The Latin Works of
Huldreich Zwi
Translated for the late
Samuel Macauley Jackson and Published under the Auspices of the
American Society of Church History
Volume Three
Edited, with Notes, by
Clarence Nevin Heller
With Introductions by
George Warren Richards and a Preface by
William Walker Rockwell
Philadelphia The Heidelberg Press
Copyright, 1929 BY THE
American Society of Church History
HE earliest truly comprehensive treatise on Protestant theology is here presented in English for the first time. To be sure, Melanchthon’s famous Loci Theologici of 1521 antedates by four years Zwingli’s De Vera et Falsa Religione, but it does not deal with the full-orbed Protestant faith, emphasizing rather special points then in controversy. A venerated teacher of mine, the late Professor Wilhelm Herrmann of Marburg, once declared that he could predict most of the arguments that would be employed in a new book on systematic divinity by merely analyzing the sequence of topics in its table of contents. By this test, Melanchthon is seen to have been influenced by the sequence used by St. Paul in the Epistle to the Romans;1 whereas Zwingli presents an original and far more comprehensive plan of arrangement2 and, therefore, justifies the claim that among Protestant system-builders he is the pioneer.
Zwingli’s reply to his critic, Jerome Emser, which is called for short the Antibolon (1524), also finds a place in this present volume, for Zwingli quotes it frequently and at length in his True and False Religion.
The Latin text here followed is that of the third volume of the critical edition : Huldreich Zwinglis Samtliche Werke unter Mitwirkung des Zwingli-V ereins in Zurich herausgegeben von Emil Egli, Georg Finsler und Walther Kohler (Leipzig, 1914). Since the Great War the publication of this series has been resumed by the firm of Heinsius in Leipzig.
Translations of both these treatises were prepared nearly a generation ago for the late Professor Samuel Macauley Jackson,
’See Philippi Melanthonis Opera quae Supersunt Omnia, ed. H. E. Bindseil, vol. XXI (Brunsvigae, 1854) p. 82, also p. 74.
’Egli, Finsler and Kohler, III, 912.
D.D., LL.D., of New York University. The True and False Religion was translated by Henry Preble, Esq., of New York, a classical philologian. To make his version conform more closely to the dialect of theologians, it was later reviewed by the Reverend Charles Tupper Baillie, B.D., now pastor of the Second Presbyterian Church, Bloomington, Illinois. The Reply to Emser was translated by Professor George William Gilmore, M.A., of New York. Both translations have now been carefully revised and annotated by Clarence Nevin Heller, Litt.D., Librarian of the Theological Seminary of the Reformed Church in the United States at Lancaster, Pennsylvania.
At the suggestion of several members of the American Society of Church History, each tract is preceded by an historical, analytical, and interpretative introduction prepared by the Reverend George W. Richards, D.D., LL.D., D.Th., President and Professor of Church History in the Seminary at Lancaster. Dr. Richards has used certain material from the German prefaces in the Egli and Finsler edition, as specifically authorized in a letter of its editors printed in facsimile in the first volume of the present series. It is hoped that these introductions will enable students to understand Zwingli more readily and will win fresh appreciation of his importance in the evolution of Protestant thought.
The present volume is the third of a series of five or six projected by Dr. Jackson, author of the well-known biography of Zwingli (1901). In a circular signed on March 29, 1912, a few months before his death, Dr. Jackson directed that “in case his own editorial labors should be interfered with by invalidism or death, the work will be brought to completion under the supervision of the American Society of Church History and under the immediate direction of the Secretary of this Society, the Rev. Professor William Walker Rockwell.” The Society duly accepted this project, but had no money to appropriate for the purpose.
As stated in the Preface to Volume II, the Reverend James I. Good, D.D., was for many years most active in making financial preparations to insure publication. Since Dr. Good’s death, which occurred at Philadelphia on January 21, 1924, there has been reprinted from the Papers of the American Soci-
PREFACE ety of Church History (second series, volume VIII, 1928) the memorial address by Dr. Richards, which appraises his services to the cause of church history in the United States.
