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The Role of the Heavens in the Thought of Philip Melanchthon

Philip Melanchthon has long been recognized as one of the central figures in the German Lutheran Reformation. His theological contribution to the Reformation may be found in his codifying of Lutheran theology in the Confessio Augustana and in the Loci Communes, the first major Lutheran theological textbook, which long remained a central text for the teaching of theology in Lutheran schools and universities. A teacher at the University of Wittenberg from 1518 until his death, Melanchthon was also involved in the reform of universities and the establishment of school systems throughout Lutheran Germany. These reforms facilitated the spread of the Reformation by encouraging the development of Lutheran educational principles and the establishing of Humanist education as the basis for the schools and universities of Lutheran Germany, and Melanchthon's role in this process has led to his being accorded the title Praeceptor Germaniae.' More recently, Melanchthon has also been hailed as the initiator of a new "Lutheran" approach to natural philosophy.2 It is my contention in this article that Melanchthon's interest in natural philosophy is integrally connected to his educational interest and that these hang upon a particular theological and cosmological