The Life and Times of Ulric Zwingli

by Johann Jakob Hottinger

"You begin your letter to us with reproaches of dishonor. Faithful, dear Confederates, we had expected better things of you. What we did was done for the Christian purpose of honoring God. We hope that treaties have in no wise been violated thereby; but, indeed, we would commend to your consideration, whether the insolent and haughty letter of your envoys be in accordance with them. You conjecture that our preachers have been the occasion of this Conference, in order to repair their injuries at Baden, and color over their defeat. Dear Confederates, you should not deem us such persons as ever to rest upon any class of men the ground and assurance of our true, primitive, Christian faith. Still less can we discover that we have given them too long a rein, because you are ill pleased that we suffer the uncorrupted Word of God to be preached and spread every where amongst us. Far be it from us to cut ourselves off from the Christian Church, whose head is Christ himself; much rather would we do, what becomes good Christians, defend and protect her. And since you remind us of our sealed document, although we are obliged to give neither you nor others an answer concerning it, yet we freely admit that we swore on that day an oath, on account of faith, not of the Confederacy, but in no wise pledged ourselves to you or others to believe what you or they believe. That your forefathers and ours entered into the Confederacy and took oaths of friendship in the same faith we do not deny. But what they at the same time held in their hearts is known to God alone. Had they become so well acquainted with the treachery of Antichrist as you and we, they would hardly have remained so long in error. Since then you invite us to summon our bailiwicks, so that your envoys may appear before us and them, know ye, that such a step is not in accordance with the Articles of Confederation, and we therefore desire you to abstain from it. And since you suppose there are rude people amongst us, who say they do not wish to be lorded over by other cantons, nor ruled, nor compelled to believe--there is truth in it. We are just as unwilling to go beyond the Articles of Confederation, when asked by you, as you would be, if asked by us; we will, by no means, suffer or permit this. Finally, we understand that unfriendly missives against us have been printed in Luzern, and it cannot be forgotten by you, what was formerly decreed at the Diet on this account. We pray you, therefore, to put a stop to it, else we shall be obliged to print replies. This is what we send you in way of answer to the letter of your envoys, so that henceforth you may know how to negotiate in the matter, and guard against such insolent, disgraceful writing."

The Five Cantons responded to this provoking language by unfriendly measures. They refused their subjects permission to go to Bern, and denied a safe-conduct to travelers who passed through their boundaries. The government of Luzern, excited to the highest pitch of hostility by the passionate Doctor Murner, did not prevent him from attacking Bern and her government in the most unmeasured style in various libelous writings, issued by a printing-house of his own. All this increased the hatred toward that state and the favorable inclination toward Zurich.

Here collected, in the meantime, all those persons from Eastern Switzerland and the neighboring parts of Germany, who intended to be present at the conflict in Bern. On New Year's evening fifteen hundred and twenty-eight were entertained at the chamber of the Canons by the government of Zurich. The day following, preachers and scholars, more than a hundred in number, they set out, surrounded by a troop of armed men to command respect, for it had been rumored that in the free bailiwicks, where the Five Cantons swayed the majority of the rulers, they would be threatened with danger. They reached Bern on the third evening, where also Œcolampadius and the theologians of Strassburg, Bucer and Capito, had already arrived. Religion had put science in motion. From the union of both, politics were to receive their direction. The events in Bern were to determine the fate of Switzerland. Statesmen as well as scholars acknowledged this. The city had neglected nothing in order to make clear its honor, its rectitude and its hospitality. The government had exhibited firmness on all sides. To the Emperor himself, who in a very earnest tone had issued a positive command to abolish the Conference, it had been replied respectfully, but decidedly, that the preparations had already gone too far to permit this.

On the sixth of January the business was opened in the church of the Franciscans. Of splendid accommodations for one party and mean ones for the other, as at Baden, there was nothing to be seen. Several times were the opponents of the Reformers requested to assist each other. "You see"--said the landvogt Manuel, who was appointed to summon the speakers according to the rules--"how they confess the articles to be good, and faithfully keep together; therefore, I pray and warn you once more, for God's sake, to bring into one place your opposing speakers, and assist each other by counsel, writing and speaking. This our gracious Lords will accept with great gratitude as a favorable token of your good-will."

