The article examines the book "Scripta veterum latina" by Josias Simler. It discusses the book as an example of 16th-century patristic scholarship in Zurich, Switzerland and other centres of the Reformation. According to the author, the book demonstrates the connections that Simler and other Reformed scholars made between the history of the early church and their own religious struggles and beliefs. It is suggested that Simler portrayed himself and his Reformed contemporaries as the direct theological descendants of the church fathers, and in doing so portrayed the Catholic Church as a heretical movement. Other topics include theological polemics, Simler's sources, and Christology.