The Cities, Zwingli and Another Style of Reformation

The Birth of Reformed Protestantism

Part One

The middle ages had a saying, City Air, makes free, and the Reformation early became established in the cities of Southern Germany and Switzerland. It did not take long, however, for the cities to devise their own distinctive form of the Protestant message. In this lecture, we will explore one such form: Reformed Protestantism.

What Made the Reformation in the Cities Distinctive:

The Reformation in the cities was genuinely a popular movement that drew its strength from the middle classes. The peasants who resisted the Reformation in the principalities did not have that power in the urban areas

The Reformation in the cities was much more closely tied to humanistic studies and to a humanistic understanding of ethics. In general, they believed that the Protestant makes the best citizen.” If you would find God, go over to your neighbor’s house where small children lie sick and hungry and give them what you would otherwise uselessly squander or sacrifice to some idols while running

Hither and yon.

Idols were the great enemy in the cities. Stephen Ozment cites one urban

Reformer as saying:

The more holy water that we have, the more poltergeister and people who fight thunder with torches and candles or in the cellar among the beer kegs, without knowing that it is all fabricated against the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, who along takes away our sin, and against Christian prayer by which we should call out through Christ in loving father in all our needs. Whether of body or of soul. Water, fire, and candle are no help to us.

The clergy were seen as just another citizen with a special task. They were to pay taxes, vote, pledge allegiance to the state, and be subjected to the civil law code.

The Role of the Preachers.

Urban reformation often began with passionate preaching that build popular

Support

Martin Bucer in Strasburg, Farel in Geneva, Johann Bretz.

Although some were wandering evangelists, most were the parish priests of their towns or most usually, the “people’s priests” who had been hired by the City Council explicitly to preach

The preachers often used two techniques to attract attention: They were masters of the pamphlet and the woodcut. Anything that could be read

aloud.

They staged disputations and court cases before the City Councils to force

Action, usually, a law that required preachers to stick to the Word of God or a law that slightly modified the services until eventually the mass was

Ended

The Usual Stages:

Abolition of priestly power and privilege

Abolition of traditional worship

Removal of the idols

Abolition of monasticism

What Urban Reformation Looked Like:

The extension of the common schools was a passion

Insofar as possible, the urban reformers wanted to end begging and

Establish a common chest to aid the poor

In general, the urban reformers understood works to be religious rituals,

Not ethical acts. Few ever advocated Luther’s radical view of the opposition of Law and Gospel. Law remained good and a guide to human life.

Ulrich Zwingli (1483-1531): A Biographical Example of the Urban Reformation

Son of a very prosperous farmer and berger of St. Gall whose uncle was a pastor

Went to Basel for his schooling and later to Bern

He attended the Humanistic University of Vienna where he was expelled in his first term. The school had a reputation as a party school.

Later transferred to Basel to work Sebastian Brant and perhaps with Thomas Wyttenbach

Had a very typical career as a young humanist priest

Began his ministry at Glarus and served as a chaplain with the Swiss

Guards

He spent his time at Glarus learning Greek more adequately.

Early a master of Hebrew

Deeply interested in St Paul.

Moved to Einsiedeln in 1516. It was a pilgrimage center

Became People’s Priest (preacher) In Zurick in 1518 at the Great Minster/

He began by preaching through Matthew verse by verse

The City itself

6000 population

A great Council of 162 members and a small Council of 50

Members

Two Churches with 57 clergy attached

Zwingli, like Luther, was a crowd pleaser whose sermons had much

humor and many stories

1519: The Year of the Plague. Zwingli refused to leave and caught the

disease.

The Song of the Pestilence

At the Beginning of the Illness

Help, Lord God, help

In this trouble!

I think that Death is at the door

Stand before me, Christ

For thou hast overcome him

to thee I cry

Is it thy will,

Take out the Dart,

which wounds me

Let me not have an hour’s

rest or repose

Yet should thou will

That Death take me

In the midst of my days

So let it be

Do what thou wilt

I am completely thine

Thy vessel am I

Make whole or break

For, if thous takest away

My Spirit

From this heart

Thou doest it

That it may not grow worse,

Nor spot

the pious lives and ways of others.

II. In the midst of the Illness

Console, Lord God, console

The illness grows.

Pain and fear seize

My soul and body

Come to me then

My tongue is dumb

It cannot speak a word

My senses are blighted

Thus it is time

that thou should carry

My fight hereafter

With thy grace, my only consolation

Which surely saves

Everyone who sets

His hearts desire

And hope on thee

And who besides

Despises all gain and loss

Now all is over,

Since I am not so strong

That I could bravely resist

The temptations of the devil and his treacherous hand

Yet my spirit will

Constantly abide by thee, however much he rages.

