The Life and Times of Ulric Zwingli

by Johann Jakob Hottinger

The three friends, thus closely joined in noble endeavor, lived in daily, social, intercourse with others, whom hereafter, when the more earnest days of manly activity have arrived, we shall find arrayed, as in the cases of Eck and Faber, among the most bitter opponents of Zwingli.

The morals of that period, as every one knows, were loose and corrupt, and only too much opportunity was afforded for indulging in pleasures of every kind, especially in a large city. For young men, left to their own guidance in the heyday of life, it was difficult to keep within proper bounds on all sides. But his love of music, that very thing so severely blamed in after times by hypocritical pietists, was the means of preserving Zwingli from every thing low and mean. His early conviction of the value of time taught him to be very sparing of it, and the lofty ideal, which floated before him and his friends, their youthful plans of future greatness, kept them unsoiled amid the swamps of temptation, till at a later period their place was more effectually supplied by the purer influence of religion.

After a residence of two years abroad the young Switzer came back again to his native mountains, full of vigor, sound in mind and body, and amply prepared to enter upon any professional pursuit. He appears to have remained only a short time at home. The country village was little suited to the prosecution of his further designs. A situation as teacher of languages was offered him in the school of St. Martin at Basel, and he there began his public career in the year 1502. No intelligence has reached us concerning the nature of his labors. He had probably only elementary branches to teach; for the university, as formerly constituted, exerted on the teachers of the foundation-schools under its control, an influence rather paralyzing than encouraging. Nevertheless he conscientiously applied himself to his studies and associated for this purpose with Leo Judæ, who, born two years earlier than Zwingli at Rappersweier in Alsace, stood faithfully at his side in all his later course and will yet receive frequent mention in this history. He also shared with him his love of music.

But now the period had arrived, when in the study of religious doctrine, the end and meaning of their future life began to dawn upon the minds of Zwingli and his friend. At the same time a teacher came to Basel, who was well fitted to waken their love for this science and give a right direction to their active zeal. That man was Thomas Wittenbach of Biel, hitherto professor at Tubingen.

The world had then grown weary of the corruption of the clergy, of their stupid arrogance, of the intolerance, which would restrict the divine favor to the limits of their narrow earthly horizon, and of the search after miracles, which was counted faith, although a denial of true faith, because it would grasp with the hand that which is spiritual and not to be apprehended, except when a beam of divine grace is glowing on the altar of a pure heart. Yet only so much the more did a longing after the communication of clearer light prevail.

It is true indeed that here and there were found pious men, who in humility and childlike simplicity wrought works of love and edified their neighbors, by a redeeming activity and a spotless life. But characters of this kind were suited only to peaceful, not stormy times, which called for bolder leaders. Enemies must be met on their own field, the weapons of the understanding used, and the arguments of science advanced, not in such a way however as to injure simple-minded faith. This was the manner in which Christ opposed the scepticism of the Sadducees and the sophistry of the Pharisees, and this is what is meant by that saying of his, concerning the wisdom of the serpent and the harmlessness of the dove. High hung this garland; but it was worthy of the sweat of the noblest.

Wittenbach knew well how to encourage his pupils to enter the lists and strive after its attainment. Leo Judæ has given authentic testimony to this effect in a letter to the council of Biel. "From your city," writes he, "came forth this man, regarded by the most learned men of that age as a the phœnix on account of his manifold acquirements. Zwingli and I enjoyed his instructions at Basel in the year 1505. Under his guidance, from polite literature, in which he was equally at home, we passed over to the more earnest study of the Holy Scriptures. His sagacity discerned clearly beforehand the events of coming years, the overthrow of the papal doctrine of indulgences and other groundless dogmas, by which, for many centuries, Rome had held unthinking mankind in bondage. Whatever of thorough knowledge we possess, we owe it to him and must remain his debtors as long as we live."

While yet in Basel Zwingli had received the title of Magister (Master of the Liberal Arts,) but he never made any use of it himself. One is our master, he was accustomed to say, Christ.

But now, in the twenty-second year of his age, he must leave Basel also, and enter on the proper business of his life. John Stucki, pastor at Glarus, died in the year 1506. Recommended probably by his uncle, perhaps by his friend Glareanus, the young man was chosen for the important post. The Bishop of Constance consecrated him to the priesthood and ratified the choice.

