by Will Durant
In the Netherlands Melchior Hofmann, a Swabian tanner, preached the Anabaptist gospel with exciting success. At Leyden his pupil Jan Matthys rose to the conclusion that the advent of the New Jerusalem could no longer be patiently awaited, but must be achieved at once, and, if necessary, by force. He sent out through Holland twelve apostles to announce the glad tidings. The ablest of them was a young tailor, Jan Beuckelszoon, known to history as John of Leyden, and to Meyerbeer’s opera as Le Prophète. Without formal education, he had a keen mind, a vivid imagination, a handsome presence, a ready tongue, a resolute will. He wrote and staged plays, and composed poetry. Coming upon the writings of Thomas Münzer, he felt that all other forms of Christianity than that which had gained and lost Mühlhausen were halfhearted and insincere. He heard Jan Matthys and was won to Anabaptism (1533). He was then twenty-four. In that year he accepted a fatal invitation to come and preach in Münster, the rich and populous capital of Westphalia.
Named from the monastery around which it had grown, Münster was feudally subject to its bishop and cathedral chapter. Nevertheless the growth of industry and commerce had generated a degree of democracy. The assembled citizens, representing seventeen guilds, annually chose ten electors who chose the city council. But the well-to-do minority provided most of the political ability, and naturally dominated the council. In 1525, enthusiastic over the peasants’ uprisings, the lower classes presented thirty-six “demands” to the council. A few of these were granted, the rest were humored with procrastination. A Lutheran preacher, Bernard Rottman, made himself the mouthpiece of discontent, and asked Jan Matthys to send some Dutch Anabaptists to his aid. John of Leyden came (January 13, 1534), and soon Jan Matthys himself. Fearing insurrection, the “party of order” arranged to have Bishop Franz von Waldeck enter the town with his 2,000 troops. The populace, led by Matthys, Rottman, and John of Leyden, fought them in the streets, drove them out, and took martial control of Münster (February 10, 1534). New elections were held; the Anabaptists won the council; two of their number, Knipperdollingk and Kippenbroick, were chosen burgomasters; the exciting experiment began.
Münster found itself at once in a state of war, besieged by the Bishop and his reinforced army, and fearful that soon all the powers of order and custom in Germany would unite against it. To protect itself against internal opposition, the new council decreed that all non-Anabaptists must accept rebaptism or leave the city. It was a cruel measure, for it meant that old men, women carrying infants, and barefoot children had to ride or trudge from the town at the height of a German winter. During the siege both sides executed without mercy any persons found working for the enemy. Under the stress of war the council was superseded by a popular assembly and an executive Committee of Public Safety, in both of which the religious leaders were supreme. Matthys died fighting in an abortive sortie (April 5, 1534), and thereafter John of Leyden ruled the city as its king.
The “communism” that was now set up was a war economy, as perhaps all strict communism must be; for men are by nature unequal, and can be induced to share their goods and fortunes only by a vital and common danger; internal liberty varies with external security, and communism breaks under the tensions of peace. In peril of their lives if they fell short of unity, inspired by religious faith and inescapable eloquence, the besieged accepted a “socialist theocracy”60 in the desperate hope that they were realizing the New Jerusalem visioned in the Apocalypse. The members of the Committee of Public Safety were called “the elders of the twelve tribes of Israel,” and John of Leyden became “King of Israel.” Perhaps to give, in the minds of the simple, some helpful dignity to his precarious office, John, along with his aides, clothed himself in the splendid garments left behind by wealthy exiles. Enemies further accused the radical chiefs of eating abundantly while the besieged population neared starvation; the evidence is inconclusive, and leaders always feel an urgent obligation to keep well. Most of the confiscated luxuries were distributed among the people; “the poorest among us,” wrote one of them, “now go about sumptuously attired”;61 they hungered in magnificence.
