6 Reforming a Model: Zwingli, Bullinger, and the Virgin Mary in Sixteenth-century Zurich

CHAPTER 6 Reforming a Model: Zwingli, Bullinger, and the Virgin Mary in Sixteenth-century Zurich

Rebecca A. Giselbrecht

A virgin not sterile, but fertile; married to a man, but made fruitful by God; bearing a son, but knowing not a man; forever inviolate, yet not deprived of progeny. A virgin pregnant but incorrupt, and intact even in childbirth. A virgin before marriage and in marriage, a pregnant virgin, a virgin giving suck, a perpetual virgin. A virgin without concupiscence conceiving the saviour. A virgin bearing a child in the womb without hardship, giving birth to God without pain.¹

Prior to the Reformation, the Virgin Mary was more than mere proof of Christ’s humanity in reply to ecclesial dilemmas and recurring heretical discourse. Mary was the mater dei, and her words and deeds, including ‘magnificat anima mea Dominum’² from the Gospel of Luke, were integral to defining the incarnation. Although traditionally a biblical figure, by the high Middle Ages, her presence reached far beyond the scriptural narrative, indeed, Mary had been elevated to the position of the greatest saint in the western church, the theotokos, the mediatrix, who was to be honoured with the Ave Maria, feasts, processions, and ecclesial celebrations.³ Mary was immaculate, without sin and a perpetual virgin; some also argued that her body had ascended into heaven.⁴

As the Reformation gripped Zurich, the unrelenting theological arguments that had raged from the onset of the early church, concerning Mary’s role in the incarnation of God, were once again acutely relevant to theology and everyday church praxis, so much so that both Huldrych Zwingli and Heinrich Bullinger published extensive and noteworthy sermons seeking to define Mary’s place in the reformed church. The reformer’s emphasis on solus Christus and the Schriftprinzip⁵ denied Mary, or for that matter any other saint, the power or position to intercede or represent people before the heavenly Father, because, according to the reformer’s christology, there is only one mediator between God and people, that is Christ. Removing the saint’s privileges was a delicate matter, and the Zurich reformers chose to tread lightly as they gradually reduced the Virgin Mary’s status in the heavenly family.⁶ Thus, the Mary-model underwent transformation as an integral element in the process of redefining the spiritual practices and marital relations of sixteenth-century men and women in Zurich.⁷ Indeed, as will be argued here, it is evident that the reformers’ own traditions and veneration of God’s mother challenged them personally as they refashioned the Mary-model.

The intent of this study is to investigate changes in the Mary-model during the first and second generations of the Zurich Reformation. Zwingli and Bullinger’s sermons will be assessed for a reply to the larger question: How and why was Mary shaped into a useful model for preferred female behaviour, including women’s submission to male leaders, particularly their own husbands? In addition, some of the cultural and social implications of the changed Mary-model in Zurich will be considered in order to ascertain whether or not the new model reveals anything about the social and ecclesial roles that reformed women played. Did the women lose privileges and power when they modelled their lives after a reformed Mary, who came to represent submissive faith and good behaviour, but especially chastity within marriage – and without? Were the people of Zurich aware of the new attitudes – and agendas – or were these too subtle for the average citizen to notice?

Before proceeding to the reformer’s work itself, it seems appropriate to provide a brief sketch of Mary’s more than 1,500-year association with the historical power struggles of church politics and theology in order to realize the sweeping implications surrounding what the Zurich reformers aimed to change. Indubitably, the question of Mary’s virgin birth was controversial from the start because of the miraculous nature of the event. However, precisely the biblical narrative of her virgin birth was key to confirming Christ’s divinity, when the divinity of Christ was under attack by the Arian faction at the First Ecumenical Council of Nicaea in 325.⁸ Indeed, Mary’s virginity provided essential evidence for defending the incarnation at Nicaea. By 431, in reply to the Nestorians who challenged Christ’s divinity, Mary was once again useful. At this time, she was officially designated theotokos – ‘the one who gave birth to the one who is God’.⁹ With the Edict of Milan in 431, Mary’s position as mater dei and theotokos became doctrine. In fact, the virgin birth served henceforth as a true cornerstone of christology.¹⁰ In 451, in the Confession of Chalcedon, Mary’s virgin birth was the proof for the Two-Nature Doctrine in Christ. The agreements at this council were meant to prove that Christ was both human and divine as well as to support Trinitarian doctrine. Later, her position as the virgin mother of God, the semper virgo, or perpetual virginity of Mary, was adopted into church doctrine at the Second Council of Constantinople in 553. At the Lateran Council of 649, Mary was proclaimed an ever-immaculate virgin.¹¹

By c. 1210 at the Synod of Paris Mary had evolved into the highest model of sainthood; she was inseparable from both church doctrine proper and folk religion. Hilda Graef emphasizes Mary’s position and shows just how fundamental it had grown within Christendom. If not invocated in worship, she was at least adored:

The Hail Mary was often accompanied by genuflexions or prostrations; a hermit, Aybert (d. ca. 1140) for example, said daily one hundred and fifty Hail Maries, with as many genuflexions; and in the canons of the Synod of Paris (ca.1210) the knowledge of the Hail Mary was enjoined upon all the faithful in addition to the Our Father and the Apostles’ Creed.¹²

The Ave Maria had not only become tradition in liturgical settings, but became doctrine – even a staple of Christian worship.

The dawn of Renaissance Humanism was also the height of the Marian Cult. At the Council of Constance in 1416, Jean Gerson (1363–1429) Chancellor of the University of Paris, passionately defended the immaculate conception of Mary.¹³ Although the 36th session of the Council of Basel was eventually denied the status of an ecumenical council, and none of the issues addressed became church doctrine, Pelikan confirms the following:

The Council of Basel, on 18 December 1439, decreed that the Immaculate Conception was ‘a pious doctrine, in conformity with the worship of the church, the Catholic faith, right reason, and Holy Scripture’. It prescribed that the doctrine ‘be approved, held, and progressed’ by all Catholics, and it forbade any preaching or teaching contrary to it.¹⁴

As a consequence of the Reformation divided church, unified ecumenical councils became a thing of the past. Furthermore, one of the chief irreconcilable differences between the Roman church and Protestantism of today remains the contrasting liturgical appreciation of Mary. In 1854, Pope Pius IX proclaimed the dogma of the Immaculate Conception, and in 1950 the Roman church also dogmatically defined the Assumption of Mary.¹⁵ The exkurs above is a reminder of Mary’s centrality to the doctrine of the old church. Keeping this in mind, the following will examine how and why the Zurich reformers reduced Mary’s liturgical position to a female role model for chastity.

Reforming Mary in Zurich

After the Supplicatio ad Hugonem episcopum Constantiensem¹⁶ was presented to the Bishop of Constance on 2 July 1522 with 12 signatures, including that of Huldrych Zwingli, a series of events, sermons and publications began to fuel confusion that would eventually necessitate that Huldrych Zwingli clarify the Virgin Mary’s role in Zurich. The Supplicatio demanded the abrogation of celibacy among clerics and nuns as well as the abolition of mass, which was to be replaced by reformed worship services.¹⁷ A few months later on 6 September 1522, Zwingli published Von Klarheit und Gewissheit des Wortes Gottes,¹⁸ which he had already preached to the nuns of the Dominican Order in Oetenbach in early August.¹⁹ Zwingli’s primary text on Mariology, Von der ewig reinen Magd Maria, which translates to On the Eternally Pure Maiden Mary,²⁰ was published on 17 September 1522 as a reply to some of the concerns that people had in regard to amending their understanding of Mary.

