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ZWINGLI, HULDREICH (1484—1531)
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See also:ZWINGLI, HULDREICH (1484—1531) , Swiss reformer, was See also:born on the 1st of See also:January 1484, at Wildhaus in the See also:Toggenburg valley, in the See also:canton of St See also:Gall, See also:Switzerland. He came of a See also:free See also:peasant stock, his See also:father being amtmann of the See also:village; his See also:mother, See also:Margaret Meili, was the See also:sister of the See also: He heard from this same teacher bold criticisms of Romish teaching concerning the sacraments, monastic vows and papal indulgences, and unconsciously he was thus trained for the See also:great remonstrance of his maturer life. At the See also:age of twenty-two Zwingli was ordained by the See also:bishop of See also:Constance (15o6), preached his first See also:sermon at Rapperswyl, and said his first See also:mass among his own See also:people at Wildhaus In the same See also:year he was elected parish priest of See also:Glarus, in spite of the See also:pope's nomination of Heinrich Goldli, an influential pluralist of See also:Zurich, whom Zwingli found it necessary to buy off at an expense of more than a See also:hundred gulden. The See also:Holy See, much dependent at that time on its Swiss mercenaries in the pursuit of its See also:secular ends, expressed no resentment on this occasion. Zwingli indeed seemed still to be devoted to the pope, whom he styled " beatissimus Christi vicarius," and he publicly See also:pro-claimed the See also:mercenary aid given by the Swiss to the papal cause to be its dutiful support of the Holy See. The See also:Curia, following its accustomed policy, rewarded his zeal with a See also:pension of 5o gulden. The ten years which Zwingli spent at Glarus laid the See also:foundations of his See also:work as a reformer. He there began the study of See also:Greek that he might " learn the teaching of See also:Christ from the See also:original See also:sources," and gave some See also:attention to See also:Hebrew. He read also the older Church Fathers and soon won for himself fame as a student, whilst his skill in the classics led his See also:friends to See also:hail him as " the undoubted See also:Cicero of our age." He had an unbounded admiration for See also:Erasmus, with whom he entered into See also:correspondence, and from whom he received a somewhat chilling patronage; whilst the brilliant humanist, See also:Pico della See also:Mirandola (1463-1494), taught him to criticize, in a rationalizing way, the See also:medieval doctrines of See also:Rome. His first publications, which appeared as rhymed allegories, were See also:political rather than religious, being aimed at what he deemed the degrading Swiss practice of See also:hiring out mercenaries in the See also:European See also:wars. His convictions on this See also:matter were so much intensified by his later experiences as See also:army See also:chaplain that in 1521 he prevailed upon the authorities of the canton of Zurich to renounce the practice altogether. Especially did he oppose alliances with See also:France; but the See also:French party in Glarus was strong, and it retaliated so fiercely that in 1516 Zwingli was glad to accept the See also:post of people's priest at See also:Einsiedeln. He always in later days dated his arrival at evangelical truth from the three years (1516—1g) which he spent in this place. There he studied the New Testament in the See also:editions of Erasmus and began to found his See also:preaching on " the See also:Gospel," which he declared to be See also:simple and easy to understand. He held that the See also:Bible was the sufficient See also:revelation of the will of See also:God, and he threw away the philosophy and theology of the later See also:Roman Church, whereas he declared that the early Church Fathers were helpful, though still fallible, interpreters of the Word. In his definite recognition of the theological place of Scripture he showed, says Dr T. M. See also:Lindsay (See also:History of the See also:Reformation), clearer insight than the See also:Lutherans, and Zwingli rather than Luther was in this matter See also:Calvin's See also:guide, and the guide of the reformed churches of Switzerland, France, See also:England and the See also:Netherlands. All these set forth in their symbolical books the supreme place of Scripture, accepting the position which Zwingli laid down in 1J36 in The First Helvetic See also:Confession, namely, that " Canonic Scripture, the Word of God, given by the Holy Spirit and set forth to the See also:world by the Prophets and Apostles, the most perfect and See also:ancient of all philosophies, alone contains perfectly all piety and the whole See also:rule of life." Zwingli began to preach " the Gospel " in 1516, but a See also:con-temporary says that he did it so cunningly (listiglich) that none could suspect his See also:drift. He still, to use his own words, hung his new exposition on to " the old doctrines, however much they at times pained me, rather than on to the