The Life and Times of Ulric Zwingli

by Johann Jakob Hottinger

"Whereas, ye deputies from the duchy of Kyburg and the territories of Eglisau, Greifensee, Grueningen Andelfingen, Buelach, Neuamt and Ruemlang, together with all the curates and preachers, have sat to-day before My Lords in behalf of the articles, in which the members of the several communities have thought themselves to be aggrieved, and especially in regard to the tithe, and these things have truly come to light--that heretofore the aforenamed preachers have frequently preached from the pulpit and elsewhere, and other persons have asserted in taverns behind their wine, that, according to the divine law and justice, no one is bound to pay tithes, whereby the common people have become seditious and strengthened in such a belief--and whereas in order to reach the bottom of this matter, it has been discussed and handled in various meetings, and explained at length by Master Ulric Zwingli, that in the beginning the tithe was laid for a pious purpose, though afterward perverted and abused, but yet that it was a just debt and can be fairly complained of by no one--it shall be henceforth the concern of the government that the whole tithe be restored to its right channel and applied to the wants of the needy. Because, moreover, the deputies of the abovenamed communities have made it appear, that these disorders have sprung from the clergy alone and their inconsistent preaching, and they have thus been taught and instructed, and hence have given the whole business into the hands of My Lords; and because they have framed excuses for themselves from the speeches of these clergy, since several of them have spoken and preached more for disorder and strife than brotherly unity, be this answer, after a fair hearing, given to the rebels, that they at once go home and busy themselves in peaceful affairs, and if there are any good-for-nothing people in their own dioceses, who wish to stir up discord, disorder and rebellion, that they drive them off, so that we may not again witness such improper and wanton doings, as lately happened at the monasteries of Tœss and Rueti; then will My Lords, as soon as other business permits, sit upon their articles, and with the help of Master Ulric Zwingli and other learned and sensible men, take counsel, and see what, according to the Divine Word, can be remitted, and what not. But in the meantime, every man must pay interest and tithes in church and state, according to the decree last issued." Then this special admonition was directed to the clergy: "That they shall look well and truly into the Holy Scriptures, busy themselves with the plain preaching of the Gospel, practice the same, and strive more after peace than discord; for if they do not so, the refractory will be punished according to his desert and as opportunity allows."

By these proceedings the malcontents were silenced for the present, but the government felt that something more was needed for the restoration of order. At a time, when the religious movements occasioned new and unforseen expenses to the State, it could not abandon any of its former sources of revenue. Hence the tithe-question was clothed with special importance. All the tithes were not church-property; a part of them belonged to strangers, to whom the government was bound to give its protection, and to the same protection the church also had a claim, which was not done away, but only changed. Besides a mere declaration on the part of the government, that the tithe must be paid, nothing more was done. But conviction had to be wrought in the public mind, and to do this, again devolved on Zwingli.

But before he laid the subject before the people, he endeavored to settle whatever was unstable and wavering in the opinions of the Great Council, so that the authorities might proceed the more firmly in their line of action. Still the belief prevailed among many of the members, that the tithe was purely a religious affair, and this position was strongly maintained by the Secretary, am Gruet, who, Bible in hand, met Zwingli with his own weapons. It is true, that here he could only appeal to the Old Testament, but this yet held too important a place in Zwingli's system of doctrines, to suffer the Reformer lightly to reject its authority for an isolated case. He showed, however, in a long and spirited debate with am Gruet, before the Great Council and a crowd of other hearers, that the Levitical priesthood, for whom the tithe had been introduced into the Old Testament, came to an end with the Gospel; and by this, according to his view, the question had been brought back from the sphere of religion into that of civil law. But neither am Gruet, on the one side, nor the Anabaptists on the other, were disposed to let him slip with so cheap a victory. Am Gruet would yield nothing, and in fact the following passage is found in the protocol of the Great Council, "that neither of the two contending parties has so triumphed that the other is obliged to yield, and that My Lords are not displeased with the warning and exposition of their Secretary, but think he has acted according to his duty and his oath." But the decisive battle, which now drew near, was first to be fought with the Anabaptists.

