Refutation of the Articles of Zwingli, Presented to His Imperial Majesty, by John Eck, Under the Patronage of the Most Reverend Father and Most Honorable Prince, Lord Erhard, S. R. E., Cardinal Bishop of Liege, July 1530.
(July 17, 1530)
[REPVLSIO ARI TICVLORVM ZVVINGLII | Caes. Maiestati oblatorum. I Johanne Eckio authore | 1530 | in Julio | Sub Reuerendissimi patris & amplissimi prin- | cipis D. Erhardi S.R.E. Cardinalis ac | Leodiensis Episcopi Patrocinio. | (Coat of Arms). No date, place or printer. 72 unnumbered quarto pages, the last of which is blank. A copy of this tract is in the library of Union Theological Seminary, New York. The following English translation is based on one by Mr. Henry Preble, but it was revised throughout by the editor.
John Eck, more correctly Johann Maier, was born at Eck (now Egg, near Memmingen, south of Augsburg) in Swabia, November 13, 1486. When twelve years of age he began his studies at Heidelberg and continued them at Tuebingen, Cologne and Freiburg. When fourteen years of age he became Magister Artium, when nineteen bachelor of theology, when twentytwo priest at Strassburg, and in 1510, when twenty-four years, doctor and professor of theology in the University of Ingolstadt.
Having studied under humanistic teachers he advocated at first liberal views in theology and philosophy and as early as 1517 entered into friendly relations with Luther. But his unbounded ambition to be regarded as the leading theologian of German}’ caused him to become the defender of the papacy and of Catholic doctrine. In 1519, he began his fight against Luther. In 1520, he visited Rome at the invitation of the Pope, when he presented to him his work on the Primacy of Peter against Luther, Ingolstadt 1520, for which he was awarded with the appointment as papal prothonotary. When on June 16, 1520, the papal bull, Exsurge Domine, appeared, in which forty-one propositions of Luther were condemned, Eck was entrusted with its e.xecution in Germany.
At the Diet of Augsburg, Eck took a leading part as defender of the
Refutation of Zwingli by Eck 63
Roman Catholic position. He extracted 404 articles from the works of the reformers and with seventy other theologians collaborated in the Confutatio pontificia, in which the Catholic refutation of Protestantism was embodied.
Against Zwingli and his party, Eck first appeared at the public disputation at Baden, in Catholic territory, twelve miles northwest of Zurich, on May 21 -June 18, 1526. The affair ended in favor of Eck, who induced the authorities to suppress the reformation at Baden. The dispution of Berne, which was conducted in the absence of Eck in January 1528, was won for the reformation.
When Zwingli’s account of his faith had been submitted to the emperor in July 1530, it was turned over to Eck for answer. He sat down at once and within three days, as he boasts, he produced what he intended to be a crushing reply. It was completed on July 17, 1530, dedicated to the Cardinal of Liege and printed most likely in the same month at Augsburg.
Eck was more highly esteemed as the champion of the true faith in Rome than in Germany, where he had many enemies. He was accused of drunkenness, immorality, imbounded greed for money and passionate desire for honor and preferment. When Rome did not gratify all his ambitions, he made overtures for peace to the Protestants, but they failed through hatred and contempt by which he was generally regarded.
But through his scholarly attainments, and controversial ability, he made himself the most prominent, and also the most violent opponent of the reformation. He died at Ingolstadt on February 10, 1543. Numerous works in Latin and German testify both to his ability and to his violent temper.]
Right Reverend Father in Christ and Most Estimable Prince Loud Erhard von Arnberg,* S. R. E., Cardinal Bishop of Liege, His JIost Gracious Lord, John Eck Sends Greetings and Presents His Ready Allegiance.
The ancients tell us. Most Worshipful Father, that the Greeks made offerings to the most eminent physician Hippocrates, as to a present divinity, because his help and labors drove away the contagious plague, and the grievous pestilence that was creeping in from Illyricum. Hercules also merited divine honors because he overcame monsters dangerous to mankind. Yet far more estimable will be our august and imperial ruler,
*Erhard de la Marck, bishop of Liege and Cardinal, born at Sedan in the year 1472, was descended from a very wealthy family in the Ardennes. Elected as bishop of Liege in 1506, he beautified the city with a number of magnificent buildings, among them the Episcopal palace. When the efforts of Francis I of France to secure for him the cardinal’s hat miscarried, through the intrigues of the Duchess of Angouleme, Erhard became a violent enemy of France. It was mainly through his efforts that the attempts of Francis to become emperor of Germany, after the death of Maximilian, failed. He supported the claims of Charles V, and when he became emperor, the latter showed his gratitude by securing for Erhard the dignity of Cardinal. The administration of his diocese was marked by cruelty and fanaticism, for he persecuted the Protestants relentlessly. He died at Liege, February 16, 1538.
Charles V, Roman Emperor, and he will win undying glory for his name, if, following the example of the great Constantine, he shall by his power and piety suppress and do away with the destructive commotions in the Church, more serious and more widespread than we have ever read of. For this all Catholics are otTering up most devout prayers, that dissension and discord may be done away, and peace, quiet and harmony return to Germany, especially in our sacred religion, for there is small reason to hope that God will be gracious to us, since He is the author of peace not of dissension, unless returning to grace we come into unity of faith, and all think the words of Paul applicable to us Germans also, “Now I beseech you, brethren, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that you all speak the same thing, and that there be no schisms among you” [I Cor. 1: 10]. For in consequence of our sin so many schisms have arisen in the faith, that a Christian cannot even think of them without great distress. What Catholic would not bewail the breaking of his vows by Luther, the destruction of the mass and eucharist by Zwingli, the bringing back of Catabaptism by Balthasar [Huebmaier], the casting away of the Old and the New Testaments by Ambrosius Pneumaticus? If God give us not a godlike emperor as a Hercules for these monsters, an Hippocrates for this pestilence, alas for poor torn Germany!
I have refuted Zwingli’s pamphlet which he had caused to be presented to the Emperor as a confession of his faith, and if I seem pretty harsh to any one I beg him by those above not to judge that I had bitter feelings towards the followers of Zwingli, but with a Christian heart and brotherly love most deeply grieve for them because so many thousand souls are thereby brought to peril, I will not say,” destruction, and nothing is more truly my desire than that they may return to the unity of the faith and the primitive religion. Though I despair of the chief heretic, for not in vain does St. Paul admonish us that such a one, after the first and second admonition, is to be rejected, yet I trust in God the Father of Mercies and in the Lord Jesus Christ our Saviour that many now wandering in the bypaths of error will be turned wholeheartedly to seek the Lord God again and confess Him in the great Church and praise Him in the mighty people [Ps. 35: 18]. And this refutation of mine, a labor of three days, I wanted to dedicate to Your Worship, Right Reverend Father and glory of the Court, not only that I might show my zeal and devotion to you, but because, through the favor with our high Emperor Charles which your faith, power and wisdom give you, you of all primates are the wisest to whom to commend a matter of the faith. May you continue unceasingly, as you do, to appeal to, admonish, exhort, urge His Majesty to come to the assistance of Germany in her trouble and danger. I know how much His Majesty values your counsels and regards you as his Nestor. May God Almighty long preserve Your Gracious Worship in safety. Farewell, Ornament of Bishops. Augsburg, July 17, 1530.
IN THY NAME, SWEET JESUS When I read Zwingli’s confession of faith, most sacred Emperor, I
Refutation of Zwingli by Eck 65 do not clearly know whether to wonder the more at the man’s ungodliness or his impudence, for he excels so in both that one cannot easily decide upon which he has spent more labor, trying with marked viciousness to outdo himself in them more each day. He has been for ten years constantly at the task of extinguishing all the piety of the Christian faith among the Swiss, of abolishing divine worship, of ruining, destroying, banishing beyond Sarmatia and the Caspian mountains all the rites, usages and customs of Church ceremonies and the entire Christian religion. First he championed the errors of Luther, and spread them among the people. Soon, scorning Luther, he withdrew from him in numerous tenets, and reintroduced various sects, such as a new sect of Capernaites, a sect of the Berengarians, of the Pelagians, and others. He thereby brought it about among his people of Zurich that they blotted out the ancient Christian religion and refused to listen to the Right Reverend Bishop of Constance, when he more than once gave them fatherly admonition, and, shaking off his regular jurisdiction, did and disposed everything according to their own sweet will independently of right and wrong, and are to this day so doing and disposing.
They have turned just as deaf an ear to the pious admonitions of the Federated Cantons, by whose aid, not to say blood, they reached such a high rank of dominion and grew to such power, so that they not only disregard the other Swiss, but scorn them, and try to offer them violence and to turn them away by threats and force from the true Christian faith. My spirit shudders, my heart shrinks back, my limbs tremble, mighty Emperor, when I would relate Zwingli’s impious acts. Their number overwhelms me when I try to count them on my fingers. But do you, while I do this a little, put yourself into the frame of mind that you seem to hear me recounting to Your Majesty the deeds not of a Christian but of some Turk, or wild Tartar, or savage Hun, or ancient Nebuchadnezzar, or Antiochus, or Heliodorus. First he altered many ceremonies with the apparent purpose of reforming the Church; presently he abolished them altogether. He invited the people to the Communion in both forms contrary to the ordinance of the Church, then immediately cast away both forms and took away the whole consolation of the sacrament of the Eucharist, exhibiting in his churches, instead of the most sacred body and blood of Jesus our Saviour, nothing but baker’s bread. And when he had brought the men of his nation over to this view of denying the reality of Christ’s body in the sacrament, there was no sin too monstrous, no crime too impious and execrable for them to be driven headlong into by Zwingli.
Therefore, the administration of all the sacraments except baptism has lapsed ; all the ceremonies of the Church have been abolished, the canonical hours, the offices of the Mass, both public and private, have lapsed in all the churches, colleges, and monasteries, and he who first spent so much toil in frequent changes of the Mass into now one shape now another has finally destroyed and abolished all masses. The invocation of the saints, the praises of God by night and day have ceased among them, no honor is shown to the Virgin Mary and the rest of the saints, the once wellfilled church of Maria Einsiedeln is deserted. The anniversary foundations
66 The Works of Huldreich Zwingli and other divine offices have lapsed, the altars are destroyed and overthrown, the images of the saints and the paintings are burned or broken up or defaced. All the ornaments of the churches are taken away, especially the chalices and monstrances and all the gold and silver and silk there was in the churches. The revenues and incomes of the churches and monasteries have been diverted to profane uses, all the monks and nuns, spurning their vows, have returned to the world and given themselves over to incontinence. Hence the most holy foundations of the pious dukes of Austria, of the counts of Haspurg, Kiburg, Nellenburg, Tockenburg, and especially of Charlemagne, Your Majesty’s predecessors, have been utterly destroyed and overthrown, and everything has been profaned and ruined, so that they no longer have churches but rather stables, and the monasteries seem not places in which perennial service is offered to God, but temples of Venus or Bacchus.
After all these impieties, sacrileges, plunderings and blasphemous doings, after all the errors he has spread abroad and all the heresies he has introduced, he ventures to address a confession of his faithlessness to the imperial head of the world, ventures to put forth before the most Christian Emperor of the Roman Empire articles far from Christian. This mad recklessness of his ventures, after he has dragged the men of Berne, Basle and Schaflfhausen over to his view, after he has infected with his own errors the cities of the Holy Empire, Constance, and Miilhausen, and the town of St. Gall, and has alienated them from the faith of the House of Austria, after he has torn and defiled the noble commonwealth of Strassburg with his errors under the leadership of Capito and Bucer, after he has stirred up insurrection in the realms of His Serene Highness, ‘the King of Hungary and Bohemia and Archduke of Austria, has done many wrongs to the nobles, faithful to the Holy Empire and the House of Austria, and robbed them of their goods, after he has so often and in such mean fashion expressed scorn, derision, indifference for your absent Majesty and your sacred person,* this minister of sin, this leader of ungodliness and sacrilege, this scorner of gods and men, ventures, I say, in addition to all this, to present to Your Majesty a pamphlet of his faithlessness, and to give an explanation of his heresies, so that not without reason a vast wonder has taken possession of my mind whether Zwingli is more proficient in impiety or in impudence. A most stupid busybody surely, who thinks he can impose upon Your Sacred Majesty with his deceits, and deceive your distinguished watchfulness with his crafty wiles. Although, therefore, your most wise Imperial Majesty will easily understand the craftiness of the man, shudder at his impiety, and scorn his pride and arrogance, yet, in accordance with the allegiance and obedient service I owe and with the Christian office I fill, I will examine the faithless confession of the faithdestroying heretic, and put it to the test, trusting to the righteousness of your most Christian mind as a faithful servant of God and patron of the Church to take wise measures to suppress and exterminate at length this heresy that threatens so many souls with damnation, and to restore to
*There is, of course, no proof whatever for all these wild assertions.
Refutation of Zwingli by Eck 67
Cliristian liberty the Catholics oppressed under the dominion of these people. But now let Zwingli’s Confession come in for a castigation !
In his preface he admits that the companions of his faithlessness had waited anxiously for the time when an account of their faith should be demanded of them. They are anxious, I imagine, because they fear to “come to the light, lest their deeds should be reproved,” as Christ says, John, 3[:20].* They are anxious, lest they experience the rigor of imperial righteousness according to their works, for they are not ignorant of Paul’s words, “But if thou do that which is evil, fear: for he beareth not the sword in vain. For he is God’s minister: an avenger to execute wrath upon him that doeth evil,” Rom. 13 [:4].t They are anxious because, while there was no limit to their wrong-doings, they thought they could do anything they would with impunity since Your Imperial Highness was in Spain, in the uttermost parts of the west, separated from the Empire by so many lands, and was distracted by so many vast and diflScult affairs that it would never happen that you would come back to the Empire.
But now that God Almighty, caring for His holy Church and Empire, has caused you, beyond all human conjecture and though not contrary to hope, absolutely contrary to expectation, so quickly to triumph most happily over all obstacles and difficulties, and has caused you to be most gloriously crowned with the imperial diadem, anointing and consecration having gone before; now that He has restored peace to the powers of Italy and has brought Your Imperial, Sublime Highness back to Germany, the heretics are anxious, yea, terrified at your imperial presence, because now every avenue is closed to the lies by which they were imposing upon the simple-minded people, saying that the divine Emperor Charles was not in Italy, and had not been crowned, and that these things were made up by the Catholics to frighten the people. Therefore are the preachers of the heretics in very truth anxious, saying with the wicked in Isaiah, “We have conceived, and uttered from the heart, words of falsehood. And judgment is turned away backward, and justice hath stood afar off: for our wicked doings are with us; and we have known our iniquities, in sinning and lying against the Lord,” etc. Isa. 59 [: 12-14].$ Yet in the midst of such anxiety, they still flatter themselves that they stand erect when they really lie sunk in such deep pits and ditches of error and heresy, “Woe to you that are deep of heart, to hide your counsel from the Lord: and their works are in the dark,” Isa. 29 [: 15].
We must believe Zwingli, therefore, in this place, when he admits that they are between the devil and the deep sea, but presently he returns to his usual lies, saying that he and his associates were spurred on by love of the truth and desire for peace to put forth the pamphlet of their confes-
*As the verse division was not introduced into the Greek New Testament till ISSl, and into the Vulgate till ISSS, Eck quotes the Bible by chapter only. We add the verses in square brackets.
fThe translations of the Scripture quotations are throughout this tract those of the Douay Version, the authorized English version of the Catholic Church.
