Reply to Emser

REPLY TO EMSER

Introduction by

GEORGE WARREN RICHARDS

N 1 523 Zwingli published a Latin tract entitled , D e Can on e

"An Essay on the Canon of the Mass .

M isses Huldrychi Z ui ng ln Epi chi resis ,

" He speaks of it as "my confutation Of the Canon Of the Mass .

He wrote it in four days (August 25 though not without careful study and serious thought on the subject "for several years

" before he began to write . * Emser was sufﬁciently provoked by it to publish an answer with the title :

Can onis M isses con tra Huldri cum Z ui ng li um D efensi o "Defense of the Canon of the Mass against Huldreich

Zwingli .

The author , contrary to custom , did not send a copy

of this tract to Zwingli , who accordingly chides him for attack " and without giving him ing him treacherously "from the rear "

"Y ou did not, as a Christian especially ought , give any warning ; you sent no herald with a demand for satis

"any warning . faction ; and you attacked suddenly , n ot in front but from the rear , one who suspected no such thing .

" s D efense through his friend George V adi an , Zwingli heard of Emser '

"a man Of marked piety and culture , who had attended the Leipsic fair .

Vadian was not a little amazed to ﬁnd in Saxony a pamphlet written against a 'r a merchant and

prominent Swiss citizen .

He procured a copyI of it and sent it to Zwingli , wh o informs Emser that for " b e "four months -seven Conclu si ons , Zwing li a nnounces hi s i ntenti on to wri te before long on the "In th e expla nati on of the twenti eth of the S i x ty "Ca non .

Egli -Fi nsler, II , 2 13 .

TA nephew of Joachim v on Watt (Vadi an ) , the Reformer , of St . Gall .

IA copy of thi s tract i s preserved i n th e Univers ity of Bas el .

v v m 1.) q 'V W t .L L L V F W L V V A U M V r i "

Swiss was as follows

Swi tzer, th ou art a tyrant, an enemy of our fai th and God, Good -for -noth i ng ; nursest thyself wi th milk , milkest l azily th e cow.

Hereafter the g ods can no more tolerate the spoil s taken by force, S on of th e Woods , wh ich thou l ovest after th e manner of r obbers .

The time i s comi ng , when thou, who hopest for g olden booty, Wilt ﬂee, when th e Gallic pri nce wi ll s end hi s sha rp weapons .

This raillery of students leaked out and the pe0p1e of Basel felt insulted by the words of the Swabian Emser . He was arrested , imprisoned, and brought before the tribunal for trial , where he proved , to the satisfaction of the court and of the people , that the matter charged against him was a mere student jest . But the Council , inclined to be hostile toward Swabia , turned him out of the city, in spite of the friendly interposition of the Bishop , Christoph von Utenh eim . Since Zwingli matriculated for the summer semester of 1 502 at Basel and Emser was tried

's mis fortune through personal Observation . on May 25 Of that year , he must have known Of Emser

Emser served for two years as private secretary and chap lain to the Cardinal Legate Raymund Feraudi , which implies that about this time he was ordained to the priesthood . After he left the service of the Cardinal , he lectured as a Master Of the Liberal Arts at Erfurt, 1 504 . One of his hearers was Martin

Luther, wh o was preparing for his examination for the Master 's degree . A few months later, at the beginning of the winter semester, Emser turned up in the University of Leipsic, where he won the degree Of Bachelor of Theology .

But, contrary to expectations, he did n ot become a teacher of theology . He was chosen Secretary of Duke George of Saxony, whose court was at Dresden . His " were over .

Beside the routine work of hi s Oﬂi ce, he was a proliﬁc writer of prose and poetry, and appears to have been a restless ,

"Wanderjahre

ever-active , controversial Spirit with more than ordinary ability .

One of the ﬁrst products of his pen was a Latin dialogue on The Custom of Dri n ki ng Toasts . A more pretentious work was his Life of Bishop B enn o : in Latin , 1 51 2 ; in German , 1 517.

He read widely in the Latin classics , had knowledge of the Greek, wrote Latin poetry that called forth favorable comment from Erasmus .

Luther called him a versifex " and "a wild

I nt roducti o n poet .

He was acquainted with the sources Of mediaeval history and read the new editions of the Church Fathers , among them

' Jerom e, and Faber Stapu s Athan asi us , Erasmus '

Reuchli n ' Di onysius the Areopag i te.

When Luther turned Protes tant and independent refor mer, Emser took up the cudgels against him .

He Opened the controversy (which continued unti l 1 527, when Luther ceased l ensis Emse r a nd Lu ther to take further notice Of his foe) with a letter, dated August

1 3 , 1 51 9 , to the Vicar of the Archbishop of Prague .

In this epistle he did not condemn Luther outright, but spoke of him as " and yet "a restless head , entangled in many contradictions ,

"not so obstinate as n ot to yi eld to reason .

The letter was brought to Luther 's attention , who wrote in reply a tract with the title :

Z usatz bem erlcung en L u th ers z u "Added Observations to the Emseri c Wild Goat . dem Emserchen S tei n book, " Not to be outdone , Emser wrote a pamphlet with the superscription :

An den S ti er z u Wi tten berg , "To the Bull at Wittenberg .

It does not come within the scope of this introduction to describe in detail the blasts and counter

-blasts of these two men from 1 521 to 1 527.

The reader will ﬁnd a thorough discussion of the controversy between them in Hi er onymus Emser .

Ei n L ebens bi ld aus der R eformati on sg e schi chte, by Gustav Kawerau .

S uﬂi ce it to say that when Luther published his Form u la M isses et Commu ni onis Emser issued his "Defense of the Mass Of Christians against Luther 's Formula Of the Mas s .

In this tract the questions were discussed that were raised also by Zwingli

's Epi chz resis, which Emser answered with his D efensw .

Through his frequent combats with Luther, Emser sharpened his weapons and became skilled in their use to meet the Swiss Reformer . *

Let us brieﬂy consider Zwingli 's Essay on the Can on of the M ass, to which Emser wrote a rejoinder, and which ,

Zwi ngli ' s "E ssay on th e Can on "Reply to Emser .

" accordingly, prepared the way for the The service of the Mass in the R oman Catholic Church consists of the Offertory, the Preface, and the Canon .

"All this , of th e "

M a ss "In th e di scu s sion of the M as s i n hi s Defensi o, Emser refers Zwingli to hi s Vi ndica ti on , wri tten ag ainst Luther, 1524 .

The Wo rks Of Huld reich Zwing li

from Offertory to Communion , forms the Sacriﬁce , so called .

In the form for the Mass of today there is an "introductory service which equals in length the Sacriﬁce properly so called .

"of chants , prayers , and lee sons or readings from Holy Scripture— the Introit, Kyri e

Eleison , Collect, Epistle or Lesson , and the Gospel . On certain days the Gloria in Excelsis and the Nicene Creed are

The ﬁrst part is known as the Mass of the Catechumens ; the second part is called the Mass Of the Faithful . Zwingli in his

Epi chi resis conﬁned himself to a critical examination and a This preparatory service consists

confutation of the third part of the Mass of the Faithful , namely, the Canon .

In the Preface ( August 29, which is addressed to Diebold of Geroldseck, warden of the chapter at Ei nsi edlen and friend and patron of Zwingli , the author informs the reader that in this tract he h as cast his customary caution to the wind , and that henceforth he will openly and boldly attack the citadel of the m ediwval faith and worship , i . e. , the Sacriﬁce of the Mass .

The time h as come when it will not do to be con cerned about giving offence , but much more to have considera tion for those who have accepted Christ

's doctrine but are in danger of lapsing again into error , if they do not see those things refuted that are contrary to Christ .

" At this time, also , Leo Jude, Zwingli 's colleague , introduced a baptismal service in the German language , to which he added prayers in German .

This was the beginning Of the Zurich liturgy .

Notwithstanding his declaration of open warfare, indica tions are n ot wanting that Zwingli at this stage was still ready to make concessions in reference to ecclesiastical ceremonies , provided that, at this price , his hope of a reform of the whole Church might be realized .

He was willing to tolerate such things as the Sign of the cross in praying , the vestments of the priest in the celebration of the Mass , as far as they symbolize the passion of Christ, and choir Singing .

For the sake of the weaker brethren he would yield at least part use of the Latin language in the service ; the Scriptures , however, were to be read in the German .

"He who compromises at this point com ' editi on, General I ntroduction, "Gabrol, The R oman M i ssal i n La tin a nd Eng li s h, S tudents " p . i i i .

The Wo rks of H uld reich Zwing li

Prayer of ablati on for the Church :

"Wherefore, 0 most merciful Father, we humbly pray and beseech thee that thou wouldst vouchsafe to receive and bless these gifts , these offerings, this holy and unblemished sacriﬁce which in the ﬁrst place we Offer thee for thy holy Catholic Church , etc .

P rayer of consecrati on an d the elevati on :

"Which obla tion do thou , O God, vouchsafe in all things to bless , sanction , approve , ratify, and make acceptable : that it may become for us the body and blood of thy most beloved Son , our Lord Jesus Christ .

Th e prayer after on e of the porti ons of the H ost is put i n to th e chali ce :

"May this mingling and hallowing of the body and blood of our Lord Jesus Christ avail us that receive it unto life Zwingli writes with reserve on the belief in the corporal presence of Christ . He does n ot " the prayer "reject as g od -less "That it [the oblation] may become for us the body and blood of thy most beloved Son , but he interprets it in his own way .

He concedes that of consecration , namely, "the bread and wine become the body and blood of Christ to those wh o partake of them in faith , in which way alone this Should be done .

He adds, also, that Paul 's account of the Supper clearly proves that the whole celebration is nothing more than a

remembrance of the suffering Of the Lord . 1 t The Canon , as a whole, he declares to be

"full of God-less ness .

He says :

"One hopes to ﬁnd in it incitation to god

-li ness but ﬁnds instead a dragon .

It contains as much god -less ness as prayers .

II s D efen se of the Can on of the M ass contains an introduction and ﬁve sections headed as follows :

The Church ; Intercession of Saints ; Merit ; The Mass ; Purga tory .

He gives his reason for selecting these ﬁve subjects for discussion in the following words :

The R eply to Emser '

"I Shall treat these points , "The Engl i sh t ranslati on of these passages i s taken from The Roman

M i ssa l of Gabrol , pp . l i i i , l v, l i x.

Ts es Rudolf Staehel i n , H u ld reich Zwi ng li .

S ei n L eben a nd Wi r ken ,

I , 308-3 15 .

