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The territory now known as Switzerland formed portion of the Holy
Roman Empire. In 1291, however, during the reign of Rudolph
of Habsburg, the three states or cantons of Uri, Schweiz, and
Unterwalden, formed a confederation to defend their rights and
privileges, thus laying the foundation for the existence of
Switzerland as an independent nation. Other cantons joined the
alliance, more especially after the victory at Morgarten in 1315,
when the Austrian forces despatched against the Swiss were almost
annihilated. Austria made various attempts to win back the Swiss to
their allegiance but without success, and in 1394 the independence
of the allied cantons was practically recognised.
About the time of the Reformation in Germany Switzerland consisted
of thirteen cantons and several smaller "allied" or "friendly"
states not admitted to full cantonal rights. Though bound together by
a loose kind of confederation for purposes of defence against
aggression, the various states enjoyed a large measure of
independence, and each was ruled according to its own peculiar
constitution. The Federal Diet or General Assembly was composed of
representatives appointed by the cantons, and its decisions were
determined by the votes of the states, the largest and most populous
possessing no greater powers than the least influential member of the
confederation. Some of the states were nominally democratic in their
form of government, but, as in most countries during this period, the
peasants had many grounds for reasonable complaint, particularly in
regard to taxation, treasury pensions, and the enlisting and
employment of the Swiss mercenary troops, then the best soldiers in
Europe.
As in Germany, many causes were at work to prepare the ground for the
new religious teaching. On account of the free character of its
institutions refugees of all kinds fled to Switzerland for asylum, and
were allowed great liberty in propagating their views. Again, the
Swiss mercenaries, returning from their campaigns and service, during
which they were brought into contact with various classes and nations,
served much the same purpose as does the modern newspaper. In both
these ways the peasants of Switzerland were kept in touch with the
social, political, and religious condition of the rest of Europe,
and with the hopes and plans of their own class in other kingdoms.
Humanism had not, indeed, made very striking progress in
Switzerland, though the presence of Erasmus at Basle, and the
attacks that he directed against the monks and the clergy, could not
fail to produce some effect on a people whose minds were already
prepared for such methods by their acquaintance with modern
developments.
If, however, the Church in Switzerland had been free from abuses
not all the wit and eloquence of Erasmus and his followers could have
produced a revolt, but unfortunately, the influences that led to the
downfall of religion in other countries were also at work in the Swiss
cantons. The cathedral chapters were composed for the greater part of
men who had no vocation to the priesthood, and who adopted the clerical
profession because they wished to enrich themselves from the revenues of
the Church, and were ensured of good positions through the influence
of their relatives and patrons. Many of the clergy were far from being
perfect, nor were all the religious institutions mindful of the spirit
or even of the letter of their constitutions. Unfortunately, too,
owing to the peculiar political development of their country, the
bishops of Switzerland were subject to foreign metropolitans, two of
them being under the jurisdiction of the Archbishop of Mainz, two
under Besancon, one under Aquileia, and one subject immediately to
Rome. Partly for this reason, partly, also, owing to the
increasing encroachments of the civil power, disputes and conflicts
between the ecclesiastical and temporal jurisdictions were not
unfrequent. But it would be a mistake to suppose that there were no
good ecclesiastics in Switzerland at this time. There were many
excellent priests, both secular and regular, who recognised the sad
condition of affairs, and who supported measures such as those
undertaken by the Bishop of Basle in 1503 with all their power.
The great body of teachers known as the Friends of God were at work
in Switzerland as in the Netherlands, and were doing splendid service
for education, both secular and religious.
The man, who played in Switzerland the part played so successfully by
Luther in Germany, was Ulrich Zwingli. He was the son of rich
parents, born at Wildhaus, in the canton of Saint Gall
(1484), educated at the Universities of Berne, Basle, and
Vienna, and after his ordination to the priesthood, appointed to the
parish of Glarus. He was a young man of remarkable ability both as a
student and as a preacher, and was fortunate enough to attract the
notice of a papal legate, through whose influence a pension was
assigned to him to enable him to prosecute his studies. He was a good
classical scholar with a more than average knowledge of Hebrew, and
well versed in the Scriptures and in the writings of the Fathers.
