THE REFORMATION IN SWITZERLAND UNDER ZWINGLI.
§ 1. _The political Condition of Switzerland._[9]
Switzerland in the sixteenth century was like no other country in
Europe. It was as divided as Germany or Italy, and yet it had a unity
which they could not boast. It was a confederation or little republic of
communes and towns of the primitive Teutonic type, in which the
executive power was vested in the community. The various cantons were
all independent, but they were banded together in a common league, and
they had a federal flag--a white cross on a red ground, which bore the
motto, "Each for all, and all for each."
The separate members of the Federation had come into existence in a
great variety of ways, and all retained the distinctive marks of their
earlier history. The beginnings go back to the thirteenth century, when
the three Forest cantons, Schwyz, Uri, and Unterwalden, having freed
themselves from the dominion of their feudal lords, formed themselves
into a _Perpetual League_ (1291), in which they pledged themselves to
help each other to maintain the liberty they had won. After the battle
of Morgarten they renewed the League at Brunnen (1315), promising again
to aid each other against all usurping lords. Hapsburg, the cradle of
the Imperial House of Austria, lies on the south-east bank of the river
Aare, and the dread of this great feudal family strengthened the bonds
of the League; while the victories of the independent peasants over the
House of Austria, and later over the Duke of Burgundy, increased its
reputation. The three cantons grew to be thirteen--Schwyz, Uri,
Unterwalden, Luzern, Zurich, Bern, Glarus, Zug, Freiburg, Basel,
Schaffhausen, Solothurn, and Appenzell. Other districts, without
becoming members of the League, sought its protection, such as the
Valais and the town and country under the Abbey of St. Gallen. Other
leagues were formed on its model among the peasantry of the Rhætian
Alps--in 1396 the _League of the House of God_ (_Lia da Ca' Dè_)--at the
head of which was the Church at Chur; in 1424 the _Graubünden_ (_Lia
Grischa_ or _Gray League_); in 1436 the _League of the Ten
Jurisdictions_ (_Lia della desch Dretturas_). These three united in 1471
to make the _Three Perpetual Leagues of Rhætia_. They were in close
alliance with the Swiss cantons from the fifteenth century, but did not
become actual members of the Swiss Confederacy until 1803. The
Confederacy also made some conquests, and the districts conquered were
generally governed on forms of mutual agreement between several
cantons--a complicated system which led to many bickerings, and
intensified the quarrels which religion gave rise to in the sixteenth
century.
Each of these thirteen cantons preserved its own independence and its
own mode of government. Their political organisation was very varied,
and dependent to a large extent on their past history. The Forest
cantons were communes of peasant proprietors, dwelling in inaccessible
valleys, and their Diet was an assembly of all the male heads of
families. Zurich was a manufacturing and commercial town which had grown
up under the protection of an old ecclesiastical settlement whose
foundation went back to an age beyond that of Charles the Great. Bern
was originally a hamlet, nestling under the fortified keep of an old
feudal family. In Zurich the nobles made one of the "guilds" of the
town, and the constitution was thoroughly democratic. Bern, on the
other hand, was an aristocratic republic. But in all, the power in the
last resort belonged to the people, who were all freemen with full
rights of citizenship.
The Swiss had little experience of episcopal government. Their relations
with the Papacy had been entirely political or commercial, the main
article of commerce being soldiers to form the Pope's bodyguard, and
infantry for his Italian wars, and the business had been transacted
through Legates. Most of the territory of Switzerland was
ecclesiastically divided between the archiepiscopal provinces of Mainz
and Besançon, and the river Aare was the boundary between them. The
division went back to the beginning of Christianity in the land. The
part of Switzerland which lay towards France had been Christianised by
Roman or Gallic missionaries; while the rest, which sloped towards
Germany, had been won to Christianity by Irish preachers! Basel and
Lausanne figure as bishoprics under Besançon; while Constance, a
bishopric under Mainz, asserted episcopal rights over Zurich and the
neighbourhood. The rugged, mountainous part of the country was vaguely
claimed for the province of Mainz without being definitely assigned to
any diocese. This contributed to make the Swiss people singularly
independent in all ecclesiastical matters, and taught them to manage
their Church affairs for themselves.
Even in Zurich, which acknowledged the ecclesiastical jurisdiction of
the Bishop of Constance, the Council insisted on its right of
supervising Church properties, and convents were under State inspection.
In the beginning of the sixteenth century, intercourse with their
neighbours was changing the old simple manners of the Swiss. Their
repeated victories over Charles the Bold of Burgundy had led to the
belief that the Swiss infantry was the best in Europe, and nations at
war with each other were eager to hire Swiss troops. The custom had
gradually grown up among the Swiss cantons of hiring out soldiers to
those who paid best for them. These mercenaries, demoralised by making
merchandise of their lives in quarrels not their own, and by spending
their pay in riotous living when they returned to their native valleys,
were corrupting the population of the Confederacy. The system was
demoralising in another way. The two great Powers that trafficked in
Swiss infantry were France and the Papacy; and the French king on the
one hand, and the Pope on the other, not merely kept permanent agents in
the various Swiss cantons, but gave pensions to leading citizens to
induce them to persuade the canton to which they belonged to hire
soldiers to the one side or the other. Zwingli, in his earlier days,
believed that the Papacy was the only Power with which the Swiss ought
to ally themselves, and received a papal pension for many years.
§ 2. _Zwingli's Youth and Education._[10]
Huldreich (Ulrich) Zwingli, the Reformer of Switzerland, was born on
January 1st, 1484 (fifty-two days after Luther), in the hamlet of
Wildhaus (or Wildenhaus), lying in the upper part of the Toggenburg
valley, raised so high above sea-level (3600 feet) that fruits refuse to
ripen. It lies so exactly on the central watershed of Europe, that the
rain which falls on the one side of the ridge of the red-tiled church
roof goes into a streamlet which feeds the Danube, and that which falls
on the other finds its way to the Rhine. He came third in a large family
of eight sons and two daughters. His father, also called Huldreich, was
the headman of the commune, and his uncle, Bartholomew Zwingli, was the
parish priest. His education was superintended by Bartholomew, who
became Dean of Wesen in 1487, and took the small Huldreich with him to
his new sphere of work. The boy was sent to the school in Wesen, where
he made rapid progress. Bartholomew Zwingli was somewhat of a scholar
himself. When he discovered that his nephew was a precocious boy, he
determined to give him as good an education as was possible, and sent
him to Basel (Klein-Basel, on the east bank of the Rhine) to a famous
school taught, by the gentle scholar, Gregory Buenzli (1494-98).
In four years the lad had outgrown the teacher's powers of instruction,
and young Zwingli was sent to Bern to a school taught by the Humanist
Heinrich Wölfflin (Lupulus), who was half a follower of Erasmus and half
a Reformer. He was passionately fond of music, and lodged in one of the
Dominican convents in the town which was famed for the care bestowed on
musical education. Zwingli was so carried away by his zeal for the
study, that he had some thoughts of becoming a monk merely to gratify
his musical tastes. His family, who had no desire to see him enter a
monastery, removed him from Bern and sent him to the University of
Vienna, where he spent two years (1500-1502). There he had for friends
and fellow-students, Joachim von Watt[11] (Vadianus), Heinrich
Loriti[12] of Glarus (Glareanus), Johann Heigerlin[13] of Leutkirch
(Faber), and Johann Maier of Eck, the most notable of all Luther's
opponents. In 1502 he returned to Switzerland and matriculated in the
University of Basel. He became B.A. in 1504 and M.A. in 1506, and in the
same year became parish priest of Glarus.
