The radical challenge

The radical challenge

The radical challenge Throughout 1524 and well into 1525 the antagonism in Zurich between those unwilling to face the consequences of an open breach with Rome and traditional beliefs, and those who were convinced that this was now unavoidable, grew in intensity. The council had indeed accepted the principle that the Bible was the sole authority by which religious affairs should be conducted, but the practical implications of this were realised rather slowly. The councillors collectively were not afraid of responsibility, but they were conscious of it. If the Bishop of Constance was to be ignored, the mass abolished and Zurich to be different from other communities in worship and belief, they must know why. Not unreasonably, it took many months for Zwingli's teaching to be assimilated and accepted.

For all Zwingli's caution, the transition to an evangelical community was neither easy nor peaceful. Those who had been, or feared to be, dispossessed - monks, friars, chantry priests, with their servants, suppliers and attendants - formed a discontented group which had friends among the aristocrats who disliked the authority of the gilds, and the simple conservatives who remained Catholic at heart.1

At the other end of the scale were the enthusiasts, who had long felt that things were not moving fast enough. They had heard Zwingli's sermons, they had read the Bible, and they knew something of what was being taught at Wittenberg. They were men in a hurry. They were also prepared to act when occasion arose, which, in turn, might lead to disturbance. This both the council and Zwingli were anxious to avoid: Zurich must remain a peaceful and well-ordered community. In fact there had been manifestations of discontent for some time, and it was because of this that, in December 1524, Zwingli submitted to his masters an analysis of current discontents which showed remarkable acumen and insight. In The Troublemakers2 he professed to be writing for the Christian Church or community

1 The analysis of the situation by N. Birnbaum, The Zwinglian Reformation in Zurich, in Past and Present^ no. 15 (1959), 27-47, and in Archives de Sociologie des Religions 4,1959 (No. 8)

15-30 is not convincing. The Kambel gild, which actively supported change, was numerous and vocal, if socially unimportant. E. G. Rupp, Protestant Catholicity (London, i960), 12 goes too far in detraction.

2 Z ill, 355 (374)~469, Wer Ursach gebe zu Aufruhr usw.

The radical challenge of Miilhausen,1 but this was a transparent fiction: it was Zurich that was under examination. There were, the writer believed, four groups of 'false brethren' among the newly enfranchised Christians - anti-clericals, selfish opportunists, greedy self-seekers and misguided sectaries. In addition, there were the exhibitionist prelates and monks who cared only for their privileges. Some of his own adherents were merely negative opponents of the hierarchy, those who were always ready to join in any movement directed against the clergy in general and the papacy in particular.

It was resentment, dislike and suspicion of Rome that made them enemies of the Roman faith, but nothing more. Willing to help to overthrow, they had nothing constructive to offer; envy, hatred and malice were an insufficient foundation for a truly Christian society. To some extent they had hitherto been restrained by the coercive power of the Catholic church; now, released from this, their frowardness, misconduct and even violence were all the more apparent. They discredited their adherents rather than otherwise; judged by their actions, their talk of faith was meaningless.2

They were joined by many more unworthy supporters who welcomed a new-found opportunity to do as they pleased. When told that there was no scriptural justification for enforced Lenten fasting, they used this as permission for unrestrained gluttony and drunkenness. If Lent need not be marked by sobriety in clothing, some women would all the more parade their peacock finery at all times. There were likewise monks and nuns who were persuaded that they could ignore their vows, but who, wanting the best of both worlds, treated their cloister as a residential club, from which, dressed as they liked, they could go in and out at will.3

These were minor aberrations: a good deal more serious were the efforts that were being made by some to use the new teaching as a method of evading or refusing lawful customary payments. Two particular matters were being brought forward and required serious consideration - the payment of tithe, and interest on loans. In one sense these provide examples of attempts to have it both ways, since the medieval church which insisted on the regular payment of tithe also refused to countenance usury or interest. Both issues raised nice points of biblical exegesis and public policy, and in regard to both Zwingli combined shrewd common sense

1 This Alsatian city and surrounding country entered into a 'perpetual alliance' with the thirteen states of the Confederation in January 1515. For many purposes it counted as part of the Confederation, but Catholic opposition prevented its acceptance with any higher status than that of ally (Zugewandte), and as such the connection slowly weakened as French interest in, and pressure on, Alsace, grew. H. Baur, Rottweil und Miilhausen (Zurich, 1932); Oechsli

2, 62, 88-91, 115, 366-7.

2 Z in, 355-8, 380-3.

3 Including visits to 'the baths' at Baden and elwewhere, which were notorious for debauchery.

These complaints, Zwingli agreed, did not apply to Zurich - there, the former monks were either preachers, teachers, or engaged in some handicraft, while the nuns who remained unmarried worked industriously at Selnau or Oetenbach. Z m, 385-6.

ZWINGLI with a certain over-simplification of the legal and practical implications.

In the end, but with limitations, both were accepted.

Tithe was basically a rural problem, directly affecting the country dweller, and it was one with which the country-bred Toggenburger was well acquainted. The clergy of the primitive church1 had been supported by the voluntary offerings of the laity, and this had become regularised into a compulsory levy of one tenth of the produce of the land, including the animals thereon, and of the profits of labour. Round the assessing and collection of tithe an economic machinery had been erected which was elaborate and effective. Antiquity, canon law,2 current practice and commercial convention accepted tithes as reasonable. Most of the monasteries, indeed, continued to flourish because they drew the greater or rectorial tithe from their churches, paying a vicar to perform the parochial duties.3

What relation did this bear to the new regime ? If neither tradition nor canon law4 was binding on Christians, then the question of tithe had to be considered in relation to scriptural pronouncements. Tithes had indeed some considerable warranty in the Old Testament,5 but this had been superseded by the New Testament, in which no explicit authority for the compulsory payment of tithe could be found. Discussion about this was widespread and went far beyond Switzerland.6 As early as 1520 Zwingli had been obliged to consider the question of the tithes payable to the Great Minster.7 In March of that year he had read the observations of Gabriel Biel and Conrad Summenhart on the subject8 and concluded, but discreetly kept his comments in Latin only, that tithe was not necessarily payable by divine law. The implications of sola scriptura and of the Zwinglian sermons of 1522 and 1523 might thus be that there was no scriptural or moral obligation to pay tithe, and that this was one of the 1 L. Vischer, 'Die Zehntenforderung in der alten Kirche' ZKG 70 (1959), 201-17.

2 Especially Decretal. Gregor. IX. lib. ill tit. xxx De Decimis. Z in, 392-4 and notes, 455 n. 24.

3 Z in, 397-8. G. Constable, Monastic tithes, from their origins to the twelfth century (Cambridge,

1964) is well documented for the early history. For later development G. G. Coulton, Five

Centuries of Religion, in (Cambridge, 1936) 149-56, 179-97, 225~6, and The Medieval Village

(Cambridge, 1925) 289-98, remain useful.

4 Z 11, 298-346 (esp. 325-33) and L. v. Muralt's valuable introduction (1-49) to Huldrych

Zwingli, Von gottlicher und tnenschlicher Gerechtigkeit, Sozialpolitische Schriftenfur die Gegenwart ausgewahlt und eingeleitet von Leonhard von Muralt und Oskar Farner (Zurich, 1934).

5 Gen. 28. 22:' And of all that thou givest me, I will without fail allot a tenth part to thee.' Lev.

27. 30; Num. 18. 21, 24; Mai. 3. 10.

6 The matter was debated in many places in south Germany. In Thuringia, for example, Jakob

Strauss denounced tithe in 1524 and was implicitly supported by the court chaplain,Wolfgang

Stein, who was anxious to proclaim that the rules of the Old Testament were no longer binding on Christians. J. Rogge, Der Beitrag des Predigers Jakob Strauss zur friihen Reformationsgeschichte (Berlin, 1957), with facsimiles.

7 Z vn, 272.

8 Tractatus de potestate et utilitate monetarum. Tractatulus bipartitus de decimis: defensiuus opinionis theologoru aduersus cditer canonistas de quotta decimarum si debita sit iure divino vel humano. Hain, Repertorium Bibliographicum (Tubingen, 1838) 3188, 15177. Z VII, 279.

The radical challenge extortions practised by the clergy for their own enrichment. Such teaching would be welcomed by the average farmer, who would most gladly withhold his tithes, especially in a bad season. In 1523 and 1524 some parishes, instigated possibly by Simon Stumpf of Hongg, actually tried to refuse tithe payments and had to be coerced by the Zurich government into acceptance of liability.1 Zwingli now introduced some important modifications and qualifications into his teaching. He insisted that the original purpose of tithe, paid by a man to the church in which he was baptised, was for the maintenance of the building with its ministers and for the support of the poor, and was therefore a good one.2 It was later abuses, introduced by greedy Popes and prelates, that had caused difficulties. The evolution by which tithes had become money payments and therefore instruments of commerce, was deplorable: it could be explained only by foolishness, and formed a just punishment for the sins of those involved.

None the less, bargains had been struck and contracts entered into: 'we have willed the tithes on to ourselves'.3 Thus tithes, and charges directly deriving from tithes, had become normal debts and obligations recognised and accepted by authority and therefore they must be paid like any other obligation. To repudiate them would strike at the contractual basis of normal business: non-payment would lead to violence, which the government could not tolerate.

The fact that original intentions had been abused could not be allowed to invalidate arrangements that had been freely entered into by the community. There was in fact, Zwingli insisted, no reason to suppose that the poor would benefit in any way if payment of tithe ceased. Nor was communism compatible with human society since the Fall:4 'thou shalt not steal' clearly implies the existence and recognition of individual possessions and, by extension, of authority which can define and protect them.

All this is no sphere in which the individual can take the law into his own hands or act according to the imagined dictates of his own conscience.

Zwingli was prepared if necessary to deal fairly drastically with the tithe problem. The tithe payments used for the maintenance of monasteries would not be needed as the monks perished of inanition. The 'small' tithes on fruit, roots and other vegetables he was prepared to see remitted

1 Z HI, 363. Witikon, Marthalen, Benken, Wildisbiihl, Truttikon, were involved. Egli /, 246

(no. 568). In 1523 Zollikon, Riesbach, Fallanden, Hirslanden, Unterstrass and Witikon complained to the Zurich council against payment to the Provost and Chapter of the Great

Minster. Goeters, Vorgeschichte 256-7.

2 Z in, 304.

3 'Also sind wir in der zehendenschuld nit one unser schuld. Wir habend (das ist: unsere vordren) alle mit einandern daryn verwilliget.' Z in, 399; cf. 11, 512-15.

4 Z in, 402: 'das uns gott die zamengeschiitten gemeinschafft nit gebiit', which the Latin translation expands into 'promiscuam illam, quam Catabaptistae somniant, rerum et bonorum omnium communionem'. Sabbata, 142; see below 176.

ZWINGLI altogether, while the proceeds of the cgreater' tithe should be used for their proper purpose, the maintenance of church services and the relief of the poor. All this, however, must be done according to due process of law: no one could refuse to pay what was lawfully due from him. It was for a Christian administration to see to it that payments, including tithe, were for the public advantage, and this, with qualifications, was what happened in Zurich.

With an expanding Swiss economy combined with fresh consideration of any conventional ethical ideas, the question of interest on loans was bound to come under consideration. This was not a simple matter. In theory all loans were interest free, but a number of ingenious ways had been found of evading the requirement Mend, hoping for nothing again'

(Luke 6. 35) by invoking risk, possible loss or altered circumstances as excuses for allowing 'barren metal' to 'breed'. Interest was contrary alike to canon law and the Bible, and had recently (1517) been condemned by the fifth Lateran Council,1 but the prohibitions were constantly and knowingly evaded.2 What had become commercially indispensable had somehow to be made acceptable. There was, indeed, no easy way round the plain words of the Bible, and there were men like Stumpf and Liithi who were preaching that mortgages, rent-charges and similar compulsory dues, were unchristian and need not be paid. Zwingli, who first considered the problem in 1523,2 returned to it more than once. The earth belonged to God, and sinful man cultivated it to his own selfish advantage. In any properly Christian society, all debts would be readily paid and all loans would be interest free. But human society was not Christian in the sense that men were ruled by man-made, not God-given, laws. A Christian must keep his pledged word, contracts must be honoured, government regulations observed and the peace kept. Refusal to pay rent or mortgage could not be justified. At the same time, Zwingli would have no one live

1 Reinforcing the definition by the Fourth Lateran Council (1215) of usury as * quando videlicet ex usu rei quae non germinat, nullo labore, nullo sumptu, nullo ve periculo lucrum foetusque conquiri studetur'. Hardouin, Conciliorum collectio maxima (Paris, 1715) IX, 1773.

2 Usury was considered by Aquinas and many medieval writers; Angelus de Clavasio, for example, in the widely read Summa Angelica de casibus conscientiae devoted 39 closely printed columns to this subject. General studies include F. X. Funk, Geschichte des kirchlichen

Zinsverbotes (Tubingen, 1876) 1-53; W. Cunningham, Christian opinion on usury (Edinburgh,

1884); B. W. Dempsey, Interest and usury (Washington D.C., 1943); E. Ramp, Das Zinsproblem. Eine historische Untersuchung, QGSP 4 (Zurich, 1949); H. Barge, Luther und der

Friihkapitalismus, SVR 168 (Giitersloh, 1951) which is less valuable than its title suggests;

G. W. Locher, Der Eigentumsbegriff als Problem evangelischer Theologie2 (Zurich, 1954); J. T.

Noonan, The scholastic analysis of usury (Cambridge, Mass., 1957); O. Capitani, Sulla questione delV usura nel medio evo. Bolletino delV Istituto storico italiano per il Medio Evo

(Roma, 1958); B. Nelson, The idea of Usury2 (Chicago, 1969); Cambridge Economic History of Europe ill (Cambridge, 1963) 564-70. The pioneer work of W. J. Ashley, Introduction to English Economic History and Theory (London, 1909) 1, ii, 397-421 demonstrated the more obvious methods of customary evasion.

