Full screen

Download as Word Document

..D. Social Change and the Reformation

..10. Huldrych Zwingli

..Tutor: Brian Yhearm

Contents

Introduction
1. Huldrych Zwingli: the Myth and the Man
2. Zwingli Websites

Part I: Zwingli and the Origins of the Reformation in Zurich
1. The "Swiss" Reformation
2. The Reformation in Zurich
3. Main Components of the Early Zurich Reformation

Part II: The Role of Huldrych Zwingli in the Reformation
1. Zwingli’s Early Career
2. Zwingli’s Humanism
3. Zwingli’s Conversion
4. Zwingli and Scripture
5. Zwingli and the Course of the Reformation

Part III: Preparation for Week 11: Images and Iconoclasm
1. Reading
2. Set Reading
3. Seminar Preparation

Introduction

1. Huldrych Zwingli: the Myth and the Man

For many scholars, and certainly in the popular imagination, the Reformation was the result of the work of Martin Luther which was itself in some way consolidated by John Calvin. These two towering figures dominate received thinking about the Reformation. There are many questions, however, which could be raised about the success of Luther’s Reformation and therefore the sense in popularizing his influence and importance. In "Lectures" 8 and 9 we saw the key role of Calvin in solidifying the Reformation and it was in fact the work of Zwingli (and Martin Bucer) that Calvin so effectively consolidated.

Looking at the output of research papers and books, Huldrych Zwingli has been almost completely overshadowed by Luther and by Calvin but should neverthless be examined in his own right. Unlike Luther and Calvin, Zwingli was a parish priest and army chaplain and his patriotism is an essential part in understanding his theology [6.1.3, Stephens, 1986, p. 7]. Indeed, Zwingli’s character led him to death on the battlefield [see the various accounts in, 6.1.1.2, Potter, pp. 142-46]: ‘thus from the start Zwingli’s ministry and theology were set in a framework that was social and political, indeed national and international’ [6.1.3, Stephens, 1986, p. 8]. Luther’s Reformation emerged from a considerable difference with scholasticism and its particular theological principles and methods, Zwingli, by way of contrast, was more versed in humanism and the world and its affairs. Zwingli, then, was a man of different substance to that of Luther and Calvin and should be in no way regarded as an interesting and/or marginal aside to the Reformation. ‘Zwingli was not Luther, nor a variant of Luther’ [6.1.3, Stephens, 1986, p. 1].

Although a peripheral figure in terms of academic research, Zwingli does feature in all manner of introductions to the Reformation so his place is secure in the canon of reformers but we lack accesible, good English translations of his work and we lack the range of research on Zwingli which we find with Luther and with Calvin.

The nature of studying history may inevitably force us to "compare and contrast" the work of Zwingli and the work of Luther [5.1, McGrath, 1988, pp. 178-81, for example, cannot resist this]. The way we learn, after all, is through the association of the unfamiliar with the familiar and the known. Nevertheless, there are great dangers in the comparison approach, not least the implication that history is teleogically structured: Zwingli "followed" Luther and was followed, in turn, by Calvin. This is surely not so, we simply arrange events into an inevitable pattern as we seek to comprehend their specific context and meaning.

To reiterate what was said in "lecture" I, ‘What is History’, the study of history requires careful thought, application and an attention to detail. Each historian has a particular and inevitable bias. The historian selects the evidence to support a theory [4.2, Grimm]. No historian simply presents to a case un-interpreted evidence. The method of study of the past, too, is important. The documentary evidence is central but the questions asked about the evidence are equally crucial. A text about a particular subject reveals a range of information. For example, the Ninety-Five Theses of Martin Luther or the Sixty-Seven Theses of Zwingli (the Schlussreden) can tell us something about social, religious and political aspects of the early sixteenth-century, they are not simply "documents" of the past. A document, too, like the Ninety-Five Theses can become mythologised, as many link the origins of the Reformation with the posting of these theses in 1517.

History is not simply the recounting of royal dynasties, nor is it only the story of great men. History is a branch of learning which necessarily emphasises the particular fact over the general theory and pluralistic explanations of an event or a life are to be preferred to monocausal explanations [see 4.2, Holborn, for an early insight into this attitude]. History is complex because the past is complex and what we know of history is necessarily selective and partial. Zwingli should, therefore, be given full attention within this explicit historical perspective.