The childhood and youth of Zwingli form a striking contrast to Luther's
early years. He enjoyed the rude plenty of a well-to-do Swiss farmhouse,
and led a joyous young life. He has told us how the family gathered in
the _stube_ in the long winter evenings, and how his grandmother kept
the children entranced with her tales from the Bible and her wonderful
stories of the saints. The family were all musical, and they sang
patriotic folk-songs, recording in rude verse the glories of Morgarten,
Sempach, and the victories over the tyrant of Burgundy. "When I was a
child," says Zwingli, "if anyone said a word against our Fatherland, it
put my back up at once." He was trained to be a patriot. "From boyhood I
have shown so great, eager, and sincere a love for our honourable
Confederacy that I trained myself diligently in every act and discipline
to this end." His uncle Bartholomew was an admirer of the New Learning,
and the boy was nurtured in everything that went to make a Humanist,
with all its virtues and failings. He was educated, one might almost
say, in the art of enjoying the present without discriminating much
between what was good and evil in surrounding society. He was trained to
take life as it came. No great sense of sin troubled his youthful
years. He never shuddered at the wrathful face of Jesus, the Judge,
gazing at him from blazoned church window. If he was once tempted for a
moment to become a monk, it was in order to enjoy musical society, not
to quench the sin that was burning him within, and to win the pardon of
an angry God. He took his ecclesiastical calling in a careless,
professional way. He belonged to a family connected on both sides with
the clergy, and he followed the family arrangement. Until far on in life
the question of personal piety did not seem to trouble him much, and he
never belonged, like Luther and Calvin, to the type of men who are the
leaders in a revival of personal religion. He became a Reformer because
he was a Humanist, with a liking for Augustinian theology; and his was
such a frank, honest nature that he could not see cheats and shams done
in the name of religion without denouncing them. To the end of his days
he was led more by his intellect than by the promptings of the heart,
and in his earlier years he was able to combine a deep sense of
responsibility about most things with a careless laxity of moral life.
§ 3. _At Glarus and Einsiedeln._
At Glarus he was able to follow his Humanist studies, guided by the
influences which had surrounded him during his last year at Basel. Among
these his friendship with Thomas Wyttenbach was the most lasting.
Wyttenbach taught him, he tells us, to see the evils and abuses of
indulgences, the supreme authority of the Bible, that the death of
Christ was the sole price of the remission of sins, and that faith is
the key which unlocks to the soul the treasury of remission. All these
thoughts he had grasped intellectually, and made much of them in his
sermons. He prized preaching highly, and resolved to cultivate the gift
by training himself on the models of antiquity. He studied the
Scriptures, joyfully welcomed the new Greek Testament of Erasmus,
published by Froben of Basel in 1516, when he was at Einsiedeln, and
copied out from it the whole of the Pauline Epistles. On the wide
margins of his MS. he wrote annotations from Erasmus, Origen,
Chrysostom, Ambrose, and Jerome. It was his constant companion.
At Glarus he was personally introduced to the system of mercenary war
and of pensions in which Switzerland had engaged. He went to Italy twice
as regimental chaplain with the Glarus contingent, and was present at
the fight at Novara (1513), and on the fatal day at Marignano (1515).
His experiences in these campaigns convinced him of the harm in this
system of hiring out the Swiss to fight in others' quarrels; and when he
became convinced of the evils attending it, he denounced the practice.
His outspoken language displeased many of his most influential
parishioners, especially those who were partisans of the French, and
Zwingli resolved to seek some other sphere of work.
The post of people's priest at Einsiedeln, the famous monastery and
pilgrimage resort, was offered to him and accepted (April 14th, 1516).
He retained his official connection with Glarus, and employed a curate
to do his parish work. His fame as a preacher grew. His friends desired
to see him in a larger sphere, and through their exertions he was
appointed to be people's priest in the Minster at Zurich. An objection
had been made to his selection on the ground that he had disgracefully
wronged the daughter of a citizen of Einsiedeln; and his letter of
vindication, while it exonerates him from the particular charge brought
against him, shows that he was by no means clear of the laxity in
private morals which characterised the Swiss clergy of the time. The
stipend attached to his office in the Great Minster was very small, and
on this ground Zwingli felt himself justified, unwarrantably, in
retaining his papal pension.[14]
§ 4. _Zwingli in Zurich._
Zurich, when Zwingli went to it, was an imperial city. It had grown up
around the Great Minster and the Minster of Our Lady (the Little
Minster), and had developed into a trading and manufacturing centre. Its
citizens, probably owing to the ecclesiastical origin of the town, had
long engaged in quarrels with the clergy, and had generally been
successful. They took advantage of the rivalries between the heads of
the two Minsters and the Emperor's bailiff to assert their independence,
and had passed laws subordinating the ecclesiastical authorities to the
secular rule. The taxes were levied on ecclesiastical as well as on
secular property; all the convents were under civic control, and liable
to State inspection. The popes, anxious to keep on good terms with the
Swiss who furnished soldiers for their wars, had expressly permitted in
Zurich what they would not have allowed elsewhere.
The town was ruled by a Council or Senate composed of the Masters of the
thirteen "gilds" (twelve trades' gilds and one gild representing the
patriciate). The Burgomaster, with large powers, presided. A great
Council of 212 members was called together on special occasions.
The city of Zurich, with its thoroughly democratic constitution, was a
very fitting sphere for a man like Zwingli. He had made a name for
himself by this time. He had become a powerful preacher, able to stir
and move the people by his eloquence; he was in intimate relations with
the more distinguished German Humanists, introduced to them by his
friend Heinrich Loriti of Glarus (known as Glareanus). He had already
become the centre of an admiring circle of young men of liberal views.
His place as people's preacher gave to a man of his popular gifts a
commanding position in the most democratic town in Switzerland, where
civic and European politics were eagerly discussed. He went there in
December 1519.
His work as a Reformer began almost at once. Bernhard Samson or Sanson,
a seller of indulgences for Switzerland, came to Zurich to push his
trade. Zwingli had already encountered him at Einsiedeln, and, prompted
by the Bishop of Constance and his vicar-general, John Faber, both of
whom disliked the indulgences, had preached against him. He now
persuaded the Council of Zurich to forbid Samson's stay in the town.
The papal treatment of the Swiss Reformer was very different from what
had been meted out to Luther. Samson received orders from Rome to give
no trouble to the Zurichers, and to leave the city rather than quarrel
with them. The difference, no doubt, arose from the desire of the
_Curia_ to do nothing to hinder the supply of Swiss soldiers for the
papal wars; but it was also justified by the contrast in the treatment
of the subject by the two Reformers. Luther struck at a great moral
abuse, and his strokes cut deeply into the whole round of mediæval
religious life, with its doctrine of a special priesthood; he made men
see the profanity of any claim made by men to pardon sin, or to
interfere between their fellow-men and God. Zwingli took the whole
matter more lightly. His position was that of Erasmus and the Humanists.
He could laugh at and ridicule the whole proceeding, and thought most of
the way in which men allowed themselves to be gulled and duped by clever
knaves. He never touched the deep practical religious question which
Luther raised, and which made his challenge to the Papacy reverberate
over Western Europe.
From the outset Zwingli became a prominent figure in Zurich. He
announced to the astonished Chapter of the Great Minster, to whom he
owed his appointment, that he meant to give a series of continuous
expositions of the Gospel of St. Matthew; that he would not follow the
scholastic interpretation of passages in the Gospel, but would endeavour
to make Scripture its own interpreter. The populace crowded to hear
sermons of this new kind. In order to reach the country people, Zwingli
preached in the market-place on the Fridays, and his fame spread
throughout the villages. The Franciscans, Dominicans, and Augustinian
Eremites tried to arouse opposition, but unsuccessfully. In his sermons
he denounced sins suggested in the passages expounded, and found
occasion to deny the doctrines of Purgatory and the Intercession of
Saints.
