1530-1545

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     Philip Melancthon was Luther's close friend. In 1530 Melancthon composed the Augsburg Confession, a statement of the Lutheran theological position, and a defense of it as orthodox.

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Melancthon by Dürer, 1526

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Melancthon's home in Wittenberg

    In 1530, Charles V called the princes and cities of his german territories to a Diet at Augsburg. He needed unity within the Empire to face the attacks of the Turnks. He called upon the Lutherans to explain their religious convictions so the controversy of the Reformation could be resolved. Philip Melanchthon, a close friend of Martin Luther and a Professor of New Testament at Wittenberg University, drafted a common confession for the Lutheran Lords and Free Territories. The resulting document, the Augsburg Confession was presented to the emperor on June 25, 1530.

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     Luther was a well educated man. He had studied logic, psychology, astronomy, metaphysics, and mathematics as well as politics and economics in addition to his biblical studies. However, he was a man of his age, and he held a geo-centric view of the solar system. Luther believed that a view of the universe that put the sun at the center of the solar system was not compatible with his religious beliefs and he dismissed Copernicus in 1539 with harsh words, "This fool wants to turn the entire science of astronomy upside down! But as the Bible tells us, Joshua told the Sun, not the Earth, to stop in its path."

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