The Pursuit of Change
The Pursuit of Change
“I beseech Christ for this one thing only, that He will enable me to endure all things courageously, and that He break me as a potter's vessel or make me strong, as it pleases Him.” – attributed to Ulrich Zwingli
By late fall of 1518, Zwingli had become something of a national celebrity, as evidenced by Zurich's nomination of Zwingli for the post of People's Priest. Zwingli had plenty of supporters, including his old comrade Oswald Myconius, who was supposedly instrumental in his selection, but local clerics vying for the vacancy worked to eliminate their greatest competition. They accused Zwingli of hypocrisy, zeroing in on his previous cases of sexual misconduct and deriding his musical skills to the conservatives, derogatorily referring to him as “the evangelical lute player.” Ultimately, however, Zwingli surpassed the rest of the candidates, scoring 17 out of 24 votes, and he was officially declared the Leutpriester, or the People's Priest of Zurich, on December 11, 1518. Taking over for Zwingli in Einsiedeln was Leo Juda.
Zwingli arrived in Zurich two days after Christmas, and as tradition dictated, he was greeted with a hospitable reception, complete with a celebratory feast. On January 1, 1519, his 35th birthday, he took to the podium and delivered his first sermon in the city. “It is to Christ that I desire to lead you to Christ, the true source of salvation,” Zwingli proclaimed. “His divine word is the only food that I wish to set before your souls.”
Oddly enough, though he was now fairly experienced as a preacher, this being the third congregation under his charge, Zwingli remained somewhat apprehensive about the power of his words, never once taking his potential influence for granted. The following passage, taken from another one of his journal entries, provides a glimpse into his mindset: “[I may have been] young, [but my] ecclesiastical duties inspired in me more fear than joy, because I knew, and I remain convinced, that I would give account of the blood of the sheep which would perish as [sic] consequence of my carelessness.” Still, Zwingli concealed his worries every time he presented himself before his congregations, so as not to shake the crowd's confidence in him or his message.
Zwingli was summoned to a meeting by his superiors and colleagues shortly after the New Year's Day sermon. The tone of the monologue they had prepared was cordial enough – Zwingli was complimented on his elocution and the natural allure of his words – which made the latter part of their speech, disguised as constructive criticisms, all the more alarming. They told him, “You must do your utmost to make the revenues of this chapter productive, without neglecting the minutest of them. You will exhort the faithful, both from the pulpit and the confessional, to pay rents and tithes, and to show by their offerings [their love for] the Church...[and] as for the administration of the sacraments...you may employ a substitute...particularly in preaching, if you wish.”
Zwingli was disgusted by the “suggestions” of his colleagues, which reeked of greed and only further fueled his skepticism of the Church. It was at this moment that the motives behind his induction dawned on him: the parish authorities of Zurich were more interested in employing a puppet to push their agendas than they were in one that would lead the parishioners towards God's light. At the end of the day, the meeting had the opposite effect by only sharpening Zwingli's ambition.
Zwingli paid no heed to his superiors' suggestions and continued to adhere to his own preaching strategies. In a bold move, he jettisoned the traditional liturgical calendar and adopted a preaching technique known as “lectio continua,” defined as “the liturgical reading of selections of Scripture by starting at the beginning of a particular book and working through consecutive readings to the end.” In short, instead of delivering a sermon written around a random Biblical passage, Zwingli guided them through each and every book of Erasmus' New Testament, picking up from where they had left off each passing week. Zwingli summarized his process in the following passage: “After the Gospel according to Matthew, I continued with the Acts of the Apostles to show to the church in Zurich how and through whom the Gospel had been planted and propagated. Then came Paul's First Letter to Timothy. It seemed especially profitable for the sheep of my flock, as it contains guiding principles for the Christian Life. Since some possessed only a superficial knowledge of faith, I omitted the Second Letter to Timothy until I had expounded the Letter to the Galatians...Accordingly, I also interpreted the two letters of Peter, the Prince of the Apostles, to show them that the two apostles proclaimed the same message, moved by the same Spirit. Afterwards, I dealt with the Letter to the Hebrews so that the work and honor of Christ would be more clearly recognized...Thus I planted. Matthew, Luke, Paul, and Peter watered, but God in wonderful manner, gave the harvest.”
