Musaus, Johann

Musaus, Johann a Lutheran divine, was born at Langenwiesen, in Thuringia, February 7, 1613. His early education he received from his father, who was the minister of that place. Having been duly prepared at the gymnasium of Arnstadt, he went to Erfurt and Jena, where he first studied philosophy and humaniora, and afterwards theology. In 1642 he was appointed professor of history, and in 1646 professor of theology at Jena, which position he held until his death in 1681. Everywhere Musaus was acknowledged as a very learned man, the greatest Lutheran divine of his century, after Gerhard (q.v.) and Calixtus (q.v.). He distinguished between theology and confession, and favored the liberty of scientific theological researches. On this account he withstood, in connection with the theologians of Jena, the pretensions of Calovius (q.v.) to subscribe the Consensus repetitus fidei vere Lutheranae of 1655, but rather wrote against it. When he had finally yielded to the representations of the duke to abjure all and every syncretism (q.v.) in 1680, he published his opinion against Calovius (Hist. Syncr. pages 999- 1089), which the latter answered with his curse. Musaius's writings are all distinguished by a philosophical acumen, hence he was accused of magis

philosophari, quam quod loquatur eloquia Dei. Besides his defence of Christianity against Herbert of Cherbury, under the title of De luminis naturae et ei innixae theologiae naturalis insufficientia ad salutem (Jena, 1667), and against Spinoza, Tractatus Theologico-politicus, etc., ad veritatis lancem examinatus (ibid. 1674), he wrote Disputatio de cultu divino Enochi (Erfurt, 1634; against the Jesuit G. Holzhagen): — De baebarismis N.T. contra Grossium (Jena, 1642): — De usu principiorum rationis et philosophice in controversiis theologicis contra Vedeliunm (ibid. 1644): — Bedencken ob gute Werke nothig seien zur Seligkeit (ibid. 1650):-De resurrectione Christi ex mortuis (ibid. 1653): — Unbeweglicher Grund der Augsburgischen Confession (ibid. 1654), etc. These are all cited in Rottermund's Supplemenit to Jocher's Gelehrten-Lex. See Herzog, Real-Encyklop. 10:112 sq.; Buddei, Isagoge in Theol. page 1076 sq.; Gass, Gesch. der Protest. Dogmatik, 2:202, 212; Tholuck, 17ten Jahrh. Part 2, page 66. (B.P.)