For a time he acted as chaplain to some Swiss regiments fighting in
Italy for the Pope against France, and on his return to his native
country he was appointed preacher at the famous shrine of Our Lady at
Einsiedeln.[72] Here his oratorical powers stood him in good
stead, but his judgment and level-headedness were not on the same high
plane as his declamatory powers, nor was his own private life in
keeping with the sanctity of the place or with the denunciations that he
hurled so recklessly against his clerical brethren. He began to attack
pilgrimages and devotions to the Blessed Virgin, but it was not so
much for this as for his unlawful relations with a woman of bad
character that he was relieved of his office.[73] He retired to
Zurich where he was appointed preacher in the cathedral. Here he
denounced the lives of the clergy and the abuses in the Church,
relying, as he stated, upon what he had seen himself in Italy during
his residence there as chaplain to the Swiss mercenaries. Like
Luther, he well knew how to win the attention and sympathy of the mob
by his appeals to the national feelings of his countrymen, and like
Luther he insisted that the Scriptures were the sole rule of faith.
He denounced in the strongest language the immorality and vices of the
clergy, celibacy, vows of chastity, pilgrimages and the veneration of
the saints, but for so far he had not broken entirely with the
Church.
The preaching of the Indulgences promulgated by Leo X in
Constance was entrusted to the Franciscans. Their work was a
difficult one especially as the Grand Council of Zurich forbade them
to persist, as, indeed, did also the able and zealous Hugo von
Hohenlandenberg, Bishop of Constance, in whose diocese Zurich was
situated. Zwingli, confident of the support of the city authorities,
attacked the doctrine of Indulgences and was backed by the Grand
Council, which ordered, at his instigation, that the Word of God
should be preached according to the Scriptures, regardless of
tradition or the interpretation of the Church. Later on he directed
his attacks against the meritoriousness of good works and the practice
of fast and abstinence (1522), and about the same time he
addressed a petition to the Bishop of Constance demanding that he
should not interfere with the preaching of the pure Word of God nor
set any obstacle to the marriage of his priests. He admitted publicly
that his relations with women had been disgraceful, that he had learned
from his own personal experience how impossible of fulfilment was the
vow of chastity, and that marriage was the only remedy that would
enable him to overcome the emotions of carnal lust referred to by St.
Paul in his epistle to the Corinthians (I. 7, 9). The bishop
refused to yield to this demand insisting on the strict observance of
celibacy, and appealed to the Grand Council to support him with the
full weight of their authority (April 1522).
Incensed by this refusal Zwingli shook off the yoke of ecclesiastical
authority, rejected the primacy of the Pope, and the infallibility of
General Councils, denounced celibacy and vows of chastity as
inventions of the devil, and called upon the Swiss people to support
him in his fight for religious freedom. Once before, in 1520,
Leo X had summoned Zwingli to Rome to answer for his teaching,
but the summons had been unheeded. Adrian VI made another attempt
to win him from his dangerous course by a letter full of kindness and
sympathy, but his remonstrance produced no effect (1523). The
Grand Council of Zurich, hopeful of securing a preponderating
influence in Switzerland by taking the lead in the new movement,
favoured Zwingli. Instead of responding to the appeal of the Bishop
of Constance it announced a great religious disputation to be held in
January 1523, to which both Zwingli and his opponents were
summoned for the explanation and defence of their views. Zwingli put
forward sixty-seven theses, the principal of which were that the
Bible is the sole rule of faith, that the Church is not a visible
society but only an assembly of the elect, of which body Christ is the
only true head, that consequently the jurisdiction of the Pope and of
the bishops is a usurpation devoid of scriptural authority, that the
Mass, Confession, Purgatory, and Intercession of the Saints are
to be rejected as derogatory to the merits of Christ, and finally,
that clerical celibacy and monastic vows, instead of being counsels of
perfection, are only cloaks for sin and hypocrisy. The Bishop of
Constance refused to take part in such a disputation. His
vicar-general, Johann Faber of Constance, however, attended the
meeting, not indeed to take part in the discussion but merely to
protest against it as opposed to the authority of the Church and of the
councils. As his protests were unheeded, he undertook to defend the
doctrines attacked, but in the end the Grand Council declared that
the victory rested with Zwingli.
