The Preface and Catalogue des Docteurs et Conciles in Guy de Brès’ Le baston de la foy chrestienne

Abstract

On occasion of the celebrations for the fifth centenary of Guy de Brès’ birth, as well as the publication of the first volume of the critical edition of his theological works, this article aims at analysing the epistle-like preface and Catalogue des Docteurs et Conciles included in de Brès’ first theological/polemical treatise, entitled Le baston de la foy chrestienne (first published in 1555). The preface is placed within the context of anti-Anabaptist polemics and in continuity with previous Reformed efforts to convince civil authorities across Europe that the Reformed church did not harbour seditious troublemakers or detested heretics; the Catalogue of doctors and councils, alongside the preface, constitutes a summary of the apologetical and polemical reply Le baston expressed against a Roman Catholic work by Nicole Grenier entitled Le bouclier de la foy and directed against Reformed believers and their doctrine. While the patristic and canonical sources used by de Brès for the writing of Le baston remain to be fleshed out more precisely, the critical edition of Le baston will shed new light on this and other matters, representing a further step towards the understanding of the life and theology of a key protagonist of the European Reformation of the mid sixteenth century.