His strongest attack on the existing ecclesiastical system was made in a
sermon on tithes, which, to the distress of the Provost of the Minster,
he declared to be merely voluntary offerings. (He had been reading Hus'
book _On the Church_.) He must have carried most of the Chapter with him
in his schemes for improvement, for in June 1520 the Breviary used in
the Minster was revised by Zwingli and stripped of some blemishes. In
the following year (March 1521), some of the Zurichers who were known to
be among Zwingli's warmest admirers, the printer Froschauer among them,
asserted their convictions by eating flesh meat publicly in Lent. The
affair made a great sensation, and the Reformers were brought before the
Council of the city. They justified themselves by declaring that they
had only followed the teaching of Zwingli, who had shown them that
nothing was binding on the consciences of Christians which was not
commanded in the Scriptures. Zwingli at once undertook their defence,
and published his sermon, _Selection or Liberty concerning Foods; an
offence and scandal; whether there is any Authority for forbidding Meat
at certain times_ (April 16th, 1522). He declared that in such matters
the responsibility rests with the individual, who may use his freedom
provided he avoids a public scandal.
The matter was felt to be serious, and the Council, after full debate,
passed an ordinance which was meant to be a compromise. It was to the
effect that although the New Testament makes no rule on the subject,
fasting in Lent is a very ancient custom, and must not be set aside
until dealt with by authority, and that the priests of the three
parishes of Zurich were to dissuade the people from all violation of the
ordinance.
The Bishop of Constance thereupon interfered, and sent a Commission,
consisting of his suffragan and two others, to investigate and report.
They met the Small Council, and in a long address insisted that the
Church had authority in such matters, and that the usages it commanded
must be obeyed. Zwingli appeared before the Great Council, and, in spite
of the efforts of the Commission to keep him silent, argued in defence
of liberty of conscience. In the end the Council resolved to abide by
its compromise, but asked the Bishop of Constance to hold a Synod of his
clergy and come to a resolution upon the matter which would be in
accordance with the law of Christ. This resolution of the Council really
set aside the episcopal authority, and was a revolt against the Roman
Church.
Political affairs favoured the rebellion. At the Swiss Diet held at
Luzern (May 1521), the cantons, in spite of the vehement remonstrances
of Zurich, made a treaty with France, and allowed the French king to
recruit a force of 16,000 Swiss mercenaries. Zurich, true to its
protest, refused to allow recruiting within its lands. Its citizens
chafed at the loss of money and the separation from the other cantons,
and Zwingli became very unpopular. He had now made up his mind that the
whole system of pensions and mercenary service was wrong, and had
resigned his own papal pension. Just then the Pope asked Zurich, which
supplied him with half of his bodyguard, for a force of soldiers to be
used in defence of his States, promising that they would not be used to
fight the French, among whose troops were many Swiss mercenaries from
other cantons. The Council refused. Nevertheless, six thousand Zurichers
set out to join the papal army. The Council recalled them, and after
some adventures, in one of which they narrowly escaped fighting with the
Swiss mercenaries in the service of France, they returned home. This
expedition, which brought neither money nor honour to the Zurichers,
turned the tide of popular feeling, and the Council forbade all foreign
service. When the long connection between Zurich and the Papacy is
considered, this decree was virtually a breach between the city and the
Pope. It made the path of the Reformation much easier (Jan. 1522), and
Zwingli's open break with the Papacy was only a matter of time.
It came with the publication of the _Archeteles_ (August 1522), a book
hastily written, like all Zwingli's works, which contained a defence of
all that he had done, and a programme, ecclesiastical and political, for
the future. The book increased the zeal of Zwingli's opponents. His
sermons were often interrupted by monks and others instigated by them.
The burgomaster was compelled to interfere in order to maintain the
peace of the town. He issued an order on his own authority, without any
appeal to the Bishop of Constance, that the pure Word of God was to be
preached. At an assembly of the country clergy of the canton, the same
decision was reached; and town and clergy were ready to move along the
path of reformation. Shortly before this (July 2nd), Zwingli and ten
other priests petitioned the bishop to permit his clergy to contract
legal marriages. The document had no practical effect, save to show the
gradual advance of ideas. It disclosed the condition of things that
sacerdotal celibacy had produced in Switzerland.
§ 5. _The Public Disputations_.
In these circumstances, the Great Council, now definitely on Zwingli's
side, resolved to hold a Public Disputation to settle the controversies
in religion; and Zwingli drafted sixty-seven theses to be discussed.
These articles contain a summary of his doctrinal teaching. They insist
that the Word of God, the only rule of faith, is to be received upon its
own authority and not on that of the Church. They are very full of
Christ, the only Saviour, the true Son of God, who has redeemed us from
eternal death and reconciled us to God. They attack the Primacy of the
Pope, the Mass, the Invocation of the Saints, the thought that men can
acquire merit by their good works, Fasts, Pilgrimages, and Purgatory. Of
sacerdotal celibacy he says, "_I know of no greater nor graver scandal
than that which forbids lawful marriage to priests, and yet permits them
on payment of money to have concubines and harlots. Fie for shame!_"[15]
The theses consist of single short sentences.
The Disputation, the first of the four which marked the stages of the
legal Reformation in Zurich, was held in the Town Hall of the city on
January 29th, 1523. More than six hundred representative men gathered to
hear it. All the clergy of the canton were present; Faber watched the
proceedings on behalf of the Bishop of Constance; many distinguished
divines from other parts of Switzerland were present. Faber seems to
have contented himself with asking that the Disputation should be
delayed until a General Council should meet, and Zwingli replied that
competent scholars who were good Christians were as able as a Council to
decide what was the meaning of the Holy Scriptures. The result of the
Disputation was that the burgomaster declared that Zwingli had justified
his teaching, and that he was no heretic. The canton of Zurich
practically adopted Zwingli's views, and the Reformer was encouraged to
proceed further.
His course of conduct was eminently prudent. He invariably took pains to
educate the people up to further changes by explaining them carefully in
sermons, and by publishing and circulating these discourses. He
considered that it was his duty to teach, but that it belonged to the
civic authorities to make the changes; and he himself made none until
they were authorised. He had very strong views against the use of images
in churches, and had preached vigorously against their presence. Some of
his more ardent hearers began to deface the statues and pictures. The
Great Council accordingly took the whole question into consideration,
and decided that a second Public Disputation should be held, at which
the matter might be publicly discussed. This discussion (October 1523)
lasted for two days. More than eight hundred persons were present, of
whom three hundred and fifty were clergy. On the first day, Zwingli set
forth his views on the presence of images in churches, and wished their
use forbidden. The Council decided that the statues and pictures should
be removed from the churches, but without disturbance; the rioters were
to be pardoned, but their leader was to be banished from the city for
two years. The second day's subject of conference was the Mass. Zwingli
pled that the Mass was not a sacrifice, but a memorial of the death of
our Lord, and urged that the abuses surrounding the simple Christian
rite should be swept away. The presence of Anabaptists at this
conference, and their expressions in debate, warned the magistrates that
they must proceed cautiously, and they contented themselves with
appointing a commission of eight--two from the Council and six
clergymen--to inquire and report. Meanwhile the clergy were to be
informed how to act, and the letter of instruction was to be written by
Zwingli. The authorities also deputed preachers to go to the outlying
parts of the canton and explain the whole matter carefully to the
people.