Not everyone was able to assimilate Zwingli’s ideas immediately. In summer 1522, François Lambert (1486/7–1530) took it upon himself to travel to Zurich in the middle of the ferment of the Reformation, and preached in the Fraumünster, on the subject of intercession by Mary and the saints.²¹ Lambert had been recommended to Zwingli by Haller of Bern to preach in Latin against the abuses of the Roman church. Notwithstanding, Lambert advocated the worship of saints in his ‘four mighty sermons’²² on the Virgin Mary held in Zurich. Zwingli interrupted one of these sermons when he shouted out, ‘You err’. Afterwards, he challenged Lambert to a disputation. They met on 17 July 1522, and Zwingli convinced Lambert of his error with the words: ‘All of Mary’s honor is her Son’.²³ Zwingli was boldly insistent that the process, which was already in motion for redefining the Mary-model in Zurich, be continued.

Roughly six months later, Zwingli presented his Sixty-Seven Articles²⁴ to the Zurich council on 29 January 1523. As Ulrich Gäbler suggests, the Articles were put together more as a defense of Zwingli’s previous sermons than a well sorted out effort to transform both church and state.²⁵ Regardless of Zwingli’s intentions, over 600 people from Zurich showed up at the disputation. The common people turned up to witness the dispute in which the Papal representative, Johann Fabri (1478–1541),²⁶ was unable to prove that celibacy is a scriptural principle.²⁷

Five of Zwingli’s Sixty-Seven Articles were of particular interest to the future of Mary in Zurich. Article XX and XXI concerned the intercession of the saints: that we need no mediator except for Christ, and that earthly prayer is to be spoken in faith that all things are given to us through Christ.²⁸ In addition, Articles XXVIII and XXIX concerned the marriage of ecclesiasts: that what God allows or has not forbidden is righteous, including marriage, and that all clerics sin if they do not marry when they realize that they cannot remain chaste.²⁹ And finally XXX: that a vow of chastity is foolish and childish, that is, too much for the pious being.³⁰ With these demands, Zwingli widely influenced, changed, and reformed women’s roles in the church and at home.

With his insistence on relinquishing the rules of celibacy, the mass, the mediation of saints and women’s roles in the church, Zwingli also altered Mary’s position in the collective conscience of Zurich. As William P. Stephens sees it, these changes were each a product of the authority that Zwingli found in scriptural interpretation:

In its attack on celibacy it is a challenge to the authority of the church in light of scripture, and an appeal to the word of God against the ordinance of man. It is a demand for Christian liberty in the sense of scriptural liberty. Zwingli’s characteristic use of a range of scriptural testimonies is both an argument from scripture and an interpretation of scripture by scripture. The writing was concerned not only with marriage, but also with the preaching of the gospel, to which – as he pointed out – Christ had appointed the bishop as well.³¹

As Stephen’s argues, Von Klarheit und Gewissheit des Wortes Gottes emphasizes ‘the authority and interpretation of Scripture, as well as the Holy Spirit, but also Zwingli’s humanism and Augustinism’.³² With Zwingli’s emphasis on solus Christus and Scripture’s own interpretation of Scripture, Christ alone, not Mary, could hold the highest position as absolute mediator between God and people.

By 1523, Mary had been relinquished of official power to intercede for the people of the Zurich church. On the one hand, Zwingli perceived the necessity of keeping Mary’s virginitas in partu and even virginitas post partum as doctrine, while, on the other hand, adamantly proclaiming that marriage with all of its responsibilities is desirable and appropriate for both men and women from a social and spiritual perspective. Moreover, although many convents and monasteries in and around Zurich had been closed due to financial circumstances before the Reformation, those that were shut down in response to Zwingli’s efforts were the last traces of a public ascetic lifestyle in Zurich for quite some time to come.

Changing the image of Mary could never lead to completely neglecting her. She is a prominent Bible character, whose role in the Gospel, the incarnation and as a witness to the resurrection cannot be ignored. Yet, the Virgin Mary’s scriptural and cultural identity necessitated redefinition in the Zurich Reformation. The following text analyses will serve to demonstrate how Zwingli and Bullinger transformed the culture of sixteenth-century Zurich and show how Mary the Mother of God was able to remain an eternal virgin in the early reformed tradition of Zurich.

Zwingli’s Mary Sermon: On the Eternally Pure Maiden Mary

Rather than present an exegesis of Zwingli’s text, the following elucidates Zwingli’s efforts to modify his culture’s reception of the iconic Virgin Mary.³³ Zwingli’s work includes a cover letter to his own brothers,³⁴ which discloses his own motivation for writing On the Eternally Pure Maiden Mary. The reformer’s brothers had gotten wind of the gossip that Konrad Hofmann (1454–1525)³⁵ set in motion when he maintained that Zwingli had publically dishonoured Mary. The conflict was the reason for the first paragraphs of Zwingli’s reply to his own brothers. In the letter, Zwingli introduces the basic premise for his logic and argues towards a changed role model, which is, of course, Zwingli’s own interpretation of Mary.

In this text, Zwingli’s personal and political intentions are difficult to overlook, especially when he adds a warning to his brothers in an effort to save them from joining the lucrative Söldnerwesen (mercenary armies) common to Switzerland in the late fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries.³⁶ Zwingli warns them that signing up for mercenary service would be their damnation.³⁷ The letter continues with an explanation that Zwingli has only ‘pure intentions’ to preach scriptural truth in every case. The missive ends with a few statements about Mary: ‘I do not intend to confirm the lies that are told about her, nor to say more about her than Scripture and the Holy Gospels teach’.³⁸ Zwingli concludes his letter with a list of ten helpful hints for his brother’s continued spiritual growth and sends it attached to a copy of On The Eternally Pure Maiden Mary.

An overview of Zwingli’s Mary sermon itself demonstrates how skillfully Zwingli was able to alter common understandings of celibacy, marriage, chastity and the intercession of the saints to accommodate his own reformed mariology. At the onset of his sermon, just before he declares his stated purpose, which is to discuss ‘the praise of the eternally pure maiden Mary, who bore Christ the savior for us’, Zwingli declares his conviction that works do not earn righteousness.³⁹ In the paragraphs that follow, he provides an exegesis of the incarnation and birth of Christ from Matthew 2 and Luke 1, but his focus is primarily on Joseph and God’s wisdom for providing Mary with a husband for her own protection. Zwingli emphasizes that having a husband to protect her was especially important to Mary and the Christ child, who faced exile in Egypt in order to escape Herod’s violence. In addition, according to Zwingli, Joseph’s life purpose was to protect Mary and the baby Jesus. In Zwingl’s eyes, Joseph remained a virgin husband, and marriage became a safe haven for Mary.⁴⁰ The emphasis on marriage, which is highlighted in this section of Zwingli’s sermon, is one of the elements of the reform, which was in direct opposition to the old church’s religious practice of celibacy that Zwingli addressed in his Sixty-Seven Articles. The changed emphasis that Zwingli argued for became inherent to the preferred behaviour of reformed women.