2. Zwingli Websites

Unfortunately, but not surprisingly, there are no obvious Internet websites associated with Zwingli that have primary sources such as we have seen with Erasmus, Luther and Calvin [a list of Zwingli’s work is given in, 6.1.3, Stephens, 1986, pp. 310-12]. The best place for these kind of texts, therefore, is in [6.1.1.2] Potter, Zwingli, which has a useful collection, albeit brief.

If there are no obvious websites for primary sources on Huldrych Zwingli there are, nevertheless, two websites of related interest. The website, ‘A Swiss Reformation Bibliography on the World Wide Web’ has a link to a Zwingli page which lists recent publications on his work and his thought. The ‘Swiss Reformation Bibliography ...’, however, also has a number of significant hyperlinks to further Reformation websites: St. Andrews Reformation Studies Institute, the Electronic Sixteenth Century Journal, etc.

Part I: Zwingli and the Origins of the Reformation in Zurich

1. The "Swiss" Reformation

First of all, "What was Switzerland?" In 1291 three associations of townsmen broke from the Holy Roman Empire (Uri, Schwyz and Unterwalden) and other cantons joined regularly (with Appenzell being the last in 1513) to form the Swiss confederation of thirteen [6.1.2, Greengrass, pp. 92f.]. The Rhine river marked the northern border [see the map, 6.1.3, Potter 1976, p. 40]. This confederation was often an uneasy alliance with political maneuvering and power shifts yet one aspect remained constant up to the Reformation - a clear religious alliance to Rome [6.1.3, Stephens, 1992, pp. 7f.].

The German Reformation developed when two contrasting political factors took on a greater importance than formerly was the case in the Medieval period: (a) territorial states began to emerge and (b) self-governing small towns and cites began to establish themselves. These territories and cities stood in opposition to what many people regarded was the self-aggrandizement of the Papacy. "The first impulse for the spread of the Reformation in the Swiss confederation originated in the cities. Zurich took the lead, followed by Berne and, later, by Basel and Schaffhausen" [6.1.5, Greyerz, p. 30]. The Reformation in Germany and in Switzerland developed first largely in the free imperial cites each of which regarded themselves in some respects as sovereign cities [2.1, Cameron, pp. 219-34]. Within those cities the guilds were powerful forces of order and stability and/or change and dissension [2.1, Cameron, pp. 210-63].

Cities in sixteenth-century Switzerland were comparatively small: Basel and Geneva were the largest (about 10,000 inhabitants) and Zurich half their size. But it was Zurich which fueled the Reformation in Switzerland [6.1.2, Greengrass, pp. 92-100] and in Zurich ‘the Gospel is social’ [6.1.3, Stephens, 1986, p. 282]. ‘The Swiss reform rhythm (was) punctuated by public debate and a particularly "civic" tone and outcome’ [6.1.2, Greengrass, p. 95].

2. The Reformation in Zurich

If the Reformation in Switzerland began in Zurich it can also be said to have begun with Huldrych Zwingli [6.1.2, Greengrass, pp. 94-97]. Zwingli was the priest at the Grossmünster church from December 1518 and three simultaneously occurring events stirred him to reform: (a) his discovery of Augustine’s theology; (b) knowledge of Martin Luther’s quest for reform and (c) his own experience of the plague of 1519 (see below, Part II, section 3).

Zwingli combined both ecclesiastical reform with social reform and in doing so differed widely from Luther who, as we saw in "Lecture" 7 (and will see in "Lecture" 11, ‘Images and Iconoclasm’), was reactionary or conservative when it came to political reform. Because Zwingli added social reform to ecclesiastical reform (itself having inevitable social, economic and political aspects), his quest for Reformation won him many opponents. Opposition was so strong in fact that Zwingli appealed to the city council and was granted a disputation which occurred on January 29, 1523, and which brought him a decisive victory and with it the removal of religious images and the abolition of the Mass [6.1.3, Wandel, p. 321; 6.1.1.2, Potter, pp. 30ff.]. The substance of the debate is summarized in Zwingli’s Sixty-Seven Theses (or articles) which are the very fundamentals of his theology [given in, 6.1.1.2, Potter, p. 21-25].

