Huldrych Zwingli was born on January 1, 1484
at Wildhaus, Switzerland.
His father was a free peasant who raised sheep
and became a village magistrate, and his mother’s brother
was the abbot of Fischingen in Thurgau.
At the age of ten Huldrych was sent to Basel,
and at Bern he studied Latin and music
with the humanist Heinrich Wolflin.
In 1498 he went to the University of Vienna
and was quickly expelled.
He enrolled again in 1500 until 1502 when he transferred
to the University of Basel and studied Aristotle,
earning his master’s degree in 1506.
He was ordained a priest at Constance and was influenced
by the lectures of the reformer Thomas Wyttenbach
who opposed indulgences, clerical celibacy,
and the mass as early as 1508.
For the next ten years Zwingli was
a parish priest in the town of Glarus.
In 1510 he wrote The Fable of the Ox and the Beasts,
a poem that satirized the Swiss as a fat ox taking bribes
from the leopard (France) and the lion (Empire).
In 1513 he began studying Greek.
He also served in the Swiss Army as a chaplain,
and after seeing the battles of Navarro in June 1513
and Marignano in September 1515
he opposed the mercenary system.
He corresponded with several humanist scholars
including Pico della Mirandola, Vadian,
Conrad Grebel, and the great Erasmus.
In 1516 Zwingli was the one of the first to get a copy of the
New Testament translated from the Greek by Erasmus.
He may have picked up his disgust
for relics from Pico and Erasmus.
Zwingli in his poem The Labyrinth represented the Swiss
mercenary system as the Minotaur that devoured their sons,
contrasting foreign military service and tribute
with the freedom of the Swiss republic.
Zwingli was transferred in April 1516
to Einsiedeln as a stipendiary priest.
Rome made him a papal chaplain in 1518 even though
in
August he criticized Bernardino Samson for selling indulgences.
Hugo the Bishop of Constance agreed with Zwingli
and banned Samson from churches, and Pope Leo X
after his lesson from Luther withdrew his salesman.
Zwingli persuaded Benedictine monks to remove a lucrative
shrine to the Virgin Mary which promised
full remission of all sins.
He studied the Greek fathers such as Origen,
Cyril of Alexander, and Chrysostom,
and he read Latin literature for entertainment.
He continued to study Hebrew.
He was charged with corrupting a young girl
and admitted he had yielded to a prostitute.
In 1517 he told Cardinal Matthaus Schinner of Sion
that scripture did not warrant the papacy.
Schinner led the Swiss army into battle.
In contrast Bishop Christophe von Utenheim of Basel
(1502-27) introduced annual synods
in the diocese and worked for reforms.
On December 11, 1518 the Great Minster at Zurich
appointed Zwingli a foundation preacher, and he moved there.
Cardinal Antonio Pucei informed Zwingli
he was named an acolyte chaplain to the Pope.
The next year Zurich became the leading city
in the Swiss Confederation.
Zwingli began a series of discourses on the
Gospel of Matthew on his 35th birthday, January 1, 1519,
and he denounced opponents of the Gospels.
He read the writings of Luther.
Zurich suffered a plague in August, and Zwingli stayed
to minister to the sick, became ill, and nearly died.
This experience made him more religious.
In 1520 he argued that tithes should be
voluntary as in the early church.
Before the end of 1520 he declined to receive any more
installments on his papal pension of fifty florins a year,
and by 1521 he was considered a Lutheran.
Rome depended on military support from Zurich.
On April 29 Zwingli was elected to a canonry in the
Great Minster, making him a full citizen of Zurich.
On May 5 Zurich was the only one of the thirteen cantons
in the Swiss Confederation that did not provide mercenaries
and military aid to King François of France
which paid for thousands of mercenaries every year.
On May 8 Emperor Charles V and Pope Leo X agreed
to hire Swiss mercenaries to force the French out of Italy.
Boys in Switzerland began voting
and carrying weapons at age 14.
Army leaders made money recruiting mercenaries,
and in some wars Swiss mercenaries
were fighting on both sides.
A force of 6,000 men was sent to Milan on September 16;
but Zwingli persuaded the Council of Zurich to recall them,
and they forbade foreign service on January 11, 1522.
Zwingli described the problems with mercenaries
in his Divine Warning to the Confederates.
During Lent in March 1522 Zwingli was at a banquet
where the printer Christopher Froschauer and friends ate
sausage which violated the Church law against meat then.
He condoned this action during a sermon on March 23
and published a pamphlet on April 16
on the right to choose freely what to eat.
He insisted on charity in not judging others.
The question of clerical celibacy had already become
a serious issue because in northern Switzerland many priests
had a concubine who was like a wife
even though they were not married.
Zwingli believed there was no biblical basis for clerical celibacy,
and in early 1522 he secretly married the widow
Anna Reinhart who was of a higher social rank.
This became known, and on July 5 he sent a petition to permit
clerical marriage signed by himself and ten other priests
to Hugo of Hohenlandenberg, the Bishop of Constance.
Even Erasmus gave it qualified support, but it was rejected.
A German form of the petition was distributed
throughout the Confederation.
After the defeat of Swiss mercenaries in French service
on April 27, Zwingli published an exhortation to the
Swiss Confederation that they should not serve foreign masters.
He persuaded the Council of Zurich to renounce
mercenary wars, but other Swiss cantons opposed him.
On August 23 Zwingli published Apologeticus Archeteles
n Latin as his major statement of faith to the Swiss.
He continued to preach calling people to repentance
and urging generosity toward the poor.
He rejected man-made doctrines and denounced false
prophets who were not in harmony with the scriptures.
He believed he was an instrument to deliver God’s word.
He objected to calling the Pope the chief priest,
and he criticized bishops for waging war
and for collecting money on any pretext.
Like Luther, Zwingli urged eliminating most of the sacraments
and rituals that had accumulated over the centuries.
His teaching was being accepted with enthusiasm in Zurich
which had become the most orderly Swiss city.
In September he wrote
The Clarity and Certainty of God’s Words
as an introduction to Bible study.
He believed that praying to saints was useless
and noted that this was not practiced by the early Church.
A Federal Diet met at Baden in late November.
They accused Hans Urban Wyss,
the minister of Fislisbach, of heterodoxy.
He was imprisoned by the Bishop of Constance
for more than seven months until he recanted.
In December the Swiss Diet again demanded that
cantons suppress the new teaching of Zwingli,
and they warned Zurich and Basel
not to tolerate his pamphlets.
Zwingli persuaded the Zurich Council to organize
a debate in German in the Town Hall on January 29, 1523,
inviting all the responsible clergy.
For this Zwingli published 67 Articles on his main objections
to the Roman Church that included papal authority,
transubstantiation, worship of saints,
purgatory, fasting, pilgrimages, and relics.
He led a group which had the Greek New Testament,
the Hebrew Old Testament,
and the Latin Vulgate open before them.
They were opposed by four representatives of the bishop
who claimed they were there only as observers and reporters.
The humanist Johannes Faber was vicar-general for the
Bishop of Constance, and he challenged Zwingli by asking
if Zurich was to oppose the rest of the world.
He insisted there had been no married priests for 1,200 years,
but a councilor replied that
they had been free to keep mistresses.
Zwingli established the principles that the government has
a duty to control public worship and religious observances
and that the only preaching that should be allowed
in their territory must be compatible with the Bible.
He argued that the people should run the Church
as they do the republican Swiss Confederation.
The Council concluded that no one
had refuted Zwingli’s articles,
and they recommended that sermons should continue with
all priests in their jurisdiction following his evangelical way.
Zwingli began to challenge the canon law of the Church
which was mostly from papal pronouncements.
