Road to independence

Road to independence

The road to independence All over Europe in the sixteenth century we come across public debates, disputations, altercations, dialogues and confrontations. The universities had long since tended to claim that controversial issues properly posed could be, and should be, settled by the application of the principles of logical reasoning. At Paris, Oxford, or Vienna, it was by sustaining a thesis successfully in public argument that the bachelor of arts could enter the society of masters and doctors. It was, indeed, accepted that orthodoxy must prevail, that a proposition could be philosophically sound but theologically false, any possibly heretical conclusion being disavowed beforehand. This apart, however, the superior argument prevailed, and the opponent gave way. Even in the law courts, there was in a sense the same appeal to the public argument, in so far as a jury presented its verdict on the facts put before it. Pico della Mirandola had offered to debate any one of 900 propositions with any or all comers, and it has often been pointed out that there was nothing exceptional about the presentation of Luther's ninety-five theses. Uncertainties could be resolved by reason, and reason meant the rules of logic worked out by long generations of scholastic philosophers. This could, and sometimes did, degenerate into mere verbal subtleties and argument about words from the substance of which all meaning had departed. Beyond them, however, lay the assumption that the dogmas of the church were apart and irrefutable. This could mean in practice that the Pope, the maker and interpreter of Canon Law, had the last and decisive word. Suppose, however, that Pope and councils could be mistaken, then the only appeal was to Holy Writ. This, in effect, had been implicit in some of Erasmus' writings, and quite explicit in Luther's thought by 1521. Since there were still a number of disputed and debatable matters, like flesh-eating in Lent or clerical marriage, these, now that the Bible for the first time was readily available in the original tongues, could, it was thought, be settled by question, answer, rational exposition and conclusion. To approach this tribunal had been increasingly Zwingli's intent from 1519 onwards. By the end of 1522, he had won over a sufficient following among influential people to be able to urge upon his rulers its

ZWINGLI adoption as a working principle. Zurich had been challenged to prove its orthodoxy. Let this challenge be accepted: the word of God could not fail as a court of appeal, for in it was truth. So far from Zurich practice or preaching being wrong, the opposite was the case - it was their opponents who had departed from the teaching of Christ and the apostles, and had fallen into human error and misapprehension. All this should be argued publicly and exhaustively. The new council that came into office towards the end of 1522 adopted, after careful and serious debate, just this position.

They would meet their critics in open debate, and the whole dispute could be settled thus 'according to the truth of Holy Writ' - and in the German language.1

These were highly important provisions. The Bible in German had only recently become accessible to the literate minority, and there was no vernacular text that was acceptable to Rome. Everything turned upon who was to interpret the Bible, and the claim from Constance that this should be the responsibility of those who understood its technicalities was difficult to resist. Such discussions had previously been university affairs.

Secondly, the debate was to be in German. In so far as the matters under discussion were theological, which was the case to a considerable degree, the German of north Switzerland was not the best of instruments for this.

Theological discussions had almost invariably been in Latin and by trained disputants; a debate in a local language with laymen to decide about matters in which they had no training was very different.

The Zurich Council had long ago accepted responsibility for the maintenance of the true Christian faith within their dominions. The councillors, land owners, administrators, business men, successful craftsmen, now wanted to know what it was all about and decide on a course of action after a public discussion. They had been criticised in the Diet of the Confederation, and so all represented there would be most gladly heard in Zurich; other city states, Basle, Berne, Schaffhausen, should send their best clerics and laymen; above all, the Bishop of Constance should attend, suitably accompanied, and answer for his church. Nor did Zurich intend it to be all purely defensive; their leading scholar should set out his case in traditional form in propositions, conclusions, articles or theses.2 The 1 'mit warhaffter gottlicher geschrifft in thiitscher zungen und sprach anzogend' (Z I, 467)

Stumpf 2, 1, 174.

2 Z 1, 458-65. Also, translated, in C. S. Meyer, Luther's and ZwingWs Propositions for Debate

(Leyden, 1963) 35-51; A. C. Cochrane, Reformed Confessions of the 16th century (Philadelphia, 1966), 36-44; Ulrich Zwingli (1484-1531) selected works, ed. S. M. Jackson, introduction by E. Peters (Philadelphia, 1972), 111-17.

Koehler,Zfl?m^//93, rightly insists that there is no analogy with Luther's 95 theses composed in completely different circumstances. The Schlussreden were indeed hurriedly composed for a particular occasion and were not carefully thought out, but they were, nevertheless, an outline of an all-embracing programme of religious reform for Switzerland and beyond.

Road to independence agenda was to be a discussion of these 67 Schlussreden, as they were called, under civic guidance in the Town Hall (Rathaus)1 on 29 January 1523.

The answers to the invitation, or challenge, which was sent out on 3 January, were disappointing. All the responsible clergy within the jurisdiction of Zurich were called in, and nearly all obeyed the order. But practically all the constituent members of the Federal Diet, whose earlier strictures had invited a reply, refused to consider representation. So, too, more surprisingly, did Basle, seat of a bishop and a university where

Johannes Oecolampadius (Hans Huszgen) had come in 1522 and was pursuing a course parallel to Zwingli's own. He feared lest a public disputation might become a public demonstration. The refusal was also partly due to inter-state jealousy; if there was to be a general doctrinal discussion,

Basle, where old men could recall the days of an oecumenical council, should be the venue.2 The Bishop of Constance certainly did not in any case intend to be present in person to argue with his inferiors, nor, indeed, were bishops of the early sixteenth century expected to be theologians or debaters. There could be no real debate in any case; it was from their bishop that his flock could receive directions and, if necessary, explanations. However, the invitation could not be ignored altogether; it was arranged that the diocese should be represented by observers who would attend on the bishop's behalf 'not to argue, but simply to listen, to give advice and to act as arbitrators'.

The bishop was, in fact, in something of a dilemma.3 To ignore the invitation altogether was to abandon any hope of leading a reform movement with some of whose objectives he sympathised. Although he later indicated that he regarded the whole business as unworthy of his notice, that it was a mere 'tinkers' convention' (Kesslertag), a gathering of vagabonds, hippies and layabouts, in fact the matter was given careful consideration at Constance, and Fabri's presence was no accident. The disparaging remarks from the bishop were inevitably reported in Zurich and aroused resentment which was exploited by the anti-clericals.

The gathering was on the whole well stage-managed, apart from the failure to produce the agenda until just before the meeting started. It was fair comment for Fabri to complain that the 67 theses, some of far-reaching importance, were being circulated only on the day before discussions started, hot and wet from Froschauer's press.4 Major issues, usually reserved for councils, bishops and universities, were to be publicly debated

1 Not, of course, the existing building, which dates from the late seventeenth century, but an earlier Gothic structure on the same site.

2 Z 1, 445; Z VIII, 12, 29.

3 B. Moeller, Zwinglis Dispntationen. Studien zu den Anfdngen der Kirchenbildung und des

Synodalwesens im Protestantismus. ZRG 56 (1970), 278.

* Z 1, 548-9 n. 5; Egli /, 199-204 (No. 484).

ZWINGLI without any chance of their formulation being studied beforehand. It was not intended to be sharp practice, but it could be so represented, and the hurry was unnecessary. Possibly the otherwise inexcusable delay was deliberate: the episcopal delegation might well have refused to attend had they seen the theses beforehand.

The Zurich disputation was what might later be described as a public inquiry: it was arranged by the government, whose duty it was to ensure that proper preaching and teaching was available for its subjects. This had long been accepted, and it was now peculiarly important that the pulpits, the equivalents of press, public advertisement, radio and television, should be under control.

Although discussion and debate were envisaged, the outcome was largely prejudged because of the terms of reference. From the Bible there was no appeal; so that, any practice or teaching based solely on prescription however long, on councils however oecumenical and venerable, must be rejected. Thus, the council was in fact undertaking in 1523 what Henry VIII did eleven years later, to assert its supremacy in matters of religion.

At the centre of the 600 interested parties who crowded into the hall on a January morning,1 was Zwingli with a group of friends and supporters and the folio volumes of the Greek New Testament, the Hebrew Old Testament and the Latin Vulgate, open before him. This was, in itself, impressive enough. Long years of study and a powerful memory meant that he could appeal instantly to the text or passage that supported his contention, and there was almost no one who could challenge his rendering of the Greek and Hebrew into Swiss German, which they all spoke. He also surpassed his possible opponents and critics in his understanding of the many different forms of speech to be found among the prose and poetry of the Divine Word. He was on his own ground, and the chairman, Blirgermeister Marx Roist,2 was his ally.

It is astonishing that this specially convened council meeting which was to decide what was and what was not scriptural, and was to sit in judgement upon the papacy, tradition and ancient institutions and usages, did not take the simple precaution of keeping proper minutes of the proceedings and recording the evidence upon which its decisions were based. The days of shorthand reporting were not yet, but there were notaries public in Zurich whose official testimony could be of international evidential value, yet they were not used. There were no official minutes or acta^ partly

1 z !> 483'

2 A man of distinguished and wealthy family, now nearly 70 (1454-1524), who had fought and had been knighted at Morat by Rene of Lorraine and Hans Waldmann and had been a member of the council almost continuously for 30 years. For a short time he was captain of the papal bodyguard at Rome (1518). Wirz, 482; ADB xxix, 405-6; Z 1, 483 n. 2; Wyss,

13 n. 2.

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Road to independence because in theory the council was simply receiving verbal evidence,1 but this left room for disputes and recriminations later.