Into the particulars of the Conference it is not needful to enter here. The whole story and the result are pictured for us in a report, still extant, from the pen of a zealous Catholic, who was an ear-and-eye-witness: "What I have so often said," writes Jacob of Muenster, priest at Solothurn, to a lawyer in Mayence--"has been clearly exhibited at this heretical gathering. We are going downwards, only by our own indolence, and because the head's of our church do nothing for science. Several of our adherents in Bern, hitherto members of the government, had implored the bishops even with threats, to send hither learned men, able to cope with the heretics. No one came; no one sent. At last appeared a certain Augustinian brother. They call him Provincial Conrad Freger. He brought with him skill in talking, but of true eloquence and science I could not discover a trace. When proof from the Scripture was demanded, he traveled off. I found nothing in him but a barefaced monk, although others looked for a prodigy. Still more boisterously did a certain Dominicaster beat about him with passages of Scripture for several days, but in the end showed that he understood no Greek. The best among them was the schoolmaster of Zofingen. They call him The Letter. What he quoted from the writings of the Fathers, in defence of the church, was worth hearing. He knew more than all the others put together; yet sufficient power was lacking in him also. Thus must we mourn over our want of skill and contempt of science. Oh, if Erasmus had only been present! But I should tell you something about the heretics. My bile was stirred up--hence, only a little. They did not appear to me so sure of their cause, that we could not have frightened them, if we did not gain a victory, by able speakers, versed in the Scriptures, which, however, we must confess, are not with us in everything. I often saw them not agreed as to the answer to be given; one often putting anxious questions to the other, often whispering to him. Several were only encouraged and roused up by the pertinacious vehemence of Zwingli. This beast is in fact more learned even than I had thought. The saucy Œcolampadius may understand the Prophets and the Hebrew language better, and perhaps equal him in Greek, but falls far behind him in fertility of mind, power, and clearness of representation. How Capito should be rated I could not discover. Bucer spoke more. And, if he had the same learning and knowledge of the languages as Œcolampadius and Zwingli, he would be far more dangerous, so graceful is his gesture and manner, and so pleasant his speech. Thus we stood, wretchedly equipped against the most skillful heretics. Here roared a little mass-priest one moment, and there again another. Alas! they were taught choral singing and nothing else. Honor to that schoolmaster Letter! and yet he himself has not gone beyond the letter. And what was now the issue? Our decided overthrow. How easy it could have been prevented, had our bishops only turned their attention more to humane studies than to base wenches. Thou wilt ask: Is there no longer any hope of mastering this extension of heresy? It is certainly slim. The Luzernese, at the head of the Five Cantons, have taken all possible pains to do this, more, in fact, than all the bishops together; but from our weak defence, the belief has been impressed on the multitude, that we have nothing to defend, and the majority has overcome the better minority. Now the Zurichers can have their own way with them. Thou knowest what cunning they possess and what immoveable constancy."