He argued that canon law was only valid
if it agreed with God’s word.
He urged relying on Christ and his teaching through the Spirit.
The Zurich Council had broken with the papacy,
though few realized it then.
Zwingli believed that government was to maintain
law and order and the public peace,
and they were to be paid out of taxes.
The exception to obedience to the state’s laws was
only if the government gave an order contrary to God.
He noted that their forefathers had not killed Christians
for money but had fought for liberty,
and he proposed ending the mercenary service and pensions.
The aristocratic reformer Hutten came to Zurich in June,
and Zwingli took care of his sick comrade.
Erasmus wrote a reply to Hutten and also
criticized Zwingli in an ironic dedication.
Erasmus had moved to Basel in November 1521,
and in 1522 he declined to see Hutten.
The offended poet wrote Expostulation
criticizing the famous humanist as a coward.
Erasmus wrote a reply and sent it
to the town council of Zurich,
complaining of Hutten’s lies and urging them to banish him.
On December 1 Pope Adrian VI sent a letter to Erasmus,
inviting him to come to Rome.
Erasmus wrote back urging
the Pope to grant a general amnesty.
Wolfgang Capito was a doctor of law, medicine, and theology,
and he came to Strasbourg in May 1523.
He also knew Hebrew well and was a friend of Erasmus.
He learned about church government as chancellor
and chaplain to Archbishop Albrecht of Mainz,
but a conversation with the priest Matthew Zell convinced
Capito he should dedicate his life to reform.
That same month the theologian Martin Bucer arrived
at Strasbourg, and he had been working
for Luther’s reforms since 1518.
In 1521 he had become chaplain to the knight von Sicken.
Capito began lecturing on the Old Testament
as Bucer gave sermons on the New Testament.
Bucer wrote “That nobody should live for himself alone,
but for his neighbor,” and in 1524
he gave reasons for liturgical reform.
On February 16 Theobald Schwarz
began giving mass in the cathedral in German.
In July 1523 Zwingli wrote to the Diet of the Confederation
meeting at Bern defending his orthodoxy,
noting his public defense of the Virgin Mary.
Another disputation was held in Zurich October 26-28
and was attended by 900 men, 350 in holy orders,
though the bishops and Catholic representatives
did not come, giving Zwingli little opposition.
He attacked the mass,
and Leo Juda opposed the use of images.
Zwingli convinced them that the mass is not a sacrifice
but a commemoration of a sacrifice.
He only objected to images that were venerated,
and many stained-glass windows were retained.
The statement he made at the second debate
was published as The Shepherd.
He emphasized teaching and preaching which
he considered the sign of a good pastor
if it was based on understanding of the scriptures.
He contrasted this to the pride, pomp, and extravagant
dress of others, and he was glad the monasteries
were being deserted by monks and nuns.
He defined the church as those who believe in Christ
and secondly as the local community of worshippers.
He believed a minister should marry but avoid
the temptation of enriching oneself or his family.
One should be ready to suffer
and never cause trouble or warfare.
He hoped the other states in the Confederation would
follow the example of Zurich in forbidding mercenaries.
Zwingli published his treatise on education
in August 1523 for his 14-year-old stepson.
He warned against excessive eating and drinking,
expensive clothes, and gambling.
He advised him to help his neighbors, choose a good wife
and be faithful to her, and always be honest.
The purpose of religious education was to prepare one
for the hereafter, and it depended on
a pure heart and knowledge of the Bible.
On September 29 a civic mandate ordered reform
of the abuses of the Great Minster, reducing its staff,
and revising the system of instruction.
Fees for baptisms and burials were abolished.
After a chapter provided for education,
money left went to help the poor and elderly.
Monasteries were turned into hospitals.
Zwingli was able to implement his ideas in the schools
of the Great Minster and in the seminaries for preachers.
On September 30 the Federal Diet at Baden threatened
to punish innovators, and they no longer met at Zurich.
To help preachers Zwingli wrote his
Short Christian Introduction which was printed in November.
He also worked on the Zurich Bible that relied on the
Septuagint because his knowledge of Greek
was better than his Hebrew.
The painter and poet Nicolas Manuel wrote two plays
comparing the Christ to the Pope
which were performed at a carnival.
Zwingli publicly married Anna Reinhard on April 2, 1524.
Representatives of the inner states of Uri, Schwyz,
Unterwalden, Lucerne, and Zug met at Beckenried
on April 8, and they formed a Catholic League within the
Confederation in order to eradicate the
“Lutheran, Zwinglian, and Hussite doctrine.”
Basel and Bern supported the reforms of Zurich.
In May the Zurich Council forbade dancing
(except at public weddings), noise at night, singing in the street,
shooting by youths, excessive drinking, fancy clothes,
and to do nothing about images until the
Council made a decision to remove them.
Direct action had begun on Whitsuntide (May 15) at Zollikon
when a gang tore down the high altar
and broke the images in the church.
The next day the Council took Zwingli’s advice,
and on June 15 the Council ordered every commune which
voted by a majority to remove
the images except for the crucifix.
Wooden objects were burned, and stone ones were broken up.
On June 17 the Stammheim community decided
to remove images from their church.
Basel, Bern, and Solothurn maintained Catholic
orthodoxy but allowed evangelical preaching.
On July 16 only Schaffhausen and Appenzell
refused to exclude Zurich from federal diets.
Zwingli and Zurich responded
by sending missionaries to Thorgau.
One was arrested, was rescued, and led a mob
to burn a monastery and destroy images in churches.
Three leaders were executed.
In October 1524 the Council of Zurich banned the sale
of indulgences and then abolished pilgrimages,
the confessional, and religious anointing.
They formed a Privy Council with six members
in November, and they closed convents.
Zwingli was the acknowledged leader.
On December 3 the remaining monks and friars of Zurich
were put in the Franciscan friary, and the Dominican
and Augustinian houses came under state administration.
Their properties were confiscated and converted
into a city hospital and schools.
The younger ones were told to
find a trade or pursue Bible study.
When a few preachers were arrested, people gathered
to insist they be freed; but a force of 4,000 from Zurich
prevented violence, and the rioters went home.
Processions were banned,
and the bones of saints were decently buried.
In The Troublemakers Zwingli warned against
anti-clericals, selfish opportunists, misguided sectaries,
and exhibitionist prelates.
In 1524 Zurich asked for the opinions
of the guilds and rural communes three times.
A strike on the property of Count Sigismund of Lupfen spread,
and by the end of 1524 a peasant revolt was under way
in Switzerland as well as in Germany.
They demanded the freedom to fish, gather wood,
and hunt bears, wolves, foxes, and wild pigs,
and they wanted their servile status changed.
In the Italian War 5,000 Swiss soldiers were killed
in the battle of Pavia on February 24, 1525,
and many turned against their French allies.
In the spring peasants in the Grüningen district and the former
county of Kiburg demanded the abolition of serfdom,
poll taxes, death duties (heriots), and lesser tithes.
About 4,000 peasants at Toss were mollified by promises
from the bürgermeister and local governor.
Peasants fleeing from southern Germany were given refuge
by the Swiss, though Aargau refused to accept them
because of trouble with their own peasants.
Zwingli suggested that some of the revenue from Church
property should benefit the poor,
and on January 15, 1525 an ordinance forbade begging.
The Anabaptists rejected infant baptism and opposed
all violence, but Zwingli debated them on January 17.
The Council banned their meetings and foreign preachers
and decided that parents must baptize
their children by the eighth day after birth.
Grebel baptized Blaurock who baptized others,
and the leaders were imprisoned.
On March 7 drowning was made the penalty for “rebaptizing.”