Meanwhile, the indefatigable preacher and seemingly lifelong student continued to delve deeper into the Gospel in his spare time. Samuel Simpson, author of Life of Ulrich Zwingli: The Swiss Patriot and Reformer, offered a detailed picture of the preacher's daily routine: “Zwingli was very methodical in his labors. He studied and wrote in a standing position, devoting to these ends certain fixed hours during which he suffered no interruption except for the most urgent reasons. From the time he arose in the morning until 10 o'clock, he gave himself to reading, critical study, and writing...After dinner, he listened to any who brought him news or sought his advice. Sometimes, he spent the time until 2 o'clock in conversation, or in walking with his friends. He then resumed his studies. After supper, he sometimes took a short walk, and then wrote letters until midnight.”
Like his flocks in Glarus and Einsiedeln, the Zurich parishioners warmed to him quickly, and Zwingli was equipped with the rare capability to forge a connection with people from all walks of life. Humble blacksmiths and weavers, modest shopkeepers, and lowly peasants hastened to attend the preacher's services in droves. Not only were they drawn to the preacher's distinctive preaching style, they appreciated deeply the love and respect Zwingli displayed towards them.
Others, in particular children, were softened by the preacher's gentle nature. Those who attest to this often make reference to an anecdote that tells of an animated young boy, no older than 13, who cornered Zwingli after one of his sermons. In his excitement, the boy accidentally uttered an offensive remark. Rather than chastize the boy for his slip of the tongue, Zwingli beamed and patted him on the shoulder reassuringly. “It is alright, my dear child,” said Zwingli, before addressing the slack-jawed faces around them. “We can learn much from boys when they are sharp and attentive.”
His presence at city events, special celebrations, and weekly gatherings only helped to further fortify his relationship with the people. He made regular appearances, for instance, at the local markets every Friday, and each time he was hounded by a mob that pestered him with requests for blessings and advice. Not one to waste such valuable opportunities, Zwingli began to conclude his visits to the city with sermons and speeches promoting compassion and goodwill. According to Myconius, an average of 2,000 laymen (and even a few non-Christians) showed up to Zwingli's impromptu preaching sessions, “hungry for the strong meat of the Scriptures.”
What's more, Zwingli was friendly and approachable, and always made a conscious effort to make himself available to all members of his congregation, no matter their societal class. He could be accosted by his parishioners upwards of a dozen times on his way back to the church, but the patient preacher entertained all those that called upon him, without fail. Even those who had previously turned their backs on the Church, mostly poets and politicians, were won over. “Glory be to God!” they cried upon leaving one of Zwingli's sermons. “This man is a preacher of the truth. He will be our Moses, leading us forth from this Egyptian darkness!”
As previously mentioned, there was not a single transformative event that initiated Zwingli's campaign, but his chroniclers have credited a near-death experience in 1519 with bolstering his faith. By August of that year, just seven months after his inaugural sermon in Zurich, Zwingli fell ill, possibly due to his crippling workload. After some persuasion, the preacher finally agreed to a natural therapeutic treatment at the healing mineral springs in Pfaefers, situated about 60 miles southeast of Zurich. His departure for this municipality, as it turns out, could not have come at a better time, for just days later, Zurich was affected by a sudden outbreak of the plague. This dreadful disease, ominously nicknamed the “Black Death,” would go on to claim about a third of the city's populace. Rather than stay put in Pfaefers, where he was safe from the highly contagious disease, Zwingli, who could not bear the thought of abandoning his people at such a dire time, made the trek back to Zurich at once.
Back in the city, he worked tirelessly to assist his disease-riddled flock both physically and spiritually. He threw all precautions to the wind and administered medicine, prayers, meaningful maxims, and comforting words without any form of protection, ignoring the quarantine protocol. His colleagues and friends applauded him for his efforts, but naturally, they repeatedly urged him to minister to people from afar. “Perform your duty,” one of his colleagues warned him. “But at the same time, be careful to guard your own life.”
Still, Zwingli refused to even humor them and continued to fulfill his priestly duties, until he was, quite predictably, stricken with the illness himself. Covered in pulsing, pus-filled boils and enfeebled by a burning fever, Zwingli was bedridden for several weeks. At one point, his concerned colleagues wondered if he would be confined to his bed for the rest of his life.
To preserve his sanity, as well as to fend off his boredom, Zwingli ordered one of his subordinates to fetch him his quill, a pot of ink, and some parchment, and he began to compose a series of poetic prayers. His first prayer reads:
“Help me, O Lord,”
“My strength and rock,
“Lo at the door, I hear death's knock.
