IV

Huldreich Zwingli was a contemporary of Luther. He was born at Wildhaus in the canton of St. Gall in 1484; he entered the University of Vienna in 1499; after subsequently teaching and continuing his studies at Basle, he was ordained priest and became pastor at Glarus in 1506; he was a preacher at Einsiedeln in 1516; his preaching in Zurich Cathedral in 1519 and later years attracted much notice; he was the leader of the Swiss Reformers; he died in 1531 on the battlefield of Kappel, whither he had accompanied the troops of Zurich. Large parts of his many and lengthy writings are occupied with the Eucharistic controversy. He attacked unsparingly the opinions both of the papal theologians and of Luther. His claim that as a Reformer he was independent of Luther was probably well founded. Like Luther, he dissented from the doctrine of Transubstantiation. To Luther’s own view that the body and blood of Christ are present together with the bread and wine he was no less opposed. He interpreted our Lord’s words at the institution of the Sacrament as figurative only, and regarded the consecrated elements as merely symbols of the body and blood of Christ. As a rule he speaks of the Sacraments as signs only; but there are some passages in his writings which appear to imply or affirm a spiritual feeding of the soul on Christ in connection with the reception of the Sacrament. He rejected any idea of a Eucharistic sacrifice, and explained the Eucharist as a commemoration, not itself sacrificial, of the sacrifice of Christ.

The Book of Articles, published in 1523, shows an early form of Zwingli’s teaching. The eighteenth article of the series was:—

“Christ, who offered Himself once for all on the cross, is for ever the effectual sacrifice and victim for the sins of all the faithful. From this it follows that the Mass is not a sacrifice but a commemoration of the sacrifice once for all offered on the cross, and as it were a seal of the redemption afforded in Christ”;

and in the course of the explanation of this article it was maintained that “the offering of Christ is impaired and blasphemed” by the saying, “Since we daily sin, it is necessary to offer this Sacrament of the altar daily”; to say that Christ “is offered” in the Mass is the same as to say that he “dies” in it; the Mass is a “testament,” a “covenant,” and a “commemoration,” but not a “sacrifice”; it is “a ratifying to the weak that they have been redeemed through Christ, so that they may be assured of the remission of sins and firmly believe that Christ made satisfaction for sins on the cross, and in this faith may eat and drink His body and blood and recognise that His body and blood have been given to them that they may be assured of the grace and favour of God”; “when they eat and drink the body and blood of Christ in faith, their sins are remitted not otherwise than if Christ were now dying on the cross”; “Christ died and by His death established His testament towards us so as to give His own flesh for the food and His blood for the drink of our souls, so that our hope might have here a sure pledge and a sure sign that after death we also should be made partakers of that inheritance which by His blood He affirmed for us”; “the blood of Christ is given to us for drink that we may have a sign that what was once clone on the cross holds good and is effectual for ever”; the bread is “the figure of the body” and the wine is “the figure of the blood”; on the papal view “the blood or the body cannot fall to the ground even if the accidents fall”; “to take or approach unworthily does not mean to take while in a state of sin but to approach not duly, not with that faith which is required from those who are united into the body of Christ, not according to the institution of Christ”; “Christ’s body and blood are the food of the soul when the soul firmly believes that the body and blood of Christ are its salvation, pledge, and price of redemption before God”; “the body and blood of Christ are nothing else than the word of faith, namely, that His body which died for us and His blood which was shed for us on the cross redeemed us and reconciled us to God”; “when we firmly believe this, our soul is nourished and refreshed by the body and blood of Christ”; “it ought to be enough for us to believe that Jesus Christ is our redemption, the food and consolation of the soul”.

The Discussion on the Canon of the Mass, published in 1523, and the Reply to Emser, published in 1524, contain the same teaching as that in the Book of the Articles; in the Reply to Emser it is allowed that “the Eucharist is spiritual food, whereby those who believe that the death of Christ is their life fasten and join and unite themselves mutually into the one body of Christ”.

In the treatise On True and False Religion, published in 1525, the same doctrine is taught. Noticeable features are the assertion that the ideas of the reception of a body and of eating spiritually are inconsistent with one another; the explanation of the word “is” in the sentence “This is My body” as meaning “signifies”; the denial that the Eucharist is more than a “commemoration” and the eating of a “sign” or “figure”; and the rejection of any other spiritual body of Christ than the Church and the faith of Christians.

“Nor do we think that those are to be heard who say, We indeed eat the real and bodily flesh of Christ, but after a spiritual manner. For they fail to see that to be a body and to be eaten after a spiritual manner are inconsistent with one another; for body and spirit are so different that, whichever you take, the other cannot be.”

“The whole difficulty lies not in the pronoun ‘This’ but … in the verb ‘is’. For this word is often used in Holy Scripture in the sense of ‘signifies’.… This word ‘is’ is used in this place in the sense of ‘signifies’ in our judgment, although this is not our judgment but the judgment of the eternal God, for we cannot glory in anything which Christ has not wrought in us.”

“The Eucharist or Communion or Lord’s Supper is nothing else than a commemoration, whereby those who firmly believe that they have been reconciled to the Father by the death and blood of Christ announce this life-giving death, that is, praise it and glory in it and proclaim it.”

“To eat sacramentally can be nothing else than to eat the sign or figure.”

“They say, We adore and eat the spiritual body of Christ. What, by Great Jupiter, is the spiritual body of Christ? Is any other spiritual body of Christ anywhere found in Scripture than either the Church … or our faith, which believes that He paid the penalties for us on the cross and is assured of salvation through Him? Why do we load devout minds with words of this kind, which no understanding grasps? A spiritual body is just as much understood by a human being as if you spoke of a bodily mind or a fleshly reason. Do we not spiritually eat the body of Christ when we believe that He was slain for us, and trust Him? Are not spirit and life already in us? Why do we still join incompatiblef words simply to weave that long rope of strife? Let us plainly say, We eat spiritually when we come to Christ through the grace of God. Therefore, what else can spiritually eating the body of Christ be than trusting Christ?”