III During Convalence

Recovered, Lord God, recovered

I think I am

Already being restored

Yes, if it be thy will

That no spark of sin

Should rule me still

Then my lips must bespeak

Thy praise and teaching

More than ever before

However it may go—

In simplicity and without danger

Although I must endure

The punishment of death

Sometimes,

Perhaps with greater anguish

Than would have been the case

Lord, at this time,

Since now I am come so near

Yet I will still

Bear joyfully the spite and the boasting

Of this world

For the sake of a reward

By thy help

Without which nothing can be perfect.

Cited in Hillerbrand

When did Zwingli first read Luther?

Hard to tell. He always insisted that he got his own doctrine from the Bible. “ I do not want to bear Luther’s name, for I have read little of his teaching and have often purposely desisted from reading his books in order to conciliate the papists.

He had, however, carefully followed events in Germany and he

Knew the issues. He was much more concerned, from the

Beginning with the issue of idolatry.

1522:

Sausages are served at the printer Christopher Frischauer during lent without a dispensation

A large group ate the sausages, including two priests, while Zwingli watched

The group was arrested and Zwingli’s Von Ekiesen and Freiheit der Speisen was published almost immediately.

All fasts are a matter of choice

Zwingli secretly married Anna Reinhart with whom he was living

And petitioned the Bishop and the Swiss Diet to end clerical celibacy

Zwingli began to advocate his radical Biblicism at this point:

When you hear Scripture, you hear God.

Scripture will renew you.

The Bible should be followed on all points, including those

Matters that Luther considered “indifferent.”

Zwingli begins his prophesy meetings, gatherings of lay men, to study the Bible.

1523

The first disputation before the City Council resulted in an approval of Zwingli’s teachings

He had presented 67 theses to be considered

Among them:

No Christian is bound to do what God has not decreed

Christ is the only way of salvation

In faith is our salvation; in unbelief, our damnation

Zwingli’s opponent, the representative of the Bishop, did not

know the Bible. The mayor cracked that the Sword of the

Spirit was stuck in its scabbard.”

The Second Disputation in Oct, 1523 resulted in the removal of the

Images. Those who had given them were allowed to remove them and sell them. Only a few were actually destroyed

1524 Zwingli makes his marriage public

1525: The first Protestant communion in Zurick. The bread and wine were carried to the people in the pews. It was shared: no one received/

1529 The Marburg Colloquy with Luther and Melanchthon

Called by Philip of Hesse to help cement a Protestant

Military alliance

Issue was the presence of Christ in the Supper

Luther insisted on a literal reading of This is my body

Zwingli insisted on a literary reading of This is my body

“is” can mean signify.

Reformation divided permanently

Characteristics of Zwingli’s theology:

The Finite Cannot Bear the Infinite

Characteristics of Zwingli’s teaching The finite cannot bear the Infinite

Creator versus Creatures:

Was it not great blindness that God Almighty, who created us, has so often made known to us that he is our Father, and finally even gave his Son for us, and he himself stands there and calls us poor sinners, saying “ Come to me, all who are weary and heavy laden, and I will give you rest.” And we went and turned to the creature, and thought God to be so rough and cruel that we dare not come to him.

Providence as Key Theological Category

We cannot but admit that not even the least thing takes place unless it is ordered by God. For who has even been so concerned and curious as to find out how much hair he has on his head? There is no one. God, however, knows the number. Indeed, nothing is so

small in us or in any other creature, not to be ordered by the all-knowing and all-powerful providence of God.

(Zwingli argued that many of the ancient heros were saved by

this type of predestining providence)

Holy Scripture as the Sole Rule of Life and Faith

Scripture is interpreted by the Holy Spirit within

Almighty, eternal and merciful God, whose Word is a lamp unto

our feet and a light to our path, open and illuminate our minds, that we may purely and perfectly understand thy Word and that our lives may be conformed to what we have rightly understood, that in

nothing we may be displeasing unto they majesty,. . .

True Religion rather than ceremonial piety

fear of idols may have come from his training in the via antiqua that

saw an ontological relationship between a symbol and that

symbolized

External Kingdom instead of Internal Morality

God has placed amongpeople officials—the Shepherds—who are to watch at all times. God does not want anyone to have power so unqualified that one may not point out his misdeeds to him. . .If the authorities help, then vice can be expelled with greater peace, but if they do not, then the shepherd has to risk his skin and hope for no other help nor liberation than that from God.

Baptism and communion as Ecclesial Events

Covenantal Continuity