3 Bullinger's Model for Collective Episcopacy: Transformational Ministry in a Society Facing Final Judgment
CHAPTER 3
Bullinger's Model for Collective Episcopacy:
Transformational Ministry in a Society Facing Final Judgment Jon Delmas Wood Introduction Preface Recent scholarship on the topic of the Swiss Reformation has rightly broadened its scope beyond the comparatively brief career of Huldrych
Zwingli. Collegiality, after all, came to characterize the Reformation in Zurich. Heinrich Bullinger, Leo Jud, Theodor Bibliander and many other important pastors and scholars consolidated new strategies alongside urban magistrates and political leaders in the territorial districts. In the interest of providing a survey of 'models of Christian life' in Reformation Zurich, it is important to note this deliberate effort to reinvigorate the collective identity of Zurich as such.
Many of the different, burgeoning confessional churches of sixteenthcentury Europe focused new energies at synod gatherings intended to reshape clerical mentality and thereby to help reform society at large. A distinctive aspect of the Zurich synod, however, lies in the innovative concept of collective episcopacy. The 'censure' of Zurich synod sessions involved mutual oversight with reference to dynamic teaching duties and lifestyle. Even Bullinger, Zwingli's recognized successor as leader of the Zurich church, did not retain any privileges when the time came for mutual submission. Each and every parish pastor was to serve as a 'bishop', and this episcopacy only existed in the mutuality of a coordinated, collegial ministry.
In the pages of Bullinger's personal notes for the sessions of the Zurich synod, we may observe a definite and highly influential model of Christian life. This exemplar was never identified with Bullinger himself or with the Bürgermeister or with any other individual leader, and yet Bullinger always pointed to him as the standard-bearer of stewardship in Christ's name. Each and every Zurich pastor would have known him intimately, although he remains practically unknown among historians today. His persistent role is germane to any discussion of Christian models. He helped to guide life in an urgent era. This exemplary 'faithful and prudent servant' emerged in the assembly of ministers themselves. He was what they should be in their very togetherness – the ideal model for Zurich's collective episcopacy.1
The Sermones Synodales as Source Material Collective identity has always been inseparable from church life. Corpus christianum has also always undergone vital periods of transformation.
Bernd Moeller and many other scholars have observed the enmeshed elements of social, theological and ecclesial history in the transformations of late medieval and early modern Europe. Sacral communityconsciousness of imperial free cities amounted to a tendency to view themselves each as a sort of corpus christianum writ small.2 Reformation then involved conflict over how best to define the community in a way that could assure its salvation in this world and the next.
The Zurich territorial church illustrates another variant amidst late medieval and early modern changes regarding awareness of salvific community. A Zurich Landeskirche began to take shape as ties to distant ecclesiastical courts in Constance and Mainz diminished. During the Reformation, Zurich preserved its traditional system of chapters and parishes, but the magistracy consolidated the church exclusively within their own political borders.3 Such a transformation relied on reformation in religious mentality throughout the Zurich populace. In that, the Zurich synod played a crucial role. Zwingli himself had built on synodal traditions when the first 'reformed' synod of Zurich assembled in April 1528,4 but when he fell in battle in late 1531, Zurich's specific reformed characteristics
– if not its general evangelical identity – fluttered in a state of volatility. As an illustration of this tension, the Zurich council felt compelled to warn their clergy against interfering henceforth in political matters.5 Any abiding
significance of the emerging Zwinglian tradition depended on astute leaders who could strengthen the reformed synod, a body conceived to defend the integrity of a theological vision while also guaranteeing a remarkable degree of clerical involvement at the sociopolitical level. Heinrich Bullinger and Leo Jud sketched a draft of a clerical and synodal constitution that the Zurich council approved in November 1532. It was to remain a foundational document of the Zurich church for centuries to come.6
As codified in this Predigerund Synodalordnung, the entire Zurich clergy of city and countryside convened along with eight members of the Large Council and the city clerk twice a year on the Tuesdays after Mayday
(1 May) and after St Gall (16 October). Sessions were held behind the closed doors of the town hall, while the chief representative of the clergy
(from 1532 to 1575, Bullinger) and the Bürgermeister co-presided.
Following a prayer of invocation and a roll call of expected attendees, newly elected clergy took their formal oaths of allegiance to the Zurich council. The magistrates present offered advice and reproof in their role as political guardians of communal salvation. The lengthiest portion of synod sessions then came when each member of Zurich's clergy submitted to mutual, episcopal discipline (censura). The assembled clergy functioned as a collective bishop overseeing and, where necessary, correcting all ministers and teachers with respect to teaching and lifestyle (doctrina et vita).7 These closed-door sessions functioned as an accepted venue for coordinating
Zurich's existence as a Christian society.
Bullinger jotted down preparatory synodal speeches, prayers, keywords and diagrams between 1535 and his death in 1575.8 It is an indication of the relatively late flowering of Bullinger scholarship that these manuscripts are only now receiving more than passing attention. Related documents such as Bullinger's officially sanctioned case-by-case arguments before the council
(the Fürträge)9 and his minutes of the synod sessions themselves (the Synodalakten)10 have already received thorough attention. Such secondary works, however, have barely had occasion to do more than acknowledge the existence of this other source material. Besides my own transcription of the Sermones completed in Zurich during the year 2005–06, there exists no edited or otherwise printed version of the text.
The Sermones Synodales are catalogued as Manuscript D 220 in the Handschriftenabteilung of the Zurich Zentralbibliothek. This bound collection contains Bullinger's notes on almost all of the 81 semi-annual
synod sessions from 1535 to his death. To be sure, the eighteenth-century title 'Sermones Synodales' is misleading. This volume consists not so much of sermons proper as of Bullinger's personal, often fragmentary notes. What we do possess in the Sermones, however, are written thoughts not contained elsewhere. As prescribed by the Synodalordnung, Bullinger prepared exhortations in order to introduce and then to execute the clerical exercise of censura. He consistently reminded the assembled pastors of their duty to interpret Scripture in their capacity as a unified corps of clerical leaders with special reference to their contemporary circumstances. Great significance for the historiography of sixteenth-century Zurich derives from the way that Bullinger's Sermones Synodales reveal the reformer 'reading' his contemporary context through an eschatological lens that focused on the perspective of a collective episcopacy. Through this lens, Bullinger hoped that he and all his colleagues would together envision themselves in the form of a 'faithful and prudent servant' ministering within the Zurich household of faith.
Reclaiming Priesthood Early Evangelical Preference for the Term 'Preacher'
Bullinger devoted considerable energy to the semi-annual synod in a mission that, with less conviction on his part, could have easily degenerated into a tedious exercise in repetition. Twice every year, Bullinger prepared exhortations that positively shaped Christian Zurich by addressing the matter of ministerial identity in and for local society. Understated genius is evident in the ways that Bullinger picked up the threads that were left to him to weave together following 1531. The Sermones Synodales show his special aptitude for exploring new possibilities for scriptural patterns, often while leaving the reassuring impression of seamless continuity.11 He exhorted his colleagues to fulfill their office even while he was simultaneously outlining the changing terms of collective episcopacy.
Zurichers had grown familiar with Catholic polemics that defended mass priests on the basis of Old Testament descriptions of the sacrificial duties of Levitical priesthood. Consonant with much of Peter Blickle's thesis concerning communalization and the ways in which it led certain
parishes into anticlericalism, Zurich evangelicals typically preferred terms like 'pastor' (Pfarrer).12 They had especially embraced the word-oriented ministry of the 'preacher' (praedicant) as the reformed alternative to a sacramental 'priesthood' that they perceived as having failed them. Early evangelicals were deeply suspicious of ecclesiastical pretension to private dignities, legal immunities and the much-touted indelible character. The word 'priest' indicated in the minds of many at the time precisely the sort of churchly representative whose part in the papal monarchy stood opposed to the office of proclamation within a local Christian community. The very constitution of the Zurich synod had relied exclusively on the word
'preacher', and it had drawn mostly on New Testament passages when making positive assertions for clerical office, reserving the term 'priest' for the general identity of all believers (that is, not just ministers) participating in the life of Christ. Mention of Old Testament verses using the term 'priest' such as Jeremiah 2 and 23 and Ezekiel 13 served the strictly negative function of condemning priestly corruption.13
Zurich reformers did not, of course, intend to dissolve specialized ministry altogether into the generalized priesthood of the baptized. Much of the earliest Reformation use of Old Testament precedents for evangelical ministry had centred on the office of 'prophet'. Bullinger himself had succinctly repeated this position in a celebrated oration at the Grossmünsterstift in January 1532.14 The 'prophet' must be able to proclaim the word in an essentially unified office whether derived from the Old or the New Testaments.15 Bullinger's oration of January 1532 had concluded with a defense of the recently deceased Zwingli as an exemplary 'prophet'.
