CHAPTER XVIII. BEGINNINGS OF THE REFORMATION IN GERMAN SWITZERLAND -ZWINGLI. ULRICH ZWINGLI' was to the German Swiss Reformation what Luther was to the Reformation in Germany. He was the third son of Ulrich and Margaretha Zwingli, and was born on January 1, 1484, but a few weeks later than Luther. His parents, like Luther's, were peasants; but Zwingli's father was a magistrate, and well-to-do. Wildhaus, the place of Zwingli's nativity, is situated in the upper Toggenburg, a part of what is now the canton of St. Gallen. It is a very beautiful valley, situated high up in the mountains. Most of the inhabitants were shepherds. As spring advanced, the flocks were driven higher and higher up the mountain sides, where they were shepherded by the elder portion of the population. On Sundays it was customary for the ZWINGLI'S younger people who had remained at home during the week to go to these hilltops and spend the day with their elders. Upon the approach of winter the flocks were again brought down into the valley. In this way both the elder and the younger people lived much out of doors, and habitually feasted their eyes on the most beautiful scenes in summer and the most glorious spectacles of ice and snow in the winter. The mountain peaks towered high on every side, and must have impressed every susceptible soul with their grandeur. Those who knew Zwingli best believed that he was greatly influenced by his early surroundings, and especially by the rugged character of the country in which he was brought up.' 1 Vilmar says that Zwingli's Christian name was Ulrich, not Huldreich nor Huldrich, although the form Huldreich was preferred by him; and that wherever he is mentioned by his contemporaries, within or without Switzerland, he is never called anything but Master Ulrich or Master Uli. He also says that in Vienna he matriculated under the name Cogentius. See his Luther, Melanchthon, and Zwingli, p. 92, n. According to Möller his name appears in the list of matriculants of Basel University, May 1, 1502, as Udalricus Zwyngling-iii, 45, n. 3. *Christoffel quotes Oswald Myconius as saying: "I have often thought . . . that from these sublime heights, which stretch up toward heaven, he has taken something heavenly and divine "-p. 3. So also Mörikofer, i, 4. ZWINGLI'S Zwingli's uncle on his father's side, Bartholomaus Zwingli, was the priest in charge of the church in Wesen, only a little distance from the town where Zwingli was born. His uncle on his mother's side, John Meili, was also a priest, and afterward abbot of Fischingen, in Torgau. It was the wish of these uncles that young Zwingli should be educated for the priesthood, and, in consequence, his father determined to give him the best education which the times could afford. He was first sent to Wesen to live in the home of his uncle Bartholomaus. Here he went to the public school, and quickly learned all that was there taught. He was next sent to Basel, to the school of George Binzli, a friend of Bartholomaus, and a very learned man. It was but a short time until Ulrich had mastered everything that Binzli could teach him, and he was then sent to Berne, where the learned Lupulus was teaching Greek and Latin with great enthusiasm to multitudes of students. But although Zwingli was a student under this great teacher of both languages, he pursued the Latin only. Here also he proved himself a very bright student, and it was not long until he began to attract the attention of the people of the place. ZWINGLI AT The Dominican monks, always on the lookout for recruits to their number, saw the bright promise of the youth, and undertook to secure him for their order. They offered him a home in the cloister, and actually induced him to reside among them for a time;' but when his father and uncle heard of it, they, fearing he might become a monk, induced him to leave Basel, and sent him to Vienna, where the university, under the patronage of Maximilian I, had recently risen to great distinction. It has been asserted that here he made the acquaintance of a number of men who afterward figured as his friends or foes in the great work to which God called him in his subsequent life, among them the famous Eck. Others, with better reason, dispute the statement. However this may be, it is certain that he there came directly under the influence of Humanism, which he pursued with great enthusiasm. This prepared the way for the thoughts and opinions which he was to promulgate, and afforded the knowl edge that was finally to lead him away from the Roman Catholic Church into a work second only to that which Martin Luther himself performed. 2 1 Christoffel, pp. 5, 6. * Christoffel asserts-p. 6; Schaff, appealing to Horawitz, Der Humanismus in Wien (1883), denies-vii, 23, n. 2. ZWINGLI'S SECOND RESIDENCE AT BASEL. For some reason his father called him from Vienna in 1502, when he was eighteen years of age, after which he spent some time at home. His desire for knowledge, however, soon led him to Basel again, where he taught in the school of St. Martin and also studied in the university. It was at this time that he came under the influence of the celebrated Thomas Wyttenbach, who was not only a great scholar in the Greek and Latin languages, but combined with love of learning a love for the Holy Scriptures, and knew how to bring out their depths of meaning in lively contrast with the dry scholastic theology which had prevailed during the Middle Ages, and which even yet exercised a controlling influence in theology. Wyttenbach was undoubtedly to him what Staupitz was to Luther, only that while Staupitz gave comfort to the distressed and anxious feelings of the German monk, and pointed out to him the way of personal satisfaction in Jesus Christ, Wyttenbach performed no such task for the Swiss student, who was not deeply troubled on account of his sins. Zwingli approached the doctrines which he afterward taught, not under the promptings of a conscious personal need, but rather from the standpoint of a literary man. It was his Humanistic studies that led him, step by step, away from the doctrines and practices of the Roman Catholic Church. While he was at the university in Basel the second time he became master of arts, which was the highest title to which he ever attained. Even of this he was not careful to claim the honors.' He used to say that one was our Master, even Christ, and consequently it mattered little to him whether or not he should be called Master Ulrich. PASTOR AT In 1506, being now twenty-two years of age, and having been ordained by the bishop of Constance, he became pastor of the church in Glarus, not far from his boyhood home. He had been unanimously chosen by the people; but the pope had a favorite upon whom he wished to confer the benefits of that position, and although the parish refused to accept the papal candidate, Zwingli was obliged to pay to his rival a considerable sum of money for the privilege of enjoying the living to which he had been regularly called.' This was one of the first instances in which Zwingli experienced the power and corruption of the Roman Catholic Church. During this period it was that he first studied Greek, which it is said he learned in one year. It is also stated that he soon became so familiar with the language that for purposes of reading it was as available as his mother tongue. He Christoffel, p. 8. 