I nt roducti on which you have passed by , that it may be manifest to all who have the slightest acquaintance with Holy Writ that you skipped them on purpose , either because you could n ot com prehend them or because you despaired of rebutting them .

Each of these sections, excepting the section on the Mass , was copied by Zwingli into his larger work , Tru e and False R elig i on , which is published in this volume .

The autograph copy of this tract is a pamphlet of forty unnumbered pages and is preserved in the city library of Zurich . The author

's numer ous corrections , of more or less consequence , in the manuscript show the care with which he prepared the text .

In the Introduction Zwingli disposes of Emser himself before he replies to the contents of his D efense. He rebukes his

opponent by telling him that he will not stoop to the use of the scurrilous language and venomous phrases so viciously hurled

"If I should reply to you in like manner , I cer at himself . tai nly should expect nothing but that the pious would stop their ears , and that we both , like mad dogs, would be driven off the " Yet Zwingli proves conclusively that he is not an amateur in controversy, and that he knows how to cut with a Damascus blade as well as to strike with a stage with b oots and hisses .

-hammer . He can dip his pen into gall and write words that sear and blister .

His vocabulary is rich in terms of scorn , sarcasm , irony, and satire . To quote for illustration but a single sledge "Wh y, "speak of the obstinacy , stupidity, ignorance , malicious di ssimul ation , care

" sentence at random : asks the author, ~ lessness, fury, impiousness , and quarrelsomeness , to say nothing

" One could n ot well say more things adversely about a man 1 11 fewer words and shorter space .

The reader will ﬁnd similar sentences bristling in the Introduction . of deceit , distortions, and such like artiﬁces ?

He begs Emser, whenever he ﬁnds Zwingli in error, n ot to indulge in vain exclamations , such as "0 Heaven , 0 Earth , 0 Horror !

" but "to have recourse to the armory of Holy Writ .

The Word of God al one is for him the test of truth . He allows no room for the opinions of the Fathers, however ancient they may be, nor for the reasonings of men at present, however wise they may be : these have value only when they are in agree ment with the Word of God . Only once in this tract does he

appeal to tradition , when , in opposition to Emser s conception '

's book , On Free Wi ll "Read Augustine of merit, he says : and Grace.

He concludes the Introduction wi th a petition :

"God grant that wherever I am in error I may be taught better ; and God grant that you may know what is error and what is truth .

Amen l "

The author distingui shes between the visible universal church (multitudo Ch risti an orum) which is

"n ot the spouse of Christ " and is n ot "mentioned in the Creed and the holy church that is without spot or wrinkle and is unknown to men .

" The former i s composed of all persons who outwardly profess faith in Christ, some sincerely and others deceitfully .

Both the Old and the New Testaments recognize it . The Greek term " is the equivalent of the Hebrew "kahal and "ecclesia

" and "is used not only for the pious, holy, and faithful , but also for the impious, wicked , and unfaithful , provided only they were of the seed of Abraham according to the flesh and were intermingled wi th the pious .

"edah , "

In the New Testament, also, the word ecclesia is used for all those wh o have named the name of Christ and who walk and live within the company

of the Christians, even though in reality they were n ot faith ful .

This church is n ot undeﬁl ed "

° it has "

"many blemishes .

"the holy church , is the church The latter, that is, "for which Christ gave Himself, to the end that He might sanctify it to Himself " The members "

"without any spot or wrinkles .

; it is "those who believe that Christ so loved us that He gave Himself up for our sanctiﬁcati on . of it are " It is spotless because "Christ has washed it with His blood "

° it is "the communion of saints which we confess in the creed .

The true church

"is not some few pontiffs, holy, spotless, pious, though they be , but all who ﬁrmly believe themselves redeemed by the blood of Christ .

"such a church can no more exist than does Plato Someone may object that 's Republic, because no on e lives without fault, because all have sinned .

" His answer to this argument is that the holiness and purity of the church are not in i ts members , but in "Christ, Who gave Himself up for it that He might sanctify it, " and this we can know only through faith .

This church "cannot err .

" But it has not the infallibility "which the

Th e Wo rks of H uld reich Zwi ng li

shepherd and of doctrine .

In support of this position he quotes a favorite text of the Anabaptists , who, also, in their way insisted upon the prerogatives of the assembly of believers , namely :

"And let the prophets speak by two or three, and let the others discern " ( I Cor . 1 4 :

Clearly, in the Corinthian congregation , "the people sitting on the benches were permitted to speak in ' the church concerning the word which the Spirit had revealed .

This privilege the members of the congregation could rightfully exercise, not because they were formally counted as believers , but because they had the Spirit of Christ .

To us e his own words :

"However, the faithful judges not by his own judgment, but by that of the Divine Spirit .

Or, in Scripture phrase , "only the spiritual judges all things ( I Cor .

2 :

The objection raised against his idea of the right of a congregation , that

"in this way the church , or any church at all, is made the judge of the word , " Zwingli meets thus :

"Only he who hears the Scripture of the celestial word explained in the church judges that which he hears .

He is careful to deﬁne the true b earer -of the word .

Not everyone that hears the word with the ear comprehends it in the heart .

"We observe that many both hear and see, yet have not faith .

We become

"faithful only by that word which the Heavenly Father proclaims in our hearts .

Those wh o are thus illumined by the divine word judge the word that i s preached and taught in the congregation .

The neglect of this original prerogative of the believers gave rise to many serious errors in the church at large .

"If this custom had never died out, so many errors would not have been introduced into the church of Christ , for there are always persons wh o through the Heavenly Spirit detect deceit ful pretence on the part of on e who is teaching , and where this is once exposed the word is freed from violent distortion .

The church is usually puriﬁed from abuses in doctrine and life not through the common sense of the members, but through the common possession of the spirit of truth by the members .

Zwingli had conﬁdence in the Christian people to correct errors even of theologians and ofﬁcers .

The expert and ﬁnal arbiter of Christian truth is the common man who has the spirit of Christ .

I nt roducti on Neither Zwingli nor Luther at this stage of reform ( 1 523-1 524) was disturbed by the thought that the Spirit might bear diverse testimonies in the believers .

It was assumed that His witness was the same in all the faithful .

"Wherever the Heavenly Spirit is , there everybody knows is zeal for unity and peace ( cf . Gal .

5 :

Confusion in the church is prevented by the presence of God in the midst ; and therefore

" all who are faithful strive for unity and peace .

Zwingli, however, was disillusioned as to the unity of the Spirit 's testimony in the believers and His guidance of the faithful to commonly accepted interpretations of the Scriptures , when the Anabaptists arose and disputed his own and Luther

's doctrines .

They, too , claimed to have the Spirit of God , and yet their teachings at many points were in di rect conﬂict with those of the more moderate Reformers in Zurich and Witten berg .

It became evident in the light of later controversy that more deﬁnite tests and guarantees of truth had to be established .

's theory of the right of the congregation there was involved still another problem , one which he did not consider and which probably he did not think of when he wrote the R eply to Ems er .

It was the relation of the local congregation In Zwingli 'to the whole multitude of Christians ( universa m ultitudo Christi an orum) .

This question became all the more urgent when the Anabaptists actually established separate conventicles of believers which submitted neither to the authority of the Catholic Church n or to that of the Protestant state churches .

The argument against the necessity of the intercession

of saints is based upon the character of God and is summarized in eight paragraphs .

The major premise i s that "God is good .

From Him , therefore , all good is to be derived .

The faithful depend upon "the One and Only Good, cling to Him alone, resort to Him alone .

The unfaithful , on the contrary, turn from the Creator to creatures , depend upon them and hope for aid from them .

" The faithful do not even "name any father except the Almighty Father .

In the Old Testament we are assured that "we may ﬂee without hesitation to Him for safetv .

The New Testament

"a solid conﬁrmation of God 's grace .

Christ descended is

The Wo rks of H uldreich Zwing li

from heaven to reveal unto us that there is free access to God .

The classic passage against the need of intercessors other than Christ is found in I Ti mothy 2 : 5 :

"There is one medi ator between God and men , the man Christ Jesus .

The author asks :

"If you dig nity any other by that name, do you n ot cast contumely upon God ?

If, accordi ng to popular belief, there are mediating angels and saints, then Christ died in vain .

If God spared not his own Son , will he not freely give us all things ?

In view of the clear teaching of the Scriptures , "there is no reason for lack of faith to make for itself this excuse :

'Of course I know that all my hope rests in God ; but yet I have need of advocates to commend me to the Most High

Such speech does n ot proceed from faith but from lack of it, and has n o warrant in the Word of God .

Nothing could be "plainer" and more authoritative than the words of Jesus No on e cometh unto the Father but by me

" ( John 1 4 :

The

" in favor of inter cession of saints "are either frivolous or have been twisted out "arguments commonly adduced of shape by the audacity of carnal wisdom .

Such frivolous vociferations as Emser presents when he says , "East and West testify that the saints intercede for me ,

" and, "There is no nation under heaven that does not credit i ts safe condition in great measure to the prayers of th e saints , next after God ,

" have n o weight before the clear testimony of the Word of God .

When he asserts that "many have experienced the aid of St .

Nicholas in storms at sea, therefore Nicholas should be invoked as a son of Jupiter and a tutelary God, " he does not see that, if he were logical , he ought also to invoke

"Castor and Pollux as Jupiter 's helping gods, who have saved many more from shipwreck than has any Nicholas .

For further light on this subject he refers Emser to his Con clusi ons and his Confutati on of the Can on .

The sections on Merit and Purgatory were transferred verbatim into the Tru e and False Religi on .

An analysis and digest of them is made in the Introduction to that work .

See pp .

33 , 34-35 .

In his discussion of the Mass in the Defense against Zwingli

's Epi chi resis, Emser directs Zwingli to his Vi ndi cati on

The Wo rks of Huld reich Zwing li

afﬁrmation that the Eucharist is spiritual food, by which those wh o believe that Christ

's death i s for them a means of life cement, join , unite, themselves together into the one body of Christ " ( I Cor .

In his concluding paragraph Zwingli bids adieu to Emser in words that are far from complimentary, and exhorts him

"Transfer

your attention from matters of divinity to medicine , that you may at least cure your gout .

He offers this advice on the ground that Emser "is naturally less ﬁtted for sacred letters than for anything else .

"Farewell , and may God grant you a good mind .

Lancaster, Pa .

February 1 7 1 929 .

LITERATURE

ZWINGLI, ULRICH .

S amtbich e Werke, ed . Eg li and Fi nsl er (Leipzig ) .

1 .

"De Canone M i s sse Epi chi resi s, i n vol . 2 pp . 6 1 7-625 .