3 Z 11, 516-21.

The radical challenge without working for a livelihood, no rentiers, no pensioners, and the tiller of the soil would receive the proper reward for his labour. If he had borrowed money to purchase or stock his land and had knowingly promised to pay for the use of borrowed capital, such a promise must be kept. This was a purely secular matter; if the proper official decided that such a debt had been incurred, it must be discharged, and this was in accordance with Bible teaching.1 Zwingli was prepared for elaborate, and probably unworkable, arrangements by which payments might be made in kind and be adjusted to the harvest, and he also believed it was possible to prohibit the raising of further loans and to pay off those already incurred by a kind of sinking fund.2 This again was not worked out in any detail and was not applied. Gross and grasping gains were abhorrent:3 the shameless usurer must expect appropriate treatment at the Day of Judgement. As a compromise, Zwingli was prepared to accept interest payments of 5 % as tolerable, and this became an arrangement that was enforced by the government.4 Divine justice was different from human justice, and the state ordering of interest payments must be accepted even if it was unbiblical. To show how and why this was so required some ingenuity which Zwingli provided, to the indignation of the radicals, but to the peace and security of Zurich. For those who cheated as money-changers,5 false coiners and those who made fortunes by creating monopolies or manipulating tolls and dues he had nothing good to say.

These references to economics and morality were not worked out in any detail, and from them Zwingli turned to attack those whom he indicated as the real disturbers of public order. These are the prelates, the great bishops and abbots who have scandalously neglected their duties of leadership, teaching and preaching, in order to involve themselves in secular affairs and to secure worldly advantage and personal possessions at any cost. Their God is Mammon, they charge for services that should be given freely, their misconduct, drunkenness and deception are as notorious and shameless as their pride and magnificence. Not a penny of their great wealth is shared with the poor; rather, by keeping in the background, they are the real trouble makers, preventing the spread of the 1 Z HI, 391: 'gottes wort umb die zytlichen giiter lasst die richter diser welt urteylen'.

2 Ramp 74-6.

3 Z in, 392.

4 This Zinsmandat (9 October 1529) was probably written by Zwingli. With reservations,

Luther, Eck and several cities were prepared to tolerate interest at 5%. Egli /, 681-4 (No.

1612), 699-701 (No. 1652); Funk 42; Z 11, 518-19, 521; Yoder 2, 89; H. Schmid, Zwinglis

Lehre der gottlichen und menschlichen Gerechtigkeit (Zurich, 1959); A. Farner, Die Lehre von

Kirche und Staat bei Zwingli (Tiibingen, 1930), 60; K. Rischar, jfohann Eck aufdem Reichstag zu Augsburg 1530 (Minister i.W., 1968), 4.

5 Z in, 433 n. 14. The bewildering differences of sixteenth century Swiss and south German currencies made for fraud. H. Altherr, Das Munzwesen der Schrreiz bis zum Jahre ijg8

(Berne, 1910).

ZWINGLI Gospel, using monks and priests to oppose the true Christians, turning, if they are abbots, their houses into lodgings for great nobles while the poor freeze and starve outside. The Popes themselves are chief among these greedy extortioners; dispensations have been used to make money, the existence of purgatory has been invented for the purpose of gaining from payments for indulgences, and innumerable charges have been supplemented by the gifts and offerings of the faithful. At the same time, excommunication has become intolerable: men have been put to death as heretics because they have eaten a little meat at forbidden seasons,1 and clergy have been forbidden to marry while being allowed to live in systematic concubinage on the payment of money. Preaching the Gospel has been attacked as heretical and those who do this indiscriminately labelled

'Lutherans'; in Germany in particular gold has been drained away with an occasional reference to a future General Council to appease their victims.2 Much of this had already been said in a different context and was acceptable enough to the Zurich Council as an analysis of some obvious features of a disturbed polity.

Zwingli also referred to the new threat to social and religious harmony at home-the extremist evangelicals, self-confident, highly critical of others, lacking in charity, opposing the established civil government, quarrelsome, envious, back-biting hypocrites.3 To the baptism of children they were utterly opposed, and by their constant discussions at every street corner and their open-air preaching, the Gospel was in danger of being brought into disrepute. It was an indication of the existence of a religious left-wing in Zurich that was long to trouble church and state.

The conclusion to this disconnected December manifesto was that the effective intervention of the civil power must be firmly and widely applied.

The government had a paternal and inescapable duty to bring the advantages of godly administration to its subjects with patience, care and love.4 The prelates must be prevented from opposition and harmful intervention since their whole influence made for disorder5 rather than public tranquillity. No new monastic professions should be made, so that as the ageing Religious died, the property of the monasteries could be applied to the benefit of the community and especially of the poor. The tithe payments to the monasteries should be similarly distributed and care should be taken that new interest or other charges on their property did not arise.

The old order had meant that the word of the Pope had displaced that of God, and this must be reversed. Finally, Zwingli assumes the mantle of 1 The reference was to the condemnation as heretics of Siegmund the stone cutter (surgeon) at Ensisheim (February 1523) and Klaus Hottingen at Lucerne in March 1524. Z in, 443 n. 7.

See above 131 n. 2.

2 Z in, 428-44.

3 Z in, 403-12.

4 Z in, 459.

5 'Nun ist das gantz bapstumb ein missordnung.' Z in, 462.

The radical challenge the prophet - unconsciously echoing Geiler of Kaysersberg thirty years previously, he concluded, 'It is bound to collapse' - cDas muss brechen\l

Zwingli now had to meet probably the most serious and significant challenge of all, that of the independents, of whom those known then and later as Anabaptists were the spearhead.2 Mistakenly, but genuinely, these radicals were regarded and represented as social revolutionaries whose teaching would overthrow society and religion alike. The immediate controversy centred on infant baptism, but behind it lay a view of world

Christianity that was new, permanent and challenging. Before the days of Constantine, the Christian church had consisted of a small persecuted minority of believers with all the strength and coherence of an underground movement. The maintenance of unity of belief and practice after Christianity had become the state religion of the Mediterranean world had not been easy, but had been substantially accomplished after the four

General Councils of Nicaea, Constantinople, Ephesus and Chalcedon.

Educated men thereafter thought in terms of one Roman Empire, with one religion, long after east and west were going their separate ways. The gap indeed between Rome and Constantinople slowly widened into schism, but schism it remained - the divergence was hardly different in kind from that between Rome and Avignon (1372-1417), and, indeed, after the Council of Florence (1439), some of the cracks had been papered over.

The desire for unity was always present. Wyclif, Hus, Luther, Zwingli, Calvin and Cranmer were agreed in maintaining that there was but one

Catholic church whose creed was the same and should be known to all.

Their model was that of the primitive church of the days of the Apostles; it was from this that Rome, the Popes and the hierarchy had manifestly

1 Z in, 469; cf. L. Dacheux, Jean Geiler de Kaysersberg (Strasbourg, 1876), 498; E. J. D.

Douglass, Justification in late medieval preaching: a study of John Geiler ofKaisersberg, Studies in Medieval and Reformation thought, ed. H. A. Oberman, 1 (Leiden, 1966).

2 The Anabaptist literature is considerable - for detail see H. J. Hillerbrand, A bibliography of Anabaptism 1520-1630 (Institute of Mennonite Studies, Elkhart, Ind. 1962). Also in Quellen zur Geschichte der Tdufer x. Bd. (Gutersloh, 1962) QFRG xxx. ME, ML, and Clasen, have useful bibliographies. E. Troeltsch, Die Soziallehren der christlichen Kirchen und Gruppen

(Tubingen, 1912, translated as Social teaching of the Christian churches, London, 1931); Max

Weber, Gesammelte Aufsdtze zur Religionssoziologie, Bd. I, Die protestantischen Sekten und der

Geist des Kapitalismus (Tubingen, 1921); E. A. Payne, The Anabaptists of the sixteenth century

(London, 1949); G. F. Hershberger (ed.), The Recovery of the Anabaptist Vision (Scottdale,

Pa., 1957); F. H. Littell, The Anabaptist view of the church. A study in the origins of sectarian

Protestantism (Boston, 1958) (To be used with caution); P. J. Klassen, The economics of Anabaptism 1525-1560 (The Hague, 1964); H. J. Goetz, Innere und Aussere Ordnung in der

Theologie Thomas Miintzers. Studies in the history of Christian thought, 11. (Leiden, 1967).

Specifically for Switzerland: W. Koehler, 'Das Taufertum in der neueren kirchenhistorischen

Forschung', ARG 37. (1940) 93-i°7, 38. (1941) 349-64,4°. (*943) 246-70,41. (1948) 164-83.

53. (1962) 152-180. O. Vasella, 'Zur Geschichte der Tauferbewegung in der Schweiz',

ZSK 48. (1954) 179-86; M. Haas, * Taufertum und Revolution', Festgabe L. v. Muralt

(Zurich, 1970)286-95. Cf. Zur Geschichte des schweizerischen Tdufertums, NZZ 7 Nov. 1971 no. 519. Muralt/Schmid; Muralt, Glaube; Blanke i> 2, 3; Yoder /, 2.

ZWINGLI departed and so had led men away from Christ. The Reformers always insisted that they were neither innovators nor heretics; they were seeking to reestablish the visible congregation of Christians upon the right foundations and principles. There was, and there could be, only one church of Christ on earth.

For Zwingli, as for almost everyone of his day, the visible church must be coexistent with the whole local community, the people, who must live and worship in harmony. Now, however, new groups were appearing, for whom the church consisted of the few only, those who truly believed and lived rightly. These Radicals were also biblicists, strict adherents to the letter of the Bible; some, 'spiritualists', placed much greater emphasis on the direct personal inspiration of individuals by the Holy Spirit than did others, but contemporaries like Luther (and some modern writers) saw no need to differentiate between the various sectaries (Schwdrmer).1 Their work lay through local congregations of voluntary members who regarded themselves as altogether set apart from the secular state. For them the one true church of God was made up of convinced believers only. In so far as this applied to the 'invisible' church, whose members were known to God alone, there was no difference with the Zwinglian view. But when it came to identifying the adherents to the visible church on earth, there was a real divergence of opinion. There, was, indeed, no sure way of distinguishing between the true believers and the hypocrites, the nominal adherents whose probity might be challenged but could not necessarily be disproved. But, the opponents insisted, tests could be applied covering both conduct and belief, and those who did not reach the standard expected should be named and expelled. This was a new distinction. For Catholic, Lutheran and Zwinglian, the visible church embraced all professing Christians and thus, with insignificant exceptions, the whole community. The new alternative was groups of believers who constantly scrutinised their own membership, eliminated the unworthy, and worshipped, prayed and associated in separate and usually small voluntary communities or churches. This, so obvious and acceptable to the twentieth century, was then a new, revolutionary and often abhorrent suggestion. It has been only within the last fifty years that the sectarian movement which Zurich faced from 1524 onwards has received sympathetic and understanding consideration.

To a considerable degree, this has been the result of American study and enthusiasm. Mennonites, Amishes, Hutterites, Schwenckfeldians, form prosperous communities in the New World, with an active interest in their own roots and origins. The result of fuller knowledge has been greater sympathy, while literary achievements like the completion of the 1 Their sub-divisions are discussed by G. H. Williams and A. M. Mergal, Spiritual and Anabaptist Writers (London, 1957) 20-4, 28-35.

The radical challenge Mennonite Encyclopedia, or the daunting Corpus Schwenckfeldianorum have provided a body of readily accessible information which has made greater understanding possible. No historian nowadays can write off the 'spiritual' movement with the prejudice and ignorance that were predominant before 1930. There is indeed almost a danger that the pendulum swings too far the other way. Not all the 'spiritualists' were the simpleminded, injured innocents that they have been represented: some were plainly selfish, obstinate and stupid.

There is at the outset a problem of nomenclature. What were these new sectaries to be called ? Zwingli preferred to speak of them as catabaptists or anti-baptists; they themselves rejected the title Anabaptists because for them there was only one baptism and that for adults only. In practice, apart from a few Jews, every one in western Europe had been baptised soon after birth, so that any later baptism was technically r^-baptism, hence the name 'Anabaptist'. The adherents of the new movement insisted that infant baptism was no baptism at all; consequently their enemies quite unfairly labelled them enemies of baptism, which they were not. Yet to speak of them as 'Baptists', without qualification, is to introduce confusion, since the Baptist churches of a later age have a long and varied ancestry and in most cases are not conscious of any continuity with the 'Swiss brethren'.1 'Anabaptist', it is true, has suffered from memories of the excesses of Jan Matthys and John of Leiden, and the communism and polygamy in Miinster, but this can be discounted, and 'Anabaptist' be used as a historically neutral term for a phenomenon of the age.

The ritual ceremony of baptism universally used in Zurich until 1523, and continuing to be used until 1526, was an elaborate affair. In addition to the sprinkling with water by the priest, and the pronunciation of the biblical formula, the child was anointed with the chrism that a bishop alone could consecrate, with accompaniments of salt, spittle, blowing, signs of the cross and exorcism. These accompaniments Zwingli found increasingly unpalatable, but he was willing to accept them until a simpler service was inaugurated.2 The biblical command was clear, and dipping in or sprinkling with water was universal, but for Zwingli, as for his opponents on this matter, the water was a sign and not a vehicle of divine grace; it was a testimony to what had already happened. First and fore1 This may be the most satisfactory terminology, although not contemporary. They called themselves 'brothers' and 'sisters'. ARG 37 (1940), 242-3; Williams, 120. Of the four main groups, the Swiss brethren, the Hutterites of Moravia, the Melchiorites of Miinster and the Mennonites, Zwingli was concerned only with the first.