“Uplift thine arm, once pierced for me,
“That conquered death, and set me free.
“Yet, if thy voice, in life's midday,
“Recalls my soul, then I obey...”
To the consternation of his colleagues and parishioners, Zwingli's condition steadily worsened in the days that followed, but the preacher put on a brave face and went to work on a second prayer:
“My pains increase; haste to console;
“For fear and woe seize body and soul...
“My senses fail, my tongue is numb...
“Lo! Satan strains to snatch his prey;
“I feel his grasp...[but]
“He harms me not, [and so], I fear no loss,
“For here I lie beneath Thy cross.”
In due time, his prayers were answered. Slowly, but surely, he took a turn for the better, and by November, he had more or less been healed, the closest thing to a bona fide miracle that he would ever experience. He was well-aware of the anomalous nature of his remarkable recovery, and he believed God had spared him so that he could continue his noble quest. Wholeheartedly grateful for having been granted a second chance, he vowed to do whatever it took to follow through on his mission. He composed yet another prayer, but this time, it was one of gratitude:
“My God! My Lord! Healed by Thy hand,
Upon the earth once more I stand...
My mouth shall sing Alone to Thee.
Though now delayed, My hour will come...
With joy, I'll rise, And bear my yoke
Straight to the skies...”
Zwingli resumed his lectio continua style of preaching, but he now made it a point to dedicate the final segments of his sermons to bringing the injustices, abuses, and other failings within the Catholic Church to the fore. The preacher, revitalized by his tango with death, underscored the dishonesty and immorality of his sanctimonious colleagues, going so far as to name and shame them. Bruce Gordon, author of Huldrych Zwingli, explained, “From the pulpit, he took on the 'enemies of the Gospel' and [called them by name]. They were priests, monks, and even bishops, whose adherence to the material rewards of the church blinded them to the spiritual nature of God.”
Next, Zwingli ripped to shreds the practice of saintly worship, and he assembled a committee that was tasked with identifying the truths and encircling the fictitious elements of their often exaggerated hagiographies. He also fiercely denied the existence of purgatory, but he urged his congregation to redeem themselves lest they be consumed by hellfire. Zwingli wrote, “I believe that the figment of purgatorial fire is as much an affront to the redemption of Christ freely granted to us as it has been a lucrative business to its authors. For it be necessary by punishments and tortures to expiate the guilt of our crimes, Christ will have died in vain and grace will have lost its meaning...What sort of a Christ do they have who wish to be called Christians and yet dread this fire, which is no longer fire, but smoke?...But that there is a hell, where the unbelievers, disobedient, and public enemies are forever punished with Ixion and Tantalus, I not only believe, but know. For when [Christ] speaks of...universal judgment, He asserts that after this judgment some will go into everlasting fire...In this passage (Matthew 25:41), Christ is speaking of everlasting fire that will burn after the judgment and will torment the Devil and his angels, and the ungodly who despise God, and the savage men who suppress the truth with falsehood and do not mercifully and faithfully aid the necessities of their neighbor.”
Zwingli also cast doubts on the Catholic belief that automatically labeled all unbaptized children “damned,” and he blasted the practice of excommunication, but above all, the tirades against mandatory tithes, indulgences, lavish gifts, and monetary donations were the ones that resonated most with the public. As one might expect, his colleagues did not take kindly at all to this particular bone he picked with the Church, for the uninhibited preacher was now threatening one of their primary sources of income.
Despite the diminishing support he was receiving from his colleagues, Zwingli remained undeterred. In multiple sermons, he attacked Father Bernhardin Sanson for promoting, on behalf of the diocese of Constance, the sale of indulgences to parishioners who wished to contribute to the funding of the St. Peter's Cathedral in Rome. In the following passage, Heinrich Bullinger, Zwingli's colleague and future successor, described the contentious content of his impassioned sermons in further detail: “[Zwingli] vehemently denounced all unbelief [sic], superstition, and hypocrisy. Eagerly he strove after repentance, improvement of life, and Christian love and faith. He rebuked vice[s], such as idleness, excesses in eating, drinking, and apparel, gluttony, suppression of the poor, pensions, and wars. He insisted that the government should maintain law and justice, and protect widows and orphans...[and] that people should always seek to retain Swiss freedom.”