" i n vol . 22 , pp . 620

2 .

"De Canone M i ssae Apologi a , -625 .

" i n vol . 2 , pp . 1 -457.

3 .

"Ausl egen und Grunde der Schlus sreden , " i n v ol . 3, pp . 24 1 -287 .

4 .

"Adversus Hi eronymum Emserum Antibolon, " i n vol . 8, pp . 84 -89 .

ZWINGLI, ULRICH .

5 .

"Zwi ngli an Thoma s Wyttenba ch , "Di e 6 7Artikel Zwi ng l i s , Ul rich Zwi ng li, Ein e Au swa hl

(m s sei nen S chriften, ed .

Fi nal er, K6hler, and Rii egg ( Zii rich , pp .

135 -142 . A

tra nsl ati on i nto modern Germa n by Arnold Ril egg .

' A.

M cLouth i n S amuel M acauley Jackson, S elected Works of Hu ld reich Zwi ng li (Philadelphia , pp .

1 1 1 -1 17 .

Eng li sh transl ati on by Lawrence

STE HELIN,

RUDOLF.

"Zwi ngl i s Schriften ii ber den M as ska non, Hu ldrei ch Zwi ng li .

S ci/n Leben a nd Wi r ken, vol .

(Ba sel , pp . 309 -3 14 .

JACKS ON, SAMUEL M ACAULEY .

Hu ldrei ch Zwi ng li , the R eformer of Germa n

S wi tzerla nd .

New York, 1901 .

KAW ERAU, GUS TAV.

Hi eronymu s Ems er .

Ei n Lebensbi ld a u s der Refor ma ti ong eschi ch te.

Hall e, 1898.

CAB RO L , FERNAND, tr . The R oma n M i ssa l i n L a ti n a nd E ng lish .

S tuden ts ' edi ti on .

New York , P . J . Kennedy Sons

FORTES CUE, ADRIAN .

The M ass ; A S tudy of the R oma n L i turg y . London , 19 1 7 .

REPLY OF HULDREICH ZWINGLI TO JEROME EMSER

DEFENDER OF THE CANON OF THE MASS

(August 20, 1 524) [ The ﬁr st editi on , p ri nted by Frosch a u er , h as th e ti tle :

ADVERSV S

HIE

RONYM VM EM S ERVM CANONIS

mi s sae adsertorem Huldrychi Z ui ng lij Antibo l on .

Then a woodcut : Ch ri st , sta ndi ng , wi th a crown of thorns a nd hal o .

Veni te ad m e omne s q ui la bor a ti s é oner a ti es ti s , d eg o r equ i em u obis pm es ta bo .

M a t th .

1 1 .

TIGVRO AEDIBVS CHRI S

TOPHORI Fr osch ou er Ann e M .D .X X IIII . 1H ence Aug u s to.

-4 4 unnum bered qu a rto pag es .

Sig n ed a t the end of the addres s t o Ems er : Va le ea:

Tig u ro, etc .

M DX X IIII .

XIII . Kal e-rid es S ep tembri s . A copy i s i n the libra ry of Uni on Theol og ical S emi na ry, New York .

Pri nted i n Opera Z wi ng li i , tom. 1 , fol . 1 92 a -201b ; Schul er a nd S chultess cd ., v ol . III , pp . 12 1 -144 ; Eg li -Fi naler cd . , v ol . III , pp . 2 41 -287 .

A Germa n editi on, t ran sl ated by L eo Jud and pri nted by Fros cha uer i n 1525 , h as the title :

Ei n g eg enwu rﬁ a nd wid erweer Hu lderych Z ui ng lims , wi d er H i er onymu m Ems er des Ca no ns i n der M a s s z beschi rmer .

At the end , on p . 6 6 ; Getru ch t z u Z ii ri ch du rch Ch ri s toph oru m Fr osch au er , i m ja r

M .D .XXV.

unnumbered pag es . An oth er Germa n editi on, of which the tra nslator, p ri nter , a nd pl ace of publica ti on are u nknown, h a s the titl e

Hu ld ri ch en Z wi ng l ens a n twor t wider Hi er oni mu m Ems er den schu tzh er ren d es Ca no ns oder S ti llm ess M .D .XXV

The followi ng Eng l i sh tra nsl ati on wa s made by Georg e W . Gilmore.

It ha s been revi sed by th e edi tor .] OT far were you, most nimble Emser ( for wild goats *

N should be more nimble than stags) , from tearing me away from the very clear light of the celestial word and bringing me

' by that threatening over to the side of the Roman Pontiﬂ pamphlet of yourst against my confutation of the Canon of the Massi which I thrust forth rather than published .

It i s so grandiloquent that n o on e can understand its difﬁcul t periods unless he descends into a well ; so fortiﬁed with things more r ot. p .

345 . s Ca u cuia mi s sa e con tra H u ldricum Z ui ng li um d efensi o. i Zwi ng l i tEms er ' s De ca n on e mis sa e Hu ld rychi Z ui ng li i Epic hi r esis .

Th e Wo rks of H uld reich Zwing li

solid than the Scriptures, namely, legends of the saints and ' tales , that no on e can take it by storm unless he is well equipped with gourds , pumpkins , and rotten cabbage .

Besides , the snares which you cleverly spread, because of their unexpectedness, terrify me more than their real importance warrants ; for you did not, as a Christian tri ﬂes m 'ore foolish than old wives especially ought, give any warning ; you sent no "herald with a demand for satisfaction ; and you attacked suddenly, n ot in front but from the rear, on e who suspected no such thing ; n or did you engage at close quarters, so that at least the clash of arms might give notice of an enemy 's presence, but you skir mi sh ed in quite remote parts .

Consequently, not even a rumor of the wrathful ibex wh o was rashly laying everything waste could have reached me , if it had not by mere chance happened that George Vadian , a man of marked piety and culture, was journeying on certain business in the parts where you were tearing around .

While he was at ﬁrst not a little disturbed by the strangeness of your c onduct, yet, having obtained on e of your pamphlets— a prisoner, as it were , from your army— he promptly transmitted it to me, and I have treated it a little more kindly than you treated mine .

For I did not make a sudden attack upon it, but, though it spoke not courteously, I listened to it courteously, waiting meantime to see whether you would yourself say anything . But now four months have passed without my hearing from you ; a nd so, out of pity for the prisoner I have decided to free it from its long period of distress by sending it back to you, though in a manner far different from that in which I received it ; for I send along a companion that will show h ow well that booklet of yours has been treated by me, and that will do it lovingly and benignly .

It will n ot threaten with scourges or tyrants or crosses, as yours boastfully did ; for it is well aware that a disciple of Christ ought to be so equipped as to prefer to experience those things rather than to threaten them , and that this is a battle n ot of armed men or of lictors , but of truth and piety, which have ever been so hated by the children of this world that they have never put forth their heads without peril to themselves .

However, I am using " from your point of '; according to which you think it hurtful if punishment befalls the pious ; for unless you '

"peril view

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You call the R oman Pontiffs a Lesbian rule , of Ambrose and Gregory§

* although you do this with as much truth as thoughtlessnes s .

Y ou assert that I dignify the forms of bread and wine with the name of the ﬂesh and blood of Christ .

Y ou cunningly present in a false light this easy, but to you i nsol u ble , problem , which I resolve thus : since Christ evidently insti tuted this sacrament only once and with only one rite , it necessarily follows that, since you contend it is a sacriﬁce , all who ever use it make sacriﬁce .

Y ou bring forward as instances of asyndeton things which have n o such form at all as h as "These holy, unblemished Y ou assert that I reject Ambrose "On the Sacraments, though I speak of it only in the following manner :

's book "Not to call in question whether this book 18 or is n ot Ambrose 's , etc .

Y ou represent me as boast ing that I was the ﬁrst to confute the Canon , when I was speak ing only about order of procedure , as follows :

"I i . e. , before anything else , "ﬁrst, "I am going to bring the Canon out of the darkness of a cave into the light .

You afﬁrm that only to the Apostles was it said, "

Y ou call those heretics who cling to the words of Christ alone .

Y ou some where assert that the true body of Christ is torn with the teeth , "Drink ye all of this .

"The Canon calls it spiritual food; and if it is Spiritual food , as it certainly 1 s, h ow 18 it torn with the teeth ? but a little later, when defending the Canon , you say:

" Why , I say, should § Emser had told how, i n the pontiﬁcate of Hadri a n I , a l itu rg ical controversy over these two mi ssals had been decided by a n appeal to " A sealed copy of each mi ssal wa s placed on the a ltar "divi ne judgment .

's a nd left there over night .

The next morni ng the l eaves of of St . Peter th e mi s sal of St . Greg ory were found scattered over th e church , while the mi s sal of St . Ambrose wa s till i ntact .

Thi s wa s taken a s a sig n that the former wa s to be used throughout the whole world, the latter only i n the Church of St .

. Amb rose i n M il an .

" was a lead en scale which conformed to the shape "Lesbi a n rul e "The of the object mea su red (cf . Ari stotle E thics V, x,

Here it means per sons who practice the accommodation" of law or teachi ng to the condition

o r ci rcumsta nces of those with whom they a re dea li ng .

"( Th e Lati n of th e Ca non i s :

HAEC SANCTA

S ACRIFICIA ILLI

BATA .

From the absence of a connective between the two adjectives Zwi ng l i had a rg ued ag a i nst the ea rly composi ti on of the Ca non, si nce "no one before the time of Greg ory would ever have so spoken .

IZwing li had written simply "

"a nte omni a .

R eply to Em ser I upbraid you for these things when your whole book so abounds in them that if you should take them away it would appear as naked and plumeless as fable says * the jackdaw was after every bird had taken back his own feather .

And now con sider how it becomes you to assail with so many insulting terms a man quite unknown to you , yet to whom you are very well known .

If I were to reply to you in like manner , I cer tai n ly should expect n othing but that the pious would stop their ears , and that we both , like mad dogs , would be driven cd the stage with stones and hoots and hisses .

Or do you hope by this means to draw me over to your side ?

If I were so stupid as to suppose that you were saying something worth while , yet the extraordinary maledictions and furious shout ing with which you burst forth even upon no occasion would , by the fear they inspire , deter me from acceding to your way of thinking .