purer and clearer "; for he hoped that the reformation of the Church would proceed quietly and from within. The papal curia had no wish to bring things to a See also:quarrel with him. The Swiss, who furnished them with troops, were to be treated with See also:consideration; and the pope sought to silence the reformer by offers of promotion, which he refused. He held himself, as did the Swiss in See also:general, very free of papal See also:control. They had See also:long been used, in their orderly democratic life, to See also:manage their own ecclesiastical affairs. Church See also:property paid its See also:share of the communal taxes, and religious houses were subject to See also:civil inspection. Zwingli looked rather to the See also:City Fathers than to the pope, and as long as he had them with him he moved confidently and laboured for reforms which were as much political and moral in See also:character as religious. He had none of Luther's distrust of " the See also:common See also:man " and fear of popular See also:government, and this fact won for his teaching the favour of the towns of See also:South See also:Germany not less than of Switzerland. As yet he had preached his Gospel without saying much about corruptions in the Roman Church, and it was his political denunciation of the fratricidal wars into which the pope, not less than others, was See also:drawing his See also:fellow-countrymen, that first led to rupture with the papal see. Three visits which he had paid to See also:Italy in his capacity of army chaplain had done much to open his eyes to the worldly character of the papal rule, and it was not long before he began to attack at Einsiedeln the superstitions which attended the great pilgrimages made tothat place. Zwingli denounced the publication of plenary See also:indulgence to all visitors to the See also:shrine, and his sermons in the Swiss See also:vernacular See also:drew great crowds and attracted the attention of Rome. His quarrel was turned more immediately against the pope himself when in See also:August 1518 the Franciscan monk Bernardin See also:Samson, a See also:pardon-seller like Johann See also:Tetzel, made his See also:appearance in Switzerland as the papally commissioned seller of indulgences. Zwingli prevailed on the See also:council to forbid his entrance into Zurich; and even then the pope argued that, so long as the preacher was still receiving a papal pension, he could not be a formidable adversary, and he gave him a further sop in the See also:form of an See also:acolyte chaplaincy. Zwingli had never meant to. remain at Einsiedeln long, and he now threw himself into a competition for the place of people's priest at the Great See also:Minster of Zurich, and obtained it (1518) after some opposition. He stipulated that his See also:liberty to preach the truth should be respected. In the beginning of 1519 he began a See also:series of discourses on St See also:Matthew's Gospel, the Acts of the Apostles, and the Pauline epistles; and with these it may be said that the Reformation was fairly begun in Zurich. He had made a copy of St See also:Paul's epistles and committed them to memory, and from this See also:arsenal of Scripture he attacked the unrighteousness of the See also:state no less than the superstition of the Church. His correspondence of this year shows him jealous of the growing See also:influence of Luther. It was his claim that he had discovered the Gospel before ever Luther was heard of in Switzerland, and he was as anxious as Erasmus to make it clear that he was not Luther's See also:disciple. Towards the end of See also:September he See also:fell a victim to the See also:plague which was ravaging the See also:land, and his illness sobered his spirit and brought into his See also:message a deeper See also:note than that merely moral and common-sense one with which, as a polite humanist, he had hitherto been content. He began to preach against See also:fasting, See also:saint See also:worship and the See also:celibacy of priests; and some of his hearers began to put his teachings into practice. The monasteries raised an outcry when people were found eating flesh in See also:Lent, and the bishop of Constance accused them before the council of Zurich. Zwingli was heard in their See also:defence and the See also:accusation was abandoned. His first Reformation See also:tract, See also:April 1522, dealt with this subject: " Von Erkiesen and Fryheit der Spysen." The matter of the celibacy. of the See also:clergy was more serious. Zwingli had joined in an address to the bishop of Constance calling on him no longer to endure the See also:scandal of harlotry, but to allow the priests to marry wives, or, at least, to wink at their marriages. He and his co-signatories confessed that they had lived unchastely, but argued that priests could not be expected to do otherwise, seeing that God had not seen See also:fit to give the See also:gift of continence. Pope See also:Adrian VI. interfered and asked the Ziirichers to abandon Zwingli, but the reformer persuaded the council to allow a public disputation (1523), when he produced sixty-seven