At the beginning of his narrative history of the biblical Mary, Zwingli upholds the highly contentious but imperative doctrine of Christ’s humanity: ‘And naturally, God with us, that he took on human nature from the pure Mary and became our brother, indeed a sacrifice, paying for us’.⁴¹ Christ’s humanity is not to be disputed. As proof, Zwingli underscores that Mary came from the line of David with an allegorical exegesis of Isaiah 11:1.⁴² He is attentive to intricate details concerning the issue that obviously took up so much of Zwingli and the church Father’s thought, and which appears to be the concern of Zwingli’s brothers as well as that of the people of Zurich – Mary’s eternal virginity. Zwingli continues: ‘In addition, here it is to point out her absolute virginity, which was so great that the Gospel writers Luke and Matthew argue it to be so. It is so, that she was a pure and unconsumed⁴³ virgin, during, throughout, and after the birth of Jesus, yes, remained so unto eternity’.⁴⁴

Zwingli defends his conviction vehemently and brings up the classic dispute between Helvidius and Jerome over Mary’s perpetual virginity.⁴⁵ At this juncture of his sermon, the reformer does not seem to embrace the tenets of Helvidius’ defense and elevation of marriage to equality with celibacy. In order to secure his point about Mary’s purity, Zwingli praises Jerome, who taught the virtue of celibacy and that women are inferior to men. To buttress his argument, Zwingli reminds his readers of Joseph’s abstinence, which implies Mary’s chastity, in order to underscore Christ’s divinity.⁴⁶ This particular defense is most pointed, and leaves no doubt that the old church understanding and emphasis on Mary’s virginity would remain unchallenged by this reformer. Finally, Zwingli reveals his central tenet and why he chose to defend Mary’s virginity so fiercely:

I have interpreted the text from the Gospel of Matthew so deeply in order that those who speak falsely and dishonestly about me, saying that I preached that Mary was a stupid woman, that she was like some sort of tramp, and that I had blemished her purity and joked about her, might realize that they thought wrongly of me.⁴⁷

He then completes his initial defense by injecting that he never said anything to injure Mary.

After assuring his audience that Mary retained her virginity forever, Zwingli continues to examine who Mary actually was and what her position should be among the faithful; his narrative and her virtues are woven together in his instructions on how to properly honour Christ’s mother. Zwingli preaches that Mary’s greatest honour was to give birth to Christ; Mary is to be praised above all people, and especially above all women. In this manner, Zwingli continuously and repeatedly points to Christ, who is to be the focus of worship, and away from Mary. Zwingli places Christ above Mary as the only mediator between God and people, yet, he also elevates Mary ‘above all women’.⁴⁸ The Latin text from Luke 1:42: ‘Benedicta tu inter mulieribus et benedictus fructus ventris tui’,⁴⁹ and a normal reading of the original Greek imply that the natural interpretation would be that Mary was among women. In most of Zwingli’s exegesis, he uses the expression that Mary is blessed among women, not above women as he does here. Perhaps the texts concerning Mary and those of Judith from the Apocrypha mingled in Zwingli’s memory.⁵⁰ Although Zwingli definitely taught that Mary was not equal to Christ, for some reason he felt it necessary to elevate Mary above all women in the context of her virginity.

Zwingli continues with a colloquial excursus by inserting a story to illustrate his point that Mary was not the mediator between God and the faithful. In his story, some people in a restaurant ask Zwingli how to pray to Mary; he tells them: ‘The Ave Maria is not a prayer, it is rather a greeting and praise. It is a mere greeting … the Ave Maria is a greeting and no prayer request’.⁵¹ Moreover, after his aside that surely every common person understood, Zwingli begins to build his case for a new Mary-model, the model of faith for all. He alludes to Mary’s virginity with an interpretation of the Annunciation in which the Angel Gabriel appears to Mary, wherein the angel is a man. Zwingli focuses once again on Mary’s virginity and innocence and describes her reaction of surprise to suddenly seeing a man in her presence, although, and Zwingli wants to make this point very clear, she had never known any man in a carnal sense. For Zwingli, Mary’s virginity is to remain an essential element of his new model. However, one was to dissist from praying to or through Mary – prayer must be addressed to Christ. Although he places much emphasis on her integrity, Mary’s faith is the object of Zwingli’s praise.

Having established Mary’s virginity, he approaches her faith from various angles. By faith she was willing to bear Christ and live her life according to that decision. He proceeds with excerpts from Luke 2 and the Annunciation to prove that Mary’s greatest strength was her faith – faith that believers were to emulate. According to Zwingli, she believed or placed her faith in the Angel’s announcement through the Holy Spirit.⁵² Mary replied to the Angel Gabriel confidently: ‘Ecce ancilla domini’.⁵³

Zwingli digresses, adding some practical instructions particularly for girls to be submissive and humble as they enter matrimony.⁵⁴ Afterwards, the sermon dwells for several paragraphs on the idea of what a maiden is, but in a secondary sense on the role of a faithful and humble contemporary servant modelled after Mary. Mary is a picture of poverty and faith. Finally, Zwingli takes an excursion beyond the boundaries of Scripture and explores the traditional Roman Catholic ideal of the Virgin Mary’s stoic poise under the cross and her composure following Jesus’ crucifixion, an image that was commonly commemorated and glorified in the iconography and worship of the Middle Ages.⁵⁵ Zwingli draws an image of Mary as a faithful woman doing God’s will.

A notable exception to Zwingli’s complete treatment of Mary is that he bypasses the Magnificat⁵⁶ in his otherwise comprehensive biblical study; although he continues to interpret the various New Testament texts that refer to Mary. In the section that follows, he does not shy from inserting expanded interpretations of her reactions to Christ on the cross,⁵⁷ the 12-year-old Jesus in the temple⁵⁸ and Mary’s ability to humbly accept Christ’s reply at the wedding in Canaan.⁵⁹ Mary is ‘keeping all of the things concerning Jesus in her heart as another mark of her faith’, which for Zwingli strongly emphasizes her humility toward Christ.⁶⁰ Zwingli builds his case for the selfless composure of all Christians with Mary as the model of faith and behaviour. Again Zwingli insists: ‘That I have never thought anything dishonorable, sinful, scandalous, or evil about the pure maiden Mary, the bearer of our salvation, much less publicly taught or spoken this’.⁶¹ His exegesis leaves no room for an interpretation of Mary who intercedes for other Christians before the throne of God, nor for his brother’s criticism of his attitude towards Mary.

In conclusion, Zwingli restates his intentions for writing On the Eternally Pure Maiden Mary:

I am satisfied that I have presented my clear opinion of the Mother of God to righteous and simple Christians, that is, according to Holy Scripture, I totally believe that she remained a pure virgin. I absolutely believe that God elevated her above all other creatures, the blessed, and the angels, into the eternal joy.⁶²

And to finalize his teaching, he restates that Mary should not receive the prayer of the people of Zurich, but rather should be honoured as a virgin and model of faith, he reiterates the text from Matthew 7:21:⁶³

Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of the Father in heaven. It will also be so that everyone who merely repeats a hundred thousand times with their mouths and breath, Ave Maria, will not enter into the kingdom of heaven, but rather those who think about the content of the Ave Maria when they repeat it.⁶⁴

A few sentences later, Zwingli repeats himself again: ‘And in reality our salvation began here as the angel sent by God to the pure Virgin Mary was addressed and greeted in the following manner: you are favored above all women, and favored and blessed is the fruit of your womb, or something similar’.⁶⁵

Zwingli’s sermon ends by pointing out the theological reason that Mariology had to be changed in sixteenth-century Zurich:

