Philipp Melanchthon

Philipp Melanchthon (1497–1560), born Philipp Schwartzerdt, was Luther's closest collaborator and the first systematic theologian of the Reformation. His great-uncle Reuchlin suggested the Greek form of his surname, meaning black earth. Recommended by Reuchlin, he took Wittenberg's new Greek chair in 1518, aged twenty-one, and Luther called him the little Greek.

In 1519 he joined Luther at the Leipzig Disputation, and in 1521 published the Loci communes, the Wittenberg Reformation's first dogmatics. While Luther hid at the Wartburg, he stood in for him at the university. At the Diet of Augsburg in 1530 he wrote the Augsburg Confession, followed in 1531 by its Apology, authoritative confessions of the Lutheran church.

After the Schmalkaldic War defeat in 1547, his compromise over the Interim brought conflict with Matthias Flacius. He died in 1560 and was buried beside Luther in Wittenberg's Castle Church, bearing the title Praeceptor Germaniae, teacher of Germany.