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January 1484 A.D. Ulrich Zwingli Born—Swiss Reformer & Contemporary of Luther and Cranmer
Bromiley,
Geoffrey W. “Huldrych Zwingli.” Encyclopedia
Britannica. 3 Jul 2013. http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/658598/Huldrych-Zwingli. Accessed 26 Jun 2014.
Huldrych Zwingli,
Huldrych also spelled Ulrich (born
Jan. 1, 1484, Wildhaus in the Toggenburg, Sankt Gallen, Switz.—died Oct. 11, 1531, near
Kappel), the most important reformer in the Swiss
Protestant Reformation
and the only major reformer of the 16th century whose movement did not evolve
into a church. Like Martin Luther, he accepted the supreme authority of
the Scriptures, but he applied it more rigorously and comprehensively to all
doctrines and practices.
Early life and career.
Zwingli was the son
of a free peasant who was a village magistrate. His mother, Margaret Meili, was
the sister of the abbot of Fischingen in Thurgau, and his uncle Bartholomäus
Zwingli was priest of Wildhaus and later dean of Wesen. Huldrych went to school
at Wesen, then Basel (1494), and Bern (1496), where his master, Heinrich Wölflin, inspired in him an enthusiasm
for the classics and a love of music. The Dominicans were interested in his
musical gifts and almost enticed him to enter a convent. But his father and
uncle dissuaded him, and, instead, he moved on to university studies at Vienna
(1498) and then Basel (1502), where he was graduated in 1504.
Supported by
teaching, he read theology and was deeply influenced by the lectures of the teacher and Reformer
Thomas Wyttenbach. Ordained to the priesthood, he went, in 1506, to Glarus, where he proved a good pastor, encouraged education, commenced studying
Greek and even Hebrew, and read widely in the Church Fathers. He was
sympathetic toward the Renaissance movement and valued his correspondence with
Erasmus. Service as chaplain with the Swiss Army led him to oppose the
mercenary system. His stand provoked hostility at Glarus, and in 1516 he moved
to a new charge at Einsiedeln, where he enjoyed both wide
opportunities for preaching to the many pilgrims and fine facilities for study at
the convent. Zwingli afterwards dated his evangelical understanding of the
Scriptures from the period of transition to Einsiedeln. The difficulties at
Glarus gave to this development a more than academic significance.
Beginnings of reformation.
Zwingli at once
began to preach his new convictions. Apart from topical criticism of abuses, he
did not at first attack traditional positions, being content to expound the
regular Gospel passages. A minor indulgence crisis arose in 1518, but Zwingli’s
witty castigation of the abuse found ecclesiastical favour and, finally, a
titular honour by the papacy, from which he also drew a chaplaincy pension.
In 1518, despite
much opposition, he was appointed people’s priest at the Grossmünster (Great
Minster) at Zürich. The post gave him little income or official influence but
great scope for preaching. He commenced a series of expositions of the New
Testament enlivened by topical application. Serious plague in 1519 found him
faithful in his ministry, and his own illness and recovery, followed by his
brother’s death in 1520, deepened the spiritual and theological elements in his
thinking and teaching that had hitherto been overshadowed to some degree by the
humanistic. In 1520 he secured permission from the city’s governing council to
preach the “true divine scriptures,” and the resulting sermons helped to stir
revolts against fasting and clerical celibacy that initiated the Swiss Reformation (1522). In pursuance of his view of
the supremacy of Scripture, Zwingli preached his now famous sermons at the
Oetenbach convent and, despite local opposition to many of his ideas, he
secured fresh authorization from his bishop to continue preaching. A tract On Meats and a printed
version of the Oetenbach addresses, The
Clarity and Certainty of the Word of God, appeared in 1522.
Victory of the Zürich Reformation.
The year 1523 was
crucial in the Zürich Reformation. In preparation for a disputation with the
vicar general of Constance (Konstanz), arranged for January in the town hall of
Zürich, Zwingli published his challenging 67 Artikel.
His main contentions were adopted by most priests in the district and, in
consequence, the celibacy of clergy came to be flouted, liturgical reform was
begun, and a plan for the reform of the Grossmünster was drafted. A key part of
this program was the reconstitution of the cathedral school as both a grammar
school and a theological seminary to train Reformed pastors. The question of
removing the images from the churches provoked a second disputation in October,
in which Zwingli and his most intimate friend and fellow Reformer Leo
Jud carried the day. Successive steps taken during 1524 and
1525 included the removal of images, the suppression of organs, the dissolution
of religious houses, the replacement of the mass by a simple Communion service, the reform of the baptismal office, the
introduction of prophesyings or Bible readings, the reorganization of the ministry, and the preparation of a
native version of the Bible (the Zürcher
Bibel appeared in 1529). Zwingli fostered the movement not only by
his preaching and influence on the council but also by his various writings—e.g., On Education, On Baptism, On the Lord’s
Supper, and especially the comprehensive Commentary on True and False Religion
(1525). He was publicly married to Anna Reinhard on April 2, 1524.
Zwingli’s theses.