If it is falsely taught that merely blabbering a number of Ave Marias in order to receive this or that number of indulgences, I say, that this is a great and harmful mistake. Because the simple-minded have learned from this to trust their own prayers that are fulfilled in merely external words, and they have drifted away from true inner prayer, which is nothing other than an eternal alignment with God that purifies the person from day to day.⁶⁶

The summary of his sermon and encouragement for the people of Zurich who had worshipped Mary for so long with such vigor is: The more honour and love that a Christian bestows upon Christ, the higher the believer holds the Virgin Mary in her role as the Mother of Christ.⁶⁷ Finally, the same idea is repeated yet again with a new comparison and challenge to his audience; Mary’s position is made relative among men by listing her along side, not above, other saints: ‘Mary, John, Peter, and Stephan were all the same witnesses of Christ pointing us to Christ’.⁶⁸

Limited scholarship on Zwingli’s sermon includes Hans Grass’ discussion of the contemporary divide between Catholic and Protestant Mariology. In his Traktat über Mariologie, he insists that the old and new church view of Mary will never merge.⁶⁹ Grass emphasizes Zwingli’s desire to prove his point with Scripture, but notes that Zwingli – more consciously than unconsciously – certainly oversteps this on three points. First, Zwingli defended Mary’s semper virgo a bit too fervently and allowed some excesses in his narrative expression of Mary’s biblical presence. Emidio Campi concurs with Grass and reminds that female chastity was a key concern for Zwingli in his moral reform: Zwingli ‘suggested that the money spent on erecting towers and providing for the already rich should be invested in girls who could not retain their virginity due to their poverty’.⁷⁰ Furthermore, Grass contends that Zwingli went beyond Scripture with these words: ‘I strongly believe that she (Mary) was raised by God into eternal joy above all creatures and living people or angels’.⁷¹ Grass finally makes the point that Zwingli went beyond his own principle by allowing the celebration of Mary’s assumption to continue being celebrated with a Feast Day in the church.

Considering the context of Zurich in the fall of 1522, it is fair to say that Zwingli still upheld the core values of the Roman Catholic doctrine of Mary, while slowly limiting the various non-scriptural elements as his own hermeneutic advised, and that this was his considered tactic for transforming a role model. Ultimately, On the Eternal Pure Maiden Mary was one aspect of the transition from the old to a new model in the author’s own changing culture where he served as an ordained agent of change.

Zurich Between 1531–58

The landscape of faith and politics in Zurich changed drastically between Zwingli’s death in 1531 and the publication of Bullinger’s sermon on Mary in 1558; the Magisterial-reform, the Radical-reform and the Counter-reform were exchanging blows, and Mary was once again useful to all. Heiko Oberman nicely summarizes where Zwingli left off on his interpretation of the Mary-model:

In 1529 Zwingli defends the use of the ‘Ave Maria’, not as a prayer but as praise ‘in order to salute and laud Mary’. He feels that the best way to honor the Mother of God is to imitate her virtues[;] resorting to the usual Medieval tendency he associates Mary and Christ to the point where he can say: ‘the more honor and love for Christ, the more also the esteem and honor for Mary, since she has borne us such a great and at the same time merciful Lord and Redeemer’.⁷²

Diarmaid MacCulloch is refering to Zwingli and Bullinger’s strategies when he comments that the ‘Zurich authorities were gradualists in their approach to Marian devotion; the Marian liturgical recitation of the scriptural portion of the Hail Mary remained in the Zurich preaching service right up to 1563, when Bullinger finally did away with it’.⁷³ In the necrology of Bullinger by Josias Simler (1530–76), Simler refers to the Romans who accused the reformed of degrading Mary: ‘contumeliose nos loqui de beata virgine’ (‘that we speak dishonorably about the blessed Virgin’).⁷⁴ Although Bullinger made extensive use of Marian language throughout his career, including ‘pure virgin’, ‘the blessed virgin’, ‘the holy virgin’, ‘the holiest and most pure virgin’, ‘the one who bore God’, ‘Mother of God’ and ‘the eternal blessed virgin’, his conception of the Virgin Mary was in some ways trapped between the Anabaptists and Romans.⁷⁵ Therefore, it is not surprising that the Mary-model was once again at the centre of discourse in the debate with the Anabaptists at Munster in 1533. MacCulloch hands down a droll case in point:

One Lutheran spokesman, Hermann Busche (1468–1534), innocently let the cat out of the bag when debating with Anabaptists at Munster, while debate was still possible in 1533. After admitting that infant baptism cannot be explicitly found in the Bible, he said that there are many things ‘not mentioned in the Bible, which are still perfectly acceptable. For example, the perpetual virginity of Mary or the Bible nowhere mentions the baptism of the apostles’.⁷⁶

As we will see, the fragile task of changing a role model continued to preoccupy Bullinger.

Bullinger’s De beata virgine Maria matre Domini nostri Iesu Christi

Christoph Froschauer in Zurich printed a compendium of Bullinger’s Feast Sermons⁷⁷ in 1558 and a second edition followed in 1564. The sermon selection included De beata virgine Maria matre Domini nostri Iesu Christi, which is the fourth in a series. Walter Tappolet commented on and translated the Latin text into German in his comprehensive survey of reformed mariology in Das Marienlob der Reformatoren⁷⁸ published in 1962, not too long after the Roman Catholic church confirmed the assumption of Mary.

Tappolet introduces Bullinger’s sermon as a ‘text-less or a thematic sermon’,⁷⁹ because it is not based on any particular Bible text. Bullinger published his sermon on Mary 35 years after Zwingli’s On the Eternally Pure Maiden Mary, yet, the circumstances surrounding Bullinger’s sermon are surprisingly similar to those of Zwingli. For one, Bullinger’s sermon is dedicated to his own brother Johannes Bullinger (1496–1570), who was a pastor in the church at Kappel-Zurich. Bullinger’s sermon addresses his brother’s ‘pressing request for a more detailed and exact explanation of what Holy Scripture and the Fathers tell us about the Blessed Virgin Mary’.⁸⁰

As we will see, the difficulties involved in transforming the Mary-model were not completely resolved when Bullinger wrote his sermon, and although Zwingli’s context was different, the fact remains that Bullinger also felt the need to argue and support his view on Mary in reply to his own brother. The old conflict and confusion over the identity of the Virgin Mary had not been completely resolved, and the people of Zurich were still looking for a satisfying reply or adequate model to explain tradition, Scripture and contemporary practice. Just like Zwingli, Bullinger’s sermon refuted false accusations that he had vituperated against the Holy Virgin, and he intended to defend his reputation against such slander.

In reformed style, Bullinger’s epigraph is a reference to a Bible text, but with a peculiar twist: ‘I am what I was, I was not what I am, now I am called both (God and man)’.⁸¹ At the onset of his sermon, Bullinger takes a strong position to cement his defense of both the incarnation and homoousios,⁸² which he insists are both essential components of Christian doctrine. Thereafter, he provides an orderly thesis for his sermon:

I will show in particular that our Lord Jesus Christ truly took on a human body out of the flesh of his mother Mary and that she remained a virgin. I will add the following, not every detail, but the weightier and more mentionable things, at least that Scripture has to say about her, which certainly appears to enrich her praise as the most excellent and a creature highly favored by God.⁸³

Then Bullinger announces his intended purpose to disprove those who claim that he and his followers are Antidikomarianites⁸⁴ and to set those straight who speak out against the Virgin Mary.⁸⁵ Bullinger’s sermon has a similar design to Zwingli’s Mary sermon; beginning with the incarnation, both reformers signal that in accordance with the church Fathers, the Two-Nature Doctrine in Christ is not negotiable. Zwingli and Bullinger both provide extensive arguments confirming Mary’s eternal virginity in support of traditional incarnation theology as well as from a moral point of view. Bullinger, however, spends more time than Zwingli did defining the new Mary-model in terms of the biblical Mary and her virtues as his own didactic method for prescribing a new role model for women.