This first Zurich disputation was a watershed in the Reformation in Switzerland and it was accompanied by socio-religious turmoil most obviously manifested in popular iconoclasm (see "Lecture" 11) which marked a significant shift in attitude to the Reformation experienced in Germany [6.1.3, Potter, 1976, pp. 22-24]. The nature of the confederacy of cantons in Switzerland meant that Zurich would be alone in its Reformation unless further changes could be forged and allies could be sought. By 1529 Berne was in alliance with Zurich against the Catholic cantons of central Switzerland [6.1.3, Potter, 1976, pp. 39-45]. Indeed, the confessional dichotomy brought cantons into open conflict and war [6.1.2, Greengrass, p. 94]. The result of these conflicts was the defeat of many of the Reformation thinkers and followers; two battles in October 1531 saw the demise of the expansion of Protestantism and the death of many of Zurich’s political leaders including Zwingli [6.1.5, Greyerz, pp. 30-37]. In fact, ‘his body was quartered and burnt as the corpse of a heretic and the ashes defiled and scattered’ [6.1.3, Potter, 1976, p. 44], ironically to prevent the body being retained as a repository for relic production!

3. Main Components of the Reformation in Zurich

The Reformation in Zurich was similar to the shape of the Reformation in the rest of Switzerland and it centred around the close co-operation of the secular and the spiritual authorities. There was a particular emphasis on church discipline and moral control and this is obvious from our brief examination of the church in Calvin’s Geneva. There were three areas where communal discipline impinged most obvious on individuals in Zurich and elsewhere: (a) in poor relief, (b) in education and (c) in the control of public morality.

(a) Poor Relief

One of the key social effects of the emergence of the Reformation was the reduction of almsgiving. Poor relief was transformed when the intinerant mendicant friars were banned, discouraged or removed from centres of the Reformation. The begging of these individuals was on the basis of their spiritual superiority and was rejected by Reformation thinking. Yet the poor were still present in the Reformation cities and alms giving was drying up as a source of relief. From January 1525, poor relief was established in Zurich which provided daily food [see, 6.1.3, Birnbaum]. 

(b) Education

We observed when we examined the work of Martin Luther that his catechism was an important element in the (re-)education of individuals in the Reformation movement. Luther conceived of a programme of education for the Reformation Christian based upon the catechism. His Larger Catechism formed the greater part of his strategy for the ordinary lay people as did the summary, Small Catechism, which is primarily based on the Ten Commandments. (See also, Luther’s Table Talk, sections 264-70).

Luther’s education programme met with mixed success, as did his Reformation, and it is perhaps here that the difference between Luther and Calvin is most marked. The Institutes of the Christian Religion were Calvin’s attempt at systematically laying out a Christian pedagogy [6.1.2, Ganoczy, 1966, pp. 137-68]. He collected together in one place what he regarded as the core of the faith and what he saw as essential to Christian living: ‘it was the most sustained presentation of the fabric of reformed Protestant Christianity in the sixteenth-century’ [6.1.2, Greengrass, p. 173]. In this Calvin was the heir to Zwingli and the "civic" Reformation in Switzerland.

(c) Public Morality

In the Medieval era, public morality was the concern of the ecclesiastical courts but with the development of the Reformation it became increasingly the concern of the city magistracy - lay-clerical courts and/or consistories - or each city council. So with the establishment of Reformation principles in cities such as Geneva and Zurich the reformers could have their religious and social changes carried through by secular authorities although the theocratic impulse of Zwingli and others would have the rulers subservient to the Law of God. In Zurich prostitution, for example, was closely controlled (although in Berne and Basel it was prohibited) and restrictions placed upon unseemly public behaviour.

As we noted in "Lecture" 4, the Catholic Church was arranged around a number of fixed events and dates familiar to us all: Easter, Advent, Sunday etc. [there is a very helpful section, ‘The Fabric of the Church’, in 1.1, Greengrass, pp. 1-25, 5.1]. More significant, perhaps, for the average sixteenth-century city dweller was the "carnival" which formed a kind of public catharsis for sin but was often regarded by the especially pious as a communal debauch [5.1, Bossy, 1985, pp. 42-45; 5.2, Flynn]. One particularly devout reformer, Johannes Stumpf, described the participants in the carnival as: ‘inebriated day and night, (they) eat like gluttons, shout like wild beasts and sing inexpressibly base songs’ [cited in 6.1.5, Greyerz, p. 40]. The Reformation leaders of Zurich banned the carnival.

The common revision of public morality such as with prostitution and drunkeness is not particularly controversial but the control over the minds and actions of sixteenth-century popular culture is a particularly debatable issue. One of the most awful repercussions of control is in the climate of suspicion strict formal beliefs systems can engender. In the sixteenth-century we see the rise of the witch-craze where many thousands of ordinary individuals, particularly women, were branded as sorcerers and witches.

