[An Account of the Faith of Huldreich Zwingli Submitted to the Roman Emperor Charles]
We who are preaching the Gospel in the cities of a Christian State,* were anxiously awaiting, O Charles, holy Emperor of justice, the time when an account of our faith, which we both have and confess, would be asked of us also.
While we are standing in readiness for this, there comes to us the report, more by rumor than by definite announcement, that many have already prepared an outline and summary of their religion and faith, which they are offering you. Here we are in a great dilemmaf ; for, on the one hand, love of truth and desire for public peace urge us all the more to do ourselves what we see others doing; but, on the other hand, the shortness of the time deters us, not only because all things must be done very speedily and as it were superficially, on account of your haste, (for this also rumor announces) ; but also because we, who are acting as preachers of the Divine Word in the cities and country districts of the State already mentioned, are settled and separated too far apart to be able to assemble in so brief a time, and deliberate as to what is most fitting to write to your Highness. Moreover, as we have already seen the confession of the others and even their refutation by their opponents, which seem to have been prepared even before a demand was made for them, I believed that it would not be improper if I alone should forthwith submit an account of my faith, without anticipating the judgment of my people. For if in any business one must make haste slowly, here we must certainly make haste swiftly, since by handling this matter with careless neglect we run into the danger of being suspected because of silence or of being arrogant because of negligence.
To you then, O Emperor, I ofi’er a summary of my faith, with this condition, that at the same time I declare solemnly, that I entrust and permit the judgment not only of these articles,
*Zwingli refers to Zurich, Berne and Basle, in whose name he writes.
Literally: “Between the sacrifice and the stone of slaughter,” a Latin idiom which means: “We are in a great dilemma.” For the Latin adage, inter sacrum et saxutn stare, used by Plautus and other Latin writers, see Desiderii Erasmi Collectanea^ Adagiorum Veterum, chil. I, cent. I, No. 15, in his Opera, Leyden 1703, Vol. II, p. 33.
36 The Works of Huldreich Zwingli but of all that I have ever written or, by the grace of God, shall yet write, not to one man only, nor to a few merely, but to the whole Church of God, as far as it speaks by the command and inspiration of the Word and Spirit of God.
First of all, I both believe and know that God is one and He alone is God, and that He is by nature good, true, powerful, just, wise, the Creator and Preserver of all things, visible and invisible; that Father, Son and Holy Spirit are indeed three persons, but that their essence is one and single. And I think altogether in accordance with the Creed, the Nicene and also the Athanasian, in all their details concerning the Godhead himself, the names or the three persons.
I believe and understand that the Son assumed flesh, the human nature, indeed the whole man, consisting of body and soul, which He truly assumed of the immaculate and perpetual virgin Mary; but this in such a manner, that the whole man was so assumed into the unity of the hypostasis or person of the Son of God, that the man did not constitute a separate person, but was assumed into the inseparable, indivisible and indissoluble person of the Son of God. And, although both natures, the divine and the human, have so preserved their character and peculiarity that both are truly and naturally found in Him, yet the distinct peculiarities and activities of the natures do not separate the unity of the person any more than in man soul and body constitute two persons. For as these are of the most diverse nature, so they function by diverse peculiarities and operations ; nevertheless man, who consists of them, is not two persons, but one. So God and man is one in Christ,* the Son of God from eternity and the Son of Man from the time appointedf ; one person, one Christ; perfect God and perfect man J ; not because one nature becomes the other, or because the natures are fused together, but because each remains its peculiar self ; and yet, the unity of this person is not broken by this retention of the peculiarities.
Hence one and the same Christ, according to the character of the human nature, cries in infancy, grows, increases in wisdom
*Quoted from the Athanasian Creed, art. 37; see Schaff, Creeds of Christendom, II, 69.
f/. e., from the time of his birth.
IQuoted from the Athanasian Creed, art. 32.
An Account of the Faith of Zwingfli 37
[Luke 2: 52], hungers, thirsts, eats, drinks, is warm, is cold, is scourged, sweats, is wounded, is cruelly slain, fears, is sad and endures what else pertains to the penalty and punishment of sin, though from sin itself He is most remote. But according to the peculiarity of the divine nature, with the Father He controls the highest and the lowest [i. e., heaven and earth], he pervades, sustains and preserves all things, gives sight to the blind, restores the lame, calls to life the dead, prostrates His enemies with His word, when dead resumes life, ascends to heaven and sends from His home the Holy Spirit. All these things, however diverse in nature and character, the one and the same Christ does, remaining the one person of the Son of God, in such a way that even those things that pertain to His divine nature are sometimes ascribed, on account of the unity and perfection of the person, to the human nature, and those things that pertain to the human nature are sometimes attributed to the divine. He said that He was the Son of Man in heaven, [John 3: 13], although He had not yet ascended into heaven with the body. Peter asserts that Christ suffered for us [I Peter 2 : 21], when the humanity alone could suffer. But on account of the unity of the person it is truly said both that : “The Son of God suffered” [Lk. 9 : 22], and that ”the Son of Man forgives sins” [Mk. 2 : 10] . For He who is the Son of God and of man in one person suffered, according to the peculiar quality of His human nature ; and He who is the Son of God and of man in one person forgives sins, according to the peculiar quality of the divine nature.