Blaurock was not from Zurich and was expelled,
but Mantz was drowned on January 5, 1527.
Zwingli objected to the radical Anabaptists and criticized
them in his Tricks of the Catabaptists in 1527.
A marriage law was passed in May 1525
creating a marriage court.
Adultery was to be punished, concubinage suppressed,
brothels closed, and prostitutes expelled.
Violating the prohibition against foreign military service
was made a capital crime.
By August it was clear that no general uprising would occur,
and Zwingli reviewed the question of tithes for the Council.
He had completed his treatise
On the True and the False Religion in March.
False religion was superstition and the corruption in Rome
while the true followed the scriptures.
The only sacraments he recognized
were baptism and the eucharist.
He considered the mass as a sacrifice unacceptable,
and he suggested that those priests
be given more useful work.
On April 13 Zurich replaced the Catholic mass
with the first simple communion celebrating
the Last Supper in the Grossmünster.
The Great Council of Zurich ended its relationship with the
Church of Rome and the Bishop of Constance.
Also in 1525 Zwingli completed his series of sermons
on the New Testament and started one on the Old Testament.
During the Peasant War in Germany peasants plundered
the convent of Rüti in Grüningen and made demands,
causing tithes, serfdom, and ground rents to be abolished.
In March peasants in Zurich began fishing and hunting.
Zwingli urged the government to ban serfdom.
He also advised that the best Christians make the best officials
and that true religion reigns in the most successful states.
He justified tithes as a lawful burden.
Eleven states agreed with Lucerne not to associate
with heretics, and on June 28 the representatives of Zurich,
Schaffhausen, and Appenzell were excluded from a meeting
of the Swiss Diet despite protests from
Bern, Glarus, Basel, and Solothurn.
The Diet usually met in Baden, and Bern, Lucerne,
and Zurich took turns exercising executive authority.
Gradually governmental authority was increasingly in the
hands of influential families in the cantons.
Basel and envoys helped bring about peace between Austria
and the peasants revolting in Alsace and the Breisgau.
Zwingli devised a Plan for Zurich in the face of the Catholics
using the military support of the Hapsburgs.
Bern and Basel supported the reforms though they still
tolerated the mass and were officially Catholic.
He urged Toggenburg to make an alliance with Schwyz
and become co-citizens with Zurich.
He hoped that Zurich would lead the Swiss Confederation,
but he believed that high public morale
would have to be supported by military preparation.
Prayers were to be said in church for the success
of those who follow the word of God.
The Council took its marriage laws from Leviticus,
setting the minimum age of 14 for a girl and 16 for a boy.
If either party was under 19,
the consent of the parents was necessary.
A bachelor was obliged to marry a girl
he made pregnant unless her parents objected.
On December 5, 1525 the princess-abbess of Fraumünster
turned over her foundation to Zurich,
and Zwingli persuaded the Council to transform it
into a high school with a humanistic curriculum.
That month the inquisitor Johann Eck charged Zwingli
and Johannes Oecolampadius of Basel with heresy.
Zwingli was already prepared to answer his
opponents and produced a reply to Eck in writing.
The Council of Zurich would not allow him to dispute
outside their territories, but they would guarantee
a free safe-conduct to anyone who came to Zurich.
This city and Basel were rejected as meeting places,
and Baden was chosen on March 20.
All the Swiss states were invited to send delegates
in addition to the universities of Tübingen and Freiburg
and the bishops of Constance, Basel,
Lausanne, Sion, and Chur.
The safe-conduct offered for Zwingli
and his friends was rejected as inadequate.
The debate began on May 19 and lasted three weeks
and went beyond the scriptures to political issues.
Eck and Fabri were the prosecutors, and of the 118 priests
attending at least 87 would support Eck.
Without Zwingli there Oecolampadius led the defense,
and Zwingli sent him letters with advice.
In taking the common oath of allegiance to the
Confederation nine states refused to join Zurich.
Zwingli took the position that he was neither a Lutheran,
a heretic, nor a sectary because his teaching derived
from the word of God interpreted by reason.
In 1526 the Council claimed the power of excommunication.
Zwingli believed in fusing civil and religious authority
in order to elevate the government to a godly state
and a protector of the Reformed Church.
On February 3, 1527 representatives from Zurich, Bern,
Glarus, Basel, Schaffhausen, and St. Gall met to discuss
their relations with the Diet of the Confederation,
and at Easter the Bern Council had chosen enough
evangelical members to give the Great Council
and the Small Council a reforming position.
Reformers won the Great and Small Council elections
and put convents under civil administration.
After the setback in Baden, Zwingli advocated
an alliance in August, and on December 25
Zurich allied with Constance
which was being oppressed by Austria.
On December 2 the Bürgermeister of Zurich had given
Zwingli permission to attend the Bern disputation.
He arrived on January 4, 1528 with ten theses,
and during three weeks of debate
he persuaded Bern to join Zurich’s reforms.
He was ably assisted by his son-in-law Heinrich Bullinger.
They emphasized the word of God with Christ as the
head of the church, and he argued that the kingdom of God
had to do with external reforms too.
They replaced the mass with sermons and found no biblical
basis for intercession of the dead, purgatory, or images.
The clergy were allowed and even encouraged to marry.
Officials were released from their oaths to the bishop.
Church dues and taxes decreased and were diverted.
Rural deans were assigned to instruct and report on the clergy.
The state took over monastic property,
and pensions and mercenary services were prohibited.
Immodest dress, blasphemy, swearing, gambling,
excessive drinking, and carrying weapons were forbidden.
In 1528 all of Bern’s subjects agreed to the changes
except Frutigen, Obersimmental, and Lenzburg.
Also in January 1528 the Christian Civic Union was formed
by Zurich, Bern, and Constance, and Basel joined in March.
That month the Benedictine monastery at Interlaken,
which had at one time 300 nuns,
let local communities take over the monasteries.
Reformers in St. Gall seized the abbey on January 28.
In Bern a majority of communes passed reforms
on February 7, abolishing the mass and images
and confiscating the property of monasteries.
By the end of 1528 Bern had renewed its alliance
for mutual protection with Constance, Geneva, and Zurich.
On November 3 St. Gall was welcomed into the Union
as an equal with Zurich and Bern.
On February 8 about 800 men in a Franciscan church
asked the Council of Basel to demand
that masses be forbidden.
The next day a crowd destroyed religious images.
The Council abolished the mass,
and images were removed in Basel.
New ordinances went into effect on April 1,
and Erasmus and most of the professors left
the University of Basel and moved to
Freiburg in Breisgau for six years.
An example of the satire of Erasmus was his colloquy
“Charon,” which was printed in 1529.
In this dialog Charon, whose job is to ferry souls of the dead
over the river Styx, talks with the avenging spirit Alastor.
Charon notes that three rulers (Emperor Charles V,
François I, and Henry VIII) are currently clashing
in mutual destruction, drawing in others by their alliances;
not even the Danes, Poles, Scots, nor Turks are at peace.
Alastor explains they are warmongers because
they profit more from the dying than from the living.
He claims that those who die in a just war do not come
to Charon, who says that all seem to come to him.
He informs Alastor that 200,000
are still waiting for him to cross.
On April 22, 1529 in the treaty at Waldshut the five inner
cantons (Innerschweiz) formed the defensive
Christian Alliance with Austria and Ferdinand who promise
to send 10,000 troops to aid the Catholics.
Schwyz arrested the pastor
Jacob Kaiser of Zurich and burned him.
A Swiss civil war began on June 8 after Zurich declared war
against the inner states, occupying the Thurgau
and gathering their 4,000 troops at Kappel on Zug’s border.