Dr. Good was chairman of a committee appointed by the General Synod of the Reformed Church in the United States on the publication of the Latin works of Zwingli in translation. The first volume appeared in 1912 ; the second in 1922. Some of the funds which make possible the publication of the present volume were procured from private individuals and some by appropriations of denominations belonging to the Western Section of the Alliance of Reformed Churches holding the Presbyterian System (see volume II, page vi).
After Dr. Good’s death, Dr. George W. Richards, of the Theological Seminary of the Reformed Church in the United States at Lancaster, Pennsylvania, served as chairman of the committee. The funds held by Dr. Good were paid to him by the administrator of the estate. To supplement that money, the General Synod of the Reformed Church in the United States, meeting at Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, in 1926, appropriated six hundred dollars for the publication of the present volume.
The projected fourth volume will contain Zwingli’s writings on the Eucharist, to be edited by Professor Robert Hastings Nichols, Ph.D., D.D., of the Auburn Theological Seminary. In the opinion of the undersigned, it is not fair to Dr. Nichols to ask him actually to begin the arduous labor of revising and editing Mr. Preble’s translations until money is raised to guarantee their publication As Eucharistic doctrines held a central place in sixteenth century discussions, the fourth volume— an important aid to understanding the Protestant Reformation— will be a large one.
To complete the publication of the Latin Works will require a fifth volume. The slow progress of the critical edition of Egli, Finsler and Kohler makes it difficult to give as yet a list of all that it should include. Many parts of it are on hand in Mr. Preble’s translations.
The extensive and valuable correspondence of Zwingli has also been translated on the basis of the old edition of Schuler and Schulthess. This should be revised in accordance with the critical text of Egli, Finsler, and Kohler and printed, probably
PREFACE as a sixth and concluding volume.
May the public-spirited labors of Drs. Jackson, Good, and Richards be rewarded before long by the completion of the project of making available in English, the language spoken by the largest linguistic group of Protestants, the Latin works of a valiant Protestant pioneer.
William Walker Rockwell.
New York, April 27, 1929.
Preface, by William Walker Rockwell iii
1. Commentary on True and False Religion
Introduction, by George Warren Richards … 1
Translation
Address to Francis I 43
To the Reader 54
The Word “Religion” 56
Between whom Religion Subsists 58
Religion 87
The Christian Religion r 98
The Gospel 118
Repentance 131
The Law 137
The Sin Against the Holy Ghost 153
The Keys 157
The Church. I 176
The Church. II. (Reply to Emser ) 366
The Sacraments 179
Marriage. I 184
Baptism 185
The Eucharist 197
Confession 253
The other Sacraments 256
Marriage. II 257
Invocation of Saints 267
Prayer 279
Purgatory 283
Magisterial Office 293
Offence 318
Statues and Images 330
Epilogue 337
II. Reply to Emser
Introduction, by George Warren Richards 344
Translation
Address to Emser 360
The Church 366
The Intercession of Saints 382
The Mass 392
Purgatory 394
The Works of Huldreich Zwingli
Commentary on True and False Religion
George Warren Richards
IN the Preface and the Address to the Reader, Zwingli tells how he came to write the Commentary. “Many men in Italy and more in France, learned and devout,” urged him “to write out in Latin his religious views for them.” The request probably was made when Farel, Anton du Blet, and other men from Lyons came to Zurich in the spring of 1524. He shrank in “modesty” from such an undertaking, but “the high standing and importunity” of the men constrained him to yield to their wishes. He was prevented, however, by “various occupations” from beginning the task before the latter part of the year 1524. In a letter to Zwingli, dated October 7, 1524, Anton Papilio assumes that the former had undertaken to write a book, entitled, Be vera et falsa religione commentarius. Having put his hand to the pen, he toiled incessantly, “sweating night and day for three and a half months” — a comparatively short time for so weighty a treatise. He regrets the fact that he was “so hurried all along, that I often hardly had a chance to reread
The Works of Huldreich Zwingli what I had written, much less to correct or embellish it.” The author was now in the “forty-second year of his age.”
