Name Wolfgang Musculus | ||
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Died August 30, 1563, Bern, Switzerland | ||
Wolfgang Musculus, born "Müslin" or "Mauslein", (10 September 1497 in Dieuze, Lothringen – 30 August 1563 in Bern) was a Reformed theologian of the Reformation.
Life
Born in the village of Duss (Moselle), in a German-speaking area (French-speaking, from the Thirty Years War), he foreshadows in himself in a prescient manner all his region's history. A lover of song and of knowledge, of languages, Humanism and religion, he was swept up, along with the rest of his countrymen into the tempests and tears of his age. His great skill has made him known all over Europe and the oral tradition of his songs still rings today in the churches of the Reformation.
In 1527, he left the Benedictine monastery at Lixheim (now in the area of Moselle), to serve as deacon of the Cathedral of Our Lady of Strasbourg (French: Cathédrale Notre-Dame-de-Strasbourg) and preaching assistant to Matthäus Zell while studying under Bucer and Capito. He left for Augsburg in 1541, and after 17 years of service, he left the town after the introduction of the Augsburg Interim, and came to Switzerland, where he was the primary professor of theology at Bern from 1549. At Bern, he wrote several biblical commentaries and Loci communes sacrae theologiae (Common Places of the Christian Religion), a major systematic theology.
J. S. Bach used Musculus' 1530 hymn, a paraphrase of Psalm 23, as the text for his chorale cantata Der Herr ist mein getreuer Hirt, BWV 112, which he first performed in Leipzig in 1731.