Flushed with his triumph Zwingli now proceeded to put his theories
into practice. Supported by a mob he endeavoured to prevent the
celebration of Mass, religious processions, the use of pictures and
statues, and the solemn ceremonial associated with Extreme Unction
and the Viaticum. He compiled an introduction to the New Testament
for the use of the clergy, called upon them to abandon their
obligations of celibacy, and set them an example by taking as his wife
a woman who had been for years his concubine. He and his followers,
supported by the majority of the Grand Council, went through the city
destroying altars, pictures, statues, organs, and confessionals,
and erecting in place of the altars plain tables with a plate for bread
and a vessel for wine. The Catholic members of the Grand Council
were driven from their position, and Catholic worship forbidden in
Zurich (1523-5).
The system of Zwingli was much more rationalistic and, in a certain
sense, much more logical than that of Luther. Imbued with the
principles of pantheistic mysticism, he maintained that God is in
Himself all being, created as well as uncreated, and all activity.
Hence it was as absurd to speak of individual liberty or individual
action as to speak of a multiplicity of gods. Whether it was a case of
doing good or doing evil man was but a machine like a brush in the hands
of a painter. In regard to sin he contended man may be punished for
violating the law laid down by God even though the violation is
unavoidable, but God, being above all law, is nowise to blame.
Concupiscence or self-love is, according to him, at the root of all
misdeeds. It is in itself the real original sin, and is not blotted
out by Baptism. His teaching on the Scriptures, individual
judgment, ecclesiastical authority as represented by the bishops,
councils, and Pope, good works, indulgences, purgatory, invocation
of the saints, and vows of chastity differed but slightly from what
Luther had put forward. On the question of Justification, and
particularly on the doctrine of the Eucharist, the two reformers found
themselves in hopeless conflict.[74]
Zwingli's teaching did not at first find much favour in other portions
of German Switzerland. Lucerne declared against it in 1524.
The city authorities forbade the introduction of the new teaching, and
offered an asylum to those Catholics who had been forced to flee from
Zurich. Other cantons associated themselves with Lucerne, and a
deputation was sent to Zurich to request the city authorities to
abandon Zwingli and to take part in a general movement for a real and
constitutional reform. But the Grand Council, mindful of the
political advantages which would accrue to Zurich from its leadership
in the new religious revolt, declined to recede from their position.
While Zwingli was at work in Zurich, Oecolampadius
(1482-1531) set himself to stir up religious divisions in
Basle. He was born at Weisnberg, studied law at Bologna and
theology subsequently at Heidelberg, was ordained priest, and
appointed to a parish in Basle (1512). With Erasmus he was on
terms of the closest intimacy, and, as Basle was then one of the
great literary centres of the world, he soon became acquainted with
Luther's pamphlets and teaching. Some of the clergy in Basle,
notably Wolfgang Capito, a warm friend of Zwingli, were already
showing signs of restlessness especially in regard to the Mass,
purgatory, and invocation of the saints, and Oecolampadius was not
slow to imbibe the new ideas. In 1518 he was appointed preacher in
the Cathedral of Augsburg, but, having resigned this office on
account of failing health, he withdrew to the convent of Altmunster,
where, for some time, he lived a retired life. Subsequently he acted
as chaplain to the well-known German knight, Franz von Sickingen,
and finally, in 1524, he accepted the parish of St. Martin's
in Basle.