After the German Conference, which lasted eighteen days, a shorter one followed in the Latin language, for the priests of the bailiwicks of Ælen and Granson. William Farell, a learned Frenchman, who for some time had been laboring for the Reformation with the most unwearied zeal, in Western Switzerland, had to do with opponents still more ignorant than those which fell to his German friends. This part of the proceedings was so sadly lacking in earnestness and dignity, that the details of it were not suffered to appear in the Acts of the Conference, which were immediately put to press and published by the government of Bern. Zwingli also exerted a powerful influence upon the city in general, by two sermons. It is narrated, that, during the delivery of one of them, a priest threw off the mass-robe, which he had already put on, with the words: "If the mass does not rest on firmer grounds, I will never celebrate it again." With gratitude the government of Bern gave a liberal recompense to the foreign scholars and ambassadors and an escort until they had passed beyond their borders. Two weeks after the Conference, appeared their detailed ordinance touching the re-organization of the church-system. In it they cut themselves loose from all former connection with the bishops: "Since you"--so they say--"in spite of all prayers and invitations have staid away from the Disputation, and since you indeed shear the poor sheep, but have not pastured them, we deprive you of your selfish trade, and neither we, nor they who come after us, wish to be bound in any way to you or your successors." All deacons and pastors are released from their oath to them, and required henceforth to give it to the government. He who refuses, is to be banished. In regard to the mass, images and monasteries, they will be dealt with as in Zurich. Living benefactors of ecclesiastical institutions are allowed to take back their gifts. For the rest, account shall be afterward rendered to the government. Yet, it is expressly added: "Not that we wish to appropriate such gifts to our own use, as they are still to be called gifts of God, but so to dispose of them that our honor and justice will stand clear before God and the world." Finally, the rules of fasting and celibacy were abolished, but self-government was demanded for the freedom restored. On this point the document speaks thus: "And as we have heretofore punished, in the rate of ten pounds, those who have eaten flesh and eggs on forbidden days, so will we henceforth fine at the same rate all who take more than their nature can bear, pouring it down after the ninth sleeping-cup, and those who drink on and carouse; when they are guilty of it frequently, heavier punishment is reserved, to be laid on each one according to circumstances."

From what has just been narrated, we see the influence exerted by Zwingli upon Bern. Let us now take into consideration the reaction of Bern upon Zwingli. When he began his great work in Zurich, the path of its development could scarcely have been marked out before his eyes. He little thought of political commotion. Even the mischief arising from desertions and pensions, which he only fought against on account of their evil effects on religion and morals, could be prevented without change either in the government of the several states, or in the ground-work, nature or language of the Articles of Confederacy. The refusal of Zurich to take part in the French Alliance awakened displeasure, it is true, among her sister-cantons, but even this was followed by no direct disturbance of her relations with them. Now came the division of the bishopric, already an influential step. A new principle was introduced into the ecclesiastical, which was so closely interwoven with the political life. But this principle was rejected by all the other states up to the Conference of Baden. The Five Cantons and the party belonging to the old faith hoped from this Conference so glorious an acknowledgment of it in the others, that even Zurich would be obliged to submit. It happened otherwise. Bern also fell away from the principle of the Five Cantons. A new idea of the Confederacy began to form itself in opposition to the old; but even here again some difference prevailed. The ecclesiastical reform in Zurich had been effected by appealing to the people and with their aid. By it and through it, also, the democratic tendency in political life attained the victory. Toward the close of the year 1527, no more traces of the activity of a Secret Council are to be found; all business of any importance had to be brought from the Small before the Great Council, from whence the people were generally informed of it, and not seldom asked for their opinion. In particular emergencies, indeed, the Great Council clothed some of its members with dictatorial power, but only for a few weeks and under public accountability. But the more democratic the form of political life becomes, just so much the more indispensable are culture and the religious elevation of the people. The strengthening of a sense of right demands as a necessary counterpoise, an exalted sense of duty. Thus state and church go together, indissoluble in their mutual relations, in consequence of which every commotion in the sphere of one, reacts inevitably on that of the other; but whilst the authority of the state rests upon law and its severe administration, the power of the church ought to be grounded only upon conviction, faith, freedom and love, for these are the requirements as well as the fundamental doctrines of the Gospel. In a democracy the law must be a most complete defence against the wicked; the Gospel the basis of all improvement. As the principles of the church and of the state differ in this way, so do they also in the mode of their use. This difference was clearly apprehended by Zwingli. We see it above. The ecclesiastical and political reforms of Zurich had shaped themselves according to these principles. In all religious matters, conviction was first sought; in all political, proof that the letter of the law would justify or demand it, was sufficient. Whatever may be the relation of the church to the state in other forms of government, this must continue the most suitable for a democracy. Bern, on the other hand, was never democratic. It is true, indeed, that even here ecclesiastical reform was only possible by the removal of some of the most influential heads of the aristocracy, which, however, did not succumb as completely as in Zurich, so that even the friends of the Reformation and of Zwingli, who form the middle class, worked their way into the government, accepted partly from necessity and partly of their own accord, aristocratic forms and principles. The closer the connection between Bern and Zurich now became, the less could a reaction of the former upon the latter be prevented. The commercial city was rather disposed to treat with her subjects, the knightly to issue her commands. In Zurich the Great Council had, through Zwingli's influence, become the ruling authority; in Bern, as might be expected from her character, it was always the Small. As long as the Reformation was confined to Zurich, the ecclesiastical tendency predominated; in proportion as it passed over to Bern, Basel and other states, the political gained the upper hand. The question, whether the Church or the Holy Scriptures ought to decide in matters of faith, was scientific and historical; that, as to how the Articles of Confederation should be interpreted; what was the limit of the Diet's authority, and for what single states might resist a majority of the others, belonged to the sphere of public law. By the accession of Bern to Zurich, and the common position, which they had now to assume and maintain against the Five Cantons, Zwingli was obliged to take up this question touching the Confederacy, to give counsel, to mingle in politics, to tread the slippery path with one foot, as it were, whilst the other remained on the firm foundation of religious principle. The consequences of this vacillating course are apparent, from the beginning of the year 1528 onward, in the striking change manifest in his mode of dealing with the affairs of his own canton. The same man, who hitherto had done homage to the principle of absolute publicity, who expected in favor of Christianity, as he found it in the Holy Scriptures and drew it thence, a more lively acknowledgment from the sound sense of the people than from learned craftiness; from the uncorrupted feelings of men than philosophical arrogance, to whom Christianity was the most elevated--the only worthy religion for a nation; who, therefore, had to look to the people for the maintenance of his reformatory measures; this same man began now to employ all the arts of a politician, for the upholding and spread of these same measures of reform--a bold undertaking, altogether too bold--one that compelled him to play a double part, in which superhuman effort he at last fell a bloody sacrifice. As we proceed, this will become more clear and evident from authenticated facts.