2 Ibid., p. 9, and Schaff, vii, 24. 2 entered upon this study in order that he might the more readily reach the original word of God, which was growing constantly in his esteem, and whose teachings he was learning more and more to appreciate, chiefly, however, from the Erasmian, that is to say, the Humanistic standpoint. ZWINGLI'S During his stay of ten years in Glarus he was an ardent champion of the pope's cause, favoring the employment of the Swiss mercenaries in the interests of the pope rather than of the French; and in at least two campaigns of the former against the latter he accompanied the mercenaries, witnessing several important battles. His duties, however, were those of a chaplain, not of a regular soldier; yet it is said of him that he displayed his courage by the risks he took in the cause for which the soldiers whom he accompanied fought. He afterward regretted his connection with these military expeditions, not because he was opposed to military life, but because it had been in the interest of the pope, and because he had begun to see the great evil which came to the Swiss people by hiring out their soldiers to a foreign commander.' But while he himself regretted them there can be no doubt that in these early expeditions he saw the Roman Catholic Church as he could not have seen it had he remained in his native land. In one of these Italian campaigns he found a mass book which otherwise would have remained hidden from his sight, and by which he was convinced that the Church of his day was not the Church of the times of the early disciples and the immediately subsequent centuries." At his entrance upon the work of the priesthood in Glarus he, like Luther, entertained very high ideals. He trembled at the 3 1 Christoffel gives an extensive extract from his argument, the points of which are as follows: The first and great danger was that they would bring down upon themselves the wrath of God because of the practice of the cruelties of war as a mere means of gain. The second danger was that justice between man and man would be hindered by hiring out soldiers to help forward unjust wars. The third danger was that with foreign money and foreign wars the manners of the Swiss people would become corrupted and debased. The fourth danger was that the gifts of the foreign lords would breed hatred and distrust among the Swiss. The cure of these evils was abstinence from selfishness-pp. 42-49. 'Luther appears to have made in Milan a similar discovery with reference to the method of celebrating mass.-Köstlin, Martin Luther, i, 106. * He said: "I will be true and upright before God in every situation in life in which the hand of the Lord may place me." "Hypocrisy and lying are worse than stealing. Man is by nothing brought so much to resemble God as by truth."-Christoffel, p. 10. HIGH IDEAL thought of the responsibility that had been placed upon him. His innate love of truth prompted him to resolve that he would never depart from it, and that his life should always correspond to his highest conception of what a Christian and priest of God ought to be. But, though he had these high ideals before him, truth compels the admission that in some respects he fell far beneath them. The country was full of corruption; the morals of the people, especially in reference to sins of the flesh, were at the lowest conceivable ebb. The marriage vow was lightly esteemed. The priests, generally, lived in open or concealed concubinage. They must not marry, but they might have children. The disgrace was not in being fathers but in being husbands. In his inmost soul Zwingli revolted from such corruption as this, and believed that the true course for the priests was to enter the married state, considering this far better for their morals and more conducive to the purity of the Church and its individual members. But he could find no encouragement, and even when later he, with several others, sent an appeal to the diet of Switzerland for the right of the clergy to marry, he was refused.' Zwingli was not strong enough to stem the tide of temptation that surrounded him on every hand, and painfully we must admit, as he himself admits, that he fell into gross sin.' How long he continued, or to what extent it was carried, it is impossible for us to say. In confessing the fact he makes light of it, comparatively, excusing himself on the ground that in the grosser forms of sin he had never indulged. When judging him we must remember the times in which he lived; and while the standard of morals never changes, man's conception of it varies, and we must judge men, at least in part, by the prevailing ethical sentiment, and not alone by the unchanging standard. So much at least is true, that he was no worse than thousands of others about him; and it is also true that he repented and strove to overcome his sin, whereas others indulged themselves without remorse. Roman Catholic writers, especially in recent times, have exaggerated his fault, and the exact facts This petition was written in July, 1522, although he had been previously married in secret. Among the signers were Leo Juda and John Faber. * For particulars see Schaff, vii, 27-30, and Christoffel, pp. 12, 13. Zwingli and the others confessed "das unehrbar schändlich Leben, welches wir leider bisher geführt haben . . . mit Frauen." He denies that he had ever dishonored a married woman, a virgin, or a nun ("ea ratio nobis perpetuo fuit, nec alienum thorum conscendere, nec virginem vitiare, nec Deo dicatam profanare"). See the entire letter by him on this subject, under date December 3, 1518, in his works, vii, 54–57. |