In section one, Bullinger aspires to supply proof that to believe Christ was born in the flesh from a virgin mother is proper doctrine:

Then what else can be born of the spirit except spirit, just as flesh comes from flesh? But the Holy Spirit of God did this or accomplished with godly strength that she herself conceived and gave the son of God flesh, exclusively from the substance of her pure and therefore sanctified body, without the addition of a man. Moreover, she remained an innocent virgin.⁸⁶

The reformer goes into great detail concerning the manner in which Mary conceived, telling his readers that the ‘strength of the most high came over her’ that is ‘overshadowed her’, which essentially means ‘protected her’, and in addition ‘impregnated her’, that is ‘made her fruitful’.⁸⁷ With an allusion to fields that ‘become too hot and unable to produce, but when they have shade, do bring forth fruit’, Bullinger elegantly points out that Mary is the connection between the Abrahamic and Davidic promise of a ‘sprout’.⁸⁸ Bullinger lays a solid foundation for his christology with his argument for Mary’s part in the incarnation as the virgin mother of Christ; he does not go beyond orthodoxy.

The second section of Bullinger’s sermon continues the apology for Mary’s eternal virginity by discussing Mary as a biblical type, in terms of the rhetoric of naming, using allegorical interpretation, with logical argumentation, and by appealing to the authority of the church Fathers. Again, Bullinger situates a thesis for his argument at the onset of the section:

Therefore, we pass over this here and will demonstrate with godly and human authority that Mary was and remained an eternal virgin, and we will speak of the glory of the absolutely pure child from the holiest and the totally intact virgin, and from the honor and dignity of the pure woman who gave birth – the Virgin Mother.⁸⁹

Bullinger reviews the text from Genesis 3:15,⁹⁰ which is missing from Zwingli’s sermon, and does so with great confidence in his exegesis. For Bullinger, the traditional interpretation of ‘the woman’ is clear in this text: ‘I will set enmity between you and the woman … between you and that woman, indeed the noble, unique and excellent woman’. Bullinger implies that the later virtues refer to the Virgin Mary here, whom he calls ‘woman’ in order to clearly denote her gender even explaining his addition of the word virgin to this biblical reference, because ‘her child was not the child of a man, but rather, the child of the one called a virgin’.⁹¹ Leaning on Irenaeus’ Eve-Mary typology, in which Mary is the last Eve without sin, a medieval view of the relationship between sin and sexuality surfaces.⁹² The reformer then reasons with a reference to the prophecy from Isaiah 7:14:⁹³ ‘Look, the young woman is with child and shall bear a son’, and then makes it clear that the ‘young woman’ means ‘virgin’, and that she was ‘untouched as an eternal virgin’.⁹⁴ Bullinger pursues the foundation of his argument with an excursus on rhetorical naming, to the effect that it can be argued that ‘nicknames’ are serious matters. He alleges that the reason Mary is called ‘the Virgin Mary’ is because ‘nicknames are glowing signs of virtue’.⁹⁵ And he supports this in turn with a quote allegedly from Cyprian: ‘It was the special privilege of Mary, that no other woman either before or afterward was worthy to obtain, that she was a mother and virgin at the same time, nor was any other distinguished with this title’.⁹⁶ Bullinger’s argumentative methods were not yet exhausted.

Section two ends with questions and answers that function as propositions for the logic of his argument. First, he employs the traditional allegorical interpretation of Ezekiel 44:1–3 to underscore Mary’s virginity:⁹⁷

Who is the ‘Prince’? Who is the ‘God of Israel’? When not our Lord Jesus Christ, who according to the words of the blessed Zacharias ‘visited us from above’? And who is the ‘gate’, who ‘remained closed and was not opened’, if not the eternally Virgin Mary, the mother of our Lord Jesus Christ?⁹⁸

Both Zwingli and Bullinger employed this text in their arguments, and Bullinger used it as a proof text in his Apodixis,⁹⁹ his apology for Mary’s virginity, as well.¹⁰⁰ Bullinger takes on those who dare to question Mary’s eternal virginity with more hypothetical questions. He asks why Joseph would have stayed married to a pregnant Mary had she not indeed been a virgin. In addition, he poses a question that was certainly raised by those who read Scripture thoughtfully: why did Mary go to the temple eight days after Christ’s birth to sacrifice two doves, if she was in fact pure? Bullinger replies matter-of-factly: ‘rather, because she wanted to submit to the law’.¹⁰¹ Bullinger was aware that the entire discussion about Mary’s virginity could be questioned in light of Luke 2:22–4¹⁰² and her participation in the purification ritual at the temple after the birth of Christ, yet his christology and Mary-model depended on her virginity. The discourse on the traditionally delicate and critical doctrine of Mary’s eternal virginity is assessed at the end of this section of De beata virgine Maria with a list of church Fathers and bishops¹⁰³ who Bullinger claims believed that Mary conceived Christ through the Holy Spirit, and, therefore, she remained a virgin.¹⁰⁴

The first half of Bullinger’s sermon is remarkably similar to that of Zwingli; however, his third section goes beyond Zwingli as an exposition of the biblical Mary and her excellence, that is, her virtues, and why she deserves praise and emulation as a model of faith and behaviour. Just as in section one and two, at the onset of his defense, Bullinger shares his plan:

Just how exceptional the piety, faith, innocence, holiness and virtue of the Virgin Mary were, so that she certainly cannot be compared to any of the other saints, that she must rightfully be preferred over all of the others, can be seen clearly in the first chapter of Matthew and Luke, especially taking her ‘Magnificat’ into consideration … then she spoke filled in abundance with the prophetic spirit.¹⁰⁵

He continues by chastising ‘the hypocritical Christians who rob Mary of their praise’, which was unthinkable according to Bullinger, because Mary was so full of the Holy Spirit, and therefore the theotokos, ‘she who bore God and the Mother of God’.¹⁰⁶ Although Bullinger seems to address the entire congregation beforehand, he takes care to attach the typical sixteenth-century female attributes of obedience, humility, faith and purity to his next paragraphs.¹⁰⁷

Bullinger writes that when Mary said: ‘Here I am, the servant of the Lord’ in Luke 1:38, she set a standard for obedience for the Christians of his day, and he supports this by suggesting that all Christians should memorize the Magnificat, which he proceeds to outline.¹⁰⁸ Humility is the second female virtue that Bullinger adheres to his Mary-model: ‘Although she was filled with all mysteries, and all the hidden treasures of our salvation, and she accepted them by faith, although angels appeared to her, and she rejoiced over her friendly conversation with them, she never elevated herself in any way because of them, but always remained humble’.¹⁰⁹ Bullinger artfully juxtaposes Mary’s submissive faith with the claim that she looked only and alone to the Son and trusted him; she rejoiced in him, and exalted him in her spirit, she was obedient according to law and she was an example as she followed God’s law and the tablet of purity.¹¹⁰ He goes so far as to claim that Mary was obedient to Christ when she ‘believed and was obedient’ to ‘the reply of the Lord, that was really harsh enough’ when the boy Jesus went into the temple without telling his parents where he was off to.¹¹¹ Bullinger further develops his conclusions about Mary’s humility, applying the biblical Mary narrative at the wedding in Canaan from John 2:4. When Mary asked Jesus to turn water into wine, Christ replied: ‘Woman, what concern is that to you and to me? My hour has not yet come’.¹¹² Bullinger explains that Mary humbly said: ‘Do whatever he tells you’,¹¹³ then enlarges on Mary’s motivation and the ultimate point for his sermon as he declared it at the onset:

Only this, so that we all worship him, call on him, and worship him. Since we have put all of our trust in him, we will certainly not say with a good conscience, nor according to the advice of the Virgin: ‘Mary, Mary of Grace, Mother of Mercy, protect us from our enemies, take us up in the hour of death!’ We are much more likely to call on the Son and say: ‘Son of the heavenly Father and the Virgin Mary, you who suffered for the sins of the world, and are our only salvation, have mercy on us, and take our spirits up!’¹¹⁴

Having completed his depiction of what Scripture itself says about Mary, Bullinger reaches beyond biblical limits into the realm of conjecture. His description of Mary at the Crucifixion seems remarkably old church, as he points toward the Crucifixion rather than the Resurrection, by portraying Mary stoically facing her son’s sacrifice. While in her ‘totally pure heart’ the Holy Spirit comforted her, her faith did not falter in any way because ‘she understood that the world would be redeemed in this manner’.¹¹⁵ A few sentences later, Bullinger exclaims, despite this, ‘the disciples did not worship her’ and ‘ever since the resurrection and ascension of our Lord, she continued in faith, in humility, and modesty, while not hoping to make herself great because of her unusual or extraordinary gifts, she did not demand a teaching position in the church, and did not set herself apart as some kind of goddess’.¹¹⁶ Bullinger’s explication of Mary’s virtues, her purity, obedience, humility and faith are supported with exegesis that goes beyond the Gospels or Acts; thus, a transitional phase between pre-reform and post-reform mariology is apparent. The role model that Bullinger develops revisits traditional elements of the ideal and virtuous woman without advancing an ascetic alternative to marriage.

At the end of section three, mostly based on Scripture, Bullinger defines Mary’s ascension to heaven: ‘It is certain and beyond doubt, that she herself is now living in heaven with her Son, because she has achieved eternal salvation’.¹¹⁷ Bullinger reveals a key patristic authority for his own doctrine of Mary’s assumption in Eusebius, the Bishop of Caesarea (c. 263–339/40), an industrious researcher of antiquity who mentioned Mary in his chronicles from the year 48 after the birth of Christ. Bullinger leans on Eusebius, contending that the Virgin Mary, the mother of Jesus Christ, was taken up to her son in heaven, as many have written, and as has been revealed to them. Section three is then summarized:

It should be enough for us to believe and to confess that the Virgin Mary, the beloved mother of our Lord Jesus Christ has been sanctified through the grace and blood of her own son and through the gift of the Holy Spirit has been richly gifted above all women, and finally as it is with angels, lives in heaven, who is declared truly blessed by all people, now lives happily with Christ in heaven; and that she is named the Eternal Virgin and also is and remains so, that is, the bearer of God, whose memorial should be celebrated in the church always and festively, that is piously and not superstitiously.¹¹⁸

Concluding his first three sections, Bullinger returns to the original problem defined in his thesis and adds some more reasons for defending it, along with an overview of his logic, a list of reasons why his view is correct and, finally, a summary of the reformed doctrine and Mary-model. His original intentions were to disprove his opponents. In fact, by not arguing against them, Bullinger feared that the ‘enemies would count us among the Antidikomarianites. For as representatives we teach about the Virgin Mary soberly and in an orthodox manner what all of orthodox antiquity taught and believed in accordance with Holy Scripture’.¹¹⁹

Bullinger continues with a list of what the enemies of the Reformation are accusing reformed Zurich of ignoring. They are being accused of acting against aspects of orthodoxy, denying ‘that the Virgin Mary is full of grace, that she is like the well and well water by which she is the mother of grace and mercy, and what Saint Bernhard believed of her: That she is our mediator’.¹²⁰ Bullinger begins to reveal the true reason for his sermon with the words: ‘And they claim that she should be honored with worship services and other cults and because we do not do this, they call us Antidikomarianites, or enemies and despisers of the Blessed Virgin Mary who should be counted among the Jews or godless!’.¹²¹

The reformer insists that Mary is, in fact, ‘full of grace’, but that Bernhard of Clairvaux ‘attributed more to her than any canonical writer can prove, or than the Virgin Mother herself would have liked’.¹²² He presents his audience with a contrary opinion and tells them to follow the apostles in this matter, as he assures them that Augustine did: ‘Even the holy Augustine wanted in the same manner, that people neither believed his writings nor the teachings of some Church Father, excepting they had tested their views against Scripture’.¹²³ In support of this, Bullinger returns to an exegesis of Luke’s text in which the angel greets Mary. Indeed, the angel surprised Mary with: ‘Greetings to you who have received grace and are freely loved by God’.¹²⁴ Bullinger underscores his initial remarks about Mary’s grace:

She has special favor and grace with God and received the most and largest gift of grace from God, and that is why she is the most pleasing and beloved to God of all, but not in the sense that she is so ‘full of grace’ that she can steer and expend grace or the fullness of grace to others.¹²⁵

The reformer states without mincing words: ‘The Christian faith forbids seeking this by creatures, no matter how full of grace or the Holy Spirit they may be’.¹²⁶ Indeed: ‘The angel was certainly not too shy to greet the Virgin Mary, but his greeting was neither a request nor prayer, nor an appellation to her, but rather the execution of a mandate from God’.¹²⁷

The strands of Bullinger’s thought are tied together in the denouement of his narrative when he cites Luke 2:42, ‘Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb’.¹²⁸ He completes his recapitulation of the reformed stance:

We believe that God, who provides the only true salvation in the present and future, is the only one to be invoked. We believe, that Christ alone (because he alone is true God and human) is the true mediator between God and humans … While it is already certain, that the Virgin Mary was and is a member of the common church, and that is, its most distinguished, who would not understand, that she did not practice prayer any differently than people in the true church of God do?¹²⁹

Bullinger strongly counters his opponents who ‘claim that Mary should be honored with offerings, feasts, and other cults’.¹³⁰ He makes his adamant argument against praying to Mary relevant to his contemporaries in his next idea: ‘We do not claim that Mary should not be venerated … as the true Mother of God, the Blessed Virgin among all women, the eternal virgin’.¹³¹ Then Bullinger summarizes his ideas again: ‘We maintain that the Virgin Mary is not to be prayed to, not to be called on as the Mother of God, nor the Mother of Grace. We will not place our trust in her, not bring offerings in her name, not celebrate any feasts for her, not set up any images, nor venerate her through any such cult!’¹³² Bullinger makes one final point leaning on Epiphanius, who was angry with certain women who possessed pictures of Mary and made offerings to her. In conclusion, Bullinger argues: ‘Which of the prophets ordered people to worship people, much less, the woman? She is certainly a chosen vessel, but a woman, not changed in nature, honored in spirit and in mind, like the bodies of the saints’.¹³³