At the time, when Zurich yet stood alone among her sister-confederates, shortly after the Conference of Baden, when her repeated vindication, her fourth complaint against exclusion from the public councils in direct violation of treaties resounded unheard, and her letters to the Five Cantons were no longer read, and threats multiplied, the neighboring imperial city of Constance found herself in a like forsaken condition. There also, through the preaching of Ambrosius Blaarer, a friend of Zwingli, and others, the reformation of the church had made such active progress, that the bishop and the majority of the canons withdrew in anger to Ueberlingen and Mœrsburg, and the Emperor caused the city to feel the weight of his displeasure; but the Council, devoted to the new order of things, looked around beyond the walls for support in case of need. The necessity appeared the greater, because the suspicion prevailed among many of the citizens that Austria, sure of the secret approval of the head of the Empire, would use the favorable moment to take possession of a place so well situated on the frontier. The behavior of the Archducal Vicegerent, Marcus Sittich von Ems, strengthened the suspicion. His troopers rode up close to the gates of the city. He himself looked about in the neighborhood for a spot, as he said, on which to pitch a camp. In these straits Constance turned toward Zurich and sought a defensive alliance with her. After long negotiations, conducted in secret, this was at last concluded on the 25th of December, 1527, a few days before the Zurichers set out to the Conference at Bern. They carried the news thither. Bern also, in a certain measure by storm, was won over as a party. As early as the 6th of January, 1528, the very day on which the Religious Conference was opened, the majority of the Great Council expressed their willingness to take the matter in hand. The name given to the Alliance, the Christian Buergerrecht, (Citizen's rights), was easy to understand, not so its spirit. In the ancient treaties the Five Cantons had surrendered the privilege of contracting other alliances without the common consent of all the states; the three original cantons, therefore, could not permit any deliberation among separated cantonal authorities. Zurich, on the contrary, and Bern, at the time of their accession to the Confederacy, had reserved this privilege in writing. As a natural consequence, the ties of the Federal Compact were viewed somewhat differently by its members. To the original cantons they appeared closer; to the cities, especially Zurich, less restrictive. This conflict of opinion had contributed not a little to the duration and violence of the old Zurich War, in the preceding century. Now it revived again, and that at a most unpropitious moment. In the Buergerrecht, stipulations were certainly made in regard to the Emperor and Empire, as well as the Confederates, so that the obligations under which the two cities had come toward them, seemed to be ratified on the face of it; but this same Buergerrecht spoke also of the possibility of warlike expeditions, the division of whatever might be conquered, and the privilege of enlarging and extending itself to other cities and territories. Here lay the manifest germ of a new confederacy, resting on new foundations, and the subsequent movements of Zwingli, since expressions incontestibly show that he, more perhaps than any statesman in Zurich, had thought of such an issue. The further the Reformation advanced, the more did it appear to him an affair of historical developement, the author of new conditions in political life; but to these very changes, many of those, who were favorable to the new religious views, showed themselves decidedly averse; for to them the federal compact, under its existing forms, was a thing to be kept inviolably sacred. The time had come when a two-fold choice was placed before him; either of his own accord to retire altogether from the sphere of politics and, plant himself upon purely religious ground, where he might be unassailable; or else to become more completely a politician, i.e. the soul of a faithful band of the most resolute and able members of the government, who, now in a narrow circle and in profound secrecy, prepared and paved the way for the most important business, such as that for which Zwingli himself, at an earlier period, had demanded the greatest possible publicity. The embarrassment into which his retreat would throw the heads of the government, his unrivalled skill in doing business, the hope, that he might cherish, of seeing his political plans succeed as well as his reforms in the church, his own conviction of their necessity in order to uphold the religious movement, and his peculiar position as the citizen of a free state, who could not, as a man of science, be overlooked in the ordering of his country's affairs--all this together drew him toward the second and more dangerous path.