Early evangelical precedent notwithstanding, Bullinger soon set about subtly yet significantly expanding the field of imagery. From the beginning of the Sermones Synodales, he isolated and developed a fragment of Zwinglian tradition involving the term 'bishop' that possibly braced his hearers for an even more striking new direction in constructive imagery.16
Bullinger and the Re-Establishment of Priesthood Bullinger began in fact to highlight the Old Testament elevation of a more particularized ministerial corps.17 Seemingly simple repetitions of Old
Testament prophetic words include marginalia indicating that the text should apply to the 'priests' of Zurich.18 Conceivably, the assembled
ministers might have anticipated that Malachi in particular would serve to launch yet another, by then typical, denunciation of cultic fastidiousness that disregarded proclamation geared toward social righteousness. But such was not the case. Bullinger looked directly at his colleagues and announced,
'And now, O priests, this command is for you!'19 This is a striking convention designed entirely for the closed-door sessions of the synod.
Even very late in his career, Bullinger's public writings consistently denounced the use of the term 'priest' for reformed ministers.20 Predictable admonishments had made way for the positive, if guarded, assertion that Zurich's evangelical preachers/prophets were to be 'priests'! It marks a significant elaboration in the reform agenda beyond the groundwork laid by Zwingli. Not only could the Old Testament continue to buttress the notion of a godly civil authority overseeing the people of God and of a prophetic ministry of proclamation, but it could also serve as a standard for institutional consolidation of a priestly class of civil-religious servants within that political framework.
New emphasis on ordained ministers nevertheless maintained organic connection with the Reformation's beginnings. Appreciation for the priesthood of all believers was fertile ground on which the particularized ministry emerged. Elaboration and development better characterize the path than any supposed rejection of earlier evangelical impulses. Bullinger vehemently opposed any return to a caste of self-referent sacramental guarantors. The Zurich 'priesthood' must be established for the protection and nurture of their parishioners through oversight of the moral attributes of humility, truth, equity and wisdom. Zwingli and other evangelical pathfinders had already effectively consolidated Zurich opinion against the priesthood of old by insisting on the priesthood of all. Bullinger now saw the positive potential of a re-formed priesthood as a special corps of mentality-shapers, turning people of every parish from iniquity by word and example in their office as God's messengers.
Bullinger was to cite the prophetic conclusion of the Old Testament canon 12 times throughout his Sermones.21 One notices immediately that all synodal references to Malachi are drawn exclusively from the second chapter, and often they include verbatim quotation of all or part of verses one through nine. This passage begins with God's direct address to the 'priests' and goes on to outline their duties with reference to the ideal example of Levi juxtaposed with the offenses of a priesthood that has
corrupted its covenant responsibility. The appropriateness for Bullinger's purposes in the synod is apparent. In Malachi, the divine command holds ceremonial rites in opprobrium. Levi, by contrast, is not presented as a sacramental guarantor, but as a model of upright conduct. The proper priest is commended for studying the Word of the Lord and for turning his people away from iniquity by example of life and instruction. This is a near perfect parallel with Bullinger's frequently repeated outlines of 'episcopal' criteria for doctrina et vita.
In some ways even more surprising were Bullinger's synodal references to Hosea 6: 'Wicked priests are a snare for the ruin of the people'.22 On closer inspection, one notices that this slight paraphrase is actually not from Hosea 6, as Bullinger consistently asserts in the Sermones, but rather from Hosea 9:8.23 Bullinger has also added the phrase 'wicked priests' (mali sacerdotes) to clarify the identity of the principal evildoers who persecute the prophet at the time of imminent Judgment. This is consistent with the message of Hosea and again serves the typical reformed polemic of pitting prophet against priest. The surprise consists in the fact that Bullinger nearly always deliberately links his references to Hosea with Malachi. Unwilling to give a simple negative condemnation of corruption, Bullinger adds positive alternatives, even for the priestly model.
Reformed Priesthood as a Necessary Pillar of Zurich Civilization Bullinger takes a surprising cue from what one could call socio-religious history in order to ground his hortatory pairings of bad priest/good priest throughout the Sermones. At precisely the moment of first linking Hosea and Malachi, Bullinger constructs a remarkable excursus beginning with echoes of Acts 20. The apostle Paul, he says, gave a synodal admonition to the Ephesian elders assembled at Miletus whereupon he warned them to remain vigilant against destructive wolves to come. So far the point to Bullinger's hearers would have appeared fairly standard/familiar: 'beware the wolves [read, priests] who will have crept into the church fold after the apostolic age'. Bullinger went on, however, to explain that such vigilance over the church requires knowledge, learning and teaching in a way that even the pagan societies had embodied!24 This seems to be a case of Bullinger the humanist coming to the fore, and it is somewhat startling for a man who otherwise shepherded the pastoral office according to the direct
rule of Scripture. In any event, this invocation of past, pagan civilizations involves significant ramifications for Bullinger's vision for Christian society.
The 'nations' (gentes) in question plainly saw the systematic need for a priesthood. There were Egyptian priests, Babylonian Chaldeans, Persian magi, Indian gymnosophists and Gallic druids. It bears repeating here that Bullinger is not speaking negatively. It is not a case of saying something like, 'look at all these superstitious priesthoods and how Roman priesthood is just another version of that same evil'. On the contrary, Bullinger suggests that these pagan societies actually provided a social model that surpassed the Roman church in a positive way. At least the pagan 'priests' preserved diligent study of special knowledge in and for their people.
Bullinger claims that Roman Catholic priests had long since ceased to fulfill this necessary office in Christian communities.
Bullinger certainly does not in any way posit that the pagan priesthoods functioned with soteriological efficacy, but he does point to the social necessity of priesthood per se. This illustrates an important early modern trend of consolidating political groups through their particular religious social structures. Just as a Gallic druid would make no sense in the Persian civilization, so also the reformed 'priesthood' of Zurich must exercise their office among their own people as defined by the state of Zurich. The assembled parish preachers of the Zurich synod must function as stewards of the sacred knowledge that should shape the lives of every Zuricher. In a critical way, this defines the Zuricher as such. The collective priesthood not only operates within new political contexts, but in exercising the office of proclamation in various capacities within the parishes, such a priesthood ensures the self-awareness of Zurich as a distinctive Christian society.
The evangelical re-formation and reclamation of 'priesthood' under Bullinger's guidance was not, of course, a matter of mere political calculation. It was a theological model. We see this in another critical exegetical underpinning that becomes apparent in the Sermones Synodales after Bullinger has begun his sermon series on Jeremiah.25 At the synod in May 1559, Bullinger quotes Jeremiah 23:9–15.26 This passage serves as a concluding exhortation following yet another synodal explication of the proper clerical duties of doctrina et vita. In the passage one hears
Bullinger's condemnation of priest and prophet alike. It is a significant shift to focus excoriation on the prophets – the typical evangelical heroes and
models from the Old Testament.27 Here Bullinger explicitly transcends the customary evangelical contrast between the terms priest and prophet: his marginal notes even single out verse 11, with his emphatic reminder that priest and prophet are 'hypocrites' when living in sinful ways. They have both failed to live in accord with an office that should provide a light of guidance for their people but which has become darkness.
The pairing, even if negatively, helps to collapse the priest-prophet dichotomy. The prophet thus ceases to present a reformed alternative to the priest; rather, both terms can be viewed as positive or negative reflections of an essentially unified office. Bullinger continues for the remainder of the Sermones to link positively prophetic and priestly attributes. Bullinger's exegetical foundation has melded Old Testament prophet and priest together in his exhortations regarding the ministers' duty for life and teaching.
Failure to serve uprightly in the office of prophet/priest would bring destruction upon the entire community. In such a case the 'overseer' would be guilty of not keeping watch. In his own summary to the passage,
Bullinger highlights the divine threat of a 'day of visitation' (dies visitationis). Again, at the level of early modern social structure, we see
Bullinger's conscious zeal to form ministers whose roles make or break the common life of Zurichers.
