The Final Battle
The Final Battle
A painting of Zwingli by Hans Asper
“In this matter of baptism - if I may be pardoned for saying it - I can only conclude that all the doctors have been in error from the time of the apostles…All the doctors have ascribed to the water a power which it does not have and the holy apostles did not teach.” – attributed to Ulrich Zwingli
Father Leo Juda, one of Zwingli's most stalwart devotees, was seated in the audience one winter day in 1522. A guest of honor, an unnamed Augustinian monk, had been scheduled to take the podium that morning, and out of curiosity, Juda lent an ear to the friar's homily. However, as he grew disturbed by the bias and falsehoods in the friar’s oration, Juda felt compelled to speak up. He rose from his seat and, not wanting to humiliate or offend the baffled speaker, gently corrected him. In spite of Juda's wholesome intentions, however, the chagrined monk, along with a number of those in the congregation, were disgruntled by Juda's interjections. Zwingli and his blasphemous supporters, they grumbled, were as obnoxious as they were self-righteous.
Zwingli, who caught wind of the minor scandal a few days later, was peeved, for he considered the backlash an affront to him and his cause. He was somewhat disheartened by the adverse reception of his ideas, but he refused to throw in the towel. If he wished to reeducate and win over the masses, he would have to dissect and explain in detail the significance of his tenets. By acquiring a larger platform, he would also be given the chance to clear his name.
In a bid to exonerate himself and his misunderstood movement, Zwingli solicited permission from the Great Council to defend his dogma before a council of delegates from the Church and state. The permission he so desperately sought was granted to him on January 29, 1523, when he, along with his opponents, were invited to present their cases in a conference now remembered as the “First Zurich Disputation.” The disputation was attended by some 600 participants, including Chanellor Johann Faber, the vicar-general of the diocese, and other high-ranking envoys sent by the Bishop of Constance.
In preparation for the conference, Zwingli composed the now-famous Schhissreden, or “Sixty-Seven Articles,” about 10 days prior to the meeting. Some of the most noteworthy excerpts from Zwingli's document reads:
“1. All who say that the Gospel is nothing unless approved by the Church err, and blaspheme God.
“23. Christ condemns the prosperity and splendor of the world. Therefore, we conclude that those who accumulate wealth for themselves in his name slander Him monstrously when they make him pretense for their own greed and wantonness.
“24. Christians are not obligated to do works that God has not commanded. They may eat all foods sat all times. From this, we learn that decretals regulating cheese and bread are a Roman fraud.
“26. Nothing is more displeasing to God than hypocrisy. From this, we conclude that everything which makes itself out to be splendid before men is a great hypocrisy and infamy. So much for monk's cowls, badges, tonsures, and the like.
“28. Everything that God permits or has not forbidden is proper. From this, we learn that marriage is proper for all people.
“31. No private person may excommunicate anyone else, but the Church – that is, the communion of those among whom the one subject to excommunication lives – along with its guardians may act as a bishop.
“43. The sum of the matter is that the best and most secure government exists where the ruler governs with God alone, but the most evil and insecure where the ruler governs according to his own heart.
“51. Whoever ascribes this power [forgiveness of sins] to the creature takes away God's glory and gives it to someone who is not God. This is truly idolatry.”
In addition to those articles, Zwingli's document denounced the practice of processions, incense-burning, musical accompaniments during service, the purchase of indulgences and tithes, and pilgrimages. Defending the abolition of pilgrimages, Zwingli reasoned, “From this is to be learned that those who bind Christians to times and places rob them of their proper freedom.” Moreover, Zwingli called upon all Christians to refrain from purchasing extravagant material items and to abandon their money-consuming vices, such as gambling. Instead, he encouraged them to donate to the impoverished and the needy, especially orphans and widows.
He later reiterated and elaborated on these articles in another treatise, “The True and False Religion,” published two years later.
To say that Zwingli had placed himself in a difficult position would be an understatement. The reformer, seated at the head of a long table, was made to justify his doctrines before his hopeful supporters, bitter opponents, and neutral parties. That being said, Zwingli tapped into his unparalleled oratory skills, and he was supposedly so persuasive that he effectively silenced his rivals, one of them being Faber. A recess was called, and when the conference attendees reconvened, the council relented and presented to him his victory with the following statement: “Master Zwingli shall continue to proclaim the Holy Gospel as hitherto, according to the spirit of God. Furthermore, all priests, curates, and preachers in cities, cantons arid dependencies, shall undertake and preach nothing but what can be proved by the Holy Gospel and the Scriptures. Furthermore, clerics shall not in [the] future, slander, insult, or call each other heretics.”
