What Is the Catechism?

Name: What Is the Catechism?
Author: Zacharias Ursinus

Zacharias Ursinus (1534–1583) was a German Reformed theologian and the leading teacher of the Reformed churches in the Palatinate. Trained at Wittenberg and Geneva, he became professor at Heidelberg and head of its College of Wisdom. He is remembered chiefly as the principal author of the Heidelberg Catechism of 1563, whose teaching he expounded in the lectures published as his Commentary on the Heidelberg Catechism.

Free

Free: get it — here or in the Christian Classics app — and it's yours to read and listen to on every device you sign in to. About a tenth of it can be read here first, free.

First published: 1583
Category: Theology
Length: 4k words · about 1 hour
Chapters: 5

About this book

A treatise on catechetical instruction by Zacharias Ursinus, the principal author of the Heidelberg Catechism, published in 1583. Ursinus explains what a catechism is, why the church teaches by question and answer, and how this instruction serves the young and the newly converted. A foundational document of the Reformed catechetical tradition.

I. What is Catechisation?
II. What Is the Origin of Catechisation, and Has It Always Been Practiced in the Church? 🔒
III. What Are the Parts or Principal Heads of the Doctrine of Catechism? 🔒
IV. Why Is It Necessary to Introduce and Teach the Catechism in the Church? 🔒
V. What Is the Design of the Catechism, And of the the Doctrine of the Church? 🔒