The Medieval world and the Reformation world were dangerous places for dissenters and the most notorious and shocking form of dissent was the witch-craze of the entire period [5.2.1, Scarre, pp. 25, 30, has some chilling statistics, and it has been estimated that as many as 50,000 individuals were put to death for being "witches"between 1500-1700]. Although falling outside the scope of this module, the area of witchcraft accusations and trials is a fascinating one with respect to what it reveals about established religion and dissent, and about the psyche of the ardent (or fanatical) believer. The bibliography [section 5.2.1] has many excellent works and the best place to begin is with the admirable OER entry by Monter [5.2.1] and then perhaps with the articles in History Today 31:2 (1981) and Scribner [5.2.1, 1990]. Greengrass [1.1, pp. 276-78], too, has some useful and revealing statistics. The subject matter of the witch-craze is complex and difficult and it defies easy summary: ‘witchcraft is also rendered slippery by its status as a logical and linguistic construct whose boundaries are both arbitrary and insecure’ [Robin Briggs, Witches and Neighbours: The Social and Cultural Context of European Witchcraft (London: Fontana, 1997), p. 7, which is a very good recent investigation of the entire spectrum of the subject and is reviewed by Alison Lurie in New York Review of Books (23 October, 1997).

One side of public morality is the prohibition of certain practices, the obverse of this is what has been called ‘civic righteousness’ which took up the Medieval notion that the religious and secular fates of an urban community were inextricably linked [Robert Scribner, The German Reformation (Studies in European History, London: MacMillan, 1986, p. 41]. Four aspects of this civic righteousness were important:

This civic righteousness was important for Zwingli in Zurich and Martin Bucer in Strasbourg [see, 6.1.5, Greschat; Rupp]. It was this connection between the state (or the civic) authorities and the church which marks out the Swiss Reformation as distinct from the German Reformation and it may help explain why many southern German towns and cites adopted the Reformed faith rather than the Lutheran faith. The theology of Martin Luther was much more individualistic - particularly the notions of justification by faith and the priesthood of all believers - and the Swiss Reformation was centred around a more obviously "corporate" faith.

It is true to say that the notion of corporate faith or piety was much more familiar to the sixteenth-century individual than it is with us today and this corporateness was clearly a legacy of the Medieval way of thinking. The Medieval Church used the body analogy, derived from the Apostle Paul, to express the centrality of this corporateness and that each part must be healthy to ensure a complete healthy body. The word "Reformation", as we saw in "lecture" 5, had a variety of meanings [see, 4.3, Repgen] and the Latin noun reformatio means "transforming" or "reshaping" and was part of the vocabulary of the Medieval Church particularly in the phrase ‘reformation of the Church in head and members (reformatio ecclesia)’ [6.2, Olin, pp. xvi-xvii] - a corporate image.

Someone like John Bossy, Christianity in the West, however, would conversely argue that the Reformation gave up much of the social cohesion offered by "traditional Christianity" for an individualistic confessionalism. Bossy suggest that social cohesion based on kinship and reconciliation was forever lost in the Protestant world to individualism [5.1, Bossy, 1985, pp. 35, 46f., 57f.]. This view is an extreme one, Bossy perhaps idealises Catholic Christianity of the period and more obviously caricatures Protestantism, and if it is appropriate then it should be used of radical Lutheranism rather than the Swiss Reformation [see, the very useful, Steven Ozment, Protestants: The Birth of a Revolution (London: Fontana, 1993), pp. 35-37].

Part II: The Role of Huldrych Zwingli in the Reformation

1. Zwingli’s Early Career

The most accessible account of Zwingli’s life is in, 6.1.3, Stephens, 1992, pp. 12-29. Stephens, 1986, pp. 1-50, is more detailed but both rely on the same sources. Very helpful is Alexandre Ganoczy, OER 4 (1996), pp. 320-23, and the "usual" works used throughout this module also say much of what is necessary about Zwingli’s life and career:

Huldrych Zwingli was born in relatively prosperous circumstances, 1 January 1484 at Wildhaus in the canton of Glarus [6.1.3, Potter, 1976, p. 7-9]. He was, therefore, an almost exact contemporary of Luther [6.1.3, Wandel, p. 320] who was born 10 November, 1483. Zwingli lived ‘in a very different political, cultural and theological world from that of Luther’ [6.1.3, Stephens, 1986, p. 5]. Zwingli went to school in Basle and in Berne at the age of fourteen went to the University of Vienna where he was impressed by humanist thought and scholarship as represented by figures such as Konrad Celtes and Joachim Vadian. This university was not noted for the training of monks but rather for the encouragement of the liberal arts such as poetry and elegance of speech [6.1.3, Potter, 1976, p. 8]. In 1502, Zwingli enrolled at the University of Basel where he stayed until 1506 and was influenced throughout his education by both the via antiqua (Zwingli read Aquinas and Duns Scotus) and the via moderna [6.1.3, Stephens, 1986, pp. 6f.]. Leaving university in 1506, Zwingli became parish priest at Glarus and acted as an army chaplain for two campaigns in Italy [6.1.3, Wandel, p. 320].

‘Glarus was a fighting state’ [6.1.3, Potter, 1976, p. 11] as was most of Switzerland. Mercenary troops were never difficult to find and this sort of social world produced a Zwingli who was a patriot [6.1.3, Stephens, 1986, pp. 7f.] albeit one who was opposed to mercenary activity but without being a pacifist [5.1, Lindberg, p. 171]. While at Glarus we have no reason to suppose that Zwingli was not a good Catholic priest (just as Luther claimed that he was a monk par excellence - see "Lecture" 5, Part II, section 1). His extant letters reveal a man with a wide circle of friends and an insatiable interest in humanist thought. Indeed, happily we have some of Zwingli’s library which he annotated consistently and his marginal comments on the Latin classics such as Catullus, Cicero, Livy and Pliny reveal an manifest humanist framework to his study [6.1.3, Potter, 1976, pp. 9-11, and Stephens, 1986, pp. 49f.].

While in Basle Zwingli met Erasmus (1516) and was later to claim it was only then that he began to preach the true Gospel [5.1, McGrath, 1987, pp. 47-52]. Erasmus therefore had a radical effect on Zwingli [6.1.3, Stephens, 1986, pp. 9-17]. In a letter dated 29 April, 1519, Zwingli calls Erasmus the ‘best of men’, ‘the great philosopher and theologian’ and he claims that he was ‘frightened by the brilliance of your learning’ [cited in, 6.1.1.2, Potter, p. 6]. Meeting Erasmus led Zwingli to read his works more intensively and extensively and ‘Erasmus was to be in many ways the most important influence in his development as a reformer’ [6.1.3, Stephens, 1986, p. 9].

2. Zwingli’s Humanism

Zwingli’s humanist education began early. His prosperous parents paid a professional schoolmaster, Gregory Bünzli, to train him in Latin grammar which was successful enough to allow Zwingli to coach younger boys by the time he was 13 [6.1.3, Potter, 1976, p. 7]. As we saw earlier, while in Basle, Zwingli met Erasmus (1516) and was later to claim it was only then that he began to preach the Gospel by which he meant that it was only then that he understood the primacy of Scripture. It was ‘at Glarus [where] Zwingli began his pursuit of Biblical humanism in earnest’ [6.1.3, Wandel, p. 320]. Erasmus had a profound effect on Zwingli and he especially admired his Greek New Testament of 1516 and collected many of Erasmus’ writings. The effect of the influence of Erasmus can be noted in a number of theological concepts of which first among these is the notion of sola scriptura [6.1.3, Wandel, p. 321] which meant not simply resorting to the Bible for theological purposes but looking at the original languages, using the best texts, developing a sound exegetical method and so on.

Zwingli, as we saw, learned Latin at a very early age and he also quickly picked up Greek and soon realised that to understand the Jewish Bible (the "Old Testament") he would also of necessity to be able to read Hebrew [6.1.3, Potter, 1976, p. 16]. Alongside many reformers the more he read the Bible in its original languages the more dissatisfied he became with the Catholic version of Christianity.

With regard to the influence of Erasmus on Zwingli there is a clear preference for particular Patristic authors, especially Jerome and Origen and with it a theology which strictly separated the creature and the creator [6.1.3, Stephens, 1986, pp. 17-21]. For Erasmus and for Zwingli God and man were separated by a significant gulf. The influence of Erasmus on Zwingli can be seen in the following areas [summarised from, 5.1, McGrath, 1988, pp. 59-61]:

Like Martin Luther, Zwingli attacked what he regarded as superstition within religion (see, for example, his Commentary on True and False Religion of 1524; 6.1.3, Wandel, p. 321]). Zwingli especially disliked indulgences [6.1.3, Wandel, p. 321], images and the veneration of the saints [6.1.3, Stephens, 1986, p. 31].

