Sum of Christianity

The Sum of Christianity or Farrago Rerum Theologicarum was a book translated into English in 1536. The original text was by Wessel Gansfort.

About Easter last he borrowed of Dr. Leonard, a physician dwelling about the Crossed Friars, a book called Farrago Rerum Theologicarum, from which he made "the collection of the book aforesaid, translating the same word for word without addition, saving the epistle, which was of his own device." Through Thomas Cranmer and Hugh Latimer, he sent it to Queen Anne Boleyn, the second wife of Henry VIII of England. The Queen's grace thanked him . . . . . . . . . . . . . [b]ut she would not trouble herself . . . . . . . . . . oke. And hereupon it was committed to [the sai]d monk, of whom the said Tristram had none answer." But my lord of Worcester said there were two or three extreme points in it that might not be borne; "nevertheless, in case it should come before them that had authority to put forth books, he would say his opinion in it." ^[1]

• Farrago rerum theologicarum is the title of a collection of Wessel Gansfort's writings published at Zwolle, probably in 1521 (reprinted at Wittenberg, 1522, and Basel, 1522, which last contains a preface by Luther). Martin Luther in 1521 published a collection of Wessel's writings which had been preserved as relics by his friends, and said that if he (Luther) had written nothing before he read them, people might well have thought that he had stolen all his ideas from them. McClintock and Strong's Cyclopedia describes Gansfort as "the most important among men of German extraction who helped prepare the way for the Reformation."

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