Those looking for a relatively-short-yet-insightful work on Luther's theology of justification, and especially those with interest in Melanchthon will need to get this book by Lowell Green.
My newest read from 1517 Publishing is the reprinting (the work is originally from 1980) of Lowell Green's work How Melanchthon Helped Luther Discover the Gospel: The Doctrine of Justification in the Reformation. A title I found both true and yet to some degree wanting. As one can see from my first line assessment, the title does reflect the areas it touches. Yet I must confess that I expected a greater emphasis on the "how" and found a great portion of the book either looking at a) what is Luther's reformational theology of justification and b) how did it compare/contrast with Melanchthon's?
That being said, I really enjoyed the book. I honestly wasn't sure at first, because the first couple chapters read like a battle of historians, where Green focuses on errors of various Luther scholars who either confuse Luther's justification theology because of failing to recognize its development over his career or who dismiss his later justification theology (what he refers to as the "mature Luther") in favor of his earlier presentations of the theology that Green argues (convincingly, I might add) was still in development. In many ways, the book is ultimately about refuting "analytic" justification in favor of a "forensic" view of justification. The way he goes about refuting it is by ultimately showing Luther's theology coming under the influence and shape of Melanchthon's which was clearly forensic.
From these two issues (Luther's developing theology of justification and ultimately settling on forensic justification), Green then goes into Melanchthon. As a fan of Melanchthon who thinks his late career controversies with the gnesios has sadly soured him in the eyes of Lutherans for so long, it was really nice to see a work that was willing to give him a lot of his own due credit and be able to show where he was ahead of Luther in some essential areas of what would become confessional Lutheran theology. Scott Keith, who writes a forward, puts it well: "Additionally, when Melanchthon is relegated as unimportant, due to his perceived later doctrinal errors, his contributions to not only Lutheranism, but also the Church as a whole, are too easily overlooked." Part of the importance of this work was that Green wrote about and researched Melanchthon at a time when very few did.
The book is divided into three parts: 1) The Problem of the "Young Luther", 2) How Melanchthon Helped Luther Develop in His Views, and 3) The Reformational Doctrine of Justification. The things I liked best about the work were:
- Green's careful scholarship. I was blown away by his ability to comprehensively reference, and not only reference but deeply analyze what was referenced. He never just gave a quote and left it at that, but instead explained it, noted contextual elements that may be lost in just reading it isolated, and judged the reliability or weight of any given quote. For instance, he regularly would note when quoting Luther's works that were actually words of Luther's written by another how reliable that scribe was, and if there were variants what was to be preferred. He was able to assess how Luther used the same terms differently over various periods of time.
- The study of Luther's and Melanchthon's developments and how they differed but impacted each other. Not only did I learn a lot of new things in these regards (because, as Green laments, too many historians paint a broad stroke over the figure's whole life), but it helped one better appreciate the different style of Luther and Melanchthon. Keith in his introduction identifies these styles (and Green does too, but not in quite the same way) as Luther the preacher, Melanchthon the teacher, unified in their doctrine of justification by agreement on its forensic nature.
- For how informative it was, the book is not exceptionally long (just under 240 pages). It didn't feel drawling. Though it got into the weeds in detail, one doesn't feel bogged down in them. Especially after the first part, the chapters are a pretty decent length, although I do recall feeling like a few of the chapters on Melanchthon in part 2 were perhaps too short. A surprise for a book by a Melanchthon scholar who bemoaned the lack of appreciation he had heretofore received from historians and theologians.
- Endnotes. Any work that makes significant use of references and scholastic commentary on one's own assertions ought to use footnotes so the reader is not forced to constantly jump to the end of the chapter to track down the reference as I was on a regular basis. because he used so many references, I would have liked easy access to them.
- While I really was fascinated by what I was learning in the early chapters, they felt at times a bit pretentious in their style. This isn't unique to Green, but rather typical I find in a lot of historians when they are refuting. It's hard to read such sections without reading in at least some degree of ego. Perhaps it is because I came out of the Fordean school of forensic justification already, but I felt that he went on about how wrong some other historians were for a bit too long when I was already on board as a reader and ready for him to move on.
- Speaking of which, there were several themes and concepts that were just a bit too repetitive in the work. While they may help with overall point retention, it made the work feel a bit bloated (which is crazy to think about since I already noted that it actually packs quite a bit in a relatively small book!).
