§ 130.4. The Reformation in the other Cantons, A.D. 1520-1525.—In Bern, from A.D. 1518 Haller, Kolb, and Mayer carried on the work of the Reformation as political and religious reformers after the style of Zwingli. Nic. Manuel, poet, satirist, and painter, supported their preaching by his satirical writings against pope, priests, and superstition generally. Also in his Dance of Death, which he painted on the walls of a cloister at Bern, he covered the clergy with ridicule. In A.D. 1523 the council allowed departures from the convents, and several monks and nuns withdrew and married. The opposition called in the Dominican John Haim, as their spokesman, in A.D. 1524. Between him and the Franciscan Mayer there arose a passionate discussion, and the council exiled both. But Haller continued his work, and the Reformation took firmer root from day to day.—In Muhlhausen [Mühlhausen], where Ulr. von Hutten spent his last days, the council issued a mandate in A.D. 1524 which gave free course to the Reformation. At Biel, too, it was allowed unrestricted freedom. In East Switzerland, St. Gall was specially prominent under its burgomaster Joachim v. Watt, who zealously advanced the interests of the Reformation by word, writing, and action. John Karsler, who had studied theology in Wittenberg in A.D. 1522, and was then obliged, in order to avoid reading the mass, to learn and practise the trade of a saddler, preached the gospel here in the Trades’ Hall in his saddler’s apron in A.D. 1524, and took the office of reformed pastor and Latin preceptor in A.D. 1537. He died in A.D. 1574 as President of St. Gall. In Schaffhausen Erasmus Ritter, called upon to oppose in discussion the reformed pastor Hofmeister, owned himself defeated, and joined the reform party. In the canton Vaud Thos. Platter, the original and learned sailor, afterwards rector of the high school at Burg, laid the foundations of the Reformation. In Appenzel and Glarus the work gradually advanced. But in the Swiss midlands the nobles raised opposition in behalf of their revenues, and the people of Berg, whose whole religion lay in pilgrimages, images, and saints, constantly opposed the introduction of the new views. Lucerne and Freiburg were the main bulwarks of the papacy in Switzerland.
§ 130.5. Anabaptist Outbreak, A.D. 1525.—In Switzerland, though the reformers there had taken very advanced ground, a number of ultra-reformers arose, who thought they did not go far enough. Their leaders were Hätzer (§ [148, 1]), Grebel, Manz, Röublin, Hubmeier, and Stör. They began disturbances at Zolticon near Zürich. Hubmeier held a council at Waldshut, Easter Eve, A.D. 1525, and was rebaptized by Röublin. During Easter week 110 received baptism, and subsequently more than 300 besides. The Basel Canton, where Münzer had been living, broke out in open revolt against the city. St. Gall alone had 800 Anabaptists. Zürich at Zwingli’s request at once took decided measures.Many were banished, some were mercilessly drowned. Bern, Basel, and St. Gall followed this example.[367]
§ 130.6. Disputation at Baden, A.D. 1526.—The reactionary party could not decline the challenge to a disputation, but in the face of all protests it was determined to be held in the Catholic district of Baden. The champions and representatives of the cantons and bishops appeared there in May, A.D. 1526, Faber and Eck leading the papists and Haller of Bern and Œcolampadius of Basel representing the party of reform. Zwingli was forbidden by the Zürich council to attend, but he was kept daily informed by Thos. Platter. Eck’s theses were combatted one after another. It lasted eight days. Eck outcried Œcolampadius’ weak voice, but the latter was immensely superior in intellectual power. At last Thomas Murner (§ [125, 4]) appeared with forty abusive articles against Zwingli. Œcolampadius and ten of his friends persisted in rejecting Eck’s theses; all the rest accepted them. The Assembly of the States pronounced the reformers heretics, and ordered the cantons to have them banished.
§ 130.7. Disputation at Bern, A.D. 1528.—The result of the Bern disputation was ill received by the democrats of Bern and Basel. A final disputation was arranged for at Bern, which was attended by 350 of the clergy and many noblemen. Zwingli, Œcolampadius, Haller, Capito, Bucer, and Farel were there. It continued from 7th to 27th January, A.D. 1528. The Catholics were sadly wanting in able disputants, and they sustained an utter defeat. Worship and constitution were radically reformed. Cloisters were secularized; preachers gave their official oath to the civil magistrates. There were serious riots over the removal of the images. The valuable organ in the minster of St. Vincent was broken up by the ruthless iconoclasts. A political reformation was carried out along with the religious, and all stipendiaries received their warning.