Mediation averted the war,
and the Land Peace of Kappel was signed on June 24.
Each side maintained freedom of religion,
and both sides dissolved their alliances.
War reparations were to be paid
for damages determined by arbitrators.
The Catholic cantons agreed to pay indemnity to Zurich
and to end their alliance with Austria.
Thomas Murner was turned over to be tried for
inciting a revolt, but no others were to be victimized.
However, the Five Cantons
continued to persecute the Zwinglians.
The Zurich Bible supervised by Leo Juda
was first published in 1529 based on Luther’s German.
Zwingli disagreed with Luther in that he believed
the elements of the blood and body are symbolic
of the spiritual presence of Christ.
Luther took the words of Jesus literally but rejected
“transubstantiation” for “consubstantiation.”
They wrote pamphlets on the issue, and in October 1529
this became a point of contention in the colloquy
at Marburg arranged by Philip of Hesse to reconcile them.
He introduced Luther to Oecolampadius
and Zwingli to Melanchthon.
Zwingli first preached there on September 29,
but Luther refused to be reconciled
and demonized Zwingli and Oecolampadius.
Zwingli kept the Eucharist with bread and wine
but only celebrated it four times a year.
He believed original sin was being unsocial,
and he held that only God can forgive sins.
In 1529 all the northern Swiss cities rejected the
Roman Church, and Biel, Mühlhausen, Schaffhausen,
and St. Gall had joined the Christian Civic Union.
These cities and Strasbourg also joined the reformers’ alliance
by January 1530, and Zurich adopted
a code of public morality in March.
Zwingli’s Fideo Ratio was sent to Charles V and was
presented at the Diet of Augsburg on July 3.
On November 18 Zurich, Basel, Strasbourg, and Hesse
came to a Hessian and Christian understanding
and formed a defensive pact.
Zwingli and others preached to large synods
with up to 500 ministers.
Zurich agreed in August that St. Gall could purchase
a monastery for 14,000 gulden.
On December 31 a force of 600 men from St. Gall occupied
Oberriet and made the inhabitants accept orders from Zurich.
Froschauer printed many works by Zwingli
and other reformers, and he published
the Zurich Bible with illustrations.
On January 1, 1531 the comedy Plutus by Aristophanes
was performed in Zurich with music composed by Zwingli.
Toggenburg, the serfs of St. Gall, Thurgau,
and the Rheinthalers joined Zurich in April.
That month representatives of the reformed cities
met to discuss issues, and on May 15 they voted
to force Catholic cantons to allow freedom of religion.
They refused, and Zwingli advised war;
but the allies imposed an economic embargo.
Zwingli argued that the embargo would cause more
bitterness and give them time to prepare for war,
which is what happened.
The Catholics were denied ports.
Zurich and Bern tried to take control of the Confederation,
and Zwingli supported this in August.
He sent his Brief and Clear Exposition
of the Christian Faith to François of France.
Economic sanctions that blockaded grain, wine, iron,
and salt from reaching Lucerne and its associates
provoked another war.
Northern states fought to maintain their reforms
against the southern states that wanted to be
independent or aligned with Rome and the Pope.
On August 10 Zwingli, Rudolf Collin, and Werner Steiner
went to Bremgarten to try to persuade
councilors from Bern to act.
On September 26 representatives of the Five States
decided to attack Zurich, or they would starve.
Zwingli took refuge in a reformed house of the
Teutonic Order at Bremgarten in October.
The attackers believed they would be supported by Austria,
and the Zurich Great Council summoned military advisors.
They were ready to fight, but people in Bern
opposed Zwingli’s “parson’s war”
and allowed food to pass across their frontiers.
Zurich sent 600 men to Bremgarten.
Danger was realized on October 10, and the Great Council
sent less than a thousand men.
The Catholics had 7,000 men to 2,000 from Zurich.
Zwingli was chaplain with a group, and on October 11
he was badly wounded and then killed.
In this battle about 500 on Zwingli’s side were killed
including 26 members of the Great and Small Councils
and 25 pastors; about 100 of the Catholics died.
Reformed cantons went to reinforce Zurich
and sent 5,000 undisciplined men who looted.
On October 24 near Zug nearly 600 Protestants
were killed, and the others fled.
On November 16 the Council of Zurich accepted
a settlement that guaranteed their political and religious
independence while granting their rural districts
the right to be consulted on important issues.
Five days later Bern capitulated on the same terms.
The reformers had to pay for the costs of the war,
and the Catholic minorities had
the right to conduct their services.
Philip of Hesse offered to send 4,000 soldiers,
but Zurich and Bern declined to accept foreign forces.
Towns in southern Germany abandoned the Zwinglians
and joined the Schmalkaldic League of the Lutherans.
In the “Kappel Letters” Zurich and Bern
pledged they would not go to war in the future
without consulting the rural people.
Conrad Grebel was born about 1498 in Zurich.
His father Jacob Grebel was a leader on the Council of 200
and was later on the inner Council.
In 1499 he was appointed chief magistrate of the
Grüningen district southeast of Zurich.
Conrad attended a Latin school and in October 1514
went to the University of Basel
where he studied with the humanist Glarean.
In May 1515 he left there to study with
Joachim Vadian at the University of Vienna.
In June 1518 Vadian and young Grebel left Vienna
to avoid a plague and traveled in Switzerland.
Jacob Grebel got his son and himself a scholarship
from the University of Paris
even though this violated the laws of Zurich.
After four semesters Conrad gave up his scholarship,
but Jacob kept his stipend.
He opposed the reformer Zwingli,
and on October 30, 1526
Jacob was beheaded for receiving
an illegal stipend from France.
On May 1, 1519 some French brigands attacked
some students, and two of the bandits were killed.
Conrad and the students left Paris where a plague
that summer killed more than 30,000 people.
Conrad Grebel returned to Zurich
and began studying with Zwingli.
Grebel fell in love and married on February 6, 1522.
His parents were upset but let them
live in their house for two years.
Conrad was poor but studied the Bible, and in 1523
he believed he was born again spiritually.
After the disputation in October, Zwingli shocked the
radicals like Grebel by accepting
state authority over the church.
The dissidents Simon Stumpf and Andreas Castelburger,
who gave testimony against war,
were expelled from Zurich in December.
In early 1524 William Reublin became the first priest
in Zurich to preach against infant baptism when he said
he wanted his children to understand baptism
and choose their own godparents.
The Council arrested Reublin for a while.
The priest Johannes Brotli and others in Zollikon
also withheld their children from baptism.
During the Peasants’ War on September 5, 1524
Conrad Grebel and others wrote a letter to
Thomas Müntzer urging him to give up the
violent methods that he had adopted after his followers
burned a chapel at Mallerbach;
but he was traveling and never received it.
They wrote,
Also one should not protect the gospel
and those who accept it with the sword,
nor should they protect themselves,
as we have learned from our brother
that you believe and that you subscribe to.
Truly believing Christians are sheep in the
midst of wolves, sheep for slaughtering.
They must be baptized in fear, need,
grief, persecution, suffering, and dying.
They must be tested in the fire,
and they must not find the haven of eternal rest
by killing their bodily enemies;
rather they must attain it by killing
their spiritual enemies.
Also, true Christians use neither
the worldly sword nor war,
for among them killing has been totally abolished.
Indeed, believers practiced these things
at the time of the old law, during which time
after they had conquered the promised land,
war became a plague.1
In a second letter Grebel wrote that he had learned that
Müntzer preached against the princes,
that they must be combated with the fist.
Grebel advised him not to defend war but desist from that
belief to become a hero and soldier of God
by using the Bible as his defense.