2 This was produced by Leo Jud in German, and first used in the Great Minster in August

1523, following closely Luther's first Taufbiichlein (WA, 1.12, 38, 42-8). It was modified in 1525 and later. Z iv, 680-3, 1°7~I3F. Schmidt-Clausing, Zwinglis liturgische Formulare

(Frankfurt a.M., 1970) 11-17.

ZWINGLI most there must be assured faith bringing with it true repentance, followed by an avowal or confession of sin, promise of amendment and an inward conviction of forgiveness or absolution. The sprinkling or immersion was a token only, entirely subordinate to faith, inner conviction or feeling.

The difficulty of applying this doctrine to new-born babes was obvious, and it was round this that controversy gathered. It thus secured far too much prominence, whereas in fact it was subordinate to the belief in a 'gathered' church of groups of true believers. It was their opponents who made so much of their rejection of infant baptism and their insistence on an adult ceremony which they claimed to be the only one with biblical warranty. Perhaps it was, no doubt unconsciously, intended to divert attention from the thoroughly biblical nature of their teaching and from the simplicity and purity of their lives. They were seldom able to state their case clearly and without interruption, although they were usually voluble enough when given the opportunity. They were all in varying degrees biblicists, 'spiritualists'1 and individualists; although there was general harmony in their thinking, there was no prescribed creed or accepted conformity of practice. For them the inner light, the word from within, the self-assurance of personal revelation, was decisive. It took precedence even over the texts of the Bible, coming likewise direct from God. This inner certainty brought strength. They knew they were of the Elect, and often welcomed persecution. They would join themselves only with like-minded enthusiasts in small, but visible, groups. They expected to be misunderstood and submitted meekly and humbly to injustice and suffering: indeed suffering was for many almost a necessary concomitant of a state of grace; martyrdom came easily to them.

For Luther and Melanchthon all their non-Catholic opponents from Karlstadt onwards, were fanatics (Schwarmgeister)2 including, of course, the Zwinglians. Zwingli regarded his own Swiss opponents in a very similar light, so that they were subjected to the full force of Lutheran and Zwinglian polemic as well as consistent and active Catholic opposition.

All this, in turn, served to enhance their own uncompromising intransigence, of which the more remarkable demonstrations came after Zwingli's death and outside Switzerland.

The Anabaptist problem is indeed a complex one. For the modern world the existence of separate 'churches' or groups of Christians believing,

1 They relied too demonstrably upon the inspiration of the Holy Spirit for this description not to apply, but the word is differently defined by the theologians and is not used here in any technical sense. There could be, and were, 'spiritualists' who were not concerned about adult baptism.

2 Luther opened fire on them with Ein Brief an die Christen zu Strassburg wider den Schwdrm^/gmf (1524), WA 1.15, 380-97, followed in 1525 by Wider die himmlischen Propheten, von denBildern und Sakramenty WA 1.18. 62-125, 134-214.

The radical challenge associating and worshipping independently is regarded almost as an obvious human right, equally applicable to those of any faith or of none.

The notion of uniformity of religion or compulsory attendance at church is as difficult for us to comprehend as compulsory attendance at school would have been for the sixteenth century. A community without a common ideology was at the mercy of one which was united. Christendom itself, a small part of the then known world, was in serious danger from the infidel Turk, and its unity had already been broken by Luther. If this was now to be splintered still further by other recalcitrants, the outlook was dark. Internal religious differences practically meant civil war, and this in turn imperilled the very existence of the state. There was the utmost unwillingness to admit that there could be more than one path to salvation; those who took the wrong one were not only on the way to eternal damnation themselves but were also leading others thither. This was intolerable.

Zwingli's new opponents were dangerous for three reasons. First, they were deliberately and consciously disruptive. For Catholics, Lutherans and Zwinglians there was but one comprehensive body of the faithful, one church. For the Anabaptists this was unacceptable: it was the few who were the church, meeting together in separate independent units, selective and exclusive. Luther blamed the incomplete acceptance of his teaching as much on the misguided enthusiasts and fanatics who went their own ways as on the Papists who failed to recognise their errors. Zwingli was convinced that it was anarchist opposition within his own camp that impeded Swiss unity under the reformed banner. Secondly, these opponents turned his own weapon against him. They accepted sola scriptura, the theme of the Great Minster sermons since 1519, and insisted that they were simply carrying his own teaching to its logical conclusions. Thirdly, and perhaps most dangerously of all, they were exclusive politically as well as religiously. They refused to accept the normal obligations of citizenship, they claimed to be above the law and wanted to form tiny self-governing states within states, and as such they could no more be accepted than could the early Mormons in the United States of America.

Complete separation of church and state was not practicable anywhere in Europe before 1550. If this was what the radicals wanted (and it may be doubted whether any of them considered its implications), they could not have succeeded, for the time was not yet ripe. They came too soon for success to be possible.1 In Zurich, as elsewhere, the condition of success for the reformers was that they should carry the government with them.

If, and only if, the rulers, regarded as representing the whole community, were behind them, could they hope for success. The Catholic states stood

1 Blanke 379; F. Schmidt-Clausing, Zwingli und die Kindertaufe, Berliner Kirchen-Briefe no. 6 October 1962.

ZWINGLI for religious aggression, and it was only by reformed communities that were united in religion and capable of self-defence, in which they might need every man available, that freedom could be maintained. In so far as the Anabaptists hindered this, they in fact forwarded the cause of the Counter-Reformation.

When the Swiss Anabaptists claimed that their teaching derived from that of Zwingli,1 they were thinking primarily of the appeal to the text of the Bible, and the New Testament in particular. They, too, submitted themselves completely to the tyranny of the Book. There was truth itself, absolute, the word of God, inspired by the Holy Spirit, unmistakable to those who would read it right. It was also the Bible of the Middle Ages and much more, since it was independent of interpretation by Popes, councils, canon lawyers or university doctors. In one sense both Zwingli2 and the radicals were uncritical about the Bible in that they made no attempt to go behind the received Hebrew and Greek texts to original manuscripts, and were not concerned that alternative readings were possible - quite the contrary, there was but one text.

This, however, was in Greek and Hebrew, and Zwingli readily admitted that translation was exceptionally difficult, but it was also feasible. There could not be two possible interpretations, and he who had found the right answer knew, through the Holy Spirit, that it was so. Thus Schriftprinzip was infallible provided it was upheld by linguistic knowledge, industrious study and prayer. It was not indeed like twentieth century' fundamentalism'

(an unhelpful word) since it implied a great deal of ratiocination. Simple facts were of course taken as certain; the historical narrative of creation, the garden of Eden, the flood, the age of the patriarchs, the Old Testament miracles, were accepted without difficulty, or possibly even thought. All this was common to Lutherans, Zwinglians, Anabaptists and, with appropriate modifications, to the Catholics themselves. It explains, in fact, the demand for Bible reading and the necessity for sermons and exposition. Following Erasmus, it was hoped that the Bible in translation would be in the hands of all, but the illiterate farmer could not compare biblical passages and thus could be woefully misled unless guided by his pastor.

Much of the Old Testament and parts of the New Testament were written in poetical language which in its turn required training to understand and offered scope for argument and difference of opinion. But with thought, prayer and discussion, conclusions could be reached, and right ones too. Individuals received special enlightenment by divine intervention : Zwingli never doubted that the grace of understanding could be

1 Zwingli admitted that 'they came from among us but were not of us' (i John 2. 19). Bender,

Grebel 81-3; Yoder 1, 31, 33; Z iv, 208, VI i, 47; MQR xxxvii (1963), 142-61.

2 C. Nagel, Zwinglis Stellung zur Schrift (Freiburg, 1896).

The radical challenge vouchsafed to very simple people, but that this had been the case would be demonstrated by the correspondence of their inward conviction with conclusions reached by those who arrived at certainty by ordered study.

This may be where the divergence between Zwingli and the Anabaptists began. Both accepted the received text, and both agreed that tradition, the hierarchy and any human authorities, however ancient or eminent, must give way to the Word. The power of the Gospel, vis Evangelii, inspired both and caused each to lay great stress on the need for preaching. Yet for all his reverence for the sacred text, Zwingli, partly because of the Anabaptist challenge, applied his critical mind to its contents. He recognised that the Bible was not a handbook of ancient history. Historical events could be set down wrongly because they concerned the temporal only, and it was indispensable to differentiate between the temporal and the eternal in the Bible. The letter of the Gospels no less than the letter of the law could be misleading without considering the divine message as a whole. He himself could choose between the Gospel of St John, which was like unto the sun, and the Apocalypse, in which he found little comfort.

At the same time, he consistently maintained that the meaning of the Bible was perfectly clear if read by the guidance of the Holy Spirit in faith and love. This, he insisted, was just what his opponents did not do; their ignorance, malice, passion and contentiousness were evidence that they did not approach the Bible in the right way. Every factor - time, place, person, figures of speech - had to be taken into account; the word of the Bible was indeed authoritative, but authoritative only when properly understood.1 Zwingli profoundly believed that he, by God's grace, understood it aright, while his opponents did not. Luther, Zwingli and the sectaries started from the same premises and came to different conclusions, and in the end the critical study of the Bible benefited from this.

Perhaps the Swiss brethren did a service to the Reformers by their narrow and uncompromising bibliolatry in that they forced Zwingli to modify his own earlier simple views. The combination of the publication of the Greek text of the New Testament when Greek was becoming a fashionable study, and the multiplication of vernacular translations of the Bible by the printing press, meant that a considerable number of people had relatively easy access to the infallible word. Who was to say what the inspired words meant in the 1520s-the Pope, bishops, ministers of religion, separate communities, governments, or any individual who believed himself to have received inward guidance ? It was on this rock that the Reformed ship foundered and the crew took to lifeboats. The Catholics

1 Z 11, 76, 449; in, 319, 633, 670-1.

ZWINGLI resisted placing the Bible in the hands of the masses as long as possible and solved, or partly solved, the problem of interpretation in their own authoritarian way, but this satisfied only those who accepted the primacy of Rome.

It was because access to a vernacular New Testament was possible after 1522 that a number of advanced thinkers then drew certain conclusions of their own of which the undesirability of infant baptism was the most publicised but not the most important. Like Luther, but much more so, they detached themselves from the government, politics and administration of the state.* They recognised its existence as an institution maintaining law and order, regulating merely human affairs, with which they were not concerned.2 Their concern was with a new Christian society, a minority entering upon a new life of religion, a community needing no restraint that was not self-imposed, no laws but those of the Bible, and no machinery for their enforcement.3 They were not anarchists, although they could be made to seem so. The kingdom of heaven and earth was close at hand here and now. Much more than Luther, who himself preached a certain aloofness from secular affairs, they were convinced that they were

'living in the last age of the world, on the very edge of time'.4 They combined a sense of urgency with conviction, and were infuriated by Zwingli's caution, patience and waiting.

As part of their general policy of non-cooperation with the government of the day, they, like the later Quakers, with whom there are other parallels, declined to take an oath.5 This was indeed a serious matter in the sixteenth century. The oath was an essential constituent of the cement that held a largely illiterate society together; it was the equivalent of the 'signature' or 'mark' of the modern world. Perjury, with its assumed certainty of divine punishment, supported by heavy temporal penalties, was abhorred. Without the public oath, indispensable in any court of justice, a great deal of the ordinary daily administration of public affairs would break down.6 Zwingli had no doubt that an oath for the glory of God and neighbourly love was lawful. In the universities, the oath was in many respects the equivalent of the modern examination. It was the basis or normal accompaniment of every formal contract. The Swiss Confederation itself was traditionally dated from the famous oath-taking of 1291, and 1 Luther thought that intervention by ministers of religion in secular affairs should be limited only to matters of the conscience, a qualification capable of considerable extension.

2 Muralt Glaube, 45; Blanke 3, 83; Klassen, 172-3.

3 Z IV, 172 'das kein oberkeit sin solle'.

4 Muralt Glaube, 14; E. G. Rupp The Righteousness of God (London, 1953), 10. It was a little less true of Switzerland than of Germany.

5 Relying on Matthew 5. 34, James 5. 12. Z vi, i, 154-5.

6 Zwingli put this neatly in 1527. Z vi i, 144. ' Iusiurandum autem tolle - iam omnem ordinem solvisti.' Cf. V, 97-8, VI i, 229-31.

The radical challenge after 1481 quinquennial meetings to renew the Federal bond were regarded as indispensable.1

Similar difficulties arose when the Bible command 'thou shalt not kill' was strictly and literally applied. It meant that the Anabaptists refused to undertake military service of any kind.2 This was of very great significance in sixteenth century Switzerland. There was no paid standing army, and for that matter no regular police force either. Every man looked to his own defence and was expected to appear armed when called upon by the government, ordained clergy alone being exempt. The soldier was the guarantor of public order and corporate independence; every one knew that any relaxation of military preparedness would mean domination from outside.

The walls of the city must be guarded according to a set pattern. There was a state armoury and cannon provided from public funds, and regular cross-bow practice and competitive shooting matches were encouraged.

Every male was liable to military service; fighting and warfare were normal and expected masculine duties for which boys were trained from an early age. For a man to refuse military service was, in effect, to renounce citizenship : it could easily be represented as leaving to others an indispensable duty, and was thus resented.