Since , then , you would have it appear that you wrote your booklet to heal my wound , and yet you inﬂict a thousand others , you make manifest that your determination to write was due either to petulance of tongue instead of a desire to heal , or to hope of ﬁlchi ng some reward from pontiffs instead of a purpose to defend the truth ( to which you are so blind that , according to the word of God [Deut . 28 : you grope at noonday) . And when you afﬁrm that for a piece of bread I ca n be hired to heap insul ts upon any on e at all , though no rewards or honors bestowed either by ponti ffsi or by the great est princes have ever been able to lure me from the path of truth , you are doing n othing but seizing upon that charge ahead of me , in order that it may not be uttered against you .

For who will be so dull of comprehension that , when he reads your production , he will not at the very beginning see instantly that you are aiming at securing those mitred pontiffsj as spec *Ph aed ru s Fa bulae Aesopia e, I , 3 . Cf . Horace, Epp

. , i , 3, 1 9 . i From 15 12 or 15 1 3 u ntil 1 52 0 Zwi ngli h ad r eceived a n annual pensi on from the Pope, though i n 1 5 1 7 h e came out a s a severe critic of th e p ap acy .

In a l etter ( dated Aug u st 20, 1 52 1 ) to th e S enate of Zurich , F ra nci s Zi nk , papal ch apl ai n a t Ei nsi edel n , testiﬁed that Zwi ng l i h ad

"never been moved s breadth from th e Go spel by the favour of the Pope, emperor, or a ﬁng er '

See S . M . Jack son , Hu ld rei ch Zwi ng li , pp . 1 14 -1 1 6 . nobl e.

' s Defensi o beg a n with a dedica ti on to h igh eccl esi a stics .

TEms er

Th e Wo rks of H uldreich Zwing li

tators of the ﬁght ?

And when you leap forward to the battle , you shout more loudly than Stentor, that the eyes of all may be ﬁxed upon you alone ; but, because the gout restrains you, you move forward n ot even a hand 's breadth ; and when an onset should be made, then you quit, though you never quit shouting .

And this i s your manner of ﬁghting !

Finally , just as if you had laid at their feet the spolia opima taken from me, you make them hopeful of recovering dominion , and you do it so boastfully and vaingloriously that nothing seems to ﬁt your case better than the unctuous remark ,

"So 'Pyrrh us, too, was wont to From this it is clear that you strive for the favor of those men in order that you may obtain something from "them— a feature assuredly absent from my booklet, as I shall pr 'ove to your own satisfaction .

As , then , certain friends advise against my un dertaking any reply to such great vanity, while others urge me to it, I have decided to do something for both ( for who can satisfy all ?) in the fol lowing manner .

Whatever has little pertinence I will pass over with deaf ear ; for why should I dispute with you again as to just where or when the Canon arose ?

For I see that you do not know that in some passages writers use "canon for the order and rule of any rite whatsoever ; but when you read them you thought they were speaking of the Canon of your party .

Or why should I apologize for saying certain things too humor

ously and facetiously, as you think ?

Everyone knows that he wh o is refuting an argument employs both jest and earnest in such manner that they avail in effecting conquest .

And though you labor greatly over these more triﬂing matters ( for what could you do , seeing that where there was need you could do I shall be inﬂuenced not at all by them , but shall treat th ose poi nts which you have passed by, that it may be manifest to all who have the slightest acquaintance with '

Holy Writ that you skipped them on purpose , either because you could not comprehend them or because you despaired of rebutting them .

Such are : The Church , Intercession of the Saints , Merit, Whether the Eucharist is an oblation , Whether or n ot there is a purgatory .

If in these matters I made any "In Terence Eunuchus , 783, Captai n Thra so th us justiﬁes posti ng himself i n the rea r of hi s forces .

Th e Wo rks of H uld reich Zwing li

Zurich , August 20, 1 524 .

TH E CHURCH : A REPLY TO JEROM E E M SER *

"ecclesia is derived from the Greek for call ing together,

The word " as everyone well knows .

Taken over thence into the Latin , the word is used indifferently in Holy Writ, now for " for "deﬁnite multi tude , "congregation , " n ow for "assemblage , " for "pe0p1e of Israel both according to the ﬂes h and according to the spirit .

In the Old Testament on e may see everywhere that when the Hebrew has

"kahal "

[i mp] or " [ my] the Septuagint translation h as o vp a " edah 'yw 'yﬁor éKKM a za , while the Latin has coetus , cong reg ati o, mul titudo

" itself .

If I were to show this at length I should be diverted from my resolution to be brief .

Hence it will be sufﬁcient to exhibit a few deﬁnite passages by which to make this manifest .

"ecclesia u ni versus populus Israel , or uses the word "Speak to all the multitude of the children Exod . 1 2 : 3 :

" edah

of Israel .

Here for multitude the Hebrew h as

; the Greek , g vp a -yw-yﬁ "All the congregation ( coetus) .

Lev . 8 : 3 :

"heedab of the children of Israel .

Here the Hebrew has " [ 5mm n "all the congregation of the ecclesia , just as the Greek has a vy a h akah al -ry i . e. ,

Num .

'yﬁp éKKM aza g 'yw 20: 4 :

"the assembly ( ecclesia) of the Lord .

Here the Hebrew has kahal "

All these instances have as their one object our seeing that by the word ; the Greek , c vv aywyﬁ " the whole company, congregation , assemblage, army, multitude ,

"ecclesia of the people of Israel is meant . Hence it is clear that "ecclesia " is used not only for the pious , holy , and faithful , but also for the impious , wicked , and unfaithful , provided only they were of the seed of Abraham according to the ﬂesh and were inter mingled with the pious .

How often , indeed , it happened that by their open faithlessness certain ones gave plain proof that , though in body and in the Opinion of men they were counted as within the church ( ecclesia) , yet in fact they were anything but within the church that i s without spot and without wri nkle l

But of this presently .

In like manner in the New Testament also we see that "Thi s enti re chapter was copied i nto Zwi ng li ' s True a nd Fals e Religi on .

S ee p .

1 78.

R eply to Em s er ecclesia is used for all those who have named the name of Christ and who walk and live within the company of Chris tians , even though in reality they are n ot very faithful ; as

when Paul says that he persecuted the ecclesia of God , I Cor .

For he persecuted all who were Christians , i . e. , who confessed themselves Christians .

But among the Christians there are always evil and unfaithful ones , although we do not recognize such unless they betray themselves by their fruits .

Christ Himself has painted this church in the clearest colors in Mat . 1 3 : 24

-30, where , by the parable of one sowing good seed in a ﬁeld and of an enemy , i . e. , the devil , secretly mix ing in tares , He means nothing else than that all of us who are called Christians receive the word , or at least wish to appear to have received it, yet none the less we admit the devil

's seed also . Yet God allows the crops that grow from both grain and tares to continue until the day of harvest ; nay , He even com mands us to let both grow, though He keeps account of the noxious , who are destined to rejection , and of the wholesome , for whom favor i s meantime in store ( about which there is n ot now room to speak) .

We are, I say, to let both grow until the day of harvest .

Of the same purport is ' the parable of the net [M t .

1 3 : 47-50] spread to catch ﬁsh , in which at the same time good and bad are gathered , live , stay, and are mingled together . But ﬁnally the angels come and separate the foul from the sound and fresh .

To the same effect is the parable of the ten virgins [M t.

Here we learn that the whole multitude of Christians that counts itself faithful is called one faithful people , on e church , and also is not yet the church un deﬁl ed ; for it has many blemishes, at some of which it is not foreign to Christ to wink .

You now see that in the Old Testament as well as in t he New the church was composed of the faithful and of

' th ose who were un faithful but pretended faith , and therefore was n ot yet such that neither wrinkle nor spot attached to it .

For in time past all either made or worshipped a molten calf [cf.

Exod . 32 : 2 -6] Judas was with Christ ; and with the Apostles were Ananias and Sapphira , and Alexander the coppersmith

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and false brethren , and spies who attempted to betray Chris tian liberty and to join circumcision and Christ .

Yet they did n ot, wherever such persons lived with the Christians, change the name "church , used in this manner .

There is, therefore , a second kind of church , which in Ephesians 5 : 25

"Husbands, love your wives , even as Christ loved the church , and gave himself up

-27 Paul describes thus : for it, that he might sanctify it ; which he cleansed by the wash ing of water through the word , that he might unite it to him self, that it might be a noble church , not having wrinkle or spot .

No on e denies that in the Song of Solomon [2 : 1 4, 5 : 2 , 6 : 8] the on e like a dove is the church ; but which church ?

The on e, of course, for which Christ gave Himself up , to the end that He might sanctify it to Himself, and which , believing the saying that Christ gave Himself up for us , having been bathed by the washing of water should thereby be so cleansed as to be a glorious and noble church , the spouse of Christ, with out any spot or wrinkle .

It follows, therefore , that those who believe that Christ so loved us that He gave Himself up for our san ctiﬁcati on are the church of Christ, and free from every spot or wrinkle ; for Christ has cleansed them for this pur pose, that He ' might unite them to Himself .

Moreover , those whom the Son h as freed are free indeed [Jn . 8 : 36] and what God has cleansed , not even Peter is permitted to call unclean

[Acts Therefore, that on e beautiful dove, free from every defect, is not some few pontiﬂ 's, holy, pious , spotless though they be, but all who ﬁrmly believe themselves redeemed by the blood of Christ and as a beautiful spouse united to Him .

For the church refuses to be so narrowly restricted as to con tain within it only a few members , and those few arrogating this honor to themselves alone ; but, spreading over the whole world, it receives members everywhere ; and the vaster and wider it is the more beautiful also is it .

"Such a church n o more exists than does Plato . But here certain ones object :

's Republic , because no on e lives with out fault, because all have sinned , because we deceive ourselves if we say that we have no sin [I Jn .

How , then , is it possible for there to be anywhere a church that h as n ot spot or wrinkle ?

These I satisfy in this way : What is without spot

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"But who say ye that I am ?

Himself .

After He had asked the disciples , Matt . 1 6 : 1 5 , " and after Peter for them all had replied ,

"Thou art the Christ, the son of the living God , Christ declared, among other things :

"And I say unto thee, that thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will bui ld my church .

Not to wrangle at length over the sense of these words ( for the view that makes Christ, and n ot Peter , the rock once prevailed ; and , more than that, faith asserts this, and the words of Christ

elsewhere clearly show that this i s the true view , as when He makes Himself the vine and us the branches , which bear no fruit except they abide in the vine , Jn . 1 5 : 4

-5) — not to linger, I say, over this , we here see clearer than day that the church of Christ, His spouse ( for He Himself says has i ts foundation and strength in the fact that it is His when it con fesses that Christ is the Son of the living God .

This the truth itself asserts .

May they perish wh o assert the contrary !