The letter which Zwingli addressed to the clergy of Zurich canton is a
brief statement of Reformation principles. It is sometimes called the
_Instruction_. Zwingli entitles it, _A brief Christian Introduction
which the Honourable Council of the city of Zurich has sent to the
pastors and preachers living in its cities, lands, and wherever its
authority extends, so that they may henceforth in unison announce and
preach the gospel._[16] It describes sin, the law, God's way of
salvation, and then goes on to speak of images. Zwingli's argument is
that the presence of statues and pictures in churches has led to
idolatry, and that they ought to be removed. The concluding section
discusses the Mass. Here the author states very briefly what he
elaborated afterwards, that the main thought in the Eucharist is not the
repetition of the sacrifice of Christ, but its faithful remembrance, and
that the Romish doctrine and ceremony of the Mass has been so corrupted
to superstitious uses that it ought to be thoroughly reformed.
This letter had a marked effect. The village priests everywhere refused
to say Mass according to the old ritual. But there was a section of the
people, including members of the chapter of the Minster, who shrunk from
changes in this central part of Christian worship. In deference to their
feelings, the Council resolved that the Holy Supper should be meanwhile
dispensed according to both the Reformed and the mediæval rite; in the
one celebration the cup was given to the laity, and in the other it was
withheld. No change was made in the liturgy. Then came a third
conference, and a fourth; and at last the Mass was abolished. On April
13th, 1525, the first Evangelical communion service took place in the
Great Minster, and the mediæval worship was at an end. Other changes had
been made. The monasteries had been secularised, and the monks who did
not wish to leave their calling were all gathered together in the
Franciscan convent. An amicable arrangement was come to about other
ecclesiastical foundations, and the money thus secured was mainly
devoted to education.
From 1522, Zwingli had been living in "clerical" marriage with Anna
Reinhard, the widow of a wealthy Zurich burgher. She was called his wife
by his friends, although no legal marriage ceremony had been performed.
It is perhaps difficult for us to judge the man and the times. The
so-called "clerical" marriages were universal in Switzerland. Man and
woman took each other for husband and wife, and were faithful. There was
no public ceremony. All questions of marriage, divorce, succession, and
so forth, were then adjudicated in the ecclesiastical and not in the
civil courts; and as the Canon Law had insisted that no clergyman could
marry, all such "clerical" marriages were simple concubinage in the eye
of the law, and the children were illegitimate. The offence against the
vow of chastity was condoned by a fine paid to the bishop. As early as
1523, William Röubli, a Zurich priest, went through a public form of
marriage, and his example was followed by others; but it may be
questioned whether these marriages were recognised to be legal until
Zurich passed its own laws about matrimonial cases in 1525.
Luther in his pure-hearted and solemnly sympathetic way had referred to
these clerical marriages in his _Address to the Christian Nobility of
the German Nation_ (1520).
"We see," he says, "how the priesthood is fallen, and how many a
poor priest is encumbered with a woman and children, and burdened
in his conscience, and no man does anything to help him, though he
might very well be helped.... I will not conceal my honest counsel,
nor withhold comfort from that unhappy crowd, who now live in
trouble with wife and children, and remain in shame, with a heavy
conscience, hearing their wife called a priest's harlot and the
children bastards.... I say that these two (who are minded in their
hearts to live together always in conjugal fidelity) are surely
married before God."
He had never succumbed to the temptations of the flesh, and had kept his
body and soul pure; and for that very reason he could sympathise with
and help by his sympathy those who had fallen. Zwingli, on the other
hand, had deliberately contracted this illicit alliance after he had
committed himself to the work of a Reformer. The action remains a
permanent blot on his character, and places him on a different level
from Luther and from Calvin. It has been already noted that Zwingli had
always an intellectual rather than a spiritual appreciation of the need
of reformation,--that he was much more of a Humanist than either Luther
or Calvin,--but what is remarkable is that we have distinct evidence
that the need of personal piety had impressed itself on him during these
years, and that he passed through a religious crisis, slight compared
with that of Luther, but real so far as it went. He fell ill of the
plague (Sept.-Nov. 1519), and the vision of death and recovery drew from
him some hymns of resignation and thanksgiving.[17] The death of his
brother Andrew (Nov. 1520) seems to have been the real turning-point in
his inward spiritual experience, and his letters and writings are
evidence of its reality and permanence. Perhaps the judgment which a
contemporary and friend, Martin Bucer, passed ought to content us:
"When I read your letter to Capito, that you had made public
announcement of your marriage, I was almost beside myself in my
satisfaction. For it was the one thing I desired for you.... I
never believed you were unmarried after the time when you indicated
to the Bishop of Constance in that tract that you desired this
gift. But as I considered the fact that you were thought to be a
fornicator by some, and by others held to have little faith in
Christ, I could not understand why you concealed it so long, and
that the fact was not declared openly, and with candour and
diligence. I could not doubt that you were led into this course by
considerations which could not be put aside by a conscientious man.
However that may be, I triumph in the fact that now you have come
up in all things to the apostolic definition."[18]
The Reformation was spreading beyond Zurich. Evangelical preachers had
arisen in many of the other cantons, and were gaining adherents.
§ 6. _The Reformation outside Zurich_.
Basel, the seat of a famous university and a centre of German Humanism,
contained many scholars who had come under the influence of Thomas
Wyttenbach, Zwingli's teacher. Wolfgang Fabricius Capito, a disciple of
Erasmus, a learned student of the Scriptures, had begun as early as
1512 to show how the ceremonies and many of the usages of the Church had
no authority from the Bible. He worked in Basel from 1512 to 1520.
Johannes Oecolampadius (Hussgen or Heusgen), who had been one of
Luther's supporters in 1521, came to Basel in 1522 as Lecturer on the
Holy Scriptures in the University. His lectures and his sermons to the
townspeople caused such a movement that the bishop forbade their
delivery. The citizens asked for a Public Disputation. Two held in the
month of December 1524--the one conducted by a priest of the name of
Stör against clerical celibacy, and the other led by William
Farel[19]--raised the courage of the Evangelical party. In February
1525 the Council of the town installed Oecolampadius as the preacher in
St. Martin's Church, and authorised him to make such changes as the Word
of God demanded. This was the beginning. Oecolampadius became a firm
friend of Zwingli's, and they worked together.
In Bern also the Reformation made progress. Berthold Haller[20] and
Sebastian Meyer[21] preached the Gospel with courage for several years,
and were upheld by the painter Nicolaus Manuel, who had great influence
with the citizens. The Council decided to permit freedom in preaching,
if in accordance with the Word of God; but they refused to permit
innovations in worship or ceremonies; and they forbade the introduction
of heretical books into the town. The numbers of the Evangelical party
increased rapidly, and in the beginning of 1527 they had a majority in
both the great and the small Councils. It was then decided to have a
Public Disputation.
