Philip Melanchthon on the person of Christ
One person in two natures, unconfused and undivided
the Son of God, took unto him man's nature in the womb of the blessed Virgin Mary, so that there are two natures, the divine and the human, inseparably joined together in unity of person; one Christ, true God and true man
THE POSITION
Chalcedonian two-natures Christology, stated without argument because nobody at Augsburg disputed it. The 1521 Loci had deliberately left the incarnation and the Trinity aside as mysteries to be adored rather than dissected; by 1530 Melanchthon states them flatly and moves on.
12 OTHERS HOLD THIS
ABOUT THIS FIGURE
Luther's colleague at Wittenberg and the Reformation's systematizer. He wrote the first Protestant systematic theology (Loci Communes, 1521), drafted the Augsburg Confession (1530) and its Apology (1531), and then revised his own work far enough that the Formula of Concord condemned the later version seventeen years after his death. This entry rests on the Augsburg Confession read in Latin and English — Part I less Articles VI-VIII and XIV-XVI, plus Part II Articles XXII-XXIV and XXVIII — on the opening articles of the Apology in English, and on the successive editions of the Loci through Latin sentences preserved by Schaff and Bente; no edition of the Loci itself was read.
Cite this page
"Philip Melanchthon on the person of Christ", Examined Doctrine, July 2026 edition, https://examineddoctrine.com/position/melanchthon/christology (archived at https://examineddoctrine.com/editions/2026-07/position/melanchthon/christology).