§ 32. THE REFORMATION IN BASEL. Ill
death. Now began his work as reformer of the church of Basel, which followed the model of Ziirich. He sought the friendship of Zwingli in a letter full of admiration, dated Dec. 10, 1522.1 They continued to co-operate in fraternal harmony to the close of their lives.
QEcolampadius preached on Sundays and week days, explaining whole books of the Bible after the example of Zwingli, and attracted crowds of people. With the consent of the Council, he gradually abolished crying abuses, distributed the Lord's Supper under both kinds, and published in 1526 a German liturgy, which retained in the first editions several distinctively Catholic features such as priestly absolution and the use of lights on the altar.
In 1525 he began to take an active part in the unfortunate Eucharistic controversy by defending the figurative interpretation of the words of institution : " This is (the figure of) my body," chiefly from the writings of the fathers, with which he was very familiar.^ He agreed in substance with Zwingli, but differed from him by placing the metaphor in the predicate rather than the verb, which simply denotes a connection of the subject with the predicate whether real or figurative, and which was not even used by our Lord in Aramaic. He found the key for the interpretation in John 6 : 63, and held fast to the truth that Clii-ist himself is and remains the true bread of the soid to be partaken of hy faith. At the conference in Marburg (1529) he was, next to Zwingli, the chief debater on the Reformed side. By this course he alienated his old friends, Brentius, Pirkheimer, Billican, and Luther. Even Melanchthon, in a letter to him (1529), regretted that the " horr'ibilis dissensio de Ccena Domini " interfered with the enjoyment of their friendship,
1 Opera Zwinglii, VII. 251, and Zwingli's reply, p. 261. Hagenbach gives a German translation of the letters, p. 26 sq. and 38.
^ De genuina verhorum Domini "hoc est corjms meum " juxta vetustissiinos auctores expositione. (Strassburg), September, 1525. Corap. vol. VI. 612 sqq.
112 THE SWISS REFORMATION.
though it did not shake his good will towards him (" benevolentiam erga te meam''''^. He concluded to be hereafter "a spectator rather than an actor in this tragedy."
CEcolampadius had also much trouble with the Anabaptists, and took the same conservative and intolerant stand against them as Luther at Wittenberg, and Zwingli at Ziirich. He made several fruitless attempts in public disputations to convince them of their error.^
The civil government of Basel occupied for a while middle ground, but the disputation of Baden, at which CEcolampadius was the champion of the Reformed doctrines,^ brought on the crisis. He now took stronger ground against Rome and attacked what he regarded as the idolatry of the mass. The triumph of the Reformation in Berne in 1528 gave the final impetus.
On the 9th of February, 1529, an unbloody revolution broke out. Aroused by the intrigues of the Roman party, the Protestant citizens to the number of two thousand came together, broke to pieces the images still left, and compelled the reactionary Council to introduce everywhere the form of religious service practised in Zurich.
Erasmus, who had advised moderation and quiet waiting for a general Council, was disgusted with these violent measures, which he describes in a letter to Pirkheimer of Niirnberg. May 9, 1529. " The smiths and workmen," he says, " removed the pictures from the churches, and heaped such insults on the images of the saints and the crucifix itself, that it is quite surprising there was no miracle, seeing how many there always used to occur whenever the saints Avere even slightly offended. Not a statue was left either in the churches, or the vestibules, or the porches, or the monasteries. The frescoes were obliterated by means of a coating of lime ;
1 See above, p. 69 sqq., and the extracts of his disputations with the Anabaptists in Hagenbach, p. 108 sqq. ; Herzog, I. 299 sqq., and II. 75 sqq.
2 See above, p. 100.