Similarly, any attempts to avoid payment of tithes or interest as well as to escape normal civic responsibilities were greatly disliked. Among the reasons for the unpopularity of the Catholic hierarchy had been their claim to be judged only in their own law courts and by their own law, together with exemption from taxation. In a sense this was just what the radicals wanted also. Not only was their code of law the Bible, a position with which Zwingli could sympathise, but for them also it was not a complete and final revelation but rather a source of inspiration and guidance. The Holy Spirit could, and did, bring the meaning of the Word to the hearts of the true believers, and so guided they could not be wrong. It was an exaggeration of what Zwingli himself had said,3 with entirely unacceptable overtones. If a new revelation was granted, earlier opinions and promises could be repudiated: 'We stood still', they said, 'until God bade us do otherwise'.

Their church was one of true believers only, whereas for Zwingli the visible church on earth contained believers and unbelievers, convinced and indifferents, wheat and tares, side by side.4 The elect were without sin

1 W. E. Rappard, Durenouvellement des pactes confederaux (Ziirich, 1944), 64.

2 H. S. Bender, 'The Pacifism of the sixteenth century Anabaptists' MQR xxx(i956), 5-18.

J. M. Stayer, Anabaptists and the Sword (Lawrence, Kansas, 1973) 73-90.

3 Z 1, 558, 559. 'Der geist gottes uss der geschryfft urteilt selbst. . . Ich verston die geschrifft nit anders, dann wie sy sich selbst durch den geist gottes usslegt; bdarff keins menschlichen urteils.' Cf. Z 11, 784, 799. Zwingli also pointed out that' Geist' was used by them not only as an argument against their opponents but also to cover up a great deal of internal bitterness, rivalry and disagreement.

4 Z HI, 255.

7-2

ZWINGLI and it was therefore indispensable to expel the sinner from their midst.

Hence the Anabaptists brought back excommunication, the ban, and used it readily. Any who failed to live according to the Gospel and to their literal interpretation of it must be expelled from the gathered exclusive suffering church of the believers. They laid great stress on this, but its practical application was not always edifying. Logic, scholarship, letters, the world of the intellect, they repudiated utterly; like Luther,1 but much more so, they condemned recourse to reason.

They were often reproached with communism because, within their own closed circle they were prepared to share possessions in imitation of the primitive church where they had 'all things in common' (Acts 2. 44;

4. 32). It was, however, more the expression of a principle than a way of life; they respected the property of others and conformed to the external standards of the day in this respect as in many others.2 That worldly goods should be used or shared for the common benefit was acceptable to Erasmus, Melanchthon and Zwingli3 alike, but this was far removed from general communism. There were indeed, after Zwingli's time and outside

Switzerland, more explicitly communist groups, but with them we are not here concerned. It was events in Zurich which first drew attention to the question of adult or believers' baptism and its implications.

In Zurich it was possible in 1522 for thoughtful literates, clergy and laity, to discuss among themselves the newest ideas; they knew of Karlstadt's differences with Luther, Zwingli's Schlussreden, and above all had the recently released text of the New Testament. One group of such met in the Rennweg at the house of Klaus Hottinger, the enthusiast who, along with Hans Ockenfuss, had landed himself in trouble over the Stadelhofen crucifix. They included a cripple on crutches, Andreas Castelberger from the Graubiinden who had been employed as a colporteur between Glarus,

Einsiedeln and Basle and who now read and commented on the Epistle to the Romans with marked independence of thought. His Bible class included several intelligent laymen such as Heinrich Aberli, Lorenz

Hochrlitiner and Bartlime Pur, who were to be vocal enough later.4

1 Luther subordinated reason to faith only where scriptural evidence was plain. He always remained a university professor intensely concerned with education who was almost as much a rationalist as Zwingli and who interpreted sola scriptura much more liberally than his ' leftwing' opponents.

2 P. T. Klassen, The economics of Anabaptism 1525-60 (The Hague, 1964), 28-32; Bender,

Grebel, 254 n. 9. Echoes of the controversy remained in Art. 38 of the Anglican thirty-nine articles (1562): 'The riches and goods of Christians are not common, as touching the right, title, and possession of the same, as certain Anabaptists do falsely boast.J

3 Z vi i, 85: 'En tibi, ut publica velint esse omnia! Perditi homines mediocrium bona communia volunt esse, sua vero, si quae habent, nulltaenus; si nulla habent, sic communia faciunt omnia: laborem partiuntur aliis, ipsi, ne nihil faciant, ocium colunt, deinde in commune edunt'

4 Egli /, 276-8 (No. 623); Goeters, Vorgeschichte, 254-5.

The radical challenge Another convinced biblicist was Simon Stumpf,1 the ex-monk from south Germany, parish priest of Hongg. One of Zwingli's earliest supporters and one of the first priests to marry, he had protested against payment of tithe to his patron, the Abbot of Wettingen, and had supported the plea for the abolition of the mass at the second Zurich disputation. He now began to preach in somewhat vague fashion that only those who knew themselves to be free from sin formed a true Christian brotherhood from which others should be excluded. He was supported by Felix Mantz,2 a scholarly priest, son of a canon of the Great

Minster.

They were joined before 1522 by the most attractive and influential of all the young Zurich radicals, Conrad Grebel.3 Son of a renowned patrician family, educated like Zwingli at Vienna and Basle, he had been brought up in an atmosphere of luxury and refinement, became a humanist admirer of Erasmus and was a close friend of Vadian, to whom his sister was married. In 1522-3 he actively supported Zwingli in Zurich, but support turned to opposition before the year was out, and he was soon to be found among Zwingli's ablest and most bitter critics. After the Zurich disputations, particularly the second,4 at which he had supported Zwingli, he was deeply disappointed. Nothing, it seemed, was to be done; mass was still allowed to be said, and the council had not undertaken the 'cleansing' of the churches, so urgently necessary. Zwingli had thus come to be numbered among the false prophets after having set his earlier followers

1 His dishonesty and his violent sermons, including the advocacy of the elimination of all

Catholic priests, brought about his imprisonment and his expulsion from Zurich territory on 23 December 1523. He was flogged at Lucerne in March 1524, reappeared in Zurich in 1527 and moved thence to Ulm. He was the most persistent of those who complained of Zwingli's

'go-slow' tactics. Egli /, 114, 178, 179, 190, 540 (Nos. 326, 341, 446, 463, 1167); Z vi i, 33 n. 3; VII, 195 n. 1; viii, 133 n. 2; Wyss 24, 28 n. 2; ZWA iv, 321-9.

2 c. 1500-1527. He learnt Hebrew, as did Zwingli, from Andrew Boschenstein and early joined Grebel in extreme biblicism and then opposed child baptism actively. He drew up a protest to the Zurich council on behalf of his fellow Anabaptists towards the end of 1524 (this is usually but wrongly attributed to Grebel. Bender, Grebel 129-30; but see ZWA ix, 139 and Muralt/Schmid 23-8, no. 16). He was imprisoned in February 1525 along with Blaurock, was released on payment of costs, but again imprisoned, and renewed his debate with Zwingli in March. He managed to escape to Chur but was sent back to Zurich on 18 July 1525, and was imprisoned there 18 July-7 October. By then his teaching was regarded by the government as socially and politically subversive; he was again in prison from 8 November 1525 to 21 March

1526, and finally from 13 December 1526 to his death on 5 January 1527. He had become violently opposed to Zwingli in 1525 under the influence of Blaurock; he was given every opportunity to state his case: juridically and by all contemporary standards his execution was justified, however mistaken. Muralt/Schmid 47, 73, 93, 217; Clasen, Anabaptism, 172, MQR

36 (1962) 76-87. The biography by Krajewski is sympathetic but slight.

3 1497-1526. Bender, Grebel is a favourable, almost enthusiastic account, which needs some correction. K. Keller-Escher, Die Familie Grebel (Frauenfeld, 1884), 54-8; Z vn, 62 n. 1;

Z 11, 692 n. 8; Wyss, 14 n. 1. MQR 26 (1952), 126-30.

4 Goctcrs, Vorgeschichte, 278; Yoder /, 23.

ZWINGLI on the right path.1 The breach, for Grebel, was complete by December 1523, when in a letter to Vadian he wrote of his former friend and mentor :

'anyone who thinks, believes or says that Zwingli is performing his duty as a pastor, believes and says what is ungodly'.2 He was associated with yet another critic in a hurry, William Roubli,3 the incumbent at Wytikon with pastoral duties at Zollikon, both then villages five miles from Zurich and dependencies upon the Great Minster to which tithe was paid. He was the first priest in Switzerland to be publicly married and perhaps the first to preach in the pulpit against infant baptism. Exactly when and how controversy about this particular matter came to overshadow others in Zurich cannot be traced with complete chronological exactitude. Among Zwingli's early adherents was the scholar and priest Ludwig Hatzer (c. 1500-1529)/

This young man eagerly supported the new trends, was particularly active in the opposition to images in the churches, and contributed to literature attacking them. He was prominent at the second Zurich disputation in October 1523, of which he wrote an account. Soon after it he declared his conviction that infant baptism could not be upheld from the Bible, and thus was unable to remain in Zurich. At Basle he translated some of Oecolampadius' writings into German; he moved to Strassburg and preached and wrote in Augsburg, where he had a small separatist congregation of supporters and was suspected of Unitarianism. On 4 February 1529 he was executed in Constance on a charge, for which there was only rather scanty evidence, of bigamy or adultery.5 There were others like him, literate scholars, who continued the struggle.

Zwingli's attention was early drawn to the urgency of the Baptist claims 1 Goeters, Vorgeschichte, 278; Yoder /, 23.

2 Vad. Br. 111, 50 (no. 374). 'Qui Zinlium ex officio pastoris agere putat, credit vel dicit, impie putat, credit et dicit. Williams, 96 'Zwingli, the herald of the Word, has cast down the Word, has trodden it underfoot, and has brought it into captivity.'

3 c. 1484-1559. Roubli or Reublin (with other variants) is a somewhat elusive figure. Little is certain about his early career except that he was a priest from Rottenburg (on the Neckar) and was in Basle in 1521. There he eagerly adopted Zwingli's teaching and was removed from St Alban's because of his preaching against fasting and the veneration of relics. His marriage in April 1523 to Adelheit Leeman of Hirslanden was the subject of much comment. He was imprisoned in Zurich in 1524 and expelled in 1525. He then moved to Waldshut, Strassburg, Reutlingen, Austerlitz and other places in south Germany. Possibly he was reconciled to the Catholic church before his death. Z 11, 462; vn, 509 n. 6; ix, 210 n. 3; MI. 111, 477-81;

ME IV, 304-7; Wyss, 20,25; Yoder /, 54; Wackernagel, Basel, in, 329; Goeters, Vorgeschichte,

247, 255-6; Goeters Ludwig Hatzer (c. 1500 bis 1529) Spiritualist und Antitrinitarier (Karlsruhe, 1955, also in QFRG Bd. 25), 31-2, 49.

4 Goeters Hatzer (esp. 46-54) is reliable and corrects F. L. Weis, The life and teachings of Ludwig Hetzer (Dorchester, Mass., 1930); ME 11, 621-6; MQR xx. (1955), 251-62, xxxiv.

(i960), 20-36; ZKG 70 (1959), 218-30, 344-5; Rupp, Patterns of Reformation (London,

1969), 24; Bergsten, 161. Zwingli recommended his writings; Z 11, 654, 668, VIII, 200. E. M.

Wilbur, A History of Unitarianism (Cambridge, Mass., 1946), 30-1; ZWA xm, 580-90.

5 H. C. Rublack, Die Einfiihrung der Reformation in Konstanz (Giitersloh, 1971), 168-71. H.

Buck, Die Anfdnge der Konstanzer Reformationsprozesse (Tubingen, 1964), 305-21.

The radical challenge by his friend Balthasar Hubmaier (c. 1480-1528), known from his birthplace at Friedberg (near Augsburg) as Pacimontanus.1 A gifted youth, he had made his way to the University of Freiburg, where he was helped by Eck, earned money by grammar school teaching at Schaffhausen, and was brought by Eck to Ingolstadt, where he proceeded D.D. in 1512 and was made professor of theology. A Catholic priest and a humanist, he obtained a church appointment at Regensburg in 1516, where his anti-Semitic sermons made him notorious. The mob burnt the synagogue, and a chapel was built in its place, complete with a much-frequented miracleworking statue of the Madonna, whose cult the young priest actively encouraged. In 1521 he became parish priest at Waldshut, which brought him into contact with the humanist group at Basle, and so with Beatus

Rhenanus, Oecolampadius, Vadian and Zwingli. His later career is characteristic of many others. He early accepted the reformed teaching, visited Zwingli at Zurich, took a prominent part in the second disputation of 26-8 October 1523,2 and came into contact with Grebel. Waldshut, whither he returned, was administered by the Austrian government at Ensisheim, and was in many respects a key position. Its location on the Rhine and close to the Aar made it valuable for both Berne and Zurich.

There Hubmaier was concerned to secure not only freedom for the Gospel, but also, if possible, emancipation of the city from imperial domination; and in the spring of 1524 it looked as if he would succeed. He published eighteen theses closely following the Zwinglian model, denouncing the obligatory Lenten fast, supporting the marriage of priests, and rejecting the mass as a sacrifice along with the Catholic teaching on purgatory.3 In all this he secured sufficient support from the council of Waldshut to ensure that he was not handed over to the officers of the Bishop of Constance to stand trial as a heretic.

