THE NEW SCHAFF-HERZOG
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which shut off Lutheran membership in the Christian Burgher Rights, and the final refusal of France and Venice to enter. Inside of Swit- 9. Unsuc- zerland Zwingli’s schemes for relig- - cessful ious liberty were equally unsuccessful, Plans since the Five Forest Cantons, Le., against the the cantons of Uri, Schwyz, Unter- Hapsburgs walden, Luzern, and Zug, all adand the joining Zurich, refused to allow the Pope. preaching of the Reformed faith within their borders. War actually broke out; but at Kappel, ten miles south of Zurich, where the opposing armies were about to come to blows, a hasty and ill-considered peace was patched up. The Forest Cantons refused to ratify the action of their representatives, and so the bill for the war was left unpaid by them, and the gospel preachers were still excluded from their territories. Zwingli saw clearly that such a peace was transitory, but though he wished that the cantons might be forced to keep the promises they had made, he did not desire to have them forced by the cruel measures which the Protestant cantons adopted, namely, by preventing the Forest Cantons from buying necessary things, especially salt, by blocking their entrance into the lower levels where alone these things could be obtained.
On June 30, 1530, the famous Diet of Augsburg convened. To it Zwingli sent a brief confession of faith and tried, probably unsuccessfully, to get it into the emperor’s hands. It was a personal confession, but is one of the most interesting documents of the Reformation. In it he thus expresses himself respecting the Eucharist: ‘I believe that in the holy Eucharist—..e., the supper of thanksgiving—
the true body of Christ is present by
10. Diet of the contemplation of faith; i.e., that Augsburg they who thank the Lord for the kindand Work ness conferred on us in his Son acknowlin Zurich. edge that he assumed true flesh, in it truly suffered, truly washed away our
sins in his own blood; and thus everything done by Christ becomes present to them by the contemplation of faith. But that the body of Christ in essence and really—i.e., the natural body itself—is either present in the supper or masticated with our mouth or teeth, as the papists and some who long for the flesh-pots of Egypt assert, we not only deny, but firmly maintain is an error opposed to God’s Word.” Zwingli played a prominent part in Protestantism and made Zurich a prominent place. His educational work was important. He was a born teacher, and when at Glarus had pupils, some of whose letters have been preserved and show how well he had taught them. His little book which was his present to his stepson reveals the wise pedagogue, and so, as soon as his other engagements permitted, he accepted the post of rector of the Carolinum, the school of the Great Minster in Zurich (1525), and did much to improve the curriculum, besides teaching there in the religious department. But not education and instruction alone claimed his attention. He was the great man of Zurich, and was consulted on every topic by everybody from the chief magistrate to the lowliest citizen. His correspondence often compelled him to toil late into the night after
the crowded days, and there came from his pen a stream of treatises, in Latin when he sought the widest public, or in German when he had his own nation more in view. These treatises were sometimes hastily written and are often of little present interest, but most of them are still worthy of reading. They are polemical, as those in exchange with Luther’s on the Eucharist; expository of his position on theology in general or upon particular points; practig¢al, giving guidance to the preachers about him how to preach the Gospel; or patriotic, noble utterances against war and the mercenary service. These writings show the broad-mindedness of Zwingli, and give ground for the claim that if he were living to-day he would be in all respects a modern man.
