959 



Z WINGLf. 



ZWINGLI. 



960 



ecclesiastical questions. Erasmus of Rotterdam, who was living at 

 Easel, and who had gone along with them in exposing and ridiculing 

 various superstitious practices and other clerical abuses, stopped short 

 when his friends directed their attacks against the papal authority. 

 [ERASMUS.] The court of Rome, whose attention was engrossed by 

 Luther's German schism, had hitherto taken little notice of the Swiss 

 controversy, but now it began to threaten the innovators with excom- 

 munication. The bishop of Constance forbade the preaching of the 

 new doctrines, and the Mendicant ordera laid charges of impiety and 

 sedition against Zwingli before the magistrates of Zurich. Zwingli 

 published his defence under the title of ' Apologeticus Architeles,' in 

 1522, copies of which were rapidly spread all over Switzerland. 

 Things bore a threatening appearance against Zwingli; Luther had 

 just been condemned at Worms as a heretic, and was obliged to con- 

 ceal himself. But Zwingli lived in a republican country, where he had 

 less to fear from pope or emperor. 



In January 1523, the Great or Legislative Council of Zurich ap- 

 pointed a conference to be held at the town-hall, to which all the 

 ecclesiastics of the canton were invited, for the purpose of hearing 

 the exposition of the new doctrines, and the arguments of their advo- 

 cates as well as of their opponents. Zwingli published a list of 

 articles to be discussed in the colloquy. As these form the main 

 subject of the separation of the Swiss reformers, or Evangelicals, as 

 they began to style themselves, from the Church of Home, we shall 

 quote the principal among them : " It is an error," said Zwingli, " to 

 assert that the Gospel is nothing without the approbation of the 

 church, and to value other instructions .and traditions equally with 

 those contained in the Gospel. The Gospel teaches us that the 

 observances enjoined by men do not avail to salvation. The mass is 

 not a sacrifice, but a commemoration of the sacrifice of Jesus Christ. 

 The power assumed by the pope and the bishops has no foundation 

 in Scripture. God has not forbidden marriage to any class of Chris- 

 tians : therefore it is wrong to interdict it to priests, whose forced 

 celibacy has become the cause of great licentiousness of manners. 

 Confession made to a priest ought to be considered as an examination 

 of the conscience, and not as an act which can deserve absolution. To 

 give absolution for money is simony. Holy Writ says nothing of 

 Purgatory : God alone knows the judgment which he reserves for the 

 dead ; and as He has not been pleased to reveal it to us, we ought to 

 refrain from indiscreet conjectures on the subject. The jurisdiction 

 exercised by the clergy belongs to the secular magistrates, to whom 

 all Christians ought to submit themselves. No person ought to be 

 molested for his opinions ; it is for the magistrates to stop the pro- 

 gress of those which tend to disturb the public tranquillity." 



On the day fixed for the conference, the Council of Two Hundred, 

 presided over by the burgomaster, assembled in the town-hall, whither 

 the ecclesiastics of the canton, Zwingli included, repaired, together 

 with a great number of spectators. The Bishop of Constance had sent 

 Faber, his vicar-general, accompanied by several theologians. The 

 burgomaster opened the sitting by explaining the motives which had 

 induced the government to convoke the assembly, for the sake of 

 becoming enlightened by a public discussion on the questions which 

 distracted the church and unsettled the consciences of the people. 

 Ho then invited those who considered the doctrines of Zwingli and 

 his friends as heretical, to state their arguments against them. Faber 

 however declined entering upon particular points of controversy, but 

 descanted on the necessity of union in the church, and of obedience to 

 the decrees of the Councils, who were inspired by the Holy Spirit ; on 

 the evils of heresy, and on the audacity of turbulent men who excited 

 contentions and schisms. " As to those who appeal to the Scriptures 

 in the three languages," said he, " I reply that it is not sufficient to 

 quote the sacred writings, but that it is also necessary to understand 

 them. Now the gift of interpretation is not one which is given to all. 

 I do not boast of possessing it : I am ignorant of Hebrew ; I know 

 little of Greek ; and, though I am sufficiently versed in Latin, yet I 

 do not pretend to be an able orator. I disclaim the presumption of 

 assuming the office of a judge on questions concerning salvation ; 

 these can only be decided by a general council, to whose decisions I 

 shall submit without a murmur ; and it would become all present to 

 Bhow a like submission," 



To this Zwingli replied, that if by the church Faber understood 

 the popes and cardinals, the historical records of many of them 

 showed that they could not have been enlightened by the Holy Spirit; 

 that if ho meant the councils, as embodying the authority of the 

 church, he was forgetting how many of those assemblies had accused 

 each other of bad faith and heresy. " Even the fathers of the church," 

 observed Zwingli, " cannot be regarded as unerring guides, since they 

 often dp not agree among themselves; witness St. Jerome and St. 