Jin the King James version the construction of the beginning is different and the order of the parts different.
68 The Works of Huldreich Zwingli sion, for everything applies to them which Jeremiah uttered about lying prophets in chapter 23. How have they dared to boast of love of the truth before our most pious Emperor? For it is in their very character that Isaiah says, “We have placed our hope in lies and by falsehood we are protected,” 28 [: 15]. With equal falsehood they arrogate to themselves a desire for peace, though they seem to have been born to overthrow the peace and quiet of the commonwealth and country, and are verily men seditious and sanguinary, as Zwingli and his crowd showed in the uprisings at Ittingen,* at Rothweilf and elsewhere. And the desire for peace shone forth most brightly when, on account of the burning of one Lutheran priest at Schwyz,t he called the men of Zurich, Berne and Thurgau to arms against the five ancient Cantons of the Swiss who were most firm in the Catholic faith, and marched out into the field not far from the town of Rapperswyl, where much human blood would have been shed if Zwingli’s followers had listened to him, as this herald of the Gospel strenuously urged them to join battle.** Most applicable to him and his associates are the words of Jeremiah, “They healed the breach of the daughter of my people disgracefully, saying: Peace, peace: when there is no peace,” 8 [: 11]. For Zwingli is of the number of those of whom David says, “Who speak peace with their neighbor, but evils are in their heart,” Ps. 27 [: 3].tt
As to Zwingli’s putting forth the pamphlet of his confession very hastily, he had first assigned as the reason of its appearance a love of the truth and a desire for peace, but presently, forgetting this (for liars are apt to be forgetful) he gives a different reason, and Your Sacred ^Majesty will easily understand that he v.^as rather goaded by the sting of envy and stirred by contentiousness. Being filled with undying hatred against Luther and attacking him with many insulting words, for the peace patched up at Marburg was a flimsy affair, when he saw that illustrious princes and wise councillors, accepting the doctrine of Luther, had presented to Your Majesty and the princes of the Empire the articles of their faith, in which the ungodly Capernaitic dogmas of Zwingli and Oecolampadius are frequently condemned and repudiated, he plunged into this fray also, and through an unknown messenger, tj as I hear, got the pamphlet of his confession into Your Majesty’s hands by stealth. Thus relying upon the truth of the Gospel, this new preacher and bishop of Zurich did not dare to present this document openly and publicly to your Imperial Majesty,
*This uprising arose because the prefect of Thurgau had seized by night at Burg, near Stein on the Rhine, a Reformed preacher named Oechsli and carried him off to Frauenfeld. See Zwingli’s IVerke, Vol. Ill, 1914, pp. 511-538.
The Catholics had driven the reformers from the country and these sought refuge at Zurich and other places.
tjacob Schlosser, who had the cognomen Caesar.
**This refers to the First Cappel War, 1529-30, see Jackson, Huldreich Zwingli, pp. 299-306.
ttSo in the Vulgate, but 28:3, according to Hebrew text and the Authorized Version; because in the Septuagint and Vulgate, Ps. 9 and 10 are counted as one Psalm.
JJZwingli’s Confession was presented to the Emperor through the Bishop Designate of Constance. See Jackson, Huldreich Zwingli, 332.
Refutation of Zwingli by Eck 69 either by his own hand or by that of any respectable man acting for him. But how reverently Zwingli looks up to this imperial head of the whole world, the tenor of his preface reveals clearly enough, for he seems to be offering a pamphlet of confession of his humility, obedience and subjection to the Emperor, as well as of his faith, and to recognize him as Roman Emperor, but if we examine its words more thoroughly we find nothing in it but a sort of arrogance and empty conceit and vain boastfulness, for the judgment of all his writings he submits not to any one man nor to any few men, but to the whole Church, and even this he does not grant unconditionally, as they say, but is willing to listen to the judgment of the Church only in so far as she judges in accordance with the precepts of the Word of God and the Spirit. Lo, the fierce Philistine, the great and savage giant, who bows not to the judgment of the Emperor alone nor to that of a few assembled in holy synod nor even to that of the whole Church, if God should cause all Christians to come together some time! He demands the inspiration of the Spirit in her, as if it could ever happen that Christ should desert His Church to which He has promised that He will be with her alway even to the end of the world, Matth. 28 [: 20], as if one did not have to stand by the decision and judgment of the priest, as even the old law proclaims, Deut. 17 [: 12], as if the power of the Church, in which even St. Paul boasts, I Cor. 10* and testifies more than once that it has been given to him, did not exist, as if for the sake of one or another rash assailant of the faith the whole Church must be assembled, whose judgment one could still evade when so impelled by frivolous suspicions at his own sweet will, and thus in Zwingli’s judgment the saying of Paul would fall to the ground, “The Church of the living God, the pillar and ground of the truth,” I Tim. 3 [:15]. Let none, therefore, of discreet judgment take it hard that this faith-destroying leader of heretics is not willing to defer to the most Sacred Emperor, since he even scorns and rejects the judgment of the Church Universal. And this mighty Ninifod writes to the Swiss that he will triumph over all the doctors of the whole world (Ad Helvetios, An. 1526),t and in his book on baptism he declares that it is certain that his opinion will prevail and endure even if the Avhole world oppose him (Folio 26).$ How much better Zwingli would have done if he had listened to the advice of the sage when he says, “Extol not thyself in the thoughts of thy soul like a bull; lest thy strength be quashed by folly, and it eat up thy leaves, and destroy thy fruit, and thou be left as a dry tree in the wilderness,” Ecclesiasticus 6 [: 2-3].**
*I Cor. 10 should be II Cor. 10: 8.
tin his letter to the twelve confederated cities of Switzerland. Zwingli declared, that if they would hold a conference at Zurich, Berne or St. Gall, he was willing to meet not only Eck and Faber, but all the doctors who opposed the Word of God. See “Ein freundliche Geschrift an gemein Eidgenossen,” ed. Schuler and Schulthess, Vol. II, pt. 2, p. 428.
tin his work on Baptism (e9. Schuler and Schulthess, Vol. II, pt. I. p. 258). Zwingli actually wrote: “In short, it is certain, though the whole world should undertake to fight against me, that no outward element or application can purify the soul.”
**Thus in Vulgate; somewhat differently in Greek and hence also in the so-called “Variorum Apocrypha.” printed at Oxford.
But let us examine Zwingli’s Confession. ARTICLE I.
In the beginning Zwingli wishes to seem a Christian, though he is very far removed from Christianity, for he adopts a profession of faith in general after the pattern of both the Nicene and the Athanasian Creed. Now this confession of the holy Council of Nice the whole Orthodox Church Universal adopted twelve hundred and six years ago and has held to firmly, so that there was no need of Zwingli’s taking up the time of His Imperial Majesty, already overwhelmed with other most serious matters, by rehearsing this confession as if it were new. But there are many things in this article which, though true and undoubted among us Catholics, yet are wondrously at variance with Zwingli’s dogmas. For what does he mean by using the Nicene and Athanasian Councils to support the first and chief article of his Confession, when he is otherwise so hostile to the Councils and the Fathers that whatever is determined by them he regards as human traditions, as inventions of man? Likewise, why does he admit three persons in the Godhead when this word “person” in this meaning is not found in the sacred Scriptures, and it is a principle of Zwingli that nothing must be accepted in the faith which is not asserted in clear and plain passages of Scripture? This principle was also used by the men of Berne* in their disputation in January of the year 1528, held in spite of the prohibition of the Imperial Government. f
Furthermore, when he says the Son put on humanity, he finds this nowhere in the sacred writings,! nor is the humanity of Christ man. That was the pernicious error of the heretic Nestorius. Zwingli is right when he admits that Mary is perpetually a virgin, but he has this, contrary to his own principle, solely from the tradition of the Church, as also Bucer of Strassburg admitted at Berne (Folio 27), and it will not serve as a proof for Zwingli that he somewhere quotes Isaiah, “Behold, a virgin shall conceive, and bear a son,” 7 [: 14] for by these words of the Prophet the virginal birth is indeed proved, which also the heretic Helvidius believed, but that she remained virgin after the birth of her son we learn from the authority of the Church. In like manner Zwingli truly admits (Damasce, fol. 119)** the indissoluble union of natures in Christ, contrary to his own principle, for he cannot prove by the sacred Scriptures that Christ did not lay down what He had once taken up. So he does well
*HalIer said at Berne (see Zwingli’s Werke, Schuler and Schulthess edition, II, 1, p. 109): “The Church of Christ has never accepted anything which is not founded upon the Word of God; the Church which is not of Christ, has accepted much that is outside of the Word of God.”
This was the Disputation at Berne, January 5-26, 1528.
JBut see Phil. 2: 7-8.
**The marginal references of Eck are given in the body of the text, to distinguish them from the notes of the editor at the foot of the page. Some of the marginal references are obscure and enigmatical. We reproduce them verbatim, without attempting to explain all of them. In the above quotation, Eck seems to have reference to John of Damascus, who in his “Exposition of the Orthodox Faith,” Bk. III. chaps. Z-7, discusses the union of the two natures of Christ. See Schaff, Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, 2nd Series, Vol. IX, pp. 46-52.
Refutation of Zwingli by Eck 71 contrary to his own principle in not confusing the natures in Christ, yet in the disputation of Berne they admitted the mixture of the natures with the heretic Eutyches. But it is an innovation on Zwingli’s part, contrary to all Scripture, contrary to the Fathers, and contrary to the usage of the Church, when he says “ingenium” instead of “idioma, individual quality” or “genuina natura seu proprietate, inherent nature or characteristic.” For he says, “Christ in virtue of the ‘native bent’ of His human nature, cried as a babe and grew.”
But Zwingli consents to explicit heresy when he says here of our Lord Jesus Christ that He increased in wisdom, for which he has given elsewhere (Berne, Folio 125) as the reason that Christ is subject to limitation and measure in His human nature. But this is the heresy of Nestorius that arose from a misunderstanding of Luke’s words, “And Jesus advanced in wisdom and age,” 2 [: 52]. But the Church has learned from St. John, who with John the Baptist, recognized that Christ is full of grace and truth, John 1 [: 17], and that to Him was given the spirit not by measure, John 3 [: 34]. St. Paul testifies that in Christ “are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge,” Col. 2 [: 3]. Therefore Isaiah foresaw in the spirit how the spirit of wisdom and understanding should rest upon Him, Isa. 11 [: 2]. Hence this part of the Confession is to be absolutely rejected, since the whole Church admits that Christ even according to His human nature is omniscient. Therefore, as far as this part is concerned, Zwingli wrongly attributes to the orthodox a view with which they are altogether at variance.
Article II
In the second section Zwingli confesses the providence of God, since it determines freely about all things and His designs wait not on the exigencies of created things. Then he takes off the point of this by adding, Thus free will falls to the ground. But although all of us orthodox attribute to God providence over all things— “for so much then as thou art just, thou orderest all things justly,” as the Sage says, Wisdom 12 [: 15] — ^yet to deny free will on that account is the heresy of Manichaeus, or to say that all things take place according to absolute necessity is the heresy of Wycliffe, condemned at the Council of Constance. For the Sage testifies to both the providence of God and free will at once: “God of my fathers, … who hast made all things with Thy word, and by Thy wisdom hast appointed man, that he should have dominion over the creature that was made by Thee, that he should order the world according to … justice, and with an upright heart,” etc. Wisdom 9 [: 1-3].
Only how could he order, how show uprighteousness of heart, if he had no free will, as this new Manichaeus declares? And since Zwingli himself does so many things according to his own depraved free will, one must assuredly wonder why he so shamelessly denies free will, since to him and to Oecolampadius are most truly applicable the words of Isaiah, “Thou hast done evil things, because thou has been able,” Isaiah 56.* Verily *The reference ought to have been to Jer. 3: S.
Zwingli is a blockhead, a dolt, a dunce, who denies free will. Let him hear even God saying by the mouth of Isaiah, “If you be willing, and will hearken to me, you shall eat the good things of the land. But if you will not, and will provoke me to wrath, the sword shall devour you,” Isa. 1 [: 19-20].* And lest our opponent grumble, I will quote even Christ’s words against him, “Jerusalem, … how often would I have gathered together thy children, as the hen doth gather her chickens under her wings, and thou wouldest not,” Matth. 33 [:37].t Do you hear, Manicliaeus, when God would gather them, men would not? And how are all of us Christians to take the statement with composure that thus free will falls to the ground when we are sure from the words of St. Paul, who framed his course firmly in his own heart, not being bound but having power to follow his own will, Rom. 7.$ Granting, therefore, divine providence which all of us Christians frankly confess, it was not on that account necessary to reject and deny free will with the heretic Manichaeus and the stupid philosophers Empedocles, Critolaus, Diodorus and the rest, who were hissed and driven out even by the heathen.
Nor is Zwingli free from guilt when he charges the fathers of the Old Testament with the most serious sins, that they saw themselves damned in their own judgment, that they cast off all hope of attaining felicity, and that they went in despair from the sight of God because their only thought was that they were going to suffer the pain of everlasting torture, when really the fathers of the Old Testament relied on the greatest of hopes and awaited with incomparable faith the mediator between God and man. In this faith St. Paul says, the elders had witness borne to them [Hebr. 11: 2]. St. Paul brings forward Abel, Enoch, Noah, Abraham, Sara: “All these died according to faith, not having received the promises, but beholding them afar off, and saluting them, and confessing that they are pilgrims and strangers on the earth. For they that say these things, do signify that they seek a country.” Hebr. 11 [: 13-14]. He bears witness of Moses that “he looked unto the reward,” and having enumerated several fathers St. Paul sums up with the words, “by faith conquered kingdoms, wrought justice, obtained promises,” [11: 33]. Since, therefore, the chosen vessel attributes so much faith and such good works to the fathers, who is going to believe Zwingli when he attributes to them a sort of despair and other execrable sins? The assertions of Zwingli in the rest of this article are rather obscure and put in very general terms, and I will therefore postpone routing their mists imtil the cataracts of his errors shall be let loose.
Article III
Zwingli here brings forward Christ as the one and only victim for our sins, and reasons cunningly from this that there is no justification by works, no atonement. Though it does not escape me what impieties and heaps of errors Zwingli founds upon this article, yet, since they are all
*This is the reading of the Vulgate. The King James Version differs somewhat.
fA misprint for 23.
{Where did Paul make such a statement in Romans, chap. 7 ?
Refutation of Zwingli by Eck 73 wrongly deduced, I want, for the present, only to defend that which Zwingli repudiates here, for as to the justification by works, that not only takes nothing from the excellence of the victim, that is Christ, but makes it especially necessary, and since I have brought forward elsewhere much to support this, let it suffice now to quote the testimony of St. Peter when he says, “Wherefore, brethren, labor the more that by good works you may make sure of your calling and election” II Pet. 1 [: 10].* So also I have proved atonement from the Scriptures, for that holy soul John in the Apocalypse says to the Church at Ephesus, “Be mindful therefore from whence thou art fallen, and do penance, and do the first works,” Rev. 2 [: 5]. John does not say, “There is one victim for expiating sin, namely Christ, and there is no need of making atonement,” but he bids us repent and do works.
