| A professor’s surprising find: An
inscription in a reformer’s own hand PHILADELPHIA
-- Imagine being a leading scholar of a key figure in the Reformation. One day at your
Seminary you're browsing through a gift collection containing some of the key figure's
works. Suddenly, you gaze an inscription in the figure's own handwriting -- a rare find
indeed. And timely, since this year marks the 500th anniversary of the birth of that
Reformation figure -- Philip Melanchthon.
Imagine the joy you would feel at this pleasant surprise.
That joy befell Dr. Timothy J. Wengert earlier this year. Wengert, professor of
Reformation History at the Seminary, was working with Librarian David J. Wartluft to
assemble an exhibit of "Melanchthonia" for the anniversary occasion. The pair
discovered a copy of Melanchthon's Responsio de controversiis Stancari Scripta a Philippo
Melan. 1553, (Response concerning the Controversies of Stancaro, written by Philip
Melanchthon in 1553.) Inscribed in Melanchthon's hand are the words "Clariss. viro d.
Casparo a (Niebruck)..." ("To the most illustrious man, Sir Caspar von
{Niedbruck}).
 Von Niedbruck was a scion of a noble
family from Lorraine who had studied briefly at the University of Wittenberg before
becoming part of the imperial court at Vienna. Francis Stancarus, against whom Melanchthon
wrote the booklet, was a wandering teacher from Italy who taught briefly at the University
of Konigsberg, where he argued that Christ saves only according to his human nature, a
position Melanchthon, Luther's "right hand" at the University of Wittenberg,
vehemently opposed. Thus, at the end of 1553, Melanchthon was likely especially eager that
a young nobleman at the Viennese court would have his latest word on an important
theological controversy.
Melanchthon authored three documents in The Book of
Concord (The Augsburg Confession, the Apology and the Treatise). This fall,
Wengert delivered the first lecture in a fall series entitled "Melanchthon Then and
Now." Other speakers in the October series were Dr. Susan Karen Hedahl, associate
professor of Homiletics at Gettysburg Lutheran Seminary, and Dr. Walter Bouman, Edward C.
Fendt Professor of Systematic Theology at Trinity Lutheran Seminary, Columbus, Ohio. The
series was sponsored by the Eastern Cluster of ELCA Seminaries.
Captions:
1. Professor Timothy Wengert shows Philip
Melanchthon’s nearly 500-year-old writing sample to, from left, student Mark Werner,
Professor Erik Heen (New Testament and Greek), student Garret Johnson, and Librarian David
Wartluft.
2. A closeup of a 500-year-old inscription in
Melanchthon’s hand. |