The public inquiry soon became a public demonstration rather than a full, fair and free discussion. It was manifestly impossible in one day, before a large tribunal of busy men taken from their normal occupations, themselves mostly illiterate and in any case without any kind of theological training, to set out the whole case. Even allowing that the words of the Bible were alone to be decisive, almost any one of the great themes raised needed far more time and knowledge than were available there.

Zwingli's opponents were not only ill-represented, but they also put their case very badly. There were, in fact, four representatives of the bishop of the diocese there, who consistently and explicitly insisted that they were present only as observers and reporters and were not prepared to deal with any of the matters to be raised in any official capacity.2 Matters as deep and far-reaching as those raised now could properly be discussed only at a 1 The first Zurich disputation deserves, from its intrinsic importance, fuller study. A. Baur,

Die erste Ziiricher Disputation am 2Q. Januar 1523 (Halle, 1883), was a pioneer piece of work whose conclusions are also embodied in the same writer's Zwinglis Theologie. The material is collected, with introductions, in Z 1, 442 (479)-56o, (esp. 483 n. 1) and is adequate. The essential facts are not in doubt.

The independent narrative of Erhard Hegenwald, Handlung der Versamlung etc. (Zurich,

1523) has perhaps been given too great prominence; the various reprints, however, suggest that it coloured local opinion. ZWA xin, 559-560 n. 14. Fabri issued his own account (Wahrliche

Unterrichtung) of the meeting, nominally for the benefit of Archduke Ferdinand of Austria and the administration at Innsbruck (cf. J. G. Mayer in Katholische Schweizer-Blatter (Lucerne,

1895), 51—65, 183-95), anc* another version exists. There is also the unreliable but not insignificant satire Das Gyrenrupfen, composed by seven of the younger and less responsible auditors (J. Baechtold, Geschichte der Deutschen Literatur in der Schweiz: Anmerkungen

(Frauenfeld, 1892), 135) and accounts by Bullinger, Ref. 1, 84-90, 97-107, and Salat, 42-53.

2 The four delegates from Constance were Ritter Fritz Jakob von Anwyl, an undistinguished knight, comptroller of the bishop's household, who was later to accept the Reformation;

Domherr Georg Vergenhaus, an equally undistinguished Canon of Constance cathedral;

Dr Martin Blansch or Plank, a second-rate theologian from Tubingen; and Dr Johann Fabri, the bishop's Official or vicar general. The only other 'outsiders' known to be present were

Sebastian Hofmeister from Schaffhausen and Sebastian Meyer from Berne. Z 1, 445.

Johannes Fabri, or Faber (the words are interchangeable but Fabri is more correct) (14781541) was an able man whose early career had some parallels with that of Zwingli. He was a humanist and an admirer of Erasmus, with whom, and with Zwingli, he exchanged friendly letters. A visit to Rome in 1521 convinced him of the dangers of the new Erasmian tendencies and he may also have perceived that the way to promotion was by active participation in the verbal and written polemics so much to the taste of his contemporaries. From then onwards he was Zwingli's indefatigable opponent, facile, unscrupulous, commonplace, elusive and well-versed in the standard text-books of orthodoxy. In 1530 he was made Bishop of Vienna, where he founded the trilingual college of St Nicholas, and in 1538 he was provost of Basle.

Allen 11, 189; I. Staub, Dr. Johann Fabri (1518-23) (Einsiedeln, 1911), 90-7, 121-3; L.

Helbling, Dr. Johann Fabri und die schweizerische Reformation (Einsiedeln, 1932-3); A.

Naegele, Dr. Johann Fabri Generalvikar von Konstanz Malleus in haeresim Lutheranam (1524)

(Miinster i. W. 2 Bde. 1941, 1952), Corpus Catholicorum, 23-6. The second part was completed, with valuable notes, by F. Heyer.

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ZWINGLI general council of bishops and doctors,1 or an international Christian convention or possibly before a great university like Paris, Cologne or Louvain.2 It was, they very reasonably pointed out, absurd that major controversies should be decided in a small city like Zurich when they concerned equally all France, Spain, Italy and Northern Europe. At the Diet of Nuremberg,3 it was resolved, in February 1523, that a general council ^einfrei cristlich concilium'') should be held in Germany to discuss just such matters, the first of the many proposals that were ultimately to lead to the Council of Trent.

These very reasonable objections were swept aside by Zwingli in a torrent of words. The fact that an abuse was of long standing did not make it less of an abuse; the Pope himself had agreed that custom gives way to truth.4 The gathering at Zurich was a 'Christian Assembly' and, for that matter, a gathering of bishops,5 perfectly competent to reach conclusions from the Gospel. This latter had been kept hidden all too long, but now it was available.' God does not ask us what Popes, bishops and councils have ordered, or what is praiseworthy old custom, but how his will, his word and his commands are to be followed.' 'We have the infallible and impartial judge, Holy Writ, in Hebrew, Greek and Latin',6 and there were competent theologians and canonists there too with, most important of all, hearts inspired by Christian faith.

One of the reasons publicly set out for the disputation was that Zwingli had been denounced in general terms as a traitor and a heretic,7 and almost the first question put to the packed assembly was, ' Is there anyone here prepared to call Zwingli a heretic ?' There was, explicably, no reply. One country clergyman merely remarked, 'If no one says anything against 1 'einer gantzen. christlichen versamlung aller nation oder vor eim concilio der bischoffen unnd andrer gelerten, so man findt uff den hohen schulen' Z I, 491.

2 Z I, 493. The selection is not uninteresting. Paris was a very obvious choice, as was Cologne with its Dominican studiutn, and Aquinas, Albertus Magnus and Duns Scotus as past residents ; but Louvain, which was less than a quarter of a century older than Basle, was less so.

It had only recently come into prominence because Pope Adrian VI had graduated there and a collegium trilingue had been founded there in 1517. All three were rigidly orthodox, even reactionary. H. Rashdall, The Universities of Europe in the Middle Ages ed. F. M. Powicke and A. B. Emden (Oxford, 1936) 11, 255-6, 266-8.

3 RTA in, 746-7; H. Jedin, Geschichte des Konzils von Trient2 Bd. 1. (Freiburg, 1951), 169-70.

4 Decretum Gratiani I. Dist. 8, cap. VI. Corpus Iuris Canonici (ed. Friedberg, Leipzig, 1897),

15. 'Revelatione ergo facta veritatis cedat consuetudo veritati.' However desirable some of the reforms suggested may have been, to speak of them as 'manifestly true' was a typical

Zwinglian overstatement.

5 Zwingli, basing his exegesis on the Greek New Testament, always insisted that a bishop was a simple * overseer', a minister or clergyman - * das ist uff gut diitsch: ein pfarrer'. Cf. Z I, 231

(Eine freundliche Bitte etc.): *alle pfarrer bischoff sind\ Z I, 495-6.

6 Z 1, 497, 498. Cf. ZWA XI, 479-98 for Zwingli's rejection of General Councils.

7 Z 1, 484 'von etlichen ein verfurer, von den andern ein ketzer gscholten und hinderredt\

His accusers included the Mendicant Orders and Canon Hofmann. Egli /, 59-65 (No. 213).

Road to independence Zwingli and no one contradicts him then he must be right and the bishop wrong.'1

To the issues raised from the 67 propositions, Fabri contented himself with his initial statement that he was not there to enter into any formal argument, but he put forward some commonplaces of orthodox apologetics. Heresies had constantly given trouble, and they reappeared in different forms - Novatian, Montanist, Sabellian, Ebionite, Marcionite, and, more recently, Beghards, Bohemian brethren, Wyclifites and Hussites.

Was this the time and place to call into question practices that had seven hundred years prescription behind them ? If there was no authority with bishops, cardinals, Popes and the monastic orders, if purgatory, the Blessed Virgin and St Peter were not to be accepted, where did authority reside ? Was Zurich to set itself against the rest of the world ? Unlike

Zwingli, who made too much of his linguistic skill, he admitted that he knew no Hebrew and only a little Greek, while his Latin was adequate enough. In its way, this was a dignified and telling answer.' I am no orator or poet. '2 The spirit of God, he insisted, is not to be found in clever, smooth, eloquent words; quotations from the scriptures are more easily produced than the proper understanding and interpretation of them.

Fabri's intervention on the theme of clerical marriage was long remembered. After Zwingli had explained his position, Fabri insisted that there had been no married priest for 1,200 years, since the days of Tertullian

(d. c. 220) and the Council of Nicaea (325). To this, one of the councillors present rejoindered, 'Maybe not, but they have been free to keep mistresses.'3 The answer was an embarrassed silence.

There were other exchanges, but they were neither lengthy nor effective: some were brushed aside as 'sophistry', of which Zwingli said, 'I, too, used to be good at this'.4 The first Zurich disputation was indeed a striking personal triumph for Zwingli, comparable only with his later spectacular victory at Berne in 1528. The debate was stage-managed, onesided, and unfair to the Catholics, whose case had very largely gone by default. Fabri was determined not to enter into any serious discussion with his opponents, and there was no one else able or willing to uphold their cause.