Through Rappersweil, where he preached his first sermon; through Wildhaus, where he read his first mass, he passed on towards the close of the year, to his new home. Glarus, the chief town of the canton, was inhabited by an active, intelligent population, full of energy and independence. The new teacher, who does not intend to act the part of an unprincipled hireling, must count on finding watchful enemies as well as friends. There is only one means, by which to maintain an erect position, under such circumstances, in a firm adherence to duty and principle, and that is an unfailing support,--trust in a higher power, which never deserts an honest endeavor. With this resolve, under this shield, Zwingli began the practice of his calling, not at all anxious about the judgments of men, nor troubled at the remarks of the multitude. In him ruled the ardent spirit of vigorous youth, averse to every thing that smacked of devotional hypocrisy, full of life and mirth, sometimes verging even on wantonness, and yet so earnest, where the affairs of science, so profound, where those of faith, and so conscientious, where those of the congregation entrusted to his care, were concerned, or those of his country, in whose welfare and honor his heart was bound up. If on this account he was called a friend of sport; if Glareanus wrote to him gaily in monk's Latin: "I am coming to you shortly, and then we will be of good cheer and play on the jews' harp;" and if Dingnauer, who promised him, that neither envy, nor jealousy, nor the moroseness of old age, nor gold, nor iron should cripple his friendship, believed that he must add the warning: "Watch over your heart, conceal your glowing wishes, lest joy be turned into bitter vexation;" we yet read, on the other hand, what he himself wrote to Vadianus at Vienna: "I am now resolved to devote myself to the Greek language and to be drawn away from it no more. This is not done out of vanity, for how little does pretension become me! but from the necessity of a thorough understanding of the Holy Scriptures." We find also that he wrote off the original Greek text of the Epistles of Paul in the form of a small book, in order to have it continually with him, and added in the margin the observations of the most approved commentators. In the year 1522, we hear him thus speak of the manner, in which he tried at that time to penetrate into the spirit of these records: "In my youth I made as much advance in human learning as any one of my age, and when, six or seven years ago, I devoted my whole strength to the study of the Holy Scriptures, the philosophy and theology of the controversialists threw continual difficulties in my way. At last I came to this conclusion. I thought: Thou must lay aside all these and get the meaning of God fresh from his own, simple word. Then I began to implore God for his light, and the Scripture became much clearer to me, although I read it merely, as I would have read many commentaries and interpreters." The letters written by him and to him at this time show us plainly, that those who were committed to his training, especially young men of promise, crowded around him, full of love and reverence, and that he never was weary of giving them counsel, support and recommendation in foreign countries, of watching over their progress and morals, whilst there, and of rejoicing in every evidence of talent and noble purpose and helping to turn them to practical account. Glareanus thanked him for permission to continue his studies abroad, though obliged to give up a benefice in Mollis, where, "like a goat-herd," he had to receive a new election every year. The same friend wrote to him on another occasion: "You are always helping those, who deserve it." Argobast Strub of Vienna was about to dedicate a commendatory poem to him, when death surprised the ingenious youth and the sorrowful Vadianus sent his literary remains to his former teacher as a pledge of love from the departed one. Peter Tschudi wrote to him from Paris, "You are like a tutelar god to us;" and his brother Aegidius in Basel begged him, "Help, that I may be called back to you again, for with no one have I wished rather to live than with you." Valentine Tschudi, the cousin of the two first named, was yet more strongly attached to their beloved master. "Never will I cease," he expresses himself, "to be thankful for your kindnesses, especially when a quartan fever troubled me of late, after my return from abroad and because, on another occasion, when I had left my books behind in Basel, you, although I would not out of modesty venture to be troublesome, called me to you, encouraged me, and offered me your books, your assistance and your influence. And thus your good will toward all students was extended to me also and that not in a general way, for, with special regard to my wants, your extensive and varied stores of knowledge lay at my service." This Valentine Tschudi and Ludwig Rosch, "a yet unbearded youth of the best kind," Zwingli had formerly recommended to Vadianus in Vienna for the study of polite literature. He did a similar favor for his brother Jacob, who "was possessed of extraordinary gifts," and he charged his friend "to clip, to plane and to polish the country youth as long as it was necessary, and should he ever kick at it," he concluded, "you may throw him into prison, until the fit is over."