ZWINGLI, HULDRYCH. - Initiator of the Protestant "Reformation" in Switzerland, born on 1 January 1484 at Wildhaus (lordship of Toggenburg, domain of the Abbey of St. Gall) into a well-to-do family, the third of eight children; died in the Battle of Kappel on 11 November 1531.
Destined for the ecclesiastical life, he was entrusted for his early education to a priest uncle, attended the first schools in Basel and Bern; in 1498–1500 he moved to the University of Vienna, recently reformed in a humanistic sense; followed a dark period, according to some a relegation, according to others a time of travel, during which he may also have stayed in Paris. From 1502 to 1506 he was again in Basel, where he completed his theological studies and began teaching in preparatory schools. Here he had as his theology professor Wyttenbach, an advocate of the *via antiqua* in theology, opposed both to Scotism and to Ockhamism, a follower of the positions of pre-Thomistic Augustinian scholasticism, and in 1506 he obtained the degree of *magister sententiarum*. A young man of lively intelligence, cheerful, fond of study, he was elected parish priest at Glarus, where he devoted himself zealously to pastoral duties, without neglecting his studies and participating in the discussions of the learned world. Since Glarus was a centre for the recruitment of Swiss mercenaries, he took part with his parishioners in the Italian campaign in service to the Pope (1513–15), for which he also obtained a papal pension of 50 florins to continue his humanistic studies. The Swiss blood he had seen shed in the Battle of Melegnano, however, stirred in him a deep disturbance, and upon his return home he opposed recruitment for service to foreigners. At that very time, among his parishioners the French party prevailed, intent on enlisting mercenaries for France. Zwíngli was forced to leave and in April 1516 passed as chaplain to the Abbey of Einsiedeln, a famous sanctuary and centre of pilgrimage. From this year date his direct relations with Erasmus, and his influence is discernible in Zwíngli’s preaching. The excesses of religious practices in the sanctuary, which among the faithful often degenerated into superstition and among the clergy into simoniacal practices, soon scandalised the young Zwíngli, opening his mind to the reformist ideas propounded by Erasmus: simplification of Christianity in a biblical sense, elimination of many dogmatic developments, placing ethical commitment in the foreground rather than doctrinal zeal and the practice of devotions.
In January 1519 Zwíngli moved to Zurich as parish priest of the Grossmünster and in his preaching he persistently criticised indulgences, expounding the New Testament according to the “pure Gospel,” under the influence of Luther’s writings, which he considered substantially in line with Erasmian reformism and in any case not in antithesis to II. Both for this reason and because of the psychological effects of the plague, from which he had barely escaped, Zwíngli did not openly declare himself for Luther, now condemned, nor did he yet enter into open conflict with the Church. This occurred in 1522, with a sermon against the obligation of fasting and with a letter to the Bishop of Constance in favour of clerical marriage, taking as his wife a widow with whom he “publicly married” in 1524. Zwíngli had succeeded in winning the support of the urban bourgeoisie, which was in strained relations with the bishop and the ecclesiastical estate, by presenting Church reform not in purely theological-ecclesiastical terms but by appealing to the aspirations of the urban laity, enlisting lay forces for its implementation, as Luther had done. Thus as early as 1520 he had obtained from the city council the publication of an ordinance requiring preaching to adhere only to doctrines founded on the Bible, and in 1522 it prohibited any service to foreign powers, explicitly including the Holy See, which in Switzerland recruited mercenaries. From 1522 Zwíngli increasingly contested not only clerical celibacy and fasting but also popular devotions to the Virgin Mary and the saints, the dogmatic and disciplinary authority of Councils and Popes, the veneration of images, and the Mass as a sacrifice; consequently, an admonition from the Bishop of Constance and the same Confederate Diet forbade the preaching of errors and novelties. The support of the city council then became effectively manifest, especially in connection with two religious disputations (24 January and 26–28 October 1523) organised by the Council of Zurich, in which Zwíngli defended his doctrine before the bishop’s envoys. That same year (1523) saw the first formulation of his thought in two writings: *Commentary and Proof of 67 Theses* (14 August) and *Short Christian Introduction* (17 November), in which he systematically restated the grounds for his sermons, theoretically preparing his reform, centred on the radical elimination of Catholic ceremonies, blessings, sacred images, and the Mass itself (from 1525); suppressing monasteries, transforming the benefice system, transferring (from 1525) the collection of alms to the city, establishing a tribunal for matrimonial cases composed of laymen and ecclesiastics, whose competence was later extended to disputes over benefices. The government of Zurich, for its part, had absolved Zwíngli from any dependence on the authority of the Bishop of Constance, introduced the German language into the liturgy, established public reading of the Bible, and abolished clerical celibacy (from 1524). In March 1525 Zwíngli published the *Commentarius de vera et falsa religione*, which was the first and only systematic exposition of his theory.
The divergence over the real presence between the two “reformers” could not be resolved, as their cultural formation and mentality were too different for them to understand one another. And when Strasbourg presented its profession of faith (*Confessio Tetrapolitana*) to the Diet of Augsburg (1530), it was not taken into consideration either by Catholics or by Lutherans. Despite the lack of effective German allies, Zurich persisted in its policy of pressure on Catholic territories. When the Reformed cities, on Bern’s proposal, decided to close the supply routes of provisions to the Catholic cantons through their territories, these resorted to arms and in the Battle of Kappel (11 November 1531) annihilated the Zurich army abandoned by its allies. Zwíngli, who despite his Erasmian pacifism had taken part in the battle with sword and axe, fell in the clash; his body, recognised, was quartered and burned. The Zurichers, shaken by the disaster to which Zwíngli’s policy had led them, in reaction excluded ecclesiastics from the political direction of the city. The ensuing peace consolidated the *de facto* situation, halting the expansion of Zwíngli’s “Reformation” in Switzerland and confining it to Zurich, Basel, Bern, Schaffhausen, and the Grisons.
In the “Reformed” churches the function of head, as theological and political inspirer, was assumed after Zwíngli’s death by Bucer (v. Protestant confessions of faith, III).
In the historical-theological evaluation of Z. and his doctrines, one must take into account the humanistic formation of the former and the political-social peculiarities of the environment. This was characterized by autonomous communities, governed by a patrician bourgeoisie intolerant of ecclesiastical jurisdiction, where the idea of a reform of the Church, long felt, was soon fueled by the numerous German exiles who took refuge there after 1522. Moreover, Z. had been influenced by pagan and Christian antiquity, by Erasmus’s theological humanism, and by Luther’s anti-ecclesiastical polemic.
Z. differs from Luther in positions that the latter would have called Pelagian and Catholicizing: the possibility of a rational knowledge of God, with evident derivations from Pico della Mirandola; the reduction of original sin to a mere hereditary vice, not deserving of eternal condemnation and without undermining man’s ethical forces; the positive value of the law, not merely negative; the eternal happiness accessible even to pagan sages who had practiced a light natural morality. On the other hand, he appears more radical than the German reformer in his iconoclasm, more refined in his symbolism in sacramental doctrine, and more inclined to a predominantly philological-literal exegesis, entrusted to individual culture and sensitivity. For this reason, his writings were preferentially referenced by the Anabaptists, even though they contested his inconsistency in having persecuted them.