That this seems to some a very trivial matter proceeds from the fact that they only pretend to believe that Christ is the Son of the living God , instead of really believing it . For if anyone believes that it is the Son of God whom He sees nailed to the cross for him , how can he fail to weigh the immensity of his si n , so vast, indeed, that only the Son of God can expiate it ; and , at the same time, our weakness, nay, impotence , which is so great that in no way i s it given us by our own efforts to draw near to God ?

When , therefore , the Son of God has once freed us from the death of sin and we ﬁrmly believe this , we cannot help being transformed by a wonderful metamorphosis into other men .

That we see this so rarely accomplished is due to the fact that, according to the word of the prophet, all are hypocrites [ cf . Isa .

And hence the Apostles labor so earnestly , to the end that we may put off the old man and put on the new, namely, Christ [cf. Col . 3 : 9

It is a great work to believe that Christ, nailed to the cross , is the Son of God .

That this is the work of God , Christ Him self testiﬁed , Jn .

6 : 29 :

"This is the work of God , that ye believe on him whom he hath sent .

As many , then , as trust in Christ are built upon a rock , which no blasts of winds can shake, no inundating ﬂoods wash away .

And as many as are built upon this are the church of Christ , for He Himself said

R eply to Em s er my .

But His church cannot be impure and wrinkled . There fore i t follows that those wh o trust in Christ are without spot and without wrinkle , for they summon up all their zeal to the end that they may not fall back into si n , in which beforetime they were dead , Rom . 6 : 2 .

But they who do not this utter n oble thunderings with their lips , but by thei r deeds betray

Christ, with the result that through them the name of God is in bad repute .

This is the church that cannot err— an attribute which the 's arrogate to themselves with as much falseness as impu dence .

For this church rests upon the word of God alone , which is so ﬁrm and immovable that heaven and earth must pass away sooner than one jot of it [M t .

On the con pontiﬂ 's rests upon its own word . They trary, the church of the pontiﬂ run , indeed , as if they had been sent by the Lord , but they speak visions , that is , things pleasing to their own heart [Jer .

23 :

Hence they spread nothing but darkness before poor wretches ' eyes .

For as they have not the light of faith , by which the word is recognized and declared to the brethren , behold how great is the darkness !

This Christ has very beau "If therefore the light that is in thee be darkness , how great is the darkness ! tifully suggested , saying, Matt .

" That they have not the light of faith is plain from the fact that they do n ot preach and defend the word of God alone .

For faithful is the mind that looks to God alone ; and the mind that does this can hear the word of none but God, its spouse , so far i s it from being able to incul cate human absurdities in i ts preaching to others .

All this is made plain by the plain words of Christ in John where He teaches that he who enters the sheep fold some other way than by the door is a thief and a robber ; and a little later He shows that He is the door .

What, then , is entering the Lord 's sheepfold through Christ but putting on Chr ist [Rom .

What but imparting on e thing only , the word of Christ, and setting it before those who hunger ?

For as the Father had sent Him , so also He sent His disciples .

Moreover, Christ very sharply combatted the prescriptions and traditions of the pontiﬂs , and commanded to hear only the word of God .

Therefore those who conﬁdently assert that it is through Him they enter into His fold will do battle against

Th e Wo rks of H uld reich Zwi ng li

human traditions and will busily engage in declaring the word of God alone ; if they do n ot do this , they are , judged by the word of God, thieves and robbers .

And since they are such , how is it possible that they cannot err— they wh o have become

thieves and robbers just because they have turned aside from the true path ?

Behold , so far are assemblies of certain pontiffs from being the church , the spouse of Christ, which cannot err , that if you weigh them well in the balance you will pronounce them thieves and robbers rather than aught else .

Yet there must still be a glorious church , having neither spot nor blemish , against which the battlements and gates of hell cannot prevail [M t. and which , consequently , cannot lapse or err .

Christ pictures it in the beautiful parable of the sheep and the shepherd [Jn . 1 0: 1 1 teaching there that the sheep hear the voice of the shepherd , if he is a shep herd, and that they follow him ; but that a stranger they fol low n ot, because they know n ot his voice .

Is it, then , for the sheep to judge whether he wh o comes to them is a shepherd or thief, whether the voice is shepherd 's ?

Whence have the sheep such shrewdness as n ot to blunder ?

Because 's or robber "I know my sheep , and mine own know me .

And whence have the sheep such discerning knowledge of Christ that they take n o one else of what immediately follows :

's voice for Hi s ?

From the fact that they are known by God [Ga] . 4 : 9] from the fact that the Father draws them ( for no one comes to Christ save him whom hi s Father draws [Jn . 6 : from the fact that all are taught of God [Jn .

Therefore it follows that only those sheep _do not err who know the voice of their shepherd so well that they receive absolutely no other .

Here you have the church that cannot err, the one, namely, which knows only the voice of the shepherd , and n ot of any shepherd whatsoever, but only of the on e wh o enters in by the door, who brings only that which Christ brings, wh o comes only in the name of the Father as Christ also came , and ( to speak brieﬂy) all because there is only one shepherd , although many are wrongly called shepherds .

Finally , only that church cannot lapse and err which hears the voice only of its shepherd , God ; for only this voice is from God .

The Wo rks of Huldreich Zwing li

what church it is that cannot lapse unless you recognize the word of God, which h as constituted the church, causes it to trust in Him , and defends it from error, n ot permitting it to hear any other word .

Only pious minds have this knowledge ; for it does n ot depend on human judgment, but is most ﬁrmly seated in men 's minds .

It i s an experience , for all the pious have experienced it .

It i s n ot learning, for we see the most learned men ignorant of this most salutary matter .

It is for this reason Christ thanked the Father that He hid these things from the wise and revealed them unto babes [M t . 1 1 :

In vain , then , are we so anxious for certain persons because they refuse to receive the word ; but it will n ot be in vain that with anxiety we pray God to deign to bestow the grace of His Spirit and to draw to a recognition of His word .

Here you see also , Emser, h ow perfectly consistent are the things which I wrote concerning the church in my Confuw

* though you quite uncivilly misrepresent them as very incoherent . tati on , I said that this spouse of Christ, the church , was scattered over the whole world, wherever the faithful are , that Christ

's sheep might n ot, like the ass tied at Jerusalem [M t. 21 : be forever bound so miserably to Rome , or to Alexanders , Juli uses,

Leos , Hadrians . That you might not think this a rash state ment, I said that it is veiled from men 's eyes wh o or how many are within the church of Christ, to the end that it may be seen that the church is n ot where a few pontiﬂ s meet together, but where men adhere to the word of God and live for Christ ; and ' this i s clear and manifest to God alone .

So potent an evil is hypocrisy !

It is possible, indeed , that n ot only those who inveigh against the word are outside this church , Christ

's spouse , but also those who assert that they are Christ 's and who do many pious works for their neighbor .

For these things often proceed from a very wicked mind ; for there are some whom vainglory controls .

But n o one can deceive God ; to Him the reins and hearts are open [cf. Ps .

Hence I said that this church is unknown to men , and that it will never come together until the last day, when the Son of God will call all nations to Himself and will contend with them in judg

"i . e. , De canone mi s sae epi chi resis .

R eply to Em s er ment .

There it will be seen of what faith each one h as been .

Lastly I spoke of individual churches .

From the fact that Christ ordered a diseased sheep to be excluded from the ﬂock ,

Matt . 1 8 : 1 7 I made the command apply to them , because the universal church of all the members can never come together here , so that we could tell it what brother refused to come to his senses .

And this I said not without example , but I adduced the words, and example as well , of Paul , who commanded the church which was then at Corinth to reject for a while him who was living shamelessly with his stepmother until he should repent of his conduct [I Cor . 5 : 1 , So in Acts 1 3 there were in the church at Antioch Paul and Barnabas , Niger and others .

Thus in Holy Writ mention often is made of indi vidual churches .

But all those churches are one church , Christ 's spouse , which the Greeks call the Catholic and we the Universal .

This is not a gathering of all the bishops , but a comm union of all the saints , i . e. , of all the faithful , as the Fathers added in the creed .

For among the ancients the article on the communion of saints was lacking ; but subsequently, when those who today still pose as the Catholic Church arro gated this name to themselves, it was added in order to explain the name .

And so it is the ofﬁce of these churches , as i s n ow clear, to reject on e who is shameles sly delinquent ; and when he comes to his senses and submits to the rule of Christ, to admit again to favor and communion . It i s theirs to judge of a shep herd ( as was sai d above) , and of doctrine, as in I Cor . 1 4 : 29

-32 :

"And let the prophets speak by two or three , and let the others discern .

But if a revelation be made to another sitting by, let the ﬁrst keep silence .

For ye all can prophesy one by one, that all may learn and receive consolation and exhorta tion .

For the spirits of prophets obey prophets .

Here we see clearly that the word of God was once treated in a manner far different from that of today .

For n ot only those who belonged to the order of prophets , but also the pe0p1e generally, those sitting on the benches , were permitted to speak in the church concerning the word which the Spirit had revealed .

If this custom had never died out, so many errors would never have been introduced into the church of Christ, for there are always

Th e Wo rks oi Huld reich Zwi ng li

persons who through the Heavenly Spirit detect deceitful pre tence on the part of on e wh o is teaching, and when this h as once been exposed the word is freed from violent distortion .

But this detriment comes from the fact that the spirits of the prophets have refused to be subject to the prophets .

And this makes manifest that the spirits of the prophets who have refused to obey and heed brethren wh o were prophesying have not been of God ; for the Spirits of true prophets o

'bey those who prophesy .

But gradually it has come to such a pass that any twaddle uttered by the most perverse babbler from the pulpit, i . e . , in the prophet 's place , is regarded as an oracle ; and whoever does not so regard it, but mutters even a syllable against it, is given a most cruel cudgelling .

But at this point someone may object that hereby a church , any church at all , is made the judge of the word , and that I have strenuously denied that any judge may be placed over it .

I reply that my opinion is the same as before ; for always he that is spiritual judgeth all things [I Cor . 2 :

But yet, what or h ow he judges must be heard .

Whoever hears the Scripture of the celestial word explained in church judges that which he hears ; yet what is heard is n ot the very word which causes us to believe , for if we were rendered faithful by that word which is read and heard , evidently all of us should be faithful .

For somewhere or other all of us have either read or heard the word , especially in these days in which all things ,

-echo the gospel ; but, on the contrary , we observe that many both hear and see, yet have not faith . It is clear , then , that we are rendered faithful only by that word which the Heavenly Father proclaims in our hearts , by which even woods and ﬁelds, re also He illumines us so that we understand , and draws us so that we follow .