So also St. Paul well knew how grateful and accepta)le the oflfering of Christ was, yet he does not fail to note that justification by works is necessary, saying of the coming of our Saviour, “who gave himself for us, that he might redeem us from all iniquity, and might cleanse to himself a people acceptable, a pursuer of good works,” Titus 2 [: 14]. Christ did not, therefore, wish to make us idle by His holy offering, but, as St. John the Baptist preached, he wishes us to “bring forth fruits worthy of repentance,” Matth. 3 [: 8]. This it seems to me David indicated beautifully in the Psalms, especially when he said, “Blessed are they whose transgressions are forgiven, and whose sins are covered,” Ps. 31 [: l],t signifying that it is not enough that sins be forgiven. They must also be covered by atonement. For thus St. Ambrose skilfully explains this passage. Zwingli is too near the Novatian heretics who deny the value of repentance, for he rejects atonement which is no mean part of it. Hence the complaint fits him which St. Cyprian addressed to Pope Cornelius in the matter of the Novatians: — “They labor to prevent divine clemency from healing the wounded in His Church, they corrupt the repentance of the wretched men by the deceitfulness of their lies, that it may not satisfy an offended God, that one who has been ashamed or afraid to be a Christian may not afterwards seek Christ his Lord, nor he that had withdrawn from the Church return to her. They put forth efforts that sins may not be atoned for with just satisfaction and lamentations, that the wounds may not be washed away with tears.” (Book I, Epist.).$ I might bring forward other most certain proofs had I not determined carefully to shun and avoid overdoing things. I have treated briefly of this testimony in another answer, and if by the one mediator Zwingli meant to repudiate the invocation of the saints, I have refuted his view in the same answer.
Article IV
Zwingli brings out his view on original sin in such uncertain words
•The best Greek Mss. omit the words “good works.”
fPsalm 32: 1 in the Authorized Version.
Migne, Patrologia Latina, Vol. Ill, 839/; 12th epistle, §13. See also Cypriani Opera, Oxford edition. Letter LIX. §13; Vol. I, 839; Ante-Nicene Christian Library, Edinburgh. 1868, VIII, 171.
74 The Works of Huldreich Zwingli that in one breath he asserts it, in the next denies it. In his little book on baptism* he altogether denied that the original blemish was a sin, it was just a natural defect like stammering. Here he both admits and denies original sin. But before we examine this article, the Catholic doctrine must be set forth, namely that all the descendants of Adam contracted original sin except those who by special privilege were preserved guiltless, for to say the contrary was the heresy of the Pelagians, condemned first in the Council of Mileve,t afterwards in the Roman Council. The Holy Scriptures also plainly prove this. David cries out, “Behold, I was conceived in iniquities; and in sins did my mother conceive me,” Psalm 50 [: 7].$ Paul, the apostle, cries out, “we were by nature the children of wrath, even as others,” Eph. 2 [: 3]. He also writes to the Romans, “For all have sinned, and do need the glory of God,” Rom. 3 [: 23], and again, “As by one man sin entered into this world, and by sin death; and so death passed upon all men, in whom all have sinned,” Rom. 5 [: 12], and below, “As by the disobedience of one man many were made sinners,” etc., Rom. 5[: 19]. This heresy was destroyed by those two hammerers of heretics, St. Augustine and St. Jerome. Let us now hear how Zwingli raves. “Sin,” he says, “properly taken, is guilt, a crime, offense, or wrongdoing,” and in this way he denies that original sin is sin, and straightway forgetting himself he admits that we are born into slavery, as sons of wrath, and subject to death. But now I challenge Zwingli and all Zwinglians to say whether to be subject to wrath and death does not mean wrong-doing, and since they will not venture to deny this if they have any brains, it follows that original sin is properly speaking sin, which Zwingli distinctly repudiated in the beginning.
Moreover, what he adds about the necessity of death being original sin is wide of the truth. Otherwise, since in the case of the baptized the necessity of death remains, original sin would also remain, but to say that would be to invalidate the truth of the faith and the efficacy of the sacraments, as Luther does, for St. Peter declares that we have been “regenerated unto a lively hope, by the resurrection of Jesus Christ, unto an inheritance incorruptible,” I Pet. 1 [: 3-4], whence St. Paul calls baptism the washing of regeneration and renovation of the Holy Spirit.** Therefore Zwingli belabors St. Paul, twisting his above quoted utterances, as is plainly evident from Augustine, “On the Merits and Remission of Sin.”tt Hence Zwingli’s view is impious, that we die in consequence of another’s guilt but through our own condition, nor will he get any support from the Theologians (Li. 2. def. 32),$$ who hold that original sin is the habitual sin of Adam, for they are far from explaining it as Zwingli does, as can be easily seen in the Theological Commentaries, (in the articles at the end).
•See ed. Schuler and Schulthess, II, 1, p. 287/.
The Synod of Mileve, Numidia, was held in 416 A. D.
JPs. SO: 7 in Vulgate, but 51: S in King James Version.
ttSee Migne, 1. c. XLIV, 110199; SchaflE, Nicene Fathers, 1st Series, V, 15-78.
tJEck has here reference to Peter Lombard’s Sentences, Bk. II, Dist. 32, in which the Master of the Sentences discusses the question of original sin and how it is removed through baptism.
Refutation of Zwingli by Eck 75
Let us, therefore, admit that children have not only the penalty of sin but also its guilt.
But one point Zwingli passes over in silence, namely, what he heralded forth so loudly at Zurich, that the young children of Christians are saved without baptism.* Thus, contrary to Christ’s decree, one not “born of water and of the Spirit,” John 3 [: 5], could enter into the kingdom of heaven. He should have added where in the sacred writings he found his distinction between the young children of Christians and those of infidels. Finally let him show how he is in harmony with the Church of Strassburg, where Bucer writes that original sin is a stain upon mankind, such that unless it be cleansed by the blood of Christ one cannot attain salvation. For how can he be saved whom deadly disease holds in its grasp? Thus shall the kingdom divided against itself be made desolate, Matth. 12 [: 25]. All the points he makes therefore in his fifth article fall to the ground. In it he not only openly champions the Pelagian heresy, but draws the unwarranted inference from the Apostle’s words that young children of the class that die without baptism are saved, because St. Paul writes, “As in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive,” I Cor. 15 [: 22], by which he means that even young children are restored to life in Christ. But here it becomes clear to everybody in what spirit Zwingli handles the sacred Scriptures, nay distorts and mangles them, for while St. Paul is speaking in this passage of the resurrection from the dead after the manner of Christ, this perverter of the sacred writings has the effrontery to twist it into meaning the resurrection from sin through grace. But if he wanted to do this at all, why did he not make a statement about the young children of infidels, since St. Paul puts their case and life on the same footing — “as in Adam all die.” This certainly is proclaimed to unbelievers also. Why, then, does only what follows, “so also in Christ shall all be made alive,” not apply to the same individuals ? With the like lack of knowledge he argues from the children of the Jews. For I want the Scripture passage for his assumption that the uncircumcised infants of the Jews belonged to the Church of God, since according to the view of Augustine as it was said of the Church — “Unless a man be born again,” etc., John 3 [: 3], — so also to the ancients it was said, “The male, whose flesh of his foreskin shall not be circumcised, that soul shall be destroyed out of his people; because he hath broken my covenant,” Gen. 17 [: 14]. This pamphlet of confession is therefore to be rejected, being, as it is, so often at variance with the Church, with the Catholic faith and with the sacred Scriptures. I might also reproach him with contradicting wholly Luther and the Lutherans who declare that original sin is properly speaking sin.
Article VI
Zwingli tries to explain here what the Church is, but after the manner of Anaxagoras confuses the whole thing and makes it more involved. And not this only. He mixes in errors and heresies all through it, for his articles are strewn with flowers and gems of the kind. Let us run through
*Zwingli discusses this point in his tract “On Original Sin,” see above p. 18f.
76 The Works of Huldreich Zwingli them cursorily and mark with a dagger the things not to be believed.
In the first place, I wonder that he says “Church” is used in different senses in the Scriptures, since otherwise he scorns and jeers at the distinctions of the theologians. But let us see how he classifies the varieties. First he says “Church” is used for those elect who have been destined by the will of God to eternal life, the Church of which Paul speaks when he says it has neither spot nor wrinkle, Eph. 5 [: 27]. In this statement there are about as many errors as there are words. For it is a damnable error that the Church consists only of the predestined,* an error condemned in both the Roman Council and the Council of Constance, and I have refuted it elsewhere, nor can he ever prove his assertion from the sacred writings, as I shall show presently by laying bare the perversion by which he has distorted St. Paul’s words. I admit, therefore, that to the perfect Church belong by number and right the righteous only, for the Sage says, “The sons of wisdom are the church of the just : and their generation, obedience and love,” Ecclesiasticus 3 [: l].t
Secondly, he did not quote St. Paul appropriately whom he mangled so badly. For St. Paul says, “Christ loved the Church, and delivered himself up for it, that he might sanctify it, cleansing it by the laver of water in the word of life, that he might present it to himself a glorious church, not having spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing; but that it might be holy and without blemish,” Eph. 5 [: 25-27]. If one pays attention, he notices that Paul does not declare that the Church is without wrinkle or spot. But he teaches at least for the time being, that it is undergoing sanctification and cleansing by Christ, that he may present it to himself a holy and glorious church. For, if it had been holy and without spot before, there would be no need of cleansing, but the heavenly husbandman, as Christ says, will purge every branch that beareth fruit, that it may bring forth more fruit, John 15[:2]. These words St. Augustine well explains of purification in this life. The Church is not, therefore, at present withoiit wrinkle or spot but it is daily undergoing purification and purging by Christ, that he may be able to present it to himself a glorious church, — at the time, namely, “When he shall deliver up the kingdom to God, even the father,” I Cor. 15 [: 24].
Let me add also that Zwingli in this article contradicts both the Catholics and the Lutherans. I say the Lutherans (Luther in Assert. Art. 31), J because though they maintain (albeit wrongly) that the righteous man sins in all his works, and that all the works of men, however praiseworthy in appearance, are works absolutely vicious and sins worthy of death, (Melanchthon in Loots Communibus) , Zwingli, on the other hand, has the effrontery to set up a church without wrinkle or spot made up out of his saintlets. Moreover, the orthodox and Zwingli do not agree, for
*Eck refuses to make the distinction between visible and invisible Church.
This passage, found in the Vulgate, is missing in the Septuagint and the English version based on the latter. It goes back to a secondary Hebrew text. See Charles, Apocrypha.
$The reference is to Luther’s “Assertio omnium articulorum M. Lutheri per bullam Leonis X,” 1520. See Luther’s IVerke, Weimar edition. Vol. VII, p. 37.
Refutation of Zwingli by Eck 77 though they deny that the righteous man sins in all his works, yet sin creepeth daily upon the righteous, “for there is not a just man upon earth, that … sinneth not,” Eccles. 7 [ : 20] ; and all, however saintly, pray daily, “And forgive us our debts,” Matth. 6 [: 12], so that the Council of Mileve, according to the rule of the faith, rightly condemned the Pelagians in this, to whom and to Zwingli St. John also is opposed when lie says, “If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us,” I John 1 [: 8]. Let Zwingli be off, then, with his righteous mannikins that have no wrinkle nor spot.
We, on the contrary, in the Church know our Mother, and as lawful offspring recognize her when she says, “I am black, but comely,” (she calls herself black because of sin) “as the tents of Kedar,” Song of Solomon 1 [: 5] (which belong to Ishmael, who did not inherit with the son of the free woman, as Paul says, Gal. 4 [: 23]) ; she calls herself black “as the curtains of Solomon,” sprinkled with daily spots, but since many in her shine brilliantly in Christian love, she also ventures to call herself comely. It is clear, therefore, in how many things Zwingli is blind here, though he wishes to seem so clearsighted to the Emperor. It is as if we heard the monster himself belching forth his harangues to the ignorant and mad populace. But let me proceed to the rest of his errors.
Zwingli lays it down besides that this Church is known only to God, for according to Solomon’s words He only knoweth the hearts of the children of men, III Kings 8 [: 39].* I shall show later that this view also is without truth, but Zwingli himself, I may say in passing, contradicts and destroys his own statements here, for having said that the church of the predestined was known to God alone, he yet forgets himself and says further that those who are members of the church when they have faith, know that they are elect and are members of this first Church. Forsooth, what do I hear? This holy church of Zwingli is known only to God, and yet it is at the same time known to the Zwingli saintlets. They that have faith know according to Zwingli that they are elect, but according to Scripture and the Church they do not know it, for the Preacher says, “Man knoweth not whether he be worthy of love or hatred.”t Eccles. 9 [: 1], and St. Paul says, “Wherefore he that thinketh himself to stand, let him take heed lest he fall,” [I Cor. 10: 12].
Now this godlessness Zwingli owes to his teachers, Luther and Melanchthon, although in his pride he disdains to acknowledge them, for one writes, ( Melanchthon, in Locis Communibus) “It is a perfectly certain proposition that we are always perfectly certain of the forgiveness of sin. The holy know that they are in favor, and that their sins have been pardoned,” and the other says, (Luther on Gal. 5 and Psal. 5) : “Let the Christian beware of ever feeling any uncertainty as to whether he is in God’s favor, or whether his works are pleasing to God. For he that doubts thus sins, and loses all his works.” From this sink Zwingli drew a cup of error, and is sure of his salvation, but the devout sons of the Church, even though
*I Kings in Authorized Version.
Thus in Vulgate. Slightly different in Authorized Version.
78 The Works of Huldreich Zwingli they “have confidence, hope being set before them,” as Job says, 11 [: 18], are yet not without fear, because “he that is without fear cannot be justified,” says the Sage, Ecclesiasticus 1 [ : 28],* and on this account all the days of their lives are they in the fear of the Lord because they shall have hope on the last day.
It is a very small point but it shows the marked ignorance of Zwingli that quoting the passage from the Acts of the Apostles, “and as many as were ordained to life everlasting believed,” Acts 13[:48], he turns it about and says, “Therefore those that believe are ordained to eternal life,“t which is a most pernicious error, arising here from the fallacy of the consequent. For though it is true that all those ordained believe, yet we may not turn this into the statement that all believers are thus ordained, although Bucer sticks tenaciously to this heresy, and at Berne burst out (Folio 43) into the impiety that he who has once believed that Christ Jesus has redeemed him has the seal of the Holy Ghost and never can commit deadly sin. Luther, driven by the same madness, raves that there are no works of a believer in Christ so bad that they can accuse and condemn him (De votis et in ser. Sic deus dilexit, etc.), while St. Paul contradicts them in the words, “And if I should have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, and have not charity, I am nothing,” I Cor. 13 [: 2].
Then Zwingli comes down to the other two uses of the word “Church.” For secondly, “church” is used universally for all who have given allegiance to Christ, and thirdly “church” is understood of any particular company of any individual church, as the Roman Church, the Augsburg Church, etc. But here I challenge Zwingli, since we Christians ought to speak according to a fixed rule in the opinion of Augustine, and it is clear from Scripture that this second use of the word “Church” is the really proper one, — I challenge him to show why he abandons this and goes over to his own visions and concoctions about his new church of saintlets, when otherwise he is so hard upon the heavenly saints as to declare that they are not members of Christ (Berne, 146),$ whence it follows that in his opinion they are not members of the Church, which the orthodox would shudder to admit. And that this is the true and proper meaning of the word “church” is clearly seen from Christ’s words, for a guest came to the wedding “who had not on a wedding garment,” Matth. 22 [: 11], and the kingdom of heaven is “like unto ten virgins, who taking their lamps, went out to meet the bridegroom and the bride,** and five of them were foolish,” Matth. 25 [l-2],tt and in the Lord’s field there grow both good grain and cockle, Matth. 13 [: 26], and in the net of the Church both good fish and bad are taken. St. John the Baptist bears witness that Christ will find both chaflF and wheat upon His threshing floor, Matth. 3 [: 12].