Augustin, who held very different opinions on important points 



There certainly is a church that cannot err, and directed by the Holy 

 Spirit. This church is composed of all the true believers united in 

 the bonds of faith and charity ; but it is visible only to the eye of its 

 divine founder, who knoweth his own. It does not assemble with 

 pomp ; it does not issue its decrees after the manner of the kings of 

 the earth ; it has no temporal reign ; it seeks neither honours nor 

 domination : to fulfil the will of God is the only care by which it is 

 occupied." The conference after this turned upon the invocation of 

 saints and other points in debate, but it was no more than a desultory 



conversation, as the two parties did not meet on common ground ; 

 Zwingli refusing to admit any arguments but those drawn from Scrip- 

 ture, while Faber chose his from the decisions of the councils and the 

 traditions of the church. At last the burgomaster dissolved the 

 meeting; but the council remained assembled, and after some delibe- 

 ration, it came to a resolution that " Zwingli, having neither been con- 

 victed of heresy nor refuted, should continue to preach the Gospel as 

 before ; that the pastors of the town and territory of Zurich should 

 ground their discourses on the words of Scripture alone, and that both 

 parties should avoid all personal reflections and recriminations." The 

 forms of worship remained unchanged for the present ; mass continued 

 to be said, the images remained, but more frequent and more scriptural 

 sermons were preached for the instruction of the people. Some of the 

 more impatient and rash partisans of the new doctrines, having pulled 

 down a large crucifix which stood at one of the gates of Zurich, the 

 culprits were arrested and charged with sacrilege. Zwingli blamed 

 them for committing an act of violent innovation without the authority 

 of the magistrate, but he at the same time maintained that the offence 

 could not be called sacrilege, as images ought not to be objects of 

 religious worship. This gave rise to much debate in the council, which 

 at last convoked a second conference, for the purpose of deciding 

 " whether the worship of images was authorised by the Gospel, and 

 whether the mass ought to be retained." This conference was held iu 

 October 1523. About 900 persons were present, including most of 

 the clergy of the canton of Zurich. The council had invited the other 

 cantons and allies of the Confederation, as well as the University of 

 Basel, to send their deputies, but Schaffhauseu and St. Gall alone 

 answered the call. Zwingli and his friend Leo Judii explained and 

 supported their theses, namely, that the worship of images was 

 unscriptural, and that the mass was not a sacrifice. The prior of 

 the Augustines, after much desultory conversation, said that he could 

 not refute Zwingli unless he were allowed to quote the canon law. 

 The conference lasted three days, but was not productive of any new 

 argument against the Reformers, who had full time to explain their 

 doctrines and to produce a deep impression on the greater part of the 

 assembly, after which the council closed the meeting, and adjourned 

 its own decision to the following year. 



During the interval the council applied to the bishops of Constance, 

 Basel, and Coire, begging of them explicitly to state their sentiments 

 concerning Zwingli's doctrines. The bishop of Constance alone sent to 

 the council an apology for the use of the mass, which however con- 

 tained nothing more than the usual reasonings of the Canonists in 

 favour of whatever had been decreed by the church. Zwingli wrote 

 an answer to it by order of the council, condemning the use of images, 

 the invocation of the saints, the exhibition of relics in churches, and 

 the ex voto offerings. At the beginning of 1524, the Great Council 

 ordered all the pictures, statues, relics, offerings, and other ornaments 

 to bo removed from the churches, allowing those which were the gift 

 of private individuals to be restored to them or their descendants. 

 Thus Zurich was the first canton in Switzerland which openly em- 

 braced the Reformation : Bern, Basel, and Shaffhausen, and a part of 

 Glarus and Appenzell, followed some years later. In January, 15 25, 

 the mass was finally abolished at Zurich ; and on Easter Sunday of 

 that year the Lord's Supper was celebrated according to the simple 

 form suggested by Zwingli, and which is the same as that observed 

 in the Reformed churches of Switzerland and France to this day. 



The next thing was to provide for the instruction of the people, 

 and to find funds for that purpose. The chapter of the Great Minister, 

 or Collegiate Church of ZUrich, of which Zwingli was a member, was 

 a very wealthy body : it had its own fiefs and jurisdictions, and was 

 independent of the council. Zwingli reasoned with his brother canons 

 on the propriety of allotting a part of their ample revenues for the 

 purpose of education, and on the expediency of doing this of their own 

 accord, without waiting for the lay power to interfere. A majority of 

 the chapter having recognised either the justice or the prudence of 

 concession, a convention was agreed upon between the chapter and the 

 council, by which the former resigned its regalia of feudal jurisdiction 

 and immunities of the state, swearing allegiance to the council as its 

 sovereign, retaining at the same time the administration of its own 

 revenues, of which a part was to be appropriated to defray the salary 

 of spiritual pastors for the town. Those canons who were capable of 

 performing pastoral functions should be employed as such, and those 

 who were old and infirm should retain theirj benefices ; but at their 

 death their places were not to be filled up, and the revenues of their 

 benefices were to be employed in founding professorships for the 

 gratuitous instruction of the people. A small minority of five canons 

 protested against the convention, alleging the authority of the pope ; 

 and, not choosing to subject themselves to the lay authority, they 

 quitted Zurich and retired into the Roman Catholic cantons. The 

 abbess of the Frauemiinster and her nuns followed the example of 

 the chapter ; and reserving pensions for themselves during life, they 

 gave up to the state all their property and privileges. The surplus 

 revenue was employed to found a seminary for candidates for tho 

 clerical profession. The convents of the mendicant orders were after- 

 wards suppressed by order of the council, the aged and infirm 

 members were granted annuities for life and a common habitation in 

 one of the convents, and the others were placed in various trades and 

 professions. The convent of the Dominicans was transformed into an 