The occasion was one of the most momentous in the history of the
Reformation in Switzerland. Hitherto Zurich had stood alone; if Bern
joined, the two most powerful cantons in Switzerland would be able to
hold their own. There was need for union. The Forest cantons had been
uttering threats, and Zwingli's life was not secure. Bern was fully
alive to the importance of the proposed discussion, and was resolved to
make it as imposing as possible, and that the disputants on both sides
should receive fair play and feel themselves in perfect freedom and
safety. They sent special invitations to the four bishops whose dioceses
entered their territories--the Bishops of Constance, Basel, Valais, and
Lausanne; and they did their best to assemble a sufficient number of
learned Romanist theologians.[22] They promised not only safe-conducts,
but the escort of a herald to and from the canton.[23] It soon became
evident, however, that the Romanist partisans had no great desire to
come to the _Disputation_. None of the bishops invited appears to have
even thought of being present save the Bishop of Lausanne, and he found
reasons for declining.[24] The _Disputation_ was viewed with anxiety by
the Romanist partisans, and in a letter sent from Speyer (December 28th)
the Emperor Charles V. strongly remonstrated with the magistrates of
Bern.[25] The Bernese were not to be intimidated. They issued their
invitations, and made every arrangement to give éclat to the great
Disputation.[26] Berthold Haller, with the help of Zwingli, had drafted
ten _Theses_, which were to be defended by himself and his colleague,
Francis Kolb; Zwingli had translated them into Latin and Farel into
French for the benefit of strangers; and they were sent out with the
invitations. They were--(1) The Holy Catholic Church, of which Christ is
the only Head, is born of the Word of God, abides therein, and does not
hear the voice of a stranger.[27] (2) The Church of Christ makes no law
nor statute apart from the Word of God, and consequently those human
ordinances which are called the commandments of the Church do not bind
our consciences unless they are founded on the Word of God and agreeable
thereto. (3) Christ is our wisdom, righteousness, redemption, and price
for the sins of the whole world; and all who think they can win
salvation in any other way, or have other satisfaction for their sins,
renounce Christ. (4) It is impossible to prove from Scripture that the
Body and Blood of Christ are corporeally present in the bread of the
Holy Supper. (5) The Mass, in which Christ is offered to God the Father
for the sins of the living and the dead, is contrary to the Holy
Scripture, is a gross affront to the Passion and Death of Christ, and is
therefore an abomination before God. (6) Since Christ alone died for us,
and since He is the only mediator and intercessor between God and
believers, He only ought to be invoked; and all other mediators and
advocates ought to be rejected, since they have no warrant in the Holy
Scripture of the Bible. (7) There is no trace of Purgatory after death
in the Bible; and therefore all services for the dead, such as vigils,
Masses, and the like, are vain things. (8) To make pictures and adore
them is contrary to the Old and New Testament, and they ought to be
destroyed where there is the chance that they may be adored. (9)
Marriage is not forbidden to any estate by the Holy Scripture, but
wantonness and fornication are forbidden to everyone in whatever estate
he may be. (10) The fornicator is truly excommunicated by the Holy
Scripture, and therefore wantonness and fornication are much more
scandalous among the clergy than in the other estate.
These _Theses_ represent in succinct fashion the preaching in the
Reformed Church in Switzerland, and the fourth states in its earliest
form what grew to be the Zwinglian doctrine of the Holy Supper.[28]
The Council of Bern had sent invitations to be present to the leading
preachers in the Evangelical cities of Germany and Switzerland. Bucer
and Capito came from Strassburg, Jacob Augsburger from Mühlhausen,
Ambrose Blaarer from Constance, Sebastian Wagner,[29] surnamed
Hofmeister (Oeconomus), from Schaffhausen, Oecolampadius from Basel, and
many others.[30] Zwingli's arrival was eagerly expected. The Zurichers
were resolved not to trust their leader away from the city without a
strong guard, and sent him to Bern with an escort of three hundred
men-at-arms. A great crowd of citizens and strangers filled the arcades
which line both sides of the main street, and every window in the
many-storied houses had its sightseers to watch the Zurichers tramping
up from gate to cathedral with their pastor safe in the centre of the
troop.
Romanist theologians did not muster in anything like the same strength.
The men of the four Forest cantons stood sullenly aloof; the authorities
in French-speaking Switzerland had no liking for the Disputation, and
the strongly Romanist canton of Freiburg did its best to prevent the
theologians of Neuchâtel, Morat, and Grandson from appearing at Bern;
but in spite of the hindrances placed in their way no less than three
hundred and fifty ecclesiastics gathered to the Disputation. The
conference was opened on January 15th (_le dimenche après la feste de la
circuncision_),[31] and was continued in German till the 24th; on the
25th a second discussion, lasting two days, was begun, for the benefit
of strangers, in Latin. "When _la Dispute des Welches_ (strangers) was
opened, a stranger doctor (of Paris) came forward along with some
priests speaking the same language as himself. He attacked the _Ten
Theses_, and William Farel, preacher at Aigle, answered him."[32] The
more distinguished Romanist theologians who were present seem to have
refrained from taking part in the discussion. The Bishop of Lausanne
defended their silence on the grounds that they objected to discuss such
weighty matters in the vulgar tongue; that no opportunity was given to
them to speak in Latin; and that when the Emperor had interdicted the
Disputation they were told by the authorities of Bern that they might
leave the city if it so pleased them.[33]
The result of the Disputation was that the authorities and citizens of
Bern were confirmed in their resolve to adopt the Reformation. The
Disputation ended on the 26th of January (1528), and on the 7th of
February the Mass was declared to be abolished, and a sermon took its
place; images were removed from the churches; the monasteries were
secularised, and the funds were used partly for education and partly to
make up for the French and papal pensions, which were now definitely
renounced, and declared to be illegal.
The two sermons which Zwingli preached in the cathedral during the
Disputation made a powerful impression on the people of Bern. It was
after one of them that M. de Watteville, the Advoyer or President of the
Republic, declared himself to be convinced of the truth of the
Evangelical faith, and with his whole family accepted the Reformation.
His eldest son, a clergyman whose family interest had procured for him
no less than thirteen benefices, and who, it was commonly supposed,
would be the next Bishop of Lausanne, renounced them all to live the
life of a simple country gentleman.[34]
The republic of Bern for long regarded the _Ten Theses_ as the charter
of its religious faith. Not content with declaring the Reformation
legally established within the city, the authorities of Bern sent
despatches or delegates to all the cities and lands under their control,
informing them of what they had done, and inviting them to follow their
example. They insisted that preachers of the Gospel must be at liberty
to deliver their message without interruption throughout all their
territories. They promised that they would maintain the liberty of both
cults until means had been taken to find out which the majority of the
inhabitants preferred, and that the decision would be taken by vote in
presence of commissioners sent down from Bern.[35] When the majority of
the parishioners accepted the Reformation, the new doctrinal standard
was the _Ten Theses_, and the Council of Bern sent directions for the
method of dispensing the Sacraments of Baptism and the Lord's Supper,
and for the solemnisation of marriages. The whole of the German-speaking
portion of the canton proper and its dependences seem to have accepted
the Reformation at once. Bern had, besides, some French-speaking
districts under its own exclusive control, and others over which it
ruled along with Freiburg. The progress of the new doctrines was slower
in these district, but it may be said that they had all embraced the
Reformation before the end of 1530. The history of the Reformation in
French-speaking Switzerland belongs, however, to the next chapter, and
the efforts of Bern to evangelise its subjects in these districts will
be described there.
Not content with this, the Council of Bern constituted itself the patron
and protector of persecuted Protestants outside their own lands, and the
evangelisation of western Switzerland owed almost everything to its
fostering care.[36]
Thus Bern in the west and Zurich in the east stood forth side by side
pledged to the Reformation.
The cantonal authorities of Appenzell had declared, as early as 1524,
that Gospel preaching was to have free course within their territories.
Thomas Wyttenbach had been people's priest in Biel from 1507, and had
leavened the town with his Evangelical preaching. In 1524 he
courageously married. The ecclesiastical authorities were strong enough
to get him deposed; but a year or two later the citizens compelled the
cantonal Council to permit the free preaching of the Gospel. Sebastian
Hofmeister preached in Schaffhausen, and induced its people to declare
for the Reformation. St. Gallen was evangelised by the Humanist Joachim
von Watt (Vadianus), and by John Kessler, who had studied at Wittenberg.
In German Switzerland only Luzern and the Forest cantons remained
completely and immovably attached to the Roman Church, and refused to
tolerate any Evangelical preaching within their borders. The Swiss
Confederacy was divided ecclesiastically into two opposite camps.