Priesthood and the Urgency of Salvation History In the 1560s Bullinger further highlighted the shift away from a model of prophet-vs-priest by turning to the dignity of Christian ministry in the light of salvation history.28 God himself was the first 'preacher' (concionator) – a term that both underscores the ministerial emphasis upon proclamation and gets at the root of every subsequent office, from Old Testament patriarchs, through 'priests and prophets', and 'Christ and the apostles'. The list concludes with pastors and bishops (pastores et episcopi). As even a fairly cursory reading of the Sermones makes clear, Bullinger treats ministerial titles such as 'pastor' and 'bishop' as synonymous. The term 'bishop' can, however, also imply more specific connotations; the synonymous terms seem in this light to reflect differences of perspective. In October 1568,
Bullinger linked pastores with the rubric of doctrina and episcopi with vita, or the cultic and moral oversight of eldership in the life of the community.29
Perhaps we may also perceive a structural parallel on either side of the
mirror of Christ: priest is to bishop as prophet is to pastor. The fact that Bullinger's exegetical legwork has helped him establish the impression of both priest and prophet as representatives of an essentially unified ministry seems to strengthen the hypothesis of the parallel within an office of bishop-pastor.
A final structural parallel came to the fore also in the synod session of October 1568.30 The exegetical clarifications beginning with Malachi in 1536 and followed up with connections to Hosea and Jeremiah in the 1550s and 1560s, as well as the social historical turn of the midto late 1550s had already demonstrated positive appreciation for the office of priesthood in the structure of society in general.31 The people of God as exemplified in Old Testament precedents were locked in a conflict between the few good prophets and priests and the onslaught of corrupt ones. Bullinger was raising the stakes to the furthest degree when he said that these exemplars of wickedness – whether cultic devotees of Baal in the Old Testament or Pharisees in the New – were not simply sporadic agents of error; they were positively 'priests of Satan'.32
Bullinger summed up his synodal exhortations to say that Zurich must act through its religious establishment as an instantiation of the only true priesthood, that of Christ. Zurich clergy were to be priests for the priesthood of all believers. Bullinger seems to have settled his terminological progression from prophet-vs-priest, through the joint prophet-priest, to a final emphasis upon something we may view as most fundamentally a priesthood with prophetic qualities. This was not a quasi-Manichean perspective of eternal struggle between forces of good and forces of evil, but Bullinger clearly did believe – and fostered the mentality among his peers – that all of human history until final Judgment consisted in a colossal cosmic conflict with cultic dimensions. Bullinger tirelessly promoted the significance inherent in the social structure of right ministry because the End was near.
The Eschatological Framework The Peculiar Significance of the Zurich School of Eschatology
Zurich provided particularly fertile ground for the Reformation's appropriation of eschatology. Leading Zurichers established a nexus among books such as Daniel, Revelation, Malachi and Matthew that gave profile to a discernible 'Zurich school'. Irena Backus has focused scholarly attention upon Zurich's significance for this aspect of exegetical history.33 One could go further. Thoughts of the imminent end of human history motivated a great deal of action. There appears to be a historical correlation between flourishing eschatology and the character of Zurich as an evangelical state distinct in outlook from Luther's Saxony or Calvin's Geneva.
Luther's paucity of commentary on Revelation is well known. Insofar as eschatology played a part in his thinking, it served the largely negative role of anti-papal antichristology. Melanchthon, for his part, did indeed edit a work of world history with eschatological ramifications in 1532, but the treatise served largely astrological purposes. Melanchthon and the related, flourishing Lutheran industry of practica (a sort of almanac) focused attention upon the dialectic of reading through faith the natural signs of imminent cosmic breakdown. This involved a sort of biding of time, rather than any positive, eschatologically motivated reworking of political life.34
Only in the build-up to the Schmalkaldic War did Lutherans begin to write with more reliance on a composite picture drawn from Daniel 7 and Revelation, but even then the political dimension had more to do with temporal conservatism rather than with any vision for a new society in the here and now.35
If Lutherans came somewhat late to the eschatological discussion, the Genevan Calvinists were even later. Calvin, famously, never wrote or preached on Revelation.36 Even when he did write a commentary on Daniel in 1561, he steadfastly refused to advance any connection with Revelation or any eschatological significance whatsoever in Daniel's vision of beasts.
Calvin did not comment here upon papal and/or Islamic Antichrists and end times. He interpreted Daniel's prophecies as reaching at most to the time of Julius Caesar, and thus not bearing on any discussion of signs of the times of world history after Christ's first Advent.37 Not that Calvin spurned political ramifications, but these had more to do with humanistic appeals to ancient precedents (which Calvin marshalled in favour of a sort of tempered aristocracy) than with prophecies for a transformed Christendom.38
Zurich occupied a quite different place on the Protestant map. Zwingli's Erasmian tendencies notwithstanding, Zurich quickly became a known
centre of intellectual and pastoral appreciation of the eschatological aspects of Scripture. This trend became most pronounced after Zwingli's death – itself a nearly apocalyptic shock to many Swiss evangelicals. Already by 1542, for example, Leo Jud had prepared a paraphrase of Revelation. Its publication was widely influential, in part because in some cases Jud's own paraphrase of Revelation was inserted into editions of Erasmus'
Paraphrases, even though the Dutch humanist himself had deliberately chosen not to render such a paraphrase.39 Jud did not make much of typical identifications of papacy as Antichrist and he avoided millennial speculation. Nevertheless, he cultivated the book's pastoral potential for fostering a society noted for right worship opposed to idolatry. For Jud, this also entailed praise of the reformed magistracy of Zurich.
The brilliant Zurich scholar Theodore Bibliander lectured on Revelation between 1543 and 1544 and collected his thoughts in a 1545 publication entitled Relatio fidelis. Bibliander's concerns did not stand opposed to Jud's pastoral emphasis on spiritual formation, but he focused principally upon what we may call more 'academic' issues of canonicity, authorship and clarity. Bibliander also, quite significantly, read Revelation as a source of insight for categorizing world history. There are certain echoes of Franciscan tradition in terms of an explicit perception of Christendom standing in a pivotal, or even final, phase of human history. In a fairly striking interpretation, however, Bibliander identified the angel of Revelation 20 not in the tradition of Franciscan angel-popes, but as the establishment of a literal millennium by the ministry of Paul the apostle.40
The papal Antichrist first arose as a usurper in the Carolingian period 666 years after John the Evangelist wrote his Revelation; this Antichrist was unleashed most fully following the literal, post-Pauline millennium, in the era of Gregorian papacy and Crusades;41 and the papal Antichrist was rebound somewhat in 1429 by the resolution of the Great Schism 666 years after the outbreak of popes in the Carolingian period. Since 1429,
Bibliander concluded, humanity had entered its final, if indeterminate, phase before Judgment.
Bullinger and the Cultivation of Zuricher Eschatology Bullinger received with much appreciation the contributions of his Zurich colleagues. These spiritual, pastoral, political, academic and historical
elaborations appealed to him, no doubt, in light of his own longstanding proclivities to address Scripture's end-times imagery.42 Bullinger thanked
Bibliander by name, but he also revealed the special eschatological hallmark that had stamped his own thought world from the beginning:
I have verely loved this booke [i.e., Revelation] from my youth upward. I have gladly red in it, and bestowed much labour, there upon, observing what thinges it had out of the bookes, of the prophets, and how the prophesies hereof did agree with the other prophesies of the prophets, and doctrine of the Apostles. I have searched finally, after the capacity of my sklender wit, divers stories, which I thought to make for the opening of the sence of this prophecie. I have searched also the opinions of other expositours: And have diligently compared howse hold matters, which are done now in our tyme, with this narration of John: by all the which things, and chiefly being ayded by the helpe of God which I called for, I have gathered such things as I now do communicate to the godly readers.43
Of the entire 'Zurich school', Bullinger was most adept at combining points of interest within a highly eschatological framework.44 History itself had reached a time when the entire nexus of Scripture, and thus the essential significance of human experience, lay open in a way that had never before been the case. Quite unlike Calvin's belief that Daniel concerned prophecies of events long past, Bullinger viewed Daniel and Revelation as coordinated by Christ's own prophecies in Matthew 24–5. The entire scriptural message came to light within a coherent eschatological framework in which Bullinger perceived a positive model for Zurich's ministry.45
Just as early evangelicals had pitted their notions of ministry against the negative alternative of (Romanist) priesthood, the eschatological profile of evangelical life often relied in contrast with that most antagonistic of models – the Antichrist. For Swiss evangelicals after 1531, however, antichristology had become fraught with political difficulty. The Zurich council was concerned that any publication unambiguously linking
Antichrist and the papacy could be construed as a breach of the terms of the binding Peace of Kappel. Bullinger's Hundred Sermons of 1557, for example, were shunted to Basel and printed in Latin.46 Bullinger was capable of political shrewdness in his treatises. The more direct forum of the synod, however, reveals an eschatological model of Christian life that was not restricted to canny theological publications. The Sermones
Synodales are particularly helpful in demonstrating the way that an eschatological framework persistently influenced Bullinger's agenda for reforming Zurich as a Christian society. Romanist priesthood challenged
Bullinger to reclaim a model of reformed priesthood, just as a Romanist
Antichrist (as priest to Satan) elicited development of the model of the 'faithful and prudent servant' (as priest to God in Christ).