•Thus in Vulgate; but 1:22 in “Variorum Apocrypha.” The text has “fidem, faith,” but that must be a slip for “vitam, life.” What Zwingli actually said was, that Paul’s reference to one body, which has many members, in I. Cor. 12: 12, did not include the saints in heaven, but only those in this world. See Zwingli’s JVerke, ed. Schuler and Schulthess, II, 1, p. 169.
**The words, “and the bride,” omitted in the King James Version, appear in the Vulgate, as well as in several Greek Mss.
ttThe text has Matth. 20, a misprint for 25.
Refutation of Zwingli by Eck 79
Since, therefore, Christ has so often taught us how we ought to speak of the Church, why does Zwingli depart, along with Luther, from the Gospel form of speech, and in order to bring a new error into the Church, make use of a new method of speaking also, at variance with the Church ? For as in the natural body there are good and bad humors, so in the body of Christ, which is the Church, are there good and bad, and as in hell there are only bad, in heaven only good, so in the middle sphere, namely the Church, there are both good and bad. That there is this mixture in the Church all Scripture testifies, all the faithful admit, save only these new teachers of churches who take to themselves more than the Apostles, the pillars of the Church, fancying that they can separate the tares from the wheat even before the time of the harvest, Matth. 13 [: 30].
Having, therefore, destroyed the foundations of this article, it is easy to demolish what the foolish man Zwingli thus builds upon the sand, Matth. 7 [: 26]. For as to his including the Roman Church among his examples as a particular church, that, I think, not even the Pontiff will deny him, who when he goes out of the confines of the diocese of Rome dates his letters from the individual churches where he happens to be tarrying. But if, with his usual viciousness, Zwingli means by this to assert that “Roman Church” is never to be understood of that which is universal, I do not allow that for it is not in accordance with the truth, as I have abundantly shown in my three books on the Primacy of Peter. For the Christian world of Europe, as it now exists, belongs properly to the Roman Church, not only because the Chief PontiflF presides over that, but also because he is the real Patriarch, nay the Roman patriarchate was once far larger than Christianity is now, since there were under it all the bishops of Africa, Numidia, Mauretania, also of Greece, for whom he had as vicar the Bishop of Thessalonica. But a great portion of the earth has now, for our sins, been taken away from the Roman patriarchate, nay from Christianity, and serves a wretched slavery under the Mohammedan yoke or the cruel Turks or the barbarous kings of Tunis, Fez, Morocco and others.
Thus Zwingli narrows too much the church which cannot err, by confining it to that which is without spot, but of this further on. Let Zwingli himself consider how far he has wandered with the Lutherans from the one visible Church, since the pamphlets of their confessions, though not at all agreeing with the Catholic Church, differ very greatly from each other, as in the Appendix he controverts the confession of the Anabaptists on the subject of the baptism of the infants of Christians. Yet Zwingli forgets that elsewhere (In Articul. & de Baptismo*) he expressed the opinion that it is far better that infants be not baptized until they grow up, and Baltliasar,t the father of the Anabaptists, bears witness that he had a writing of Zwingli in which he urged him to this heresy.t
*In his book on Baptism, Schuler and Schulthess edition, Vol. II, p. 1, p. 24S. But Zwingli confesses that he had been misled into this error.
fBalthasar Huebmaier, born 1480, burned at the stake 1528.
JHuebmaier related (as quoted by Schuler and Schulthess, 1. c, 1, p. 245 note a)
But let us press Zwingli a little closer here. Since he mentions a triple use of the word “Church,” why does he pass by with ears stopped up, so to speak, the “church representative,” which is recognized in the General and the Oecumenical Councils?* But I know what obstacle prevented him. He denied once that the congregation of the Pontiff, Cardinals, Bishops, Prelates and Doctors was the Church, for he was afraid of being crowded by the authority of the Councils, and he thought that in this way he could break the authority of the Synods, and not be pressed too hard. This is plain in his Zurich articles. This error of his was tenaciously held by Haller, the corrupter of Berne, by Bucer and others. (Art. 8 Fol. 3, etc.) But after the fashion of heretics Zwingli is at variance not only with the Church but with himself, for in his Subsidium de Eucharistia, written to the Mail, those Capernaites, he says among other things, f “Certain people slander us in regard to the usage of the Two Hundred (that is the two hundred senators ) , saying that we allow things which ought to belong to the whole Church to be managed by two hundred, when the Church in the whole city and neighborhood numbers seven thousand, more or less.” Afterwards he makes further statements about The Two Hundred, that they act in the name of the Church, and concludes with the words, “Thus we use at Zurich the Senate of Two Hundred, which is the supreme authority, in place of the Church.” Since, then, Zwingli asserts the church representive at “^lurich, why does he deny it in other places, in provinces and kingdoms, and even in the whole Roman Empire? Why does he not mention among the meanings of “church,” this meaning also of church representative? Since this use also of “church” is based upon the sacred writings, it is wrongfully passed over by Zwingli here.
I want, therefore, to prove the church representative at this point. We read in the Book of Kings in regard to Solomon, “The king turned his face, and blessed all the assembly of Israel : for all the assembly of Israel stood,” etc.. Ill Kings [I Kings] 8 [: 14]. We have heard the Holy Spirit speaking of the Church; what it spoke of the Church Representative, is plain from the beginning of the same chapter, where we read, “Then all the ancients of Israel, with the princes of the tribes, and the heads of the families of the children of Israel were assembled to King Solomon,” [8: 1].$ Not, therefore, all the people of the Jews assembled unto King Solomon, but the princes, the heads, and the ancients, who represented all Israel.
Article VII
Presently he adorns the seventh article with the boldness of a Hercules — “I believe, nay, know that all the sacraments are so far from that Zwingli confessed to him personally, when they took a walk along the moat one day, that infant baptism was not right, before the children were instructed in the faith.
*Zwingli refers to this “representative church,” in his book “De canone epicheiresis.” see IVerke, ed. Egli and Finsler, II, 571, where he discusses the different meanings of the Church; see also his “De vera et falsa religione,” in Zwingli’s Werke, ed. Egli and Finsler, III. 747-751.
See ed. of Schuler and Schulthess, Vol. Ill, p. 339.
JThus in the Douay Version; slightly different in the Authorized Version.
Refutation of Zwingli by Eck 81 bestowing grace,” etc. While Zwingli, not only believing but also knowing (perhaps he had been carried off with St. Paul into the third heaven) that the sacraments do not bestow grace, has involved himself in the greatest impiety — for a heretic was excommunicated for holding a view about the sacraments other than that taught by the Roman Catholic Church (C. Ad abolendam de heret.) — this article has been condemned by Pope Leo X, of blessed memory, against Luther. For this article denies the virtue of the passion of Christ, from which all the sacraments derive their force and efficacy. It takes all comfort from the faithful, whose consciences, otherwise troubled, are refreshed by the mystery of the sacraments, and, what is most abhorrent to the feelings of the faithful, to say that the sacraments do not bestow grace is just the same as if one said a sacrament was not a sacrament.
The expounding of this article involves Zwingli in so many errors that he depicts himself plainly, what ignorance and lack of knowledge he brings to the treatment of the sacred Scriptures. He uses the word “gratia” [grace] in Latin, in place of “pardon” and “indulgence.” This, because some one from the school of Priscian and Perotus ventures to usurp the chair of St. Paul. This Rhadamanthus* among theologians, Zwingli, refuses to accept anything unless it agrees with the sacred Scriptures, yet here he is diametrically opposed to Holy Scripture, because the little grammatical pettifogger does not yet know in what sense the Holy Spirit used this word “gratia.” St. John says of Christ, “we beheld his glory, etc., — full of grace and truth,” John 1 [: 14]. Yet Christ by no means needed indulgence and forgiveness of sins. So often does Paul testify of grace given to him and to others, I Cor. 3 [: 10] ; 15 [: 10], as we see upon almost every page, and he writes to the Corinthians, “Now there are diversities of gifts, but the same spirit.”t Therefore the holy Fathers understand by “gratia” a gift given by God, which either is given “gratis, freely,” or makes one “gratum, acceptable,” to God. I know what deceived our grammarian-theologian Zwingli. He happened to hear from the theologians that sins were remitted by the grace of God, and being unskilled in things theological he did not know that sin was not remitted by a general law without the bestowal of an exceptional gift which is called grace. It is from this that Zwingli’s error arose.
When, furthermore, he says that the sacrament is not a vehicle of the Spirit, if I mistake not, he is looking to the followers of Luther, who in the pamphlet of their confession, presented by their most illustrious princes, conceded that the Spirit is given by the sacraments and by the Word as by an instrument. (Article 5).$
Zwingli is here trying to upset this article, on the ground that the Spirit does not need a vehicle. Certainly Zwingli is a most stupid seer who in the bluntness of his perceptions does not yet understand how the Fathers
*Rhadamanthus was a judge in the infernal regions.
{Article 5 of the Augsburg Confession, reads: “For by the Word and Sacraments, as by instruments, the Holy Spirit is given.” See Schaff, Creeds of Christendom, Vol. Ill, p. 10.
82 The Works of Huldreich Zwingli say that the Spirit is given by the sacraments. The Spirit does not drive in on a chariot, but God alone, by His almighty power, infuses grace into the human soul by visible signs made efficacious by Him. The water is not in itself effective unto grace in the soul of the child except as an indispensable accompaniment, but God Himself creates grace in the soul of the child. But I speak to deaf ears, for the thing is above Zwingli’s comprehension, as is evident from his inappropriate raillery about preparation for the sacrament. For he says like a parrot, since there is not a uniform method of preparing for the different sacraments, “And it is necessary for the Holy Spirit to precede the reception of the sacrament by grace given freely, making him acceptable before he receives grace, yet in the case of a child nothing of this kind is demanded, if he makes no objection.”*
It remains to show how wrongly he maintains that the sacraments are given as a testimony only. How near is Zwingli now to the Anabaptists, whom nevertheless, like a new Phalaris,t he torments to death in the WellenburgI and tortures limb by limb! For they too deny all the sacraments and admit them only as signs and witnesses without efficacy, and. taught by the impious Carlstadt, father of the Capernaites, dare to call the holy mysteries of the Church “Sekerment,” and, copying the faithlessness of the Jews, say a sacrament is a lie and vanity and deception. How far, therefore, from the Anabaptists is Zwingli when he recklessly proclaims here, “The Church by baptism publicly receives him who has been previously received through grace?” Why then did Christ say, “Unless a man be born again of water and of the Holy Ghost,” etc., John 3 [: 5] ? If he has previously been washed by grace and by the Holy Spirit, he would not have to be born again. Not, therefore, of past grace is the sacrament the sign, but of present grace, bestowed upon the baptized through the Holy Spirit present in the sacrament.
It is therefore, empty jeering when Zwingli says here in his sleep that a boy has already been baptized when he is brought up for baptism, because the divine promise has preceded, but let this profaner of all sacraments come forward and make us believe that that promise has been made that the boy should receive faith before baptism has been submitted to. Let him show clear Scripture for that promise, and not spit out in a demoniacal spirit** whatever his own mad brain suggests to him. He quotes the Apostle to the Romans, but in both cautious and Zwinglian fashion suppresses some of his words, for if he brought them forth, his view would suffer great loss. Paul says, “All we who are baptized in Christ Jesus, are baptized in his death,” Rom. 6[:3], which words are so far from siipporting Zwingli that they utterly confute him. For to be baptized in the death of Christ means that through the virtue of His passion we attain the grace of God in baptism. Otherwise, — if baptism bestowed no grace and the grace of God were given previously, how could St. Paul have said
*This is a perversion rather than a quotation of Zwingli’s confession. tA tyrant of Agrigentum, Sicily, 570-554 B. C.
JThat Catabaptists were tortured in the Wellenburg, the prison at Zurich, at Zwingli’s demand, cannot be proved, though he was an onlooker.
**For “phytonico” we read “pythonico,” from pytho, “demon.”
Refutation of Zwingli by Eck 83 that we are baptized in the death of Christ, all we who are baptized? And all this St. Augustine confirms most strongly by the testimony of the sacred Scriptures, but for brevity’s sake I will not quote his words.
Let Zwingli, therefore, go to perdition with Oecolampadius, Bucer, Zwick, and Haller,* who with reckless impiety calls the Christian view of the sacraments Judaism, as if the holy mysteries of our faith were no more efficacious than the shadowy and figurative ceremonies of the Jews. I laugh at the empty boasting of Zwingli that he was the first to teach and write against the Anabaptists, since I am aware that it was Zwingli who by his counsel and advice really founded this lost sect, and was goaded more by jealousy than love of the truth in his pursuit of Balthasar the Catabaptist, as all his neighbors testify. Wherefore let no good man believe Zwingli even under oath when he says that he has not accepted nor taught any of the doctrines of this seditious party, for his published books convict him of lying. For we read in his articles (Art. 18, Fol. 71),t “Although I know, as the ancients tell us, that in old times infants were sometimes baptized, yet this was not so very frequent as in our day. They were taught together publicly after they were old enough to use their reason, — and on that account they were called catechumens, — and when they confessed with their lips that faith was firmly implanted in their hearts, then they were admitted to baptism, and this fashion of teaching I want to see revived in these days of ours.” Similarly in the book De vera et falsa Religione, he writes (Fol. 159 )| “Because even the ancients baptized only those who were in the death struggle, and did not always baptize infants.” Balthasar the Catabaptist also, in a pamphlet published at Nikolsburg in Moravia had words of Zwingli’s printed which advised against the baptism of infants, and said in a note that he had a writing to that effect. Since, therefore Zwingli has been so prominent in the harm done by this sect, how does he dare before our sacred Emperor to say so wantonly that he is guiltless of this sin? Now let us hasten on to other points.
Article VIII
This article forms the head and front of Zwingli’s impiety; in it he denies the real presence of the body and blood of our Lord Jesus Christ in the venerable sacrament of the Eucharist. Before going on to examine this blasphemous article, I establish the Catholic opinion upon a solid basis from the beginning. In Matthew, Luke and Paul where the institution of this most venerable sacrament is described and where Christ is reported to have made the simple statement: “And taking bread, he gave thanks, and brake, and gave to them, saying : This is my body, which is given for you. Do this in commemoration of me,” Matth. 26 [: 26], Mark 14 [: 22], Luke 22[:19], I Cor. 11: [: 23-24]. Since, therefore, the Evangelists have shown such close agreement in describing the institution of the sacrament,
*John Zwick was preacher and reformer in Constance, Bercfitold Haller was the reformer of Berne.
See Zwingli’s Werke, Vol. II, 1908, p. 123.
See Zwingli’s Werke, Vol. Ill, 1914, p. 823. Not a literal quotation.