In September, Juda, under Zwingli's orders, ordered his subordinates to round up all the paintings and statues of saints and martyrs in the churches under his charge. A few other churches in the parish followed suit in the months that followed, cleansing the churches of all relics, instruments, and other unsanctioned objects previously used for veneration.
The reformers' fervid execution of their plans, as well as their triumph at the first disputation, infuriated conservative Catholics across all cantons. In Lucerne, for instance, locals hoisted an effigy fashioned in Zwingli's likeness onto the gallows, tightened the noose around its neck, and hanged the effigy for heresy. Moreover, visiting Zurich natives accused of supporting Zwingli's cause were viciously beaten by an angry mob, many beyond recognition. When Zwingli's supporters reported to him the mayhem unfolding in Lucerne, the reformer lamented his dismay, but he urged his disciples to stay strong. He reminded them, “Christ would never desert His true followers.”
The growing unrest in these cities prompted authorities to take action, and a second disputation was scheduled for the October 26, 1523, this time to thrash out the subjects of icon and saintly worship. The conference organizers sent invitations to the bishops of Basel, Constance, and Coire, and it requested envoys from a dozen other cantons, as well as the University of Basel. Unfortunately, all three bishops sent their regrets, and of all the cantons invited, only two, St. Gall and Schaffhausen, agreed to send delegates on their behalf. Like the first disputation, the Town Hall was selected as the setting of the second conference. The discussions, the attendees concurred, would be held in German.
Once again, Zwingli succeeded in convincing the council of the validity of his doctrines, which caused his zeal to grow. Not long after the second disputation, one of Zwingli's most trusted confidantes, Commander Schmid of Kusnacht, expressed to his mentor his concerns regarding the pace of his reforms. No one is accustomed to such drastic change, Schmid argued, and in doing so, the reformer risked alienating even his own supporters. Zwingli thanked the commander for his input, but he had no intention of slowing down.
By Easter 1524, the purge on unholy icons had been enacted across Zurich, and by 1525, pilgrimages and the sale of indulgences were abolished, as were the sacraments of penance and extreme unction (the anointing of the sick). Zwingli's disciples in other cantons also joined in on the eradication of all saintly relics, as well as organs and choirs in their local churches, completely disregarding the artistic and historical values of those artifacts. Chalices, ostensoriums, and other sacrilegious ware were melted down in large vats and turned into coins. The city government also confiscated various Catholic properties, predominantly monasteries and nunneries, including the centuries-old Fraumünster Abbey in Zurich.
In 1525, Zwingli replaced traditional Catholic Masses with silent quarterly communion services. Months later, he requested and was granted permission to found the Prophezei, also known as the “Zwingli Lection,” at the Grossmünster, a Latin-based school that aimed to rehabilitate and retrain the parish's priests. This reeducation center opened its doors for the first time on the 19th of June that year; Zwingli and Juda appointed themselves lecturers.
Meanwhile, Zwingli amended his translation of the Bible, after completing it he sent the finalized copy to Christoph Froschauer, the local printer at the center of the Affair of the Sausages, for distribution. The reformer has also been credited with drafting a beneficent statute that converted the funds and assets seized from local monasteries into a charitable treasury dedicated to the destitute.
The most impactful of all his social innovations in 1525 was the establishment of the Marriage Court, which essentially transferred control of all disciplinary matters, especially pertaining to morality, as well as the right of excommunication, to Zurich's magistrates and its local priests. The Roman Catholics in the city, on the other hand, were somewhat reduced to second-class citizens, robbed of their place in civic councils and deprived of the freedom to practice their age-old traditions.
The following passage, from an article entitled “Zwingli and the Swiss Reformation” in the Online Library of Liberty, explains the significance of the Marriage Court: “The powers of the court were later greatly extended, and this instution may in fact be considered the foundation of the theocratic community in Zurich. The dissolution of religious establishments and the appropriation of tithes and other ecclesiastical financial resources by the city enabled Zurich to create one of the most effective bodies of Poor Law of the 16th century. The complex association of ecclesiastical reform movements with social welfare in the 16th century is considerably illuminated by the Zurich Poor Law and its influence.”