Zwingli succeeded in establishing two major principles - that it was the duty of the government to control public worship and religious observances, and that the only preaching to be tolerated within its borders was

1 Z 1, 501-2.

2 Z 1, 511. Orator in the Ciceronian sense of eloquent and persuasive pleader, poeta, adept at humanist Latinity.

3 Z 1, 522. * Aber huren hatt mann wol erloubt.'

4 Z 1, 552: 'ich habs ouch wol vor zyten in der sophistery gelesen'.

ZWINGLI such as was compatible with the text of the Bible.l The outcome of this first disputation was that the council agreed that Zwingli's sermons should continue and that all clergy within its jurisdiction should adopt the same exclusively evangelical approach. It was a notable achievement but it was not, and was not intended to be, a breach with Rome. Mass continued to be said in Latin as before. The Catholics could, and did, maintain that the Bible was the foundation of the Christian faith and that any departure from it might be heretical: it was all a question of interpretation. None the less, it implied the rejection of papal claims and thus was the first step on the road to a protestant Zurich.2 Something of what the first disputation meant was seen when the sixty-seven piopositions which had been before the assembly were generally available in print with Zwingli's commentary.3 This was five months later and thus allowed for elaboration and answered Fabri's claim that the propositions were not founded on scripture. In this careful exposition, Zwingli's theological position is more clearly and concisely set out than anywhere else, except perhaps in the last confession of faith sent to Francis I of France in 1531.

On two major matters, there was to be serious deepening and modification later, namely on the subjects of baptism and the eucharist, and these themes can be more suitably described in conjunction with the Anabaptists and with Luther than within the framework of 1523. Basically, in the public debate, his opponents had denied both the truth and the biblical foundations of his assertions. They could now have the whole matter plainly set before them in German. The immediate recipients supposedly consisted of his former friends and parishioners in Glarus, but, as the Bishop of Constance and the Elector of Saxony were quick to recognise, it was addressed urbi et orbi, and it stated the results of a decade of consideration of the Bible message. It was intended to be highly practical; it took up every worthwhile issue that was under discussion at the time, and it was above all written for his 'admirable Confederates',4 who, under Christian freedom,5 are better off, and who can secure this freedom more peacefully, if they will, than any other Christian society in the world.

First and foremost, he insisted that it was necessary to establish the exclusive priority and superiority of the revealed word;6 it was both erro1 Z I, 447, 470-1, 547: 'was sy mitt dem heyligen euangelion unnd sunst rechter gottlicher geschrifft bewaren mogen'. Egli /, 115 (No. 327).

2 L. v. Muralt, Die Reformation, in Historia Mundi (Berne, 1957) Bd. VII, 73-4.

3 The public debate closed on 29 January. Z I, 569. The commentary on the sixty-seven propositions was printed on 14 July 1523 by Froschauer. (Auslegen undGriinde der Schlussreden.) Z 11, n (i4)~457.

4 'einr loblichen Eydgnoschafft'. Z 11, 19.

5 This 'freedom* was duplex -freedom through Christ from the restrictive law of the Old

Testament and freedom from man-made papal and ecclesiastical regulations and requirements. Koehler, Zwingliy 94-6.

6 Z 1, 458: 'uss grund der geschrifft, die theopneustos - das ist: vonn gott ingesprochen\

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Road to independence neous and blasphemous to pretend that if no New Testament had survived, the church or councils could dictate the conditions which could secure eternal bliss, salvation, for humanity. The conclusions were not intended as a general apologetic for the Christian faith. The existence of God (in whom alone is perfect truth and perfect goodness, eternal, the creator of the universe, revealing himself to man in time through his son), the immortality of the soul and human fallibility, are taken for granted.

His exposition thus was not addressed to those who, like Jews and infidels, are hardened in perfidy and disbelief.

The true only son of God, Christ, guiltless man, the exemplar of divine love, died once and for all on the cross for humanity, thereby reconciling

God and man and saving mankind from eternal death. Adam had chosen to disobey God who had created him, and had thus brought death, sin and suffering to the human race which could no longer of its own accord fulfil

God's will in righteousness, truth and goodness. The book of Genesis is as basic to Zwinglian, and indeed to Reformation, theology as the Gospels.

The fall of man happened in measurable past time exactly as narrated - it, and the creation, were no allegories or explanatory stories.

The Gospel was not the product of human reason; it was complete, it could not be overruled or added to, and through God's spirit it was entirely comprehensible to those with the gift of faith. Church, Pope, the Fathers, could neither interpret, improve, nor alter it. Through God's goodness, righteousness and mercy, through the death of the sinless

Christ, salvation was available to all mankind. Grace indeed had some immediate as well as continuous applicability. No creature of his own accord could fulfil God's will, our nature not being such that we could not be moved by unworthy desires or anger. All believers knew the struggle of body1 and soul, but where there was faith, God working through Christ, there was also love of God and the intent and ability to keep his commandments. Having told his readers in beautiful simplicity that, where the love of God is, there is also God's spirit, he goes on, almost to the point of bathos, to condemn as evidence of the opposite, pilgrimages, processions, lights, incense, noisy hymns,2 vigils, vain repetitions, hired masses, mural

1 The body, flesh, was both weak and corrupt. The concept of necessary human sin, frailty, weakness, sickness, was especially vivid for Zwingli - Prast, Mangel, Fehler, Gebrechen,

Krankheit, he multiplies physiological indications to illustrate his point without ever precisely defining the extent and the nature of this inherent 'weakness'. That, however, it was something curable by truth and divine mercy he never doubted.

2 The qualification noisy hymns (hiilen) (Z n, 48) is interesting. Zwingli was intensely musical and loved harmony of sound. Church services in the fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries, with very primitive organs and with large numbers of untrained males singing out of tune at the tops of their voices, could easily become unedifying. When, as frequently depicted in early wood and metal cuts, dogs were present in church and cannot have failed to raise their voices as well, the effect must have been disastrous. Zwingli did not object to all hymn singing in church.

ZWINGLI paintings and other decorations in churches, the purchase of prayers and indulgences and the running after relics in the streets.

This is followed by a denunciation of the vanity of gambling, buffoonery, bad language, immorality, drunkenness and expensive clerical vestments - better that the money were spent on the poor and needy, rentreductions and better pay for the workers.

From this the argument returns to the Bible (with a plea for more teaching of Latin in order to understand it), to its insistence that Christ, and not the Pope, is the head of the Church. But what is 'the church' ? The conclusions now set out were basic to much of Zwingli's thought. Manifestly there was the community of all true believers in Christ, united through the Spirit in one faith, universal, Catholic, known to God alone. But what of the visible church on earth ? For this the primitive church of the apostles provided the model. Nothing in scripture called for a 'representative' church {ecclesia representativa), still less for a Roman church with any such claims. Instead, it was groups of Christians meeting together and living side by side locally as a community (Gemeinde) that constituted a church.I It followed that no council or assembly of bishops could act or speak for the church; to call the Roman Church the universal church, or the Bishop of Rome universal head, was unacceptable, and from all this followed serious consequences, as the reader was warned. Their master must be the Bible alone, to which they must submit with humility. If the Fathers were found to disagree with the Bible, so much the worse for the Fathers: those who followed them in such disagreement were not included in the church of Christ. ' The Bible must be your master: you are not master of the Bible'2-the principle of sola scriptura could hardly be more plainly stated. Such exclusiveness was later to prove almost an embarrassment.3

The attack on the papacy, the hierarchy, canon law and the exclusive pretensions of the clergy attracted attention to the 67 articles but made them less theologically effective. They also intensified Catholic opposition; as the writer well knew, 'this little book will bring much disapproval'.4

When he went on to compare the normal public services of the Great 1 Z II, 56-8. The word church - 'kirck oder kilch.. .Kahal, ecclesia, concio' - sometimes used to describe a building, properly signified a meeting or assembly,' ein versamlung, gemeinsame oder gemeind des volks... die besunderen zemenversamlungen, die wir pfarren oder kilchhorinen nennend'. (Kirchgemeinde, Pfarrei, Versammlung der Genossen einer Kirchgemeinde.) The congregation of God's people which is at Corinth (I Cor. i, 2) Zwingli calls

4 Der gemeind, die in Corintho ist.' There is no adequate English equivalent of Gemeinde village, manor, township, parish (whether civil or ecclesiastical) are too topographical, village community is too artificial. The Swiss Gemeinde, of the existence of which every government was highly conscious, included the whole local community, men, women and children, able to express opinions through a gathering of the adult males, all together part of the whole

Christian church.

2 Z 11, 62: 'die gschrifFt iiwer meister ist, und ir nit meister iiber die gschrifft sind\

3 Yoder 1, 21: See below 175.

4 Z 11, 64.

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Road to independence Minster with Jewish ceremonial, and the financial system of the medieval church with the burdens imposed on the Jews but condemned by Christ, the negative and destructive nature of this section was made a little too prominent.

Further, Zwingli now openly challenged the codified legislation of the church, the canon law as set out in the Corpus Juris Canonici. This consisted largely of papal pronouncements, relying for its validity upon papal enactment and promulgation, and was dependent upon the concept of the Pope as vicar of Christ. Zwingli's case was that canon law was valid only when, and in so far as, it agreed with God's word. In the event of a conflict, it was of no effect, and of the existence of a conflict oidinary people, guided by the Bible, must judge.

'People', however, meant in practice the organised community, the government. Thus, by implication, the authority of the Pope and councils was transferred to the state; it was by the government that laws relating to the church must be enforced if acceptable and abrogated where they were not compatible with the Bible, and of this the secular authorities were the judge. With them rested responsibility for enforcing the law. While urging submission to a Christian magistracy, the Swiss equivalent of the ' godly prince' elsewhere, Zwingli supplied the clear guidance which was just what the Zurich Council in Rathaus assembled wanted - this body had already secured most of the authority formerly exercised by the bishop; in the future they could assume that of the Pope as well, the more so in that the papal claim to rule as a temporal prince was now shown to be repugnant to Christ's instructions to his apostles.