The strong religious differences could not but affect the political
cohesion of the Swiss Confederacy, linked together as it was by ties
comparatively slight. The wonder is that they did not altogether destroy
it.
As early as 1522, the Bishop of Constance had asked the Swiss Federal
Diet at their meeting at Baden to prohibit the preaching of the
Reformation doctrines within the Federation; and the next year the Diet,
which met again at Baden (Sept. 1523), issued a declaration that all who
practised religious innovations were worthy of punishment. The deputies
from Luzern were especially active in inducing the Diet to pass this
resolution. The attempt to use the Federation for the purpose of
religious persecution, therefore, first came from the Romanist side. Nor
did they content themselves with declarations in the Diet. The Romanist
canton of Unterwalden, being informed that some of the peasants in the
Bernese Oberland had complained that the Reformation had been forced
upon them, crossed the Bernese frontier and committed an act of war.
Bern smarted under the insult.
These endeavours on the part of his opponents led Zwingli to meditate on
plans for leaguing together for the purposes of mutual defence all who
had accepted the Reformation. His plans from the first went beyond the
Swiss Confederacy.
The imperial city of Constance, the seat of the diocese which claimed
ecclesiastical authority over Zurich, had been mightily moved by the
preaching of Ambrose Blaarer, and had come over to the Protestant faith.
The bishop retired to Meersburg and his chapter to Ueberlingen. The
city feared the attack of Austria, and craved protection from the Swiss
Protestants. Its alliance was valuable to them, for, along with Lindau,
it commanded the whole Lake of Constance. Zurich thereupon asked that
Constance be admitted within the Swiss Federation. This was refused by
the Federal Diet (Nov. 1527). Zurich then entered into a _Christian
Civic League_ (_das christliche Bürgerrecht_) with Constance,--a league
based on their common religious beliefs,--promising to defend each other
if attacked. The example once set was soon followed, and the two
following years saw the League increasing rapidly. Bern joined in June
1528, St. Gallen in Nov. 1528, Biel in January, Mühlhausen in February,
Basel in March, and Schaffhausen in October, 1529. Strassburg was
admitted in January 1530. Even Hesse and Würtemburg washed to join. Bern
and Zurich came to an agreement that Evangelical preaching must be
allowed in the Common Lands, and that no one was to be punished for his
religious opinions.
The combination looked so threatening and contained such possibilities
that Ferdinand of Austria proposed a counter-league among the Romanist
cantons; and a _Christian Union_, in which Luzern, Zug, Schwyz, Uri, and
Unterwalden allied themselves with the Duchy of Austria, was founded in
1529, having for its professed objects the preservation of the mediæval
religion, with some reforms carried out under the guidance of the
ecclesiastical authorities. The Confederates pledged themselves to
secure for each other the right to punish heretics. This League had also
its possibilities of extension. It was thought that Bavaria and Salzburg
might join. The canton of the Valais had already leagued itself with
Savoy against Geneva, and brought its ally within the _Christian Union_.
The very formation of the Leagues threatened war, and occasions of
hostilities were not lacking. Austria was eager to attack Constance, and
Bern longed to punish Unterwalden for its unprovoked invasion of Bernese
territory. The condition and protection of the Evangelical population in
the Common Lands and in the Free Bailiwicks demanded settlement, more
especially as the Romanist cantons had promised to support each other in
asserting their right to punish heretics. War seemed to be inevitable.
Schaffhausen, Appenzell, and the Graubünden endeavoured to mediate; but
as neither Zurich nor Bern would listen to any proposals which did not
include the right of free preaching, their efforts were in vain. The
situation, difficult enough, was made worse by the action of the canton
of Schwyz, which, having caught a Zurich pastor named Kaiser on its
territory, had him condemned and burnt as a heretic. This was the signal
for war. It was agreed that the Zurichers should attack the Romanist
cantons, while Bern defended the Common Lands, and, if need be, the
territory of her sister canton. The plan of campaign was drafted by
Zwingli himself, who also laid down the conditions of peace. His
proposals were, that the Forest cantons must allow the free preaching of
the Gospel within their lands; that they were to forswear pensions from
any external Power, and that all who received them should be punished
both corporeally and by fine; that the alliance with Austria should be
given up; and that a war indemnity should be paid to Zurich and to Bern.
While the armies were facing each other the Zurichers received a strong
appeal from Hans Oebli, the Landamann of Glarus, to listen to the
proposals of the enemy. The common soldiers disliked the internecine
strife. They looked upon each other as brothers, and the outposts of
both armies were fraternising. In these circumstances the Zurich army
(for it was the Swiss custom that the armies on the field concluded
treaties) accepted the terms of peace offered by their opponents. The
treaty is known as the First Peace of Kappel (June 1529). It provided
that the alliance between Austria and the Romanist cantons should be
dissolved, and the treaties "pierced and slit" (the parchments were
actually cut in pieces by the dagger in sight of all); that in the
Common Lands no one was to be persecuted for his religious opinions;
that the majority should decide whether the old faith was to be
retained or not, and that bailiffs of moderate opinions should be sent
to rule them; that neither party should attack the other because of
religion; that a war indemnity should be paid by the Romanist cantons to
Zurich and Bern (the amount was fixed at 2500 Sonnenkronen); and that
the abolition of foreign pensions and mercenary service should be
recommended to Luzern and the Forest cantons. The treaty contained the
seeds of future war; for the Zurichers believed that they had secured
the right of free preaching within the Romanist cantons, while these
cantons believed that they had been left to regulate their own internal
economy as they pleased. Zwingli would have preferred a settlement after
war, and the future justified his apprehensions.
Three months after the First Peace of Kappel, Zwingli was summoned to
the Marburg Colloquy, and the Reformation in Switzerland became
inevitably connected with the wider sphere of German ecclesiastical
politics. It may be well, however, to reserve this until later, and
finish the internal history of the Swiss movement.
The First Peace of Kappel was only a truce, and left both parties
irritated with each other. The friction was increased when the
Protestants discovered that the Romanist cantons would not admit free
preaching within their territories. They also shrewdly suspected that,
despite the tearing and burning of the documents, the understanding with
Austria was still maintained. An event occurred which seemed to justify
their suspicions. An Italian condottiere, Giovanni Giacomo de' Medici,
had seized and held (1525-31) the strong position called the Rocco di
Musso on the Lake of Como, and from this stronghold he dominated the
whole lake. This ruffian had murdered Martin Paul and his son, envoys
from the Graubünden to Milan, and had crossed the lake and harried the
fertile valley of the Adda, known as the Val Tellina, which was then
within the territories of the Graubünden (Grisons). The Swiss
Confederacy were bound to defend their neighbours; but when appeal was
made, the Romanist cantons refused, and the hand of Austria was seen
behind the refusal. Besides, at the Federal Diets the Romanist cantons
had refused to listen to any complaints of persecutions for religion
within their lands. At a meeting between Zurich and her allies, it was
resolved that the Romanist cantons should be compelled to abolish the
system of foreign pensions, and permit free preaching within their
territories. Zurich was for open war, but the advice of Bern prevailed.
It was resolved that if the Romanist cantons would not agree to these
proposals, Zurich and her allies should prevent wine, wheat, salt, and
iron from passing through their territories to the Forest cantons. The
result was that the Forest cantons declared war, invaded Zurich while
that canton was unprepared, fought and won the battle of Kappel, at
which Zwingli was slain. He had accompanied the little army of Zurich as
its chaplain. The victory of the Romanists produced a Second Peace of
Kappel which reversed the conditions of the first. War indemnities were
exacted from most of the Protestant cantons. It was settled that each
canton was to be left free to manage its own religious affairs; that the
_Christian Civic League_ was to be dissolved; and a number of particular
provisions were made which practically secured the rights of Romanist
without corresponding advantages to Protestant minorities. The
territories of Zurich were left untouched, but the city was compelled by
the charter of Kappel to grant rights to her rural districts. She bound
herself to consult them in all important matters, and particularly not
to make war or peace without their consent.
