Additional information
by Girolamo Zanchi (Author), Patrick J. O'Banion (Translator)
In response to the Lutheran Formula of Concord, representatives of Reformed churches commissioned Girolamo Zanchi to draft a confession of faith acceptable to all Reformed churches. Zanchi patterned his Confession of the Christian Religion after the Apostles' Creed, giving it a broadly Trinitarian and redemptive-historical structure that emphasizes God's saving work for His people in His incarnate Son. It is a synthesis of his exegetical, doctrinal, and pastoral interests and stands out among his numerous publications as a useful and accessible overview of the entire Reformed theological system of doctrine. Although the project never attained confessional status at the ecclesiastical level as was planned, Zanchi's Confession proved influential in both the Reformed theological tradition generally and the development of Reformed dogmatics in particular.
Author Biography
Girolamo Zanchi (1516-1590) was an influential Reformed pastor and professor. Originally from northern Italy, he was converted under the ministry of Peter Martyr Vermigli and subsequently fled north to Protestant Europe. As an instructor and churchman at Strasbourg, Chiavenna, Heidelberg, and Neustadt, Zanchi became a prolific and pioneering Reformed scholastic theologian who sought to wed pious devotion with precise language.
Patrick O'Banion (PhD, Saint Louis University) is a ruling elder in the Presbyterian Church in America and the author of several books, including The Sacrament of Penance and Religious Life in Golden Age Spain (2012) and Deza and Its Moriscos: Religion and Community in Early Modern Spain (2020). He taught history at the university level for two decades and currently works to train pastors overseas with Training Leaders International.