The book came from the press at the end of March, 1525. Zwingli sent a copy to Vadian (March 31) and one to Christoph Schappeler at Memmingen. Ludwig Sigwvn, of Swabia, is known to have had a copy by August 23, 1525 ; it was probably a gift from the author. Thus the new publication served to propagate Zwinglian doctrine in South Germany. A German edition of 608 octavo pages, translated by Leo Jude, was published in 1526 by Froschauer at Zurich. Professor Walther Kohler, of the University of Zurich, translated part of the Commentary into German and incorporated it in his work, entitled, Ulrich Zwingli, eine Auswahl aus seinen Schriften, Zurich, 1918.
Zwingli selected the name “commentary” for his book, because “commentaries, if I rightly understand the word,” he says, “are means of communicating with friends, just as a letter is, save that commentaries are fuller and freer… . Since, therefore, I wanted to communicate with the most learned men of France on the subject of religion, I determined to send them a commentary.” He apologized, also, for his haste in writing the book and excused his neglect to revise the manuscript for the reason that a commentary did not require the same accuracy of composition “as an oration or a book that had been held back eight years.” The phrase, “true and false religion,” does not refer, as one would today expect, to the Christian religion in distinction from the pagan religions ; but, to use his own words, to “true and false religion as displayed by Christians.” The “true religion” is that which is drawn from “the true fountains of the word of God” ; the “false religion” is “superstition” taken from the traditions and opinions of men. The one is the religion of the Reformers; the other of the Catholic Church. He considers the two kinds of religion at the same time because “we get a clearer idea by comparing together things that are different than by portraying the one in elaborate detail and keeping the other out of sight.” He describes his method of procedure as follows : “I shall speak first of ‘true religion,’ then of ‘false’; not in separate and distinct books, but in distinct sections.” The purpose of the treatise is to show the difference
Introduction and conflict between the true religion of the Bible and the false religion of tradition and reason.
The author dedicated his book “to Francis, the most Christian King of France, the first of his name.” The dedication is not a little surprising, because Zwingli vigorously opposed the party in the Swiss Confederacy playing French politics and boldly denounced the mercenary service of Swiss soldiers in the French army. He addressed the French King, however, wholly for religious reasons: “I have written especially for the good of France and, therefore, nothing could be more proper than to dedicate my production to her king.”
He had reasonable hopes of winning the king’s favor for the evangelical cause. Zwingli had entered into friendly relations, either through personal visits or through letters and theological writings, with prominent men in France. Among these were Glarean and a circle of kindred spirits in Paris, Faber Stapulensis, Lambert of Avignon, Anemond de Coct, and Anton du Blet. These men were humanists and most of them biblical reformers. The King himself was friendly to the new learning, and his sister, Margaret of Navarre, was a patron and protector of the reform party. It was, therefore, not beyond the range of probability for France to be won for the Reformation.
He gives three reasons for his address to the King of France. First, “this Commentary most Christian ought to be dedicated to none but the Most Christian King”; second, the people of France have from ancient times been reputed faithful to religion ; to whom, therefore, could a “Commentary on True and False Religion” be more appropriately dedicated; third, Germany owes it to her neighbor, France, to share with her the light of truth which has recently been given her.
His hopes of winning Francis I. to his cause were not realized. For the king lent neither ear nor heart to the evangelical doctrine, but permitted his religious policy to be determined by political considerations. The theologians of the Sorbonne, to whom Zwingli repeatedly refers in biting phrases, made short work of the Commentary by putting it on the Index. France remained a Catholic land.
The author evidently planned a complete survey of Christian doctrine — the first and only systematic presentation of his
See vol. II: 1-32 ;
4 The Works of Huldreich Zwingli theology. Professor Walther Kohler considers it Zwingli “most mature and comprehensive work, containing a whole system of doctrine — a dogmatic and an ethics.” The two books comparable with it are Melancthon’s Loci Communes, 1521, and Calvin’s Institutio Christianae Religionis, 1536.
The purpose of Melancthon was not to present a complete system of Christian doctrine, rather a brief exposition of the way of salvation based upon the Epistle to the Romans and a guide to the intelligent reader of the Bible. Calvin, following the lead of Zwingli’s Commentary, prepared a more extended exposition of the true doctrine, which largely superseded the Commentary and became the foremost exposition of the faith published in the sixteenth century. It also was addressed to the “Most Potent and Illustrious Monarch, Francis the Most Christian King of the Franks.’’