As a result of this ruinous defeat, and of the death of Zwingli which
accompanied it, Zurich lost her place as the leading Protestant canton,
and the guidance of the Reformation movement fell more and more into the
hands of Geneva, which was an ally but not a member of the
Confederation. Another and more important permanent result of this
Second Peace of Kappel was that it was seen in Switzerland as in
Germany that while the Reformation could not be destroyed, it could not
win for itself the whole country, and that Roman Catholics and
Protestants must divide the cantons and endeavour to live peaceably side
by side.
The history of the Reformation in Switzerland after the death of Zwingli
is so linked with the wider history of the movement in Germany and in
Geneva, that it can scarcely be spoken about separately. It is also
intimately related to the differences which separated Zwingli from
Luther in the doctrine of the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper.
§ 7. _The Sacramental Controversy._[37]
In the Bern Disputation of 1528, the fourth thesis said "it cannot be
proved from the Scripture that the Body and Blood of Christ are
substantially and corporeally received in the Eucharist,"[38] and the
statement became a distinctive watchword of the early Swiss Reformation.
This thesis, a negative one, was perhaps the earliest official statement
of a bold attempt to get rid of the priestly miracle in the Mass, which
was the strongest theoretical and practical obstacle to the acceptance
of the fundamental Protestant thought of the spiritual priesthood of all
believers. The question had been seriously exercising the attention of
all the leading theologians of the Reformation, and this very trenchant
way of dismissing it had suggested itself simultaneously to theologians
in the Low Countries, in the district of the Upper Rhine, and in many
of the imperial cities. It had been proclaimed in all its naked
simplicity by Andrew Bodenstein of Carlstadt, the theologian of the
German democracy; but it was Zwingli who worked at the subject
carefully, and who had produced a reasonable if somewhat defective
theory based on a rather shallow exegesis, in which the words of our
Lord, "This _is_ My Body," were declared to mean nothing but "This
_signifies_ My Body." Luther, always disposed to think harshly of
anything that came from Carlstadt, inclined to exaggerate his influence
with the German Protestant democracy, believing with his whole heart
that in the Sacrament of the Holy Supper the elements Bread and Wine
were more than the bare signs of the Body and Blood of the Lord, was
vehemently moved to find such views concerning a central doctrine of
Christianity spreading through his beloved Germany. He never paused to
ask whether the opinions he saw adopted with eagerness in most of the
imperial cities were really different from those of Carlstadt (for that
is one of the sad facts in this deplorable controversy). He simply
denounced them, and stormed against Zwingli, whose name was spread
abroad as their author and propagator. Nürnberg was almost the only
great city that remained faithful to him. It was the only city also
which was governed by the ancient patriciate, and in which the democracy
had little or no power. When van Hoen and Karl Stadt in the Netherlands,
Hedio at Mainz, Conrad Sam at Ulm, when the preachers of Augsburg,
Strassburg, Frankfurt, Reutlingen, and other cities accepted and taught
Zwingli's doctrine of the Eucharist, Luther and his immediate circle saw
a great deal more than a simple division in doctrine. It was something
more than the meaning of the Holy Supper or the exegesis of a difficult
text which rent Protestantism in two, and made Luther and Zwingli appear
as the leaders of opposing parties in a movement where union was a
supreme necessity after the decision at Speyer in 1529. The theological
question was complicated by social and political ideas, which, if not
acknowledged openly, were at least in the minds of the leaders who took
sides in the dispute. On the one side were men whom Luther held to be in
part responsible for the Peasants' War, who were the acknowledged
leaders of that democracy which he had learnt to distrust if not to
fear, who still wished to link the Reformation to vast political
schemes, all of which tended to weaken the imperial power by means of
French and other alliances, and who only added to their other iniquities
a theological theory which, he honestly believed, would take away from
believers their comforting assurance of union with their Lord in the
Sacrament of the Holy Supper.
The real theological difference after all did not amount to so much as
is generally said. Zwingli's doctrine of the Holy Supper was not the
crude theory of Carlstadt; and Luther might have seen this if he had
only fairly examined it. The opposed views were, in fact, complementary,
and the pronounced ideas of each were implicitly, though not expressly,
held by the other. Luther and Zwingli approached the subject from two
different points of view, and in debate they neither understood nor were
exactly facing each other.
The whole Christian Church, during all the centuries, has found three
great ideas embodied in the Sacrament of the Holy Supper, and all three
have express reference to the death of the Saviour on the Cross for His
people. The thoughts are Proclamation, Commemoration, and Participation
or Communion. In the Supper, believers proclaim the death and what it
means; they commemorate the Sacrifice; and they partake in or have
communion with the crucified Christ, who is also the Risen Saviour. The
mediæval Church had insisted that this sacramental union with Christ was
in the hands of the priesthood to give or to withhold. Duly ordained
priests, and they alone, could bring the worshippers into such a
relation with Christ as would make the Sacramental participation a
possible thing: and out of this claim had grown the mediæval theory of
Transubstantiation. It had also divided the Sacrament of the Supper into
two distinct rites (the phrase is not too strong)--the Mass and the
Eucharist--the one connecting itself instinctively with the
commemoration and the other with the participation.
Protestants united in denying the special priestly miracle needed to
bring Christ and His people together in the Sacrament; but it is easy to
see that they might approach the subject by the two separate paths of
Mass or Eucharist. Zwingli took the one road and Luther happened on the
other.
Zwingli believed that the mediæval Church had displaced the scriptural
thought of _commemoration_, and put the non-scriptural idea of
_repetition_ in its place. For the mediæval priest claimed that in
virtue of the miraculous power given in ordination, he could really
change the bread and wine into the actual physical Body of Jesus, and,
when this was done, that he could reproduce over again the agony of the
Cross by crushing it with his teeth. This idea seemed to Zwingli to be
utterly profane; it dishonoured the One great Sacrifice; it was
unscriptural; it depended on a priestly gift of working a miracle which
did not exist. Then he believed that the sixth chapter of St. John's
Gospel forbade all thought that spiritual benefits could come from a
mere partaking with the mouth. It was the atonement worked out by
Christ's death that was appropriated and commemorated in the Holy
Supper; and the atonement is always received by faith. Thus the two
principal thoughts in the theory of Zwingli are, that the mediæval
doctrine must be purified by changing the idea of repetition of the
death of Christ for commemoration of that death, and the thought of
manducating with the teeth for that of faith which is the faculty by
which spiritual benefits are received. But Zwingli believed that a
living faith always brought with it the presence of Christ, for there
can be no true faith without actual spiritual contact with the Saviour.
Therefore Zwingli held that there was a Real Presence of Christ in the
Holy Supper; but a spiritual presence brought by the faith of the
believing communicant and not by the elements of Bread and Wine, which
were only the signs _representing_ a Body which was corporeally absent.
The defect of this theory is that it does not make the Presence of
Christ in the Sacrament in any way depend on the ordinance; there is no
sacramental presence other than what there is in any act of faith. It
was not until Zwingli had elaborated his theory that he sought for and
found an explanation of the words of our Lord, and taught that _This is
My Body_, must mean _This signifies My Body_. His theory was entirely
different from that of Carlstadt, with which Luther always identified
it.
