The Second Helvetic Confession was written by Bullinger in 1562 and revised in 1564 as a private exercise. It came to the notice of the elector palatine Friedrich III., who had it translated into German and published. It gained a favourable hold on the Swiss churches, who had found the First Confession too short and too Lutheran. It was adopted by the Reformed Church not only throughout Switzerland but in Scotland (1566), Hungary (1567), France (1571), Poland (1578), and next to the Heidelberg Catechism is the most generally recognized Confession of the Reformed Church.
See L. Thomas, _La Confession helvétique_ (Geneva, 1853); P. Schaff, _Creeds of Christendom_, i. 390-420, iii. 234-306; Müller, _Die Bekenntnisschriften der reformierten Kirche_ (Leipzig, 1903).
[1] Some of the delegates, especially Bucer, were anxious to effect a union of the Reformed and Lutheran Churches. There was also a desire to lay the Confession before the council summoned at Mantua by Pope Paul III.
HELVETII ([Greek: Helouêtioi], [Greek: Helbêttioi]), a Celtic people, whose original home was the country between the Hercynian forest (probably the Rauhe Alp), the Rhine and the Main (Tacitus, _Germania_, 28). In Caesar's time they appear to have been driven farther west, since, according to him (_Bell. Gall._ i. 2. 3) their boundaries were on the W. the Jura, on the S. the Rhone and the Lake of Geneva, on the N. and E. the Rhine as far as Lake Constance. They thus inhabited the western part of modern Switzerland. They were divided into four cantons (_pagi_), common affairs being managed by the cantonal assemblies. They possessed the elements of a higher civilization (gold coinage, the Greek alphabet), and, according to Caesar, were the bravest people of Gaul. The reports of gold and plunder spread by the Cimbri and Teutones on their way to southern Gaul induced the Helvetii to follow their example. In 107, under Divico, two of their tribes, the Tougeni and Tigurini, crossed the Jura and made their way as far as Aginnum (Agen on the Garonne), where they utterly defeated the Romans under L. Cassius Longinus, and forced them to pass under the yoke (Livy, _Epit._ 65; according to a different reading, the battle took place near the Lake of Geneva). In 102 the Helvetii joined the Cimbri in the invasion of Italy, but after the defeat of the latter by Marius they returned home. In 58, hard pressed by the Germans and incited by one of their princes, Orgetorix, they resolved to found a hew home west of the Jura. Orgetorix was thrown into prison, being suspected of a design to make himself king, but the Helvetii themselves persisted in their plan. Joined by the Rauraci, Tulingi, Latobrigi and some of the Boii--according to their own reckoning 368,000 in all--they agreed to meet on the 28th of March at Geneva and to advance through the territory of the Allobroges. They were overtaken, however, by Caesar at Bibracte, defeated and forced to submit. Those who survived were sent back home to defend the frontier of the Rhine against German invaders. During the civil wars and for some time after the death of Caesar little is heard of the Helvetii.