He now proclaimed himself openly a supporter of Zwingli, advocated
the new teaching on justification and good works, and attacked several
Catholic doctrines and practices. For him, as indeed for most of the
other reformers, clerical celibacy was the great stumbling block. He
encouraged his followers by taking as his wife a young widow, who was
subsequently in turn the wife of the two renowned Lutheran preachers,
Butzer and Capito. At first the city authorities and a large body of
the university professors were against him, but owing to the
disturbances created by his partisans full liberty of worship was
granted to the new sect (1527). Not content with this
concession, they demanded that the Mass should be suppressed. In
1529 the followers of Oecolampadius rose in revolt, seized the
arsenal of the city, directed the cannon on the principal squares, and
attacked the churches, destroying altars, statues, and pictures.
Erasmus, disgusted with such methods of propagating religion, left
Basle and sought a home in Freiburg. The Catholics were expelled
from the city council, their religion was proscribed, and Basle
joined hands with Zurich in its rebellion against the Church.
The revolt soon spread into other cantons of Switzerland. In Berne
and Schaffhausen both parties were strong and determined, and for a
time the issue of the conflict was uncertain, but in 1528 the party
of Zwingli and Oecolampadius secured the upper hand. Similarly in
St. Gall, Glarus, etc., victory rested with the new teaching.
Other cantons, as for example, Solothurn, wavered as to which side
they should take, but the three oldest cantons of Switzerland, Uri,
Schweiz and Unterwalden, together with Zug, Freiburg and
Lucerne, refused to be separated from the Church.
Apart altogether from the question of religion, there was a natural
opposition between populous and manufacturing centres like Berne and
Basle, and the rural cantons, devoted almost entirely to agricultural
and pastoral pursuits. When religious differences supervened to
accentuate the rivalry already in existence, they led almost inevitably
to the division of Switzerland into two hostile camps. Zurich,
Basle, Berne, Schaffhausen, and St. Gall, though they were the
most important cities, soon found themselves unable to force their
views on the rest of the country, as they were withstood by the federal
council, the majority of which was still Catholic. The latter
insisted that a conference should be held to settle the religious
disputes. The conference was arranged to take place at Baden in
1526. Eck, assisted by two other Catholic theologians, Faber
and Murner, undertook to defend the Catholic position. Zurich
refused to send representatives, but the reforming party were
represented by Oecolampadius, Haller, and others of their leaders.
The conference was attended by delegates from twelve cantons, and was
approved of by the Swiss bishops. After a discussion lasting fifteen
days during which Eck defended the Catholic doctrine regarding the
Mass, Eucharist, Purgatory, and the Intercession of the Saints,
the majority of the cantons decided in his favour, and a resolution was
passed forbidding religious changes in Switzerland and prohibiting the
sale of the works of Luther and Zwingli.
It was soon evident, however, that peace could not be secured by such
measures. The rural and Catholic cantons were in the majority, much
to the disgust of flourishing cities like Berne and Zurich. These
states, believing that they were entitled to a controlling voice in the
federal council, determined to use the religious question to bring
about a complete change in the constitution of the country by assigning
the cantonal representation in the federal council on the basis of
population. They formed an alliance with the other Protestant cantons
and with Constance to forward their claims (1527-8), but the
Catholic cantons imitated their example by organising a Catholic
federation to which the Archduke, Ferdinand of Austria, promised
his support (1529).
Zwingli was most eager for war, and at his instigation the army of
Zurich, backed by Berne, took the field in 1529. The Catholic
states, however, made it clear that they were both able and willing to
defend the constitution, but the bond of national unity and the dislike
of civil war exercised such an influence on both parties that a conflict
was averted by the conclusion of the Peace of Kappel (1529).