Of this enough has been said above .

Those wh o are imbued with this word judge the word which in a dis course sounds forth and strikes our ears ; nevertheless , the word of faith , which resides in the minds of the faithful , i s judged by no man , but itself judges the external word .

The latter also God has ordered to be declared in public, although faith is not of the external word .

This Christ well explained in the parable of the seed falling on the foot -path , on the rock , amidst thorns , and into good ground [Lk . 8 : 5

However , the faith

The Works oi H uld reich Zwing li

example will make this matter clearer .

In these days there has been much discussion about the Keys— how rightly let the pious judge ; I will n ot exhaust that point .

Some have adjudged them to the Roman pontiff, others to any so-called priest ; and when they have wished to seem especially pious, they have alleged that sins are forgiven by God only, yet so that the priest pronounces them forgiven .

To this end they have misrepresented the judgment of the Levites , whose prov ince it was to pronounce upon leprosy ; the case of the ten lepers, though one of them , who was a Samaritan , returned to thank the Savior, not the priest ; the releasing of Lazarus from the grave-clothes .

To them I will n ow oppose the authority 's word ; but ﬁrst I will wring from the adherents of the Pope , with the assent of their own writers, an admission that the Keys were not given , but only promised , to Peter on the occasion when Christ said, And I will give unto thee the keys of God

of the kingdom of heaven [M t. 1 6 :

Then I will ask of all when they were delivered ; for they must be delivered , Christ said, and what He said must have been done .

Some reply :

"On the occasion when He said [Jn .

'Receive ye the Holy Spirit : whose soever sins ye forgive, they are for given , ' etc .

Others :

"When He said , 'Feed my sheep , '

Jn .

21 : 1 5 .

Now see h ow easily they are caught, both when they depart from the right meaning of "Keys " and when they keep to it .

In the latter case they are caught thus : If the Keys were delivered to Peter when it was said , " then "Feed my sheep , " is the function of the Keys .

Since then , no one is "to feed

" means to teach by the word , so stupid as n ot to see that to feed

" it follows that their violent contention that the Keys were ﬁrst given only . to Peter amounts to nothing else than that to Peter above all others the ministry of the word was committed .

For if " is "to have the Keys "to feed (as it surely is) , they cannot deny that the onl y thing enjoined upon Peter was the diligent and faithful ministry of the word .

As to the additional claim that the ﬁrst giving of this injunction was to Peter, this is idle talk, for the ministry of the word had been previously committed to all on the very eve of the resurrection .

But others , whose way the Lord wills , say thus : I do not deny that the Keys were delivered on the occasion when Christ

R eply to Em ser said , Receive ye the Holy Spirit , etc . , Jn . but that

th e Keys are some word of a priest or anything whatsoever but the word of the gospel , I strenuously deny .

For what John expresses in the words, "Receive ye the Holy Spirit : whose soever sins ye forgive , they are forgiven unto them ; whose soever sins ye retain , they are retained ,

" Luke told in other words, thus [Lk .

"Then opened he their mind that they might understand the scriptures ; and he said unto them , Thus it is written , that the Christ should suﬂ

'er, and rise again from the dead the third day ; and that repentance and remission of sins sh ould be preached in his name unto all the nations , beginning from Jerusalem .

Ye are witnesses of these things .

Where Luke said , "Then he opened their mind , "

; for He is given for this purpose , to open the mind .

Mark puts it this way [M k .

John said , Receive ye the Holy Spirit "Go ye into all the world , and preach the gospel to the whole creation .

He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved ; but he that believeth not shall be condemned .

" Where Mark said , " John said , "Go ye into all the world , "As the Father sent me, so also I send you , " and Luke , "Should be preached unto all the nations .

Ye are my witnesses .

" Where Mark said , "Preach the gospel to the whole creation .

He who believes " (when the gospel h as been preached , of course) "and is baptized shall be saved , John said , "Whose soever sins ye forgive , they are forgiven .

For only in this way are sins forgiven , if we ﬁrmly believe that Christ suffered for us . And although the forgiveness of sins is attributed to the disciples

, yet this is only for the reason that the disciples minister th e word ; for there i s not any other name under the sun wherein we must be saved than the name of Jesus Christ [Acts 4 :

So Luke expressed this thought thus :

"Repentance and for given ess of sins should be preached in his name unto all the nations .

Where Mark said , "He who believeth n ot shall be condemned , John gave this :

"Whose soever sins ye retain

, they are retained .

Now, the Apostles retained the sins of the unbelieving when , as they were departing , from them , they shook off the dust of their feet , according to the command of the Lord , Lk .

And so did Paul , as we read in Acts 1 8 : 6 . The Keys are , therefore , "to feed .

" But "to feed " is to

Th e Works of H uld reich Zwing li d eclare the gospel .

He who believes on it i s saved , is set free ; for he knows that he h as been liberated through the Son .

Con trariwi se, he who believeth not is condemned , is bound , is given over to the ﬂesh , so that he cannot attain the things of the Spirit .

That this is the sense of three passages from the Gospels is very evident from the fact that they describe independently the appearance of Christ to the disciples and His discourse with them on the very day of the resurrection .

This is easily seen by anyone who gives proper attention to the context of the narrative .

I will n ot dwell longer upon this matter , for in my Conclu si ons* I have treated it at length .

I will now return to the point from which I digressed .

If, I say, dispute ar1ses 1 n the church regarding the Keys, pontiﬂ

's claiming them for themselves, and priests for themselves, but the word when weighed in the above manner claiming them for God only, what faithful on e in the church will not see clearly that the view here taken i s most true and cer tain , if the Keys are recognized as consisting of the word alone , and of that word only which is believed and resides in the minds of the faithful ; and that, consequently , the Apostles do nothing more than carry the Keys , that is, dispense the word ?

For the two other views smack of the ﬂesh , though the one more than the other .

That of the Pope 's adherents so smacks of the ﬂesh that it h as circumscribed n ot only the mind but almost the whole being of all the faithful

So , then , each church judges of the word that i s set before it .

But how ?

By the word of faith , which , having through the Spirit been taught within , is in the minds of the faithful .

Therefore this judgment is n ot granted to individual churches in such a man ner as to be granted to them singly , for it belongs to the church which is Christ 's spouse .

But, inasmuch as this never comes together here , it judges through its parts and members .

Thus were they taught in the church at Antioch , at Jerusalem ; and Moses was read on each Sabbath , etc .

Now you have at con siderable length what the Holy Scriptures say about the church , the spouse of Christ, which cannot err .

That you may be able to grasp it more correctly and more brieﬂy, I will g o back and "i . e. , Ausl eg en u nd Grund e d er Sch l uss reden .

Th e Wo rks of H uldreich Zwi ng li

receives again into favor the penitent ; but only by virtue of the fact that it is a member of Christ 's church .

The so -called church triumphant has the character and condi tion of this of ours . Hence I have considered that nothing need be said about it at present .

These things , most sturdy Ibex ( for so you like to be called) , you should have refuted , n ot skipped over . I plead the case by means of the Scriptures , not by means of shoutings .

Hence you should have shown where I had misunderstood Scripture or had done it violence , instead of giving reasons why "* has the ﬁrst letter written in red ink , and other triﬂes of that sort .

I had previously discussed such matters with learned men ,t and had decided they were

"Communing with only triﬂes .

But n ow prove even one of the above propositions erroneous and you will have accomplished something .

But I hope that when you see the ﬁrm and strong foundation of Christ 's church you will recede from your former error, become its friend , and join to it all your fortunes .

T H E INTERCESSION or SAINTSI

When you write about the intercession of saints, you are so shallow, not to say foolish , that I am convinced you abso lutely failed to understand what I wrote , which is indeed of small compass , because I had pursued the subject at greater length elsewhere ,§ but of no small dignity, because it savors only of the pure sense of the word of God .

Therefore I will for your beneﬁt reduce it to brief form , but in such a way that what i s now given brieﬂy shall throw some light upon the earlier writings, which it i s impossible to cut down .

I . God alone is good, Luke 1 8 : 1 9 .

II . From this on e and only source on e must derive what ever good is needed .

For every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights ,James 1 : 1 7

*In the Can on of the M ass these words beg i n the p rayer i n commem orati on of the dead .

TA reference to the two Zu rich di sputati ons of the year 1 52 3 .

:tThi s enti re section was copi ed i nto the Tr ue a nd Fa ls e R eli g i on .

S ee p .

2 68.

§ In hi s Au s leg en u nd Gr und e d er S chlu s sr eden .

( Eg l i Fi nsler , II , 157 2 30) and i n hi s Epi ch/ ir esi s ( Eg l i -Fi nsler, 1 1 , 574

R epl y to Em ser III . The faithful are distinguished from the unfaithful by this mark : the faithful depend upon this One and Only Good , cling to Him alone , resort to Him alone , draw from Him alone ; on the contrary, the unfaithful turn from the Creator to crea tures, depend upon them , and hope for aid from them .

Deut .

32 : 39 :

"See that I am the only one , and that there is no god except me .

Now, to be God is n othing else than to be the Highest Good .

To be the Highest Good is nothing else than to be " [ S1 ] , i . e. , the sufﬁciency of every good .

That this Good , then , is Himself, God shows to us by the fact that He is the author of all good , aid , assistance ; that only He is the Good , that there is no god , i . e . , good , and no fountain of any aid except Him .

As testimony to the latter fact you have Jer .

"dai "For my people have committed two evi ls : they have left me , the fountain of living water, and hewed them

" out cisterns , broken cisterns , that can hold no water .

IV . The only faithful ones , then , are those who are so ﬁlled with the knowledge that they are God

's that they do not even name any father except the Almighty Father , so far are they from having hope in another .

For of what avail is it to call God Father , if you are not His son and if you do not hope in Him as Father ; especially since the Master forbids us to call any man father on the earth ?

Matt For it is he alone who renders us secure in the hope which we have in him , Ps . 4 : 8 :

"For thou , Lord , alone madest me to dwell in hope .

"Blessed be the man whose hope is the name of the Lord , Ps .

And , contrariwise :

"Cursed is the man that trusteth in man , and maketh ﬂesh hi s arm , and whose heart departeth from the Lord, " Jer . 1 7 5 .

Furthermore , he departs from the Lord who seeks elsewhere than with Him for the good which he needs ; unless , indeed , it is n ot an instance of depart ing when a son deserts his real father and chooses another to whom he may ﬂee and complain about his troubles , and from whom he may receive help .

But the Heavenly Father is our Father because He made us , created us , chose us to be a peculiar people , Deut . 32 : 6 .

