Abstract:
This article argues the following thesis: The distinctive characteristics of Philipp Melanchthon’s
Explicatio Proverbiorum Salomonis (1525 and following years) and the differences between the
several editions or versions of it can only partly be explained by the origins of the book in
Melanchthon’s teaching activities during the ferment at German universities in the course of
the sixteenth century Reformation. Both the peculiarities of the commentary itself and the way
several differing versions of it were tolerated alongside one another only become explicable
when a theological consideration is brought into the equation. On the one hand this resides in
the view of Holy Scripture shared by Melanchthon and Martin Luther, and on the other hand
in the humanist notion of context that Melanchthon’s exegetical work had in common with
that of John Calvin.
