Christian History Magazine Collection

The Colloquy at Marburg was called in hopes of reconciling the two centers of the German Reformation—Zurich and Wittenburg, but conflict over the Lord’s Supper split their common cause.

by Dr. John B. Payne from Christian History magazine no. 4

November 10, 1983 was the 500th anniversary of the birth of Martin Luther. During the 500th anniversary year Luther made quite a splash in the media with full length articles in Time, Newsweek, the New York Times Magazine, and National Geographic. An abundance of church celebrations and scholarly conferences took place. There were pilgrimages by Lutherans and other Protestants to East Germany to visit the sites of his living and working.

Not nearly as well-known is the fact that January 1, 1984 was the 500th birthday of another Protestant Reformer, Ulrich Zwingli, of Zurich. Except for Zurich and its environs, Zwingli did not receive nearly the same amount of attention during his 500th anniversary year as Luther.

It was Zwingli’s fate to have been cut down in mid-career at the battle of Kappel in 1531 and to have been cast in the shadow of Luther’s gigantic stature. But he is an important figure in his own right. He was the father of the Reformed tradition which spread out in many directions—across Switzerland and southern Germany, to France among the Huguenots, Holland, England and Scotland among the Congregationalists and Presbyterians, across to the New World among the Congregationalists of New England and the Presbyterian, Dutch and German Reformed Churches of the Middle Colonies. Although Zwingli is the originator of this tradition, his role in the shaping of it has been eclipsed by that of John Calvin, the second generation Reformer who, at Geneva on the other side of what is now modern Switzerland, took over the chief leadership of this Reformed tradition a few years after Zwingli’s death. German Swiss scholars, in particular, would want to qualify this judgment by insisting that Zwingli’s successor at Zurich, Henry Bullinger, also played an important role in molding this tradition.

Older scholarship on Zwingli, especially German, tended to view him through the eyes of Luther and saw him as largely dependent on the great Saxon Reformer though as diverging from him on a few important points. Recent scholarship, especially Swiss, has sought to study Zwingli for his own sake and has come to the conclusion that he was quite independent from Luther in his theological and Reformational development.

Two Paths to Reformation

Luther and Zwingli, born within seven weeks of one another, were co-originators of the Protestant Reformation. Though neither one intended it from the beginning, the reforming movements which they started would lead inexorably to a division in Western Christendom. In addition, though neither one desired it, their differences on the Eucharist would tragically lead to the first major split in Reformation Protestantism between the Lutherans and the Reformed. Though they had much in common—and more often the differences are emphasized rather than the similarities—they were indeed adversaries. Zwingli, like other Renaissance humanists that were enamored of classical allusions, called Luther in tribute “that one Hercules … who slew the Roman boar.” In this same passage Zwingli will also attribute Biblical titles to Luther: “Here indeed you were the only faithful David anointed hereto by the Lord and furnished likewise with arms.” Zwingli would not always be so adulatory in his words to and about Luther. But Luther never spoke so warmly of Zwingli. He called him the “Giant of Zurich” not in tribute but to ridicule. Luther always was of the view that Zwingli thought too highly of himself, that he was a show-off with his display of learning in Greek and Hebrew and the classics.

Though they opposed one another, Luther and Zwingli had a number of traits in common. They were both born of peasant stock but of relatively well-to-do parents. Luther’s father was a prosperous miner in Saxony and Zwingli’s was a successful farmer and first citizen of his village of Wildhaus in the Toggenburg Valley of the eastern lower Alps. They both became accomplished scholars and developed extraordinary musical talents. They spoke German and were excellent preachers, though Luther spoke in Saxon dialect and Zwingli spoke in “Schweizerdeutsch”—Swiss German. The Germans despised the Swiss, and the Swiss resented the Germans.

They both studied at fine universities, Luther at Erfurt and Zwingli at Vienna and Basel, but their philosophical perspectives were quite different. Luther was educated in the theories of William of Occam, known as “the Razor”, because of his principle of economy in argumentation: No more parts than are necessary, the simpler, the better. Zwingli was educated in Thomism after the so- called Angelic Doctor of the Thirteenth Century, Thomas Aquinas.

First, Thomas and Thomism tended to think of the truths of revelation and of reason to be more harmonious than did Occam who thought the truths of revelation lie entirely beyond reason, indeed may even seem to be contradictory to reason. One cannot at all explain the reasonableness of the truths of revelation. Second, Thomas stressed the priority of divine grace and man as the instrument of the divine predestination. In contrast, Occam and his followers stressed the freedom and dignity of man to cooperate with God in working out his own salvation. Man is not the instrument of but the partner with God.

A further difference in their intellectual training was that Zwingli absorbed much more of Renaissance humanism than did Luther. Although Luther probably owed more to Erasmus than he liked to admit, Zwingli freely acknowledged his great debt to Erasmus. When Erasmus’ New Testament appeared in 1516, Zwingli immediately purchased it to copy out the Pauline letters in Greek, and then carried his little pocket edition around with him and memorized it. Erasmus’ views on peace, his reliance on common sense reasoning, and the spiritualistic, antiritualistic tendency of his thought would make a deep impression on Zwingli.

Before his break with Rome, Luther was a monk trying to work out his salvation with fear and trembling and would become for his whole career professor of theology at Wittenberg. Zwingli was a parish priest before becoming a reformer and throughout his days as a reformer would remain a pastor at the Grossmunster in Zurich. Luther was something of a monarchist and a social conservative who sided with the princes and came down hard on the peasants when they revolted in 1525. Zwingli was more of a radical and a republican who was also very much a Swiss patriot. Whereas Luther did not think that the Gospel should be defended with the sword but only with the preaching of the Word, Zwingli in spite of an early pacifism would not only advocate the use of the sword for defense both of Fatherland and the Gospel but would die in battle with sword and helmet in hand. On hearing of Zwingli’s death, Luther commented: “All who take the sword will die by the sword.”

Luther’s Struggle As a Monk

The starting point for Luther’s Reformation was his own inner struggle for salvation as a monk. Luther entered the monastery in 1505 at Erfurt against the wishes of his father who wanted him to become a successful lawyer. As a monk Luther tried the path of ascetical works—prayer, fasting, self-beatings, but he found that he could never be sure whether he had enough of them or the right ones. He said that if a monk ever had gotten to heaven through monkery, it would have been he, for he was a most dutiful and obedient monk. He also tried the route of the sacraments, but again he could not be certain, when he made confession or took communion, that he had truly been cleansed of his sins.

But Luther, however much he tried, did not see himself making any progress along the route toward salvation. Rather than sensing that he loved God above all things, he said he hated a God who demanded that, in order to be saved, we love him with whole heart and mind, but who did not provide the ability to do so.

It was in the midst of this spiritual anguish and struggle that he experienced his so-called “breakthrough” as he was reading Paul’s letter to the Romans. “For in it (the Gospel) the righteousness of God is revealed through faith for faith; as it is written, The righteous shall live by faith.’ ” (Romans 1:17). He came to the realization that the righteousness of God is not the active righteousness by which God judges and punishes miserable sinners, but is rather God’s passive righteousness by which he mercifully justifies sinners through faith. It is not the righteousness on the basis of which God condemns sinners but the righteousness given in the Gospel and received in faith on the basis of which he forgives sinners. With this new understanding, Luther “felt myself straightway born afresh and to have entered through the open gates into paradise itself.” At last he found joy and release.