3. Zwingli’s Conversion

As we briefly remarked earlier, Zwingli was serving as a priest at the Grossmünster church [6.1.3, Wandel, p. 321] when three simultaneously occurring things stirred him to think of reform: (a) he discovered Augustine’s theology [6.1.3, Stephens, 1986, pp. 17-21]; (b) he became aware of Martin Luther’s quest for a Reformation and (c) he experience the plague of August 1519 causing him to pen a poem extolling the grace of God [6.1.3, Stephens, 1986, p. 27] as almost one quarter of the population succumbed [5.1, Lindberg, p. 177]. As with Martin Luther and John Calvin, the conversion of Zwingli is important and - not unusually - disputed [6.1.3, Stephens, 1986, pp. 21-28, is the most accessible discussion]. It is through the conversion experience and our accounts of it that we begin to see what drove certain individuals to embrace the Reformation in all of its diversity. A thematic study of "conversion" is much needed as it would illuminate and exemplify many aspects of the Reformations.

In 1520 Zwingli renounced his Papal pension but it was only in 1522 that the Zurich Reformation can really be said to have begun with Zwingli’s Lent preaching on fasting [6.1.2, Greengrass, p. 95, and 6.1.3, Stephens, 1986, pp. 5, 30]. This sermon led to the publication of Freedom of Choice in Eating and is reminiscent of the Apostle Paul’s attitude to food in 1 Corinthians [in, 6.1.1.2, Potter, p. 17] and that in Acts 10.10-16. The context of the publication of the sermon is crucial in all aspects of the Reformation: ‘the pulpit in the sixteenth-century was enormously influential’ [6.1.3, Potter, 1976, p. 15]. Preaching was the medium of communication even though printing was revolutionizing the art of communication. Sermons were reprinted, distributed and thereby "repreached".

The preaching against compulsory fasting marks a watershed in Zurich [6.1.3, Stephens, 1986, p. 30]. Using Acts 10.10-16, Zwingli suggested that there was no Biblical warrant for an imposed abstinence from food and that the Christian was truly free of the law [5.1, Lindberg, p. 168]. This freedom, of course, was not freedom to cause disorder and sin but freedom from the obligations of the old law (as Paul argues in Romans and 1 Corinthians). Following the discovery of Christian freedom, Zwingli then questioned the notion that the clergy should not be married. Zwingli argued that freedom should allow marriage and that the current situation was one of the grossest hypocrisy (in one year 1,500 children were born out of marriage to priests in the dioceses of Constance - the punishment a small fine payable to the bishop [6.1.3, Potter, 1976, p. 18]). Celibacy had no Biblical warrant. Thesis 30 reads: ‘those who promise chastity take childishly or foolishly too much upon themselves, whence is learnt that those who make such vows do wrong to God-fearing people’ [6.1.1.2, Potter, p. 23]. Zwingli secretly married Anna Reinart in early 1522 before going through a more public ceremony in April 1524.

It is not surprising, therefore, as Zwingli’s theology increasingly became more radical, he was challenged and the first disputation of 1523 was the result [6.1.3, Potter, 1976, pp. 20-22]. In the disputation Zwingli denounced a number of facets of Catholic belief and practice:

4. Zwingli and Scripture

It is clear from Luther’s Ninety-Five Theses that Scripture is the defining concept of his theology. The Ninety-Five Theses are built on the notion of sola scriptura as likewise are the Twelve Articles of the German Peasants War. The Sixty-Seven Theses of Zwingli reveal something more complex than the simple Lutheran truths based around the abandonment of indulgences and the institution of justification by faith [6.1.3, Stephens, 1986, pp. 33f.]. Zwingli’s first article runs like this: ‘all who say that the gospel is invalid without the confirmation of the church err and slander God’ [6.1.1.2, Potter, p. 21] and Zwingli, like the rest of the Reformation leaders, was convinced of the concept of Scripture alone: ‘from the principle of sola scriptura Zwingli never departed’ [6.1.3, Potter, 1976, p. 26]. It is clear that Zwingli regarded his "conversion" as that of turning from man’s word to God’s Word [6.1.3, Stephens, 1986, p. 24].

