ZWINGLI, HULDREICH.
I. Life and Labors. Early Life and Education (§ 1). Initial Doubts at Einsiedeln of Roman Catholicism (§ 2). Leut-Priestship at Zurich and Marriage (§ 38). Increasing Alienation from the Roman Church (§ 4). The Final Rupture (§ 5). Peasant and Anabaptist Disturbances (§ 6). The Conference at Baden (§ 7). Eucharistic Conference with Luther at Marburg (§ 8). Varpaniecm Plans against the Hapsburgs and the Pope
Diet of Augsburg and Work in Zurich (§ 10). Civil War and Death of Zwingli (§ 11). . Theological System. Theories of Zeller and Sigwart (§ 1). Criticism of Sigwart’s Theory (§ 2). Criticism of Zeller’s Theory (§ 3). Direct Relation of the Human Soul to God (§ 4). Philosophical Elements of Zwingli’s Theology (§ 5). Rigid Practicality and Exclusion of Speculation (§ 6). Centered in Christian Consciousness and Experience of Sanctification (§ 7). I. Life and Labors: Huldreich Zwingli, the Reformer of German Switzerland as preacher of Evangelical truth, contemporary with, but independent of, Martin Luther, was born at Wildhaus (42 m. e. by s. of Zurich), in the valley of the Toggenburg, Jan. 1, 1484; and died at Cappel (10 m. s. of Zurich) Oct. 11, 1531. His first name shows the variants Ulric, Ulrich, Ulricus, Huldricus, and Huldrych, while his last name, which appears in Latin as Zwinglius and in English as Zwingle, was originally Zwilling (“Twin”). His father, Ulrich Zwingli, was the chief magistrate of the village; his father’s brother, Bartholomew, was the village priest. 1. Early His mother’s maiden name was Mar- Life and garetha Meili, and her brother, Jo- Education. hannes (d. 1524), was abbot of the Benedictine abbey of Fischingen (about 25 m. e. by w. of Zurich), while a near relative, probably an uncle, was abbot of Old St. John’s, near Wildhaus. Zwingli was the third of his parents’ eight sons. In 1487 his uncle Bartholomew moved
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to Wesen (some 10 m. s. of Wildhaus) on the Walensee, where he was pastor and dean, and then, or a little later, he took his nephew into his house and sent him to the village school. Being a friend of the New Learning, and noticing the promise of the child, he determined to educate him for the Church, but in agreement with the new ideas; accordingly he sent him to the school of Gregory Buenzli in Klein Basel, in 1494, and in 1498 to that of Heinrich Woelfli (Lupulus) in Bern. There the lad particularly distinguished himself, and made many friends, as he, like Luther, was a born musician and fond of company. These qualities induced the Dominicans to invite him to live in their monastery, but when his father and uncle heard of this, they took him out of the city, lest he should become a monk, and sent him to Vienna. For the next two years he studied there (1500-02); and in 1502 he matriculated at Basel, took his B.A. degree there in 1504, and his M.A. in 1506, teaching meanwhile in the school of St. Martin’s Church. In 1506 he became pastor at Glarus, where he remained for ten years.
Being a scholar, Zwingli applied himself to his books and laid deep and wide foundations. He also evinced his capacity as a preacher, and with flaming zeal denounced the evils of the time, the chief of these, to his patriotic mind, being the hiring out of the Swiss to any one else than the pope toight as mercenaries, an occupation which, in numerous eases, resulted in their moral ruin. Because some
of the leading persons in his congrega-
2. Initial tion were carrying on this traffic, his
Doubts at opposition awoke their animosity and Einsiedeln made his position so uncomfortable of Roman that he was glad to accept a call to be Catholicism. preacher at LHinsiedeln, only a few miles from Glarus, and the chief place
of pilgrimage for Switzerland, South Germany, and Alsace. There he met with great numbers of people, including many prominent men, and thus he clarified his thinking on the burning questions of the day. He had a candid mind, and his faith in traditional orthodoxy had already received several shocks. Thomas Wyttenbach. (q.v.) was the first one to question in his hearing the traditional base of the Church’s teaching, in 1505-06, and a little later he came upon a service book containing the liturgy as used in Mollis, near Glarus, two hundred years before, and found that it expressly enjoined that the cup was to be administered to a babe after its baptism. Again, when on a campaign in Italy as chaplain of the Glarus contingent in the papal army, he discovered that the Milan liturgy differed in many points from that used elsewhere. Meditatation on these points showed him that the Church had really not taught absolutely the same truths from the beginning, nor had observed everywhere the same practises. Like all other Humanists, he read Erasmus, and from him learned that the source of doctrine was the Bible and not the Church. When, therefore, he could read the New Testament in the original in 1516, thanks to Erasmus, he drank truth from the fountain rather than through the more or less troubled stream of tradition. Then, when he met leading men at Einsiedeln, and found