84 The Works of Huldreich Zwingli without any suggestion of a trope or metaphor anywhere, it is a reckless thing to overturn by means of tropes the pure and simple statement of Christ out of one’s own brain and in opposition to the understanding and agreement of the whole Church Universal. Besides Christ promised in John, “And the bread that I will give is my flesh, for the life of the world,” John 6 [: 52].* He promises that He will give the bread which he did give at the Supper, and He tells what this bread is, namely that it is “my flesh. “t And lest some falsifier should twist the word “flesh” into some other meaning. He added clearly “for the life of the world,” as much as to say, “the bread that I will give is that same flesh that I shall give on the altar of the cross for the salvation of the whole world.” This is also manifest from St. Paul, for he wrote to the Corinthians among other things, “The chalice of benediction, which we bless, is it not the communion of the blood of Christ?” I Cor. 10 [: 16]. He does not say “the communion of wine,” but when we take the sacrament of the cup, we take part in the communion of the blood of Christ. And below, “For we, being many, are one bread, one body : all that partake of one bread” and one cup,$ I Cor. 10 [: 17]. Now it is evident that we are not all partakers of one baker’s bread, but the one bread is the body of Christ which is at once in heaven and in all churches. This view of the orthodox Paul confirms to the same Corinthians when he says, “But let a man prove himself, and so let him eat of that bread, and drink of that chalice. For he that eateth and drinketh unworthily, eateth and drinketh judgment to himself, not discerning the body of the Lord,” I Cor. 11 [: 29]. He sins in partaking of Christ’s body unworthily because of the presence of Christ’s body. For how could he be “guilty of the body” of Christ, if he did not eat that, and all opportunity to get away from this is removed by what St. Paul adds, “not discerning the Lord’s body” — not distinguishing the sacrament of the Eucharist from baker’s bread or ordinary food.
Thus all the councils, all the holy Fathers, the whole Church Universal have always regarded it. And Zwingli himself held it as absolutely established even at the time when he left the Church and gave adherence to Lutheranism. For he says in putting forth his articles, (Fol. 75) ** “Let the simple-minded know that it is not brought into controversy here whether the body of Christ and His blood are eaten and drunk, for on that point no Christian has any doubt.” And below, (Folios 76, 78 and 97) “Christ has by His own words taught that we are to eat His body and drink His blood. For this it means in both the Greek and the Latin. “tt
*So in the Vulgate, but John 6:51, in Authorized Version.
t Augustine may be quoted to explain these words: “E.xcept ye eat the flesh of the son of man,” says Christ, “and drink His blood, ye have no life in you.” This seems to enjoin a crime or a vice; it is therefore a figure, enjoining that we should have share in the sufferings of our Lord, and that we should retain a sweet and profitable memory of the fact that His flesh was wounded and crucified for us. Augustine, Christian Doctrine, III, 16, §24; in Schaflf, Nicene Fathers, 1st Series, II. 563.
|The last three words “and one cup,” are neither in the Vulgate, nor in any Greek text.
•*Zwingli’s Werke, Voll. II, 1908, p. 128.
ttZwJngli’s Werke, Vol. II, 1908, p. 132. How these words are to be understood
Refutation of Zwingli by Eck 85
And he adds how God might have spoken more briefly or more literally or clearly, and these clear words he testifies are known to all Christians. Thus more than a score of times is repeated in his books the assertion of the truth of the presence of the body of Christ, even at the time when he had sent back the messenger of the Church. But certainly the words of John are most true, “he that is filthy, let him be filthy still,” Rev. 22 [: 11]. Having, therefore, become dirty and filthy with Luther’s mud, Zwingli afterwards remained filthy with the mud also of Berengarius, deacon of Angers, whose heresy has been very frequently condemned — in the Council of Turin, in the Council of Worms, and finally in the Council of Rome under Pope Nicholas. Therefore he does wrong to the most reverend Synod who persists in bringing up again and publicly disputing what has been once decided and duly settled, says the Emperor Martian. (L.nemini c. de sum.tri. & fid. Cathol.) Let the sacred Emperor, Charles V, execute the law of this Catholic Emperor in regard to this and other errors, and everlasting renoAvn will be his. Now let us hear Zwingli himself sounding the charge of the forces of impiety.
Stoutly vaunting his heresy and shamelessly condemning the Catholic doctrine, this great Goliath with vast arrogance sings a paean of triumph before victory, and promises the sacred Emperor that he will in a few words make the matter as clear as the sun. How religiously he follows in the footsteps of his grandfathers and great grandfathers ! For “all heretics are in the habit,” says Gregory, “of promising the truth at the very moment that they teach error.” Then he arms himself from the Gospel wrongly imderstood, draws therefrom captious and clearly illogical arguments, vitiates and mangles the opinions of the doctors of old. Although this impious mockery has already been answered by the learned Bishop John of Rochester,* in most scholarly and complete fashion, yet I will in a very few words demolish his ill-taken points.
In the first place he quotes Christ’s remark, “The poor you have always with you : but me you have not always,” Matth. 26 [: 11], and “here,” says Zwingli, “the presence of the body is denied, for as far as His divine nature is concerned He is always present. Augustine agrees with me, and there is no reason why my opponents should plead that the human part of Christ is everywhere where His divine part is.” But who does not understand in what spirit Zwingli handles the sacred Scriptures? It is true that Christ spoke of the presence of the body, but not of every kind of its presence. For He does not deny mysterious presence, but the visible pres- is clear from a later passage (p. 143): “Behold then, O pious Christian, the body and blood of Christ differs in nothing from the word of faith, that is, His body, slain for us. and His blood, shed for us, has redeemed us and reconciled God to us. If we firmly believe this, our soul has eaten and drunk the flesh and blood of Christ. Moreover, in order that He might make the essence of the testament more easily comprehensible to the simple-minded. Christ gave to His body an eatable form, namely for His body the bread and for His blood the cup or the drink, that they might be confirmed in faith by a visible action, just as in baptism the dipping into water does not wash away sin. unless the one baptized believes in the salvation of the Gospel.”
*John Fisher, bishop of Rochester (1459-1535). The book to which Eck refers is entitled “Assertionis Lutheranae Confutatio,” 1523.
86 The Works of Huldreich Zwingli ence of human intercourse in a body endowed with feeling. The man who does not understand this is blind. But let us put the matter plainly before us. Hilary says, “The meaning of a remark or speech should be found in the reason for making it.” If then we look more sharply at the reason for making the remark here, there is no difficulty about the meaning. Mary poured ointment on our Saviour’s head; Judas asks indignantly why it was not given to the poor; Christ defends her with the words, “the poor you have always with you;” Luke adds, “and whensoever you will you may do them good,” Luke 22.* Therefore we have not Christ with us as Mary anointed Him, and as we do good to the poor who dwell among us in want, for He does not dwell among us to sense, nor is His body henceforth capable of kindly care of this sort. This and nothing else is what Christ meant. And in citing Augustine he acts after his usual fashion. For Augustine puts forth absolutely nothing on Zwingli’s side.f He makes two statements. The first applies to Judas and the wicked, that they have not Christ, just as Zwingli has not. The second statement is that though as far as the presence of His Majesty is concerned we have Christ always, as far as the presence of His flesh is concerned, it was right to say to the disciples, “but me you have not always.” Thus Augustine. But that Augustine does not deny sacramental presence but only the presence of sense is shown by what follows, — “he only grasps by faith, he does not see with his eyes.”! And certainly it is great perverseness on Zwingli’s part to drag Saint Augustine over to his view, when he avowedly holds and embraces most unequivocally the Catholic view,** that the body of Christ is in the Eucharist as a real presence. But of this more below. It is marked, ignorance combined with malice when he foists upon the orthodox the assertion that the human part of Christ is everywhere, just like His divine part. For this is a dream of Zwingli, not of any Catholics. For to be everywhere belongs exclusively to God. But the body of Christ is in many places by repetition through the divine will, which can effect this, “for with God nothing is impossible,” Luke I [: 37].
Zwingli quotes further the words of Christ in John, “Again I leave the world, and I go to the Father,” John 16 [: 28]. But this bears the same meaning as the former quotation, and this is not impugned by Zwingli’s impious rejoinder, “And we should only promote a juggler’s trick if we maintained that His natural body was present but invisible.” This impiety is a suggestion of Lucifer, who ventures to call the highest mystery of our faith a juggler’s trick. For without reason and without Scripture, he babbles out this in sheer recklessness. And that Christ is speaking solely
*The quotation should be Mark 14: 7.
See Augustine, “On the Gospel of John,” Tract L, §13.
JAugustine’s words are: “In respect of His presence in the flesh it was rightly said to the disciples, ‘Me ye will not have always.’ In this respect the Church enjoyed His presence only for a few days; Now it possesses Him by faith, without seeing Him with the eyes.” These words certainly favor Zwingli’s view.
**Impartial modern historians admit that Augustine does not hold the Catholic view of transubstantiation. Thus Harnack says: “Augustine deals with the elements symbolically.” See Harnack, History of Dogma, Engl. Trans., Boston, 1903. Vol. V, p. 159.
Refutation of Zwingli by Eck 87 of visible leaving of the world and human intercourse, He Himself openly declares when He says, “A little while, and you shall not see me,” John 16 [: 16]. And His showing Himself in visible and palpable shape later, after the resurrection, contributed to strengthening faith in the resurrection, as Luke bears witness “To whom also He shewed Himself alive after His passion by many proofs, for forty days appearing to them, and speaking of the kingdom of God,” etc., Acts 1 [: 3]. This same point St. Paul treats at length to the Corinthians, “For if Christ be not risen again, our* faith is vain,” 1 Cor. 15 [: 17]. Therefore the truth in the matter of the resurrection of Christ had to be well established, and after it was established it was expedient for Him not to appear visibly any more but to be veiled in mysteries. “For human faith has no merit when human reason furnishes experimental proof,” says Gregory.
Thirdly Zwingli quotes Christ’s words thus : Ego post hac non ero in mundo : hi sunt in mundo, i. e., “Henceforth I shall not be in the world, but these are in the world,” John 17 [: 11]. “This antithesis plainly shows that He was not in the world in a human sense at the time when the disciples still lived,” says Zwingli. But Christ is here also speaking of bodily presence, as to which He was going to leave the world and human intercourse. Why does he not bring up Augustinef here? He says: “Thus He speaks, like a man to men, according to the custom and usage of human speech.” But it is a fair and beautiful spectacle to see Zwingli, the famous boaster, talking Greek in the presence of the sacred Emperor. He quotes John in Greek, “Kal ovk en e’lfil kv t(J) Koafii^^ and now I atn no more in the world,” but as he plainly alters the text, he is easily seen to be a falsifier and subverter. For while Christ says, “iwk el^i. i. e., I am not,” Zwingli vitiates it and reads, “non ero, i. e., I shall not be,” and while Christ says, ” en, ” which points to present time, Zwingli mangles it into the future “henceforth.” Hence the translator whom the Church employsj is more correct in his reading, “Et iam non sum in mundo,” i. e., “and now I am not in the world.” This is the reading of Augustine, of Chrysostom, of Theophylactus, but Zwingli, in order to shut out future presence in the Sacrament, has dared to change the writing of the Holy Spirit — evident impostor and worthless deceiver that he is!
Furthermore he brings in Mark and Luke in both the Gospel and the Acts to testify that Christ was received up into heaven, was taken up and carried into heaven, and would return, Mark 16 [: 19], Luke 24 [: 51], Acts I [: 9]. But who denies this? Such a one would be to us as a pagan and a publican. For Christ is no longer with us in visible bodily presence and human intercourse, having left the world, but He will return in the same visible form to judge the quick and the dead. But as to this crafty destroyer of the vineyard of the Lord pretending there are some who say that the human part of Christ is everywhere or nowhere, that is trifling
*The King James version has “your,” as has also the Vulgate.
Augustine, “On the Gospel of John,” Tract CVII, §4. In this paragraph Augustine says also: “He declared that He was no longer in the world, that is to say, in His bodily presence.”
tjerome in the Vulgate.
88 The Works of Huldreich Zwingli and nonsense. Neither is asserted by the Catholics. Perhaps, though, Zwingli, being wholly ignorant of all theology, has failed to get at the meaning of some doctor.
We have seen how far from accomplishing anything Zwingli was against the reality of the body of Christ in the sacrament, however much he vaunted the passages quoted. Let us examine what follows, in which he tries to discredit the communion of the Eucharist, on the ground that when the Jews disputed about bodily eating of the flesh of Christ He said, “The flesh profiteth nothing,” John 6 [: 63], namely, as far as physical eating is concerned. But Zwingli plainly shows himself here to be a new Capernaite. For when Christ had spoken to them of eating His body, they murmured and said, “This saying is hard, anr who can hear it?” John 6 [: 60]. “They looked upon flesh,” says Augustine (August, tract 57),* “as it is torn asunder in the case of a carcass or sold in the market place.” No one may eat the body of Christ in this Turkish fashion. Hence it is a blasphemous idea of Zwingli that when the body of Christ is eaten by our mouths, nothing comes of the flesh save flesh. For the flesh of Christ is not eaten physically, so as to pass into the stomach, be changed by the natural heat, assimilated by the liver and sent out to nourish the members. What ugly and ill-omened notion is this, to have any such idea about the glorious body of Christ that can experience no sensation? The body of Christ is taken in mystically in its real and true essence veiled under the sacramental forms — without any breaking, any separation, any change, any suffering. When, therefore, Christ says, “The flesh profiteth notliing,” who will say that the flesh of Christ, in which He wrought the salvation of the whole world, is valueless? For if the flesh profiteth nothing, the word would not have been made flesh (says Augustine), to dwell among us. For if the flesh of the Apostles, from which the sound of their voice has come into all the earth to us, has profited us, how should not the flesh of Christ have profited us?
Therefore we must extract a deeper meaning from Christ’s words than their grammatical form would suggest. But heaven-taught Zwingli fills out Christ’s words — The flesh profiteth nothing, “namely, as far as physical eating is concerned.” Lo, the man who scorns and rejects all glosses, now thrusts upon us a gloss of his own, which, if he understands it in St. Augustine’s sense, I do not reject. But this one-eyed, half-blind fellow in the matter of the Sacred Scriptures knows only two ways of eating, the physical and the spiritual; he cannot see the genuine and special way of eating the Eucharist, which is sacramental and mystical. t But I will ask him whether he does not believe that the flesh even as eaten is of value? For Christ said, “Whoso eateth my flesh, and drinketh my blood, hath
*It ought to be Augustine, “On the Gospel of John.” Tract XXVII, §5.
tit is interesting to compare with Eck’s explanation that of Augustine on John 6:54: “Understand spiritually what I have said; ye are not to eat this body which ye see; not to drink that blood which they who will crucify me shall pour forth. I have commended unto you a certain mystery, spiritually understood it will quicken. Although it is needful that this be visibly celebrated, yet it must be spiritually understood.” Schaff, Nicene Fathers, 1st Series, VIII, 486.
Refutation of Zwingli by Eck 89 eternal life,” John 6[:54] — certainly a thing of the greatest value, to have eternal life. Vain and vicious, therefore, is all that Zwingli has brought up, and I most amply refuted Zwingli’s wrong understanding of the subject in the disputation at Baden against Oecolampadius.