For is not He your Father who took pos session of you and made and created you ?

Th ev then , are sons

of God who have Him for a Father ; and those have Him for a Father who recognize Him alone as Father, depend upon

The Wo rks of H uld reich Zwi ng li

Him , hear Him only, hope all things from Him only .

V . In the next place, that on e may without hesitation ﬂee to Him for safety He has Himself everywhere declared in the plainest terms .

In Gen . 1 5 : 1 He speaks thus to Abraham :

"I am thy shield and thy exceeding great reward .

The same sort of thing was said to all wh o with Abraham were faith ful : e.

Lev . 20: 8 :

"I am the Lord who sanctify you

; Num .

"I am the Lord wh o dwell among the children of Israel "

"I am thy salvation ; Isa .

"I , even I , am he that blotteth out thy transgressions for mine own sake "

; Ps .

"Why will ye die , 0 house of Israel ?

For I have no pleasure in the death of him that dieth , saith the Lord God .

Turn yourselves and live ; Ezek . 1 8 : 1 3 -32 :

; Isa .

44 : 21 -22 :

"Remember these things , 0 Jacob and Israel , for thou art my servant, " etc .

"I have blotted out as a thick cloud thy trans g ressi ons, and as a cloud thy sins .

Return to me , for I have redeemed thee "

"All ye that thirst, come ye to the waters, etc .

Throughout there is nothing but God ; also

's free invitation to Himself.

And in Lev .

26 : 40-42 He promises favor even to those wh o had so greatly offended that they were led away into captivity, if only they cried to Him .

These few citations from the Old Testament may sufﬁce .

For what is anywhere said but that the people should hasten to the true God, should n ot separate their hope from Him , nor imagine that they would ﬁnd safety anywhere but with the Heavenly

Father , wh o so often did great and good things for the fathers .

For to everyone God is that which he thinks is sufﬁcient to bestow upon him his heart 's desire .

VI . As for the New Testament, what is it but a solid and sure conﬁrmation of God 's grace ?

For h ow can He refuse anything who spared n ot His own Son but gave Him up for us all ?

Or h ow will He not with Him freely give us all things [Rom .

Will He wh o gave a Son refuse heirship and grace ?

And such a S on as i s Himself our salvation ?

For Jesus is , that He may be the way, the truth , and the life [Jn .

1 4 :

In the days of His ﬂesh He associated with publicans and sinners for the purpose of showing the world that He had come to ﬁnd the lost sheep [ cf. Lk . 1 5 : 4 and to call sin ners to Himself, and to turn none away .

For thus He exhibits

Th e Wo rks of H uld reich Zwing li

VIII . Again , the things commonly adduced in opposi tion are either frivolous or have been twisted out of shape by the audacity of carnal wisdom .

Frivolous are those which Emser querulously vociferates :

"The East as well as the West testiﬁes to this (namely, that the saints intercede for us) there i s no nation under heaven that does n ot credi t its safe condi tion in great measure to the prayers of the saints , next after God .

To this I reply :

"How about the North and the South , the Troglodytes and the Gal actoph agi sts ?

I plead by Holy Writ, but he yelps to us about East and West .

A little later on he bunches together the tutelary gods (as they are called) of nearly all the German cathedral churches, and in the most wretched fashion ﬁshes for favor for his booklet, saying :

"Those churches will never be so ungrateful as to believe that the prayers and suﬂ rag es of the saints have n o power wi th God, for from them they have received many great beneﬁts .

" Here , in the ﬁrst place, he fails to understand that of God are the beneﬁts which he ascribes to the creature .

This Peter and John teach clearly, Acts by their indignation at the people 's ascribing to them the power that healed the lame man , and by their testimony that the power was Jesus Christ

's .

And Christ also Himself plainly teaches this , saying [M k . 1 6 : 1 7]

"In my name shall they cast out demons .

He said n ot in their name ,

" i . e. , " but "in my name , "by my power .

Sec ondly, Emser does not see that, if we listen to him when he argues on this wise :

"Many have experienced the aid of St .

Nicholas in storms at sea, therefore Nicholas should be invoked "

—h e does not see , I say, that the logical conclusion i s this : Apollo and Aesculapius have restored many to health ; Castor and Pollux have saved as a son of Jupiter and a tutelary god many more from shipwreck than has any Nicholas, if we believe their worshippers : therefore they are to be invoked as Jupiters and helping gods .

After this manner Symmachus * once plaintively cried out in defence of his gods— and far more forcibly and learnedly than this apologist of ours— urging the Romans not to desert the gods whose aid th ev had experienced

"! ui ntus Aureli us Symmachu s, who i n 384 presented to Valentinian II a p etition pl eadi ng for the restorati on of the statue and altar of Victory .

S ee Gibbon, D ecli ne a nd Fa ll of the R oman Empi re, chap . 28.

R eply to Em s er at home and abroad .

To serve this purpose carnal wisdom has dared to torture all the passages of Scripture that contain the word "saint, " and the like .

In my Con clusi on s and my Confu tati on of th e Can on of the M ass I have restored a large number of them to freedom ; therefore , dismissing these ,

"intercession , I will now rescue from the hands of our friend Emser only two , upon which he seems most to rely .

"I lifted up mine eyes to the hills , " [Ps .

" he says , "from whence will come my help 1 21 : 1 ] and forthwith he cites the testimony of Cassiodorus 'r and of Bede ,1 who hold the view that the hills are the saints , etc .

But the poor fellow does n ot look to see what immediately follows .

"My help cometh from the Lord , who made heaven and earth .

What warrant is there in Holy Writ for the Cas si and Duri§ to make saints out of hills ? A half

-blind person can see that all the prophet is so ﬁrmly intent upon is to make himself acceptable to God , because he expects his help to come from no other source but Him who made heaven and earth

. The other passage is :

" etc .

[Exod . 23 : where at ﬁrst he did not notice that "Remember Abraham , Isaac, and Jacob , "O God, remember Abraham , Isaac , and Jacob , to whom thou swarest

"Abraham , intercede for us are by no means equivalent, since the former is said to God , that He may deign to bless the

and children of Israel for the sake of the fathers , whereas the latter would be said to Abraham , though it is foun d nowhere in Holy Writ .

But, since contention always has a defence to present and cannot be silent, he roars out :

"Since we see that the people of Israel cried to the Lord in the name of their fathers , surely we also may do the same .

To this I wi ll reply brieﬂy in the words of Peter, Acts 4 : 1 2 :

"And i n none other is there salvation " (he is speaking of Christ) "neitheris there any other name under heaven given to men wherein we must be saved .

And so , Emser , do this : pray to the good and great God to give you a sound mind , wherewith you may learn that, as from the beginning of the world those have been cast out tIn h i s Ewposi ti o i n psa l teri um . i In hi s D e psa lm oru m li br o ex eg esi s .

§Ca ssi et Du ri : a pl ay on th e n ame Ca ssi odoru s : th e Vains and th e Rudes .

Th e way wa s prepared for thi s by u si ng above th e plurals "Cas si odoros et Bedas .

Th e

°Works of H uldreich Zwing li among the faithless who sought for help elsewhere than with the on e and only God, Rom . 1 : 25 ( for God willed that we should not go limping between the two sides, as He testiﬁed through Elijah [I Kings 1 8 : so today also those are deservedly counted among the faithless wh o call for aid upon others than the on e and only God .

His name in Greek is from age", [to run] , because He causes all things to move, and runs to aid all things .

For He i s a God at hand, not a God afar off [Jer . who, even before thou callest, says :

"Lo ! here am When you have once learned this , you will become as great an inﬂuence among God 's simple folk— lead ing them to found all their thought and hope on God , whereby they may become worshippers of the true God— as you have been a public crier, calling them from God to creatures , in which task you have been a real apostate , or more probably an unbeliever .

When this h as come to pass , I shall at length rejoice that the Lord h as enrolled you in the ranks of the faithful .

For as long as you cling to creatures , you have not yet laid hold upon that peerless Spouse which in the Song of Solomon the soul rejoices to have laid hold on , saying :

I held him and would not let him go .

Imitate holy men and saints just as far as they are imitators of Christ, according to Paul

's word [cf. I Cor . 1 1 :

And meantime ﬁrmly believe that where two or three with on e accord ask something upon earth from the Lord, th ey will obtain it [M t .

And when you speak of the prayers of saints, or of their lovi ng care , take care to think of the sainted dead , i . e. , of those who are already citizens of heaven , just as you would of those who are still sojourners and exiles here .

For anything more consult my Con clusi ons and my Confu tati on of the Can on ; and permit me n ow to take in sail on this subject, that I may shortly come to an end .

MERIT * When you came to the passage on Merit, you did not touch it even with a ﬁnger, but referred to a certain

Rofi ensis,j "Thi s s ecti on wa s Copi ed i nto the Tr ue a nd Fa ls e R elig i on .

S ee p . 2 75 .

Ti . e. , man of Rochester .

Thi s wa s John Fi sh er, Bi shop of Roch ester .

Emser ha d ci ted h i s Ass er ti oni s L u thera/ na e confu ta ti o, publ i shed i n

1 523 .

Th e Wo rks of H uld reich Zwi ng li

ants .

If we are unproﬁtable servants , h ow is it possible for our merits to be of any use ; since a reward for merit can be given only when we have been proﬁtable ?

Jn .

"Apart from me ye can do nothing .

Since , then , we can do nothing, we merit nothing .

Ibid .

"Ye did n ot choose me , but I chose you .

There fore we are n ot united to God because of our merits , but by the kindness of Christ .

Jn . 9 : 1 -3 : When Jesus was asked by whose sin it was that the man whose sight He a moment afterwards restored was born blind, He replied :

"Neither did this man sin , nor his parents : but that the works of God should be made manifest in him .

Therefore it is by the free will of God that thus or

so we are born , and live , and spend our days .

But God mani fests His glory according to that same will ; and so no on e may say :

" [Rom .

But since the innermost working of divine providence , which we "Why didst thou make me thus call predestination , here comes into view, and since I must hurry on to other things, I will pass on from Christ 's words to Paul 's .

"But if it ( i . e. , election) be of works , then is it n o more grace or gift .

Hence those who rely upon works repudiate grace .

Read the whole Epistle to the Romans and the one to the Galatians , and you will see what merit i s and what grace is .

But if ( as seems the case) you are more given Rom . 1 1 : 6 :

to the Fathers than to the on e Heavenly Father, read Augus tine "On Free Will and Grace .

's book , "By the works of the law shall no ﬂesh be justiﬁed in his sight .