New Testament theory: sixteenth century Swiss practice - it was relatively easy to emphasise the contrast, and no opportunity of doing this was omitted. Quite suddenly we move from appealing exposition of divine grace and love, and penetrating paraphrase of some profound biblical truths to strong denunciation of those who 'in this city' impede the propagation of the sweetness and comfort of the Bible.1

Salvation by faith is set out with some simplicity. Belief, then baptism, then salvation from God, all can understand this, but not all heed the warning of the Psalmist - omnis homo mendax - wherefore men twist the scripture to their own purposes, whereas only what is revealed by God is assuredly true, anything else is suspect. Human teaching, good works, our private efforts, however well meant, are valueless, vain, even deceptive; righteousness can be achieved only by God's mercy, by hope and faith.

1 For editions of the Bible available see below 128 n. 4. It was assumed that all literates could secure a copy of the Bible, although this was relatively expensive. When the Pfarrer from Schlieren complained that he was too poor to be able to purchase a copy of the New Testament, Zwingli insisted that he could easily either borrow one or persuade a well-to-do layman to buy one for him. Z 1, 564-5.

ZWINGLI The alternative was damnation. Hence, obedience is better than sacrifice, provided that it is obedience to God and not to men. Inevitably the supersession of the 'law and prophets' by the new law of love and of the spirit requires explanation and exposition. The Gospel brought a new freedom; the spirit of God shows man what God requires. Cautiously and with appropriate qualifications1 Zwingli urged simple reliance upon Christ and his teaching through the Spirit. Again and again, Zwingli, here and elsewhere, warns, indeed fulminates, against hypocrisy. He found it, or seemed to find it, at every turn - so much mechanical repetition, so much action, even payment without conviction behind it, seemed apparent. Sometimes it seemed almost an obsession: any action by his opponents and any argument by which it was supported could be swept majestically and magisterially aside with the word Gleisnerei, mere pretence.

Christ alone was High Priest, and any attempt or claim to assume the honour and the power that is his alone, any claim to be his representative, lieutenant, 'statthalter', was vain; any one displacing Christ was himself

Antichrist. He who has the keys does not replace the giver of the keys, and the keys were not for Peter alone but for all the disciples together. Others,

St Paul especially, fed the sheep just as much as St Peter did. The drift of all this was obvious enough. Papal claims to supremacy were as clearly rejected as they had been three years previously by Luther in To the Christian Nobility of the German Nation. None the less, throughout the section dealing with the Pope, there is a certain caution, reticence and avoidance of direct vituperation rather unusual at the time.

Much twentieth century scholarship has demonstrated the antiquity and the profundity of papal claims; for some purposes the Pope was God upon earth.2 Measures and men had long since depended on him: the law of the church, canon law, derived much of its validity and most of its accepted interpretation from papal authority, while the appointment to almost any benefice might be in his hands. Concordats, like that made with France at Bologna in 1516, might indeed mean that in practice this authority was delegated to monarch or government; but even so, what had been granted might be taken away. The Pope 'created' his cardinals; archbishops, bishops and heads of religious orders were papal nominees.

Without the Pope the catholic church of the west ceased to function according to pattern and plan. Manifestly, it is the breach with the papacy which marks the acceptance of the Reformation in Saxony, England,

1 'Weliche sich nun mit aller zuversicht an'n herren Christum Jesum lassend...' Z 11, 81.

'Darumb mussend wir zu aller zyt durch den einigen, gerechten, unschuldigen Jesus Christum zu got kummen.' Z 11, 478.

2 W. Ullmann, Medieval Papalism (London, 1949), especially 118, states the papal case. See also the same author's The Growth of Papal Government in the Middle Ages (3rd ed.,

London, 1970) and G. Barraclough, The Medieval Papacy (London, 1968).

IO8

Road to independence Scotland, the Scandinavian countries. Wherever there was a coherent government, an obvious test of orthodoxy was its treatment of and by the papacy. By implication the Zurich council in its approval of the evangelism of 1523 had also broken with the papacy, but this was not realised then, or even a good deal later.

From papal authority, Zwingli goes on to deal with the mass. The basic antiquity of this service is now accepted as being much greater than earlier ages knew; but, equally, it is recognised that the liturgy, and the accompanying thought about the nature of the eucharist, had evolved slowly with almost continuous change. For many purposes the fourth Lateran Council of 1215 provided a simple starting point; transubstantiation was then clearly stated, communion in one kind and the necessity of individual auricular confession were made obligatory upon all the faithful. Of these developments, that of communion in one kind, the wine being for the priest only, was, of itself, intrinsically a matter of'indifference' or of practice.

It was the Hussites who had made so much of this matter that it assumed a significance out of proportion to the subject. Zwingli was well aware of this, and, although finding it 'surprising' that the cup was withheld,1 it was to a clear statement of more fundamental issues that he now turned.

He was now convinced that Christ's offering of himself for sinful humanity was complete, once-and-for-all, final, and that there was no need for, and indeed no possibility of, the repetition of this sacrifice. It was the treatment of the mass as a sacrifice, a repetition of Christ's suffering on the cross, which was totally unacceptable to him. Christ's action was unique, never to be repeated; whereas for the devout Catholic, the priest, holding in his hands the body of Christ, enacted once again the offering made at Calvary. Quite apart from any question of transubstantiation, there was here a clear divergence of thought about this central theme of church worship, which could not be closed and was almost bound to widen.

Zwingli, like many others of his time, was fascinated by words; he was humanist enough to know that the meaning of many common Latin words had changed considerably since classical times, and yet he was unwilling to accept the interpretation of another age. Sacrificare, sacrificium, could not be the same as 'offer', 'offering', just as sacr'amentum meant for the humanist a solemn oath of allegiance like that taken by the soldier on entering military service, and was illegitimately used to mean a holy mystery.2 This constant harping upon semantics or etymology is a little wearisome because it so often seems to lead nowhere and because some1 While he was beneficed in Glarus, Zwingli had been shown an 'obsequial' or service book from Mollis not more than two hundred years old, apparently containing clear evidence that communion in both kinds had been available there even to children. Z 11, 133-4.

2 Z 11, 118, 120; see p. 290 n. 3 below.

IO9 PZI

ZWINGLI times the derivations are either demonstrably wrong or irrelevant. If sacrament, sacramentum, meant an oath, then confirmation, ordination and extreme unction were not sacraments; if sacramentum was to be expanded into sacrae rei signum, a sign of a holy thing, then the elements, the bread and the wine, became this. If they were signs, they must be signs of something, and therefore could not be a sacrifice. It would be far better not to use the word sacrament at all: 'Wir Tiitschen bedorffend dess worts sacrament nit.'1

There was indeed occasional polemic in this section, but there was also much simple Christian pastoral advice. Man in this life is never free from the cross, from the suffering which is the common lot of humanity. To live an acceptable life, a man must bear tribulation, sickness and pain with humility. Following Christ involves sweat and toil, renouncing the devil who offers honour and renown, submitting patiently to God's will. 'If you would sacrifice anything to God, sacrifice your pride.'2 All this, and much more in this treatise, may be the commonplaces of the moralist but are not therefore insignificant.

The word 'testament' brought him back to the theme of'sacrifice' and remembrance. Unlike Luther, he would gladly avoid using this noun which had such explicit legal implications of inheritance of property, preferring his favourite word, remembrance, Wiedergeddchtnis. By now (July

1523), Zwingli had thought out a great deal, although he had not reached such finality as he ever attained about what it is convenient to label the 'doctrine of the real presence'. He was not yet, as he put it, prepared to argue with the theologi.

Leaving this major matter on one side for later consideration, some other topics were raised and disposed of in this commentary with some decisiveness. The five traditional sacraments beside baptism and the Last Supper were easily put into a different category. Extreme unction was a degenerate and unnecessary extension of the apostolic practice of the friendly visit to the sick and the speaking of words of faith.3 The accompaniments had become childishly ornamental, the anointing oil being insignificant in comparison with the words that went with it. Confirmation received rather fuller treatment. It was a friendly action expressive of what had already happened, a public recognition by those coming to the age of discretion of the obligations assumed at baptism. For baptism and the eucharist there was the fullest biblical authority, and Zwingli's treatment of these in the Schlussreden was soon to require further elaboration.4

1 Z 11, 125.

2 Z 11, 130.

3 As described in James 5. 14.

4 See below, chaps, vn, xm. In baptism it was not the water but the faith that the baptised person showed in salvation through Christ that washed away sin. He writes in terms of adult comprehension; the difficulties surrounding the applicability of this principle to the baptism of infants were passed over in silence. Similarly at this stage he seems to have accepted the IIO

Road to independence All this was manifestly so closely allied to what Luther was writing and saying that Zwingli, not for the last time, had to assert his own independence. He insisted that he had already started preaching directly from the Bible at Glarus and Einsiedeln in 1516, as Diebold von Geroldseck could testify, before Luther's name had been known in the neighbourhood. When three years later he came to Zurich, 'I set forth...how I would, if God willed, preach the Gospel written by Matthew without human additions or controversial comment... No one here knew anything about Luther except that something had been published by him about indulgences.'1 This, Zwingli insisted, gave him little help since his attention had been drawn to abuses of indulgences by Thomas Wittenbach,2 his admired teacher at Basle. 'Luther's book on the Lord's Prayer3 was published after I had spoken on Matthew' and then he found himself taken for its author. 'Why did the Roman cardinal and representatives who were staying at that time in our city of Zurich begin to hate and want to ensnare me, not making me out to be a Lutheran until they knew that Luther was a heretic ?... I began to preach before ever I heard Luther's name, and to that end I began to learn Greek ten years ago in order that I might know the teachings of Christ from the original sources... The Papists say, "You must be Lutheran, you preach just as Luther writes."