Stiihlingen, where the German Peasants' War started, was too close to Waldshut for Hubmaier not to become involved, and it was even alleged that he was responsible for the famous twelve demands.4 He had ceased to be a close follower and admirer of Zwingli, and had become acquainted with Karlstadt, Hatzer and Miintzer. He now openly agreed with those who rejected child baptism and told Oecolampadius so, moved thereto,

1 Z iv, 577-83. Bergstenis admirable; Balthasar Hubmaier Schriften, hg. v. G. Westin u.

T. Bergsten (Giitersloh, 1962) QFRG xxix. Older works include J. Loserth, DoktorBalthasar

Hubmaier und die Anfdnge der Wiedertaufe in Ma'hren (Briinn, 1893); H. C. Vedder,

Balthasar Hubmaier. The leader of the Anabaptists (New York/London, 1905); C. D. Sachsse,

D. Balthasar Hubmaier als Theolog (Berlin, 1914); W. Mau, Balthasar Hubmaier (Berlin,

1912); J. H. Yoder, 'Balthasar Hubmaier and the beginnings of Swiss Anabaptism, MQR 33

(1959) 5-17 (derived in part from Yoder 2). Cf. MQR 45 (1971), 123-44.

2 Z 11, 716-62, 786-8. See above, 131-3.

3 Hubmaier, Schriften, 71-4.

4 See below, 201 n. 1.

ZWINGLI he insisted, by the teaching of Christ, by truth and his own conscience.1

On Easter Sunday 1525 he allowed himself to be baptised, along with some sixty others, by the indefatigable Roubli.2 Waldshut, however, was no longer safe after Zurich volunteers had been withdrawn, and he was forced to leave, going to Basle and then to Zurich. He was not present at the debate of 6-8 November but was discussing baptism with Jud, Myconius and Hofmeister in December. He preached Anabaptism from the Fraumlinster pulpit, was imprisoned and perhaps tortured in the Wellenberg, publicly recanted some of his beliefs and was expelled. Back at Augsburg he taught Latin and Greek and met Hans Denck,3 but was forced to leave in 1526, and set up a 'church' or congregation at Nicolsburg (Mikulov) in Moravia. In 1528 he was apprehended by Austrian agents, taken to Vienna and burnt as a heretic on 10 March.4

Hubmaier was a significant figure chiefly because of his writings which attracted the hostile attention of Zwingli, Oecolampadius and Fabri. He was an Anabaptist in so far as he never doubted that faith must precede baptism which was meaningless without it, but in every other respect his opinions were moderately reconcilable with those of the Reformers, in general if not in particular. He was not prepared to reject civil authority as so many Anabaptists did, and it is not entirely fair to class him with them. If he had lived he might have formed a group of Hubmaierians, and his name was sufficiently weighty to receive condemnation along with Luther and Zwingli by the Council of Trent. He is one of the most sympathetic and human figures among a sometimes unreasonable group, and there is a touch of Cranmer about him.

It was not until 1524 that the discussions about baptism became matters of public interest and concern in Zurich. Zwingli had secured freedom for Gospel preaching and a measure of agreement about fasting, images and 1 Staehelin, Briefs I, 341-3; Das theologische Lebenswerk Johannes Oekolampads (Leipzig, 1939),

378-9.

2 Muralt/Schmid, 391-2 (no. 404).

3 Hans Denck (c. 1500-27) was a Bavarian who studied at Ingolstadt (B.A. 1519) and Basle, became proof-reader for Cratander and Curio, then headmaster of St Sebald's school, Nuremberg until 1525. In 1526 he became an Anabaptist and was in touch with Mtintzer. Then he moved to Augsburg, St Gall, Strassburg, Worms (where he collaborated with Hatzer in translating the Old Testament Prophets) and finally to Basle, where he died. He has been described as the 'abbot of the Anabaptists', but there is much that is uncertain about his movements and his teaching, and it is unsafe to count him as more than a fringe adherent to the Anabaptist movement. ZKG xn (1890), 452-93; Hans Denck) Schriften, hg. v. G. Baring u. W. Fellmann; QFRG xxiv (Giitersloh, 1955, 1956, i960); F. L. Weis, The life, teachings and works of Johannes Denck (Strassburg, 1924); ML I, 401-3; MQR 31 (1957), 227-59, 46

(1972) 245, 47 (1973), 327-38; Muralt/Fast, 403 n. 5; Z vm, 303 n. 22.

4 For his writings see below p. 192. Kessler inserted a striking appreciation in Sabbata, 106-7,

284. Naf Vadian, 11, 184; Vad. Br., 240 (No. 92); Z vm, 470; MQR, 31 (1957) 227~59> 33

(1959) 12-17; Williams 140-1; Yoder / 79-89, 173; Briefwechsel des Beatus Rhenanus hg. v.

A. Horawitz u. K. Hartfeldcr (Leipzig, 1886), 263 (No. 192).

The radical challenge the mass - all this after public discussion and with the approval of the authorities. After Christmas 1523 the activists, now led by Grebel, were calling for something which would clearly demonstrate that positive action should soon follow. How their disappointment was linked to separatism and how Zwingli spared no effort to show that they were utterly mistaken is a curiously involved story.1 Possibly it was the preaching of Roubli that was responsible for starting off direct trouble. In August 1524 two farmers,

Hans Huber and Rudolf Maler, from his parish of Wytikon,2 refused to bring their infants to church for baptism.3 It was this action that posed a problem for the authorities.4 Attendance at church was expected of all citizens; the unbaptised could not be admitted, and this could be extended to the parents of unbaptised children for whom they were responsible. It was an act of defiance, and soon there were others who copied it. Further instances of neglect of baptism were reported from Zollikon, involving

Max Bosshart, Riidi Thomann, Leonhard Bleuler and others,5 some of well-known families. Whether or not baptism was essential for salvation, these farmers were defying authority, as was made apparent on 11 August when the council issued an order that any unbaptised children should be brought for baptism forthwith.6 Discussions had in fact been taking place between Zwingli, Jud, Engelhard and Myconius on one side, and Grebel,

Brotli and Castelberger on the other, from October onwards,7 so that direct action cannot have been entirely surprising. Provocative acts occurred, like the interruption of sermons,8 or the breaking of the font in Zollikon church. The offenders and their supporters were summoned to the Rathaus on 12 January and required to attend a public discussion of baptism there on 17 January. This, the first of its kind, duly took place:

Zwingli dominated the proceedings and dealt effectively with points raised from the Scriptures by Mantz, Roubli, Castelberger, Blaurock,9 Brotli,

1 Above 167 n. 2. Blanke /, 2 and 3; E. Egli, Die Ziircher Wiedertdufer zur Reformationszeit

(Zurich, 1878) has worn well and can still be consulted with profit. Egli realised that Bullinger's account printed in March 1560 was more propaganda than history as the full title indicates - Der Widertoujferen vrsprung etc. Bullinger also wrote * von dem vnuerschampte frafel, ergerlichem verwyrren, vnnd vnwarhafftem leeren, der selbsgesandten Widertouffern '

(Ziirich, 1531). H. Fast, Heinrich Bullinger und die Tdufer: ein Beit rag zur Historiographie und

Theologie im 16. Jahrhundert (Weierhof, Pfalz, 1959); C. Bergmann, 'Die Tauferbewegung im Kanton Zurich bis 1660', QSRG 2, 1-22 (Leipzig, 1916); W. Koehler, Die Ziircher Tdufer

(Ludwigshafen, 1925); ZWA vi, 65-85; Goeters, Vorgeschichte, 239-81.

2 P. Guyer, Die Bevolkerung Zollikons im Mittelalter und in der Neuzeit (Zurich, 1946), 37-9;

Bender Grebel 124.

3 Muralt/Schmid, 10 (no. 11).

4 And indirectly led to Zwingli's Wer Ursache gebe zu Aufruhr in December. See above, 117-21.

5 Blanke /, 29-30; Muralt/Schmid, 38-40 (Nos. 29-31).

6 'Alssdann ettlich verirtter meinung redend, man solle die jungen kind nit touffen, bissdiezuo iren tagen kommen'. Muralt/Schmid 11 (No. 12); Egli /, 270 (No. 618).

7 Z VIII, 261-2; Bender, Grebel 128.

8 Jacob Hottinger interrupted a sermon by Megander on 12 January 1525. Muralt/Schmid 33

(No. 23). Blaurock was equally violent.

9 Handbuch, 459.

ZWINGLI Hatzer and Grebel, although the latter claimed with some justice that he and his friends were denied full scope for discussion.1 Their very volubility told against them, and the temper of the meeting was somewhat hostile. The outcome was that Zwingli was adjudged to have answered all objections effectively, and next day, 18 January, came orders that all unbaptised children must be brought for baptism within the next eight days under penalty of expulsion from Zurich. Unauthorised preaching or illicit gatherings for worship must cease, and the font in Zollikon church was to be repaired and restored to its place.2

It was in the light of this decision that a small group of dissenters gathered on 21 January at a house in the Neugasse owned by Felix Mantz's mother, to consider their next move.3 Prominent among those present were Grebel and the blue-coated Blaurock.4 The party joined together in prayer, after which Blaurock stood up and called upon Grebel, the leader of the group, to baptise him. This Grebel did, and then Blaurock baptised fifteen others.5 This, 'the first adult baptism' on record, was not total immersion, but a substantial wetting on a January day. There was likely

1 Bender, Grebel 129.

2 Muralt/Schmid 35-6 (No. 26); Z iv, 162.

3 Krajewski, 38, 75-7; G. F. Herschberger, The Recovery of the Baptist Vision2 (Scottdale, Pa.,

1962) 61. Blanke, 2, 76, MQR xxvn (1953), 17, and xxxi (1957) 220 rather too precise and definite. The narrative is in part drawn from Die dlteste Chronik der Hutterischen Brtider. Ein

SprachdenkmalausfruhneuhochdeutscherZeit hg. v. A. J. F. Zieglschmid (Ithaca, N.Y., 1943), a late and suspect (esp. p. 47) source which was too readily accepted by Blanke and G. H.

Williams. The editor's notes are valuable.

4 Georg (Jorg) vom Haus Jakob (also Cajakob and other variants, c. 1492-1529), known as Blaurock from the coloured coat which he almost always wore, was a married ex-priest of good peasant family from Bonaduz (near Chur, Graubiinden). In 1524 he came to Zurich, where he soon became the most prominent and outspoken of the Anabaptists. At Zollikon he tried unsuccessfully to force his way into the pulpit with the words 'du bist nit, sunder ich (bin) gesandt, ze predigen' (Egli /, 285 (No. 636)), and later managed to do so at Hinwil. He may have been present at the first Anabaptist debate before the Zurich council in January 1525, and was so persistent in his preaching that at the end of March the Council ordered his repatriation together with that of his wife. On the whole, he preferred preaching in villages to preaching in towns, and wandered from place to place between Chur, Hinwil and Schaffhausen, baptising adults all the time. He returned to Zurich and was imprisoned in the Wellenberg on 18 November 1525. After his release he persisted in haunting the Zurich streets and preaching. In January 1527 he was in prison, flogged at the Niederdorf Gate, once more expelled, and threatened with drowning if he returned. He then moved into the Tyrol, where he made many converts, appeared at Berne in January 1528 and at Basle in February

1529, and in April 1529 he wras active in Appenzell. Soon afterwards he was captured by imperial agents at Klausen near Innsbruck, tortured and burnt as a heretic on 6 September.

He was a huge man with sparkling eyes and jet black hair, much the most picturesque of the * three Anabaptist martyrs', Grebel, Mantz, Blaurock. Z iv, 168-9, 2$8 n. 11; Wyss, 78 n. 2;

ML 1, 227-34; ME 1, 354-9; O. Vasella, 'Von den Anfangen der bundnerischen Tauferbewegung (Jorg Blaurock), ZSG xix (1939), 165-84 shows the close connection of the Bundner Anabaptists with Zurich. J. A. Moore, Der starhe Jorg (Kassel, 1955) is a brief popular account.

5 Yoder /, 41; Bender, Grebel, 137; Blanke /, 21-2; Z vi i, 40 n. 1; (for dates) Williams, 122.

The radical challenge enough a sense of urgency as well as of deliberate defiance.1 For, at the same time, as Grebel must have known from his friends, Biirgermeister

Roist2 and the council were making an order, requiring Grebel and Mantz to abstain from further propaganda; while their associates, who were not citizens of Zurich, Roubli, now described as 'der pfaff' of Witikon,

Brotli3 of Zollikon, Hatzer and Castelberger, were required to leave Zurich territory within eight days.4 It was a usual, but serious sentence, there was no obvious place of refuge and they must become men on the run.

On the next day, 22 January, Hans Oggenfuss, tailor of the then village of Stadelhofen, was hurrying with a new suit of clothes to Roubli. On his way, at the fountain or well (Brunnen) of Hirslanden, he met Brotli whom he knew as a former priest and an educated man, together with Fridli

Schumacher. There he acted as witness to the baptism of the latter.5

Shortly afterwards, probably on the following day,6 Grebel was present at another gathering, in Jacob Hottinger's house in Zollikon.7 There he read from the New Testament and preached on the Last Supper and on baptism, following this by cutting up a small bread roll and distributing it with some local wine, each recipient promising henceforward to lead a Christian life.8 This simple service was a further act of defiance, since no decision about the mass had yet been made.

1 For Williams, 119, this was the critical moment: 'The first gathered church of sectarian

"Protestantism" came into being precisely at that moment when a former priest in the home of a university-educated prophet of the new order received baptism on confession of sin from the hand of a layman, and when all present defended their action on the ground that the Christian conscience was no more beholden to the reforming magistrates and their divines than to priests and prelates.' This is rather extravagant, but it was clear after the first debate that they must try to form a separated community. Goeters, Haetzer, 53; Hershberger, 61.

2 Egli /, 278 No. 624; Muralt/Schmid 34-6, Nos. 24-6.

3 Johannes Brotli came, like Blaurock, from Graubiinden, was at St Gall, at Basle in 1515, at Quarten in 1521, married in 1523, and was assistant preacher at Zollikon in 1524. After his expulsion from Zurich, he moved to Hallau, where he was burnt as a heretic in 1529. J. A.

