Caspar Olevianus
Reformed theologian whom an old tradition names, with Zacharias Ursinus, as co-author of the Heidelberg Catechism. The Christian Reformed Church’s edition of the catechism describes his part in it as smaller than that of Ursinus.
Olevianus is not named in the elector’s preface to the Heidelberg Catechism, which speaks of the theological faculty, the superintendents and the leading ministers as those who helped to prepare it (Frederick III, Preface to the Heidelberg Catechism in Richards, pp. 193–195). The introduction printed with the catechism by the Christian Reformed Church says that an old tradition credits him and Zacharias Ursinus as coauthors, that the work was in fact that of a team, and that his role was the lesser one (Heidelberg Catechism introduction to the edition of the Christian Reformed Church). See the Heidelberg Catechism.
In the timeline
- 19 January 1563, firm dateThe Heidelberg Catechism
In January 1563 the elector Frederick III issues a catechism for the churches and schools of the Palatinate. Its 129 questions, beginning with the believer’s ‘only comfort in life and in death’, become a confession of Reformed churches.