It was at this point that Zwingli resigned from his post as the People's Priest of Zurich. From that point forward, he began to receive an annual salary from the city itself.
As it turns out, not all who opposed Zwingli were from the Catholic faction. He also entered into conflict with with another alternative, then-fledgling cult known as the Anabaptists, or “Rebaptizers.” To Zwingli, the Anabaptists were Christian radicals who promoted dangerous ideas that served to only widen the rift within the Church. Zwingli could not and would not reconcile with the Anabaptist belief that only adult Christians who had fully confessed were eligible for the sacrament. The Anabaptists had no concerns about the truth in Scripture, Zwingli insisted, and were therefore not equipped to be propagating such heretical statements. What they wanted was a chaotic revolution.
Zwingli made multiple attempts to reason with the Anabaptists, but his pleas fell on deaf ears, and when the city of Zurich authorized a law mandating the baptism of all infants, enraged Anabaptists took to the streets in protest. They marched through Zurich with buckets of river water in hand, dousing one another amidst their chants, a symbolic demonstration of their objections. They also cried out against the city's jurisdiction over religious affairs, demanding the separation of church and state. Incensed by the protesters' impudence, city officials swooped in and arrested dozens of the Anabaptists, charging them with heresy. A select few of the arrested were executed, in what the city deemed poetic justice, by drowning. Whether Zwingli was responsible for these executions is unknown, but the reformer certainly did nothing to prevent the deaths.
Needless to say, by making himself the head of the Swiss Reformation, Zwingli had put a glaring target on his back, and throughout the latter part of his career, he suffered multiple close calls at the hands of his most extreme opponents. Among his most powerful rivals were the die fünf Orte, or the Five States, which consisted of the Lucerne, Schwyz, Uri, Unterwalden, and Zug cantons. Between late 1525 and early 1526, the Five States worked to assemble a robust committee comprised of Zwingli's opponents and anti-Protestant activists, including Johann von Eck, a Catholic prelate who challenged Martin Luther in the Leipzig Disputation just six years prior. Von Eck, who was selected to head yet another disputation against Zwingli, readily accepted the summons. Nevertheless, both parties involved were unable to reach a consensus when it came to the particulars of the disputation in question, most specifically the setting and the selection of the Swiss Diet to preside over the court. Sensing an unjust trial ahead, Zwingli opted to sit out the disputation.
Von Eck
The third disputation proceeded in the absence of Zwingli in Baden on May 19, 1526. The representatives of the five cantons, with von Eck taking the lead, faced off against Zwingli's party, headed by Johannes Oecolampadius, a priest, humanist, patristic scholar, and Württemberg native. Zwingli's underlings dutifully kept the reformer posted on the progress of the debates, and he subsequently published a string of pamphlets in response from the comfort of his pastoral office, but to no avail. Absent from what was, in retrospect, the most consequential of all the disputations raised against him, the Diet sided with Zwingli's opponents.
From that point forward, the Diet declared that the distribution of Zwingli-centric propaganda was expressly forbidden. The grim verdict gave proof to the swelling opposition against Zwingli and the reformers. Of the 13 states, Solothurn, Fribourg, Glarus, Appenzell, and the die fünf Orte voted against the reformer, and only Zurich, Berne, Basel, and Schffhausen remained in his camp.
The Five States buttressed their camp two months later, on April 22, when they partnered with Holy Roman Emperor Ferdinand I, forming the Christliche Vereinigung, or the “Christian Alliance.” Tensions only continued to escalate, and a few weeks after the newfound alliance was publicized, Father Jacob Kaiser, one of Zwingli's most ardent devotees, was arrested in Uznach, tried, and burnt at the stake in Schwyz.
Holy Roman Emperor Ferdinand I
Zwingli was positively enraged when he learned of the wrongful execution of Kaiser. He made a beeline for his chambers, rolled up his sleeves, and composed Ratschlag über den Krieg (“Advice About the War”). The reformers could no longer afford to rest on their laurels, wrote Zwingli. It was time to wage war against the Catholic states.
The Zurich government was understandably hesitant to approve such a bold and irreversible move, but they ultimately backed the reformer, and war was declared. Much to Zwingli's delight, city officials in Zurich managed to marshal about 30,000 soldiers, whereas the Five States, which had been unceremoniously dumped by Austria, could only scrounge together about 9,000 men. The first batches of soldiers from the rival parties marched towards Kappel on June 8, 1529. Mercifully, nothing came of this battle, for one of Zwingli's relatives, Hans Aebli, gallantly stepped into the foray and diplomatically secured a truce. As it turned out, the peace would be short-lived.