I answer, "I preach just as Paul writes, why not call me a Pauline?"...

Luther, as I think, is a mighty upholder of God who has closely studied the Bible and that with greater seriousness than has been done on this earth for a thousand years... no one has been like him for the manly immoveable courage with which he has attacked the Pope.' None the less,

' I will not bear Luther's name for I have read little of his teaching and have often intentionally refrained from reading his books... I will have no name but that of my captain, Christ, whose soldier I am...yet I value

Luther as highly as anyone alive.'4 possibility that the unbeliever was in some spiritual sense brought into contact with the body of Christ at the communion, a position he was later to abandon. The exposition of Article

XVIII (especially Z n, 142-3) is not as clear on this point as it was later when he had to maintain that for the complete disbeliever there was no presence of Christ at all at a service of which he was not really a participant.

1 I.e. 'Ein Sermon von Ablass und Gnade' (WA 1, 243-6) which appeared in 1518.

2 Z viii, 84 n. 1. Wackernagel, Basel in, 320. He became the Reformer of Biel.

3 Auslegung deutsch des Vaterunsersfiir die einfdltigen Laien. 1519. WA 11, 81-130. Translated in Luther's Works, ed. M. O. Dietrich (Philadelphia, 1969)42. 19-81.

The first reference to Luther in the Zwingli correspondence was in December 1518

(Z VII, 123), and after that Zwingli read Luther's writings when he found occasion. At first he seems to have regarded Luther as a fellow-humanist opposed to the barren scholasticism of the universities (Koehler, Zwingli, 60-2).

It is likely that Zwingli's friends were more anxious to send him Luther's writings than he was to receive them.

4 Z 11, 146-50. Zwingli's claim to independence of Luther was justified, and is, with qualifications, now generally accepted. He was interested and concerned to emphasise this, just as I I I 5-2

ZWINGLI From this generous tribute he returns to the mass as a sacrifice, repeating his own insistence upon the uniqueness of Christ's passion. The contrary opinion had been maintained because it was profitable: later, when saying mass for the living seemed sufficiently profitable, they included masses for the dead. These, and the teaching about purgatory that went with them, were, however, worthless.

The question of purgatory was, presumably deliberately, only lightly1 touched on, but that of prayers to the saints was argued in some detail. A mediator or arbitrator must be one acceptable^ both parties, able to understand both. Moses, the type of Christ, had uniquely mediated between Israel and God: for the Christian only Christ could do this, having revealed on earth his father's will, given a sure promise of divine grace, and saved the souls of men from death. Christ was both God and man; as God alone, mediation would be self-contradictory, for the one God could not mediate with himself; but having taken human nature upon him, he was the sole possible approach. A creature, a saint, even the Blessed Virgin herself, could not be a mediator because humanity was subject to human weakness, unable to fulfil the law, the eternal and unalterable will of God, without the grace brought by Christ's sacrifice. The will of God and that of Christ were identically and necessarily the same since there was but one God. Through Christ, in the name of Christ, God, asked in Christ's name and needing no other mediator, gives all to man. At this stage, 1523, this question of the intercession of the saints dominated Zwingli's thought. He admitted that he had formerly himself offered the usual prayers until convinced from the scriptures that prayers to the saints were idolatrous. To the demonstration of this from the Bible he devoted some fifty pages, discussing the meanings of sanctity, returning to the theme of faith, the ineffectiveness of good works, the essentially evil nature of mankind, ' where there is faith there is also the spirit of God and where this is, good works will be also'.2

And it must be an active faith. For there were, he insisted, living Christians who were foolish enough to believe that they had but to secure by prayer the support of a patron saint in order to be sure of salvation, thus thinking themselves free to make war, gamble, blaspheme, rob, burn and commit adultery with impunity. With an image of St Sebastian in his hat, a man accounted himself safe against accidents and the plague; a daily greeting to St Christopher guaranteed him against sudden death that day. They put

Luther was convinced of the opposite. Like Luther, Zwingli was powerfully influenced by his study of St Augustine, as his marginal notes and his lectures on the Psalms demonstrate.

Similarly, he was much affected, particularly in his reliance on the Bible and his Christology, by Erasmus. Koehler was, however, manifestly right to insist that 'the Reformation' begins with Luther. Koehler, Zwingli, 62-81; L. Febvre, Au cceur religieux du XVIe. siecle2 (Paris,

1968) 12-13.

1 See below, 205, 339.

2 Z 11, 185.

Road to independence an image of St Barbara got up like a prostitute on an altar for protection; they danced to St Sebastian on his festival and felt secure.1 The Spaniards pray to St James for victory, the French to St Michael,2 as if the saints in heaven would fight one another. How can the saints, whose property it is to be freed from human feelings of sorrow, need, anxiety and weakness, be concerned or affected by human needs ? They can but repeat human prayers to God, to whom they are already known, they cannot pray for what they know will not be granted, the appeal to their intercessions is a diminution, rejection or refusal of the saving passion of Christ.

There were, Zwingli admitted, a few passages in the Bible which needed consideration in relation to the saints. A passage in the book of Baruch

(3. 4) could easily be swept aside with the diminished authority attributed to the Apocrypha, a mere cuckoo's egg laid among Holy Writ, the one hundred and fiftieth psalm3 was not relevant, the passages in the Apocalypse4 were rather more puzzling but could be considered as alluding to a communication rather than to a prayer or request. In any case, the author of the Apocalypse could not have been St John the Evangelist, and its authority was dubious. Nor could the authority of St Jerome be acceptable as an interpreter in the whole matter, since, as Erasmus also demonstrated, he was mistaken here. As to the appeal to Vigilantius,5 this is so worthless that he is better called Dormitantius, the Sleeper, than Vigilantius, the Watchman.

Reliance upon the miracles worked by saints was equally irrelevant.

Where these were genuine, they were the result of the grace of God and not of any merit of the 'martyrs': in any case, false Christs and false prophets could work miracles, and had done so. The saints know of us men only what God chooses to reveal to them, and of this the Bible gives no clear testimony.

Zwingli gave much thought to the meaning of prayer: its very nature precluded the intervention of the saints, since Christ's teaching was that prayer was for the living only, the reaching out and the contact of the spirit with God.6 It came from the heart, and many words were unnecessary.

1 Z 11, 187-8.

2 Z 11, 197.

3 'Laudate dominum in sanctis eius' (Vulg.) Ps. CL - the English prayer book version 'O praise God in his holiness' indicates Zwingli's interpretation. The New English Bible has

'Praise God in his holy place.' Few things are more illuminating as showing the difference between sixteenth century and modern thought about the Bible than the treatment of the Psalms. For Zwingli, as for Luther, the whole of the Old Testament directly foreshadowed the New Testament.

4 Rev. 5. 7; 8. 3 'the prayers of all saints', 'de orationibus sanctorum omnium' (Vulg.). Z 11,

208-11, cf. above, 64.

5 Vigilantius was a priest from the south of France who attacked the cult of the relics of martyrs (c. A.D. 400) and was opposed by St Jerome. Z 1, 535 n. 1.

6 From St Augustine De Tempore V. Part II (MPL. 39). 'Quid est autem oratio nisi adscensio animae de terrestribus ad coelestia, inquisitio supcrnorum, invisibilium desiderium.'

" 3

ZWINGLI Much later, when Zurich had its own liturgy and form of prayer, a feature of it was to be quite long intervals of silence which must have made it something like a later Quaker assembly. Silent prayer was little cultivated previously: Zwingli's appeal at this early stage for the individual reaching out of the heart in communion with the eternal was something almost original. Erasmus had indeed said something of the same sort in an oftquoted Preface, but that the ploughman and the blacksmith should pray while at work was itself a new concept.

From an eloquent repetition that Christ must be the only mediator, the only source of righteousness for whom, through whom and from whom good works alone are of any worth, Zwingli moves to the well-worn theme of the contrast between the poverty of Christ on earth and the flaunting wealth of contemporary prelates and priests. It was the devil's working which brought it about that men made themselves rich in the name of God.

'Religion gave birth to riches and the daughter devoured the mother'.1

Two falsehoods have forwarded this trend - the one that St Peter was the vicar of Christ' the other that of the Donation of Constantine, ca lie as clear as daylight'. Hence, instead of being overseers and preachers, bishops have become swaggering squires (gotsjunckheren), offenders, warmongers, usurers, cheats, traitors and deserters: 'if I kept quiet the very rocks would cry out against me'.2 Their works are built on mere fairy tales, their laws on vain imagination, as in the case of fasting during Lent. How can it matter whether you satisfy your hunger with veal or with fish ? This freedom he would extend to ensure greater productivity. Saints days, turned into days of compulsory idleness, were often unnecessary and even injurious.

Instead, after attending a short service, a man should return to his work.