He criticized those who lived on tithed taxes,
and he argued that they should not use the sword nor war.
He believed that infant baptism was contrary to scripture
which only described adults being baptized.
In December 1524 Felix Mantz and others met
with Zwingli for discussions; but after two meetings
they found they could not agree.
Zwingli was writing Those Who Incite to Rebellion,
and Mantz responded with his “Protest and Defense.”
He was the illegitimate son of a clergyman and argued
that baptism should take place when one is converted
through the Word of God,
changing the heart for a new life.
The Zurich Council held a disputation on infant baptism
on January 17, 1525, and Zwingli argued that baptism
had several meanings and could be a valid symbol
of joining the child to the people of God.
Grebel, Reublin, Brotli, Castelburger,
and George Blaurock represented the radicals.
The next day the Council ordered parents to bring their
children for baptism by priests within a week or be banished.
Three days later the Council prohibited meetings
of the radicals and ordered four foreigners to leave Zurich.
On January 21 Conrad Grebel baptized the priest Blaurock
at the home of Felix Mantz, beginning the movement that
was called “Anabaptist” by its opponents.
The radicals called themselves “brothers” because
they did not believe infant baptism meant anything;
thus they were not being baptized “again.”
Most of those arrested were released on February 8
after promising they would not talk about baptism,
but Mantz and Blaurock remained in prison.
Grebel went to Schaffhausen to spread their teachings
and then to St. Gall where he baptized
hundreds of people in the Sitter River.
At a village church in Zollikon the layman
Jorg Schad baptized forty people in one day.
They also held disputations.
Eberli Bolt was the first Anabaptist martyr
who was burned at the stake in Lachen.
Wolfgang Uliman was banished and led refugees to Moravia.
In 1528 they were arrested in Swabia,
and he and ten men were beheaded;
women were drowned.
In Grüningen the citizens were influenced by Zwingli
and demanded to choose their own pastors,
and the Anabaptists preached spiritual freedom.
Grebel and Marx Bosshart of Zollikon
were summoned to Zurich in early July.
The brothers requested a safe conduct which was denied.
Bosshart and two others went and were put in prison,
but Grebel refused to go.
Bosshart was released after four weeks
when he promised not to preach and baptize.
Grebel and George Blaurock were arrested
on October 8, 1525 and put in Grüningen castle
before being sent to Zurich.
The Council held a debate on November 6, 1525
with Zwingli, Leo Juda, and Kaspar Grossman
against Grebel, Mantz, and Blaurock.
The German Michael Sattler also was there,
and about 900 people gathered.
Zwingli argued that baptism had replaced circumcision
and that rebaptizing crucified Jesus again.
After three days of discussion the
Council gave the victory to Zwingli.
On November 18 they sentenced the three to prison
for as long as the lords said.
Sattler and other foreigners were expelled.
The Council gave them a trial on March 5 and 6, 1526,
and the three leaders and fifteen others including six women
were sentenced to imprisonment for life.
However, someone left a prison window open,
and on March 21 they all escaped.
Most scattered, but two stayed in Zurich and were arrested.
Grebel wrote a pamphlet against infant baptism.
Anabaptists were harassed, and Grebel traveled.
He went to Maienfeld to stay with his sister,
and he died of a plague there during the summer of 1526.
On November 19 the Council authorized
the death penalty for those “rebaptized.”
A group including Mantz and Blaurock
were arrested on December 3, 1526.
After a trial on January 5, 1527 Blaurock,
who was not a citizen, was whipped and expelled.
Mantz was executed by drowning.
Müntzer led a military contingent to join the peasants
at Frankenhausen in May 1525; but after the peasant army
was defeated, Müntzer was arrested,
tortured under interrogation, and beheaded.
Another Anabaptist leader, Balthasar Hubmaier,
opposed the Jews and their usury, supported the peasants
in their war, but later repudiated
the war and recanted on baptism.
In his short book On the Sword in 1527 Hubmaier wrote
in favor of government having the authority to use force,
criticizing the nonresistance of the Stablers (people of the staff).
Hubmaier was arrested and convicted of heresy
and insurrection, and on March 10, 1528
he was burned at the stake in Vienna;
his wife was executed by drowning.
Andreas Castelberger of Zurich helped organize
the first congregation of Swiss Brethren in 1525.
Michael Sattler was a Benedictine monk from
southern Germany, but he left the monastery to the
rebelling peasants, married,
and joined the Swiss Brethren in Zurich.
In February 1527 at a gathering in the canton of Schaffhausen
he was the main author of “The Brotherly Agreement of Some
Children of God concerning Seven Articles”
known as the Schleitheim Confession.
In May 1527 Sattler was tortured and burned,
two days before his wife was drowned.
Between 1527 and 1532 in Zurich six people were executed.
Foreigners were banished,
and many were killed in Roman Catholic countries.
In April 1529 Blaurock was arrested again in Apenzell,
and then he went to Catholic Austria.
That month the Diet of Speyer decreed that every
Anabaptist of either sex was to be put to death.
Lorenz Fürst was drowned in Zug on August 17,
and Uliman and others were executed in Apenzell.
The Schleitheim Confession acknowledges that the sword
is ordained by God to punish and kill evil people
while protecting and defending the good;
but the authors believed it was outside of the perfection
of the Christ, which recommended only the ban
be used to admonish and expel sinners.
Article VI asserts that love and the way of the cross
should be the Christian’s response to violence and evil.
Christ teaches being humble.
Jesus chose not to punish the adulterer nor to judge
between brothers, and he refused to act as a king.
Worldly princes may rule but not those who follow the Christ;
Christians should not be magistrates.
The carnal weapons of conflict and war are directed
against the flesh by worldly people,
but the spiritual weapons of God are
truth, justice, peace, faith, and salvation.
Christ is the head, and the members of that body
should not triumph over each other
so as not to destroy that body.
Peaceful nonresistance became the practice of the
Swiss Brethren, and in the civil wars of 1529 and 1531
between the Protestant and Catholic cantons
many Anabaptists refused to fight.
Because they refused to bear arms, hold office, or take oaths,
the Swiss Brethren often had restricted rights
and occasionally suffered persecution.
In Germany most of the Anabaptists gave in to violence
and followed the leadership of Hubmaier, Hans Hut,
and Melchior Hoffman, though the Hutterites
often refused to serve in the military.
The Anabaptist groups that resorted to violence were quickly
destroyed in warfare; only the peaceful Swiss Brethren,
Hutterites, and Mennonites survived the persecutions.
The Swiss Pilgram Marpeck took the moderate position
that one could serve in the government as long as
one did not compromise the belief in nonviolence
by letting others carry out those functions.
The Stabler carried a staff instead of a sword
as a symbol of nonviolence.
After Hubmaier was burned at the stake on March 10, 1528,
his Anabaptist followers divided between the Schwertler,
who followed his teaching on the sword,
and the Stabler, who renounced it and were led
by the Swabian refugee Jacob Widemann.
On June 2, 1529 Blaurock was
burned at the stake in Innsbruck.
That year Clemens Adler wrote that the coming of Christ
brought the new ethic of nonresistance
to transcend the holy wars of the Mosaic law.
He believed that true Christians should not use
the sword at all and warned them:
Beware, you hanging judges, kings, princes, and lords,…
you who sit in judgment over life and death
and yet want to be considered Christians.
Such a thing is unknown in the Kingdom of Christ.
In fact, you often condemn the innocent as well as the guilty
and you are still chasing many people from this life!15
Philibert Berthelier was on the Council in Geneva
and in 1517 fled from religious persecution
to Fribourg which complained.
