WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:03.040 Welcome back to The Deep Dive. So today we are 00:00:03.040 --> 00:00:05.679 tackling a subject that, honestly, it feels like 00:00:05.679 --> 00:00:08.080 a bit of a glaring omission in our history files. 00:00:08.359 --> 00:00:10.339 We often talk about the Protestant Reformation 00:00:10.339 --> 00:00:13.640 as a duet. You know, you've got Luther and Calvin, 00:00:13.839 --> 00:00:16.320 but it wasn't a duet. No, not at all. That was 00:00:16.320 --> 00:00:21.179 a trio. And the third man is, well, he's arguably 00:00:21.179 --> 00:00:23.579 the most complex, the most contradictory, and 00:00:23.579 --> 00:00:25.699 I think in many ways the most modern of the bunch. 00:00:26.000 --> 00:00:28.910 We're talking about Holdrick Zwinley. The third 00:00:28.910 --> 00:00:31.250 man of the Reformation. And it's funny, that 00:00:31.250 --> 00:00:34.310 title, it almost diminishes him a little, which 00:00:34.310 --> 00:00:37.429 is ironic because in his own time, he would not 00:00:37.429 --> 00:00:39.950 have accepted second place to anyone. Oh, absolutely 00:00:39.950 --> 00:00:42.310 not. And certainly not to Martin Luther. Exactly. 00:00:42.409 --> 00:00:45.070 And the more I dove into the source material 00:00:45.070 --> 00:00:47.270 for this one, the more I realized Zwingli is 00:00:47.270 --> 00:00:49.890 kind of the archetype for the entire Swiss identity. 00:00:50.189 --> 00:00:52.770 He won't wait. He's this fascinating mix of the 00:00:52.770 --> 00:00:55.799 intellectual and the militant. I mean. Here's 00:00:55.799 --> 00:00:59.299 a guy who was a master musician, a virtuoso, 00:00:59.479 --> 00:01:02.240 but he banned music in his own church. He was 00:01:02.240 --> 00:01:04.439 a humanist scholar who read Greek and Hebrew, 00:01:04.620 --> 00:01:07.319 but he died holding a battle axe on a battlefield. 00:01:07.799 --> 00:01:10.500 And of course, the big one, he started a theological 00:01:10.500 --> 00:01:14.560 revolution over a plate of smoked sausages. Sounds 00:01:14.560 --> 00:01:16.920 like a joke set up, doesn't it? A priest walks 00:01:16.920 --> 00:01:19.900 into a print shop. It really does. But that incident 00:01:19.900 --> 00:01:23.219 with the sausages is actually the perfect lens 00:01:23.219 --> 00:01:26.670 to view Zwingli. It wasn't just some prank. It 00:01:26.670 --> 00:01:29.849 was a calculated stress test of the entire medieval 00:01:29.849 --> 00:01:32.019 religious system. We are definitely going to 00:01:32.019 --> 00:01:34.620 unpack the sausages. But first, let's sort of 00:01:34.620 --> 00:01:36.680 set the mission for this dive. We aren't just 00:01:36.680 --> 00:01:39.599 recounting a biography here. We need to understand 00:01:39.599 --> 00:01:42.219 why Zwingli matters. Because when you look at 00:01:42.219 --> 00:01:44.420 the modern world and specifically the relationship 00:01:44.420 --> 00:01:47.819 between church and state and this idea of rationalism 00:01:47.819 --> 00:01:50.260 and faith, I mean, Zwingli's fingerprints are 00:01:50.260 --> 00:01:53.060 all over it. He really is. You know, if Luther 00:01:53.060 --> 00:01:55.319 is the heart of the Reformation, all that emotion 00:01:55.319 --> 00:01:57.920 and spiritual torment, and Calvin is the mind 00:01:57.920 --> 00:02:01.340 so systematic and frankly cold. then Zwingli 00:02:01.340 --> 00:02:04.120 