The “Three Kingdoms” of Simon Musaeus: A Wittenberg Student Processes Luther’s Thought

James M. Estes has been a leading North American Reformation scholar for more than half a century.  A student of Harold Grimm at Ohio State University, he became the leading interpreter of the thought and significance of the Swabian reformer and support of Luther, Johann Brenz.  During his long career at the University of Toronto he also has taken part in—and continues to contribute to—the edition of the works of Erasmus in English translation.  In celebration of his eightieth birthday, friends prepared a Festschrift in his honor.  Among the some twenty authors in the volume, Robert Kolb shared a study of the thought of one of Luther’s students, Simon Musaeus.  Musaeus imaginatively adapted  his mentor’s framework of the two realms as a hermeneutical structure for interpreting God’s creation of and saving intervention in human history. We provide Professor Kolb’s essay here for your reading pleasure:

Robert Kolb on Simon Musaeus