§ 130.8. Complete Victory of the Reformation at Basel, St. Gall, and Schaffhausen, A.D. 1529.—The Burgomaster von Watt brought to St. Gall the news of the victorious issue of the disputation at Bern. This gave the finishing blow to the Catholic party. Thus in A.D. 1528, certainly not without some iconoclastic excesses, the Reformation triumphed.—In Basel, the council was divided, and so it took but half measures. On Good Friday, A.D. 1528, some citizens broke the images in St. Martin’s Church. They were apprehended. But a rising of citizens obliged the council to set them free, and several churches from which the images had been withdrawn were given over to the reformers. In December, A.D. 1528, the trades presented a petition asking for the final abolition of idolatry. The Catholic party and the reformed took to arms, and a civil war seemed imminent. The council, however, succeeded in quelling the disturbance by announcing a disputation where the majority of the citizens should decide by their votes. But the Catholic minority protested so energetically that the council had again recourse to half measures. The dissatisfaction of the reformed led to an explosion of violent image breaking in Lent, A.D. 1529. Huge bonfires of images and altars were set a blaze. The strict Catholic members of the council fled, the rest quelled the revolt by an unconditional surrender. Even Erasmus gave way (§ [120, 6]). Œcolampadius had married in A.D. 1528. He died in A.D. 1531. In Schaffhausen up to A.D. 1529 matters were undecided, but the proceedings at Basel and Bern gave victory to the reformed party. The drama here ended with a double marriage. The abbot of All Saints married a nun, and Erasmus Ritter married the abbot’s sister. Images were removed without tumult and the mass abolished.
§ 130.9. The first Treaty of Cappel, A.D. 1529.—In the five forest cantons the Catholics had the upper hand, and there every attempted political as well as religious reform was relentlessly put down. Zürich and Bern could stand this no longer. Unterwalden now revolted, and found considerable support in the other four cantons, and the position of the cities became serious. The forest cantons now turned to Austria, the old enemy of Swiss freedom, and concluded at Innsbrück in A.D. 1529 a formal league with King Ferdinand for mutual assistance in matters touching the faith. Trusting to this league, they increased their cruel persecutions of the reformed, and burnt alive a Zürich preacher, Keyser, whom they had seized on the public highway on neutral territory. Then the Zürichers rose up in revolt. With their decided preponderance they might certainly have crushed the five cantons, and then all Switzerland would have surrounded Zwingli in the support of reform. But Bern was jealous of Zürich’s growing importance, and even many Zürichers for fear of war urged negotiations for peace with the old members of the league. Thus came about the First Treaty of Cappel in A.D. 1529. The five cantons gave up the Austrian league document to be destroyed, undertook to defray the costs of the war, and agreed that the majority in each canton should determine the faith of that canton. As to freedom of belief it was only said that no party should make the faith of the other penal. This was less than Zwingli wished, yet it was a considerable gain. Thurgau, Baden, Schaffhausen, Solothurn, Neuenburg, Toggenburg, etc., on the basis of this treaty, abolished mass, images, and altars.
§ 130.10. The Second Treaty of Cappel, A.D. 1531.—Even after the treaty the five cantons continued to persecute the reformed, and renewed their alliance with Austria. Their undue preponderance in the assembly led Zürich to demand a revision of the federation. This led the forest cantons to increase their cruelties upon the reformed. Zürich declared for immediate hostilities, but Bern decided to refuse all commercial intercourse with the five cantons. At the diet at Lucerne, the five cantons resolved in September, A.D. 1531, to avert famine by immediately declaring war. They made their arrangements so secretly that the reformed party was not the least prepared, when suddenly, on the 9th October, an army of 8,000 men, bent on revenge, rushed down on the Zürich Canton. In all haste 2,000 men were mustered, who were almost annihilated in the battle of Cappel on 11th October. There, too, Zwingli fell. His body was quartered and burnt, and the ashes scattered to the winds. Zürich and Bern soon brought a force of 20,000 men into the field, but the courage of their enemies had grown in proportion as all confidence and spirit departed from the reformed. Further successes led the forest cantons, which had hitherto acted only on the defensive, to proceed on the offensive, and the reformed were constrained to accept on humbling terms the Second Treaty of Cappel of A.D. 1531. This granted freedom of worship to the reformed in their own cantons, but secured the restoration of Catholicism in the five cantons. The defeated had also to bear the costs of the war, and to renounce their league with Strassburg, Constance, and Hesse. The hitherto oppressed Catholic minority began now to assert itself on all hands, and in many places were more or less successful in securing the ascendency. So it was in Aargau, Thurgau, Rapperschwyl, St. Gall, Rheinthal, Solothurn, Glarus, etc.
