(Re)constructing the Pastoral Office: Wolfgang Musculus’s Commentaries on 1 & 2 Corinthians

Abstract

This chapter examines Wolfgang Musculus's Latin Commentary on 1 & 2 Corinthians , an exegetical work first printed in 1559, that has never before received careful scholarly attention. It demonstrates that one of Musculus's chief concerns in his Commentary on 1 & 2 Corinthians is to describe and defend a distinctively Protestant, indeed reformed, conception of the pastoral office. For Musculus, commentary-writing serves as a platform for instructing ministers and ministerial candidates as to the duties, priorities, and difficulties that accompany the pastoral calling. The chapter suggests that Musculus is not unique in this: many other Protestant exegetes in the sixteenth century employed the literary genre of biblical commentary to describe and defend a new model of the office of the Christian minister. Musculus in his Commentary on 1 & 2 Corinthians has much to say about the challenges and difficulties that faithful pastors are likely to encounter in their ministries. Keywords:biblical commentary; Commentary on 1 & 2 Corinthians ; pastoral office; Wolfgang Musculus