Although, we observe with concern, that he now takes this path; although a foreboding of the fruitless struggles, which he thus prepared for himself, is awakened within us, there is also at the same time a growing admiration of the power displayed by him, and his persevering activity, not only in the field of politics, but in his vocation as a teacher, preacher, and theological writer, which he yet fulfilled with undiminished fidelity. He, who feels such strength within, durst aim at the very highest. Not in blind hatred of the existing order, would he destroy it: out of party-spirit, pride, or lust for dominion: a noble image of a father-land not split asunder, but made young again, reviving in fuller vigor under new forms, hovered before his soul. Heart and head had contributed to its outlines; nor was its realization, by means of a sincere and general effort, beyond the range of possibility. Can it then be imputed to him as a crime, that so few comprehended his ideal, that the time was not ripe for it?

In Bern, meanwhile, the negotiations touching the Christian Buergerrecht were actively carried on by the government during the Religious Conference, in spite of the opposition, as it appears, of a party averse to the Alliance. Roist and the town-clerk, Mangolt, sent information of this to Zurich in several letters. They spoke of consultations with intimate acquaintances, with trusty friends, and of the confidential but unofficial communications of the latter. Zwingli also, busy as he was during the session of that Diet, aided the Zurich Council by drawing up two opinions for the removal of certain doubts on the part of Schwytz. After a happy issue in ecclesiastical as well as political matters, Zwingli ascended the pulpit once more and took his leave: "Understand now"--so he concluded his discourse--"the liberty, which Christ gives you, and abide therein according to the word of the Apostle. You know under what a yoke our consciences groaned, and how we were led from one false hope to another; from one law to another. But now you see that freedom and hope rest upon knowledge and trust; upon confidence toward God through Jesus Christ, His only-begotten Son. Never suffer yourselves to be robbed of freedom and the salvation of your souls. Nothing requires so much courage as this. And as our forefathers, thanks be to God! stood up everywhere bold and unterrified in defence of personal liberty, much more should we stand fast in those things, which give us peace of conscience here and make us eternally joyful hereafter; not doubting that God, who has enlightened and drawn you, will also draw our dear neighbors, the other Confederates, in his own good time, so that we in true friendship, to which right knowledge is in no wise opposed, may become more harmonious than we ever were before. May God, who has created and saves us all, bestow this upon them and us!"