Sunday was indeed for rest from toil, but apart from Sunday there was a case for only four holidays a year - Christmas day and St Stephen's day

(25 and 26 Dec), the Annunciation (25 March) and St John the Baptist (24 June) - these to remember the faith of the prophets, and St Peter and St Paul (29 June) for the sake of the apostles and evangelists.

There was relatively little discussion at the first Zurich disputation or in the Schhmreden about the place of images in churches and the reverence paid to them. A question had, however, been asked early in the proceedings about the torture and imprisonment of Hans Urban Wyss of Fislisbach for opposing prayers to the Virgin Mary, and the whole subject was soon to come to the fore.

Zwingli was no opponent of the arts.3 He tried to prevent the destruction of painted windows, to which no reverence could be paid. His best

1 Z 11, 242.

2 Z 11, 243; Luke 19. 40.

3 Ch. Garside, Jnr., Zwingli and the Arts (New Haven, 1966) Z in, 906, iv, 84.

Road to independence known differentiation was between a statue of St Charlemagne which, honoured inside the Great Minster, was objectionable, but high up on the tower, where it remains undisturbed, it could do no harm.I There was, he consistently maintained, nothing wrong with a picture or image as such: it was the honour or worship paid to it that mattered. No one worshipped the stone monkeys in the Fischmarkt or the gilded weather-cocks. But in practice the existence of images in churches led to worship of them, and so they must be eliminated.2 Even the crucifix was unacceptable. Christ, indeed, was to be worshipped, but in his divine nature, and this could not be depicted, while his human nature, which might thus be, was not to be adored. Nothing should be allowed to distract attention from the worship of God.

It is characteristic of Zwingli's common sense that the elimination of the many holy days was accompanied by a popular recognition that certain traditional and accepted breaks in the daily routine were needed. To concede them was illogical3 perhaps, but advisable. Unconditional statements of principle combined with willingness to make temporary or necessary concessions to human weakness or existing conditions was always part of the Zwinglian approach. Thus, while opposed to special clerical vestments and preferring the minister to appear in ordinary lay, but markedly sober, dress,4 Zwingli was prepared to offer that wide freedom of choice for which he himself frequently strove. What was specially loathsome to him was pretence - hypocrisy, the repetition of meaningless phrases, the assertion that in no way corresponded to the deed, the reliance upon external signs - these were the clearest testimony to the absence of godly purpose.

If there was no need for special distinctive clerical garments, still less was there any useful place in Christian society for the orders of monks, canons and friars, or for the title of 'Father' which was so usual. The orders had become associations for the collection of money, their individual vows of poverty were transcended by their corporate wealth, they obeyed neither God nor the state, they were exclusive, aloof and unaware of the needs of those who should have benefited most by their ministrations. The triple monastic vow of poverty, chastity and obedience, like clerical celibacy, was impracticable, undesirable and constantly evaded. The brief discussion in the Schlussreden is based more on the inadequacy and uselessness of the actual lives of monks and friars than on any serious attempt to show cause why contemplative orders, following the Rule, should be unacceptable.

1 Z iv, 95-6.

2 Z iv, 106.

3 Most illogical, and equally most natural of all, was the later decision by the Council to recognise the feast of SS. Regula and Felix as a public holiday. Egli /, 453 (No. 946).

4 Z 11, 252 with a note about later practice in Zurich.

ZWINGLI For a young man to take the monastic vow of chastity was to tempt God; it had no biblical sanction but could very easily be the irresponsible act of a youth promising what he might be unable to perform, relying on a strength and capacity which might be denied to him. Whereas adultery was plainly forbidden by divine decree, marriage was lawful alike by human, natural or God's law, the latter because only what God has forbidden is sinful We cannot promise to God what we have not got, and if the gift of chastity has not been vouchsafed, matrimony is the right and proper alternative.

If, as was now becoming likely, Zurich was to break with the Roman Catholic church, denying its claim to be Christ's body, consideration had to be given to the membership of what was to be recognised and accepted in its stead. That there could not be more than one true church was axiomatic to all: for certain purposes decisions must be made on behalf of the church, decisions which had formerly come from Rome. In particular, baptism being accepted as {inter alia) the token of admission, there must be some means of eliminating the publicly unrepentant disbeliever or sinner from among the visible community of church attenders. There was incontrovertible scriptural authority for this, and men had long since been accustomed to diocesan excommunication by the bishop or the major excommunication by the Pope. Now they were offered something at once more primitive and more subtle. No one individual, article 31 insisted, could deprive another individual of membership of the visible church; only the whole church could do this. For working purposes in dealing with a notorious evil-liver the church was the community in which he lived, and this body was guided by its pastor, whose special duty it was to watch over his flock. The offender, accused of some obvious wickedness such as assault, rape, adultery, blasphemy in public, slander, drunkenness, lying, or even neglect of duty {mussiggon), must first be warned privately by the minister; then, if failing to amend, he must be named to the community1 along with credible witnesses. Only then, after further enquiry, and when the offences were both established and notorious, might the ban be applied. Rightly and charitably used it was valuable and necessary.

All this, it was explained, was very different from current practice when debt or underpayment of tithe and minor offences were visited with the maximum penalty, and this for the sake of the money that could be extracted for absolution. Characteristically, when there had been war in 1499 between the Swabians and the Swiss, partly provoked by gross slander

1 Z 11, 281: 'ein iede besundre gmeind, die wir kilchhorinen nennend'. Cf. Z n, 58: 'die besunderen zemenversamlungen, die wir pfarren oder kilchhorinen nennend'. The definition was more useful for destructive opposition tactics in 1523 than valuable later when baptistdominated communities could appeal in vain to this concept as saving them from the domination of the Zwinglian state church. R. C. Walton, ZwingWs Theocracy (Toronto, 1967), 170 ff.

Road to independence against the latter,1 the bishops had done nothing to stop it when excommunication of the offenders would have done much good. Instead, they had used the opportunity to add where possible to the elaborate and complicated contributions that were exacted from the faithful. It was a fundamental condition of the Confederation that an inhabitant ought not to be brought before a foreign judge. Ought this not to apply to the Bishop of Constance ? This obviously raised complex problems of lawful jurisdiction which were to be considered more fully later.

It also, in fact, raised the question of the proper relationship of church and state, a matter which Zwingli introduces a little abruptly by expressing objection to the practice by which money or goods captured in war, or taken in circumstances which made restitution to the original owner impossible or impracticable, were handed over to monasteries or applied to church building. Such property in his view should be applied to the relief of the poor. This was obviously a matter for the civil authorities, the government, to whose duties and obligations he devotes several pages.

Obviously no complete exposition of the nature of government was, or could be, attempted within the framework of these conclusions. The immediate purpose was to demonstrate the excessive powers claimed by the spirituality. Civil government {die Obrichkeit, der weltlich Gewali) rested upon divine authority explicitly assured by Christ himself, whereas the claims of Pope and bishops to exercise power were without biblical sanction.

There was, naturally, no thought of any divorce between religion and ethics or any notion that the clergy should be 'kept out of polities'. The whole attitude of the age was opposed to any such distinction.

The clergy were there to feed their flocks, to seek to persuade men, by humility, friendliness and good behaviour, to follow the example of Christ in charity, simplicity and service. One of the purposes of the debate of January 1523 was to convince the Council that a change of direction in religious policy would actually increase its authority. Provided that a lawfully constituted government had not degenerated into tyranny2 (which was not defined), it must be obeyed and need not fear to uphold the teaching of the gospel. If, indeed, everyone was truly righteous there would be no need for laws to be enforced, but mankind was not in fact like this. Outside paradise there were bound to be evil doers who needed the restraining hand of the police.3

Christ himself had willingly submitted to be enrolled by and taxed by 1 Z 11, 282-3 and notes. H. Sigrist, Reichsreform und Schwabenkrieg. Ein Beitrag zur Geschichte der Entwicklung des Gegensatzes zwischen der Eidgenossenschaft und dent Reich (Aarau, 1947),

114-41.

2 'so verr sy nit tyrannen sind ', Z 11, 304.

3 Z 11, 305. 'Gabind aber alle menschen got, das sy im schuldig sind, so ddrffte man gheines flirsten noch obren, ja, wir warind nie uss dem Paradys kummen.'

ZWINGLI the government of his day, whereas the clergy were now claiming unjustifiable exemptions from taxation. Clerical immunities and exemptions had no biblical sanction and should be relinquished voluntarily. For example, clerics should not act as judges, since their work was preaching and teaching, not the administration of justice. Instead of demanding power they should seek to serve, to obey and to pray for those in authority.

Like Zwingli himself they should preach peace and repentance among Christians.

From the eleventh century, at least, it had been a commonplace that the 'two swords' of Luke 22. 38 referred to spiritual and secular jurisdiction of which the Church (i.e. the hierarchy) retained the former while permitting the lay power to exercise the latter. This interpretation Zwingli now challenged. The two swords referred to the Old and New Testament respectively. The Pope, like Peter, should put up his sword and cease to encourage wars in Italy or even take the lead in expeditions against the Turks. Insisting that he had always earnestly preached peace in Zurich,1

Zwingli now switched the argument to current affairs. Cardinal Schiner had recently been actively recruiting soldiers for service with the papal armies, calling for a speedy response before opposition could be whipped up from the pulpit.2 As a result, some 6,000 men, more than was asked, had left Zurich for Piacenza, supposedly for use against the Turks. The French forces in Italy under Lautrec had been singularly unsuccessful against Charles V in spite of the alliance of the King of France with the Swiss Confederates (except Zurich) of May 1521.3 The Zuiich contingent was used to help in the successful defence of Milan4 against the French, who were forced to retire. The soldiers, however, soon found that the rewards promised were not forthcoming, and trouble over this lasted a long while. In January 1522 all foreign mercenary service, including that with papal forces, was prohibited in Zurich.5 The Turkish menace indeed remained a reality. Rhodes had fallen to the armies of Suleiman I just before Christmas 1522, and Pope Adrian VI renewed the too-familiar appeal for a crusade under his leadership. He would act as a mediator between Charles V and Francis I to unite the west in a combined effort against the advancing infidel. The authorities in Zurich were well aware that heretics could receive equally hostile treatment and that an alliance aimed at the Turks could be diverted against themselves.