The concessions secured for his party by this Peace did not satisfy
Zwingli, who desired nothing less than the complete subjugation of the
Catholic cantons. Negotiations were opened up with Philip of
Hesse, with the German Lutherans, and with Francis I of
France, and when the news of the formation of the League of
Schmalkald reached the Protestants of Switzerland, it was thought
that the time had come when the triumph of Zurich and Berne, which
meant also the triumph of the new teaching, should be secured.
Zwingli besought his followers to issue a declaration of war, but it
was suggested that the reduction of the Catholic cantons could be
secured just as effectively by a blockade. In this movement Zurich
took the lead. The result, however, did not coincide with the
anticipations of Zwingli. The Catholic cantons flew to arms at
once, and as their territories formed a compact unit, they were able
to put their united army into the field before the forces of Zurich and
Berne could effect a junction. The decisive battle took place at
Kappel in October 1531, when the Zwinglians suffered a complete
defeat, Zwingli himself and five hundred of the best men of Zurich
being left dead on the field. The army of Berne advanced too late to
save their allies or to change the result of the war. The Catholic
cantons used their victory with great moderation. Instead of crushing
their opponents, as they might have done, they concluded with them the
second Peace of Kappel (1531). According to the terms of this
treaty, no canton was to force another to change its religion, and
liberty of worship was guaranteed in the cantonal domains. Several of
the districts that had been wavering returned to the Catholic faith,
and the abbot of St. Gall was restored to the abbey from which he had
been expelled.
Oecolampadius followed Zwingli to the grave in a short time, having
been carried off by a fever about a month after the defeat of Kappel,
and the leadership of the movement devolved upon their successors,
Bullinger and Myconius.
With regard to the Sacraments Luther and Zwingli agreed that they
were only signs of grace, though in the explanation of this view
Zwingli was much more extreme, because much more logical, than
Luther. Believing as he did that justification depended upon faith
alone, he contended that the Sacraments were mere ceremonies by which
a man became or showed himself to be a follower of Christ. They were
devoid of any objective virtue, and were efficacious only in so far as
they guaranteed that the individual receiving them possessed the faith
necessary for justification. But it was principally in regard to the
Eucharist that the two reformers found themselves in hopeless
disagreement. Had Luther wished to be consistent he should have
thrown over the Real Presence as well as Transubstantiation, but the
force of tradition, the fear that any such teaching would arouse the
opposition of the people, and the plain meaning of the texts of
Scripture forced him to adopt a compromise. "Had Doctor
Carlstadt," he wrote, "or any one else been able to persuade me
five years ago that the sacrament of the altar is but bread and wine he
would, indeed, have done me a great service, and rendered me very
material aid in my efforts to make a breach in the Papacy. But it is
all in vain. The meaning of the texts is so evident that every
artifice of language will be powerless to explain it away." He
contended that the words "This is My body and This is My blood"
could bear only one meaning, namely, that Christ was really present,
but while agreeing with Catholics about the Real Presence of Christ
in the Eucharist, he rejected the doctrine of Transubstantiation,
maintaining in its place Consubstantiation or Impanation.
Though Luther insisted so strongly on the Real Presence, it is not
clear that in the beginning he had any very fixed views on the subject,
or that he would have been unwilling to change any views he had formed,
were it not that one of his lieutenants, Carlstadt, began to exercise
his privilege of judgment by rejecting the Real Presence. Such an
act of insubordination aroused the implacable ire of Luther, who
denounced his former colleague as a heretic, and pursued him from
Wittenberg and Jena, where he had fled for refuge. In the end
Carlstadt was obliged to retire to Switzerland, where his doctrine
found favour with the Swiss reformers.
