28 THE SWISS REFORMATION.
was SO common among priests, and so easily overlooked if only proper caution was observed, according to the wretched maxim, "/S'i 7ion caste, saltern caute.^^ The fact rests on his own honest confession, and was known to his friends, but did not injure his standing and influence ; for he was in high repute as a priest, and even enjoyed a papal pension. He resolved to reform in Glarus, but relapsed in Einsiedeln under the influence of bad examples, to his deep humiliation. After his marriage in Zurich, his life was pure and honorable and above the reproach of his enemies.
NOTES ON ZWINGLI'S MORAL CHARACTER.
Recent discussions Iiave given undue prominence to the blot whicli rests on Zwingli's earlier life, while yet a priest in the Roman Church. Janssen, the ultramontane historian, has not one word of praise for Zwingli, and violates truth and charity by charging him with habitual, promiscuous, and continuous licentiousness, not reflecting that he thereby casts upon the Roman Church the reproach of inexcusable laxity in discipline. Zwingli was no doubt guilty of occasional transgressions, but probably less guilty than the majority of Swiss priests who lived in open or secret concubinage at that time (see § 2, p. 6) ; yea, he stood so liigli in public estimation at Einsiedeln and Zurich, that Pope Hadrian VI., through his Swiss agent, offered him every honor except the papal chair. But we will not excuse him, nor compare his case (as some have done) with that of St. Augustin ; for Augustin, when he lived in concubinage, was not a priest and not even baptized, and he confessed his sin before the whole world with deeper repentance than Zwingli, who rather made light of it. The facts are these : —
1) BuUinger remarks (Reformationsgesch. I. 8) that Zwingli was suspected in Glarus of improper connection with several women (" tceil er wegen einiger Weiber verargwohnt luar"). BuUinger was his friend and successor, and would not slander him; but he judged mildly of a vice which was so general among priests on account of celibacy. He himself was the son of a priest, as was also Leo Judae.
2) Zwingli, in a confidential letter to Canon Utinger at Zurich, dated Einsiedeln, Dec. 3, 1518 {Opera, VII. 54-57), contradicts the rumor that he had seduced the daughter of an influential citizen in Einsiedeln, but admits his unchastity. This letter is a very strange apology, and, as he says himself, a blateratio rather than a satisfactio. He protests, on the one hand (what Janssen omits to state), that he never dishonored a married woman or a virgin or a nun ("ea ratio nobis perpetuo fiiit, nee alienum thorum conscendere, nee virginem vitiare, nee Deo dicatam profanare ") ; but, on the other hand, he speaks lightly, we may say frivolously, of his intercourse with the impure daughter of a barber who was already dishonored, and apologizes for similar offences com-
§ 7. ZWINGLI IN GLARUS. 29
uiitted in Glarus. This is the worst feature in the letter, and casts a dark shade on his character at that time. He also refers (p. 57) to the saying of JEneas Sylvius (Pope Pius II.) : " Non est qui vigesitnum annum excessit, nee virginem tetigerit." His own superiors set him a bad example. Nevertheless he expresses regret, and applies to liimself the word, 2 Pet. 2 : 22, and says, "Christus per nos blasphemcUur."
3) Zwingli, with ten other priests, petitioned the bishop of Constance in Latin (Einsiedeln, July 2, 1522), and the Swiss Diet in German (Zurich, July 13, 1522), to permit the free preaching of the gospel and the marriage of the clergy. He enforces the petition by an incidental confession of the scandalous life of the clergy, including himself ( Werke, I. 39) : "Euer ehrsam Wysheit hat bisher gesehen das unehrbar schandlich Leben, loelches wir leider bisher gejuhrt haben (iwjr woHen allein von uns selbst geredet haben) mit Frauen, damit wir mdnniglich iihel verdrgert und verbosert haben." But this document with eleven signatures (Zwingli's is the last) is a general confession of clerical immorality in the past, and does not justify Janssen's inference that Zwingli continued such life at that time. Janssen (Ein zwcites Wort an meine Kritiker, p. 47), moreover, mistakes in this petition the Swiss word raw (Suhe, rest) for riiwen {Reue, repentance), and makes the petitioners say that they felt "no repentance," instead of "no rest." The document, on the contrary, shows a decided advance of moral sentiment as compared with the lame apology in the letter to Utinger, and deeply deplores the state of clerical immorality. It is rather creditable to the petitioners than otherwise ; certainly very honest.
4) In a letter to his five brothers, Sept. 17, 1522, to whom he dedicated a sermon on " the ever pure Virgin Mary, mother of God," Zwingli confesses that he was subject to Hoffahrt, Fressen, Unlauterkeit, and other sins of the flesh ( Werke, I. 86). This is his latest confession ; but if we read it in connection with the whole letter, it makes the impression that he must have undergone a favorable change about that time, and concluded a regular, though secret, connection with his wife. As to temperance, BuUinger (I. 305) gives him the testimony that he was " very temperate in eating and drinking."
5) Zwingli was openly married in April, 1524, to Anna Reinhart, a respectable widow, and mother of several children, after having lived with her about two years before in secret marriage. But this fact, which Janssen construes into a charge of " unchaste intercourse," was known to his intimate friends ; for Myconius, in a letter of July 22, 1522, sends greetings to Zwingli and his ivife {"Vale cum uxore quam felicissime et tuis omnibus," Opera, VII. 210; and again: 'iVale cum uxore in Christo," p. 253). The same is implied in a letter of Bucer, April 14, 1524 (p. 335; comp. the note of the editors). "The cases," says Morikofer (I. 211), "were very frequent at that time, even with persons of high position, that secret marriages were not ratified by a religious ceremony till weeks and months afterwards." Before the Council of Trent secret marriages were legitimate and valid. {Can. et Deer. Cone. Trid., Sess. XXIV., Deer, de reform, matrimonii.)
Zwingli's character was unmercifully attacked by Janssen in his Geschichte des deutschen Volkes, III. 83 sq. ; An meine Kritiker (1883), 127-140; Ein ziceites Wort an meine Kritiker (1883), 45-48; defended as far as truth permits