The material of the Commentary is divided into twentynine sections. In the first eleven the author defines the term religion ; its two factors, God and man ; the person and work of Christ ; the gospel and repentance. He adds, to the exposition of these points, sections nine, ten, and eleven in the form of loci on the law and on sin. This completes his presentation of the essentials of Christianity; it is the positive and definitive part of the treatise.
The remaining eighteen sections are loosely connected and are more polemical in tone. Zwingli criticises the Catholic doctrine of the Keys, the Church, and the Sacraments. Under each head he defines the biblical view in distinction from that of the Roman Church. He enters upon a detailed discussion of the sacraments of baptism, the eucharist, confession, and matrimony. Pie adds sections on vows, invocation of saints, merit, prayer, purgatory, government, and closes somewhat abruptly with two points — one on offences and another on statues and images. In a brief epilogue he sets forth in a concise way the Christian gospel in relation to the religious development of humanity.
The author omits scarcely any important point in Christian doctrine. Whatever is lacking or inadequately developed in the Commentary, he adds in two later tracts — the one, “On Original Sin, to Urbanus Rhegius”; and the other, “Of the Provi-
Introduction dence of God.” The work is not an organic whole in the sense that every part is genetically related to every other and that all the parts are united by a single unifying principle — a garment of one cloth. The author wrote too hurriedly to produce a book of that kind. Yet the Commentary is the major writing of Zwingli; the next to it in significance is his Auslegung der Schlussreden, 1523. The Lutherans of Germany, however, valued his tracts on the Lord’s Supper more highly than the Commentary.
Sections 1-11
Zwingli, like Cicero in his De Natura Deorum, derives the term “religion” from the Latin verb, “relegere.” “Because the religious,” he says, “carefully consider and, as it were, peruse (relegerent) all the things that pertain to the worship of the gods.” In its Christian usage, as Zwingli also takes it, the term “embraces the whole piety of Christians: namely, faith, life, laws, worship, sacraments.”
Two factors are involved in religion in general : God, who is reached out toward, and man, who reaches out toward Him. To understand religion we must know both God and man. In the discussion of these two factors Zwingli does not take his material from the history of religions or the psychology of religion, as a modern philosopher of religion would do, but he confines himself almost wholly to the Bible for his knowledge of God and of man. For, apart from revelation, man cannot by natural reason or human effort of any kind know God. He may discern “that God is,” but he cannot know “ what God is.” The heathen recognized the existence of God, “though in widely different ways.” “Some,” says Zwingli, “have made Him many, others have made Him fewer, and a very few have made Him one.” The knowledge of the philosophers, also, is obtained through revelation. According to Paul (Romans 1: 19), “That which is known of God is manifest in them; for God manifested it to them.” He manifested Himself through natural agency, which is “the constant and uninterrupted operation of God, His disposition of all things.” Even the intellect, by which we can in a measure know God, comes from Him “who worketh all in all.” In this way nature and the
Religion defined
The Works of Huldreich Zwingli spirit of man confirm the truth of biblical revelation. The natural knowledge of God is also a revelation “through the things He has made.” Zwingli does not make the distinction in principle between the Christian’s and the philosopher’s knowledge of God.
The “pious” believe in the one true God, not because they have natural endowments superior to those of the “impious,” nor because they read or hear the word of Scripture, but through “the power and grace of Him in whom we believe.” In other words, “they are taught this of God.” That the Christian believes that God exists, and that he has faith in Him, is a work of God alone. For the knowledge of “what God is,” of his being in distinction from his mere existence, Zwingli depends wholly upon “the divine oracles.” He desires “to learn out of His own mouth what God is.” So wide is the difference between God and man, that man can know what God is “as little as a beetle can know what man is.” Therefore man must “be taught by God Himself” (I Cor. 2: 11).
He leaves room, however, for his favorite philosophers — Plato, Seneca, and Cicero — whom he concedes to have “uttered certain truths on this subject.” But whatever is true of what they said, they received from God, who scattered “seeds of knowledge of Himself” even among the heathen. Of “the theologians,” who confuse divine revelation and “the inventions of philosophers,” he speaks in terms of contempt. They “are puffed up with human wisdom and have corrupted what they received pure.” They are full of the “arrogance of the flesh” and have held “such views as they liked about God.”