He next brings in St. Paul, — “and if we have known Christ according to the flesh, but now we know Him so no longer,” II Cor. 5 [: 16]. This passage Zwingli also vaunted prodigiously in the disputation at Berne, but who does not see his ignorance and carelessness in thinking that “to know according to the flesh” is to know in bodily shape? Therefore, when St. Paul says, “Henceforth we know no man according to the flesh,” that means according to Zwingli’s interpretation of it that he did not know in the body Peter, Titus, Timothy, Luke, Aquila, Gaius and other dear friends. But who can be so stupid? Therefore a higher meaning must be extracted, and this the holy Fathers have handed down to us. St. Paul means by knowing after the flesh to know with fleshly longing, “for even the Apostles were too eager for the bodily presence of Christ, and took His going away greatly to heart,” says Augustine against the Manichaeans, and this was to know after the flesh. But Christ, wishing to turn them away from this eagerness and raise them to higher things, says, “But I tell you the truth: It is expedient to you that I go,” John 16 [: 7]. They, therefore, had known Christ after the flesh who wanted so much the intercourse of His bodily presence, but when they had seen the glory of His resurrection and ascension, they ceased to be so keen for intercourse of His bodily presence. This meaning is hinted at in St. Paul’s previous words, “that they who live, may not now live to themselves, but unto him who died for them, and rose again,” II Cor, 5 [: 15]. I omit the explanation of certain persons who understand “knowing after the flesh” of observance of the Law.
At length our counterfeit theologian, stuffed with jeerings and sophistries, comes forward and maintains that “est, is,” has the force of “significat, it signifies.” He tries to prove it by its being so used in Exodus 12 [: 11], “hoc est paessa,” that is “it signifies paessa, which is the passage of the Lord.” For since the Supper took the place of the Paschal lamb, the fact suggests that Christ used similar words. Then he supports the view from the quality of memorials that they take the name of the things they commemorate. But these things do not at all support Zwingli’s impious contention, for in the first place the braggart wishing to seem, in our sacred Emperor’s eyes, conversant even with the Hebrew tongue, gives a fine example of this, reading HDS. paessa, contrary to all Hebrew usage, since it does not have a dagesh in the samech,* and has the aspirate “h” at the end, whence it would have been more correct to read “Pesach,” which we call “Pascha.” Now Pesah signifies both the Paschal lamb and the feast of the Paschal lamb. It is used often for the lamb, especially when it is called a victim, but is used oftener for the feast in the book of Chronicles — “Josias kept a passover, phase, to the Lord in Jerusalem,” II Chron. 35 [: 1], and below: “The children of Israel that were found there kept the phase, passover, at that time, and the feast of unleavened bread seven
*The edition of Schuler and Schulthess, IV, 13, reads Paesa.
90 The Works of Huldreich Zwingli days. There was no phase like to this in Israel from the days of Samuel the prophet,” II Chron. 35 [: 17-18]. Here it is clear that “pesah” is used for the feast. When, therefore, Zwingli brings forward, “This is Paessa,” I answer, “Pasah” is used here for the feast not for the lamb, and with what the interpreter added about the Lord’s passage, he wished to indicate that from which the name was given, but primary scliool boys know that the thing from which and the thing for which a name is given are diflferent. We do not, therefore, want Zwingli to spoil the text for us and interpret “est, is” as “significat, signifies,” as the Sophists do in official documents. It is used in the simple demonstrative sense, and that this is true I prove from the fact that in the Hebrew this verb “is” in which Zwingli works up his trope does not occur, but only the pronoun in ,* which has the force of “ipsum, self,” so that the meaning is, “a passover itself unto the Lord,” or “to the Lord.” The Chaldaic Targum reads “before the Lord,“t and that is in accordance with my explanation that it is used for the feast, for the feast is kept unto the Lord or before the Lord. As to his adding furthermore that the form of speech is similar in the case of the type and that of the reality, first, it never was established in the case of the typical lamb that “is” was used for “signifies;” second, even if we grant him this, he will not make out that the same form of speech was observed in the case of the Eucharist. For who does not know that baptism took the place of circumcision? ^et in the proclamation of circumcision [Gen. 17: 10-14], the words are to be understood of the actual foreskin and of actual and literal circumcision, while in the case of baptism the expressions are not used in like manner. For when Christ said, “Unless a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God,” Nicodemus understood the words literally of actual rebirth and said, “How can a man be born when he is old?” Now it is as clear as the sun how Zwingli’s reasoning falls utterly flat. But in mentioning a memorial Zwingli destroys Zwingli here. It is an old saying that a liar hath need of a good memory. For this sternest oi iconoclasts once wrote to Valentine Compar of Uri, (Fol. 33)$ wildly forbidding that images or statues or memorials be called by the names of the things they commemorated, but now he imposes upon us as a law what he previously forbade — this new Vertumnus** asserting everything at will, when it seems to champion his own side. What sort of a memorial, however, the Eucharist is in the Church Zwingli no longer knows, — renegade from the faith as he is. It is the sign of the present body of Christ and a memorial of the passion of Christ and of redemption and all the benefits of God.- -such a memorial, I say, as David exulting in spirit foresaw when
*It should be Kin. The correct rendering is, of course, “A passover it is to Jehovah.” In a nominal sentence the subject and predicate are expressed by a noun or pronoun. See Gesenius, Hebrew Grammar, §141, 2d.
Eck means the Targum of Onkelos, see Etheridge, The Targum of Onkclos and Jonathan Ben Uzziel on the Pentateuch, Vol. 1, p. 370.
See Schuler and Sehulthess edition, II, 1, p. 34. Zwingli objects to calling “impotent blocks of willows,” by the name of saint so and so, because it indicates higher veneration than the wood deserves and suggests the thought that saints can help men, and that men should, therefore, have saints.
**An Etruscan deity, the god of the changing year.
Refutation of Zwingli by Eck 91 he sang “He hath made a remembrance of his wonderful works, being a merciful and gracious Lord.” Ps. 110 [: 4].* And what were these wonderful works to be remembered? That “He hath given food to them that fear Him,” not, therefore, baker’s bread, but the living bread which was given upon the cross for the world, John 6 [: 51].
There Follow Now the Arguments of that Great Debater, Zwingli
First he asks whether when the Eucharist is partaken of the body is fed or the soul. If the soul, then the soul feeds upon flesh, which is absurd. But who would not laugh at this doughty fighter? If he has such confidence in these arguments, why did he not come to the disputation at Baden according to the request of the twelve Cantons, accompanied by a safe-conduct? I should surely have beaten him and stripped him of all his arms, and now I will break his bow and the arms in which he puts his trust. For I will reply to his dilemma that the soul is fed by the Eucharist. If he thinks that absurd, I should like to have him bring forward his Scripture proofs. Furthermore, is not also the spirit of Christ in Christ’s body, unless one is infected, like Luther, with the Nestorian heresy? Has he not read Chrysostom, Ambrose, Cyril on the partaking of the body of Christ, or at least St. Augustine’s description of the efficacy of the food in question — “I shall be changed into thee, not thou into me,” etc. A farmer’s reasoning, therefore, is this of Zwingli — “The sensual man perceiveth not the things that are of the Spirit of God,” I Cor. 2: [: 14]; therefore the soul is fed by the sacramental partaking of the flesh of Christ.
So also the second argument with which he tries to floor us, is empty — as to the effect of the Communion, that it will either effect the remission of sins or dispense the virtue of the passion of Christ; therefore the virtue of the passion was dispensed before it took place. Who would not be astonished at such ignorance of Holy Writ in a man who claims for himself a new sect in religion? As to his contention about the effect of the Communion, I admit that the blood was shed, the body was offered for the remission of sins. For Christ bears witness to this of the blood in Matthew 26 [: 28]. But the Sacrament of the Eucharist was not ordained in the first place to wash out mortal sin, since the Sacrament of Penance was instituted to that end, as Baptism was in the case of original sin. It is partaken of in atonement for sin, for the increase of grace, for the acquiring of blessings and merits, and is offered in order to appease God in individual emergencies.
Having denied, therefore, the first part of the dilemma, it is clear that I admit the second. For beyond a doubt God gave increase of grace at the Supper to the disciples who worthily partook of it. It is a defect, therefore, in so great a master in Israel not to have known to what end the sacraments were instituted by Christ. But as to Zwingli’s considering it absurd that the power of the passion was poured out upon men before it
*Ps. 110 in the Vulgate, but 111 in the Hebrew and in King James Version.
92 The Works of Huldreich Zwingli took place, our great theologian is not aware that all who have been saved, all who have been made just, all who have gone down into the limbo of the fathers, were justified through having foreseen the passion of Christ, just as we are through His passion having been manifested. Hence the fathers are said by St. Paul to “have the same spirit of faith, as it is written, I believed, for which cause I have spoken,” Ps. 115 [: 10]* and II Cor. 4 [: 13]. Therefore he says, they “did all eat the same spiritual food, and all drank the same spiritual drink,” I Cor. 10 [: 3-4]. For from whom had circumcision the efficacy of its meaning if not from Christ, as also baptism has now? And all the just men in the Old Testament had it from the virtue of the passion of Christ, although they had not received the promises, says St. Paul, Hebr. 11 [: 13], for the price had not yet been paid. They could not fly forth, because the gates of heaven had not yet been opened unto them. As to what Zwingli finally says about the food of the body, I leave it out as a dream unworthy of notice.
Zwingli’s third sophistry is, what sort of a body did the disciples eat at the Supper, one capable of sensation or one incapable of sensation? If one incapable of sensation, then Christ had two bodies. This sophistry shows up Zwingli as unskilled in dialectics also, and I will play him with the like quibble. If one of my hands moves, while the other is at rest, I ask him whether my soul moves in my hand which is shown to be at rest or not. If not, then there are two souls, one which moves in the right hand, and one which is motionless in the hand at rest. This is the cradle stage of dialectics. Let Zwingli answer if he can, and he will see that this quibble has no substance; it is a pure and absurd sophism. I answer Zwingli, therefore, that the disciples partook of the same body which Christ had, and he had one capable of sensation and of being hurt. Therefore it is a dream on Zwingli’s part that the disciples partook of such a body as Christ had after the Resurrection. And I would say this to Zwingli, which is beyond his comprehension, that the apostles partook of Christ’s body, capable of sensation, in a manner not involving sensation, because they did it sacramentally; for although this body was capable of sensation, yet it was now without sensation under the form of the Eucharist. For the capability of sensation demands limitation in space on the part of the thing feeling the sensation. The body of Christ is not now limited in space in the sense that a portion of place corresponds to a portion of the thing placed, but in this I talk to a deaf man, as far as Zwingli is concerned, for a pig cares nothing for perfume.t Now all these things follow from Scripture, and having laid as the foundation what Christ said — “This is my body,” Matth. 26 : 26 — I have shown how that is not impossible with God, as Zwingli in his folly imagines.
*Ps. 116: 10 in Authorized Version.
Eck quotes here a part of a Latin proverb which is found in full in Aulus Gellius, Noctium Atticarum Libri XX, pref. 19. It reads: “For a jay cares nothing for music nor a pig for perfume.” It has the same sense as the N. T. proverb “to cast pearls before swine.” Eck means that such fine theological distinctions as he is making, between spiritual and sacramental presence, are beyond Zwingli’s comprehension.
Refutation of Zwingli by Eck 93
As a reserve line Zwingli leads out, not without injustice to the Fathers to be sure, Ambrose and Augustine as champions of his impious views. He quotes from Ambrose on the First Epistle to the Corinthians [I Cor. 11], in which he says, “For since we have been set free by the Lord’s death, being mindful of this, we signify in our eating and drinking the flesh and blood which were offered up for us.”* But if Zwingli were not blind and bereft of reason he would surely never have quoted these words of Ambrose, which invalidate his own view by their plain testimony that we are mindful of this tiling (the Lord’s death, namely) in eating and drinking the flesh and blood. But Zwingli refers “the flesh and blood” to the last word “significamus, we signify.”t But this is to twist and do violence to the words of Ambrose, since St. Paul spoke of showing the death, about which Ambrose also speaks. Therefore the meaning of Ambrose’s words is, “because we have been set free by the Lord’s death, mindful of that death when we eat in the Eucharist the flesh and blood which were offered up for us, we plainly signify or show the same death of the Lord,” I Cor. 11 [: 26].
And that our opponent may not mutter here, it is incontrovertibly true from other places that this was the purport of Ambrose’s words. Just before the words already quoted he had said, “The celebrating of the mystery of the Eucharist while suffering shows that it is not a supper; it is a spiritual medicine which taken with reverence purifies the faithful.” Zwingli’s followers have nothing but a supper; their baker’s bread is not a spiritual medicine, and does not purify the faithful. Furthermore in his Book on the Mysteries (last chapter), Ambrose says, “This sacrament which you receive is made what it is by the words of Christ. If the words of Elijah had power to bring down fire from heaven, shall not the words of Christ have power to change the nature of the elements?” J And below, ‘Why do you seek here the order of nature in Christ’s body, when contrary to the course of nature He was born of a virgin ?” And again, “The words of Christ which were able to make out of nothing that which was not, can they not change things which already are into what they were not?” Here he asserts the body of Christ and transubstantiation. Further, in his book on the Sacrament of the Lord’s Incarnation Ambrose says, “For if you believe that flesh was taken up by Christ, you will also offer the body to be transfigured upon the altar.”** And on Psalm 118, “Now am I admitted to the honor of the heavenly table. For my feast the rain does not pour down
*Migne, Patrologia Latina, XVII, 256.
fZwingli’s interpretation is perfectly correct. This is shown by the sentence that follows the passage quoted from Ambrose, “The Covenant was established by blood, inasmuch as blood is a witness of the Divine mercy. For a type of which we take the mystic cup of the blood for the protection of our body and soul.”
jMigne, Patrologia Latina, Vol. XVI, Col. 424; and SchafI, Nicene Fathers, Second Series, Vol. X, p. 324.
**Migne, Patrologia Latina, Vol. XVI, col. 859, Chap. IV. Eck overlooks the fact the both the tract on the “Mysteries,” as well as the tract on the “Sacrament of the Lord’s Incarnation” are probably not by Ambrose. See Wm. Goode, The Nature of Christ’s Presence in the Eucharist, London, 1856, Vol. I, p. 493/; also Hugh Watt, on “Eucharist,” in Hastings, Encyclopaedia of Ethics and Religion, V, SSL
94 The Works of Huldreich Zwingli nor do the beasts of the earth, nor the fruits of the trees toil, nor are rivers or springs to be sought for to supply me with drink. Christ is my food, Christ is my drink. The flesh of God is my food, and the blood of God is my drink.”* What more do we ask of Ambrose? And this villainous Zwingli has the effrontery to fasten falsely upon so holy a man this impious view of a Berengarius. Credence is given to all that I have quoted by the fact that Ambrose speaks of the thing again, confirming it by a miracle, in his book about his brother’s death. t His brother Satyrus, having the Eucharist tied up in his neckerchief, was once saved from shipwreck.” Fiirthermore Zwingli quote’s Augustine (Tract. 30) with no less injustice than Ambrose. First, commenting on John, he asserts that the body of Christ which rose from the dead must be in a particular place, and because in the copies examined “potest, can,” is read instead of “oportere, must,” he quotes from the Master of the Sentences and from a decree of Gratian that “oportet, must,” is what should be read. But if Zwingli saw how Peter the Lombard and Gratian read the word, why did he not also see their explanation? Why does he correct the manuscript of Augustine in accordance with theological “Sentences” and a decree, when otherwise he attributes no authority whatever to them? Why does he venture to quote Augustine in support of his view, when he did not blush to write to the King of France to this effect: — “Augustine, who was keen and prudent beyond other men, did not venture to state the truth plainly about the Sacrament in his time.” (Commen., Folio 282).$ If he did not dare to state it, since the opinion of the bodily presence in the Sacrament had become firmly established, why does he venture to claim that Augustine’s statement is on his side? I say, therefore, to Augustine, with the Master of the Sentences, (Dist. 10, quarti.) :** The body of Christ must be imderstood to be in a particular place in so far as it is anywhere visibly in human form, but His truth, that is, His divinity, is everywhere. His truth also, that is, His true body, is on every altar where the Mass is celebrated, though, as far as I am concerned, Augustine may have been speaking of the truth of the Gospel spread through the world by the Apostles. While quoting Gratian, Zwingli might have glanced at Bernard’s statement on this point: — “The body of Christ must be in a particular place in so far as it has a form and manifestation in which it can be submitted to the bodily human senses; for though it is on every altar in its true form which it took from the Virgin, yet it is not there submitted to the bodily
*See Ambrose on Psalm CXVIII, Sermon XVIII, 526, in Migne, Patrologia Latina, XV, 1537. Over against these passages we read in these same tracts, ascribed to Ambrose, that the elements in the Supper are “a figure of the body and blood of our Lord Jesus Christ,” (De Sacr. IV, 5) and again, “we signify in our eating and drinking the flesh and blood that were offered for us,” (Com. on I. Cor. XI, 26) and also, “before the blessing of the heavenly words another nature (species) is spoken of, after consecration the Body is signified,” (On the Mysteries, IX, 54).
