Samuel Werenfels

Samuel Werenfels (1 March 1657 – 1 June 1740) was a Swiss theologian. He was a major figure in the move towards a "reasonable orthodoxy" in Swiss Reformed theology.

Werenfels was born at Basel, the son of archdeacon Peter Werenfels and Margaretha Grynaeus. After finishing his theological and philosophical studies at Basel, he visited the universities at Zurich, Bern, Lausanne, and Geneva. On his return he took on the duties, for a short time, of the professorship of logic, for Samuel Burckhardt. In 1685 he became professor of Greek at Basel.

In 1686 Werenfels undertook an extensive journey through Germany, Belgium, and the Netherlands, one of his companions being Gilbert Burnet. In 1687 he was appointed professor of rhetoric, and in 1696 became a member of the theological faculty, occupying successively, according to the Basel custom, the chairs of dogmatics and polemics, Old Testament, and New Testament.

Werenfels received a call from the University of Franeker, but rejected it. In 1722 he led a successful move to have the Helvetic Consensus set aside in Basel, as divisive. He was member of the Prussian Academy of Sciences and the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel of London.

During the last twenty years of his life he lived in retirement. He took part in the proceedings against Johann Jakob Wettstein for heresy, but expressed regret afterward at having become involved. He died in Basel.

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