From the beginning of his campaign Zwingli realised that the Real
Presence was not in harmony with his theory of justification, and
hence he was inclined to hold that the Eucharist was a mere sign
instituted as a reminder of Christ's death. But in view of the clear
testimony of the Holy Scripture he was at a loss how to justify his
position. At last by pondering on other passages that he considered
similar to the text "This is My body," where the word "is" should
be interpreted "signifies," he contended that the true meaning of
Christ's words at the Last Supper is, "This signifies My
body." Oecolampadius agreed with this interpretation, though for a
different reason, comparing the Blessed Eucharist to a ring that a
husband going away on a long journey might give to his wife as a pledge
and reminder of his affection.[75]
Luther resented bitterly such a theory as an attack upon his
authority, especially as Zwingli refused to allow himself to be brow-
beaten into retracting his doctrine. Instead of submitting to the new
religious dictator, Zwingli sought to justify himself by the very
principle by which Luther justified his own revolt against the
Catholic Church. He contended that Luther's theory of
justification involved logically the rejection of the Eucharist as well
as of the other Sacraments, that the Scriptural texts could be
interpreted as he had interpreted them, and that he was not bound to
take any cognisance of the Christian tradition or of the authority of
the councils. He complained that Luther treated himself and his
followers as heretics with whom it was not right to hold communion,
that he proscribed their writings and denounced them to the
magistrates, and that he did precisely towards them what he blamed the
Pope for doing to himself. Luther found it difficult to meet this
line of argument. Much against his will he was obliged to support his
opinions by appealing to the tradition of the Church and the writings
of the Fathers, which latter he had denounced as "fetid pools whence
Christians have been drinking unwholesome draughts instead of slaking
their thirst from the pure fountain of Holy Scripture."[76]
"This article (The Eucharist)," he wrote, "is neither
unscriptural nor a dogma of human invention. It is based upon the
clear and irrefragable words of Holy Writ. It has been uniformly
held and believed throughout the whole Christian world from the
foundation of the Church to the present time. That such has been the
fact is attested by the writings of the Holy Fathers, both Greek and
Latin, by daily usage and by the uninterrupted practice of the
Church. . . . To doubt it, therefore, is to disbelieve the
Christian Church and to brand her as heretical, and with her the
prophets, apostles, and Christ Himself, who, in establishing the
Church said: 'Behold I am with you all days even to the
consummation of the world.'"[77]
The opposition of Luther did not put an end to the controversy. The
Zwinglian theories spread rapidly in Switzerland, whence they were
carried into Germany, much to the annoyance of Luther and of the
Protestant princes for whom religious unity was necessary at almost any
cost. Luther would listen to no schemes of compromise. He denounced
the Zwinglians in the most violent terms, as servants of the devil,
liars, and heretics for whose salvation no man should pray. Having
rejected Transubstantiation in order to rid himself of the sacrificial
idea and of the doctrine of a Christian priesthood, he fought strongly
for the Real Presence on the ground that God's body, being united
to the divinity, enjoyed the divine attribute of ubiquity. To this
Zwingli made the very effective rejoinder that if the words of
Scripture "This is My body and this is My blood" are to be
interpreted literally they could bear only the sense put upon them by
the Catholics, because Christ did not say "My body is in or under
this bread," but rather "This (the bread) is My body."
Furthermore, he pointed out that Luther's explanation concerning the
ubiquity of Christ's body led clearly to a confusion of the divine and
human nature of Christ, and was in consequence only a renewal of the
Monophysite heresy, condemned by the whole Christian Church.
This unseemly dispute between the two leaders of the new movement did
not please the Protestant princes of Germany, for whom division of
their forces might mean political extinction. The Elector of Saxony
supported Luther warmly, while Philip of Hesse was more or less
inclined to side with Zwingli. A conference was arranged between the
two parties at Marburg (1529), at which Luther and
Oecolampadius were present to defend their views. On a few secondary
matters an agreement was arrived at, but on the main question, the
Real Presence, Luther would yield nothing, and so the Reformers
were divided into two parties, German Lutherans and Swiss
Reformed.
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