See “De Excessu Fratris Sui Libri Duo,” Bk. 1, §43; printed in Migne. Patrologia Latina, XVI, 1361.
JSee Zwingli’s Werke, Vol. Ill, 1914, p. 811.
**Peter Lombard, “Sententiarum Libri Quatuor.” Lib. IV. Dist. 10; in Migne, Patrologia Latina. Vol. CXCII, col. 860.
Refutation of Zwingli by Eck 95 senses.” So in quoting Augustine against Adimantus, (Cap. 12.) he is carrying coals to Newcastle, for all of us Catholics to this day agree \vith Augustine: “The Lord did not hesitate to say, ‘This is my body,’ when He gave a symbol of His body.” For the Catholic Church teaches and has always taught that the forms of bread and wine are sense symbols of the most sacred body and blood of the Lord. For how could the Eucharist be a sacrament if it were not a symbol of a sacred thing? And by reason of the symbol the holy Fathers sometimes mention the sign or symbol, meanwhile always confessing the thing itself in the sacrament, that is, the reality of the body and blood of Christ. Therefore it is absolutely false that we condemn Augustine, and it is equally false when this slanderer says in conclusion that the ancients always spoke symbolically when they mentioned the body and blood in the Lord’s Supper. And to make our opponent blush, I set Augustine over against him speaking of the Lord’s words (Aug. Ser. 28) : — “When I was treating of the sacraments I said to you that before Christ’s words that which is offered is called bread; when Christ’s words have been uttered, it is no longer called bread but is named the body. Why, therefore, in the Lord’s Prayer, which comes afterwards, does He say, ‘Our daily bread’? He said ‘bread,’ to be sure, but kTviovffiov, that is, supersubstantial.* This is not the bread that goes into our bodies, but that bread of eternal life which supports the substance of our souls.” Here Augustine plainly shuts out Zwingli’s tropes and symbols. So also he says to Count Julian, “Let the piety of our Lord Jesus Christ free us from these and may He give Himself to us to eat, who said, ‘I am the living bread which came down from heaven. Whoso eateth my flesh, and drinketh my blood, hath eternal life.’ But before any one receives the body and blood of our Lord Jesus Christ, let him examine himself,” etc. Augustine says moreover in another place (On Psalm 33), “And He was borne in His own hands,t but who can understand, brethren, how this could be in the case of a man? For who is carried in his own hands? A man can be carried by the hands of others, no one is carried by his own hands. We do not see how this can be understood literally in the case of David himself, but do see in the case of Christ. For Christ was borne in His own hands when commending His body He said, ‘This is my body.’ For He bore that body in His own hands.”i Through these perfectly clear w^ords** it is manifest
*So the word “daily” is translated in the Vulgate, Matth. 6: 11.
fin illustration of the historical situation calling forth Ps. 33, Augustine quotes here I Sam. 21: 13, where he reads: “He was carried in His hands,” instead of the Hebrew, “He feigned himself mad in their hands.”
JMigne, Patrologia Latina, XXXVI, 306. Augustine qualifies his words b) what follows: “How was He borne in His own hands? Because when He delivered His own body and blood, He took into His hands what the faithful know, and He Himself in a certain manner carried Himself, when He said: ‘This is my body.’ ”
**The words of Augustine are made clear by another passage: “How many even now in the Supper itself, although they have not seen that table which then was [i. e., the table at which the Lord presided], nor seen with their eyes, or tasted with their jaws the bread which the Lord carried in His hands, yet inasmuch as that which is now prepared is the same, how many even now, in the Supper itself, eat and drink damnation to themselves.” Sermon, 112, §4. Hence there is no transubstantiation, the bread remains bread.
96 The Works of Huldreich Zwingli to any Catholic that the impostor Zwingli does injustice to this holy Father in twisting his words and distorting them into the error of the Capernaites, and still less ought Oecolampadius, the apostate, to do this, for he once swore allegiance to the rule of Augustine in the order of St. Brigitta. Zwingli vaunts the books of Oecolampadius here. I oppose to all their writings the Bishop of Rochester to whom they have not made answer by a syllable these three years and more.
Article IX
Zwingli here casts out two things from the Church which have always been a great bulwark to the feeble and unlearned, raising their hearts more towards God, church ceremonies, namely, and images. He decrees that ceremonies are to be tolerated if they are not through their superstitious character opposed to the faith and the word of God. Although I grant that the ceremonies of the Church are of this character, being based upon the sacred writings, or designed to rouse the hearts of the faithful to faith through piety and to draw their emotions thither, as it would not be difficult for me to show of them individually, as Thomas of Walden did two centuries ago against the followers of Wycliffe, yet as Zwingli does not tell us which he tolerates and which he casts out, I pass them by also. But as to the images, in regard to which he is at variance with Luther, the Capernaites have started up here the ancient heresy of the Iconoclasts (In imaginum fractores) which was condemned in the Second Council of Nicaea, in that of Constantinople under Irene, and in three councils of Rome, under Gregory II and III, and Stephen II. This heresy got into Germany through a certain presbyter named Felix, whence it was called the Felician heresy, but the Emperor Charles the Great (who founded Zurich) presently called together the Synod of Frankfurt and crushed it out, and now the Zurichers, forgetful of their founder, restore it with great impiety. The Emperor Charles had written four books against this heresy. Serenus, Bishop of Marseilles spread it in Provence, but Gregory the Great (In regist. ), promptly suppressed it. It is, therefore, a heresy many times condemned that Zwingli is now reviving, so that the Lord may truly complain of him and his companions by the mouth of the prophet, “My people have done two evils. They have forsaken me, the foundation of living water, and have digged to themselves cisterns, broken cisterns, that can hold no water,” Jer. 2 [: 13]. For what else does Zwingli do but hew out the fetid pools of ancient heretics, and bring up their old rubbish? If the use of images were new, he might perhaps have an excuse and something to take hold of, but since it is very old, Zwingli shows that he is one of the false prophets who are to rise up in the last days, Matth. 24 [: 24]. For John of Damascus declares that we have the use of images from the tradition of the Apostles. St. Athanasius tells of a miracle certainly worthy of respect which happened with an image of the Crucified at Beirut in Syria, and testifies that this cross belonged to Nicodemus, who went to Jesus by night, John 3 [: 2], and showed himself so devoted to Him in the burial. Athanasius (after having told what insults the Jews had heaped upon
Refutation of Zwingli by Eck 97 the image of the Crucified, and how one had smitten his right side with a spear), says, “And when this great outrage had been perpetrated, a strange and exceedingly marvellous thing, never heard of at any other time, suddenly took place. The place of the wound immediately began to flow with water and blood, and just as once at the passion of the Son of God, the Saviour of the world, it happened that the heavens trembled, so now the same thing occurred afresh by the ordinance of God. For verily at this act not only the elements of the world might have been shaken but the powers above shuddered at such a deed.” Eusebius of Caesarea tells of miracles which were wrought in Caesarea by an image of Christ, which the woman mentioned in the Gospel, Luke 8 [ : 43-44], as having been healed by touching the hem of His garment, had set up in that city. Since, therefore, images edify the simple, serve as reminders to the educated, and have an effect upon all, the Catholics are right to use them, and all risk of idolatry is easily avoided, if according to the teaching of the great Basil all worship is directed to their originals.
In this article Zwingli testifies to the office of preaching, which was instituted by Christ and first entrusted to the Apostles in Judaea. After the Resurrection He appointed them to go out into the whole world, and entrusted to them the oflice of baptizing and preaching. (Matth. 10 & 28, Mark 16, Luke 9.) But Zwingli has in many places before this done the opposite, making the ministry of the word and preaching of small account. For he has often borne witness that he did not wish to be taught by men, but by God alone, as in the book published against the Canon, [of the Mass] (Fol. 23),* and in the Second Acts of Zurich (Fol. 59),t and he rolls up this stone all through the book “On the Clearness of the Word of God.”t And finally Zwingli pours forth venom in jeering at the Bishops — that they are legion and born to devour the harvest, are a useless weight upon the earth, are in the Church what goiters and hunchbacks are in the human body. This is the way this evangelical gentleman is in the habit of raining abuse and vomiting forth heaps and mountains of insult, in accordance with long suff”ering, with love of one’s neighbor, with a gentle Christian heart. But the whole Church has a far different opinion. It was the heresy of the Arians not to distinguish a bishop from a plain priest, as Augustine is a witness. Christ by no means appointed disciples only but also apostles, Luke 10 [: 1]. Bishops succeeded the apostles, priests the disciples, as Bede explains, and this the whole Church has always observed
•While criticising Zwingli for every slight deviation from the authorities which he quotes, Eck himself is very careless in quoting Zwingli. Thus, in this case, the actual words of Zwingli were: “After I perceived that there is nothing more wily and deceitful than human reason, I learned to assert those things only that we have learned out of the mouth of God.” See Zwingli’s “De canone missae epicheiresis,” in his Werke, ed. Egli and Finsler, II, 594. At the second disputation at Zurich, Zwingli said: “For all things which God has not taught but come from men, are never good.” See Werke, ed. Egli and Finsler, II, 739.
The Acts of the Second Disputation at Zurich, October 26-28, 1523.
Jit is the book: “Von Klarheit und Gewissheit des Wortes Gottes,” 1522.
98 The Works of Huldreich Zwingli from the very times of the Apostles. For St. Dionysius, the disciple of the Apostle St. Paul, wrote of the consecration of a bishop, and a priest, and a deacon, and that the title of the Civil Law also indicates this — Of the Bishops and Clergy, in the Code. The High Priest as well as the Priest also figured under the old law; why should the Church, the bride of Christ, have less honor? Why should there be a smaller number of ministrants in her? But Zwingli covets the title of Bishop, and rejoices when he is called Bishop and Antistes of Zurich by his companions in error.
In defining the civil magistrate as deputy of God Zwingli does rightly. For Holy Writ teaches this in various passages, and Paul enjoins it upon the Romans, Rom. 13 [: 1]. But I fear he says this more from a desire to flatter than from love of the truth, for if he were not afraid of their power, he would inveigh against them as violently as he does against the ecclesiastics, whose jurisdiction is just as much founded upon divine right as that of the secular authorities. Otherwise perhaps he would even cry out with Luther: “The secular government lies as thoroughly prostrate as does that of the tyrants of the Church,” (De potestate saeculari, Folio 25). How long till one worthless wretch shall perish with the other?
Article XII
Zwingli repudiates the fire of purgatory as a myth and a thing insulting to the redemption given through Christ. It will be well first to prove a purgatory and then to answer objections. For purgatory is expressly asserted by St. Paul when he writes to the Corinthians on building upon a foundation, and adds, “If any man’s work burn, he shall suffer loss; but he himself shall be saved, yet so as by fire,” I Cor. 3 [: 15]. For this passage was understood of purgatory by Ambrose, Jerome, Augustine, Gregory. Thus also St. Gregory reasons from the words of Christ, “He that shall speak against the Holy Ghost, it shall not be forgiven him, neither in this world, nor in the world to come,” Matth. 12 [: 32].* From this it is clear that even in the world to come some sins are forgiven, and this can only happen in purgatory. This also Judas Maccabaeus believed before the birth of Christ. For we read in the Church, “That brave leader Judas Maccabaeus, having made a collection, sent twelve thousand drachms of silver to Jerusalem for sacrifice to be offered for the sins of the dead,“t II Mace. 12[:43], and below, “It is, therefore, a holy and wholesome thought to pray for the dead, that they may be loosed from sins,” II. Mace.
*Gregory the Great, who has been called “the real inventor of the doctrine of purgatory,” (Hagenbach, History of Christian Doctrine, II, 97) infers from Matth. 12: 32, that, while “some sins are forgiven in this life, others can be forgiven in the future life,” but he limits these latter to “light sins,” the hay, straw and stubble of I. Cor. 3. These can be purged away on condition that good works have been done in this life. Gregory, Dialogorum Libri IV, §39, in Migne, Patrologia Latino, LXXVII, 396.
Xhus in the Douay Version; somewhat differently in the so-called “Variorum Apocrypha,” and the sum is stated there as 2,000, not 12,000 dr.
Refutation of Zwingli by Eck 99
12 [: 45]. If the book is canonical in the Church, and the Church has admitted it into the canon, as St. Augustine testifies, this custom of having a care for the dead has obtained in the whole Church, and upon this usage of the Church St. Augustine based his argument in a book especially devoted to this matter eleven hundred years ago.* John of Damascus testifies that this custom of praying emanated from the traditions of the Apostles. Tertullian mentions the anniversary,! Ambrose the first, seventh and thirteenth, though the usage of all the Churches was not the same. Some took eight, others forty days. Monica, the mother of St. Augustine, asked that prayers be made after death, t and the opposite was condemned as the heresy of the Waldenses and Picards. Recently also this article of Luther’s has been condemned by Pope Leo X,** of blessed memory, simply because he maintained that purgatory could not be proved from Scripture. Also I attack Zwingli in an argument ad hominem. He wrote in the declaration of his articles (Fol. 93), “No one can subvert the teaching of that powerful and brave servant of Christ, Luther.”tt This I say he taught and promulgated in print in the year of our Lord 1523, and yet before this Luther had said in public disputation at Leipzig in the year of grace 1519 on the 8th day of July, “I who firmly believe, nay, I will venture to say, know that there is a purgatory, am easily persuaded that mention of it is made in the Scriptures.” He had also said then that the Book of Maccabees was an authority for the faithful. If, therefore, he praised Luther so heartily, why does he subvert his teaching? Why does he not believe him when he declares that he knows there is a purgatory? Why does he not accept the Book of Maccabees, which is authoritative for the faithful, unless he prefers to be considered unfaithful himself and a deserter from the Church?