During the interval, Zwingli prepared for the people a detailed exposition of the rights of the church and state to the tithe, which the government then used as a general and final decree for the disturbed districts. The scrupulous payment of the great tithe^[4] for the future was also enjoined upon them in an earnest tone. In regard to the so-called little tithe, the government promised strict inquiry, the removal of abuses, and a diminution of it, as far as possible.

In the greater part of the canton, through the cautious language of the Council, the exhortations of the more sensible, and the conviction, which won its way into the minds of many, civil order was re-established. One of the creators of disturbance, Suesstrunk by name, was indeed put to death by the sword, and the pastor of Westenbach, who especially distinguished himself by his ill-timed discourses, was thrown into prison for several days and punished with a fine--acts easy to be explained, when we consider the severity of punishments in that age and the grievous losses, which the state suffered by this insurrection.

Only one district of the Canton was not yet pacified: the territory of Grueningen. Here the Anabaptists still retained numerous adherents, and these Anabaptists and their fierce battle with Zwingli are the objects to which we must now turn our attention.

The Holy Scripture is the great record of the religious education of the human race. It shows us man primeval in the unconscious innocence of nature; then the patriarchal era with its simple, uniform manners along with its untamed passion; and then again the most active intercourse of nations, the most savage wars, the hierarchical state and the elective and hereditary monarchy. It gives us lofty poetry in the Psalms, the grandest didactic poem in the Book of Job, and a collection of proverbs, the fruit of the ripest experience and knowledge of life. It makes us acquainted with idolatry in its most fearful degeneracy, and then, with the adoration of one God and the conflict, rising to the highest pitch of heroism, against this degeneracy. But this God is a mere national God, to be known only within the confined limits of the Jewish state, living personally only here, in and with the people. We see the consequences of this contracted view: hate instead of love, stubbornness instead of docility, stagnation instead of progress. With this first period the books of the Old Testament close.

Is it possible to understand the Gospel, which now follows, in its grandeur, truth, purity and love, without a knowledge of the age, which preceded it? or the prejudices, against which, He, who revealed it, had to contend? We find varying opinions among those who wrote it--the stamp of diverse authorship; here Judaistic narrowness, there freer elevation, homely simplicity, and again deep glow and feeling. We even find contradictions, historical and chronological, and yet, what unity in all that is essential--what agreement in all that contributes to peace in life and comfort in the hour of death; in all that determines our actions and confers worth upon them! Are there any other writings, for whose investigation, for whose explanation, so much sagacity, so much science, so much conscientiousness are demanded? Such are the questions, which very naturally crowd upon us, when we once more survey the man, in whom all these qualifications are joined, as he goes forth to battle with a multitude of others, who possess them only partially and hence dangerously.

And thus we return again to those disturbers, before alluded to, in the bosom of the Reformed party, who assailed Zwingli more boldly than any monk, and whose scientific culture, adroitness, and, in the end, desperation, prepared for him a far more violent conflict. Conrad Grebel has already been represented to us as morally and physically depraved. The higher spirit, which once attracted Zwingli's entire love to him as a youth, richly endowed by nature, had not yet sunk so far, that it did not show some clear sparks, and sometimes even break out into a momentary blaze.

But when he saw that Zwingli penetrated his inmost soul, understood, pitied and then despised him, he conceived the most intense bitterness against him, which at last deepened into hatred--hatred that stopped at no means to secure revenge. Gathering all his strength, nerving all his powers to their highest pitch, his self-confidence increased; the various modes of interpretation, which isolated passages of the Holy Scriptures admit, made it possible for him to maintain, with a tolerable appearance of truth and certainty, dogmas at variance with those of Zwingli. The support, which he found from those of like mind, the followers who adhered to him, awakened in the head of this fanatic the delusion that he had received a call to be a prophet, and pictured to him a final victory over Zwingli, or at least placed in view the crown of martyrdom, in which latter, one and another of them, perhaps, saw, not without an inward satisfaction, an atonement for the conscious guilt of their former lives. Here again, the simple presentation of the facts will furnish proof for this opinion.