Aurelio A. Garcia Archilla has clearly presented Bullinger's operative parallel between the period of degeneracy of religion just before Christ's first Advent and the period of human history that would directly precede the second Advent.47 The New Testament itself was seen in this light as a sort of quasior proto-eschaton, a crystallization of truth following the momentous intercanonical pause between Malachi and Matthew.
Bullinger's critical reliance on those two books in his Sermones Synodales confirms such an observation. Bullinger found insight for the mission of shaping Zurich as a covenant community in the historical parallel of anticipatory interlude (that is, following the Pauline millennium and now at the verge of the definitive eschaton in which the church was to be fully realized).48 A second, related observation by Garcia Archilla also concerns the canonical in-between-time, specifically Daniel's prediction of restoration. Bullinger held this prophecy to have been partially fulfilled when the Maccabees restored proper religious community despite the persecutions by Antiochus. Bullinger insisted that Daniel was to be finally vindicated in the period before Christ's second Advent in the work of reforming society despite papal persecutions of the worshiping community.49
Covenanted Priesthood and Praxis Pietatis One could well anticipate a significant role to be played by covenantal thinking in Bullinger's synodal exhortations. The Sermones Synodales are, after all, his direct, unpublished and therefore uncensored reflections on topics typically associated with Christian life in the church-state complex. It is therefore all the more striking how relatively seldom Bullinger makes explicit covenant utterances throughout the Sermones. The term foedus appears only 11 times.50 Of those 11, seven are quotations of or references to Malachi 2:1–9 (the covenant with Levi).51 In the Sermones, Bullinger uses this term 'covenant' almost exclusively in the context of the higher standards for Zurich's 'priestly' class. This is also surprising in light of the typical historiographical assumption that Bullinger's covenant framework places pastors in functional parallel to the prophetic office of the Old
Testament. Foedus throughout the Sermones helps delineate the ministers'
urgent and largely 'priestly' duty to contribute to the consolidation of a particularized people.52
Covenant is one aspect of the broader eschatological framework apparent throughout Bullinger's synodal preparations. It is precisely in his conviction that world history had entered the final phase of end times that Bullinger found his most urgent hortatory impulse. One could perhaps enter here again into the scholarly dispute concerning Bullinger's putative
'central axis'. Mark Burrows has made an important contribution in highlighting the reformer's link between soteriology and ethics. Burrows argues that Bullinger does not separate justification from sanctification; the former is a status while the latter is an experiential process. Bullinger's reforming career revolves around praxis pietatis in terms of participation in Christ.53 Burrows thus helps to clarify the celebrated ethical focus of the Zurich Reformation.54 I would further suggest that soteriological ethics is not so much a systematic elaboration around the doctrine of sanctification as it is an expression of an eschatological model.
The Sermones emphatically refute any assumption that visions of an imminent consummation of human history on the one hand and ethics in the here and now on the other hand were somehow mutually exclusive. An imminent End did not moot the mission of reforming Christian Zurich any more than justification mooted sanctification. On the contrary, it energized that mission. Bullinger's treatment of the covenant with Levi in Malachi bears more than a hint of the language of those who are said to have been made 'priests' to govern in Christ's authority in Revelation 1, 5, and especially 20. Bullinger did not, to be sure, make explicit references to Revelation in the Sermones Synodales. But scriptural images anchored to Malachi 2 suggested the eschatological nexus: abomination among God's people, a heightened emphasis on renewed covenant mediated through priests for a priesthood of all believers and an understanding that the day of the Lord is at hand. Bullinger's praxis pietatis was an eschatological mentality that directed the energies of a covenanted priesthood to reform
Zurich as a Christian society.
Ministry of Proclamation: the 'Faithful and Prudent Servant' as Model Evangelical proclamation was paced by the ticking of a cosmic clock.
Bullinger used the very term tempus (time) and the related adverb
tempestive 72 times in his Sermones Synodales, and at least once in nearly every entry from 1538 to 1574. The word functions consistently as a terminus technicus, indicating not just any times but always, specifically the biblical end times. Bullinger's exhortations rely on a variety of scriptural passages oriented toward helping his fellow pastors interpret the 'signs of the times'.55 He followed Matthew's signpost to Daniel; the times at hand were especially evil because of the fulfilment of biblical prophecies of the Antichrist having culminated in the institution of papal monarchy.56 Wars, famines and other supposed prophecy fulfilments (generally revolving around a presumptuous and persecuting papacy and its extensions via the Council of Trent) all confirmed his conviction that he was living in the last days. The sense of eschatological persecution was only compounded by the Schmalkaldic War and the rolling back of reforms in many Southern
German cities that had traditional ties to Zurich. It is hardly surprising that Bullinger preached on Daniel, Matthew and Revelation in the times unfolding from the mid-1540s into the mid-1550s.57
The times called forth (excitant) vigilant action rather than any sort of other-worldly fixation that would neglect the nitty-gritty of institutional life together.58 Accommodating an evangelical proclamation entailed dynamic response. Building around words such as accommodare, Bullinger consistently underscored his conviction that proclamation of Christ must be fitted to the particular circumstances of contemporary Zurich. Given his eschatologically freighted term tempus, this exhortation was no mere rhetorical strategy, but a reckoning with the momentous stage of salvation history.59 The Zurich clergy were to 'recall the times and therefore their duty as ministers. Such times [had] been predicted by the apostles and prophets, and there [was] no remedy except the Word. Action [was] to be prudent'.60 Zurich ministers could – must! – look around and see the predicted times and be all the more motivated to apply the Word to their society.61
Even though the days are evil, wrote Bullinger in probable reference to Ephesians 5:16, nevertheless God's ministers must work to redeem the time.62 The final overthrow of Antichrist's reign will not occur until Christ's return. Meanwhile, the proclamation of Christ already participates in such a victory.63 Bruce Gordon has rightly highlighted the 'realized eschatology' at work in Bullinger's theology.64 Watchfulness was indeed a duty of every faithful Zuricher. Far from passive waiting, this watchfulness involved their
Lord's in-breaking into a transformed lifestyle. Gordon's analysis must be complemented by recognition of the social dimension. Etymologically and exegetically, Bullinger characterized 'watchfulness' as a particular obligation of reformed 'episcopacy', and all that culminated in a reclaimed notion of priesthood. Bullinger knew full well that a disciplined corps of ministers was necessary to lead the consolidation of a new mentality regarding the nature of life together in a transformed corpus christianum.
'Realized' eschatology of the individual and of the society at large was all a foretaste deriving its flavour from the wafts of eschaton. Zurich itself was to be a proleptic instantiation of the universal reign of God, even as all of Christendom awaited the Second Coming.
A crucial, operative dialectic emerges between evil signs of times on one hand and transformative reformational agenda on the other. Bullinger maintained the following perspective: as evils increase, there is more need to reform. As reform begins, evil steps up its assault, and thus conscientious coordination among institutions of Christian society is all the more important to safeguard that reform. Bullinger placed foundational emphasis upon the notion that the 'archenemy of our salvation' seeks to overwhelm
'true worship' by instigating social disorder not only 'in our times' but also whenever and wherever the world begins to repent, improve and seek God's will. Ministers of the Christian parishes were urged to cooperate with civil authorities via the synod in order to increase Christian virtues. This could involve, for example, reinforcing parish structures to the exclusion of irregular field churches or chapels. Social disorder was a particular sign of times linked to the Evil One and as such indicated the need for upbuilding the full panoply of Christian society.65 In an era well-noted for threats of peasant rebellions and discords that could render a population vulnerable to all sorts of economic and/or military catastrophe, organizing the reformational struggle against fateful Satanic unordnungen (disarray) and uffruoren (tumults) concerned political elites as much as it did the clergy.
Historians have long noted that every leader across early modern Europe evinced particular fear of mobs and disorder. Bullinger channelled that fear into an eschatological category that simultaneously fostered positive civic ramifications.