Like teaching is contained in the Aid Concerning the Eucharist, published in 1525, and the Clear Explanation of the Lord’s Supper, published in 1526. In the latter treatise the Eucharist is compared to a ring which reminds a wife of her absent husband and is the sign of her fidelity to him.

“Our Lord Jesus Christ willed that there should be a figure and memorial, so that we might never forget that boundless kindness whereby He subjected His body to all kinds of insults and at length deigned to give it up even to death, and that we should not only hold the remembrance of this fixed in our breasts but should also celebrate this ineffable kindness by public praise and solemn thanksgiving. To provide for this both more easily and with stronger love in our hearts, He commanded us to eat and drink this Sacrament, that is, the sign of His passion and death. This action is the figure that Christ deigned to give up His body to death for us, and to shed His blood to wash away our sins. For Christ ordained it in these words, ‘This is,’ that is, signifies, ‘My body,’ and ‘This is My blood’. This is just the same as if a wife, pointing to a ring of her husband which he had left with her, should say, This is my husband. When we celebrate the mystic action of this commemoration, we individually profess that we are of the number of those who place all the confidence of their souls in Christ Jesus.”

A somewhat similar comparison occurs in a sermon preached at Berne in 1528, in which Zwingli said:—

“A flower is more noble when it is put in the wreath of a bride than if it be used in some more common way, though as to its matter it is the same as the other flowers. One who takes from a king his signet ring is reckoned guilty of a far worse crime than if he had taken only so much gold, though the matter is no different at all. In like manner the matter of the bread is no different from all other ordinary bread, but the use of it and the dignity of the Supper give it an excellence far above that of ordinary bread.”

Further instances of the opinions of Zwingli may be taken from the Nature of the Faith, published in 1530, and the Exposition of the Christian Faith, published in 1531. In the Nature of the Faith, which was addressed to the Emperor Charles V., he wrote:—

“All Sacraments are so far from conferring grace that they do not even bring or dispense it.… Sacraments are given for a public testimony of that grace which is previously present to each individual.… By Baptism the Church publicly receives him who has previously been received by means of grace. Therefore Baptism does not bring grace, but it bears witness to the Church that he to whom it is given has received grace.… A Sacrament is a sign of a sacred thing, that is, of grace which has been given. I believe that it is the visible figure or form of the invisible grace which has been given and bestowed by the gift of God, that is, it is the visible example, which nevertheless has some kind of analogy to the thing which is done by the Spirit. I believe that it is the public testimony.… In the Holy Eucharist, that is, the Supper of thanksgiving, the real body of Christ is present by the contemplation of faith, that is, those who give thanks to the Lord for the benefit conferred on us in His Son recognise that He took real flesh, that in it He really suffered, that He really washed away our sins by His blood, and so that everything done by Christ becomes as it were present to them by the contemplation of faith. But that the body of Christ essentially and actually, that is, the natural body itself, is either present in the Supper or is committed to our mouth and teeth, as the papists and certain people who look back to the fleshpots of Egypt maintain, this we not only deny but we constantly affirm that it is an error which is opposed to the word of God.”

In the Exposition of the Christian Faith, addressed to Francis I., King of France, Zwingli wrote:—

“The opinion which asserts that the body of Christ is eaten in the Supper corporally, naturally, essentially, and even by way of dimensions is irreligious because it is alien from the truth; and whatever is alien from the truth is impious and irreligious.… To eat the body of Christ spiritually is nothing else than to lean in spirit and mind on the mercy and goodness of God through Christ, that is, with unshaken faith to be assured that God will give us pardon for sins and the joy of eternal blessedness for the sake of His Son, who became wholly ours and by being offered for us reconciled to us the righteousness of God.… To eat the body of Christ sacramentally, since we wish to speak distinctively, is to eat the body of Christ in mind and spirit with the addition of the Sacrament.… When you come to the Lord’s Supper together with the spiritual feeding and give thanks to the Lord for so great a benefit, for the deliverance of your soul, whereby you have been set free from the destruction of despair, and for the pledge whereby you have been assured of eternal blessedness, and together with the brethren partake of the bread and wine which are now the symbolical body of Christ, you eat distinctively sacramentally, when you do within the same as you do without, when the mind is refreshed by this faith to which you bear witness by the figures.”

“We believe that the real body of Christ is eaten sacramentally and spiritually in the Supper by the religious and faithful and holy mind.”

The fifteenth of the articles drawn up at the conference held at Marburg in October, 1529, illustrates the agreement and the difference between the Zwinglians and the Lutherans. It is there said:—

“We all believe and hold concerning the Supper of our dear Lord Jesus Christ that we should use both kinds according to the institution of Christ, that the Sacrament of the altar is a Sacrament of the real body and blood of Jesus Christ, and that the spiritual enjoyment of the self-same body and blood is ordained for every individual Christian, with especial reference to the needs of each one, in the use of the Sacrament as has been given and instituted by the word of Almighty God so as to move the weak consciences to faith through the Holy Ghost. As at present however we have not been able to agree whether the real body and blood of Christ are in bodily fashion present in the bread and wine, each party is to show to the other Christian love, so far as conscience can allow, and both parties are to pray diligently to Almighty God that He will grant us a right understanding through His Spirit. Amen.”

This article, together with the others agreed to at Marburg, was signed by Luther, Justus Jonas, Melanchthon, Osiander, Stephen Agricola, John Brenz, Oecolampadius, Zwingli, Bucer, and Caspar Hedio.