From the city of
Zürich the movement quickly spread not only to the canton of Zürich but to
neighbouring cantons as well. Aided by the learned Roman Catholic theologian Johann Eck,
the five forest cantons of Luzern, Zug, Schwyz, Uri, and Unterwalden resisted the new trend, but important
centres like Basel and Bern declared
for Zwingli. Zwingli himself, assisted by his fellow Swiss Reformer Heinrich
Bullinger, took part in a disputation at Bern (1528) that formally
introduced the principles of the Reformation to that city. The main theses he
put forth were (1) that the church is born of the Word of God and has Christ
alone as its head; (2) that its laws are binding only insofar as they agree
with the Scripture; (3) that Christ alone is man’s righteousness; (4) that the
Holy Scripture does not teach Christ’s corporeal presence in the bread and wine
at the Lord’s Supper; (5) that the mass is a gross affront to the sacrifice and
death of Christ; (6) that there is no biblical foundation for the mediation or
intercession of the dead, for purgatory, or for images and pictures; and (7)
that marriage is lawful to all. With the friendly cantons of Basel and Bern,
Zürich negotiated a Christian Civic Alliance (or League) based on the treaty by
which Basel had been received into the Swiss confederacy but also including a
common profession of faith.
Controversies.
From 1525 Zwingli’s
work was hampered by disagreements, both within Switzerland and with the Lutherans
outside. In Zürich itself an extremist group quickly became dissatisfied with
the Zwinglian program, desiring the abolition of tithes, a severance of the
state connection, the creation of a pure or gathered church of true believers
(those who have experienced a conversion according to the moral beliefs and
precepts of the New Testament), and the consequent ending of infant Baptism.
Disputations were held with the leaders of the Anabaptist group in January and March 1525, but
these were abortive. The first rebaptisms took place in February, and
widespread propaganda was initiated. Seeing its authority flouted, the council
imprisoned the leaders and finally, after a further useless disputation in
November 1525, brought them under a capital sentence. In theological refutation
of the movement, Zwingli wrote a special work, On Baptism (1525), in which
his main emphasis was on the significance of water Baptism as a covenant sign.
During the following years he devoted many other tracts to the subject,
culminating in his Tricks of
the Catabaptists (1527).
Relations with Luther.
Meanwhile, his
thinking and practice in relation to the mass had led to a sharp disagreement
with Martin
Luther. The two agreed in rejecting the eucharistic sacrifice. They also
agreed in rejecting the medieval notion of a change of substance
in the sacrament. Luther, however, felt himself bound by the words “This
is my body” to teach the real presence of Christ’s body and blood not in place
of, but in, with, and under the bread and wine. Zwingli, on the other hand,
convinced that the word “is” has the force of “signifies,” did not maintain a
“real” presence but simply the divine presence of Christ or his presence to the
believer by the power of the Holy Spirit, as signified by the elements. He
stated his views in two Latin tracts (1525) and the more popular work, On the Lord’s Supper (1526).
Luther and his supporters responded with much acrimony, refusing to see in the
Swiss movement a true work of evangelical reformation. Through the good offices
of Philip the Magnanimous, landgrave of Hesse, the Colloquy
of Marburg (1529) was arranged with a view to reconciliation; Luther,
Zwingli, and Martin Bucer all participated. Cordial agreement
was reached on most issues, but the critical gulf remained in relation to the
sacramental presence, and Luther refused the hand of fellowship extended by
Zwingli and Bucer.
Zwingli would
undoubtedly have welcomed agreement with Luther for political as well as
theological reasons, for he saw a growing danger in the isolation of the
Reforming cantons. The forest cantons had organized themselves against the
alliance, and there was a real threat of imperial intervention. In offensive
defense, the alliance attacked the forest cantons at Kappel, 10 miles south of
Zürich in 1529, and enforced terms on the opposing districts. Attempts also
were made to link up with Strassburg and allied reforming cities, but these
were at first unsuccessful despite the help of Hesse. The results of division
were seen at the Diet of
Augsburg (1530), in which the evangelical groups presented three different
confessions, including Zwingli’s Fidei
Ratio.
Lacking other
friends, Zwingli turned to Venice and France, partly in view of their political
hostility to the empire, partly in the hope of persuading the rulers to accept
evangelical views. His Exposition
of the Faith (1531) was addressed to Francis I of France to clear
up misunderstandings and enlist his sympathy. The project faded, however, and
in 1531 Zwingli urged on the alliance a further reduction of the forest
cantons. Instead, Bern initiated a useless policy of economic sanctions that
simply provoked the foresters to attack Zürich in October 1531. In the
resultant Second War of Kappel,
Zwingli accompanied the Zürich forces as chaplain and was killed in the battle,
the spot where he fell being now marked by an inscribed boulder.
Contributions.
The later
preoccupation of Zwingli with ecclesiastical politics should not obscure his
true contribution to faith and order. He accepted the supreme authority of the
Scripture, although he applied it rigorously to all doctrines and practices. He
laid influential stress on the divine sovereignty, though this was tempered by
a milder view of original sin and a wide hope of salvation. His rejection of
the sacraments as means of obtaining grace and as forms of intervention between
the soul and God underlay the deepened conception of other Reformation leaders
such as Bullinger, Pietro Martire Vermigli, and John Calvin. If he accepted lay authority in
church government as exerted through the council, his personal influence
averted both the subservient Erastianism (the supremacy of lay authority in
ecclesiastical matters) of Lutheranism and exhausting conflict, as at Geneva. Obvious defects of disjointedness and intellectualism mark his writings.
Behind them, however, lay an open, warm, and friendly disposition, and they
embody a boldly striking attempt to rethink all Christian doctrine in
consistently biblical terms.
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