CHAPTER II. THE SWISS SCHOOL OF CHURCH-REFORMERS, LAND. Early career of Zwingli (b. 1484.) SWITZERLAND. SWITZER AS Luther stands unrivalled in the group of worthies who conducted what is termed the Saxon Reformation, Zwingli's figure is originally foremost in the kindred struggles of the Swiss. He was born on New Year's day. 1484, and was thus Luther's junior only by seven weeks. His father was the leading man of Wildhaus, a parish in the Toggenburg, where, high above the level of the lake of Zürich, he retained the simple dignity and truthfulness that characterized the Swiss of olden times, before they were so commonly attracted from their native pastures to decide the battles of adjacent states2. Huldreich Zwingli. being destined for the priesthood, sought his elementary education at Basle and Berne, and after studying philosophy for two years at the university of Vienna, commenced his theological course at Basle under the care of Thomas Wyttenbach, a teacher justly held in very high repute. At the early age of twenty-two, Zwingli was 1 On the boyhood and early training of Zwingli, see Schuler's Huldreich Zwingli, Zürich, 1819. The best contemporary Life of him is by Oswald Myconius, the reforming preacher, who died at Basle in 1552. It is reprinted in Stäudlin's Archiv für Kirchengesch. Vol. I. Their services were especially solicited by the pope on one side, and the French on the other. Hence arose the custom of pensions by which a French party had acquired gene ral ascendancy in Switzerland at the beginning of the sixteenth century. Ranke, Ref. III. 65, 66. 3 He belonged to the same schoo as Erasmus, and besides inspiring LAND. appointed priest of Glarus (1506). He carried with him SWITZERinto his seclusion a passionate love of letters, and especially His classical of that untrodden field of literature which was exciting the tastes. profoundest admiration of the age,-the classical remains of Greece and Rome. To these he long devoted his chief interest; for although not unacquainted with the writings of the Middle Ages, scholasticism had never any charm for him, and exercised but little influence on his mental training. Thus while Luther undervalued the wisdom of the heathen poets and philosophers, Zwingli venerated them as gifted with an almost supernatural inspiration". principles. At the same time other traits no less distinctive in his character were strongly brought to light. Zwingli was His politica from first to last a genuine republican, not only by the accident of birth in the Helvetic confederacy, but as it seemed by an original instinct of his nature. Hence we find the pastor of Glarus busily engaged in politics, composing patriotic allegories in denunciation of 'the foreigners,' taking the field with his courageous flock, and even present at the battle of Marignano, where his countrymen at last succumbed beneath the chivalry of France (1515). student of the But in the meanwhile an important change was passing Becomes a over the complexion of his private studies. In 1513 he Bible. applied himself with characteristic ardour to the cultivation of the Greek language, and accepting the principles of his pupils with a love of classical literature, excited them against the more extravagant of the Mediæval notions. Zwingli says (Opp. III. 544, ed. Schuler) that he learned from Wyttenbach 'solam Christi mortem pretium esse remissionis peccatorum. • Ranke, III. 63. Walter (Gualther), his son-in-law, whose Apology for him was prefixed to the edition of his works which appeared in 1545, has to answer the following charge among others: 'Quosdam ex Ethnicorum numero, homines impios, cru deles, horrendos, idololatras et Epi- 5 These were entitled Der Laby- 6 'Cœpi prædicare Evangelium,' he writes in 1523, antequam Lutheri nomen unquam audivissem. Atque in eum usum ante decem annos operam dedi Græcanicis literis, ut ex fontibus doctrinam Christi haurire possem:' Opp. (ed. Gualther. 1545), I. fol. 38 a. He did not SWITZER- exegesis then advocated by Erasmus, resolved that the LAND. Bible, and especially the New Testament in the original, Zwingli contrasted with Luther. should be in future his great touchstone for determining the nature and the limits of religious truth. In all this process, notwithstanding some analogies, the course of Zwingli had diverged considerably from that of the Wittenberg reformer. Luther, as we saw, was forced inte collision with the church-authorities by an internal pressure of the conscience, a profound and overwhelming impulse of his moral sensibilities. Though disciplined to habits of submission, and by nature indisposed to break away from the traditions of the past, he was nevertheless unable to repress the storm of holy indignation that arose within him on beholding the practical substitution of man's righteousness for Christ's1, of justification by the law for justification by faith. But if this error had been once corrected, Luther's quarrel with the dominant school of theologians would in all probability have ceased. Zwingli, on the contrary. had no such reverence for the Church, and no such bond of union with antiquity. His thoughts were for the most part circumscribed within his native mountains, and concentrated on the parish where his lot was cast. That joyous heart, of which his cheerful countenance was the unfailing index, had been well-nigh unacquainted with the spiritual tempests in which Luther learned to fathom the abyss of human depravity, and tested the victorious power of faith: and therefore what the Saxon friar undertook as the result of holy impulses and spiritual intuitions, the Swiss clergy indeed condemn the reading of the nymus neque cæteri, sed sola Scrip tura Divina apud Christianos in pretio sit futura:') Ibid. 1. fol. 37 b 1 Cf. above, p. 43, n. 4. Ranke, Ref. III. 96. 