Luther approached the whole subject by a different path. What repelled
him in the mediæval doctrine of the Holy Supper was the way in which he
believed it to trample on the spiritual priesthood of all believers. He
protested against Transubstantiation and private Masses, because they
were the most flagrant instances of that contempt. When he first
preached on the subject (1519) it was to demand the "cup" for the laity,
and he makes use of an expression in his sermon which reveals how his
thoughts were tending. He says that in the Sacrament of the Holy Supper
"the communicant is so united to Christ _and His saints_, that Christ's
life and sufferings _and the lives and sufferings of the saints_ become
his." No one held more strongly than Luther that the Atonement was made
by our Lord, and by Him alone. Therefore he cannot be thinking of the
Atonement when he speaks of union with the lives and the sufferings of
the saints. He believes that the main thing in the Sacrament is that it
gives such a companionship with Jesus as His disciples and saints have
had. There was, of course, a reference to the death of Christ and to the
Atonement, for apart from that death no companionship is possible; but
the reference is indirect, and through the thought of the fellowship. In
the Sacrament we touch Christ as His disciples might have touched Him
when He lived on earth, and as His glorified saints touch Him now. This
reference, therefore, clearly shows that Luther saw in the Sacrament of
the Supper the presence of the glorified Body of our Lord, and that the
primary use of the Sacrament was to bring the communicant into contact
with that glorified Body. This required a presence (and Luther thought a
presence extended in space) of the glorified Body of Christ in the
Sacrament in order that the communicant might be in actual contact with
it. But communion with the Living Christ implies the appropriation of
the death of Christ, and of the Atonement won by His death. Thus the
reference to the Crucified Christ which Zwingli reaches directly, Luther
attains indirectly; and the reference to the Living Risen Christ which
Zwingli reaches indirectly, Luther attains directly. Luther avoided the
need of a priestly miracle to bring the Body extended in space into
immediate connection with the elements Bread and Wine, by introducing a
scholastic theory of what is meant by presence in Space. A body may be
present in Space, said the Schoolmen, in two ways: it may be present in
such a way that it excludes from the space it occupies any other body,
or it may be present occupying the same space with another body. The
Glorified Body of Christ can be present in the latter manner. It was so
when our Lord after His Resurrection appeared suddenly among His
disciples in a room when the doors were shut; for then at some moment of
time it must have occupied the same space as a portion of the walls or
of the door. Christ's glorified Body can therefore be naturally in the
_elements_ without any special miracle, for it is _ubiquitous_. It is in
the table at which I write, said Luther; in the stone which I hurl
through the air. It is in the _elements_ in the Holy Supper in a
perfectly natural way, and needs no priestly miracle to bring it there.
This natural presence of the Body of Christ in the elements in the
Supper is changed into a Sacramental Presence by the promise of God,
which is attached to the reverent and believing partaking of the Holy
Supper.
These were the two theories which ostensibly divided the Protestants in
1529 into two parties, the one of which was led by Zwingli and the other
by Luther. They were not so antagonistic that they could not be
reconciled. Each theologian held implicitly what the other declared
explicitly. Zwingli placed the relation to the Death of Christ in the
foreground, but implicitly admitted the relation to the Risen
Christ--going back to the view held in the Early Church. Luther put
fellowship with the Risen Christ in the foreground, but admitted the
reference to the Crucified Christ--accepting the mediæval way of looking
at the matter. The one had recourse to a very shallow exegesis to help
him, and the other to a scholastic theory of space; and naturally, but
unfortunately, when controversy arose, the disputant attacked the
weakest part of his opponent's theory--Luther, Zwingli's exegesis; and
Zwingli, Luther's scholastic theory of spatial presence.
The attempt to bring about an understanding between Luther and Zwingli,
made by Philip of Hesse, the confidant of Zwingli, and in sympathy with
the Swiss Reformer's schemes of political combination, has already been
mentioned, and its failure related.[39] It need not be discussed again.
But for the history of the Reformation in Switzerland it is necessary to
say something about the further progress of this Sacramental
controversy. Calvin gradually won over the Swiss Protestants to his
views; and his theory, which at one time seemed about to unite the
divided Protestants, must be alluded to.
Calvin began his study of the doctrine of the Sacrament of the Holy
Supper independently of both Luther and Zwingli. His position as the
theologian of Switzerland, and his friendship with his colleague William
Farel, who was a Zwinglian, made him adapt his theory to Zwinglian
language; but he borrowed nothing from the Reformer of Zurich. He was
quite willing to accept Zwingli's exegesis so far as the words went; but
he gave another and altogether different meaning to Zwingli's phrase,
_This signifies My Body_. He was willing to call the "elements" _signs_
of the Body and Blood of the Lord; but while Zwingli called them signs
which _represent_ (_signa representativa_) what was _absent_, Calvin
insisted on calling them signs which _exhibit_ (_signa exhibitiva_) what
was _present_--a distinction which is continually forgotten in
describing his relation to the theories of Zwingli, and one which
enabled him to convince Luther that he held that there was a Real
Presence of Christ's Body in the Sacrament of the Holy Supper. To
describe minutely Calvin's doctrine of the Holy Supper would require
more space than can be given here, and a brief statement of the central
thoughts is alone possible. His aim in common with all the Reformers was
to construct a doctrine of the Sacrament of the Supper which would be at
once scriptural, free from superstition and from the crass materialist
associations which had gathered round the theory of transubstantiation,
and which would clearly conserve the great Reformation proclamation of
the spiritual priesthood of all believers. He went back to the mediæval
idea of transubstantiation, and asked whether it gave a true conception
of what was meant by _substance_. He decided that it did not, and
believed that the root thought in _substance_ was not dimensions in
space, but power. The _substance_ of a body consists in its _power_,
active and passive, and the _presence_ of the _substance_ of anything
consists in the immediate application of that power.[40] When Luther and
Zwingli had spoken of the _substance_ of the Body of Christ, they had
always in their mind the thought of something extended in space; and the
one affirmed while the other denied that this Body of Christ, something
extended in space, could be and was present in the Sacrament of the
Supper. Calvin's conception of _substance_ enabled him to say that
wherever anything acts there it is. He denied the crude "substantial"
presence which Luther insisted on; and in this he sided with Zwingli.
But he affirmed a real because active presence, and in this he sided
with Luther.
Calvin's view had been accepted definitely by Melanchthon, and somewhat
indefinitely by Luther. The imperial cities, led by Strassburg, which
was under the influence of Bucer, who had thought out for himself a
doctrine not unlike that of Calvin, had been included in the Wittenberg
Concord (May 1536); but Luther would have nothing to do with the Swiss.
As it was vain to hope that Switzerland would be included in any
Lutheran alliance, Calvin set himself to produce dogmatic harmony in
Switzerland. In conjunction with Bullinger, Zwingli's son-in-law and
successor in Zurich, he drafted the _Consensus of Zurich_ (_Consensus
Tigurinus_) in 1549.[41] The document is Calvinist in theology and
largely Zwinglian in language. It was accepted with some difficulty in
Basel and in Bern, and heartily in Biel, Schaffhausen, Mühlhausen, and
St. Gallen. It ended dogmatic disputes in Protestant Switzerland, which
was thus united under the one creed.
This does not mean any increase of Protestantism within Switzerland. The
Romanist cantons drew more closely together. Cardinal Carlo Borromeo of
Milan took a deep interest in the Counter-Reformation in Switzerland. He
introduced the Jesuits into Luzern and the Forest cantons, and after his
death these cantons formed a league which included Luzern, Uri, Schwyz,
Zug, Unterwalden, Freiburg, and Solothurn (1586). This League (_the
Borromean League_) pledged its members to maintain the Roman Catholic
faith. The lines of demarcation between Protestant and Romanist cantons
in Switzerland practically survive to the present day.