Otherwise the communism of Münster was limited and tentative. The rulers, according to a hostile witness, decreed that “all possessions should be in common,” 62 but in truth private property continued in practically everything except jewels, precious metals, and the booty of war. Meals were taken in common, but only by those engaged in defense of the town. At these meals a chapter was read from the Bible, and sacred songs were sung. Three “deacons” were appointed to supply the necessities of the poor; and to secure materials for these charities the remaining well-to-do were persuaded or compelled to yield up their superfluity. Land available for cultivation within the city was assigned to each household according to its size. One edict confirmed the traditional dominion of the husband over the wife.63
Public morals were regulated by strict laws. Dances, games, and religious plays were encouraged, under supervision, but drunkenness and gambling were severely punished, prostitution was banned, fornication and adultery were made capital crimes. An excess of women, caused by the flight of many men, moved the leaders to decree, on the basis of Biblical precedents, that unattached women should become “companions of wives”—in effect, concubines.64 The newly attached women seem to have accepted the situation as preferable to solitary barrenness. Some conservatives in the city protested, organized a revolt, and imprisoned the King; but their soldiers, soon besotted with wine, were slaughtered by the resurgent Anabaptist soldiery; and in this victory of the New Jerusalem the women played a virile role. John, released and re-enthroned, took several wives and (say the hostile chroniclers) governed with violence and tyranny.65 He must have had some genial qualities, for thousands gladly bore his rule, and offered their lives in his service. When he called for volunteers to follow him in a sortie against the Bishop’s camp, more women enlisted than he thought it wise to use. When he asked for “apostles” to venture forth and seek aid from other Anabaptist groups, twelve men tried to get through the enemy’s lines, were all caught, and all killed. One fervent woman, inspired by the story of Judith, sallied out to assassinate the Bishop; she was intercepted and put to death.
Though many Anabaptists in Germany and Holland repudiated the resort of their Münster brethren to force, many more applauded the revolution. Cologne, Trier, Amsterdam, and Leyden murmured with Anabaptist prayers for its success. From Amsterdam fifty vessels sailed (March 22 and 25, 1535) to carry reinforcements to the beleaguered city, but all were dispersed by the Dutch authorities. On March 28, echoing the Münster uprising, an Anabaptist band captured and fortified a monastery in West Friesland; it was overcome with a loss of 800 lives.
Confronted with this spreading revolt, the conservative forces of the Empire, Protestant as well as Catholic, mobilized to suppress Anabaptism everywhere. Luther, who in 1528 had counseled lenience with the new heretics, advised in 1530 “the use of the sword” against them as “not only blasphemous but highly seditious”;66 and Melanchthon concurred. City after city sent money or men to the Bishop; a diet at Worms (April 4, 1535) ordered a tax on all Germany to finance the siege. The Bishop was now able to surround the town and effectively shut off all its supplies.
Facing famine and deteriorating morale. King John announced that all who wished might leave the city. Many women and children, and some men, seized the opportunity. The men were imprisoned or killed by the Bishop’s soldiers, who spared the women for divers services. One of the émigrés saved his life by offering to show the besiegers an undefended part of the walls. Under his guidance a force of Landsknechts scaled them and opened a gate (June 24); soon several thousand troops poured into the town. Starvation had so far done its work that only 800 of the besieged could still bear arms. They barricaded themselves in the market place; then they surrendered on a promise of a safe-conduct to leave Münster; when they had yielded up their arms they were massacred en masse. Houses were searched, and 400 hidden survivors were slain. John of Leyden and tw
o of his aides were bound to stakes; every part of their bodies was clawed with red-hot pincers, until “nearly all who were standing in the market place were sickened by the stench”; their tongues were pulled from their mouths; at last daggers were driven into their hearts.67
The Bishop regained his city and augmented his former power; henceforth all actions of the civil authorities were to be subject to episcopal veto. Catholicism was triumphantly restored. Throughout the Empire the Anabaptists, fearing for their lives, repudiated every member guilty of using force. Nevertheless many of these pacifist heretics were executed. Melanchthon and Luther advised Philip of Hesse to put to death all adherents of the sect.68 The conservative leaders felt that so serious a threat to the established economic and political order should be punished with an unforgettable severity.
