ABSTRACT
Josiah Simler was the author of the Lives of Vermigli and Bullinger. He also wrote the Life of the naturalist Conrad Gesner. Simler devotes Life to detailing Gesner's intellectual accomplishments and providing a summary of his works. He devotes the very minimum of space to Gesner's life and career, using the biographical genre to sketch out a programme of study for schoolboys. Simler portrays Gesner as the perfect Christian scholar and physician. He singles out his modesty, piety, gift for friendship and learning. Gesner knew enough theology to condemn Antitrinitarianism. He was also tolerant in that he had friends whose religious convictions differed from his own, but never made him change or waver. As we could gather from Simler encomium of Bullinger, Johann Wilhelm Stucki sees all biography as a source of inspiration for its readers, and Christian biography as a particularly important source of inspiration to Christian readers.