But now let us hear how he tries to invalidate the doctrine of the Church in regard to purgatory. “If,” he says, “it is necessary to wash away the eff’ects of sin by punishment, Christ died in vain, and grace is void.” In this trap most of those are caught who are unwilling to make reparation for the faults they have committed, thinking the passion of Christ suflicient for them. But they are very much mistaken. For although Christ made reparation for sin, so far as to remove its guilt, so far as to change its eternal punishment into temporal punishment, it does not therefore follow that He broke the force of all punishment. For in the first place He did not remove punishment and guilt in such fashion that they
*The tract of Augustine referred to is entitled, “De Cura pro mortuis gerenda,” cf. Migne, Patrologia Latina, XL, 591 flf.
fTertullian traces the custom to pray for the dead to a command of Christ (mandatum a Domino) and says, “we bring offerings for the dead on the anniversary day,” see Tertullian, De Corona mititis, Cap. 3, in Migne, Patrologia Latina, II, 99.
Jin his Confessions, Bk. IX, chap. XI, Augustine reports his mother to have said to him, shortly before her death: “Lay this body anywhere, let not the care for that any way disquiet you; this only I ask of you, to remember me at the Lord’s altar, wherever you be.”
**In the bull of Leo X, Exsurge Domine, §37.
ttin the 57th article of the First Disputation at Zurich, Zwingli had declared (Werke, II, 414): “The truly Sacred Scriptures know nothing of purgatory after this life.” When Zwingli spoke of Luther as a powerful and brave servant of God (Werke II, 149) he had no reference to purgatory.
100 The Works of Huldreich Zwingli did not still remain in the case of Judas and of Pilate. Therefore, the mere reparation of Christ, though absolutely sufficient in itself for sin, “not for ours only but for the sins of the whole world,” I John 2 [: 2], yet is not efficacious unless one becomes a partaker in it, namely through the sacraments, through fervid devotion, and through good works. And that the reparation of Christ did not remove all punishment is clear from the death that we all suffer, is clear from all our infirmities and hard condition, is clear from the sin of David, the sin of which was destroyed by repentance, though the punishment due the sin remained, for the prophet said to him, “The Lord hath put away thy sin,” II Samuel 12 [: 13]. This putting away cannot be understood of the guilt, since “the son shall not bear the iniquity of the father,” Ezek. 18 [: 20]. The putting away must, therefore, be understood of the punishment. Why, therefore, do our opponents and enemies of the Church venture to deny that after the guilt has been done away in the case of a penitent a certain amount of temporary punishment due to sin generally remains? There follows in the same place, “Nevertheless, because thou hast given occasion to the enemies of the Lord to blaspheme, for this thing the child that is born to thee shall surely die,” II Samuel 12 [: 14]. Let this be enough for the present.
Zwingli finally adds an appendix on the everlasting fire of hell, with which I have no fault to find except that with regard to his boastful assertion that he not only believes but also knows that the fire of hell exists, I would ask him, how he knows. I am satisfied with the simple faith that it is so, and I thereby even believe that unless Zwingli makes recantation of his errors, he will learn by experience the violence of that fire which he is feeding and nourishing at so great a loss to so many thousands of wretched souls.
He ends his confession without mentioning various errors and heresies of his. For he does not touch at all on penance, on the vows and celibacy of_ the clergy, on fasts and Lent, on the ordination of priests, on the ritual of the Mass, and many other things. If he had I should have liked not only to puncture his utterances but to slash them utterly asunder with “the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God,” Eph. 6 [: 17]. Even though that savage giant threatens still more wildly, if any one should try this he would come off badly, if he is so recklessly eager for revenge instead of showing the patience taught by the Gospel, why did he not take vengeance for our disputation at Baden, as he has so often promised? Why does he not avenge the injury done to the disputation of Berne by our powerful refutation? Why does he not give vent to his ^vrath in answering the Bishop of Rochester or the Parisian theologian Clithoveus?* He is trying to catch the popular breeze, and does everything by uproar and violence. He babbles much stupidity without wit, without learning, and destroys innocent paper, so that as often as I read what he writes I am reminded of Aesop’s, “What a head and no brain ! ” and of what the fox said about the
*This is Jodocus Cljchtovaeus, who in 1523 wrote a book entitled: “De veneratione sanctorum libri duo Judoci Clichtovei Neoportuensis,” Paris, 1523, to which Zwingli refers in his “De vera et falsa religione,” see note of Finsler in Zwingli’s IVerke, III (1914), 839.
Refutation of Zwingli by Eck 101 captured nightingale — ” a voice and nothing more.”
At last Zwingli winds up his address to our most Sacred Emperor and the princes of the Empire by asking them first not to disregard his humble person. It would be a bad thing for the Empire if such an important man were disregarded. Then because the princes have perhaps forgotten that they are men, he recalls it to their memory that they must remember that they are men and may be deceived because all men are liars. Verily Zwingli is the biggest liar of all, having the effrontery to deny before the cantons of the Swiss what he had put before the whole world to read in print, and falsely declaring that it was made up by me to make him unpopular in high places. And this was the nature of the thing. He had written ( Fol. 25 ) , Against the Canon of the Mass, “The frequent making of the sign of the cross has a terrifying eflfect upon the mind, as the signs used by necromancers terrify the ignorant when used.”* Therefore he thinks we should refrain from so many crosses in the celebration of the Mass. Afterwards in writing to the Swiss he says that he did not write anything of this kind, but that I made it up. I have been the more willing to bring this up again here because he vaunts again here as the inspiration of the Deity what is certainly entirely foreign to the revelations of God and rather inspired by a lying spirit. f
He asks the princes of the Empire not to shrink away from the views of those who rely upon the word of God. The princes will be right to obey him in this even without being asked, as is in accordance with their Christian and Catholic ideas and sympathies, but the more they rely upon the word of God, the more they will shrink away from the false interpretations, distorted views, and corruptions of Holy Writ which Zwingli, Oecolampadius, Bucer, Zwick, Haller and men of that type, having made shipwreck of faith, are thrusting upon the untaught people as the real and true interpretation of the word of God. But to make this faithless confession of his seem more probable, he would make himself out such a saint that no good man ever had any doubt about his goodness. But I make no
*The exact title of this tract of Zwingli is, “De Canone missae epicheiresis.” For the passage quoted above see Zwingli’s Werke, Egli and Finsler edition, II, 597.
As Eck accuses Zwingli here of lying, it is but fair to Zwingli to give his side of this incident. In his reply to “some untrue and unchristian answers which Eck made at Baden” (Zwingli’s Werke, ed. Schuler and Schulthess, II, 2, 498), Zwingli writes: “After this Eck has invented many articles and has called them ‘Pseudologiam Zwingli,’ but they should properly be called, ‘The book of lies regarding Zwingli.’ For, in the first place, he does not give the passages where I have used such words, so that his lies can’t be quickly detected. Then he tears some passages out of their proper places, falsifies their meaning, detracts from some, adds to others, still others he perverts entirely, in some he criticises me, when they express the true Christian faith. In one instance he says, that I stated, ‘when man makes the sign of the cross on himself, he was terror stricken.’ This is an invention.” The actual remarks of Zwingli, in his book, “De canone missae epicheiresis,” which called forth this statement of Eck, were: “The frequent making of the sign of the cross terrifies the mind, as the signs of the magicians terrify the ignorant people, if they are at any time admitted to them, wherefore they should stay away.” But Zwingli adds: “We do not despise the making of the sign of the cross, but I would have the disciples of the Lord inclined oftener to meditate upon what took place on the cross than to make crosses in the air.” See Zwingli’s Werke, ed. Egli and Finsler, II, 597.
102 The Works of Huldreich Zwingli attack upon his life, although many people declare it is not so altogether guileless. In this “to his own lord he standeth or falleth,” says the Apostle, Rom. 14[:4]. Therefore far be it from me to pass any unfavorable judgment. I will only say that he might better have left this praise of the innocence of his life to his neighbors. For the Sage says, “Let another praise thee, and not thine own mouth; a stranger, and not thine own lips,” Prov. 27 [: 2].
In his satisfaction with his own learning he exhibits conduct worthy of a heretic. “For they are in the habit of boasting of their knowledge of the Scriptures, and associating it with secular learning,” says St. Jerome, (On Isaiah 19)* and again “they are generally strong in oratory, and thus seduce poor souls, for they are swollen and puffed up with highsounding words .” (On Hosea 10). t Does not St. Jerome paint Zwingli in his proper colors? Does not Zwingli swell up, claiming for himself an amount of learning that his enemies cannot withstand, though his equipment in knowledge is so scanty that he did not dare to come out into the field when his opponents were there? This is shown by the fact that when the twelve Cantons summoned him to the town of Baden to meet me in a discussion upon the articles of faith, and sent him a safe-conduct for that purpose, which would be enough even for a prince,t he, a native, refused to come three miles, when I, a stranger, had come thirty-three miles to get there. (1526 A. D. ) Which, therefore, could not withstand the learning of the other? If he continues in his pride and arrogance, I am ready to try again before His Imperial Majesty and the princes of the realm whether Catholic truth is not mightier than the heresy of a Zwingli,
At length with his accustomed arrogance, Titus 1 [: 10], he boasts of the fruits of his Gospel, that it makes men so true, so holy, so free from all stain, that one might think them saints in life. St. Jerome bears witness that this is a special characteristic of heretics, saying, “But because their belly is their God, for the sake of base gain they desire to win disciples of their own, that they may be supported like teachers by their followers.” But we can also understand this expression “for the sake of base gain” otherwise, and regard the common saying that all heretics while teaching error are in the habit of declaring themselves gainers of men, though it is no gain but ruin to kill the souls of their dupes. This is what Zwingli is doing now. The fruits of his Gospel I have described in such a way in my introductory remarks to His Imperial Majesty that no right-minded man will judge the tree of much value from its fruits, Matth. 7 [: 16].
Oh, is not Zwingli ashamed to ask the princes who will scatter the wealth which has been heaped up by means of the Mass? As if you and your associates did not know — ^you who under the guise of some public chest seize the gifts of kings and princes, the benefactions of counts and nobles, the alms of the citizens, and heap them all up for yourselves,
*See Migne, Patrologia Latino, XXIV, 261. See Migne, Patrologia Latina, XXV, 958.
JSuch safe-conduct might be absolutely worthless, for many Catholics taught that a safe-conduct given to a heretic could be broken.
Refutation of Zwingli by Eck 103 neglecting meanwhile the servants of Christ, neglecting the poor! Luxuriously live these false prophets, these apostates, these breakers of vows, and all their ilk. All the ceremonies of the Church have perished among you, but tithes meanwhile are rigorously exacted. All the dues and revenue are paid to the last penny to the colleges, the monasteries, the foundations — these institutions, I say, are not abolished. And where before many of the neighbors were supported by the monasteries — peasants, artisans, poor people — now some bloated prefect consumes it all, takes all for himself alone, and marches into Zurich, fat, obese, bloated and stuffed with the wealth of the Church. When they have drunk generously and are filled with wine, they treat the sacred chalices as cups and the platters as plates in their banquets, if facts agree with the report, and boastingly vaunt, like new Belshazzars, the profanation of the sacred vessels, Dan. 5. Does the perjured Zwingli still venture to ask who will scatter the wealth which has been heaped up by means of the Mass? I may seem rather too bitter because my words have such a sting here, but Zwingli looked for it and has found it. Zwingli, made Councillor of the Emperor and the whole Empire, comes to the Council, contrary to Cato’s principle, even when not asked, and advises that all the errors in the Church be cut out from their roots. Therefore, in his own judgment Zwingli must be cut out, Oecolampadius, Capito, Zwick, Bucer, Simpert, and their associates must be cut out, and, like withered branches, be cast into the fire at the Lord’s command. Luke 3 [: 9]; John 15 [: 6]. He bids us abandon Rome — like Jeroboam who bade the people not to go up to Jerusalem, I Kings, 12 [ : 28], but the eloquent Zwingli does not know that Lactantius Firmianus, the Christian Cicero, wrote that the desolation of Rome was the sign of the coming desolation of the whole world.* But how finely and fittingly he praises our august Emperor and the other princes of the Empire because they have used their powers against the purity of the Gospel, because through their sluggishness justice is banished and innocence is smeared with the paint of imposture, bestowing upon the princes the savage cruelty of giving orders and condemnation contrary to truth, nay of killing and slaying, plundering and proscribing!
Who will say now that Zwingli is not the most learned of orators whom his enemies cannot withstand, when he winds up his speech of confession so skilfully and kindly, and adds an epilogue so neatly as to soften the hearts of all his hearers and judges, turn their minds and win their favor, especially as he judges the princes rebels against God if they do not accede to his wishes? But what lover of the Christian faith, nay, of virtue, would not be disgusted at such a monster of sycophancy and condemn it? Our holy Emperor, most serene King and the other princes of the Empire cannot do anything more acceptable to God, more adapted to enhance their own fame, more conducive to the peace and quiet of their
*Firmianus Lactantius in his “Divine Institutes,” Bk. VII, chap. 25, writes: “When the capital of the world shall have fallen . . who can doubt that the end has now arrived to the affairs of men and the whole world.” See Migne, Patrologia Latina, VI, 812-13; translated in Roberts and Donaldson, Ante-Nicene Fathers, VII,
104 The Works of Huldreich Zwingli subjects than to crush, destroy, and banish as far as possible from the Holy Empire these sects of perdition and their lying teachers. God Almighty deign in His mercy to grant unto His Imperial Majesty and the other princes of the Empire this purpose and a peaceful means of carrying it out.
Let it be done, good Jesus, Let it be done.
Accept, holy Emperor, this short refutation of Zwingli’s Confession. It might fairly have been attacked more at length and repudiated more vigorously, but I have taken special pains to be brief, and have excluded much that presented itself spontaneously, lest the refutation should be overlong. I have followed the thread of his articles, but have suppressed much and passed over much in silence that I might properly have said in objection to him. For his books teem with errors which I have frequently refuted in previous years. But since Zwingli does not confine himself to his own province but constantly plots to take away and despoil the flocks of others — for the word of heretics “spreadeth like a canker,” says St. Paul, II Tim. 2 [: 17] — this seducer has invaded several cities of the Holy Empire already, as I mentioned in my introduction, and this pestilence has extended even to my neighbors of Memmingen. And it will spread further if it is not restrained by your holy Imperial Majesty. “Arius was a little flame at Alexandria,” says the blessed Jerome, but because it was not quickly quenched, it devastated the whole world. Perform the function of an excellent prince, therefore, august and invincible Emperor, and save thy holy empire from this godlessness, that those who are faithful to thee and to the Empire may serve God worthily in peace and quiet, may follow thee bravely through Greece and Asia, to recover the tomb of our Savioiir, and shake ofif the Turkish yoke. May the Lord God be the guide, protector and director of Your Majesty, to the glory of His holy name and the peace and safety of the whole Empire.
Amen. To the cities that accept the teachings of Zwingli.
I adjure you, magistrates and people of the cities, not to take in bitterness the sharp things I have put forth against the arch-heretic Zwingli. Reflect that unless your salvation were dear to me, unless I wished you very well, unless the happiness of your souls goaded me on, I never should have wielded so sharp a pen against Zwingli. For, taught by Paul, I have little hope left of his salvation, but I have a large hope of converting you. And let not the abuses which exist in the Church be a stumbling block to you. The faults in things should be removed, not the things themselves, and the true ancient Christian religion should endure. God Almighty bring you back as speedily as possible into the fold of the Church.
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