The Anabaptists accepted the lesson, postponed communism to the millennium, and resigned themselves to the practice of such of their principles—of sober, simple, pious, peaceful living—as did not offend the state. Menno Simons, a Catholic priest converted to Anabaptism (1531), gave to his Dutch and German followers such skillful guidance that the “Mennonites” survived all tribulations, and formed successful agricultural communities in Holland, Russia, and America. There is no clear filiation between the Continental Anabaptists and the English Quakers and the American Baptists; but the Quaker rejection of war and oaths, and the Baptist insistence on adult baptism probably stem from the same traditions of creed and conduct that in Switzerland, Germany, and Holland took Anabaptist forms.69 One quality nearly all these groups had in common—their willingness to bear peaceably with faiths other than their own. The theology that supported them through hardship, poverty, and martyrdom hardly accords with our transient philosophy; but they, too, in their sincerity, devotion, and friendliness, enriched our heritage, and redeemed our tarnished humanity.*
CHAPTER XVIII
Zwingli: The Reformation in Switzerland
1477–1531
MULTUM IN PARVO
THE success of the Swiss cantons in repelling the assault of Charles the Bold (1477) strengthened their Confederation, fired their pride of nationality, and steeled them to withstand the attempt of Maximilian to subject them in fact as well as in theory to the Holy Roman Empire. Disputes over the division of the spoils after the defeat of Burgundy brought the cantons close to civil war; but at the Diet of Stans (1481) a hermit philosopher, Nikolaus von der Flüe—Brader Klaus in Swiss memory—persuaded them to peace.
Canton by canton the sturdy Confederation grew. Fribourg and Solothurn were admitted in 1481, Basel and Schaffhausen in 1501, Appenzell in 1513; now they were thirteen, all speaking German dialects, except that French too was spoken in Fribourg and Bern. They formed a federal republic: each canton regulated its internal affairs, but was governed in its external relations by a common legislature. The single chamber of this federal diet was composed of an equal number of deputies from each canton. Democracy was not complete; several cantons appropriated minor communities as voteless vassals. Nor was Switzerland as yet a model lover of peace. In 1500–12 the cantons took advantage of Italian disruption to seize Bellinzona, Locarno, Lugano, and other regions south of the Alps; and they continued to lease Swiss legions—with their consent—to foreign powers. But after the defeat of the Swiss pikemen at Marignano (1515) the Confederation renounced territorial expansion, adopted a policy of neutrality, and directed its virile peasantry, its skillful artisans, and its resourceful merchants in developing one of the most civilized civilizations in history.
The Church was as genial and corrupt in Switzerland as in Italy. She gave patronage and considerable freedom to the humanists who gathered around Froben and Erasmus at Basel. It was part of the moral tolerance of the age that most Swiss priests enjoyed the services of concubines.1 One Swiss bishop charged his clergy four guilders for every child born to them, and in one year garnered 1522 guilders from this source.2 He complained that many priests gambled, frequented taverns, and got drunk3—apparently without paying an episcopal fee. Several cantons—Zurich in particular—set up civic supervision of churchmen and taxed monastic properties. The bishop of Constance claimed all Zurich as his feudal fief, and demanded of it obedience and tithes; but the papacy was too enmeshed in Italian politics to support his claims effectively. In 1510 Pope Julius II, in return for some Genevese legions, agreed that the town council of Geneva should regulate the monasteries, convents, and public morals within its domain.4 So, seven years before Luther’s theses, the essence of the Reformation was achieved in Zurich and Geneva—the supremacy of secular over ecclesiastical authority. The path was cleared for Zwingli and Calvin to establish their diverse mergers of Church and state.
II. ZWINGLI
A visit to the birthplace of Huldreich or Ulrich Zwingli suggests the not invariable rule that great men are born in small houses. The most rational and unsuccessful of the Reformers began life (January 1, 1484) in a tiny cottage in the mountain valley village of Wildhaus, fifty miles southeast of Zurich, in the present canton of Saint-Gall. A low gable roof, walls of heavy boards, little mullioned windows, floors of massive planks, low ceilings, dark rooms, creaking stairs, sturdy beds of oak, a table, a chair, a shelf for books: this historic home bespeaks an environment in which natural selection was rigorous, and supernatural selection seemed an indispensable hope. Ulrich’s father was chief magistrate in that hidden hamlet, and his mother was the proud sister of a priest. He was the third of eight sons, who competed for the admiration of two sisters. From his boyhood he was destined for the priesthood.