Moore, 'Johannes Brotli', Baptist Quarterly 15 (1953), 29-34; ML 1, 275; ME 1, 439.

4 Muralt/Schmid, 35-6 (No. 26) (misprinted 1521). Castelberger ('Andreas auf den Stiilzen') was allowed a temporary respite because of illness. Egli /, 279 (No. 629); Muralt/Schmid, 37

(No. 28).

5 Egli 7, 283 (No. 636); Williams, 123; Muralt/Schmid, 41-2 (No. 31) with a cautionary note;

MQR XXVII (1953), 17-18.

6 The details are derived from testimony taken on 7 February 1525 from a number of prisoners in the Wellenberg. These are on separate sheets of paper collected at E 1. 7. 1 in StaZ, but the order and chronology are uncertain.

7 Where Brotli was assistant minister and claimed to be the only rightful preacher. Blanke /

(E.T.), 23; Blanke 3, 77; Bender, Grebel, 136-8 and note 7.

8 The exact chronology is again uncertain, and too much has been read into imperfect reports.

Krajewski, 91; Bergsten, 313-14; Muralt/Schmid, 37-43 (Nos. 29, 31, 32); Yoder 2, 109, n o

(no. 36). It is straining the evidence to see in this spontaneous action 'the moment when the "Free Churches" were born and a new type of religious organisation created'. John C.

Wenger, Even unto death (Richmond, Va., 1961), German text, Die dritte Reformation

(Kassel, 1961) 19-20. Bender, Grebel, 264, argues that Hottinger was baptised in his own house on 5 February and that Grebel was not present.

ZWINGLI There was another meeting in farmer Thomann's house in Zollikon, perhaps on 25 January, with Bosshart, Roubli, Jacob Hottinger, Broth, another Thomann, Bruggbach (or Brubach), Mantz and Blaurock all present and assuredly not by accident.1 In a markedly revivalist atmosphere combining fervour with conscious alarm at their own temerity Bruggbach and Hottinger were baptised, and a simple communion service followed, when Blaurock rose to say:' He who believes that God has redeemed him through his death and rose-coloured blood, let him come and eat with me of the bread and drink with me of the wine.' Thomann was perturbed and did not participate; Bosshart was not baptised until the following day when Blaurock accepted his repentance as sufficient to warrant baptism.2

For the whole of the week of 22-9 January there were similar incidents involving Brennwald, Schad, Roggenacker, Breitinger, Oggenfuss,

Schuhmacher and Bleuler, and there was a report that eighty adults were baptised in Zollikon in three weeks.3

The requirement that all babies must be baptised was repeated on 1 February, and some who had failed to comply were arrested but allowed to return home only on a very large bail of 1,000 gulden.4 Mantz and Blaurock were held in the Wellenberg prison, and 25 others were lodged in the former Augustinian monastery.5 They were interviewed by Zwingli,

Jud and Megander, and there was renewed disagreement about the nature of the baptism performed by the Apostles. Zwingli reported to the council the existence of a separate independent group administering baptism and communion.6 In February and March there were several meetings for discussion; partly with the larger group, partly with Blaurock and Mantz separately. These, particularly that or those on 16 March and 20 March, are sometimes described as the second baptismal disputation,7 but apart from the fact that really exact information is not easy to come by, they were different from the earlier debates of 1523. They were not in any sense

'public', they were not called by the Zurich Council (although held under its authority), no visitors from outside were invited, and there was no supposedly impartial chairman. The arguments ranged over the whole field of the sinless church, community of goods, the ban, tithes, interest, government, the workings of the spirit, all matters to which Zwingli was

1 Geiser, 143.

2 Blanke, 1, 25-9.

3 Yoder, /, 47-8; Geiser, 143. Blanke, /, 41 counts'35, but (/, 54) speaks of'at least eighty' baptisms in the week of March 8-15.

4 Muralt, Glaube, 22. They paid costs and took an oath to keep the peace. The early Anabaptist converts or sympathisers were seldom really poor. P. Peachey, Die soziale Herkunft der Schweizer Tdufer in der Reformationszeit (Weierhof, Pfalz, 1954); MQR xxvm (1954),

102-27.

5 Muralt/Schmid, 47 (no. 37); Egli /, 282-6 (Nos. 636, 637); Blanke /, 43.

6 Z iv, 162-3; Krajewski, 89-91.

7 Williams, 126; Krajewski, 89-97; Koehler, Zwingli, 144.

The radical challenge to recur and all without positive conclusions.1 Blaurock was his more than usual violent self and poured scorn on Zwingli personally; adult baptism was indispensable, anyone neglecting it remained a heathen, a conclusion scarcely likely to be acceptable to Zurich councillors. Even so, the worst that happened was that some were fined, others warned, and a few reimprisoned and perhaps allowed to escape. Mantz was bound over and obliged to pay costs, Blaurock as a foreigner was expelled with ignominy;

Grebel, Roubli and Brotli went into Thurgau or the neighbourhood of Schaffhausen where they had some success. Hans Hottinger, the night watchman who had been voluble in his accusations,2 was dismissed from his post, and some who refused to come into line were expelled.

In spite of these indications of official disapproval and the threatened penalties, the new teaching spread with remarkable rapidity during the early months of 1525: adherents appeared in Griiningen, Waldshut, the Klettgau, Appenzell, St Gall, Schaffhausen, Basle, Berne, Chur, Constance and a number of Swabian towns. When a small group in Zurich drew attention to themselves by parading with ropes round their waists and willow rods in their hands, crying, 'Woe, woe to thee, Zurich', calling

Zwingli' The old dragon' and proclaiming that only forty days remained for repentance,3 more positive measures were seen to be needed. It was no more possible for Zurich to ignore such men than it would be for a modern government to accept refusal to pay taxes, or an army commander to countenance disobedience to orders. It was a challenge which Zwingli had to face more than once. Blaurock was at least equally positive. His opponents were worse than the Pope, Zwingli was the real Antichrist, falsifying the words of the Bible to suit himself, a thief, a murderer, a heretic.

Zwingli's answer was to insist that Blaurock, who was unable to read the Bible in Latin, let alone in the original tongues, was merely a crazy visionary. It wras unfair to dismiss the enthusiast thus, just as Luther was equally unreasonable in dealing with the much abler

Karlstadt.

The third and last, but the only one properly so called, of the debates on the subject of baptism took place in the Great Minster from Monday to Wednesday, 6-8 November.4 Hubmaier, to his disappointment, was prevented from attending,5 but Mantz, Grebel and Blaurock were eloquent for the cause. They were confronted by Zwingli, Jud and Megander as 1 Z iv, 164-6.

2 Muralt/Schmid, 57 (No. 47); Egli /, 291 (No. 655). He had stated that Zwingli had previously preached that children should not be baptised, a gross misrepresentation, and maintained that in asserting that God had called children to the font he had lied 'like a scoundrel, a coward and a heretic'.

3 Rev. 12. 3. Blanke /, 68f; Bergsten 323; Z vi i, 43; Clasen, 119; Egli /, 352 (No. 748).

4 Bullinger, Ref. 1, 294-8; Stumpf/, 1, 284.

5 Bergsten, 344-5; Sabbata, 150, 190.

ZWINGLI disputants, with Vadian, Conrad Sehmid and Joner as supporters. There was no serious exchange of views, for each side had by now taken up a position from which it could not be moved, and the meetings degenerated into uproar, each shouting abuse at the other.1 Zwingli, with what Grebel described to his brother-in-law Vadian as devilish cunning,2 put forward three propositions for debate - that Christian children were God's children, that baptism replaced circumcision, and that second baptism was unbiblical. Since both sides insisted that there could not be a second baptism, it is not surprising that orderly argument ceased. The only episode that caught notice was a rather heavy-handed piece of humour. 'Zwingli, I adjure you by the true and living God, tell me but one truth', called out one rustic. 'That I will', was the answer. 'You are the worst specimen of a trouble-making, discontented farmer that we've got in the neighbourhood.'3

There was general applause, and the whole matter was left, as was intended, to the discretion of the council. After this no compromise was possible.

The councillors were now satisfied and soon dealt more severely with wild men who shouted in the streets, 'Zion, Zion, freedom for Jerusalem'.

When Hubmaier arrived, he was arrested,4 broke down under questioning by Jud, Hofmeister, Myconius and Zwingli, four formidable inquisitors, admitted his errors, then recovered his nerve and went back on his promises. He was re-arrested, tortured, again agreed to recant and preach the Bible in Zwinglian fashion only, and was allowed to leave for Constance. Here he renewed his attacks on Zwingli before moving, ill, hunted and poverty-stricken, into the kingdom of Bohemia, from whence he went to his death.5 Other dissenters were lodged in the Wellenberg prison for an indefinite time, refused visits by friends and given only bread and water.

Those, like Michael Sattler, who were not natives, were expelled.6 Grebel, Mantz and Blauroek re-appeared in March 1526 to renew their attacks on Zwingli as a 'false prophet'7 and to repeat their demands for separatist worship. Threats were clearly as useless as arguments with these shameless, disorderly, self-advertising agitators, who were again taken into custody, where they could rest for all the council cared.8 Continued dis1 Egli, Ziircher Wiederlaufer, 47; Krajewski, 119-20; Yodcr /, 73-9.

2 Geiser, 134.

3 Bullinger, Der Widertoujferen Vrsprung (Zurich, 1560), 11; Egli, Ziircher Wiedertaufer, 47.

Fast, Heinrich Bullinger und die Tdufer (Weicrhof, 1959), 115; Muralt/Fast, 612-13.

4 Muralt/Schmid, 159/160 (No. 157).

5 Sec above p. 180 and n. 4.

6 ' so lang und vil Gott ein beniiegen hat und mine Herren guot bedunkt' Egli /, 406 (No. 863).

Egli /, 444-5 (No. 934).

7 Z viii, 542.

8 'Man wolle sie also im thurm ersterben und fulen lassen.' Egli /, 444 (No. 934); Egli, Ziircher

Wiedertdufer, 55; Bender, Grebel, 156; Bergsten, 390-1; Muralt/Schmid, 159-60. Much is made of this sentence - they were in fact soon outside: apparently a window was left open and a supporter threw them a rope.

The radical challenge obedience to government orders and manifestations of sedition and religious mania could not be tolerated any longer. On 7 March 1526 came the notorious mandate that 'henceforth in our city, territory and neighbourhood, no man, woman, or maiden shall rebaptise another; whoever shall do so shall be arrested by authority and after proper judgement shall without appeal1 be put to death by drowning.' This was ordered to be read in the three principal churches on Sundays, and to be publicly exhibited and announced by the local government authorities.2

This order has frequently been quoted as an example of the singular intolerance of the age, which indeed it is. Zwingli, technically, had nothing to do with it, but there is nowhere any indication that he disapproved.3

The death penalty in all countries in the sixteenth century was inevitably used as almost the only ultimate sanction available. There was little respect for human life as such. Compared with the criminal justice of France or England, or with the torture of suspected heretics by the Inquisition, or the burning of Protestants in Catholic states (and vice versa), the punishment was mild, and was, in fact, inflicted only four times in all. The Anabaptists tended to rejoice in martyrdom4 and to neglect opportunities to leave quietly when these were offered.

The situation in 1526 was not a happy one. Zurich was isolated, and the Catholics were gathering for the final overthrow of the heretics at Baden.

There had been trouble with recalcitrants in the countryside, especially the Griiningen district, and it was necessary that the government should assert its authority. On 5 January 1527 a small boat carrying Felix Mantz put out from the left bank of the Limmat in sight of the Zurich Rathaus.

He had taken a solemn oath to leave Zurich territory and not to baptise any more, but he had deliberately returned in spite of warning and continued the practice, thus becoming an avowed perjurer and a notorious disturber of the peace. Now, in the presence of witnesses, who marvelled at his constancy, his hands were tied and he was lowered into the clear

1 'on alle gnad ertrencken lassen'. Often translated 'without mercy', rather unfairly.

2 Egli /, 445 (No. 936) cf. 444-5 (Nos. 934, 935, 936, 937). Muralt/Schmid, 180-1 (no. 172).

'Alss dann unser herrenn biirgermeister, rat und der gross rat, so man nempt die tzweihundert der statt Zurich, sich ein gut zythart mit sonderm ernst geflyssen, die verfurten, irrigen wydertoffer von iro irsall abzestellen etc., so aber iro ettlich alss verstopfft wyder iro eyd, gliipt und zusagungen bcharret und gmeinem regiment und oberkeit zu nachteil und zerstorung gmeins nutzes und rechten cristenlichen wesens ungehorsam erschinen, sind ir ettlich, manner, frowen und tochtern, in unser herrenn schware straff und gfengnuss gelegt.

Und ist daruff der genanten unser herrenn ernstlich gepott, geheiss und warming, dass weder in ir stat, land und gepietten hinfiir niemants, manner, frowen noch dochtern, denn andern wyderumm touffen solle. Dann wer also wyter den andern touffte, zu dem wurdent unser herrenn gryffen und nach iro jetz erkantter urtel on alle gnad ertrencken lassen. Darnach wisse sich menglich zu verhutten und dass im selbs zu sinem tod niemants ursach gebe.'

