Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 15.djvu/865

Rh M E L M E L 833 of the division and boundaries of the three continents of Europe, Asia, and Africa coincide with those of Erato sthenes; and, in common with all ancient geographers from the time of Alexander to that of Ptolemy, he regarded the Caspian Sea as an inlet from the Northern Ocean, corre sponding to the Persian Gulf on the south. His ideas concerning India are extremely confused and imperfect, altogether inferior to those possessed by Greek writers long before ; he follows Eratosthenes in supposing that country to occupy the south-eastern angle of Asia, whence the coast trended north.vards to Scythia, and then swept round to the westward to the opening of the Caspian Sea. As usual he places the Rhipoean Mountains and the Hyper boreans near the Scythian Ocean, which he of course con nects with that supposed to exist to the north of Europe. With regard to the west of Europe, on the other hand, his knowledge was somewhat in advance of the Greek geographers, as might be expected from the extension of the Romin dominion and civilization in that quarter, and from a writer who was himself a native of Spain. Accord ingly we find him possessing a more accurate idea than either Eratosthenes or Strabo of the western coast-line of Spain and Gaul, and its deep indentation by a gulf (the Bay of Biscay) between the projecting headlands of the two countries. Of Britain, on the contrary, he has little to tell us, beyond what we find in Caesar or Strabo, though he appears to have had a clearer idea of the position of the British Islands than the Greek geographer. He is also the first ancient writer who mentions the name of the Orcades or Orkneys, which he correctly describes as a large group of islands to the north of Britain. Of the north of Europe his knowledge was still utterly imperfect ; but he had a vague notion of the existence to the north of Germany of a large bay, which he calls Codanus Sinus, containing many islands, large and small, among which was one much larger than the rest, which he calls Codanovia, evidently the same name that reappears in Pliny under the form Scandinavia, which has been attached by modern writers to the great northern peninsula of Europe. The method followed by Mela in describing the three continents is peculiar and inconvenient. Instead of treat ing each continent separately, and describing the countries included in it, he begins at the Strait of the Columns (the Straits of Gibraltar), which was close to his own birthplace, and describes the countries adjoining the south coast of the Mediterranean from Mauretania to Egypt, and afterwards those around the east coast of the same sea with its tributary the Euxine, and then back along the north of the Mediterranean from Scythia to Gaul and Spain. He then begins again with the countries bordering the western and northern ocean from Spain and Gaul round to India, and from, thence by Persia and Arabia to the Ethiopians, and thence again round Africa to the straits from which he began. In common with most ancient geographers, he considered Africa as surrounded by the sea, but had a very inadequate idea of its extent towards the south. The first edition of Pomponius Mela, was published in 1471, and it was very often reprinted in the 15th and 16th centuries. The edition of Voss in 1658, with a valuable commentary, became the foundation of all the subsequent editions, of winch those by Gron- ovius (in 1685 and 174 2) are among the best-known and most use ful. The edition by Tzschucke, in 6 vols. 8vo (1806), contains an overwhelming mass of notes and commentaries, but by far the best text is that of the recent edition by G. Parthey (Berlin, 1867), who has in many instances restored the original readings, which had been displaced by the conjectures of Voss and others. (E. H. B.) MELANCHTHON, PHILIP (1497-1560), was born at Brettsn, a town of the lower Palatinate, on February 16, 1497. His father, George Schwartzerd, was a kinsman of the famous Reuchlin, and by profession an armourer or commissary of artillery under the Palatinate princes. His mother, Barbara Reuter, was a thrifty housewife and affectionate parent, whose pious character is evidenced by a well-known German rhyme, of which she is the reputed author, beginning Almosen yelen armet nicht. His mother s father, John Reuter, who was for many years mayor of Bretten, charged himself with the education of Philip. Taught first by John Hungarus, then by George Simler at the academy of Pfortzheim, where he lived in the house of lleuchlin s sister, young Schwartzerd exhibited remark able precocity, and speedily won the regard of Reuchlin, who dubbed him Melanchthon (the Greek form of Schwartz erd), according to the fashion of that age. He lived two years at Heidelberg, and the next three at Reuchlin s university of Tubingen, where he studied law, medicine, and theology, taking his doctor s degree in 1514. He began soon after to give public lectures on rhetoric, and to comment on Virgil and Terence, and ere long it be came known among European scholars that anew brilliant star of learning had risen on the horizon, Erasmus pro phesying that he would himself be speedily eclipsed. In 1518, on Reuchlin s recommendation, Melanchthon was appointed by the elector of Saxony professor of Greek in the university of Wittenberg. This appointment marked an epoch in German university education ; Wittenberg became the school t of the nation; the scholastic methods of instruction were summarily set aside, and in a Discourse on Reforming the Studies of Youth Melanchthon gave proof, not only that he had thoroughly caught the Renaissance spirit, but that he was fitted to become one of its foremost leaders. He began to lecture on Homer and the Epistle to Titus, and in connexion with the former he announced that, like Solomon, he sought Tyrian brass and gems for the adornment of God s temple. Luther himself received a fresh impulse towards the study of Greek, and his transla tion of the Scriptures, begun as early as 1517, now made rapid progress, Melanchthon helping to collate the Greek versions and revising Luther s translation. Melanchthon on his part felt the spell of Luther s large personality and spiritual depth, and he seems to have been prepared on liis first arrival at Wittenberg to accept the new theology, which indeed as yet existed main.ly in subjective form, and as a living spiritual force, in the person of Luther. To reduce it to an objective system, to exhibit it clialectically, the calmer mind of Melanchthon, with its architectural faculty and delicate moral tact, was requisite. Theologi cally it is impossible to separate Melanchthon from Luther ; &quot; the miner s son drew forth the metal, the armourer s son fashioned it.&quot; Luther, in whom courage and energy were too much akin to violence and zealous decision to narrow intolerance, and Melanchthon, whose calm deliberation was apt to degenerate into vacillation and whose conciliatory temperament was too much allied to timidity, were each the fit complement of the other. Melanchthon was first drawn into the arena of the Reformation controversy through the Leipsic discussion, of which he was an eager spectator. He had been sharply reproved by Dr Eck for giving aid to Carlstadt (&quot;Tace tu, Philippe, ac tua stndia cura nee me pcrturba&quot;), and^he was shortly afterwards himself attacked by the blustering Ingolstadt doctor. Melanchthon replied in a brief treatise a model of Christian moderation setting forth Luther s first principle of the supreme authority of Scripture in opposition to the patristic writings on which Eck so boast fully relied. His marriage in 1520 to Catherine Krapp of Wittenberg increased his own happiness, and gave a domestic centre to the Reformation. In 1521, during Luther s confinement in the Wartburg, Melanchthon occupied the important position of leader of the Reformation cause at the university. He defended the action of the Augus- tinian monks when they substituted for the celebration of the mass the sacrament of the supper partaken of by XV. -- 105