Unlike Luther (who most preferred Paul’s Letter to the Romans), Zwingli did not have a canon within the canon and like Calvin and Bucer, Zwingli appealed to the whole of Scripture [6.1.3, Stephens, 1992, p. 32] and Scripture was the basis for normative behavior [5.1, McGrath, 1987, pp. 43f.]. Like Luther, Zwingli thought that the proper reading of the Bible could only come through the action of the Spirit. The inspiration, however, has obvious deficiencies because as we saw in "Lecture" 7, the German peasants appealed to Scripture and to the Spirit but their actions and their theology were rejected by Luther.

Preaching for Zwingli was based on Scripture [6.1.3, Reardon, pp. 89-92] making for a very individual biblical theology: ‘the centrality of preaching went with the centrality of scripture’ [6.1.3, Stephens, 1986, p. 29] and what is particularly impressive about Zwingli’s works is that they deal not simply with religious issues but issues which are also social and political: ‘preaching and persuasion came first, whether by book, or sermon, or public disputation’ [6.1.3, Stephens, 1992, p. 143]. The interesting idea arises that although Zwingli was very much influenced by Erasmus’ thought and methods, especially his exegesis of the Bible [5.1, McGrath, 1987, pp. 167-70], the use of the subject matter of Scripture could not be more divergent.

Scripture was vital to Zwingli’s Reformation. Indeed, ‘the sacraments are subordinate to the preaching of the Word of God’ [5.1, McGrath, 1988, p. 171]. This issue of the Eucharist shows us as much about Zwingli’s Biblical exegesis as it tells us about theology in the strictest sense [5.1, McGrath, 1988, pp. 170-81].

5. Zwingli and the Course of the Reformation

Zwingli was committed to the proper interpretation of Scripture and it was the issue of the interpretation of Scripture which saw a decisive schism in the Reformation. The theology of the Mass - the Lord’s Supper as it became known in the Protestant churches - separated forever Zwingli and Luther.

As we saw in "Lecture" 9, the seven sacraments formed the superstructure or the backbone to everyday "established" religion but with the coming of the Reformation these seven sacraments were reduced to two: the Eucharist and baptism. Luther held that the bread and the wine of the Eucharist were really the blood and body of Jesus so that the sacrament and the sign were identical. This is known as the "real presence" theory. Zwingli believed that the bread and the wine of the Eucharist were merely symbols of the body and the blood of Jesus and the bread and the wine did not actually become the blood and the wine but represented or signified them (and was supported in this by Wittenberg thinkers such as Andreas Bodenstein von Karlstadt) [6.1.3, Wandel, p. 322].

The fact that Zwingli was tenacious in his adherence to his eucharistic belief against that of Martin Luther elegantly demonstrates that he was no slavish follower of the Wittenberg Reformation. Both men had different educations and different social and political contexts and this manifested itself in different theologies [6.1.3, Stephens, 1986, pp. 45-49]. Luther and Zwingli met only once at the Marburg Colloquy (1529) [see, 6.1.3, Farner, pp. 109-22, 5.1, Lindberg, pp. 191-97], arranged by Philip of Hesse who hoped for a general evangelical alliance against Charles V (this matched Zwingli’s attempt to build such an alliance [6.1.3, Wandel, p. 322]). While agreeing on fourteen of the fifteen articles the two main protagonists were separated by the four words that Luther chalked upon a table: Hoc est corpus meum (‘this is my body’) [6.1.3, Potter, 1976, pp. 36f.]. Christ’s body, according to Luther, was there in the sacrament whether the partaker was a believer or not. For Zwingli, faith determined the validity of the presence [6.1.3, Stephens, 1986, pp. 180-93, for the fullest account].

Luther had rejected the notion of transubstantiation in the Babylonish Captivity of the Church (1520) and for Zwingli Christ was present but not in the bread. The debate is complex and can seem trivial to anyone less than enthused by theological niceties. However, much rested on the Eucharist controversy. In Amica Exegesis (1526) Zwingli tried to substantiate his position from Scripture - but this was the problem. Luther too sought recourse in the very same Bible and they could not agree. Scripture and conscience (the "Spirit"?) could not resolve their difficulties and differences and illustrates nicely how tradition - as used predominantly in the Catholic Church - could resolve issues such as these.