Geneva allowed Berthelier to return.
Two men were tortured to incriminate Berthelier
and then were executed.
Bezanson Hugues was a diplomat and negotiated
an alliance with Fribourg in 1518.
Geneva split into two parties
that supported Savoy and the Confederation.
The latter in French became known
as Eyguenots which became Huguenots.
On March 17, 1519 the Confederation demanded that
Fribourg dissolve its alliance,
and the duke was not to use force against Geneva.
However, Duke Charles III of Savoy
led 8,000 men against Geneva.
Envoys from Zurich, Bern, Zug, and Solothurn negotiated
an agreement that preserved Geneva’s liberties.
Duke Charles withdrew his troops.
Berthelier was arrested on August 25 and was tried in Savoy
for treason, but he considered
the trial illegal and refused to plead.
He was condemned and executed the same day.
Hugues and others fled to Fribourg which could bind Geneva
to the Confederation because Bern was opposed.
On December 7, 1525 Bern and Fribourg formed
an alliance with Lausanne,
and Geneva joined them on March 12, 1526.
Geneva prepared for war against Savoy while Bern
and Fribourg with their army of 10,000
frightened away the nobles attacking Geneva.
Envoys from nine cantons mediated a peace
on October 29, 1530 at St. Julien near Geneva.
Bern and Fribourg were allowed to seize Vaud.
Co-citizenship between Geneva, Bern, and Fribourg
was confirmed, and Duke Charles was required
to pay an indemnity of 21,000 crowns.
Guillaume Farel was from the French Dauphiné,
and in 1524 he stayed with Oecolampadius in Basel
where he met Zwingli and Berthold Haller.
In 1527 he participated in a
French-speaking disputation at Bern.
On February 7, 1528 the formal mass
was abolished as Bern adopted the Reformation.
On March 8 the Synod in Bern commissioned Farel
to preach in all districts under its control.
In December 1529 Farel went to Neuchatel to preach,
and in the fall of 1530 a crowd carried him
into the cathedral where he denounced the images.
They became a mob as they destroyed
altars, vestments, and images of saints.
Kaspar Megander defended Zwingli’s theology
and led the Bern church, but he was opposed by Bucer.
The Bern military protected Farel,
and his verbal attacks on priests were printed.
He visited Geneva in June 1532.
The sale of indulgences was authorized in Zurich, and
on June 2 signs against Pope Clement VII were widespread.
Farel led the protest and was expelled.
Antoine Fromment began preaching in Geneva
on January 1, 1533 and was forced to leave.
Pierre Viret was Swiss and came in March.
Farel was allowed to return to Geneva on December 20.
In January 1534 embassies
from Bern and Fribourg complained.
Fribourgers insisted that Geneva stay Catholic,
but the Bernese brought Farel, Froment,
and Viret as reforming preachers.
Theodore Beza considered Calvin
the most learned preacher,
Farel most forcible, and Viret most gentle.
During the heated debate from January 27 to February 3
in the Council a Catholic killed a Protestant
and was executed as a murderer.
On March 1 Farel and his followers occupied the chapel
of the Franciscan monastery and held the first
Protestant service in Geneva.
The bishop had fled in 1527.
The episcopal office was declared vacant in October 1534
while the exiled bishop in Gex excommunicated the reformers.
On May 30, 1535 Farel won an unopposed disputation
that lasted four weeks, but the Council hesitated.
On August 8 Farel initiated the destruction of images
in the cathedral of St. Pierre and gave the first
Protestant sermon there, and followers did this in other churches.
Two days later the councils in Bern ordered the mass suspended.
Geneva became a Protestant republic
and banned other religious services.
In October 1535 allies helped the Protestants defeat
a larger force of Savoyards, and on the 19th the first
Reformation edict ordered altars, images,
and liturgical instruments removed.
Geneva’s Great Council declared war on Savoy
on December 27, and the communes
agreed by January 13, 1536.
Bern moved 6,000 troops into Vaud, occupied Geneva,
and took over the cathedral city of Lausanne
from the Duke of Savoy.
Giangiacomo Medici arrived with
3,000 Italian mercenaries, but they soon fled.
The Protestants liberated Bonivard who had been
imprisoned in the Chillon castle for six years.
On February 28 Geneva adopted severe ordinances
concerning dress, alcohol, games, and church attendance.
On May 21 the people of Geneva took an oath in the
cathedral to live according to the Word of God.
They started a free public school
with mandatory attendance for the first time.
Farel was allowed to return during the war and debated
before about 200 priests and monks
in the Lausanne cathedral on October 1.
Calvin, Viret, and Farel circulated five theses in advance.
The Council appointed Pierre Viret as preacher,
and on the 19th the first reform edict removed
altars, images, and liturgical instruments.
On January 16, 1537 the Little Council had twenty members
with an executive of four civil magistrates.
They adopted “Articles” for a church constitution,
and Calvin published his concise Instruction in Faith.
That year Bern founded an academy in Lausanne that later
became a university, and they promoted Reformation
teachings in their French-speaking territories.
Philip von Hohenheim was born in November or
December 1493 near Einsiedeln in Switzerland.
His father was a Swabian physician and chemist.
Philip started studying medicine at the University of Basel
in 1510 before moving to the University of Vienna.
He took the name Theophrastus Paracelsus
and earned his doctorate at the University of Ferrara in 1515.
He worked as an army surgeon during the wars
in the Netherlands and Denmark.
He was always learning and traveled to universities in Paris,
Oxford, Cologne, Vienna, Padua, and Bologna.
His skill with medicine was so great and revolutionary
that he was called the “Luther of physicians.”
During the Peasant War he was suspected of
helping their leaders and had to flee.
He visited Ingolstadt, Munich, Neuberg, Tübingen, Rottweil,
Freiburg, and Baden-Baden
before settling in Strasbourg in 1526.
The next year Paracelsus went to Basel where the council
appointed him city physician on March 16, 1527.
He lectured on diseases, pharmaceuticals,
treating wounds, and purgation.
He wrote an interpretation of Hippocrates,
a commentary on Macer’s Herbal, his
Nine Books of Archidoxus on secret remedies,
and other books on hermetic alchemy in which
he combined his spiritual knowledge
and astrology with chemistry.
His innovative ideas created enemies, and after being
threatened with arrest he left on February 15, 1528.
Paracelsus wrote an explanation of the origin of the
“French disease” which became known as syphilis
and used mercury as a treatment,
but the book was banned.
He explained how dust caused miners’ diseases,
and he discovered that goiter
was caused by minerals in drinking water.
He founded the study of toxicology.
He used experience to judge and based theory on practice.
Paracelsus was the first to create tincture of opium
to stop pain and named it “laudanum.”
He wrote that wisdom comes from knowing, not imagination.
In Nuremberg traditional physicians denounced him
as a charlatan in 1530.
He moved on to Regensburg and to St. Gallen in 1531.
His philosophical ideas were expressed in his
Paragranum and Paramirum.
His medical theory was based on philosophy, astrology,
alchemy (chemistry), and virtue (ethics).
He believed that the physical body could not sin
because the soul is responsible.
He wrote 123 theological writings around 1533.
Truth comes from the soul and God, and he said
we must read the Bible more with our heart
than with our brains.
He criticized public prayer as causing idolatry.
From Zurich he went to Austria and was in Bavaria in 1536
when his Books of the Greater Surgery were printed.
He went east to Vienna and appealed to Emperor Ferdinand.
After his father died, Paracelsus traveled in Carinthia
and wrote his famous Defensiones.
He related magic to will power and astrology
to spiritual influences, studied signs,
and used “second sight” or clairvoyance.