His uncle, dean of the church at near-by Wesen, shared with his parents in his education, and gave Zwingli a humanistic bent and breadth that sharply distinguished him from Luther and Calvin. At ten the boy was sent to a Latin school at Basel; at fourteen he entered at Bern a college headed by an outstanding native classicist; from sixteen to eighteen he studied in the University of Vienna in its humanist heyday under Conrad Celtes. He lightened his labors by playing on the lute, harp, violin, flute, and dulcimer. At eighteen he returned to Basel, and took theology under Thomas Wyttenbach, who, as early as 1508, attacked indulgences, clerical celibacy, and the Mass. At twenty-two (1506) Zwingli received his master’s degree, and was ordained priest. He celebrated his first Mass at Wildhaus amid joyful relatives, and, with a hundred guilders raised for him, bought appointment5 to a pastorate in Glarus, twenty miles away.
There, while zealously performing his duties, he continued his studies. He taught himself Greek to read the New Testament in the original. He read with enthusiasm Homer, Pindar, Democritus, Plutarch, Cicero, Caesar, Livy, Seneca, Pliny the Younger, Tacitus, and wrote a commentary on the skeptical humorist Lucian. He corresponded with Pico della Mirandola and Erasmus, called Erasmus “the greatest philosopher and theologian,” visited him reverently (1515), and read him every night as a prelude to sleep. Like Erasmus, he grew a sharp nose for ecclesiastical corruption, a genial scorn for doctrinal bigotry, and an ardent refusal to think of the classical philosophers and poets as burning in hell. He vowed that he “would rather share the eternal lot of a Socrates or a Seneca than that of a pope.” 6 He did not let his sacerdotal vows exclude him from the pleasures of the flesh; he had some affairs with generous women, and continued so to indulge himself until his marriage (1514). His congregation did not seem to mind, and the popes paid him, till 1520, an annual pension of fifty florins for supporting them against the pro-French party in Glarus. In 1513 and 1515 he accompanied the Glarus contingent of Swiss mercenaries to Italy as their chaplain, and did his best to keep them faithful to the papal cause; but his contact with war at the battles of Navarro and Marignano turned him strongly against any further sale of Swiss valor to foreign governments.
In 1516 the French faction in Glarus won the upper hand, and Zwingli moved to a pastorate at Einsiedeln in the canton of Schwyz. His preaching there took a Protestant tinge even before Luther’s rebellion. In 1517 he called for a religion based exclusively on the Bib
le, and he told his archbishop, Cardinal Matthäus Schinner, that there was scant warrant in Scripture for the papacy. In August 1518, he attacked abuses in the sale of indulgences, and persuaded Benedictine monks to remove, from their lucrative shrine of the Virgin, an inscription promising pilgrims “full remission of all sins in guilt and punishment alike.”7 Some pilgrims from Zurich brought to their pastors an enthusiastic report of his preaching. On December 10, 1518, he accepted a call to be vicar or “people’s priest” at the Grossmünster, or Great Minster, of Zurich, the most enterprising city in Switzerland.
He was now approaching maturity in morals and mind. He undertook a series of sermons expounding, from the Greek text, all the New Testament except the Apocalypse, which he disliked; he had little in him of the mysticism that shared in forming Luther. We have no portrait of him from life, but his contemporaries described him as a handsome, ruddy-faced, fullblooded man, with a melodious voice that captured his congregation. He did not rival Luther in eloquence or exegesis; yet his sermons were so convincing in sincerity and clarity that soon all Zurich responded to his influence. His ecclesiastical superiors supported him when he resumed his campaign against the sale of indulgences. Bernhardin Samson, a Franciscan friar from Milan, had crossed the Saint Gotthard Pass in August 1518, to become the Tetze] of Switzerland. He offered Pope Leo’s indulgence to the rich on parchment for a crown, to the poor on paper for a few pennies; and with a wave of his hand he absolved from the pains of purgatory all souls that had died in Bern. Zwingli protested; the bishop of Constance seconded him; and Leo X, learning something from events in Germany, recalled his lavish apostle.
