Thursday, September 10, 2026

It is the 10th of September 2026. Welcome to the Christian History Almanac, brought to you by 1517 at 1517.org; I’m Dan van Voorhis.

 

If you were born on this, the 10th of September in 1976, today you’d be 50 years old. On an unrelated note: happy birthday to my sister Sarah!

 

It would be enough if today’s character had the coolest name of all the Protestant Reformers of the 16th century- he was Wolfgang Musculus. But he also has a number of titles and names that might perk your ears. Old Wolfgang, born on this day in 1497, could also be called the “Little Mouse of the Reformation”, the “Wandering Student”, the “Lutheran Monk” and the “Ditch Digging Reformer”.

 

Let’s break those titles down as we look at a Reformation figure unlike any other.

 

Wolfgang was born in Alsace on this day in 1497- his given last name, “Mauslein,” is German for “little mouse.” As was common in his day, he latinized it to the cooler-sounding “Musculus”. Nonetheless, as his reputation spread later in life, he would be called the “little mouse of the Reformation”. He attended school at the Latin school in the Alsace: Schlettstadt. This would be the extent of his formal education- perhaps the least amount of formal education of any major Reformer. It does seem that at Schlettstadt he made acquaintances with Martin Bucer, the reformer who would help shape his later life.

 

As a young man he was urged to join the local Benedictine monastery. At one point he was sent (perhaps by Bucer) a collection of Luther’s works. He devoured them and seems to have adopted many of Luther’s ideas. This isn’t an uncommon story- a monk converts to the Protestant cause. But Wolfgang wasn’t ready to leave the monastic life. He seems to have changed his mind, but his feet were slow to follow. He was called “the Lutheran Monk” by his fellow Benedictines.

 

He would eventually leave the monastery- perhaps the allure of marriage called- he would travel to Strasbourg with the niece of his prior. The two were soon married as they took up a new life in the Free Imperial city that had adopted the Reformation with the help of Bucer.

 

But without an academic or ecclesiastical call, he had to resort to whatever work was available. Strasbourg was in the process of strengthening its fortifications, and so he took a job digging ditches. His old friend took pity on him, and soon Musculus was hired to be Bucer’s secretary. This gave him time to study. He never enrolled in school and never took any degrees, but he learned Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek; he worked as a deacon for the Strasbourg Cathedral and was invited to occasionally preach. In the 1530s he was sent to Augsburg to represent the Reformed cause in that great decade of debate. As a kind of wandering student, he traveled through Zurich and eventually received a call to teach theology at Bern. He would spend the rest of his life at Bern despite receiving calls to teach at Heidelberg, Cambridge and elsewhere. He had developed a reputation as a commentator on Scripture as well as a theologian with his Loci Communes or “theological commonplaces,” a kind of systematic theology. Of note was his use of “covenant theology”- his is the first Loci to give “Covenant” its own entry, and he began to work out the idea of a two-fold covenant of “works” and “grace” that will become central to the Reformed tradition.

 

He also stands out with his ideas about the role of the magistrates in appointing ministers and dolling out church discipline. This puts him at odds with many in his camp; however, he influenced Thomas Erastus (with a t), and Musculus’ ideas about the role of magistrates would later be known in shorthand as “erastianism” after Thomas. In theology, “Erastianism,” following the thought of Musculus, is that “the state is superior to the church in religious and church-related matters. And if you listened to the recent shows with readings from 1 Peter and Romans 12, you know which verses they like the best!

 

Musculus, despite his wandering, extended time in the monastery, and lack of formal education, would be one of the major figures of the Reformation. He would die in August of 1563, just short of his birthday. He was born on this, the 10th of September in 1496- the little Mouse, Wolfgang Musculus was 66 years old.

 

The Last word for today comes from the daily lectionary from Psalm 103:

The Lord is compassionate and gracious,
 slow to anger, abounding in love.

9 He will not always accuse,
 nor will he harbor his anger forever;

10 he does not treat us as our sins deserve
 or repay us according to our iniquities.

11 For as high as the heavens are above the earth,
 so great is his love for those who fear him;

12 as far as the east is from the west,
 so far has he removed our transgressions from us.

13 As a father has compassion on his children,
 so the Lord has compassion on those who fear him;

 

This has been the Christian History Almanac for the 10th of September 2026 brought to you by 1517 at 1517.org.

The show is produced by a man wondering if he could Latinize his last name to sound cool- he is Christopher Gillespie.

The show is written and read by a man recording this show early but already pumped for tonight’s Rams game… Dan van Voorhis.

You can catch us here every day- and remember that the rumors of grace, forgiveness, and the redemption of all things are true…. Everything is going to be ok.