30 April 2024
Edited by Wilhelmus H.Th. Moehn and published by Librairie Droz.
Guy de Brès (ca. 1522 – 31 May 1567) is well-known as probable author of the Belgic Confession (Confession de foy). This confession has become one of the identity markers of the Dutch reformed Churches and is still used by churches in all continents. Less well known is the first fruit of his pen, Le baston de la foy chrestienne, published in 1555 and revised in 1558, 1559 and 1563.
Wilhelmus H.Th. Moehn gives the first critical edition of this anthology of patristic and biblical quotations, presented in an apologetic framework. Wherever possible, this edition has keyed the 492 patristic quotations to modern editions, providing additional information from patrological scholarship as needed. It also traces almost all of these quotations back to sixteenth-century sources – i.e., patristic editions and translations, anthologies, and other sixteenth-century French and Latin works – on which de Brès presumably drew. Alongside the French text of the 1555 edition, John Brooke’s 1577 English translation is reproduced.