An 1869 painting of the forces meeting at Kappel
Four months later, Zwingli and Martin Luther confronted one another at the Marburg Colloquy. This conference, organized by Philip I, Landgrave of Hesse, an advocate of the overall Protestant cause, was held between October 1-4 at the Marburg Castle in Hesse. It was Philip's hope that these two factions – the Swiss and German reformers – would merge into one, thereby forming a united front against their mutual enemy, the Roman Catholics.
Philip I
The reformers saw eye to eye on all of the Marburg Articles but one, which revolved around the significance of the Holy Eucharist. On the one hand, Luther, a proponent of transubstantiation, claimed that Christ was present in the wafers and wine distributed to the congregation during Mass. On the other, Zwingli classified the Eucharist as purely symbolic and described the sacrament as a mere celebration of Christ's sacrifice for mankind. They squabbled over the definition of the phrase “hoc est corpus meum,” divided by its translation.
“There is no ambiguity in this phrase,” said Luther. “It means 'this is my body,' plain and simple.”
“Nay,” scoffed Zwingli. “You are mistaken. A more accurate translation is this: 'this signifies my body.'”
In Theology of the Reformers, Timothy George vividly described how Luther and Zwingli argued with each other repeatedly over this issue: "Luther claimed that the body of Christ was not eaten in a gross, material way but rather in some mysterious way, which is beyond human understanding. Yet, Zwingli replied, if the words were taken in their literal sense, the body had to be eaten in the most grossly material way. ‘For this is the meaning they carry: this bread is that body of mine which is given for you. It was given for us in grossly material form, subject to wounds, blows and death. As such, therefore, it must be the material of the supper.’ Indeed, to press the literal meaning of the text even farther, it follows that Christ would have again to suffer pain, as his body was broken again—this time by the teeth of communicants. Even more absurdly, Christ’s body would have to be swallowed, digested, even eliminated through the bowels! Such thoughts were repulsive to Zwingli. They smacked of cannibalism on the one hand and of the pagan mystery religions on the other. The main issue for Zwingli, however, was not the irrationality or exegetical fallacy of Luther’s views. It was rather that Luther put ‘the chief point of salvation in physically eating the body of Christ,’ for he connected it with the forgiveness of sins. The same motive that had moved Zwingli so strongly to oppose images, the invocation of saints, and baptismal regeneration was present also in the struggle over the Supper: the fear of idolatry. Salvation was by Christ alone, through faith alone, not through faith and bread. The object of faith was that which is not seen (Heb 11:1) and which therefore cannot be eaten except, again, in a nonliteral, figurative sense. ‘Credere est edere,’ said Zwingli: ‘To believe is to eat.’ To eat the body and to drink the blood of Christ in the Supper, then, simply meant to have the body and blood of Christ present in the mind."
This back-and-forth was enough to sour relations between the reformers, so much so that Luther reportedly declined to shake hands with Zwingli at the meeting's end. Luther allegedly made the following snarky remark about Zwingli and his devotees: “I suppose God has blinded them.” The German reformer also took a lowly jab at the accent of his Swiss counterpart, saying, “It is almost impossible to understand the patter dribbling out of [Zwingli's] mouth. It was a shaggy, tangled German, which makes you sweat before you understand it.”
Luther
A 16th century engraving of the Marburg Colloquy
There was no satisfactory conclusion to this colloquy. Both parties parted ways, mistakenly believing that their side had triumphed. In actuality, what they achieved was little more than an impasse, and they continued to promote two different schools of Protestant thought.
Following the anticlimactic culmination of the Marburg Colloquy, as well as the deepening divide within the confederacy, the enterprising Zwingli appealed to Landgrave Philip for an alliance. The reformer also made attempts to align with a senior diplomatic representative from France, but abandoned his efforts when it became clear that neither party would budge on their stance.