§ 131. The Sacramentarian Controversy, A.D. 1525-1529.[368]
Luther in his “Babylonish Captivity of the Church,” of A.D. 1520, had, in opposition to prevailing views, which made the efficacy of the sacraments dependent on the objective receiving without regard to the faith of the receiver, opus operatum, pressed forward the subjective side in a somewhat extreme manner. During the earlier period of his career as a reformer, and indeed even at a later period, as his letter to the men of Strassburg shows, he was in danger of going to the extreme of overlooking or denying the real objective and Divine contents of the sacrament. But decided as the opposition was to the scholastic theory of transubstantiation, and convinced as he was that the bread and wine were to be regarded as mere symbols, the text of Scripture seemed clearly to say to him that he must recognise there the presence of the true body and blood of Christ. His anxiety to avoid the errors of the fanatics, and his simple acceptance of the word of Scripture, led him to that conviction which inspired him to the end, that IN, WITH, and UNDER the bread and wine the true body and blood of the Lord are received, by believers unto salvation, by unbelievers unto condemnation.
Carlstadt (§ [124, 3]) had denied utterly the presence of the body and blood of the Lord in the sacrament. He sought to set aside the force of the words of institution by giving to τοῦτο an absurd meaning: Christ had pointed to His own present body, and said, “This here is My body, which in death I will give for you, and in memory thereof eat this bread.” When Carlstadt, expelled from Saxony, came to Strassburg, he sought to interest the preachers there, Bucer and Capito, in himself and his sacramental view. But Luther was not moved by their attempts at conciliation. Zwingli, too, took the side of Carlstadt. In essential agreement with Carlstadt, but putting the matter on another basis, Zwingli interpreted the words of institution, “This is,” by “This signifies,” and reduced the significance of the sacrament to a symbolical memorial of Christ’s suffering and death. In an epistle to the Lutheran Matthew Alber at Reutlingen in A.D. 1524 he set forth this theory, and sided with Carlstadt against Luther. He developed his views more fully in his dogmatic treatise, Commentarius de vera et falsa relig., A.D. 1525, where he characterizes Luther’s doctrine as an opinio non solum rustica sed etiam impia et frivola. Œcolampadius, too, took part in the controversy as supporter of his friend Zwingli when attacked by Bugenhagen, and wrote in A.D. 1525 his De genuina verborum Domini, Hoc est corpus meum, expositione. He wished to understand the σῶμα of the words of institution as equivalent to “sign of the body.” Œcolampadius laid his treatise before the Swabian reformers Brenz and Schnepf; but these, in concert with twelve other preachers, answered in the Syngramma Suevicum of A.D. 1525 quite in accordance with Luther’s doctrine. The controversy continued to spread.Luther first openly appeared against the Swiss in A.D. 1526 in his “Sermon on the Sacrament against the Fanatics,” and to this Zwingli replied. Luther answered again in his tract, “That the words, This is My body, stand firm;” and in A.D. 1528 he issued his great manifesto, “Confession in regard to the Lord’s Supper” (§ [144, 2], note). Notwithstanding the endeavours of the Strassburgers at conciliation the controversy still continued. Zwingli’s statement was the shibboleth of the Swiss Reformation, and was adopted also in many of the upland cities. Strassburg, Lindau, Meiningen, and Constance accepted it; even in Ulm, Augsburg, Reutlingen, etc., it had its supporters.—Continuation, § [132, 4].