3 'Ingenio amoenus et ore jucun dus supra quam dici possit erat," is the description of Oswald Myconius. He had also a fine musical taste. LAND. man was rather aiming to achieve by the employment of SWITZER his critical and reasoning faculties. He rose at length to controvert established usages and dogmas of the Church, because he had not found them in his careful study of the Greek Testament. ship with atory efforts. The Swiss reformer had thus many points in common His friendwith Erasmus, and accordingly as soon as the literary Erasmus. chieftain came to Basle in 1514, frequent communications* passed between them. There is nothing,' wrote Zwingli, 'of which I am prouder than to have seen Erasmus.' But in 1516 he began to manifest far greater boldness than his learned correspondents. Having been transferred to Einsiedeln in the autumn of that year, he laboured to divert his people from the grosser forms of image-worship and First reformother like corruptions, and even wrote to his diocesan, the bishop of Constance, urging the necessity of minor reformations. Two years later he was appointed to a preachership in the collegiate church of Zürich (Jan. 1, 1519) where he found a more appropriate arena for his eloquence, and where his force of character at once exalted him to the position he retained during the rest of his life. His efforts had at this period a three-fold tendency,—to vindicate the absolute supremacy of Holy Scripture, and establish what 4 See, for instance, Erasmi Epist. Lib. XXXI. ep. 52. 5 Erasmus was, however, the chief agent in determining his course: Opp. 1. fol. 55 b, ed. Gualther. He had learned from a poem of his friend that Christ was the true 'Patron' of the sinner and the helpless. 'Hunc enim vidi unicum esse thesaurum pii pectoris, quin cœpi scriptis Bibliorum sacrorum veterumque patrum diligentius intendere, certius quiddam ex his de divorum intercessione venaturus. In Bibliis Sacris plane nihil reperi. Apud quosdam veterum de ea re inveni, apud alios nihil.' His removal to this lonelier R. P. district (Eremitorium') was chiefly 7 Waddington, II. 271, 272. In I LAND. Establishes himself at Zürich, 1519. SWITZER- he deemed a juster method of interpretation1; to purify the morals of the citizens; and to recall the Swiss confederation to those principles of independence on which it had been founded. In the spring of 1519 some correspondence took place between the Zürichers and Leo X. respecting a Franciscan friar3 who had ventured to reopen the disgraceful traffic that drew forth the animadversions of Luther in 1517. The obnoxious agent was immediately withdrawn, and so amicably, that the Swiss reformer, who directed the resistance of his fellow-townsmen, still continued to enjoy a pension given him by the pope. In the following year, however, his harangues at Zürich had induced the cantonal authorities to publish a decree enjoining that pastors should henceforth have perfect liberty to preach all doctrines that could claim the warrant of the 1 Instead of preaching exclusively from the select passages of Holy Scripture contained in the 'Lectionarium,' he expounded whole books, beginning with St. Matthew ('idque absque humanis commentationibus ex solis fontibus Scripturæ Sacræ'): Opp. I. fol. 37 b, ed. Gualther. In his Architeles (an apologetic treatise, dated Aug. 23, 1522), he mentions the order in which the other books were taken, and gives his reasons for adopting it: Ibid. 1. fol. 132 b. 2 His friend Oswald Myconius (Ad Sacerdotes Helvetia, Tiguri, 1524, pp. 5, 6) enlarges on the moral and spiritual improvements he effected; and his own personal character, which after early youth had been most exemplary (cf. Opp. I. fol. 227 a), added force to his exhortations. 3 See, respecting this 'Tetzel of Switzerland, Waddington, Ref. 11. 272, 273. One of his earliest opponents was Bullinger, dean of Bremgarten, whose son Henry became distinguished as a Swiss reformer, and has left an account of the circumstances in his Hist. of the Reformation (reaching to 1532): ed, J. J. Hottin ger, I. 17 sq. From this period Zwingli was suspected of Luther anism' (cf. Opp. I. 37 b sq. ed. Gua!ther), although he seems to have proceeded very independently: above, p. III, n. 6. He wrote, for instance, in 1523 (Opp. 1. 38 a): Nec ignore Lutherum multa adhuc dare infir mis, ubi aliter posset, in quibus ei non subscribo, ut in sermone De decem Leprosis audio (non enim legij eum aliquid tribuere confessioni auriculari,' etc. It amounted to 50 gulden, and was granted, ostensibly at least, to encourage him in the prosecution of his studies: but one object of his patron may have been political, riz to command the services of such a man in the struggle of the papacy against the French. He openly resigned it in 1520. His importance was felt to be so great that even after the Reformation was fairly commenced pope Adrian wrote him a cajoling letter (Jan. 23, 1523) preserved in Bullinger (as above), 1.83 The same feeling had induced the legate (1518) to appoint him as one of the acolyth-chaplains of the pop see Waddington, II. 278. |