In 1540 Paracelsus went back to Salzburg where
he had a stroke and died on September 24, 1541.
Jean Calvin was born on July 10, 1509 in Picardy.
His father was an episcopal official and in 1521 secured
for his son a cathedral benefice to pay for his education.
In 1523 Jean went to the University of Paris
and became interested in humanism.
He earned his masters degree in 1528 and began
studying law at Orleans, earning a doctorate.
On April 4, 1532 Calvin published his Latin
Commentary on Seneca’s Clemency which he describe
as a superior being lenient to an inferior in exacting penalties.
He sent a copy to Erasmus who had published
the works of Seneca in 1515 and 1529.
Calvin knew Guillaume Budé who wrote his
Education of the Prince in 1516.
He was influenced by Jacques Lefevre d’Etaples
who published his French translation of the
New Testament in 1523
and the complete Bible in 1530.
Calvin also studied with the
humanist theologian Mathurin Cordier.
In October 1533 Calvin wrote a speech for Nicholas Cop,
the rector of the University of Paris, that challenged many
Catholic doctrines and suggested that the Church
rely on the Word of God rather than the sword.
He condemned Marguerite of Navarre’s
“Mirror of a Sinful Mind.”
The Parlement of Paris began an investigation,
and Calvin was arrested on May 26, 1534.
He wrote Psychopannychia (Sleep of the Soul) to refute
the Anabaptists’ notion that the soul slept
between death and the resurrection.
He also wrote a preface to his cousin Olivetan’s
French translation of the Bible
which was published at Neuchatel.
Calvin fled from France in October and in January 1535
came to Basel, where his Institutes of the Christian Religion
was first published in Latin in March 1536.
The introduction admonished King François.
His main purposes were to protect those who were being
persecuted for similar opinions
and to educate those inquiring about religion.
He expanded the book in several editions.
The first edition had only six chapters,
but the 1538 edition tripled the size of the book.
This systematic work created a Protestant theology
and was translated into most European languages.
He used a pseudonym to avoid publicity.
On September 5, 1536 Calvin began a series of lectures
on the Epistles of Paul, and he became
the preacher at the cathedral of St. Pierre.
On January 16, 1537 the Great Council of 200 issued orders
for reforming moral habits and directed that
remaining idolatrous images were to be burned.
That month he published letters criticizing the Catholic Church,
and he submitted articles for reorganizing the Church.
In February the reformers led
by Michel Sept won the Geneva election.
In March Calvin debated two Dutch Anabaptists
before the Council of 200,
and then the Council expelled the visitors.
Calvin began preaching in the spring,
though he had not been ordained.
He traveled to Italy and France before stopping in Geneva
where Farel persuade him to reside.
The two men put together a
Confession in 21 articles for the Council.
Also in 1537 he published his treatise
On Shunning of the Unlawful Rites of the Ungodly and
Preserving the Purity of the Christian Religion.
On January 4, 1538 the Council of 200 forbade ministers
from excluding anyone from communion.
In February 1538 elections favored
those who opposed religious coercion.
In March six supporters of Farel on the Council
proposed that Geneva free itself
from Bern and ally with France.
The Council ordered the same services as in Bern
and other Swiss churches, but Farel, Calvin,
and Elie Corauld refused to comply.
On April 23 without a trial the Council ordered them
to leave town within three days.
They went to Zurich and presented their case on April 28.
Then Farel went to Neuchatel, and Calvin went to Basel.
Then Calvin went down the Rhine in September to
Strasbourg where he learned from Bucer
and preached for three years.
Strasbourg had a board of lay workers to supervise
church government, and the humanist Johan Sturm
developed a good school where Bucer and Calvin taught.
On September 8 Calvin preached his first sermon,
and in January 1539 he began giving public lectures.
He liked music and produced a Psalter.
On July 29 he was made a citizen of Strasbourg,
and the city council granted him a salary.
Calvin answered the charges of heresy and schism in 1539
with his Reply to Cardinal Sadoleto, affirming his faith
in scripture and questioning the human inventions the
Church has used as sacrilegious, especially the papacy.
In August 1540 Calvin married the widow Idelette de Bure.
They raised two of her children,
but their only son died in infancy.
He published a book on prayer
and ministering the sacraments.
He wrote commentaries on all the books in the
New Testament except Revelations and on Isaiah
and ten other books from the Old Testament.
In the spring of 1540 the reformers won the elections
in Geneva, and on September 21 the Little Council
voted to recall Calvin.
They adopted the motto post tenebras lux
(after darkness light).
Calvin tried to reconcile differences with Zwingli and Luther,
and he approved Melanchthon’s Augsburg Confession
In 1541 Calvin translated his
Institutes of the Christian Religion into French,
and the councils and people welcomed him back
to Geneva with rejoicing on September 13.
Calvin promised Bucer he would be moderate
and act with brotherly kindness.
On October 4 the Council set up a commission of six
and granted him an annual salary of 500 florins
so he could entertain guests.
On November 20 the General Council adopted
Ecclesiastical Ordinances that became
a model for many churches.
Parishes were restored.
Pastors preached, taught, and administered sacraments.
Elders advised to help resolve conflicts.
Ministers and elders made up
the Consistory for church discipline.
Doctors taught the preachers and guarded the doctrine.
Girls were given separate schools.
Like Luther and Zwingli, Calvin believed in free schools.
Moral supervision began on December 6.
Calvin believed in strict morals.
Adultery was made a capital crime though only
a few incorrigible adulterers were executed.
Usually adultery resulted in divorce.
The Council also granted divorces for desertion.
Prostitutes had previously been sanctioned by the state
and were supervised by the Reine du bordel.
Now they had to wear a cap of shame and were expelled.
Those who kept coming back were drowned in the Rhone.
Calvin opposed dancing because it aroused lust,
and they prohibited prostitution.
They tried to replace taverns with abbayes;
but a boycott closed them after three months
as taverns reopened.
Calvin approved of religious plays only.
A new code was adopted in January 1543.
That year to unite the Protestants he wrote
On the Necessity of Reforming the Church.
In 1543 and 1544 he wrote treatises against those he called
“Nicodemites” because they did not change their old
superstitious beliefs out of fear or interest
in spite of knowing the grade of God.
Also in 1544 Calvin wrote on the “Relics of the Saints,”
noting that their preservation had degenerated
into abominable idolatry because of so many false claims.
Geneva suffered from a plague from 1543 to 1545,
and about 2,000 people died.
In one year they burned twenty people as witches,
and several women were tortured and killed
for allegedly having poisoned people
with the plague to get their belongings.
In September 1544 Calvin sent his disciple Pierre Brully
to Tournai in Flanders where he was arrested
for preaching in November and was
burned at the stake on February 19, 1545.
That year the Swiss Diet adopted a policy of neutrality
and barred foreign troops from crossing
their country or transporting weapons.
Calvin opposed the use of mercenaries
and that year defended Waldensians
when they were persecuted.
Calvin criticized those he called “libertines.”
On March 21, 1546 Ami Perrin and others danced
at a wedding, and the Council had them arrested
and reprimanded by the Consistory.
He was accused of plotting with France to let
King François govern Geneva, and he was expelled.
Calvin’s Institutes had been burned at Notre Dame in 1544
and were later banned.
He worked on reconciliation with Lutherans,
and in 1546 he translated Melanchthon’s
theological classic, Loci communes, into French.
In February 1547 the Geneva elections went against Calvin.
Anyone insulting Calvin was considered a blasphemer,
and the Secretary of State Jacques Gruet
was executed as an atheist on July 26.
On December 13 Calvin personally confronted
a crowd of armed libertines and calmed them down.