Zwingli is equally opposed to rationalism and semi-rationalism. He is a supernaturalist and an irrationalist. He renounces reason as a source of knowledge of God and he denounces the compromising theologians who seek to know God partly through reason and partly through revelation. Theoretically, at least, he is a pure biblicist. By explaining his theory of knowledge in a prefatory section, he paves the way for his exposition of the revealed doctrine and never loses sight of the contrast between the truth of God as revealed in the Bible and “the dreams and lies” about God taken from human reason. He is, however, far more uncompromising in his
Introduction biblicism when he meets the Catholic theologians than when he greets the ancient philosophers.
In the first part of his discussion of the being of God, he is betrayed by the natural bent of his mind into a philosophical and empirical treatment of the doctrine of providence and of the goodness of God, without appeal to biblical texts. Only at the end of his argument, he turns for support of his conclusions to the Bible. He defines the character of God in five points, using Jehovah’s words to Moses, “I am that I am” (Ex. 3: 13), as the source of his material. In reality he turns philosopher and reasons about the divine attributes, supporting his conclusions by an occasional text from the Bible. First, he declares that God is absolute and pure being, “from whom all things are,” since they “could not possibly exist for a moment unless God existed.” He “sustains all things, governs all things” (Isa. 4: 12). Second, “This being is alone good, true, right, just, holy.” Third, He is “perfect, efficient, and consummating power,” who continually “so keeps, directs, and governs everything, that in all things made or done no fault can intervene able either to impede its power or to defeat its purpose.” Four, God as motive power and life of all things “is not only a sort of stuff,” but conscious intellect and will — in other words, “wisdom and foresight”; so that “nothing is unknown to Him, nothing is disobedient to Him.” Five, God is not only absolute wisdom and controlling providence, but He is, also, perfect goodness and benevolence, who is unceasingly bountiful to those whom He created for no other purpose than to enjoy His bounty.
Thus he begins his argument with God as absolute being, the source of all being, and concludes with the idea that He is the absolute Good, the source of all good. The Absolute is the Holy and Righteous One of the Bible.
Zwingli may be charged with pantheism and determinism. Some of his statements have a pantheistic tone; as, for example, “He is the being of all things.” Yet he was in reality a Christian theist, saved from pantheism by the sharp contrast he drew between the Creator and the creature — a distinction which was “the master light of all his seeing.”
One cannot so easily absolve him from the charge of
The Works of Huldreich Zwingli determinism. He says more than once that God is life and motion of all things and permits no fortuitous occurrences, not even the free initiative of men. The God of providence becomes also the God of unconditional predestination. This is close to determinism, not of the impersonal naturalistic, but of the personal, spiritual kind. Zwingli was forced to take this position by the emphasis of his opponents upon human ability or freedom, which was the necessary presupposition of works having saving efficacy, such as sacrifices, fasting, alms, and meritorious performances of all sorts. But when he steered clear of the Scylla of righteousness by dint of human effort, he was borne by the currents uncomfortably close to the Charybdis of salvation by divine necessity. Predestination is the inevitable outcome of his assumption that God is the only active cause operative in all His creatures. Yet in this way he finds sufficient warrant for ascribing the cause and glory of salvation to God alone, and not in part to the self-achieved righteousness of man. To do him full justice one must always read the philosophical conclusions of Zwingli in connection with his biblical doctrines. “No man,” he says, “can reproach me with having based my teachings about the knowledge of God upon human persuasions.” In the same paragraph he adds: “I have shown without reserve that it is not through human power that we come to the knowledge and worship of God,” for that “is not of him that willeth, nor of him that runneth, but of God that hath mercy” (Romans 9: 16).
He concludes his section on God by asking the question: “What does such a discussion avail?” The godless cast it to the winds; the devout do not need it. For they know God through experience and not through argument or reason. God graciously manifests Himself in their hearts and begets faith in them. This statement clearly shows Zwingli’s theory of the way of knowing God. Philosopher though he was and naturally inclined to convince others of the truth by logical argument, he always acknowledged in the end the limitations of the human reason and bowed in submission to the authority of divine revelation and devout living, which man cannot attain by effort but must ultimately receive through faith.
In his discussion of man, the second factor of religion,
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