Keen on the resolving the differences between the Protestants, Holy Roman Emperor Charles V arranged another colloquy at the Augsburg Diet to allow the various sectors to present their cases. The Lutheran camp summarized their arguments in what is now referred to as the Augsburg or Augustan Confession. Zwingli and his supporters composed the Fidei ratio, or “Account of Faith,” an “anti-Lutheran” document consisting of 12 articles with a basis on the Apostle's Creed. A third party, overseen by Martin Bucer and representative of the cities of Constance, Memmingen, Lindau, and Strasbourg, brought forth the Tetrapolitan Confession, which, ideologically speaking, placed itself between the camps of Luther and Zwingli.
Towards the end of 1530, Philip established a military alliance dubbed the “Schmalkaldic League” and extended invitations to the various Protestant territories within the Holy Roman Empire. Lutheran territories, along with all four cities associated with the Tetrapolitan Confession, joined the roster, leaving Basel, Berne, Zurich, and the other Zwinglian territories in limbo. Officials in the latter three cities were intrigued by the notion of banding together and collectively defending the Protestant movement as a unit, but Zwingli, who was vehemently opposed to the ideals held by the Lutherans and the Tetrapolitan Confessors, balked at the proposition. Once again, he stood his ground, and he defiantly wrote a letter of reproach to Bucer. As it turned out, Zwingli's refusal to play ball would cost him, as Philip withdrew his support of Zwingli shortly thereafter.
The vague terms and indefinite stipulations of the First Kappel War armistice left the document wide open to interpretation. The treaty did not specify the brand of unconventional preaching that was prohibited in Catholic territories. As such, the resourceful Zwingli exploited this loophole and continued to encourage his supporters to spread his doctrine in these territories, but the cantons of the fünf Orte actively resisted his efforts. Exasperated, the Zwinglian cities convened and mulled over their options. Zurich wanted to do battle, but the cities of Basel and Schaffhausen pleaded for a more peaceful approach. In the end, both Zwingli and Juda sided with Zurich and called for war to be waged against the Five States.
In May 1531, the cities of Zurich and Berne, described by chroniclers as “the two oxen that pulled the [Reform] wagon,” initiated food blockades against the Catholic cantons, but to the frustration of the Zwinglian cities, the siege failed to bear the results they had desired. Five months later, Berne conceded defeat and lifted the blockade. Zwingli and the city leaders of Zurich rebuked Berne for the unauthorized acquiescence and accused its people of cowardice, which only led to more gratuitous infighting.
Taking note of the latent disintegration of the Zwinglian states, the fünf Orte pounced on the opportunity to make a move, and that came with a declaration of war on Zurich in early October 1531. Zurich was caught off guard, and its people scrambled to set in place an army at once, but they could only muster together no more than 3,500, poorly-trained and ill-equipped soldiers. Due to the lack of notice, weapons and shields were thrust upon dozens of pastors, including none other than Zwingli himself. Zwingli planted a kiss on his wife's cheek and bade his children farewell in the early hours of October 11, the day of the battle.
It soon became apparent that Zurich's 3,500 soldiers were no match for the 9,000 soldiers deployed by the Five States. The bloody altercation, now remembered as the Second War of Kappel, lasted about an hour, and no less than 500 Zurich soldiers and pastors died in the fray. Zwingli's mangled body was discovered hours later, with his unrecognizable, mangled torso hacked in four pieces and caked with excrement. He was 47.
Surviving soldiers, who delivered the sad tidings to Zwingli's devastated family and congregation, provided them with one source of comfort. According to them, the reformer's last words were, “They can kill the body, but they can never kill the soul!”
An engraving of the battle
"The murder of Zwingli" by Karl Jauslin
Lutz Fischer-Lamprecht’s picture of a Zwingli memorial at Kappel
Zwingli legacy has since been overshadowed Martin Luther, John Calvin, and other leaders of the Protestant Reformation, but his unequaled tenacity and timeless pearls of wisdom have undoubtedly stood the test of time. Indeed, some of Zwingli’s words remain hauntingly relevant to this day: “And if one should inquire, 'how are we to deliver ourselves from these evils, and return again to union?' I answer, 'By abstaining from selfishness. For if this base passion did not reign among us, the confederation were a union of brothers, rather than a mere league.'...Do earnestly that which lies in your power. Where you find it punishable, punish it, and let it not grow. And that it may be rooted out of the very hearts of men, give heed that the divine word be faithfully preached. For when God is not in the heart, there is nothing but the man himself, and he cares for nothing but that which serves his interests, pleasures, and lusts. But when God possesses the heart, then man has regard to that which pleases God, seeks the honor of God, and [thus] the welfare of his fellow men...”