and, given the content, it is hard to

imagine that this was a mistake. Obviously someone in Geneva had reservations about Melanchthon's text long before Trolliet used the second edition in his defense before the town council. In fact, Trolliet, in 1551, quoted the passage containing the sentence in question-now restored within the discussion, although, curiously, located a few sentences later than it appears in the Latin original.116

Although the passage from 1548, as well as the new material in 1543 and 1545, reflect long-standing concerns that Melanchthon had with the

questions of human responsibility and freedom, his engagement with the man whom he would later call the "Protestant Zeno" pressed him to further clarification of his ideas on these key matters. As a result of his quiet debate with John Calvin, he filled out his alternative and influential vision of the activity of the will, the nature of human freedom, and the place of these within God's providence. The reasons for their

divergent assessments lie not simply in their different methods of teach-

ing or speaking-to which they publicly attributed their differences- but in two different approaches to defining human nature, which, for all their substantial similarity, nevertheless led them to distinctive and in some points opposed views of human responsibility and freedom.

Their differences in defining human nature and the implications of these definitions for their views of human responsibility and freedom

represent two attempts toward a Protestant theological anthropology. The two efforts are all the more interesting, first, because they were

shaped in conversation and conflict and, second, because they had last-

116 See Trolliet's defense, which following the 1551 French edition locates the sentence after mention of Eve and the apple. In the Latin versions, the sentence appears two sentences earlier, just prior to the statement that the human will and the will of the devil are the causes of sin (CO [n. 2 above] 14:374; cf. La Somme de Theologie [1551] [n. 7 above], p. 64).

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ing influence. Calvin, the "Protestant Zeno," helped to press Melanch- thon to sharper formulation of his understanding of human responsibility for sin and human moral activity in his mature anthropology, not

just in the area of "civil righteousness" but also in the area of "spiritual regeneration." Those who are ruled by the Holy Spirit are aided to act

willingly-if always imperfectly-in accordance with God's law. Melanch- thon developed these ideas further in his later philosophical writings, in which he continued to fine-tune his definition of human nature and his

understanding of the operation of the human will in conversation with Aristotelian views and against ideas of Stoic determinism."7 Of course, Calvin, too, shared Melanchthon's idea of the law as a positive guide for believers, but an exploration of his similarity with and differences from Melanchthon on this point must be saved for another day.118

The long-term significance of Calvin's impact on the mature shape of Melanchthon's anthropology can be felt in at least two areas. First, Melanchthon's views figured in controversies in the 1550s not just in Geneva but in Lutheran Germany as well; reactions to his understand-

ing of human sin, contingency, and free will fueled disputes among his students that were resolved only via the painstaking process of ham-

mering out the Formula of Concord, which formalized orthodox Lu- theran doctrine. Second, ironically, Melanchthon's alternative approach to anthropology yielded an ethics that was not ignored but rather embraced by some of Calvin's successors in Reformed Protes- tantism.l19 Melanchthon's engagement with classical philosophy in his Commentarius de anima and later ethical and philosophical writings provided a model for some later Reformed thinkers to utilize natural philosophy in their own efforts to define human nature and its capacities.'20 The fact that Calvin and Melanchthon never resolved their differences on human and divine agency did not prevent at least some of their successors from trying.

117 See especially his Initia doctrinae physicae (1549) and Ethicae doctrinae elementa (1550); cf. Antonio Poppi, "Fate, Fortune, Providence, and Human Freedom," in Cambridge History of Renaissance Philosophy (n. 12 above), pp. 665-66.

118 In fact, he probably took his division of the law into three uses or functions from Melanchthon, who first specified this in his 1534 Colossians commentary.

19 Wolfgang Trillhaas, "Philipp Melanchthon, der Ethiker der Reformation," Evangelische Theologie 6 (1946-47): 389-404; Christoph Strohm, "Melanchthon-Rezeption im fruhen Cal- vinismus," in Dona Melanchthoniana: Festgabe fiir Heinz Scheible zum 70. Geburtstag, ed. J. Loehr (Stuttgart-Bad Cannstatt: frommann-holzboog, 2001), p. 444. See also Donald Sinnema, "The Discipline of Ethics in Early Reformed Orthodoxy," in Calvin TheologicalJournal 28 (1993): 10-44.

120 This was true, for example, for the latter-sixteenth-century Lambert Daneaus, who utilized natural philosophy in his Ethics, in which Calvin figured as primarily an interpreter of scripture (Strohm, "Melanchthon-Rezeption," pp. 448-49).

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