Huldreich 1484-1531 Zwingli

ZWINGLI, HULDREICH (1484-1531), Swiss reformer, was born on Jan. 1, 1484, at Wildhaus in the Toggenburg valley, St. Gall, Switzerland. He came of a free peasant stock, his father being amtmann of the village; his mother, Margaret Meili, was the sister of the abbot of Fischingen in Thurgau. His uncle, Bar tholomew Zwingli, afterwards dekan or superintendent of Wesen, had been elected parish priest of Wildhaus. He went to school at Wesen, then at Basle, and finally at Berne, where his master, Heinrich Wolflin, inspired him with an enthusiasm for the classics. In 1500 he was sent to the university of Vienna to study phi losophy. He then returned to Basle, where he graduated in the university and taught classics in the school of St. Martin's church. At twenty-two Zwingli was ordained by the bishop of Constance and elected parish priest of Glarus. The ten years which Zwingli spent at Glarus laid the foundations of his work as a reformer. He there began the study of Greek that he might "learn the teach ing of Christ from the original sources," and gave some attention to Hebrew. He read also the older Church Fathers and his skill in the classics led his friends to hail him as "the undoubted Cicero of our age." He entered into correspondence with Erasmus, and received a somewhat chilling patronage; whilst the brilliant humanist, Pico della Mirandola (1463-94), taught him to criticize Catholic doctrine. His first publications, which appeared as rhymed allegories, were political rather than religious; they were directed against the Swiss practice of hiring out mercenaries in the European wars. In 1521 he prevailed upon the authorities of the canton of ZUrich to renounce the practice altogether. Especially did he oppose alliances with France ; but the French party in Glarus was strong, and it retaliated so fiercely that in 1516 Zwingli was glad to accept the post of people's priest at Einsiedeln. He dated his arrival at evangelical truth from the three years (1516 19) which he spent in this place. There he studied the New Testa ment in the editions of Erasmus and began to found his preaching on "the Gospel," which he declared to be simple and easy to understand.

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Zwingli began to preach "the Gospel" in 1516, but a contemporary says that he did it so cunningly (listiglich) that none could suspect his drift. He began his work without saying much about corruptions in the Roman Church, and it was his political denunciation of the fratricidal wars into which the pope, not less than others, was drawing his fellow-countrymen, that first led to rupture with the papal see. Three visits which he had paid to Italy as army chaplain opened his eyes to the worldly character of the papal rule, and he began to attack at Einsiedeln the superstitions which attended the great pilgrimages made to that place. Zwingli denounced the publication of plenary indul gence to all visitors to the shrine. When in August 1518 the Fran ciscan monk Bernardin Samson appeared in Switzerland with a commission to sell indulgences, Zwingli persuaded the council to forbid his entrance into Zurich.

Zwingli now became (1518) people's priest at the Great Minster of Zurich. In the beginning of 1519 he began a series of discourses on St. Matthew's Gospel, the Acts of the Apostles, and the Pauline epistles; and with these it may be said that the Reforma tion was fairly begun in Zilrich. His correspondence of this year shows him jealous of the growing influence of Luther. He claimed to have discovered the Gospel before ever Luther was heard of in Switzerland. Towards the end of September he fell ill with

the plague ; his illness sobered his spirit and brought into his message a deeper note than that merely moral and common-sense one with which, as a polite humanist, he had hitherto been content. He began to preach against fasting, saint worship and the celibacy of priests. People were found eating flesh in Lent, and the bishop of Constance accused them before the council of Zurich. Zwingli was heard in their defence and the accusation was abandoned. His first Reformation tract, April 1522, dealt with this subject: Von Erkiesen and Fryheit der Spysen. The matter of the celibacy of the clergy was more serious. Zwingli had joined in an address to the bishop of Constance calling on him no longer to endure the scandal of harlotry, but to allow the priests to marry wives, or, at least, to wink at their marriages. Pope Adrian VI. interfered and asked the ZUrichers to abandon Zwingli, but the reformer persuaded the council to allow a public disputation (1523), when he produced sixty-seven theses and vindicated his position so strongly that the council decided to uphold their preacher and to separate the canton from the bishopric of Con stance. Thus legal sanction was given in Zurich to the Ref orma tion. In 1522 Zwingli produced his first considerable writing, the Architeles, "the beginning and the end," in which he sought by a single blow to win his spiritual freedom from the control of the bishops, and in a sermon of that year he contended that only the Holy Spirit is requisite to make the Word intelligible, and that there is no need of Church, council, or pope in the matter. Victory of Reform.—There was a strong opposition to the Reformation, especially in the five Forest Cantons: Lucerne, Zug, Schwyz, Uri and Unterwalden ; and the ZUrichers felt it necessary to form a league in its defence. They were especially anxious to gain Berne, and Zwingli challenged the Romanists to a public disputation in that city. The pleadings began on Jan. 2, 1523 and lasted nineteen days. Zwingli and his companions undertook to defend the following propositions:— (I) That the Holy Christian Church, of which Christ is the only Head, is born of the Word of God, abides therein, and does not listen to the voice of a stranger ; (2) that this Church imposes no laws on the conscience of people without the sanction of the Word of God, and that the laws of the Church are binding only in so far as they agree with the Word ; (3) that Christ alone is our righteousness and our salvation, and that to trust to any other merit or satisfaction is to deny Him ; (4) that it cannot be proved from the Holy Scripture that the body and blood of Christ are corporeally present in the bread and in the wine of the Lord's Supper; (5) that the mass, in which Christ is offered to God the Father for the sins of the living and of the dead. is contrary to Scripture and a gross affront to the sacrifice and death of the Saviour ; (6) that we should not pray to dead mediators and inter cessors, but to Jesus Christ alone; (7) that there is no trace of purga tory in Scripture ; (8) that to set up pictures and to adore them is also contrary to Scripture, and that images and pictures ought to be destroyed where there is danger of giving them adoration ; (9) that marriage is lawful to all, to the clergy as well as to the laity ; (io) that shameful living is more disgraceful among the clergy than among the laity.