theses 1 and vindicated his position so strongly that the council decided to uphold their preacher and to See also:separate the canton from the bishopric of Constance. Thus legal See also:sanction was given in Zurich to the Reformation. In 1522 Zwingli produced his first considerable See also:writing, the Architeles, " the beginning and the end," in which he sought by a single See also:blow to win his spiritual freedom from the control of the bishops, and in a sermon of that year he contended that only the Holy Spirit is requisite to make the Word intelligible, and that there is no need of Church, council, or pope in the matter. The progress of the Reformation attracted the attention of all Switzerland, but there was a strong opposition to it, especially in the five See also:Forest Cantons: See also:Lucerne, See also:Zug, See also:Schwyz, See also:Uri and See also:Unterwalden; and the Ziirichers See also:felt it necessary to form a See also:league in its defence. They were especially anxious to gain Bern, and Zwingli challenged the Romanists to a public disputation in that city. No less than 350 ecclesiastics came to Bern from the various cantons to hear the pleadings, which began on the and of January 1523 and lasted nineteen days. Zwingli t Cf. P. See also:Schaff, See also:Creeds of the Evangelical See also:Protestant Churches, P. 197• and his companions undertook to defend the following propositions:- (1) That the Holy See also:Christian Church, of which Christ is the only See also:Head, is born of the Word of God, abides therein, and does not listen to the See also:voice of a stranger; (2) that this Church imposes no See also:laws on the See also:conscience of people without the sanction of the Word of God, and that the laws of the Church are binding only in so far as they agree with the Word; (3) that Christ alone is our righteousness and our salvation, and that to See also:trust to any other merit or See also:satisfaction is to deny Him; (4) that it cannot be proved from the Holy Scripture that the See also:body and See also:blood of Christ are corporeally See also:present in the See also:bread and in the See also:wine of the See also:Lord's Supper; (5) that the mass, in which Christ is offered to God the Father for the sins of the living and of the dead, is contrary to Scripture and a See also:gross affront to the See also:sacrifice and See also:death of the Saviour; (6) that we should not pray to dead mediators and intercessors, but to Jesus Christ alone; (7) that there is no trace of See also:purgatory in Scripture; (8) that to set up pictures and to adore them is also contrary to Scripture, and that images and pictures ought to be destroyed where there is danger of giving them See also:adoration; (9) that See also:marriage is lawful to all, to the clergy as well as to the laity; (1o) that shameful living is more disgraceful among the clergy than among the laity. The result of the discussion was that Bern was won over to the See also:side of the reformer, who apprehended the whole struggle of Protestantism as turning directly on the political decisions of the various See also:units of the See also:Confederation. He had enunciated in his theses the far-reaching new principle that the See also:congregation, and not the See also:hierarchy, was the representative of the Church; and he sought henceforward to reorganize the Swiss constitution on the principles of representative See also:democracy so as to reduce the wholly disproportionate voting See also:power which, till then, the Forest Cantons had exercised. He argued that the See also:administration of the Church belongs, like all administration, to the state authorities, and that if these go wrong it then lies with Christian people to depose them. On the 2nd of April 1524 the marriage of Zwingli with See also:Anna Reinhard was publicly celebrated in the See also:cathedral, though for some two years already he had had her to wife. Many of his colleagues followed his example and openly made profession of marriage. In the August of that year Zwingli printed a pamphlet in which he set forth his views of the Lord's Supper. They proved the occasion of a conflict with Luther which was never settled, but in the meantime more attention was attracted by Zwingli's denunciation of the worship of images and of the Roman See also:doctrine of the mass. These points were discussed at a fresh See also:congress where about 900 persons were present, and where Vadian (See also:Joachim von See also:Watt, the reformer of St Gall) presided. It was decided that images are forbidden by Scripture and that the mass is not a sacrifice. Shortly afterwards the images were removed from the churches, and many ceremonies and festivals were abolished. When a See also:solemn See also:embassy of rebuke was sent to Zurich from a See also:diet held at Lucerne, on the 26th of January 1524, the city replied that in matters See also:relating to the Word of God and the salvation of souls she would See also:brook no interference. When a new embassy threatened Zurich with exclusion from the See also:union she began to make preparations for See also:war.
