Vita clarissimi viri D. Iosiae Simleri Tigurini, S. Theologiae in Schola Tigurina Professoris fidelissimi

from a certain rich and fertile field, and one well and diligently tilled, men outstanding in the magnitude of their learning and the holiness of their lives were propagated and sown, some of whom performed excellent service for the Republic, and others for our church and school. In that monastery, therefore, it was possible to behold a clear image of the most ancient monasteries, which were once nothing other than κοινοτήρια common places/communal dwellings or gymnasia of religion and letters, in which boys from their earliest age were instituted and imbued with the precepts of both piety and the most useful arts, so that, once instructed, they could someday lead and at the same time benefit the fatherland and the church. By a singular counsel and benefit of God, it therefore happened to our Josias that in the same place where he first beheld this light and drew vital breath, he also drew the first rudiments and elements of letters and religion. But when he had reached his fourteenth year, his parents, having noticed his singular talent and love of letters—for which he had made great progress in a short time in those first rudiments of letters with which that tender age is accustomed to be formed—made up their minds to send him away from them and hand him over to others to be educated as well. For they understood wisely that it is not useful for parents to foster their children too long in their own bosom and lap, since it often happens that children are corrupted, especially by the overly soft and delicate indulgence of mothers. Therefore, they preferred to bear and sustain the absence and longing for their only and beloved little son, as well as the expenses, which were greater for them to bear, than that anything which would contribute to his liberal education should be neglected by them. Therefore, when he was 14 years old—which was the year of Christ 1544, the 15th day of March—they sent him to Zurich and handed him over for discipline to Bullinger, who had received him from holy baptism as his highest and most intimate friend. This house of his (which could be called the oracle of the entire city much more truly than that house of Mutius Scaevola) was a fertile school and workshop of piety and learning for our Simler. And who, I ask, would not think that this too should be counted among his greatest blessings, that he had Bullinger, such a great man, at once his sponsor in the sprinkling of that baptismal water, and his teacher of life and morals, and finally his father-in-law, that is, to say it in one word, as if he had used another excellent and most faithful parent? Therefore, he lived there for almost two years, such that he was especially dear and pleasant to him and his entire family, because of the singular probity of his life and morals, his modesty, his diligence, and his great progress in letters.