Philip Melanchthon: Summary of Moral Philosophy : And Other Writings on Politics, Ethics, and Law (Early Modern Natural Law: Studies & Sources)

This book presents, for the first time in English, the major moral and political writings of the Lutheran Reformer Philip Melanchthon (1497-1560). Melanchthon was one of the Reformation’s keenest moral and political thinkers, and he exercised his immense learning to present a compelling vision of Protestant moral and political life amidst a period of great uncertainty and religious strife. The works translated here constitute the first systematic Protestant project of moral philosophy. By constructing a system based on natural law, virtue ethics, and Aristotelian philosophy, Melanchthon established the foundations of Protestant ethics for generations to come. Graduate students, seminarians, undergraduate teachers, and scholars of early modern Europe will find this volume interesting.