Matthew 24 supplied Bullinger with the basis for his favourite model of Christian life in the context of the Zurich synod.66 This chapter features
Jesus' apocalyptic prophesy with explicit reference to Daniel, followed by a
series of parabolic vignettes illustrating the sudden in-breaking of the End.
Over and over again Bullinger recalled before his fellow clergy the fidelis servus et prudens whom the Lord has placed in oversight over His household so that such a minister may provide nourishment in tempore (in due time). It is this servant whom the Lord deems faithfully diligent in such provision when He quickly returns. Bullinger everywhere sees this text as confirmation for the particular, clerical role in social upbuilding. The cibum or alimentum that a pastor is to provide is nothing short of Christ himself, the bread of life.67 The 'episcopal' duties for doctrina et vita match perfectly with the two adjectives of the good servant of the end times.68
Doctrina involves 'faithfulness' far beyond mere propositional content, and vita reflects the 'prudence' of a lifestyle of vigilant administration in God's household.
Concluding Illustration: 'Drunkenness' vs the New Model for Zurich Reformation At the synod session of October 1540, Bullinger urged the chapter deans
(praesides provinciarum) to stave off a worrying trend toward moral laxity.
They were themselves in turn to urge on the parish ministers (episcopos).
Like all synodal initiatives, this was not a self-referential act of clergy, but it was designed to provide great benefit (magnum fructum) to the laity through the leadership of a reformed ministry.69 In conjunction with the chapter deans, Bullinger formulated a special opinion-piece to present to the magistracy. 'Drunkenness' had become a taproot of iniquities such as fighting, blaspheming, evil speech, impurity, shameless breach of peace and miserable killing. People in leadership must 'watch out' (bewachten)!70
Magistrates knew as well as ministers that, if unchecked, the problem of drunkenness would incite dreadful divine punishment – and all the more so since Zurichers had already begun to hear the gospel proclaimed yet without appropriate improvement.71
Since the synod featured the purpose of moral oversight, it would be easy to read in the synod records a fairly prosaic process of attempting to replace tavern-going with study and holy living among the Zurich ministers.
Anyone familiar with the Acta Synodi is struck by the repetitiveness and naïveté of the following scenario: a minister stands accused of drunkenness
and is told henceforth to avoid such evils by filling his time instead with books. Given the relative novelty of cracking down on (ab-) use of alcohol
– even in ritually driven occasions – one may not be wrong to read some overtones of discontent on the part of the assembled ministers between the lines of Bullinger's repeated elaborations concerning proper clerical sobriety. Bullinger remarked that the Apostle Paul did indeed encourage ministerial hospitality, but, the Zurich reformer dryly added, this does not legitimate the excessive 'hospitality' of those who settle into cozy taverns.
'Quidam nimis hospitales. Kummend nit uß dem wirtzhuß'.72 Modern scholars have generally read such statements through the perspective of a dramatic reformation of society's moral mentality. Through highlighting the significant ramifications for social transformation, they have mitigated the apparent prosaic quality. The Sermones Synodales provide much material for such analysis. Bullinger frequently combated abuse of alcohol with reference to transforming the traditional mentality of holy revelry surrounding feast days and special liturgical events such as baptisms, weddings and church consecrations.
If, however, we look closer at the theme of drunkenness in the Sermones Synodales, we also find a persistent, systematic illustration of Bullinger's thoroughly eschatological framework.73 This source material is useful far beyond the censorial protocols of the Acta Synodi. The Sermones testify to Bullinger's personal perspective as he prepared exhortations meant to transform his colleagues. In the light of impending Judgment, we see that Bullinger's model for the 'good servant' of Matthew 24:45–51 always had its foil in the 'bad servant', just as his reclaimed notion of priesthood stood out in opposition to what he took to be the patent corruption of Romanist priesthood. The fidelis servus et prudens provided the positive ideal for clerical stewardship, while the servus malus 'drank with the drunkards'.
From the outset of the Sermones Synodales, Bullinger tells his colleagues that the ministerial lifestyle is to be sana non ebria (holy, not drunk).74 Inculcating holiness involves specific contrast to a full gamut of spiritual associations with drunkenness. As one may imagine, Bullinger offers no shortage of explicit scriptural references to condemnation of abuse of alcohol – be they in terms of proper 'priesthood' (here relying largely on Leviticus 10), or in the related context of discussing Paul's 'episcopal' hallmarks (especially in 1Timothy 3). Daniel, who always provides
Bullinger with the example of the Old Testament's eschatological prophet
par excellence, is very pointedly said to have abstained from alcohol.75
Bullinger is not focusing on moral reform for its own sake, or even strictly for the sake of improving society in a general sense. He sees a condition of corrupt humanity on the cusp of Judgment. Drunkenness abounds precisely when love has grown cold, just as Christ said it would in the Last Days.76
Or again, 'the ground itself is corrupt and drunk just as in the times of Noah and Lot'.77 Or with reference to Jeremiah 23, Bullinger argued that it is drunkenness that marks a time when prophet and priest alike are corrupt, and when society has become like Sodom and Gomorrah facing Judgment
(Dies visitationis).78
The synodal montage of eschatological images of drunkenness comes back again and again to the parable of servants from Matthew 24. The servus malus, Bullinger reiterates, is noted for his 'drunkenness' right when the Lord returns, finds him thus and cuts him to pieces. Bullinger exhorted the Zurich clergy to follow the model of the sober steward of heavenly bread for the sake of Zurich society as an instantiation of the divine economy. The fidelis servus et prudens was a special exemplar of the kind of dynamic 'watchfulness' that Bullinger everywhere associated with the collegial office of episcopacy. This kind of collective bishop watches over the Christian community, while also looking out ahead to the future reckoning of that office of stewardship. Bullinger does not sketch elaborate visions of apocalyptic cataclysm in his Sermones Synodales, but the eschatological colouring is unmistakable. 'Drunkenness' is, to be sure, a moral fault and even a concomitant of corrupt papal religion (as pinned to 'superstitious' revelries). Much more gravely, it is a reflection of spiritual forces that hasten toward Judgment along with Satan, Antichrist, and all iterations of the bad servant.79 Bullinger addressed the need for reformation by pointing to an eschatological model of collective episcopacy overseeing
Zurich society. This model of Christian faith and lifestyle embodied the message of Zurich's evangelical transformation. Zwingli's successor modified the rhetoric of Zurich's reformed office of 'prophet' as a prophetic priesthood, whose sober vigilance formed a collective espiscopacy and whose urgency in the here and now sprang from the imminence of the Second Coming.
1 Matthew 24:45–51. Cf. Luke 12:42–48.
2 Bernd Moeller, Reichsstadt und Reformation (Berlin: Evangelische Verlagsanstalt, 1987), p. 12.
3 The evangelical Zurich clergy would have preferred an even more zealous consolidation, but political authorities honoured the legal validity of certain ecclesiastical properties in the countryside which fell to foreign patronage.
4 Cf. Emil Egli (ed.), Actensammlung zur Geschichte der Zürcher Reformation in den Jahren
1519–1533 (Zurich: Schabelitz, 1879), no. 1391, pp. 600–610 and no. 1414, pp. 618–23.
5 Cf. esp. the fourth article of the Meilener Verkommnis settled between November 1531 and February 1532 regarding the exclusion of clergy from outright political manoeuvering. For this full text, see Egli, Actensammlung, no. 1797, pp. 768–70. Bullinger himself records a version in his manuscript of Reformation history; see Heinrich Bullingers Reformationsgeschichte, eds Johann
Jakob Hottinger and Hans Heinrich Vögeli, vol. 3 (Frauenfeld: Ch. Beyel, 1840), pp. 284–91.
6 For this text, see Egli, Actensammlung, no. 1899, pp. 825–37. Pamela Biel provides an English translation in Appendix 1 of Doorkeepers at the House of Righteousness: Heinrich Bullinger and the Zurich Clergy 1535–1575 (Berne: Peter Lang, 1991) (Zürcher Beiträge zur Reformationsgeschichte
15), pp. 207–13.
7 One should also keep in mind – as Bullinger's synodal tinkering with outlines of episcopal duties indicates – that the rubric 'doctrine' was a highly dynamic category not equated simply with propositional orthodoxy.
