Tübingen is the city where Philip Melanchthon studied the classics and served as a teacher before coming to Wittenberg in 1518. A half-timber house, typical architecture in Baden-Würtemberg, is the background for me with my marvelous host, Frau Dr. Gabriele Winkler, my former professor from St. John's University (photo A).

Facts and Photos

Flowing through this historic, picturesque university town is the Necker River (photo B). A plaque on this building (photo C) marks this as the place where Philip Melanchthon lived and worked as a teacher from 1514 until 1518.

Philip Melanchthon is most revered for the Augsburg Confession and its Apology, for the first evangelical dogmatics, Loci, and for his work in reforming education. He and Luther, despite very differing personalities, remained friends until Luther's death. Of their opposite personalities, Luther wrote: "I have been born to battle with packs of dogs and devils; therefore my book are far more warlike. I am the rough woodsman who must blaze the trail. Master Philip, having been so richly endowed by God, proceeds neatly and quietly and sows and waters with joy" (from Luther's preface to the German edition of Melanchthon's interpretation of Colossians, quoted in von Loewenich, 204).