Bullinger’s agenda is perhaps most decisively revealed toward the end of his sermon, where he was able to redefine the Mary-model for his brother and the people of Zurich. But his intentions were actually that no one worship the Virgin Mary in an inappropriate manner, and as a result of his arguments, Bullinger took the transition of the Mary-model yet a step beyond Zwingli by redefining the church holidays and denouncing all feast days for Mary. A final statement provides the denouement of his feast-day sermon number four: ‘Therefore, on this day, I do not recognize, why we cannot do without this Feast Day in preservation of our entire faith and our true salvation. Much more, if we really want to be pious and also claim to purely serve the Virgin, we will only hold religious feasts for God and his Son Jesus Christ alone’.¹³⁴

Bullinger’s Mary-model

Heinrich Bullinger continued what Zwingli began. Recitation of the Ave Maria and invoking the Virgin Mary in prayer were no longer acceptable public or private worship practices; it was forbidden to venerate images of Mary, and the Feast Days that celebrated Mary were canceled.¹³⁵ Pelikan neatly formulates the change:

For the Protestant reformers contended that just as their critique of what they regarded as Medieval sacramental magic had raised and restored the Lord’s supper to its divinely instituted place, so taking from Mary the false honors with which she had been burdened in the Middle Ages was in fact a liberation of her to be a supreme model of faith in the word of God.¹³⁶

In Bullinger’s own writing to his future bride Anna,¹³⁷ his Volkommne underrichtung desz christenlichenn eestands (1527)¹³⁸ and Der christlich eestand (1540),¹³⁹ the same attributes that were assigned to Mary are brought to bear more generally on women. The role model for reformed women was the Virgin Mary, and reformed men had translated her according to their understanding of women and Scripture. With arguments remarkably similar to those in his Mary sermon, Bullinger wrote two handbooks for female behaviour for the women of sixteenth-century Zurich, and with them, he significantly shaped the identity of reformed women for centuries to come.¹⁴⁰ The main difference between the women that Bullinger defined and the Virgin Mary was virginity; Bullinger encouraged women to marry, not to be nuns or ascetics, but simply mortal child-bearing women. He wrote to his future wife who was then a nun in the Convent at Oetenbach Zurich: ‘Yes, you are young, and God did not give you such a body, and did not create you so that you remain an eternal maiden and do nothing so that fruit comes from you’. He tells her not to stay ‘a virgin stuck between the walls of a convent’.¹⁴¹ The exact personal and theological challenge that the reformers faced, actually the same problem that the church Fathers wrestled with for centuries, was the association of sex and sin, chastity and motherhood, marriage and the ascetic existence, the relationship between the holy and profane and the temptation that single women were for men.

Although Mary was still a polarizing force within the various Christian factions in and around Zurich, by 1568 the official reformed teaching on the Virgin Mary in Zurich had become a transformed model of faith and female virtue. Mary’s core attributes and the concept of reformed feminine virtues were now aligned with the Zurich reformer’s biblical exegesis and resulted in conscious esteem for married women in Zurich.¹⁴²

Culture and Praxis

Although the leaders and reformers in Zurich determined the formal doctrine of Mary, the cultural transformation and praxis of the people of Zurich did not always keep step with the church.¹⁴³ Nothing changed overnight. For instance, the Angel Gabriel’s greeting remained a part of reformed liturgy for 32 years after Zwingli’s death, and the Ave Maria was recited in worship services until after 1563.¹⁴⁴ Merry Wiesner informs that ‘the veneration of saints was in theory prohibited, though it is clear from local records that Protestant women continued to pray to female saints, especially during childbirth, for centuries after the Reformation’.¹⁴⁵ The following provides an engaging example of the practical and personal implications that the changed Mary-model had on relationships in the Zurich reformer’s own families and circle of friends.

Heidnischwerk is a form of picture tapestry ‘used in ecclesiastical furnishings or domestic decoration’.¹⁴⁶ The tapestries ranged from the size of a cushion cover, to large bed spreads, and wall coverings that were usually woven by women. The motives of this art form were almost exclusively biblical figures and scenes, usually of a feminine nature, typically the figures of Judith, or the Virgin Mary at the Annunciation. Artistic techniques, forms, and themes are often visual representations of specific historical contexts and expressions of socio-political as well as theological transitions within any given culture. Verena Zoller’s Wirkteppich of 1545¹⁴⁷ is just such a contextual and visual representation of Mary’s metamorphosis within the culture of Zurich; it is preserved at the Benedictine Convent in Sarnen, Switzerland. The following is based on the extensive research of Anna Rapp Buri and Monica Stucky-Schürer on Heidnischwerk in sixteenth-century Zurich.

Buri and Stucky-Schürer examined two separate tapestries, the first dated 1480, and the second bearing the date 1554. Both of the tapestries depict hortus conclusus, a traditional scene of Mary and the Angel Gabriel at the Annunciation, a rendering of the closed garden in the Song of Solomon¹⁴⁸ and Physiologus.¹⁴⁹ These tapestries epitomize the same transition from the Middle Ages to the reformed conception of Mary that Zwingli and Bullinger participated in; the tapestry from 1554 was an adaptation of the older motif that conformed to the Mary-model of 1480, but also contains contemporary ideas from 1554. The tapestry corroborates the thesis that worship, or at least veneration of Mary occured well into the Zurich Reformation.

The tapestries offer numerous elements of a transition between pre- and post-Reformation conceptions of the Annunciation in Matthew 1 and Luke 2. Each features Old Testament figures such as Adam and Eve, Gideon and his sheepskin, the arc of the covenant and other symbolic figures. The complex landscape is portrayed using three methods: in the text band that lies on a fence at the bottom of the picture the words ortus conclusie [sic] (the closed garden) are woven. A child stands next to this with a golden monogram ‘IHS’ (Iesus hominum salvator). And the New Testament words in the first text band at the far left edge of the picture read: ‘Quia respexit d[omi]n[u]s humilitatem ancille sue’ (‘for he has looked with favour on the lowliness of his servant’, Luke 1:48). These are the words that Mary spoke when she met Elizabeth and realized God’s plan for salvation. Using typological representations and prefiguration, the content of the tapestry is displayed and a story told.¹⁵⁰

The similarities between the tapestry from 1480 and 1554 are astounding. However, a number of shapes and images have been modernized, especially clothing and buildings, as well as popular plant types. Three flower bouquets are woven into both the old and new tapestries symbolizing three Christian virtues: sword lilies for charitas or brotherly love, roses for ‘huminitas’¹⁵¹ or humility, and white lilies representing castitas or chastity.¹⁵² Some of the texts are rewritten in order to match contemporary sixteenth-century theological thought. Whereas the earlier version emphasized the sensual and mystical nature of the Song of Songs, the 1554 version emphasizes a dove that represents the Holy Spirit.¹⁵³ Imagery for the Virgin Mary that associated her with the lily under the thorn bush of Cant 2:2¹⁵⁴ and the lily that represented the Virgin Mary were left out of the later version, probably in order to distance it from the medieval interpretation of the Cant 2:2 text, which was associated with the nuns in convents, who were considered the virgin brides of Christ, sponsa Christi.¹⁵⁵ Mary is portrayed grasping the horn of a unicorn in both tapestries, which is a symbolic act common in medieval mysticism and represents the idea of proclamation, while the face in the burning bush that appeared in the tapestry from 1480 is left out all together from the rendition of 1554.¹⁵⁶ The redesigned aspects of the motif are particularly interesting in the context of Zwingli and Bullinger’s sermons, because, as we shall see, both reformers were involved with them on a personal and theological level.