8 There are no extant notes from Bullinger's synod leadership in the years 1532 through 1534. It appears that he only began systematically to record such thoughts in 1535. Nevertheless, there is some possibility that the first three recorded entries in the Sermones Synodales may include earlier portions. The first entry, for example, features some comments that may suggest closer connection to the 1532 controversies regarding the terms of the Second Peace of Kappel (including possible references to Bullinger's September 1532 opinion about severing ties with the greater Swiss
Confederation and/or possible disgust with the Zurich magistracy which, in April 1533, had to rescind its 1532 morals-mandate). Further confusion arises in the entry on page 11. The date of '1536
Octob.' is rubbed out, and '1537 Maius' is added, perhaps long after the fact, inasmuch as the spring synod of 1537 actually convened not in May but on 24 April (in contradiction, for unknown reasons, to the guidelines of the Synodalordnung).
9 Hans Ulrich Bächtold, Heinrich Bullinger vor dem Rat: Zur Gestaltung und Verwaltung des
Zürcher Staatswesens in den Jahren 1531 bis 1575 (Berne: Peter Lang, 1982) (Zürcher Beiträge zur
Reformationsgeschichte 12).
10 The protocols of the Synodalakten, or, Acta Synodi, are located in Zurich Staatsarchiv, E II.1.
For analysis of this source, cf. Bruce Gordon, Clerical Discipline and the Rural Reformation: The Synod in Zürich, 1532–1580 (Berne: Peter Lang, 1992) (Zürcher Beiträge zur
Reformationsgeschichte 16).
11 This knack for seamless innovation (along with Bullinger's own self-effacing character) helps explain how so much historiography until recent decades spoke of a monolithic 'Zwinglian tradition' with little or no reference to Bullinger. Perhaps the clearest testimony of this now-disproved perspective may be seen in the volume nominally devoted to both Zwingli and Bullinger in the Library of Christian Classics series. The editor offers the blandest of introductions to a reformer noted for dutiful persistence but who was 'pedestrian' and 'in no way outstanding'. See G.W.
Bromiley (ed.), Zwingli and Bullinger: Selected Translations with Introductions and Notes
(Philadelphia: Westminster, 1953) (Library of Christian Classics 24), esp. pp. 45–6.
12 Cf. Peter Blickle, 'Die Reformation vor dem Hintergrund von Kommunalisierung und
Christianisierung: Eine Skizze', in Kommunalisierung und Christianisierung: Voraussetzungen und
Folgen der Reformation, 1400–1600, eds Peter Blickle and Johannes Kunisch (Berlin: Duncker und
Humblot, 1989) (Zeitschrift für historische Forschung, Beiheft 9), pp. 9–28.
13 See Egli, Actensammlung, no. 1899, pp. 825–37.
14 Heinrich Bullinger, Das Amt des Propheten, translated by Daniel Bolliger, in Heinrich
Bullinger Schriften, eds Emidio Campi et al., vol. 1 (Zurich: Theologischer Verlag Zürich, 2004), pp.
11–47.
15 Bullinger explicitly equates 'Christian bishops' at this point with Old Testament prophets. See
Bullinger, Amt des Propheten, p. 12.
16 In Article 23 of the 67 Articles, Zwingli had explicitly linked the terms 'preacher' and 'bishop' through reclaiming the latter's simple etymological significance as 'overseer'. The thrust for Zwingli in such cases was almost entirely negative, however, serving his goal of popping the bubble of pomposity among Romanist clergy who equated episcopacy with a species of princely rule.
Bullinger, conversely, frequently speaks of 'bishops' when addressing his ministerial colleagues, and he always emphasizes its positive sense as 'overseer'. Cf. Huldrych Zwingli, Uùlegen und gründ der schluùreden oder articklen, eds Georg Finsler, Huldreich Zwinglis sämtliche Werke, vol. 2 (Leipzig:
Heinsius, 1908), p. 243.
17 It is not surprising that Bullinger should have focused on the ordained ministry at gatherings whose very constitution singled out the Zurich clergy. However, it is well to note the inherent significance in Bullinger's nurturing of the synod per se as an established body. As with many of the new trends toward institutional consolidation of reformed Zurich, Zwingli had hardly left the synod in enduring condition by the time that his brief tenure ended.
18 This rhetorical strategy is among the most sustained throughout the Sermones Synodales. The first quotation of Malachi 2:1–9 with Bullinger's own marginalia appears in the entry for 1536, see
Heinrich Bullinger, Sermones Synodales, Zurich Zentralbibliothek, Ms. D 220, pp. 8–9.
19 Bullinger, Sermones Synodales, pp. 8–9 (entry for 1536).
20 Article 18 of the Second Helvetic Confession, for example, bluntly asserts that 'we do not impart the name of priest to any minister'. Cf. Heinrich Bullinger, Confessio Helvetica Posterior, ed.
Emidio Campi, Reformierte Bekenntnisschriften, vol. 2/2 (Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener Verlag,
2009), pp. 268–345, here p. 319, 21–2: '… nemini inter ministros sacerdotis vocabulum communicamus'.
21 These instances occur fairly evenly across the scope of Sermones Synodales entries: 1536, May
1541, October 1549, October 1553, October 1556, May 1557, October 1557, October 1567, May
1570, May 1572, and May 1575 (which was a repetition of the entry for October 1567). Bullinger also preached two series of Tuesday sermons on Malachi at the Grossmünster: from 29 May 1554 to 14 August 1554 and from 29 September 1573 to 9 February 1574.
22 Bullinger, Sermones Synodales, entries for 20 October 1556 (p. 90) and 19 October 1563 (p.
119). The same quote appears in both entries: 'Osee 6. Laqueus ruinae populi mali sacerdotes'.
23 Hosea 9:8 reads: 'The prophet is a sentinel for my God over Ephraim, yet a fowler's snare is on all his ways, and hostility in the house of his God'.
24 Bullinger, Sermones Synodales, p. 89 (20 October 1556): 'Breviter officii admonuit. Imprimis requiritur scientia, eruditio, doctrina. Gentes id viderunt. Sacerdotes Aegÿptiorum. Chaldaei
Babyloniorum. Magi Persarum. Gymnosophistae Indorum. Druydae Gallorum. In lege imprimis requiritur scientia et repetitur in prophetis'.
25 Bullinger preached two sermon series on Jeremiah: exegeting Jeremiah 1–13 on Tuesdays from 5 January 1557 to (probably) July 1560; and exegeting Jeremiah 14–30 on weekdays/Fridays from (probably) June/July 1559 to 28 June 1560.
26 Bullinger, Sermones Synodales, p. 102 (9 May 1559). NB esp. verse 11: 'Etenim tam propheta quam sacerdos hÿpocritae fuerunt'. It is further significant that the Jeremiah passage here prominently includes 'drunkenness' in the catalogue of sinful behaviours among the priests/prophets.
Drunkenness was probably the most recurrent issue for censure at Zurich synod sessions, and the issue is complex beyond the surface. Physical inebriation was part of a much bigger picture of spiritual condition on the eve of Judgment.
27 My suspicion is that evangelical radicals had similarly appropriated the title of 'prophet' to the extent that Bullinger felt compelled to admonish his legitimate peers in Zurich ministry against the uncoordinated and socially fissiparous role of Anabaptist alternatives.
28 Bullinger, Sermones Synodales, p. 120 (19 October 1563) refers to 'Moses and Aaron' as representatives of priesthood, without using that term. The entries for 9 May 1564 (p. 121) and 7
May 1566 (p. 127) explicitly pair the terms prophet and priest. The entry for 19 October 1568 (pp.
137–8) includes much the same sketch of salvation history, along with two significant additional points: the ministry of Christ and the apostles is carried on 'in hunc diem' by 'Pastores. Doctores.
Episcopi. Presbyteri'; and the legitimate Christian priesthood is perversely mirrored and persecuted by the 'Sacerdos Baalitas' in Satan's sway.
29 Episcopal headings for the entire diagram of doctrina et vita notwithstanding, the term bishop can therefore sometimes have an additional, narrower association with the vita-side of that pair.
30 Bullinger found the years 1567 and 1568 to be particularly redolent with thoughts of world history. It is in this span, for example, that he completed his gigantic manuscript sourcebooks on both the 'reformation of the church from 1519 to 1532' and 'Swiss history from the beginning to 1519'.
See Emil Egli (ed.), Heinrich Bullingers Diarium (Annales vitae) der Jahre 1504–1574 (Basel:
Basler Buchund Antiquariatshandlung, 1904), pp. 87 and 91.