It was at this moment that the controversy between Luther and Zwingli took on a deeper significance. In See also: Efforts to reach agreement failed. The See also:landgrave of See also:Hesse brought the two Reformers together in vain at See also:Marburg in See also:October 1529, and the whole Protestant See also:movement See also:broke into two camps, with the result that the See also:attempt made at SchmaIkalden in 153o to form a comprehensive league of defence against all foes of the Reformation was frustrated. But the See also:close of Zwingli's life was brought about by trouble nearer See also:home. The long-felt See also:strain between opposing cantons led at last to civil war. In See also:February 1531 Zwingli himself urged the Evangelical Swiss to attack the Five Cantons, and on the loth of October there was fought at Kappel a See also:battle, disastrous to the Protestant cause and fatal to its See also:leader. Zwingli, who as chaplain was carrying the banner, was struck to the ground, and was later despatched in See also:cold blood. His See also:corpse, after suffering every indignity, was quartered by the public hangman, and burnt with dung by the Romanist soldiers. A great See also:boulder, roughly squared, See also:standing a little way off the road, marks the place where Zwingli fell. It is inscribed, " ` They may kill the body hut not the soul ': so spoke on this spot See also:Ulrich Zwingli, who for truth and the freedom of the Christian Church died a See also:hero's death, Oct. 11, 1531." Zwingli's theological views are expressed succinctly in the sixty-seven theses published at Zurich in 1523, and at greater length in the First Helvetic Confession, compiled in 1536 by a number of his disciples.' They contain the elements of Reformed as distinguished from Lutheran doctrine. As opposed to Luther, Zwingli insisted more firmly on the supreme authority of Scripture, and broke more thoroughly and radically with the medieval Church. Luther was content with changes in one or two fundamental doctrines; Zwingli aimed at a reformation of government and discipline as well as of theology. Zwingli never faltered in his trust in the people, and was See also:earnest to show that no class of men ought to be called spiritual simply because they were selected to perform certain functions. He thoroughly believed also that it was the See also:duty of ail in authority to rule in Christ's name and to obey His laws. He was led from these ideas to think that there should be no government in the Church separate from the civil government which ruled the See also:commonwealth. All rules and regulations about the public worship, doctrines and discipline of the Church were made in Zwingli's time, and with his consent, by the council of Zurich, which was the supreme civil authority in the state. This was the ground of his quarrel with the Swiss See also:Anabaptists, for the See also:main See also:idea in the minds of these greatly maligned men was the See also:modern thought of a free Church in a free state. Like all the Reformers, he was strictly Augustinian in theology, but. he dwelt chiefly on the See also:positive side of See also:predestination—the See also:election to salvation—and he insisted upon the salvation of infants and of the pious See also:heathen. His most distinctive doctrine is perhaps his theory of the See also:sacrament, which involved him and his followers in a long and, on Luther's See also:part, an acrimonious dispute with the See also:German Protestants. His main idea was that the sacrament of the Lord's Supper was not the repetition of the sacrifice of Christ, but the faithful remembrance that that sacrifice had been made once for all; and his deeper idea of faith, which included in the See also:act of faith a real union and communion of the faithful soul with Christ, really preserved what was also most valuable in the distinctively Lutheran doctrine. His See also:peculiar theological opinions were set aside in Switzerland for the somewhat profounder views of Calvin. The publication of the Zurich Consensus (Consensus Tigurinus) in 1549 marks the adherence of the Swiss to Calvinist theology. Zwingli's most important writings are—Von Erkiesen and Fryheit der Spysen (April 1522) ; De Canone Missae Epichiresis (September 1523) ; Commentarius de See also:Vera et False Religione (1525) ; Vom Touf, vom Wiedertouf, and vom Kindertouf (1525); Ein klare Unterrichtung vom Nachtmal Christi (1526); De Providentia Dei (1530); and Christianae Fidei Expositio (1531). For a full bibliography see G. Finsler, Zwingli-Bibliographie (Zurich, 1897). See also:Works.—Collected editions, 4 vols. (Zurich, 1545, 1581); by M. Schuler and Joh. Schulthess, 8 vols. (Zurich, 1828–42, with supplementorum fasciculus," 1861); by E. Egli and G. Finsler in " Corpus Reformatorum " (See also:Berlin, 1905 sqq.). Lives.—O. See also:Myconius (1532) ; H. See also:Bullinger's Reformationsgeschichte (ed. See also:Hottinger and Voegli, 1838) ; J. M. Schuler (1818) ; R. Christoffel (1857, Eng. tr. by J. Cochran, See also:Edinburgh, 1858) ; J. C. Morikofer, 2 vols. (See also:Leipzig, 1867–69) ; R. Stahelin, 2 vols. (Basel, 1895–97) : S. M. See also:Jackson in Heroes of the Reformation (New See also:York and See also:London, 1901); Prof. Egli's articles in Hauck-See also:Herzog's Realencyklopddie See also:fur prof. Theologie u. Kirche, and Zwingliana, P. Schaff, Creeds of the Evangelical Protestant Churches, p. 211. published twice a year since 1897 at Zurich. S. M. Jackson's See also:book gives a See also:chapter on Zwingli's Theology by Prof. F. H. See also:Foster, and frill details of further See also:information on the subject, together with a See also:list of modern See also:English See also:translations of Zwingli's works. (E. Additional information and CommentsThere are no comments yet for this article.
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