Human Freedom, Christian Righteousness: Philip Melanchthon's Exegetical Dispute with Erasmus of Rotterdam. (Reviews).

Timothy J. Wengert, Human Freedom, Christian Righteousness: Philip Melanchthon's Exegetical Dispute with Erasmus of Rotterdam

(Oxford Studies in Historical Theology.) New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998. xviii + 239 pp. $45. ISBN: 0-19-511529-5.

Anniversaries often spark a host of publications about the person or topic at hand. Some make significant contributions and play a leading part while others have only a supporting role or perhaps only a place in the chorus. Timothy Wengert's is a first-rate book shedding new light on a pivotal theological issue overlaid by complex personal and professional relationships. Wengert's focus falls immediately on Melanchthon and Erasmus, but the study extends to the wider interplay of the Reformation and Humanism. Sorting through such overlap takes some doing. Wengert succeeds.

Melanchthon is often said to have had tilted or softened his theology, a drift toward Erasmus from Luther when it came to the matter of human freedom and responsibility. Here is where common convention could be mistakenly read today, for Melanchthon's praise and kind words for Erasmus' literary style, for example, or for Erasmus' translation work was good humanist form but did not commit him to Erasmus lock, stock, and barrel. Words were used carefully, so the exchanges between the two and the comments they made to others have to be examined carefully. The result of Wengert's close reading of texts gives a picture of a Melanchthon who can praise Erasmus for his way with words, but when it comes to exegesis of texts, especially the Scriptures and the fathers handling of the same, he throws his lot in with Luther, expounding an evangelical theology at home in Wittenberg.

Melanchthon and Erasmus are hardly a new subjects, so in the first part of his book Wengert reviews the scholarly exchange on the earlier years in their relationship. In his survey, Wengert suggests why he prefers some voices and judgments over others, but in the end having studied Melanchthon in depth for years, it is Wengert's own judgment that proves most interesting.

Part Two is crucial to the study, setting out the ground rules for the exegetical debate. Method is always essential. While the text itself is important, how one approaches the text ultimately determines the outcome. The interpretive tradition starting with the fathers can shed light, but the place to start is with the apostle Paul himself. Melanchthon prefers to focus there when it comes to differing and distancing himself from Erasmus. And it is out of the methodological differences that the different theologies emerge. Melanchthon's scholia on Colossians, first put forth in 1527 and subsequently revised, comes to the fore in Part Three. That text serves not simply as the immediate focus but as a kind of vantage point from which to survey the theological landscape. "See that no one deceive you through inane philosophy." With that reference to Colossians 2:8, Melanchthon set out on his classroom rebuttal of those who foolishly put stock in the existence of free will. Melanchthon picked his way carefully thro ugh the positions of St. Paul and Erasmus, while Wengert gives a close reading of his own to the texts at hand. At times Melanchthon lauds Erasmus' New Testament text, but other times not, in a kind of balancing of humanist and evangelical interests. So Melanchthon's humanist side prized the original texts even while Luther's theology helped him unlock the same.

Melanchthon managed to stand with humanists and with Luther because the two are not mutually exclusive. It is true that many devoted to the studia humanitatis declined to cast their lot in with Luther, but that was because humanism was not fundamentally a theological movement. It was a curriculum revival, with theology as a field where the those tools and skills developed could be applied. When it came then to laying out one's method with presuppositions and point of view, a range of possibilities lay open. How one chose to weigh the fathers such as Origen is an example. How one sees the place of Christ is another. Erasmus and Melanchthon differed on points such as these. They could both read the texts, Paul and the fathers, but Erasmus saw them in light of the philosophia Christi while Melanchthon built with the law-and-gospel dialectic in mind. The approach makes all the difference. And in the end, though Melanchthon often finds much to praise in Erasmus' work, Melanchthon comes down on Luther's side. So wh ile Luther and Erasmus deservedly get most of the attention in that clash, Melanchthon certainly put in far more than his two-cents worth for Wittenberg's theology.

In the years that followed, the subject of Part Four in Wengert's book, Melanchthon revisited his position, sculpting ideas not because he now thought Erasmus deserved better but because other developments needed new emphases. Antinomians prompted more thinking on the law. And discussions with sympathetic Catholics called for language that was softer without abandoning the bottom line. What would work while staying faithful to the text? That proved to be a challenge for Melanchthon the humanist, the theologian, the churchman, but in Wengert's view, he was worthy of the task, proving to be more than an able opponent for Erasmus and faithful to evangelical theology in the end.

Wengert clearly prefers Melanchthon over Erasmus, and obviously not everyone would agree or may find him generous in his rationale behind Melanchthon's theological choices. But there is depth to Wengert's conclusions with close readings of texts, abundant documentation, and detailed arguments. Melanchthon's and Erasmus' was a scholarly theological debate worthy of scholarly study. This book is such a study and worth close reading in its own right.