Verena Zoller’s Wirkteppich is an archeological example of art history and also relevant to this discussion from a social and cultural perspective. A coat of arms from the family Zoller and Schmid of Zurich, which denotes the tapestries’ origins and ownership, is weaved into the more recent tapestry from 1554. The coat of arms belonged to Hans Wilpert Zoller I (d. 1531) a close friend of Zwingli’s who was killed alongside Zwingli outside of Kappel on 11 October 1531. Zoller’s widow Agnesa Schmidin (1508–57) was the daughter of Felix Schmid (1454–1524), who was the mayor of Zurich from 1510–24. After the death of Zwingli and Zoller, Heinrich Bullinger took special interest in assisting the two widows, Agnesa Schmidin-Zoller and Anna Reinhart-Zwingli (1484–1538), who were both left alone with small children. Bullinger invested in these two families, even trying to secure a position for the young Hans Wilpert Zoller II (1528–77) with the Graf of Württemberg-Mömpelgard in 1543. The youngest daughter Agatha Zoller from Agnesa Schmidin and Felix Zoller ‘lifted the youngest Bullinger son out of the baptismal font on 31 January 1536’.¹⁵⁷ Zoller’s other daughter, Verena Zoller (d. 1558), was the artist who wove the Wirkteppich. On 11 July 1552, she became the godmother of Bullinger’s granddaughter Verena from Anna Bullinger (1530–64) and Ulrich Zwingli Jr (1528–71).¹⁵⁸

Verena Zoller died in 1558, after only seven weeks of marriage to Hans Konrad Escher (1518–88); she left her tapestry to her sister Agatha.¹⁵⁹ Heinrich Bullinger sent Agatha Zoller a letter on 6 July 1561 concerning the subject matter and imagery of the hortus conclusus tapestry. In fact, Agatha had requested a written confirmation of what Bullinger had verbally explained to her own mother Agnesa before she passed away concerning the picture’s content. In his reply, Bullinger interpreted the unicorn hunt that Adam and Eve were participating in as a symbol for the incarnation of Christ and the redemption of humanity through Christ’s sacrificial death. He also said that the old church content was no longer appropriate for public display in the church, but in private homes it could still help to form virtuous lives. And, thus, Agatha could hang the tapestry that she had inherited from her sister Verena in her own home.¹⁶⁰

The tapestry is a practical example of how late medieval themes and symbols that had been influenced and transformed by reformed thought were integrated into the ordinary culture of Zurich throughout the sixteenth century. Buri and Stuckey-Schürer’s conclusion is that the original worship tapestry became a picture of common Christian virtues, ‘while in the late Medieval Minneallegory¹⁶¹ the taming of wild desires for love was in the foreground, at the beginning of modernity, the idealization of marital bonds required new representations’.¹⁶²

Figure 6.1 Monastery tapestry Hortus conclusus, Zurich 1554. Wool, silk, gold and silver threads. Benedictine Convent, Sarnen, Switzerland. Picture D. Stuppan

Bullinger understood the tradition of Heidnischwerk from his personal exposure to the art form as a child and adult. He wrote in his family history: ‘Anna Bullinger (die Küfferin) learned how to do Heidnischwerk from her mother, and did beautiful work, and she taught it to my own Anna Zwingli, these are the three or four who were able to do it, because one of each family taught it to the other’.¹⁶³ Verena Zoller’s Wirkteppich took years to weave, and the process that the Bullingers, Zwinglis and the rest of Zurich were a part of also took time, not every reformed precept was adopted immediately after its conception. The transition of Heidnischwerk and the Mary motif illustrates the gradual nature of the evolution of the Mary-model. Reforming a church, culture and society were not isolated events, and both Zwingli and Bullinger were products of and participants in their own cultures. Both were also astute agents of theological and cultural change. The practical example of Verena Zoller’s Wirkteppich and traditional sixteenth-century women’s art depicting the Annunciation illustrates the personal relationships that influenced the Zurich reformers, which, it seems, affected their thoughts on the role model Mary.

Reforming the Mary-model in Reformation Zurich

Mary’s position in the power relations between men and women of the church has not been the emphasis of this chapter, but it has been mentioned that the church Fathers wrestled with Mary’s role at numerous councils, and that the questions concerning Mary were intricately linked to the incarnation and the degree of Mary’s affinity with the sacred. As early as 202 AD, Irenaeus considered Mary the last Eve, who gave birth without sexual relations as a reply to Eve’s sin. He wrote that by retaining her virtue, she participated with Christ in the salvation of humanity.¹⁶⁴ By 1554, the people of Zurich were coming to uneasy terms with a new Mary-model altered from that of the old church.

Mary traditionally served as a powerful role model in the medieval church, and for at least 35 years this model was successively and systematically reshaped through the Zurich reformer’s sermons and writings. Zwingli and Bullinger qualified the doctrine of Mary according to their exegesis of Scripture and in the process reduced her value and position in reformed worship. Both reformers were defending their own honour against accusations, Mary’s honour, marriage as an honourable institution and the goodness of a virtuous woman. Zwingli and Bullinger abbreviated Mary’s role in the church and sculpted a new model of faith for everyone, thereby, also shaping a motif for female moral virtues.

Zwingli and Bullinger amended the shared conception and interpretation of Mariology for the church and culture of Zurich using practical examples, biblical exegesis, stories, the church Fathers and both structured and informal polemic. Each centred his argument on the incarnation, moved to the doctrine of Two-Natures, and emphasized Mary’s virginity above all else. Both concluded that Christian prayer should be Christ centred, not Marian. In addition, the Mary-model, indeed, changed at the same time that marriage trumped celibacy, which especially influenced clergy and nuns, but also the average person’s conception of the relationship between holiness and sexuality. Although Mary finally served as a common model of faith for all believers, the importance of chastity, which was a key trait of the reformed Mary-model, was carefully constructed in the reformer’s writings and expressly applied to women. Mary became one among many saints who served as models of faith, but her particularity lay in the new Mary-model that was a reconstructed biblical type of Mary in which she retained eternal virginity and served as a role model for the virtuous behaviour of reformed women. Thus, women who embraced their roles as mothers and wives in the new system did not, for all that, gain a role model whom they could emulate, one who experienced natural childbirth, the frustrations of mothering and real married life. The correspondence between sin and sex that made Mary’s virginity so essential to christology remained intrinsic to sixteenth-century reformed mariology. Ian Maclean’s words describe the situation well:

She is, in fact, exempt from all female vice and imperfection, and thus can accede directly to heaven by assumption unlike other human beings. Far from being the glory of her sex, she is not of her sex in its malediction, tribulation, and imperfection. She incarnates certain moral virtues, which are consistent with the social, and religious role of women but does not ever become a model of behavior, so remote is she from others of her sex.¹⁶⁵

When one of the values that a role model represents is changed, it has repercussions in other areas of culture, and this works as a catalyst for change in a system of roles. The Mary-model in Zurich had ramifications in the church, culture and gender relations. By the time Mary was finally reformed, only men of faith held positions in the church,¹⁶⁶ and a good reformed woman was like her role model Mary – an honourable and chaste wife – a woman of the church.

↑ Back to top