Bullinger
Critics and skeptics continued to pop up, but Zwingli did not falter. His response to his denigrators was straightforward enough: “The word of the Bible must prevail, whether it suits us or not...[and] what clearly affects the divine truth, as the belief and commandments of God, no one shall yield, whether one is offended or not...”
On April 29, 1521, Zwingli was appointed canon of the Grossmünster, an elegant, Romanesque-style monasterial church that had been erected over the tombs of sibling martyrs Felix and Regula, the patron saints of Zurich. By securing this coveted position, Zwingli was officially declared a citizen of Zurich, and in time, his pastoral office in Grossmünster would serve as the headquarters of the impending Swiss Reformation.
One of his first orders of business as canon of Grossmünster was to resuscitate and refine his arguments against the mercenary system. He pleaded with politicians in his near-daily sermons to retire the cruel and archaic practice, and he urged them instead to invest in trade, agriculture, and technology instead. “You are a tool in the hands of God,” said Zwingli. “He demands your service, not your rest. Yet, how fortunate you are that He lets you take part in His work!”
Whether the Catholics liked it or not, Zwingli's star and influence were rising at an exponential rate, and the enthralling preacher showed no signs of slowing down. On May 5 that same year, Zurich became the only canton to publicly disavow the Swiss' French allies, and about half a year later, on January 11, 1522, Zurich broke away from the mold yet again when city authorities published an edict that abolished religious pensions and prohibited preachers from conducting their services in foreign languages.
Roland Fischer’s picture of the Grossmünster
A late 16th century engraving of Zurich with the Grossmünster in the center
Rebecca Kennison’s picture of a relief on the Grossmünster depicting Zwingli preaching
Following the Affair of the Sausages about two months later, Zwingli gave a sermon that challenged the practice of obligatory fasting. The sermon, entitled “Regarding the Choice and Freedom of Foods,” was published on the 16th of April, and part of it told followers, “To sum up briefly: if you want to fast, do so; if you do not want to eat meat, don't eat it; but allow Christians a free choice...If you would be a Christian at heart, act in this way.” Nowhere in Scripture does it explicitly specify that all Christians were required to abstain from food and drink on any special occasion, insisted Zwingli. This was no law of God, but a man-made tradition, and thus, it should be treated as such.
Of course, this isn't to say that the impious and idle were given a free pass. Zwingli continued, “If you are a person of leisure, you should fast often and abstain from good that excites you; the worker moderates his desires by hoeing and plowing in the field.” At the same time, he reminded those who chose to fast to maintain the values of meekness and modesty: “When you [do] fast, do not look somber as the hypocrites do, for they disfigure their faces to show others they are fasting...But when you fast, put oil on your head and wash your face, so that it will not be obvious to others that you are fasting, but only to your Father, who is unseen; and your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you...”
Compulsory fasting was formally excised from tradition in Zurich just a year later, but the sweeping, city-wide changes had only just begun. In 1522, Zwingli married a 38-year-old widow by the name of Anna Reinhart in secret. Reinhart was previously married to Hans Meyer von Knonau, and she bore three children with him – Margaretha, Agathe, and Gerold – but he succumbed to injuries he sustained on the battlefield in 1517. In addition to the three children from Reinhart's previous marriage, Zwingli provided for the four children that they had – Regula, Wilhelm, Hulrych, and Anna.
Zwingli and Reinhart celebrated their union once again, this time in the public eye in 1524, and it was around this time that Zwingli and his humanist companions launched their campaign against clerical celibacy. On July 2, 1524, they presented to the bishop a petition to rescind what they deemed an unnatural convention. Two weeks later, the reprinted their petition in German, entitled Eine freundliche Bitte und Ermahnung an die Eidgenossen (“A Friendly Petition and Admonition to the Confederates”), and released it to the masses. Besides the abolition of clerical celibacy, they called upon the parish to grant legal protection to the wives and offspring of married clerics.
As one could have guessed, Zwingli's opponents were outraged by his gall, and he was severely castigated for his dogged attempts to overhaul the institution, but Zwingli held firm to his beliefs. To counter these accusations, he published a pamphlet entitled Apologeticus Archeteles (“First and Last Word”), touching upon the rising corruption and unforgivable sins of the Catholic Church and acquitting himself of the heretical charges laid against him. The problematic institution, he added, lost all right to adjudicate on such matters when they chose to disregard, warp, and intentionally misrepresent the word of God.