But this life of strenuous endeavor in so many directions was drawing to its close, not through the weakening of its bodily powers, not because under a strain the brain had given way, but because the fratricidal strife which had been temporarily avoided broke out again. On May 15, 1531, the cantons which had accepted the Reformation assembled, and learning that the Forest Cantons, which were strongly Roman Catholic, had flatly refused to keep the treaty which they had signed through their representatives the year before, resolved to bring them to terms by preventing them from crossing their borders, as they would have to do if they would purchase wheat, salt, iron, steel, and other necessary things. It was a cruel measure, as already said, and Zurich resisted it, but was outvoted. As soon as this edict came to execution, it brought the Forest Cantons to warlike preparation, and since Zurich lay directly in their path as they descended from the mountains, they attacked it first. On Oct. 9, 1531, their troops crossed the Zurich border, which was only twelve miles from the city, and the news reached there that evening. Strangely enough, there seems to have been no apprehension that war was so near, and, consequently, there was no adequate preparation for it. It was a mob rather than a little army of the famous Swiss soldiers which rushed out of the city. Their objective was Kappel, and there they were joined the next day, Wednesday, Oct. 11, 1531, by the main army. With it was Zwingli, dressed in armor, it is true, though he was a noncombatant, but he staid in the rear of the batitle, and was there because he was the chief pastor of Zurich. It was a foregone conclusion that Zurich would be overthrown. She had only 2,700 men against 8,000 and they were very badly led. Overwhelmed, it took only a short time to be almost annihilated, and the battle of Kappel was a repetition of Flodden Field (Sept. 9, 1513). Five hundred Zurichers were slain, among them representatives of every prominent family in the city. But the greatest of them was Zwingli. Wounded first by a spear, and then struck on the head by a stone, he was put out of his misery by a sword thrust. He lay unrecognized for awhile, but when it became known that the corpse was that of Zwingli, it was treated with every indignity because he was held to be the author of the regulations which had brought on the war, which
11. Civil War, and Death of Zwingli.
was not true, and also as the leader of the Reformation, which was true. The body was given over to the hangman, who quartered it as if it had been that of a traitor, and then burned it, as if that of a heretic. The war ended in a treaty which was, of course, favorable to the Forest Cantons, though not so harsh as might have been expected. But all Zwingli’s plans for a league of princes, cantons, and cities against pope and emperor, and all his hopes of providing the Old Church cantons with Reformed Church missionaries were forever ended. Much that he stood for in church practise and in theology did not long outlive him. Music was restored to the churches (1598) and his eucharistic views were superseded among the Reformed by those of Calvin. Yet, as he becomes better known, his clear-headedness, his independence, and his progressiveness will gain him increasing fame, and men will put him beside Luther as a leader of the Protestant host. Il. Theological System:* It has been the subject of some controversy what is to be considered the determinative element of Zwingli’s theological system. Is it the religious interest of the Christian in salvation, or, more precisely, his faith in his election, which constitutes the central point in his religious life, as E. Zeller supposes? And, in this case, is it the doctrine of election, not as a theoretical proposition, but as a consequence of the consciousness of election, which forms the ultimate background of his religious convictions, the 1. Theories foundation and the center of his docof Zeller trine? Or, on the other hand, would and Zwingli lay down as the determinative Sigwart. standard of all other theological propositions the idea of God, conceived in a deterministic way, the idea of the absolute, allembracing activity of God, whois the lighest Good, absolute Being, and Essence and Life of all things? In this case is the determinative element of the system a theological (i.e., a philosophical), an objective one, in short, a principle which could be “ maintained even without the Scriptures,” as C. Sigwart declares? Both of these main suppositions place an undue emphasis upon single elements of the case, although they are characteristic elements, and both theories are, therefore, to be decidedly rejected. To Sigwart’s conception it may be objected that the idea of God, however great the consistency with which it is employed in Zwingli’s doctrinal structure, is, nevertheless, not its determinative element at all—at least not after such a manner as to furnish the explanation of every individual element, or of the whole tenor of the system, of its radical and thoroughly practical tendency. Certainly it is not correct to estimate Zwingli’s 2. Criticism idea of God as a speculative and a of Sigwart’s priori idea, and to designate Pico della Theory. Mirandola (q.v.) as the source of the same (cf. Usteri, TSK, 1885, iv. 625 sqq.). For, however surprizing an influence Pico has exercised upon many of Zwingli’s theoretical expositions, there is to be found in that writer not
* This section on Zwingli’s theology is translated by Frank Hugh Foster from Egli’s article in Hauck-Herzog RE, xxi. 774-815. The references are necessarily to the Schuler and Schulthess edition,