.Then why so much about merit ?

Rom . 3 : 20, Gal . 3 : 1 0:

Rom .

3 : 23-24 :

"All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God , being justiﬁed freely by his grace .

If, then , we have all so sinned that we have need of the glory of God , and He has manifested His glory by freely justifying us , merit is nothing but a harmful ﬁction .

I Cor .

"As in Adam all die , etc .

Therefore in Adam we all are dead .

How then shall we work anything liv ing or worthy of life ?

But

"in Christ shall all be made alive therefore n ot by our own merits .

Gal . 2 : 1 6 :

"Yet knowing that a man is not justiﬁed by

R eply to Em ser "

If, then the works of the law , but through faith in Jesus Christ .

, deeds do not make us blessed , why do we invent merit ?

"For if righteousness is through the law , then Christ died for nought .

Gal . 2 : 21 :

Therefore if heaven is entered by means of our works , in vain was Christ sent to open it .

"Ye are severed from Christ , ye who would be justiﬁed by the law ; ye are fallen away from grace .

Therefore they who rely upon works are aliens from Christ .

For I sup pose you understand well that to be justiﬁed by the law is not Gal . 5 : 4 :

merely to know the law or to read it , but to try to carry it out so as to be justiﬁed .

For it would be foolish to think Paul supposed anyone is saved by the tenor or sense of the law .

"For it is God that worketh in you both to will and to work .

Philip . 2 : 1 3 :

Everything will fail me— paper , pen , time —sooner than the testimonies by which we see clearer than day that blessed ness is freely given us only by th e grace of God and not because of our merits .

And this grace is most richly imparted and made sure through Jesus Christ, so that we all receive of his abundance .

I do not deny that many passages in which merit seems to be asserted might be adduced on the other side ; but we must always have recourse to the rule that, whenever the same thing is credited both to God and to us , we are always to follow the view that looks to the glory of God , and , hallowing His name, to refer everything to it, instead of that view which assigns something to us ; although God, through loving

-kindness , in which He never fails us , sometimes attributes to us as His min isters and sons things that are His alone .

For we are His sons only by His own gift, as when He says , Mt .

"He that receiveth you receiveth me ; and [M t. 1 0: 8] "

"Go ye, heal the sick , cleanse the lepers , " etc . ; and [Jn . 20: 23] Whose soever sins ye forgive, they are forgiven unto them .

In innumerable other passages , He attributes to us that which cannot possibly be any one 's but His .

Thus we see that here , too, in the case of merit, to our works is attributed, even by the mouth of God, that which is of His grace , for no other reason than the on e just mentioned : namely, because of Hi s loving-kindnes s ; or because among the members of Christ there are always some

Th e Works of Huld reich Zwi ng li wh o still have need of milk [cf. I Cor . 3 : who are slow in reaching the stage when they renounce themselves and are wholly drawn to God, when it is no longer they that live but Christ liveth in them [Gal . 2 : 20] when they realize that they do n ot even live save for the reason that God is the life , motion , and activity of all things .

But this also I have treated more fully in my Con clusi ons and my Confutati on of the Can on .

TH E Mass A little while ago you referred me to Roﬂen sis ; n ow, when you are discussing the Mass, sometimes you refer to your Vi n di cati an * written against Luther, other times you perpetrate some miserable rubbish .

If on e may measure the Vi ndi cati on by your cawings ( like a lion by its claws) , it does Luther as little harm as your present empty chattering does me .

I do n ot know the contents of your Vi n di cati on , for your books never reach us .

So I will offer here only a very few things about the Mass, but those so unassailable that, even if not only you but also the Roman pontiff with all his adherents should move up all your engines of knowledge and eloquence, you would all have to retire without having accomplished a thing .

And this solid and immovable strength does n ot come from myself, but, like everything else that I bring forward against you , is drawn from the storehouse of the Holy Scriptures .

So, in the ﬁrst place

The New Testament is eternal , as is proved by Isa . 9 : 2 and Jer . 31 : 31

. Therefore the blood also wi th which the New Testament is sprinkled must be eternal ; for it is the blood of the eternal Son of God , I Pet . 1 : 1 9 ; Heb . 9 : 1 4 .

I . The blood of Christ alone takes away our sins ; for He is the only on e who takes away the sins of the world and who has reconciled all things through His blood , Col . 1 : 20.

For if sins could have been expiated in any other way, Christ would have died in vain , and those who eat Him would still hunger, those wh o drink Him would none the less thirst .

Far be this from the minds of believers .

He Himself, lifted up from the earth , has drawn all things to Himself [cf. Jn .

But * Emser 's M i ssa e Chri s ti a n orum con tra L u thera na m mi ssa ndi formula m a sser ti o, publi shed i n 1524 .

The Wo rks of Huldreich Zwing li salutary use of this sacrament .

For, since Christians ought to live as on e body, the members cannot be cemented together more faithfully, closely, and strongly than with that cement which made both one: namely, Christ [cf.

Rom .

1 2 : 4

Therefore all who claim to be Christ 's will prove that this i s really the case by regarding a brother as a member— eye , hand ,

Oi : foot ; if they do n ot exhibit this, they who come to this table eat and drink judgment to themselves [cf. I Cor . 1 1 :

For it i s set for this purpose : that, eating together the same bread, i . e. , through the faith that is in Christ Jesus , and coalescing into on e body, we may by this holy sacramental initiation , as it were, be united into the on e army and peculiar people of God .

PURGATORY *

Y ou were as much surprised as if you had found a horse shoe (if one may use a native proverb in a foreign language) that I rejected purgatory because of these words of Christ :

"He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved " [M k .

Yet nothing more effective could be employed for exposing the mercenary ﬁctions about purgatory of those who think that godliness is gain [cf. I Tim . 6 :

For by these words above all is revealed by what way salvation comes to the wretched, namely, by faith ; and if by faith , then n ot by works .

Just see, n ow, how purgatory has all at once vanished ; for it had been cooked up to patch the holes -left by our works ; yet not by them does on e come to God , but by faith .

Hence it follows that :

"He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved "

; n ot, he that is roasted in a purifying ﬁre .

For it must be that all who die depart hence either i n the faith of Christ or without that faith .

If they g o hence in faith , they are saved ; for He says :

"He that believeth shall be saved .

If in disbelief, they are condemned ; for on the other side He says :

"He that disbeli eveth shall be condemned [M k . 1 6 :

Jn . 3 : 1 6 -1 8 :

"God so loved the world , that he gave his only begotten Son , that whosoever believeth on him should not perish , but have eternal life .

For God sent not his Son into the world to judge the world , but that the world should be

"Thi s section wa s copied i nto True an d Fa lse R eli g i on .

S ee p . 286 .

R eply to Em ser saved through him .

He that believeth on him is not judged ; but he that believeth not hath been judged already , because he hath not believed on the name of the only begotten Son of God .

Y ou see , in the ﬁrst place , that the Son was given that he who believeth on Him should have eternal life . Next, you see that eternal life is to follow .

But that would not be eternal which would during a long period of time endure grievous suffering in a purgatory ﬁre .

In the third place , you see that the world is saved through Christ .

In the fourth place , that he who believeth on Him is not judged ; yet, He who would be thrust into purgatory certainly would be judged .

For, after weighing men 's offences , the Roman pontiffs , like Minos and Rhadamanthus , cast them into Cocytus or send them off to the Fortunate Islands .

In the ﬁfth place , he that believeth not h as been condemned already , because he h as not relied upon

the grace and strength of Christ .

This, therefore, is assured, that we depart hence either faithful or unfaithful , etc .

Yet, lest someone suspect danger in delay ( as the saying is) , let us hear what Truth again says , Jn . 5 : 24 :

"Verily , verily " ( notice the asseveration ) , "I say unto you , He that heareth my word, and believeth him that sent me, hath eternal life ; and he cometh not into judgment, but hath passed out of death into life .

But what, pray , is judging, if to sentence to the ﬁre of purgatory is not to judge ?

Therefore , those who trust in Christ pass , nay, have passed , out of death into life, not life that lasts but for a time , but eternal life .

And the rich man of the parable, who sees Lazarus in Abraham 's bosom , is driven to despair by these words :

"Between us and you there is a great gulf, so that neither can go across to the others, etc . [Lk . 1 6 :

But here the dis course is about those released from the body, and it posits only

two regions, on e represented by the person of Lazarus , the other by that of the rich man .

Hence those who depart hence either are carried by angels into heavenly mansions and cannot descend to those who are in another place ; or else they are thrust into the lower world and will never be allowed to ascend

Why, then , do we wrangle so ﬁercely, when Truth says that the latter cannot ascend and the former cannot descend ?

Th e Wo rks of H uldreich Zwi ng li Is it our business to manufacture in another world penitenti aries, prisons, fetters , ﬁres, cold, hunger, and other torments ?

Why, then , do we mislead wretched consciences with these ﬁctions ?

Rom . 8 : 1 : Paul asserts that n o condemnation awaits those who are in Christ Jesus .

Therefore, if we continue ﬁrm and immovable in Christ Jesus unto the end, we shall be saved, Mt .

On the very same day on which he shared Christ 's pun i shm ent, the robber was a participant of His joy and glory [Lk .

23 :

Where di d he endure scourgings and the other evils ?

Or is God unjust, that He should not match His ' words with deeds ?

Not so, for we see that in the case of the robber He exactly fulﬁlled the saying, "He hath n ot come into judgment, but hath passed out of death in to life " [Jn . 5 : 24] Paul forbids us to be anxious concerning them that fall asleep , I Thess . as if we had n o hope of a future life, just as the heathen have no hope .

But if there were a pur g atory, undoubtedly he woul d have taught us to sorrow for those who we knew were being sadly afflicted wi th torments .

Therefore, since he had occasion to mention the dead , and, more than that, to di scuss the anxi ety of the living in regard to them , and yet gave n ot the slightest hint of purgatory, it is quite evident that Paul knew nothing about purgatory .

He realized that it was sufﬁcient for him to know Christ and Him cruciﬁed [I Cor . 2 :

But what need of many words , when we see that purga tory has the support only of human ﬁction and not of God 's word ? For all the passages of Holy Scripture used in its defence have been violently twisted to serve that purpose .

Therefore, Emser, henceforth consider not h ow readily you can rise to heights of insult or of eloquence, but h ow trul y and justly you can speak .

Do you think that what you are after in your writings is not clear even to a blind man ?

Yet all you prove by them is that you are a blatherskite , and that for your belly 's sake you are furnishing the Romanists a feeble defence .

Their domination is so little able to last that, though it were

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