1 z ">3I3> 2 Z 11, 315: 'Man muss mit der sach ylen, ee das der pfaff widrumb an der cantzel weere.'

3 E. Wiithrich, Die Vereinigung zwischen Franz I und 12 eidgen. Orten und deren Zugewandten votn jfahre 1521 (Zurich, 1911), 133-52.

4 Bullinger, Ref. 1, 53f. W. Gisi, 'Der Antheil der Eidgenossen an der europaischen Politik

1517-21' in Archivfiir schweizerische Geschichte 17 (1871), 63-132.

5 Egli /, 66-7 (No. 215). Private pensions were formally forbidden on 15 November 1522.

Egli /, 103-5 (No. 293).

Road to independence While on this theme Zwingli took the opportunity to interpolate an explanation of his acceptance and renunciation of a papal pension. 'For three years I earnestly preached the gospel of Christ, whereupon the papal cardinals, bishops and legates often tried to entice me away by promises of friendship, by prayers and threats, by inducements of great gifts and benefices, to none of which I yielded, save for a pension of 50 gulden which they paid me annually - they wanted to give me 100 gulden which I refused. In 1517 I renounced this but for three years they would not accept this as decisive until I gave written notice in 1520. I acknowledge my sin.'1

He now insisted quite explicitly that the attempt to merge spiritual with temporal authority was to produce a monster, a sea-serpent, merwunder.2 Instead, all the clergy, including the Pope, should be subject to properly constituted civil authority. The Pope himself should accept this and as a sign renounce the name of vicar of Christ. The magistrates had every right to impose the death penalty for public offences against the public interest, for the removal of a diseased member might be necessary for the health of the whole. Private individuals had no right to kill, for individuals should forgive their enemies at all times; even collective killing for money in mercenary warfare was group manslaughter. Mistakes, of course, might be made, for magistrates were sinners like other men. Their justice, essential for the cohesion of society, was only a shadow of true justice, for they could judge of public actions only and therein they did their duty as God's officers.

For this - and Zwingli thinks of government in terms of the maintenance of law and order, the public peace, in the first instance - they were entitled to be paid, and the necessary money must be found by taxation.

Christ had accepted the principle of lawful taxation, and exemptions from it were unreasonable and unnecessary. The wealth and flaunting extravagance of many ecclesiastics, from the Pope downwards, who paid little or nothing, were deplorable.

The one exception allowed to complete obedience to a duly appointed government was 'so far as they do not order what is contrary to God'.3

From this principle Zwingli never wavered: if you were certain that a government order was contrary to God's word then disobedience was necessary, even if this carried the death penalty. In the days of the early church, many Christians suffered martyrdom, and the Christian faith benefited thereby. Similarly, it might be necessary to resist a papist prince

1 Z 1, 396; Z 11, 314, 317; Z VII, 95-6. See above 26 and 76. Caspar Wirz, Akten uber die diplomatischen Beziehungen der romischen Curie zu der Schweiz 1512-1552, QSG xvi (Basle,

1895), i35> J73.

2 Rev. 13. 1.

3 Z 11, 323. Acts 5. 30: 4We must obey God rather than men' was the constantly-repeated proof-text in this regard.

ZWINGLI who tried to prevent the preaching of the Gospel: in such a case blood and life should be willingly offered. Where Nero, Domitian and Maximian had failed, a sixteenth-century prince was not likely to succeed. They would be called Lutherans, heretics, little boys (buben)y revolutionaries,1 but with God on their side they were sure to triumph in the end.

Such confidence was best left so expressed. However, if the government, the prince, was to be in complete sovereign and exclusive control of human beings and their actions, some guidance about resistance was necessary. Some twenty pages rather indicated that Zwingli was aware of the problem than provided any complete answer. He never produced a coherent political theory of his own, nor did he think it was within the province of a minister of religion to do so. He was, however, more politically-minded than Luther, and was prepared to face the problem of the 4ungodly prince', the tyrant who abused his authority, connived at manifest iniquity and failed to punish notorious evil-doers. Tyrannicide,2 so much discussed in the previous century, he refused to consider. For the private individual the command 'Thou shalt not kill' was inescapable; those in authority alone had rights of life and death. To them obedience, service and financial support were due, and from them good administration in accordance with sound Christian principles was to be expected.

These expectations, however, were all too frequently disappointed.

'Tyrants', unfortunately, were 'as numerous as fleas in August', misgoverning, extorting, oppressing.3 Their minds were all too often set on war, their extravagance was notorious, they encouraged monopolists, were surrounded by usurers, advised by flatterers and yes-men, treating their subjects all too often as worse than cattle.

How could such rulers be eliminated so that the people did not suffer for their misdeeds? Violence was ruled out:4 murder, assassination, civil war and rebellion were acts of the ungodly: it was ultimately for God to act. However, if a ruler were elected by the people, he might be deposed by the common action of those who chose him;5 similarly, if a select few had the right to nominate to high office, they should require their unrighteous nominee to resign. Again, it might be possible to treat a recalcitrant ruler

1 Bundtschuher - the Bundschuh or laced boot or clog of the agricultural worker was used as a symbol of discontent and conspiracy. It became later the badge of the insurgent German peasants. N. Cohn, The pursuit of the millennium (London, 1962), 250-1.

2 The murder of the Duke of Orleans in 1407 at the admitted instigation of the Duke of Burgundy led to long debates on this matter at the Council of Constance. The result, to which Gerson contributed a treatise, was the rather half-hearted condemnation of Jean Petit's

Justificatio Ducis Burgundiae.

3 Z 11, 338-42.

4 Z 11, 333, 344.

5 Possibly Zwingli was influenced by acquaintance with Defensor Pacts, the 'Editio Princeps' of which had appeared at Basle in 1522 with its striking attack on ecclesiastical authority and its provisions for the ' correction' of the legislator. C. W. Previte-Orton, The Defensor Pacts of Marsilius of Padua (Cambridge, 1928), 96-9.

Road to independence as a child or an idiot, but basically Zwingli has no solution to offer. Universal opposition, a kind of general strike, would necessarily be effective, but was hardly likely to be attainable in practice. Particular rebellions there must not be. The tyrant might well have to be endured for his life time, the punishment for our sins, in the certainty that in his own time God would come into his own.1 Above all, the sign of a government acceptable to God was that it allowed and encouraged the preaching of the Gospel, which could not be to its disadvantage.2 Tyrants disliked God-fearing people, preferring to rule over the ignorant. Where, on the other hand,

God's word was clearly preached, the righteous were encouraged and protected, good laws upheld by public opinion were effective, and the government was strong and efficient.3 This, mercifully, was the case in Zurich, better administered than any other state of the Confederation. The best and strongest government was that which was in harmony with God.

As with the Jews, prosperity followed upon keeping God's commandments, however continuously difficult and requiring constant vigilance and effort this might be. In the end, Christ's cause must triumph, however many guns the opponents might produce.4

From this persuasive and somewhat simple digression into politics in the wider sense, Zwingli turned to some general considerations upon the kind of public worship he envisaged in the light of his proposals. He had earlier set out his views on prayer.5 Quiet, even solitude, might be helpful; the intoning of the psalms in Latin (which only one in a hundred understands) had nothing to recommend it, for their poetry needed to be read, and explained, carefully. Noise and gesture hinder thought and have no effect upon God. For all these reasons, supplemented by a renewed attack upon hired singers and paid prayers, the conclusion is repeated that silent inward prayer is most acceptable, that common prayer at home or in church, unpaid and spontaneous, is needful, and attendance at the sermon, the exposition of God's word, the highest duty of the pious Christian. In 1523, this was an aspiration for the future, but much of it was rapidly to be translated into practice. For the benefit of the Zurich councillors and for security later, Zwingli urged caution and reasonable circumspection.

The community must not be rushed into change, the majority must not be offended, the weak must be helped to strength and the weaknesses accepted until they are better and more fully instructed, even about such matters as fasting and clerical marriage. Briefly, but more emphatically than previously, the extreme Petrine claims were again demolished, the familiar

1 J. Kreutzer, Zwinglis Lehre von der Obrigkeit (Stuttgart, 1909), 81-9. H. Schmid, Zwinglis

Lehre von der gottlichen und menschlichen Gerechtigkeit (Zurich, 1959), 234-6.

2 Z 11, 331, 342.

3 z 11, 330, see below 399 and n 4.

4 Z 11, 347.

5 See above, 113 and n 6.

ZWINGLI texts of the rock and the keys, binding and loosing, were disposed of as having no narrow, limited application to an individual but referring to Christ's disciples and their lawful successors, all true believers. Thus sins were forgiven by God alone, the sinner who has repented and has shown signs of amendment receives an assurance from the priest of his state.

