Philip Melanchthon (pictured), German reformer and junior partner of Martin Luther, was born today in 1497. A natural scholar, Melanchthon gave Luther’s ideas theological depth. Luther pictured their partnership like this: ‘I am the rough pioneer who must break the road; but Master Philip comes along softly and gently, sows and waters heartily, since God has richly endowed him with gifts.’
This is St Onesimus’s Day, a slave who ran away from his Christian master, Philemon, to join St Paul. Paul sent him back, but with a letter suggesting to Philemon how nice it would be if, having been set free from sin and death by Christ, he extended the gift of freedom to his slave. Onesimus’s name means ‘useless’. He is, one assumes, the patron saint of slaves, fugitives, escapologists or useless people… maybe all four.
Today in 1546, two days before he died, Martin Luther produced a last piece of writing which was found after his death. It ended with two sentences, the first in German, the second in Latin: Wir sein pettler. Hoc est verum. – ‘We are beggars: This is true.’