FOOTNOTES TO CHAPTER THIRD:
Footnote [1] A French province, according to the prevailing opinion in former times, a strong hold of sectarianism, of heresy so-called.
Footnote [2] All three were then known for their decided adherence to the old church-order.
Footnote [3] In Erfurt Luther had studied. At Wittemberg he taught.
Footnote [4] A writer of that ago says of him, using indeed colors somewhat dark: "We ought rather to call Faber a cruel judge than a doctor or bishop. Throughout all Germany and the neighboring countries his severity is known. Scarcely a hangman in our fatherland has executed so many as have been condemned by the unrighteous sentences of Faber." And at the close, in a simple narrative of Hans Huglin of Lindau, who was burnt as a heretic, we read: "While the poor miserable man was compelled to groan thus (he had been on the rack), the Vicary sat there and laughed. When the poor man saw this, he said: O, dear Sir, why do you laugh at me; I am but an abandoned creature, who am not worth laughing at. Laugh over yourself, and God forgive you; you know not what you do. At which words the Vicary, who looked at him still more wickedly, was ashamed to laugh and grew very red; since which all the world has pitied the poor man."
Footnote [5] Printed entire under the title of "Uslegen und Grand der Schlussreden," in the first volume of Zwingli's works, edited by Schuler and Schultheiss.
Footnote [6] Explanation of the Final Discourses, viz, the 26, 27, 33, 64th, et cet.
Footnote [7] He, who is acquainted with history in its sources, knows that this assertion of Zwingli is by no means maliciously snatched from the air. It cannot indeed be charged against all convent-property; but, to illustrate the mode, in which a part at least of such acquisitions were obtained during the Middle Ages, I will insert here a document, which was preserved in their archives by our forefathers of Zurich, expressly for the information of posterity, and which, drawn up on parchment and furnished with the seal of State, is still extant. The monasteries had plainly fallen off from their original severe rules. For the better understanding of it, the orthography and punctuation only are brought nearer to modern style.
"To all, who see this letter or hear it read, we, the Council of Zurich, whose name are written after, make known, that we saw the letter of the burghers of Strassburg, entire, true, and sealed with their public seal, as stands hereafter written. And that we and our successors after us, if a similar case arise in our midst, may be able to judge the more correctly, we have, with the leave of our burghers, willingly, publicly and unanimously written this letter from the heart, and publicly sealed it with our burghers' great seal, for a perpetual and eternal record.
"To the honorable, the wise and the discreet, the Council and burghers generally of Basel, of Colmar, of Schlettstadt, of Rheinau, of Naffach, and after them, all those cities where this letter appears, Nicholas the younger Zorn, mayor of the city, and the burghers of Strassburg generally offer their free service with entire friendship. Many things are done honorably and justly, which in foreign countries are perverted, because their origin is not rightly understood. Hence we humbly pray you to receive our address with favor and sympathize with us, because they have troubled us, for whom we have done very much indeed. Your Worships, the barefooted friars and the preachers (Dominican monks) had fallen into the practice of taking legacies in the world outside of the monasteries, and when a rich man, or a rich lady, lay on a deathbed, then they ran thither and persuaded him to give all his property to them, and thus all his heirs were disinherited and ruined. Then the latter came before us crying and complaining that they had been disinherited. Many such complaints came before us. The monks sold also their own property, on condition that it should revert to them again on the death of the buyer. This made us think that our city would in a short time become entirely theirs. They received also into their order the children of rich people, without the consent and knowledge of their friends, in order to get their property. At this also we have been greatly troubled and many complaints against them have been brought before us. When this had continued for a long, long time, and we could bear no longer the manifold complaints of the burghers; then we went to the preachers and begged them to conduct themselves so, that such complaints would no more reach us from our citizens. Then they spake and promised us that what papers the barefooted friars (Franciscans) would give us, not to do it any more, they also would give us. We went to the barefooted friars and laid this matter before them. They answered thus: What Your Worships require us to promise you, that we are directed by the rules of our order not to do; even if you had never issued a command, yet had we been forbidden not to do it. Then spake we: Make us such a paper on it as seems good to you, that it may stand as a pledge between us. They drew up the paper as we send you the copy word for word. Then we came to the preachers (Dominicans) with the paper and they bade us give them a copy. After that their provincial came, and they did as he told them, and abused us for this thing beyond measure, four years in succession. But at last, a complaint was lodged against them for taking the estate of a lady from the lawful heirs; therefore we begged them again to give us a paper like that of the barefooted friars, as they had promised to do. Then they said proudly, that rather than do it they would let their heads be chopped off with axes. This made us unwilling to have them as clergymen, since they would not keep their promises. And when we began to build on the commons of our city before their gates, they ran to our women and beat our servants with clubs and shovels till one was killed. At which we became the more wroth and would have torn their gate from its hinges. This have we written to you and pray, since we need your counsel and favor in this matter, that you will act a friendly part, because we lean on you and would do the same for you in an hour of like need. We also pray you, if we get judges in this affair, who are allied to you, that you will influence them toward us, so that they will be favorable to our rights, just as we would do for you in the same strait."