This, and no more than this, lay within the priest's capacity, and to call such an opinion heretical was to call St Jerome, most revered of the Fathers, a heretic too. The keys, likewise, delivered not only to Peter but to all believers, referred to the duty to preach the plain words of the Gospel, disbelief in which carries damnation. All this confident, repetitive, but also somewhat superficial exegesis of some central New Testament themes was followed by a rejection of compulsory auricular confession further supported by a reasoned appeal to history. He was conscious that the element of compulsion had only 300 years behind it compared with the uncertain freedom of 1,200 years preceding the Fourth Lateran Council, but the time factor was less prominent than the current abuse of the confessional for money-raising purposes and even personal advantage. As for 'cases reserved', these, like much else, were invented out of greed and were repugnant to the spirit of freedom and to Christ's promises. At the same time,

Zwingli refuses to discuss, as something unfathomable, the sin against the Holy Spirit1 to which both previously and since so much speculation had been, and was to be, devoted. It is, of course, only obligatory auricular confession that was rejected. Those whose faith was uncertain could benefit by consultation with, or confession to, their spiritual leader. At least equally striking, and more explicit and unconditional, was the rejection of the teaching of the church on purgatory. In this instance, since some scriptural authority could be adduced on the other side, and the whole appeal of the public debate of 1523 was to the Bible, the matter had to be set out a little more fully. It was relatively easy, given the climate of thought of the age and the very general nature of the New Testament passages to which appeal was made,2 to put forward a scriptural disavowal. There were indeed a few words of Judas Maccabaeus (2 Mac. 12. 38-46) upon which much had been built, but the interpretation would be suspect even if Liber

Machabaeorum were in the canon of scripture, which it was not. It was of no more evidential value than the history of Josephus, the pretensions of 1 Matthew 12. 31. The obviously unforgivable sin was disbelief, the denial of God - any further speculation was like blind men talking about colours. Z 11, 409, 414-15.

2 The texts were Matt. 5. 26: ' You will not be let out till you have paid the last farthing' ('das letst Ortlin' in the text used by Zwingli, and in Vulg., 'non exies inde, donee reddas novissimum quadrantem') and I Cor. 3. 10-16, esp. 15-16: 'he will escape with his life, as one might from a fire' (in Vulg., 'ipse autem salvus erit, sic tamen quasi per ignem'). In this passage St Paul was in fact urging on his readers the simple Gospel as opposed to the elaboration of the philosophers. Zwingli insisted that the ' prison' referred to could not be shown to be used of a future state.

Road to independence Hildebrand or the fables of the notorious John of Mandeville. The Christian revelation was simple: there was heaven and hell, nothing more.1 For an intermediate stage there was neither evidence nor need; salvation through Christ was by God's grace and mercy; could man come to God through purgatory there was no need for the life and death of Jesus. What the judgement upon the departed may be is known to God alone; very little knowledge about the future state has been vouchsafed to us in the Bible, and for this very reason we ought not to seek for further enlightenment about matters to which the human intellect was not able to provide an answer. Zwingli, too, would have no speculation about the 'sleep of the soul', psychopannychism, which was so much to exercise the thought of some of his contemporaries.2 In heaven there was no measurement of time, and sleep was for the body not the soul. It was a vigorous and useful assertion of the limits of scriptural authority.3 It also had far-reaching implications - no purgatory, no indulgences. Masses offered, even prayers said, for the souls of the departed, paid for by relatives and others, were worthless, and the money involved could be put to better use.

The same insistence upon the need for positive scriptural evidence was applied to the claims of the priesthood. Current Catholic doctrine taught that ordination conferred upon the recipient a 'character', an 'indelible stigma', a special status derived from the episcopal laying on of hands, the token of an 'apostolic succession'. Round this ancient tradition a great body of deduction and practice had grown up. Zwingli gladly accepted the need for the physical contact by hand, for this was apostolic and acceptable.

It was, however, no more than a sign or token of the gift of the Holy Spirit by God alone and not brought through apostle or bishop. Priesthood was an office, a function, not a status, honour or dignity. Anyone who truly and regularly carries out Christ's commands is God's agent, the shepherd or watcher over the salvation of souls, the honoured announcer of God's word. It is the doing this that makes a man a priest, elder, senior or presbyter - proclaiming the word of God, teaching, visiting the sick, helping and feeding the poor, studying, translating and expounding the Greek and Hebrew of the Bible. If this was not done, you were no longer an officer any more than the Blirgermeister who had ceased to carry out his duties was continued in office. True priests should indeed be given respect and maintenance; those who preach the Gospel should live by the 1 z ii, 425.

2 For the significance of this doctrine of a watchful awareness of the righteous soul between physical death and the resurrection of the body to which Calvin was attracted see Williams, xxvi, 580-98.

3 The modern world finds it hard to realise that particular words in the Song of Songs 5. 2,

'Ego dormio et cor meum vigilat' - 'I sleep but my heart is awake' - were seriously taken into account in this controversy. Z 11, 431.

ZWINGLI Gospel, receiving lodging, meat and drink at the hands of the faithful. For this, and no more, there was adequate scriptural authority. As usual, however, Zwingli could not leave it at that, but must proceed to attack current abuses. The fact that there were prelates who deprived simple parsons of a moderate livelihood while growing fat on tithes and compulsory offerings1 did not alter the general obligation upon the Christian community to support their own minister. After the outburst comes the note of caution: there was no call for expropriation of present office-holders; further abuses should be prevented and present occupants allowed to enjoy their privileges and revenues for their life time only. On the death of the holder, the endowments should be distributed 'in Christian charity' by the civil authorities, thus placating the demands of ordinary people for immediate action and securing the peace and quiet needed for the expansion of the word of God.2

One serious challenge had to be faced. Opponents of such reforms appealed to a General Council which should meet these insistent criticisms and ensure improvement by agreement. This raised the whole question of what sort of a council, by whom summoned and with what measure of acceptability for its decrees. A mere gathering of prelates, tinkering with and misconstruing God's word, was unacceptable: there had been a council at Basle3 whose promised reforms had not been implemented. If indeed a council were to be fully representative of all Christians from the humblest upwards, unanimous in its decisions and not concerning itself with secular matters, it would indeed be acceptable. But for all essential matters God's word was clear enough, and tradition could not stand in its way. This brought up again the question of the mass. It was now assumed to be apparent from the Bible that the mass was not a sacrifice and therefore that all the elaborate superstructure built upon this mistaken notion, the property left by wills for its maintenance, should be swept away and church property be administered by the government for the benefit of the community. In this there must be no self help and no violence against the enemies of God's word. 'All who take the sword die by the sword'.4 God does not need human weapons for the triumph of his word, and private individuals must await events, suffering persecution patiently if necessary without resorting to violence. The only qualification allowable was that God's enemies, unable to refute the truth but hindering God's teaching by conspiracy, rebellion and abuse, should be restrained and silenced by public authority, after they had been given an opportunity of stating their

1 Among those enumerated are mass fees, confession fees, consecration fees, public collections, exequies, funeral services, anniversaries, commemorations and offerings. Z n, 443.

2 Z 11, 444-6.

3 23 July 1431 to 16 May 1443.

4 Z 11, 308. Matthew 26. 52. Seven years later Luther was to repeat these very words on receiving news of Zwingli's death in battle.

Road to independence case and had, in turn, been instructed in the scriptures. The axe is laid at the foot of the tree. The light is coming; lies, hypocrisy and the vain prophecies of astrologers1 will give way before it.

As a kind of appendix to this splendidly confident appeal, in his last article (67), Zwingli offered to open further discussions explaining his position about usury, tithes, unbaptised children and the ceremony of confirmation. Very briefly he indicated that no disturbance of the status quo was contemplated, contracts aheady entered into must be kept and ministers could be assured that they would not be reduced to beggary. He had no doubt that children dying unbaptised, at any rate if born of Christian parents, could not be assumed to be damned and should be given

Christian burial. Over and above all, he submitted his views to God's word, God-inspired scripture, of which man could not be the judge.

The Schlussreden of 1523 outlined every aspect of Zwingli's now firm convictions. Much was to be more fully developed later, most obviously his views on the eucharist and on infant baptism, but Zurich now had the aims and purpose of one who from that time could be called the 'reformer' clearly set forth for all the world to read. After the Zurich disputation and the publication of the 67 articles, there could hardly be any doubt about Zwinglian heterodoxy. The Pope and the mass, the pillars of the church of Rome, had been openly attacked and disavowed, and this, at any rate by implication, was upheld by the Zurich Council. It is indeed true that the assumption of the debate was that it was the hierarchy that had departed from the Bible and thus had fallen into error and that what was wrong could be amended.

The age would not have understood any such term as ' Swiss Reformation'. There was but one Christian faith as there was but one living and true God, whose nature and purpose were revealed for all time in the Bible. It was now possible to understand and interpret this aright, which was what was being done and what was of universal application. The Church of God was simply a federation of many communities of which Zurich was one which had perceived what was needed. The others had lamentably fallen into error which the light of the Gospel would disperse.

There was no thought of comprehension or toleration yet, because there could be but one true and right view. It was not until many years after 1523 that any other line of thought became acceptable.

1 Z11,454; Sabbata, 136. Reliance upon astrology was widespread, then and later. There was a general belief that an unusual conjunction of planets in 1524 betokened heavy rain and perhaps a world flood. Collimitius (George Dannstetter) was able to calm local anxieties.

ZWA I, 276-8.

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