31 As an aside, one may observe that the magisterial authorities seem to have caught the terminological drift. Already at the synod session of 6 May 1544, Bürgermeister Johannes Hab incidentally refers to the Zurich ministers as a 'priesthood' (priesterschafft). Granted, this occurs in the context of reprimand for quasi-illicit gatherings of chapter deans, and so there is some chance that Johannes Hab is still hoping to convey some lingering negative echoes. See 'Abstellen der
Prosynodorum' in the Acta Synodi, Zurich Staatsarchiv, E.II.1.303–4.
32 Reformational polemic frequently used the word 'Pharisee' as a reference not only to the religious opponents of Christ in the New Testament, but also as a code for the Roman Catholic clergy, with their supposed emphasis on cultic fastidiousness at the expense of the gospel message of repentance and faith.
33 See Irena Backus, 'The Beast: Interpretations of Daniel 7.2–9 and Apocalypse 13.1–4, 11–12 in Lutheran, Zwinglian and Calvinist Circles in the Late Sixteenth Century', in Reformation and Renaissance Review 3 (2000), pp. 59–77; Irena Backus, Reformation Readings of the Apocalypse:
Geneva, Zurich, and Wittenberg (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000) (Oxford Studies in Historical Theology).
34 This is not to say that there were no important religious innovations with social ramifications in Lutheran territories, only that such were not specifically eschatologically motivated. Cf. Robin B.
Barnes, 'Astrology and the Confessions in the Empire, c. 1550–1620', in Confessionalization in Europe, 1555–1700: Essays in Honor and Memory of Bodo Nischan, eds John M. Headley et al.
(Aldershot: Ashgate, 2004), pp. 131–53.
35 Cf. Backus, 'The Beast', pp. 64–7.
36 In his 1581 Commentary on Revelation, Nicolas Colladon alleged to have private knowledge of Calvin's fondness for the book, despite the latter's steadfast refusal to treat Revelation in any public way. Colladon's claim is at best difficult to verify, and it probably reflects an effort to give a luster of orthodoxy to a then new direction among Calvinist writers.
37 Backus, 'The Beast', pp. 69–72.
38 Calvin's close friend and colleague, Theodore Beza, did publish a new Latin edition of the New
Testament in 1557 that included annotations defending the canonicity and clarity of Revelation. To some extent, this may reflect the influence of exegetical writings that already had been coming out of
Zurich. But Beza was not to wander all that far from Calvin; he utterly rejected any connection to an eschatological millennium in the book of Revelation. Beza's primary goal was not a constructive eschatology, but the more academic desire to disprove Erasmus' negative insinuations regarding
Revelation's place in the Christian canon. See Backus, Reformation Readings of the Apocalypse, p.
27.
39 Backus, Reformation Readings of the Apocalypse, pp. 29–30.
40 Backus, Reformation Readings of the Apocalypse, p. 99. Here again we see the typical reformational position that the church rightly exists in a dyanamic ministry of proclamation, rather than as a self-referential corps of priests insisting on their own 'indelible character'.
41 There is some irony in the fact that Bibliander and Bullinger agreed that the 'beast had been loosed' around the year 1100 – a time that actually corresponds with a discernible sea-change in western Christendom. A modern historian might even use similar words – metaphorically, of course – to signify the sudden, emphatic rise of apocalyptic mentality in the wake of visionaries like Joachim.
42 Bullinger lectured on Thessalonians as a fresh-faced teacher in Kappel in 1526, and he published a short treatise on Daniel already in 1530. Defense of reformational doctrine appears always to have flourished in a fundamentally eschatological framework in Bullinger's mind. A sense of the peculiar place and time of humanity informed all details of his vocation.
43 Heinrich Bullinger, A Hundred Sermons upon the Apocalipse (London: John Daye, 1573), fol.
B3.
44 It strikes me as odd that Backus, Reformation Readings of the Apocalypse treats with such meticulous detail what she dubs 'The Zurich School' while denying many eschatological ramifications. Jud, she says, is pastoral and political without significant 'interest in eschatology' (p.
88); Bibliander's antichristology 'has nothing to do with eschatological hopes; it is motivated primarily by confessional polemics' (p. 102). Her operative assumption seems to be that politics and eschatology are inherently, mutually exclusive, as seen in her comment about Bullinger, Backus,
'The Beast', p. 74: 'Of the commentators that we have discussed he is the least interested in politics and the most interested in the historical and eschatological implications of the two books'.
45 Not only the famous work In Apocalypsim conciones centum (Basel: Johannes Oporin, 1557), but also the treatise Das Jüngste Gericht (Zurich: Christoph Froschauer the Elder, 1555) and the two orations in De fine seculi et iudicio venturo (Basel: Johannes Oporin, 1557) overtly express the eschatological nexus. Bullinger linked Daniel 7 and Revelation with important connecting references through the language of covenant and impending Judgment in Malachi 2, the unfolding identity of the 'son of perdition' of 2Thessalonians 2:3–4, and, especially, the apocalyptic prophecies by Christ in Matthew 24–5 (including the highly eschatological parable of the good and bad servants before their master's return).
46 The terms of the Peace of Kappel had emphasized the need to avoid inciting religiously motivated unrest among the states of the Confederation. Treatises in Latin were not given a free pass, of course, but they never aroused as much political suspicion and angst for the simple reason that a Latin treatise would reach a limited audience of scholars and would therefore have little chance to kindle immediate popular reaction. A case in point: Rudolf Gwalther was taken to task for his 1546
German treatise on the Antichrist (Der Endtchrist [Zurich: Christoph Froschauer the Elder, 1546]), even though much of the offending content had already been espoused in Bullinger's 1536 Latin commentary on Thessalonians (In d[ivi] apostoli Pauli ad Thessalonicenses … Commentarii [Zurich:
Christoph Froschauer the Elder, 1536]). Bullinger's own 1555 treatise on The Last Judgment (Das
Jüngste Gericht) was published in German, but deliberately left out most of the strident antichristological component that would be featured in the Latin edition of the Hundred Sermons.
47 Aurelio A. Garcia Archilla, The Theology of History and Apologetic Historiography in Heinrich Bullinger: Truth in History (San Francisco: Mellen Research University Press, 1992), pp.
34–6.
48 Archilla, The Theology of History, p. 69: 'This soteriological unity [i.e., justification always by faith whether in OT or NT] puts the church in strict parity with the people of the Old Testament, and makes the Old Testament for the church a primary text of the history of God's dealings with his people … This conception will open up for Bullinger the Old Testament as a primary locus for interpreting the nature of God's post-biblical dealings with his people, and an immediate source of ethical and societal ideas, which will be adapted to the understanding of the subsequent course of Church history, with proper accounting for differences of time, place and circumstance'.
49 Archilla, The Theology of History, pp. 114–15.
50 Foedus appears in the following entries of the Sermones Synodales: 1535 (p. 2); 1536 (pp. 8 and 9); 19 October 1546 (p. 52); 7 May 1549 (p. 62); 24 October 1553 (four instances across pp. 78–
9); 19 October 1557 (p. 95); and 19 October 1568 (p. 138).
51 The four exceptional cases are: 1535 (p. 2), where Bullinger seems to allude to Exodus 23:32 and Deuteronomy 7:2 in suggesting dissatisfaction with the pact of the Swiss Confederation (or possibly the terms of the Peace of Kappel); 19 October 1546 (p. 52), where Bullinger writes 'the magistracy prohibits it on account of the covenant' ('magistratus defendere. Quae causa. Foedus.'), which seems here to refer to the fact that the Zurich magistracy was bound to the Swiss
Confederation in such a way as to prohibit entering the fray of the Schmalkaldic War; 7 May 1549 (p.
62), where Bullinger writes 'nothing is by chance, and yet we are most miserable in this covenant'
('nulla fortuna. Sed summa miseria in foedere'), seemingly again voicing frustrations with the Swiss
Confederation and its failure to act to help evangelical friends during the Schmalkaldic War; and, lastly, on 19 October 1568 (p. 138), where Bullinger lists the covenant as an element in the increasingly clear development of salvation history.
52 Gerhard Oestreich certainly erred when treating institutional religion as meek handmaid to the nascent absolutist states of early modernity, but Bullinger's special use of 'covenant' does suggest innovative appreciation for the role of clergy as a quasi-bureaucracy within the political entity.
53 Mark S. Burrows, '"Christus intra nos Vivens": The Peculiar Genius of Bullinger's Doctrine of Sanctification', in Zeitschrift für Kirchengeschichte 98 (1987), pp. 48–69. Cf. Fritz Büsser, Heinrich
Bullinger (1504–1575): Leben, Werk und Wirkung, vol. 1 (Zurich: Theologischer Verlag Zürich,
2004), pp. 277–8.