The names of he Council (at Zurich, as above) are Burkard von Hottingen, Rudolph von Beggenhoven, Chuon von Tuebelnstein, Henry Vinko and Jacob from the Mezie, knights, Ruodolf der Muelner, Ruodolf der Kriek, Ulric der Truebor, Peter Wolfleibsche, Ulric im Gewelbe, Henry Stoeri and John Pilgrin Burger. This paper was transcribed in the twelve-hundred and eighty-seventh year, from God's birth on the Monday after Saint Urban's day, when the indication was the XVth.
Footnote [8] Or in other words: Without religion the state succumbs to materialism. But the prevalence of materialism is least consistent with the welfare of a republic. The freest state ought to be the most religious: the most religious only durst be the most free.
Footnote [9] The assailed could indeed appeal, at least for a partial justification of their love of the chase, to an article of their statutes, revised in the year 1346, according to which and others, a horse, a hound, and a falcon or sparrow-hawk, for hunting, had to be presented to the chaplain of the foundation, who ministered at the annual festival in the church of Zollikon.
Footnote [10] Satisfactory explanations of them are given by Wirz in his Swiss Church History, continued by Kirchhofer, Vol. V. p. 139.
Footnote [11] In St. Gall, for instance, forty wagon-loads of the ruins of wood en images were carried to the swamps and burnt there. "Every body fell upon the idols. We tore them from the altar, the walls and the pillars. The altars were beaten down, the idols split to pieces with axes, or smashed by hammers. You would have thought it a field of battle. What a noise! what a breaking! what an echoing in the lofty ceiling!" Kessler.
Footnote [12] For scientific readers: Neither mysticism and pietism, nor dogmatism alone are able to sustain the Protestant churches. Mysticism and pietism yield to more consistent Catholicism; dogmatism, without symbolical books, which lose their authority where the press is free, succumbs to philosophy. The simple eternal dogma of Christ stands: By its fruit shall ye know the tree. The time will yet come, when all who practically reverence this dogma, will form the one, universal church, and all others, be they marked with the cross or protests against it, the no-church. For this no revolution is needed, not even much change in forms. It will come from within.
Footnote [13] Why? will be seen hereafter.
Footnote [14] In the "Advice concerning Images and the Mass."
Footnote [15] The contradictions in the character and behavior of this man, who was rather eccentric than morally corrupt, are well depicted in Kirchofer's Continuation of Wirz's Church History, Part II. p. 222.
Footnote [16] It was publicly read.
Footnote [17] She was the widow of Hans Meier of Knonau, who died in 1520, and had a son by him, named Gerold, whom Zwingli loved like a father and to whom he dedicated a work on the education of youth. Little is known of her during her marriage with Zwingli. But a single short letter is extant, written by her husband from Bern, in which he asks her to send a cap-pattern to one of her relations there. Solomon Hess in his Biography thinks that Zwingli read his writings aloud to her. The author begs leave to doubt this, indeed rather to believe, that he would have heartily laughed, if the learned stuff was tedious to her. Mind and heart she certainly had, and he talked with her not merely about kitchen and cellar; but she probably studied him more in his actions, than in his works.