Calvin was somewhere in the middle of these reform views [5.0, McGrath, 1988, pp. 117-30, 181-85]. Calvin defined a sacrament as ‘an external symbol by which the Lord seals on our consciences his promises of good will toward us, in order to sustain the weakness of our faith’ (Institutes 4.1.41) [6.1.2, Ganoczy, 1996, p. 236]. Calvin’s main thinking on the reduced sacraments is given in Book 4.14-19 of the Institutes [6.1.2, Wendel, pp. 312-18]. For Calvin the sign and the signified were very close and that one may be applied to the other (4.17.21) and the signified is effected by its sign (4.17.3). This parallelism is not one of identity - a Catholic idea - but another example of the formula distinctio sed non separatio, two ideas may be distinguished but not separated (4.17.34). The Catholic Council of Trent itself dealt with this issue at the Thirteenth Session (see the hyperlink through the Centre for Reformation and Renaissance Studies .

Where Calvin fell midway between Martin Luther and Huldrych Zwingli on the Eucharist he likewise fell between their view in regard to baptism [2.1, Cameron, pp. 156-67]. With Luther we can see Calvin emphasise that baptism is a sign of the remission of sins (4.15.5) and with Zwingli we see Calvin hold the view that baptism is a public demonstration of allegiance to God (4.15.1). Like all of the Magisterial reformers, Calvin agreed with infant baptism (4.16.8) [see, 5.0, McGrath, 1988, pp. 159-86].

Justification by faith was central to Martin Luther, we saw in "Lecture" 6 that it was less important for John Calvin, and for Zwingli, too, justification by faith was not the driving force of the Swiss Reformation. Zwingli ‘shows little, if any, interest in the doctrine [of justification by faith] in his early phase as a reformer’ ["Justification", 1.4, McGrath, 1996, p. 365]. Like many of the Swiss reformers (such as Bullinger, Calvin and Bucer), Zwingli concentrated his efforts on the establishment of the Church through the spiritual regeneration of individuals [5.1, McGrath, 1988, pp. 109-111].

Other areas where Zwingli offered different views to those of Martin Luther and John Calvin are concerned with the following:

Each of these areas are important in the context of the Reformation and only when they are understood in their full and multifaceted contexts does a full and coherent view of the Swiss Reformation emerge. The references indicated show where further reading may be enlightening. The essential aspect of Zwingli’s life and work is that they stand alone as a distinctive contribution to the Reformation [6.1.3, Reardon, pp. 85-109] and it does serious damage to him to measure Zwingli by Luther [6.1.3, Stephens, 1992, p. 1].

Part III: Preparation for Week 11: Images and Iconoclasm

1. General Reading

1.1 The reading for next week is indicated in section 7.3.5 of the main bibliography. None of the books on the Reformation we have been using describe the use of images and iconoclasm in sufficient detail to give you an especially good foundation. However, below is one of the few books which have any real substance to their comments:

2. Set Reading

2.1 Try to read at least something from the list in section 7.3.5 of the main bibliography, particularly the works by Eire and Scribner. In addition, the studies listed below may interest you:

Crew, Phyllis Mack, Calvinist Preaching and Iconoclasm in the Netherlands 1544-1569 (Cambridge Studies in Early Medieval History, Cambridge: University Press, 1978) [284.2492 CRE].

Duffy, Eamon, The Stripping of the Altars: Traditional Religion in England 1400-1580 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1992).

Duke, Alistair/Gillian Lewis, Andrew Pettegree, eds., "The Image Breaking" in Calvinism in Europe 1540-1610: A Collection of Documents (Manchester: University Press, 1992) [284.24 CAL], pp. 147-52.

Noreen, Kirstin, "Ecclesiae militantis triumphi : Jesuit Iconography and the Counter-Reformation" Sixteenth Century Journal 29 (1998), pp. 689-715.

Russell, Paul A., Lay Theology in the Reformation, Popular Pamphleteers in Southeast Germany 1521-1525 (Cambridge: University Press, 1985) [274.303 PHI].

3. Seminar Preparation

3.1 If you are unable to read anything specifically from the bibliography, then look at the illustrations in the books that you have available to you and think about why they were created and what they say about both sides of the Reformation divide. Think about issues of polemic and propaganda in the illustrations.

3.2 Define or describe the following concepts:

3.3 Here are some questions which should help you form in detail your thinking about images and iconoclasm and their role in the early Reformation:

 

Last updated: 29-April 1999

Go to the top