3 Yoder 2, 141; Bender, Grebel 269 n. 91.

4 Cf. Muralt/Schmid, 78-9 (No. 70 )

ZWINGLI water by a rope and left to drown.1 He died willingly and impressively; his death was perhaps more important than his life. His property was confiscated for the state. He was thus the first Baptist martyr;2 three others followed later,3 after which any other notorious adherents fled or were expelled, and there was then peace in Zurich. Melanchthon indicated his approval, and letters of warning against Blaurock, Denck and Hatzer went to Berne, Basle, Augsburg, Constance, St Gall and Appenzell.4

All this had obliged Zwingli to consider carefully baptismal doctrine and the claims of his opponents. The subject of baptism, bristling with difficulties and contradictions, was both theological and practical. Abstractions such as sin, faith and grace were very much involved, as well as the simple physical action of sprinkling with, or dipping in, water. It is true that the visible act of baptism was not the chief matter in the controversy with the Anabaptists and that the meaning of the church, the operation of the Holy Spirit, relations of church and state, civil disobedience and the right to worship freely were also involved, but it was round the act of baptism that the dispute centred. Traditionally baptism was a sacrament, a means of grace, indispensable for release from original sin inherent in man since the fall of Adam. In some ways popular thought was crude; an infant must be brought into contact with water and the baptismal formula pronounced. There was an element of magic about it - the child who died soon after the words were spoken was, as most believed, assured of eternal salvation, while if the words and action were lacking to his twin brother, there was the contrary presumption. The one was a member of the church outside which there was no salvation, the other was not. Hence the urgent instructions to midwives upon how to act in an emergency; hence the invariably early presentation at the font.

This view of a sacrament -opus operatum - Zwingli early rejected; water could not wash away sin and was not indispensable, and the trinitarian formula might vary; baptism could be in the name of Christ alone.5

God saved whom he would irrespective of words and actions, and the souls of virtuous heathen who had lived before - and by implication after - the 1 Before his death he wrote a pathetic but unrepentant letter to his brethren, and a well known hymn. Egli /, 529-30 (No. 1109); Bullinger, Ref, 1, 381-2; Muralt/Schmid 218-21 (No. 201,

902) 224-6 (No. 204). The precise place is indicated in S. Vogelin, Das alte Zurich (Zurich,

1878) I, 475.

2 Williams, 146; Rupp, Patterns of Reformation, 353.

3 Jacob Falk of Gossau, Heini Reimann of Griininger Amt (1528) and Konrad Winkler of Wasserberg (1530).

4 ZWA vi (1934), 65-85, an article by von Muralt criticising (with many misprints indicating imperfect knowledge of English) articles by J. Horsch in MQR, summarised in Goschen

College Record, Review supplement xxvn. (1926), 1-14. Cf. MQR XLIII, 98.

5 Z in, 771-3 and notes; Z iv, 268. Zwingli acutely pointed out that the formula used by the Greek church differed from that of the west but was fully as comprehensive: 'in the name of was the equivalent of 'by the grace or power of. As in the discussion of the mass, he insisted that words, and above all particular words, were powerless.

The radical challenge birth of Christ might reach heaven. The dying thief on the cross had not be^n baptised, nor had Joseph of Arimathea, Nicodemus, Gamaliel, nor again many a confessor in the days of the Roman Empire.1 Fire for the martyrs might take the place of water.

Zwingli insisted that baptism, like circumcision by which it was foreshadowed, was a sign, a simple form of action which was of itself certainly not necessary for salvation. There was also a spiritual or internal baptism, given by God in man's heart, presuming and requiring faith. Not only did baptism not wash away sins, but its recipient was not then or later sinless;

Christ alone was this. It was an indication that an obligation to live a Christian life had been accepted by, or on behalf of, the recipient.2 Baptism was thus a public assurance that children would receive a Christian education, and an initiation ceremony to show their future allegiance. Luther seemed to accept the view that baptism eliminated original sin, whereas

Zwingli, for whom the 'weakness' of original sin was inherent in all adults, insisted that believing Christians, being made free from the effects of original sin by the crucifixion, had their children baptised as an assurance that they shared this advantage and belonged to the whole community of those who had received this grace. A new Christian life was begun.

Children were just as much members of the church, inheritors of the kingdom of God, as their parents.

Baptism had ample, almost too ample, biblical support. The question, however, now arose that if, as Zwingli maintained,3 baptism was dependent on faith and meaningless without it, how could infants have faith ? Moreover, if baptism followed faith, it was of minor account. On one point he was quite consistent: nothing was effected by the sprinkling with or dipping in water.4 A physical object whether water or bread or wine did not of itself bring anything with it. As such, it could not even strengthen faith.5

On this point, however, Zwingli shifted his ground and admitted that his second thoughts were not the same as his first ones. He found an additional powerful argument in favour of child baptism - election. Some were predestined to salvation. Among infants no human being could possibly know those wrhom God had chosen, and so to deny baptism to any one of these would be to assume knowledge which did not, and could not, exist.

Therefore all children of Christian parents could and should be baptised.

At the same time Zwingli, like his opponents, was sure that there could be only one baptism: repetition was meaningless. But they, of course, argued that only the ceremony that followed assured faith could be true baptism.

1 Z iv, 223-4; Yoder 2, 18. Judas and Simon Magus, disbelievers, had been baptised.

2 Z iv, 199-201, 229-31.

3 Z iv, 191.

4 Z 11, 143.

5 Yoder 2, 94 argues that Zwingli's later position was the opposite of his earlier one. This is true only in so far as reliance was to be placed exclusively on the text of the Bible. For the later Zwingli, faith might follow baptism, and this his opponents denied.

ZWINGLI To extract infant baptism from the New Testament, particularly from the Acts of the Apostles, required all the ingenuity that Zwingli possessed.

His main scriptural arguments were based on the fact that the baptism of John preceded that of Christ, that baptism replaced circumcision and that the apostles had baptised children (Acts 16, 15, 33, 1 Cor. 1, 16, Romans

4. n , Col. 2. 12). This exegesis was denied by his opponents with some reason. He also argued1 that where the New Testament gave no clear guidance, the Old Testament must be called in where the analogy was clear. That this was so in regard to circumcision as the parallel to baptism he did not doubt, and much of his thought derives from this. There was the general command to the apostles to baptise all people (Matt. 28. 19) and, since the baptism ot children was nowhere forbidden, it was concluded that they were included. Again, even if the record stated or implied that the apostles baptised adults, this did not necessarily mean that they had not baptised children as well, without its being so stated. Nor, even if they baptised adults only, did it follow that children should not be allowed this privilege. Sola scriptura^ as Zwingli often pointed out, did not mean that everything was written down. Much obviously was not. There is no statement, for example, that the apostles themselves or the Virgin Mary were baptised. Reasonable and manifest deductions it was the duty of the Christian, and especially of the Christian minister of religion, to make.

It was his opponents who used the Bible unfairly with their clamour of Gschrift, Gschrift, setting themselves up as lords of the Scriptures because the spirit brought them certainty.

In addition to numerous letters, sermons and parts of other writings,2 Zwingli produced no less than four major statements of his views on this urgent issue - Von der Taufe, von der Wiedertaufe und von der Kindertaufe

(27 May 1525),3 Antwort uber Balthasar Hubmaiers Taufbiichlein (5 November 1525)/ Gutachten betrejfend Taufe (1526)5 and In Catabaptistarum strophas elenchus (31 July 1527),6 the latter intended to be the coup de grace against malicious opponents who had already rendered themselves liable to the death penalty.

Zwingli's earliest comprehensive treatise on the subject7 was written for Vadian in May 1525 to help to combat Baptist claims in St Gall, where active Baptist propaganda had been remarkably successful. In it the author again readily admitted that he himself had at one time thought that baptism

1 Z in, 409.

2 Especially Wer Ursache gebe zu Aufruhr usw. Z in, 374-469 (Dec. 1524) and Von dem

Predigtamt Z iv, 369(382)~433 (30 June 1525).

3 Z iv, 188 (2o6)-337; Z vin, 331; ZH //, 5-155; Baur 11 79-112.

• Z iv, 577 (s85)-642; Baur 11, 141-175.

5 Z v, 448 (451H52.

6 Z vi, i 1 (2i)-i96.

7 Von der Taufe, von der Wiedertaufe und von der Kindertaufe; Naf, Vadian II, 231.

The radical challenge should, or at any rate might, be deferred until years of discretion but had changed his opinion after closer study.1 He pointed out that the Anabaptists tended to make as much of a simple ceremony as their opposites, the catholic priests, had done. They were persuading themselves that the act of baptism washed away sin and that they were henceforward without sin, a gross perversion of the truth. They were also, he insisted, reintroducing salvation by works under a smoke-screen of humility and sanctity. Further, and this in fact was of deeper significance although a distortion of the position of a 'separated church', they regarded themselves after adult baptism as constituting the real Church of Christ: only they were true Christians, a position also comparable with that of Rome and the followers of the Pope. They were equally arrogant - any one who ventured to disagree with them was wrong, ignorant and ungodly.2

Blaurock, in particular, was distinguished by his audacity and determination to create a disturbance wherever he went.

So much emphasis had already been placed upon the supreme and exclusive authority of the Bible, the essential feature of Reformed teaching, discussion and debate, that Zwingli was forced to find biblical grounds for upholding infant baptism. Apart from the analogy of circumcision - and he was well aware that analogies had to be used with great caution if he was not to play into the hands of his catholic opponents - the New Testament gave slight guidance. The Anabaptists were pushing Zwingli's own treatment of the Bible as expounded by him in January 1523 to its logical conclusions.3 While consistently rejecting the doctrine that the hierarchy had become the repository of tradition ranking pari passu with the Bible, he was obliged to resort to some rather negative arguments from silence and to some wide generalisations based on incidental remarks. Thus 'then those who accepted his word were baptised' (Acts 2. 41) applied, in context, to adults; but adults, he insisted, included children. Or when (Acts 16. 15) it was recorded that Lydia 'was baptised, and her household with her', household, he insisted,4 included the children, an argument reinforced by reference to I Cor. 1. 16, 10. 2, 16. 15, and by the confident assertion that 1 Zwingli agreed that child baptism was neither expressly forbidden nor commanded in the New Testament. Z in, 409. Z iv, 228-9 n2 I2 Like most of their contemporaries, they did not spare their opponents personally. Zwingli's sermons were ' unspirituaP, he was a loose-liver, an adulterer and worse. He was a mouthpiece of officialdom who had himself upheld transubstantiation and communion in one kind.

'We all seriously misbehaved in this regard', was his answer, 'until God brought it about that the deceiving ungodly mass has been entirely excluded from among us without any disturbance, God be praised for ever and ever.' Z iv, 165; 322-3.

3 C. Nagel, Zivinglis Stellung zur Schrift (Freiburg, 1896) evades this criticism. The Anabaptists were consistent biblicists, while Zwingli was prepared to modify his earlier rigidity.

Yoder 2, 94 n. 46. It was Grebel's chief complaint that Zwingli had departed from his earlier reliance on the Bible, and Blaurock objected that he twisted and falsified the Bible worse than the Pope. Egli /, 289, 443. See below, 399 n. 5.

4 Z iv, 312-13.

ZWINGLI the Old Testament words for parents included the children. Similar controversial deductions were drawn from the rebaptism of Apollos (Acts 19.

1-7). To Swiss country pastors and Zurich councillors Zwingli's knowledge of Greek and Hebrew was decisive, but in fact some of his confident assertions rested on superficial or erroneous etymology. Zwingli never fully understood his opponents' position in relation to the Bible text.1

While making full use of individual texts when they served his purpose, he none the less could not agree that the whole of God's commands were written into the New Testament. Gschrifft^ Gschrifftf he insisted, was not of itself good enough unless reinforced by further biblical support or by clear plain reason.

In July 1525 Hubmaier, who had perhaps been in contact with Thomas Miintzer, restated his case in a small widely-read pamphlet (Taufbuchkin).3

In a disarming prefatory letter to the Zurich council he referred to Zwingli as his 'dear brother' and insisted that his own desire was to find out the truth, and this from the Bible: if he were proved wrong from Scripture he would at once recant. He repudiated the suggestion that his supporters were in any respects sectaries, and insisted that they would willingly obey the orders of the civil government provided these were not against God. He rejected the word 'Anabaptist' since, he urged, child baptism was no baptism, John the Baptist had never baptised children, and the biblical sequence, preaching, repentance, faith and then baptism, must be followed.

Zwingli proceeded to answer him point by point,4 and since Hubmaier's case was basically both moderate and cogent5 (for he genuinely wanted a friendly exchange of opinion), he had to resort to grammatical quibbles and personal detraction to satisfy his readers. It did not help greatly to be told that sectaries were acting illegally because they opposed the government, or that they would not submit to the judgement of the Church when, in this instance, the voice of 'the church' was that of the Zurich

Council, or even that Hubmaier was copying the Catholics in declaring baptism necessary for salvation. Baptism, Zwingli repeated yet again, was simply a token of membership of the Christian community, a public advertisement, an initiation and an acceptance (by deputy in the case of infants) of the obligations of the followers of Christ. It was none the less obligatory by governmental decree. Hubmaier discarded God's provi1 Yoder i, 163; Yodcr 2, 37-8.

2 Z iv, 604, 618.

3 Von dem Christlichen Tauff der glaubigen (Strassburg). Hubmaier, Schrifteny 118-63; Baur 11,

137-40 with the dating corrected by Z iv, 580. Cf. Bender, Grebel, 188, 273, 294-6; Williams,

146.

4 Antwort iiber Balthazar Hubmaier s Taufbuchlein, Z iv, 577 (585)-64i.

5 It is well analysed in R. S. Armour, Anabaptist Baptism (Scottdale, Pa. 1966) 27-56.

The radical challenge dence and human reason alike: he proclaimed ' external baptism is of no avail', but failed to explain how true inward baptism could be bestowed.

Faith, the essential, involved the whole of the covenant that the human race had with Almighty God, not the assertion of the inward conviction of the individual. Were those, like Nicodemus, Joseph of Arimathea or Gamaliel, who had been in heaven for 1500 years, now to be chased out because they had not fulfilled the fictions and inventions of one whose knowledge of biblical languages was imperfect, who himself had not searched the scriptures (for Christ's words unquestionably referred to the Old Testament) and who added to his impudent lying the false assertion that grown men should submit to immersion because they could not know whether they had been baptised or not?1 The answer was effective and avoided none of Hubmaier's assertions, but it was rough, peremptory and unnecessarily personal.