54 Burrows, 'Christus intra nos Vivens', p. 54.
55 For example, most especially Daniel 7, 8, and 11 and Matthew 24, but also occasionally augmented by selections from 2Timothy 3–4, 2Corinthians 6:2, Luke 17 and 21, Ephesians 5:16,
Ezekiel 3, Jeremiah 8 and 23, 1Peter 4:17, and 2Peter 3.
56 For example, 19 October 1546 (p. 52). The image of the eschatological 'faithful servant' also turns up as a foil to Romanist Council of Trent in Bullinger, Sermones Synodales, p. 71 (20 October
1551).
57 Bullinger preached on Daniel on Tuesdays, 27 July 1546 to 19 July 1547 (and again, Tuesdays,
18 May 1563 to 19 June 1565); on Matthew on Sundays, 6 October 1549 to 19 May 1555 (having also preached on Matthew near the outset of his synodal presidency, in 1535); and on Revelation on Tuesdays, 21 August 1554 to 29 December 1556.
58 Bullinger uses forms of the verb vigilare (to watch out) at least 30 times throughout the Sermones. Bruce Gordon has rightly noted the consistent, pastoral emphasis upon Wachbarkeit, and thus the eschatological stamp in Bullinger's doctrine of salvation. What I further seek to show is the systematic relation of such an eschatological soteriology to the upbuilding of the institutions of Zurich society. Gordon leaves a much more individualistic impression in his treatment of the reformer's soteriology. See: Bruce Gordon, '"Welcher nit gloubt der ist schon verdampt": Heinrich
Bullinger and the Spirituality of the Last Judgement', in Zwingliana 29 (2002), pp. 29–53, esp. p. 33.
59 For example, October 1569 (p. 143, = October 1574).
60 See the Sermones Synodales entry for 7 May 1549 (p. 62): 'Meminerimus qualia tempora et quod nostrum officium. Tempora praedicta ab apostolis et prophetis: nullum remedium nisi Verbum
… Modeste prudenter agere'. 'Prudence' is also a terminus technicus for Bullinger, insofar as it consistently recalls the 'faithful and prudent servant' of Matthew 24.
61 The convened ministers of the Zurich synod were to seek prudence in acting and applying the Word ('prudentia in agendo, applicando'), as expressed by Bullinger on 4 May 1557 (p. 93). Another clear illustration may be found in the entry for 3 May 1569 = 5 May 1573 (p. 142): 'Who are the prudent ones? Those who establish all things for the place, time, and persons at hand, so that many may be made rich in Christ … Let us pray diligently for prudence'. ('Prudentes, qui pro loco tempore et personis omnia instituunt, ut plures Christo lucrifiant … Orandum nobis sedulo pro prudentia'.)
62 For example, May 1561 (p. 109); May 1564 (p. 121); May 1574 (p. 164).
63 Cf. Joachim Staedtke, 'Die Geschichtsauffassung des jungen Bullinger', in Heinrich Bullinger,
1504–1575: Gesammelte Aufsätze zum 400. Todestag, eds Ulrich Gäbler and Erland Herkenrath, vol.
1 (Zurich: Theologischer Verlag Zürich, 1975) (Zürcher Beiträge zur Reformationsgeschichte 7), p.
73. Cf. also Christian Moser, '"Papam esse Antichristum": Grundzüge von Heinrich Bullingers
Antichristkonzeption', in Zwingliana 30 (2003), pp. 72–3.
64 Bruce Gordon, 'Welcher nit gloubt'.
65 Cf. the Predigerordnung in Egli, Actensammlung, no. 1899, pp. 825–6: 'Demnach der erbfygen unsers heils dasselb ze hinderen nie geruowet, sunder allweg die warheit und den rechten, waren, gottgefälligen gottsdienst, nit allein jetz bi unseren zyten, sunder so dickest die welt je buoss [Buss] / und besserung und sich Gottes willen ze nähern angenommen, mit etwas unmassen und missordnungen ze undergraben und zuo verdunklen understanden; desshalb die gemeldten diener der christenen gemeinden, diewyl etwas mängel und unordnungen yngerissen, uss schuldiger trüw befolhens ampts, in bysyn, ouch mit hilf und gunst unserer darzuo verordneter ratsfründen, sölich, ouch künftig mängel und geprästen damit zuo verbesseren und zuo fürkommen, zuo mererem ufwachs guoter, christenlicher sitten und tugenden, ouch bekerung unseres sündtlichen lebens und versünung göttlichs zorns, in jetzgehaltnem, gemeinem synodo dis nachfolgend erbar, göttlich artikel, restitution und verbesserung, uf wyter unser gfallen uss guotem yfer, mit bystand und grund heiliger, göttlicher gschrift angesehen, geordnet, in gschrift verfasst und uns die zuo verwilligen und zuo bestäten hüt datum für(ge)bracht …'
66 Bullinger explicitly cites Matthew 24 and/or refers to 'the faithful and prudent servant' in 28 entries throughout the Sermones Synodales. Often there are multiple such references within a single entry. See October 1537 (p. 16); 6 May 1539 (pp. 21–3); 23 October 1543 (p. 40); 4 May 1546 (pp.
49–50); 19 October 1546 (p. 52); 23 October 1548 (p. 59); 7 May 1548 (p. 62); 5 May 1551 (p. 70);
20 October 1551 (p. 71); 22 October 1555 (p. 86); 5 May 1556 (p. 87); 20 October 1556 (p. 91); 4
May 1557 (pp. 93–4); 3 May 1558 (p. 98); 7 May 1560 (p. 106); 20 October 1562 (p. 115); 19
October 1563 (p. 120); 4 May 1568 (pp. 133–5); 19 October 1568 (p. 139); 3 May 1569 = 5 May
1573 (p. 141); 18 October 1569 = 19 October 1574 (p. 144); 8 May 1571 (p. 152); 23 October 1571
(p. 154); 6 May 1572 (p. 155); 20 October 1573 (pp. 160–161); and 4 May 1574 (p. 165).
67 This is stated explicitly in the entries for May 1564 und May 1569. In this vein, Mark Burrows seems again to have moved scholarship in a right direction when he noted the ethical emphasis of sanctification in Bullinger's preaching, not as a system of individual merits or of changed essence but of the very presence of Christ in nobis. See Burrows, 'Christus intra nos Vivens', p. 66.
68 See, for example, Bullinger, Sermones Synodales, p. 23 (May 1539).
69 Bullinger, Sermones Synodales, p. 27 (19 October 1540).
70 Here way may again draw attention to the language of 'vigilance'. This term was eschatologically charged and linked directly to Bullinger's vision for reformed episcopacy.
71 Acta Synodi for 19 October 1540, in a section entitled Gemeine klag der lasteren halb (pp. 261–
3): 'Den wyn missbrucht man groblich und volgt daruff ougenschinlich aller unradt wie wir dann
sähend, touben, schlahen, Gottslastere, wust redden, unreynigkeit unverschampte frydbruch und ellende todschlag … ist nüt gwüssers dan das uns Got straffen wirt unnd muss mit allerley plagen, kranckheyt, hunger, tuwere, krieg, uffrur, unnd pranndt. Dann wir habend lang sin wort gehört unnd besserend uns nüt'.
72 '[In Latin:] Certain ones are too hospitable. [In German:] They do not come out of the tavern'.
Sermones Synodales for 4 May 1568 (p. 135). This occurs in a lengthy treatment of episcopal hallmarks listed in 1Timothy and Titus. Cf. here esp. 1Timothy 3:2 and Titus 1:8.
73 In addition to the very many references to drunkenness via Matthew 24 throughout the Sermones Synodales, other uses of forms of ebrietas occur in the following entries: May 1537 (p.
12), 20 October 1556 (pp. 89–90), 18 October 1558 (p. 99), 9 May 1559 (p. 102), 22 October 1560
(p. 107), 8 May 1565 (p. 125), and 9 May 1570 (p. 149).
74 Entry for May 1537 (p. 12). Underlined by Bullinger.
75 See entry for 20 October 1556 (p. 90).
76 See entry for 4 May 1557 (p. 94).
77 See entry for 7 May 1560 (p. 106). Cf. 23 October 1571 (p. 153). Note also the explicit references here to Daniel 11 and Matthew 24, along with the eschatological use of the term 'times'
(temporibus).
78 See entry for 9 May 1559 (p. 102).
79 Cf. Bullinger, De fine seculi, pp. 60–61.