He criticized the Little Council in 1548,
and Philibert Berthelier led the party that opposed Calvin.
Perrin’s supporters gained power in February 1549.
Bullinger believed that Calvin was continuing the work
of Zwingli, and they agreed on the Consensus of Zurich
in 1549 to unite the French
and German churches in Switzerland.
Calvin’s wife Idelette died in 1549, and he did not remarry.
Froshauer printed an English Bible in 1550 in Zurich,
and another English Bible published in Geneva
had 70 editions in 70 years.
In On Scandals Calvin denounced literary figures
patronized by Marguerite of Navarre such as
François Rabelais, Etienne Dolet, and Clément Marot.
In October 1551 the French physician, Jerome Bolsec,
argued that Calvin’s theory of predestination
was false and absurd.
Calvin charged him before the Council
which banished him from Geneva.
The humanist Miguel Serveto (Michael Servetus) was a
Spanish physician who wrote
On the Errors of the Trinity in 1531.
He criticized Calvin’s Institutes in his Chistianismi Restitutio
and considered the devil and hell symbols.
When he tried to persuade Calvin, he got in trouble
and was tried and burned to death
for heresy on October 27, 1553.
The French humanist Sebastian Castellio became a Protestant
and came to Geneva in 1542 as school rector.
In 1546 he sent his On the Restoration of Christianity
to Calvin, and he published it anonymously in 1553.
He was a free thinker and went to teach at the
University of Basel where he published
Whether Heretics Ought to Be Persecuted in 1554.
He wrote that burning a heretic does defend
a doctrine but that it also kills a man.
Calvin wrote Defense of the Orthodox Faith
against the Errors of Michel Servetus.
Castellio responded by writing Against the Book of Calvin.
Calvin’s theory of predestination was also criticized by
Celio Secundo Curione in his
Concerning the Amplitude of the Blessed Kingdom of God.
On February 2, 1554 Geneva’s Council of 200
swore to live according to the Reformation.
After the Calvinists defeated the Perrinists in the 1555 elections,
a riot occurred on the night of May 16.
The Consistory was given authority
to call and question witnesses.
Four Perrinists were tortured and executed
as Ami Perrin and most of his followers fled.
Calvin favored welcoming refugees,
and Geneva adopted this policy in 1555.
Geneva was a city of about 12,000 people
and took in nearly 5,000 refugees.
Calvin was frugal with money and avoided waste.
He allowed interest on loans
with strict limits to assure equity and charity.
The Council put the ministers’ plan into operation
on December 10, 1557.
The Institutes had stated that a state is better
governed by a group than by a single individual.
Calvin gave a sermon in February before
each election of the syndics and other officials.
In 1558 refugee citizens were admitted to the magistracy.
John Knox found religious refuge in Geneva and was
a friend of Calvin and pastor to the English for three years
until he went home to Scotland in 1559.
That year Calvin published his final edition of the Institutes,
and on June 5 he founded an academy in Geneva
that had 1,500 students by his death in 1564.
Discipline was strict, but punishment was not to be cruel.
In 1563 a teacher was dismissed for brutally striking two boys.
Students learned French, Latin, and Greek.
Though Calvin was influential, he held no powerful position.
He did not become a citizen of Geneva
until Christmas Day in 1559.
By then he suffered from quartan fever,
and his illnesses increased in his last years.
In 1560 Calvin proposed a free and universal council
to unite all Christians and even suggested that
the Pope be allowed to preside if he agreed
to accept the decisions of the council.
In 1561 the Ecclesiastical Ordinances were published,
and that year eleven people were executed.
Theodore Beza did 54 of the translations for the Psalter
that was published in 1562 with 125 songs.
Calvin died on May 27, 1564.
Zwingli was succeeded on December 9, 1531
by Heinrich Bullinger who had opposed the war
and preached in Zurich until his death in 1575.
He and the ministers were to keep their sermons to the
Gospel teachings and no longer be involved in politics.
Oecolampadius translated the Greek Fathers
starting with Chrysostom.
He died on November 24, 1533 and was succeeded
at Basel by Oswald Geisshaüsler
who had been named Myconius by Erasmus.
Myconius created the First Basel Confession in 1534,
and in 1536 he, Bullinger, and Leo Juda formed
the First Helvetic Confession of Zwingli’s doctrines.
Bullinger published many works including his sermons
as Decades in 1557, and they were translated
into English, Dutch, and other languages.
In 1560 he published The Anabaptists, Origin, Growth,
and Sects in German and his Latin treatise
On the Authority and Certitude of Holy Scripture
and the Institution and Function of Bishops.
In 1555 the Catholic cantons forced the Protestants
to leave Locarno, and about two hundred
moved across the Alps to Zurich.
Aegidius Tschudi led the Catholics during a struggle with the
Reformers from 1559 to 1564.
Calvinists became more numerous than Lutherans,
and they were also called “Reformed,”
“Huguenots,” and “Puritans.”
Duke Emanuel Philibert of Savoy demanded territory Bern
had taken, and Pope Pius IV offered to help him.
The Catholic cantons had allied with him in 1560,
and on October 30, 1564 Bern returned conquered
territory to Savoy in the Treaty of Lausanne.
Giovanni Valenti Gentile had been condemned for heresy
in Geneva in 1557, but he did penance and escaped.
He was eventually beheaded in Bern in 1566.
Geneva suffered serious plagues in 1545, 1567-68, and 1571,
and they were usually blamed on witchcraft.
Geneva held 319 trials and executed 68 as witches.
Zurich and Lucerne also put many people to death.
In 1565 the Catholic cantons promised to supply
Pope Pius with about 5,000 volunteers.
In 1566 Bullinger collaborated with Peter Martyr Vermigli
on the Second Helvetic Confession
which was adopted in Switzerland, Hungary, and Bohemia.
Calvin was succeeded by Theodore Beza who was
a professor of Greek and the first rector of the
academy in Geneva which got a new constitution in 1568.
In 1570 Carlo Borromeo brought the Jesuits to Switzerland.
The five Innerschweiz cantons
strengthened their alliance with Savoy.
After the St. Bartholomew’s Day massacre
on August 23, 1572 in Paris many Huguenots (Protestants)
were massacred by the Catholic authorities,
and thousands of refugees fled to Bern, Zurich, and Geneva.
Ludwig Pfyffer led those in Lucerne following the Catholic
religion, and in 1571 he was elected Schultheiss
and stayed in office until his death in 1594.
Melchior Lussy helped install
a Jesuit center in Lucerne in 1574.
Another Jesuit college was started at Fribourg in 1580.
In 1579 Bern and France agreed to protect Geneva.
In 1582 Bern sent 7,500 soldiers to help the
Huguenots and King Henri III of France.
In 1584 Bern, Zurich, and Geneva
formed a perpetual alliance.
In 1586 Pfyffer united the five inner states
with Fribourg to form the Golden League with Spain.
In 1586 Duke Karl Emanuel of Savoy
put an embargo on Geneva.
On October 5 seven Catholic cantons formed the
Golden Borromaic Federation, and the next year
they joined with Fribourg in an alliance with Spain.
On May 12, 1587 they allied with King Felipe II of Spain,
and they offered to recruit up to 13,000 soldiers.
Strasbourg asked to join the Swiss Confederation in 1588,
but the Catholic cantons did not approve.
1. “Letter to Thomas Muntzer” by Conrad Grebel,
tr. Michael G. Baylor in The Radical Reformation, p. 42-43.
2. Geiser ms. by Clemens Adler, p. 88
quoted in Anabaptists and the Sword by James M. Stayer, p. 170.