There is no direct evidence that either Hubmaier's pamphlet or Zwingli's answer had any wide circulation, but it is certain that the separatist church movement gained many adherents in 1526. They were numerous enough to meet in a convention at Schleitheim on 24 February

1527 and to produce for the first time an outline confession of faith2 (B ruder lich Vereinigung). It set out in seven general articles the now familiar claims - the right to choose their own pastors, to exclude sinners from their purified society, unspotted from the world, to decline to testify on oath, to refuse civil or military service, needing no secular government, or resort to force. They baptised only adults, administered a simplified

Lord's supper and reverted, as they claimed, exactly to the ways of the church of the apostles.

There was also in circulation at the same time a version of the Schleitheim confession in print written in the Zurich dialect, all copies of which have disappeared. It was this anonymous 'libellus' Von der Kindertaufe

1 It was partly because of this assertion by his opponents that Zwingli persuaded the council in May 1526 to order that registers of baptisms should be compiled and preserved by recognised ministers. Similarly, with the repudiation of the jurisdiction of the Catholic church courts, marriages needed to be registered to establish the legitimacy of children for inheritance purposes. These arrangements were copied at Basle in 1529. P. Roth, Durchbruch und Festsetzung der Reformation in Basel (Basle, 1942), 61. Thomas Cromwell's action in 1538 in England inaugurating the 'parish registers' may well have been influenced by the Zurich example.

Z iv, 617-18; Egli 1, 466 (No. 982); Bullinger, Ref 1, 381; see below 216 n. 1.

2 The text was printed by Koehler in Flugschriften aus den ersten Jahren der Reformation 2. Bd.,

3 Heft, 279-337 (Leipzig, 1908) with a good introduction, and again by Beatrice Jenny, Das

Schleitheimer Ta'uferbekenntnis (Thayngen, 1951) with a commentary. Muralt/Fast 26-35.

J. C. Wenger provided a convenient but not very satisfactory translation in MQR 19 (1945)

243-53 (Schleitheim am Randen, Randen being a local place-name descriptive of the area between Klettgau and Hegau, appears rather curiously as ' Schleitheim on the border'). There is a version in W. L. Lumpkin, Baptist Confessions of faith (Chicago, 1959) and by J. H.

Yoder, The Legacy of Michael Sattler (Scottdale, Pa., 1973). Cf. ARG 37 (1940) 242-9; MQR

41 (1967) 187-99.

ZWINGLI which Zwingli set out to refute.l This he may have done the more willingly because he believed Grebel, who had died at Maienfeld in 1526, to have been the author. The result was the long and in part technical Latin treatise In catabaptistarum strophas elenchus, a guide to the tricks of the Anabaptists.2

Like much else, it was hastily composed, but it was also intended as Zwingli's final word on the subject. His opponents, he indicates at the outset, are themselves impervious to argument, emissaries of Satan sowing tares in the Christian field, a perpetual menace to settled government, law and order.

When their errors are demonstrated from the pages of Scripture, they deny its validity compared with their own inner light; they are moved by every wind of novelty; their appearance of peculiar sanctity, renunciation of the world and their devotion to good works are on the surface only. In truth, their thoughts and actions are evil, as examples prove,3 and while

1 The authorship has been much disputed, although it is of minor significance. Baur (ZKG 10

(1899), 331-5) attributed it partly or entirely to Hubmaier. Usteri (ZKG n (1890), 162-4),

Staehelin 1, 528 and Koehler (Z vi i, 4-5, 101 n. 1) favoured Grebel, as did Bender, Grebel,

186-91 and 273 n. 30 a. The lines quoted by Koehler in Mennonitische Geschichtsbldtter 3

(1938), 11-12 from an exchange of letters between Bullinger and Myconius of 2 and 9 June 1536 are not conclusive. Hans Strickler argues persuasively for Michael Sattler in Mennonitische

Geschichtsbldtter 21 (1964), 15-18, followed by Muralt, Glaube 24 and G. H. Williams,

Spiritual and Anabaptist writers (London, 1957) 31, Blanke ARG 37 (1940) 242-9 and Bergsten 48 n. 86. Michael Sattler, who came from the Black Forest, had been a monk at St Peter's, Freiburg, and was a considerable scholar. He had accepted Lutheran teaching and had married before coming to Zurich, where he proclaimed himself an Anabaptist and gathered groups of followers in the neighbouring woods. Deeply religious and now entirely committed, he was expelled in November 1525 (Egli /, 406 (No. 863) and moved to Strassburg. Unable to secure approval there, he joined forces with Roubli to evangelise in Wiirttemberg, fell into Austrian hands, was tortured and burnt as a heretic at Rottenburg (Neckar) on 21 May 1527. Williams, 186. Koehler regarded him as one of the noblest and most profoundly religious of the Anabaptist circle. Flugschriften, Bd. 2, Heft 3 (Leipzig, 1908), 295.

2 Z vi i, 1 (2i)-i96. Both elenchus implying refutation, and strophas, contrivances, were rare non-classical words derived from Greek. Their introduction made it apparent that Zwingli was writing for scholars and anxious to show himself as a humanist. There is a convenient

German version (abbreviated) in Ulrich Zwingli eine Auswahl (Zurich, 1918) 678-709, and an English translation by H. Preble and G. W. Wilmore in Ulrich Zwingli selected works ed. S. M.

Jackson, reprinted with introduction by E. Peters (Philadelphia, 1972), 123-258, part of a never-completed plan for the publication of translations of all Zwingli's major works.

3 Again and again Zwingli refers to the fratricide of St Gall. A certain Thomas Schugger or Schinker beheaded his brother on 8 February 1526 in unpleasant circumstances and explained that he had a 'call' to do so. It was, in fact, manifestly a case of mental aberration, but it was good enough for argument. Muralt/Fast 410 (No. 488), 571-2. 'The will of God is fulfilled'- 'I bring you tidings of the day of the Lord', he told Vadian, Biirgermeister of St Gall, proudly. Z vi i, 92-5 and notes; Naf, Vadian 11, 235-6; Sabbata, 160-2. As late as 1527

('Abschid der Stette Zurich Bern vnnd sant Gallen / von wegen der wider-teiiffer ausgegangen, iij') it was still brought into prominence, evidence of continued interest. Joachim v.

Watt, Deutsche Historische Schriften hg. v. E. Gotzinger (St Gallen, 1877) 11, 407-8.

There was also a man who committed adultery at Weesen and brazened it out, arguing that even if he did commit adultery he did not sin, 'for those who are in our church cannot sin'.

Z VI i, 193. Zwingli in fact most unfairly made the most of an occasional lapse - all modern investigators rightly stress the 'suffering' rather than the militant side of the movement.

Clasen, Anabaptism, 127-9; Peachey, Soziale Herkunft, 76-8.

The radical challenge they willingly deceive others, they are inconstant themselves. They speak of their rejection of the Old Testament, failing to appreciate that this was

' the scriptures' for the Apostles, their causing baptism to be followed by a communion celebration was a mere superstitious gimmick by which the ignorant common people, always anxious to rush after some novelty, were deluded. Anxious for separatism they arrogate to themselves the right to eliminate those whom they judge unworthy, in spite of the fact that this lies within the sphere of the whole community {Gemeinde) only. Their sect,

Zwingli insisted, was outside the Church; they should therefore be called pseudo-baptists or Anti-baptists or, as some prefer, Anabaptists.1 In spite of their repudiation of the term 'Anabaptist', it stuck, and that it did so and became a term of opprobrium, was in no small measure the result of this widely read treatise.

To add fuel to the flames of indignation, Zwingli drew attention to their attacks on the social and convivial meetings of the gilds and societies in their halls and club rooms, honestissime as these are well known to be. He also said that while they condemned the popular pilgrimages to Loreto,

Aachen and Altotting, they themselves met by night in woods and forests and did not confine these surreptitious gatherings to the male sex.

They condemned citizenship although Roman citizenship was invaluable to St Paul, who was proud of it. They objected to treaties because these are sworn to, on oath. They never carried offensive weapons as ordinary people did, and they thus extended the divine injunction not to resist evil to secular governments to whom it was not addressed.

'I protest with all my might', Zwingli continued, 'against the notion that Christians have no need for authority.' The true perfect Christian would not indeed ever need to have recourse to a magistrate, but such perfection is not in fact to be found among mortals: no more than the monks are the sectaries in statu perfectionis. It does not follow that because

Christ refused to be a judge, that men should do likewise - divine and human justice are very different matters. A good judge indeed could do more for the public peace than all these sectaries, greedy for power and for the property of others. Hypocrisy, backbiting, lying, harming others, discord, perfidy, the terminology of Satan - these were their weapons. And they would abolish the solemn oath, in their ignorance misinterpreting their Bible as usual. None the less, Zwingli needs some ten pages to convince himself and his readers that an oath, never blaspheming God's name, could rightly be demanded and conscientiously taken.2

1 Z vi i, 114-15 and n. 3; see above 169 and n. 1.

2 Z vi i, 155. ' Iusiurandum non arbitror exigi debere aut citra conscienti? molestiam exigi posse, quam turn, cum aut humana obtestatio omnis cessat aut proximi salus, graviter periclitatur, atque super h?c omnia, cum in nulla re, quam iuraturi sumus, nomen dei blasphematur.'

ZWINGLI In the final section of the Elenchus Zwingli becomes a little more constructive.1 He again expounds his view that baptism was a sign of the renewal for all peoples of God's covenant with Abraham, and thus a token of admission to the Christian community and hence to citizenship.2 There were not two Gods, one of the Old Testament, one of the New; for God is one, unchangeable and eternal, with his son Jesus Christ likewise in unity everlasting. Since his coming on earth, the shadows have gone, the light of the Gospel can illumine all; grace depends on faith, not deeds. Circumcision, the sign of the covenant, was for boys; yet girls were equally within the covenant, and for the 'Catabaptists' to maintain that the children of Abraham were the children-of God whereas ours were not, was merely wicked. The disputes among the Apostles about the abrogation of circumcision was itself a clear implication that they baptised their children, and later writers who could have known, Origen and Augustine, were of the same opinion.

More briefly, in facing those of a c gathered' rather than the universal Church, Zwingli had to deal with the claim that they were of the elect, which led him to consider the nature and implications of election,3 a theme to which he several times returned, and which he admitted involved difficulties. Salvation comes by faith, and faith is the divine gift bestowed by God at his will, freely given. Divine deliberation, choice, destination, the call, the gift of faith and with it the certainty of salvation - this is the order. He who believes is undoubtedly saved, chosen before conception, doing good works because he is of the chosen, assured of this by the inner witness of his spirit. Of these, some die as infants, and they too are of the elect. Baptism is for all, the eucharist for those who understand the nature of their faith, preaching for those few who are sent by authority.4 Preaching, faith, baptism or circumcision were all subordinate to election, which is sure and which is freely bestowed by God in his inscrutable wisdom.

He also took the opportunity to deal with the insistence by his opponents on the sleep or dormancy of the soul, psychopannychism, until the day of the resurrection. This notion, later also to be combated by Calvin, may have been revived by the fertile brain of Karlstadt and was known to both

Luther and Grebel. Zwingli brushed the belief on one side by insisting that Hebrew, having no word for sleep, used dying in its place.5 In this, in 1 It has been called a semi-official statement of Zurich theology. ZKG 10 (1889), 341.

2 Williams, 194, somewhat extravagantly speaks of it as 'the covenantal seal of civic-religious membership in the new Alpine Israel, the Swiss Confederation, of which Zurich might be considered the foremost tribe'.

3 See below 324-5 and Z vi i, 172-8.

4 Z VI i, 183. The dispatch of preachers and the laying on of hands as a divine direction is hardly ever mentioned by Zwingli. Ordination was no sacrament; the absence of clear Bible guidance was sufficient warranty for this statement.

5 Z vi i, 189-90.

The radical challenge fact, he was wrong, but there were very few who could argue with him on the matter. On the discussions on the immortality of the soul, he was as orthodox in approach as was the fifth Lateran Council1 (1512-15).

It was also necessary to touch on the question of the 'celestial flesh of Christ' and the doctrine of an inward feeding upon it.2 Some maintained that Christ, being the eternal son of God, was not wholly born of his mother, thus reviving echoes of ancient controversies. That some of his opponents may have advanced such views was for Zwingli, whose orthodoxy on this point was never in doubt, but further evidence that they lacked scriptural support, and that they fell into error because they were convinced that the Spirit taught them to interpret as they pleased.

The whole lengthy and elaborate refutation, lacking summary or conclusion, repeats a good deal of what has been said before. It undermined the Anabaptist appeal to adult experience and secure faith by an insistence upon the predestinating of the elect in Christ by God's will before the foundation of the world. This was to carry the argument a good deal further and to anticipate some later Calvinist and Puritan theology.

Although Zurich was satisfied, the Anabaptist movement gained momentum elsewhere and had a long development before it. After 1527 the concept of a 'gathered' or 'suffering' church was not proclaimed publicly in Zurich and the focus of attention moved northwards into Germany, where other events were to attract Zwingli's interest.

1 Williams, 106; C. J. Hefele, Histoire des Conciles, ed. H. Leclerq (Paris, 1917) vm, 339-548.

2 Williams, 107-8, 325-8. There were two versions current - that Christ was from the beginning one Person in one Nature that became visible or corporeal in his mother, or that, at a moment in time, begotten and not created, he had a human nature from Mary as well as a divine nature.

↑ Back to top