is the will. He's the man of action. Our goal 00:02:04.120 --> 00:02:08.120 today is to really explore how his specific brand 00:02:08.120 --> 00:02:11.500 of reform shaped the Swiss Confederation and 00:02:11.500 --> 00:02:14.900 create a whole theological lineage that is completely 00:02:14.900 --> 00:02:17.900 distinct from Lutheranism. And we've got a massive 00:02:17.900 --> 00:02:20.289 stack of sources here. biographical records, 00:02:20.509 --> 00:02:23.389 military histories of the Swiss cantons, and 00:02:23.389 --> 00:02:26.169 some really deep theological breakdowns of, you 00:02:26.169 --> 00:02:28.610 know, the Marburg Colloquy. But for you, the 00:02:28.610 --> 00:02:31.849 listener, the why is simple. This is a story 00:02:31.849 --> 00:02:35.030 about the cost of intellectual consistency. Swingly 00:02:35.030 --> 00:02:37.430 followed his logic all the way to the end, even 00:02:37.430 --> 00:02:39.789 when it meant, well, killing his friends or dying 00:02:39.789 --> 00:02:42.189 on a battlefield. It's a tragedy in the classical 00:02:42.189 --> 00:02:44.370 sense of the word. It's about a man who tried 00:02:44.370 --> 00:02:47.030 to build the kingdom of God using the tools of 00:02:47.030 --> 00:02:49.340 the city of man. Let's rewind then, right back 00:02:49.340 --> 00:02:51.199 to the beginning. Because to understand Zwingli, 00:02:51.259 --> 00:02:53.060 you have to understand the Switzerland he was 00:02:53.060 --> 00:02:55.939 born into. And it is not the neutral chocolate 00:02:55.939 --> 00:02:58.159 and banking capital we think of today. Oh, not 00:02:58.159 --> 00:03:00.639 even close. Far from it. We are looking at the 00:03:00.639 --> 00:03:03.580 old Swiss Confederacy. And it was this loose, 00:03:03.659 --> 00:03:06.159 very rough and tumble collection of cantons. 00:03:06.259 --> 00:03:08.900 Some were rural, you know, these forest cantons. 00:03:08.900 --> 00:03:11.360 Others were more urban city cantons. And they 00:03:11.360 --> 00:03:13.250 were tough. I mean, these were mountain people 00:03:13.250 --> 00:03:16.050 who had recently thrown off the yoke of the Habsburgs. 00:03:16.050 --> 00:03:18.870 And Zwingli was born right into this rugged environment, 00:03:19.169 --> 00:03:23.110 January 1st, 1484, in the Togenberg Valley. His 00:03:23.110 --> 00:03:25.590 father, though, he isn't just a peasant farmer. 00:03:25.750 --> 00:03:27.650 He's the Ant -Man. Right. And the distinction 00:03:27.650 --> 00:03:30.389 is crucial. The Ant -Man is the chief magistrate. 00:03:31.400 --> 00:03:33.960 So Zwingli wasn't growing up in some powerless 00:03:33.960 --> 00:03:37.080 household. He watched his father administer justice, 00:03:37.400 --> 00:03:40.479 manage community affairs, navigate all the local 00:03:40.479 --> 00:03:44.219 politics. So from day one. From day one, Holdrake 00:03:44.219 --> 00:03:47.039 sees that authority is something you wield. It's 00:03:47.039 --> 00:03:49.539 not just something you submit to. And he's clearly 00:03:49.539 --> 00:03:51.879 a prodigy. I mean, they ship him off for schooling 00:03:51.879 --> 00:03:54.500 almost immediately. He goes to Basel when he's 00:03:54.500 --> 00:03:57.379 just 10 years old, then to Bern. And Bern is 00:03:57.379 --> 00:03:59.960 where we almost lose him to history. The Dominican 00:03:59.960 --> 00:04:02.479 incident. The great sliding doors moment of his 00:04:02.479 --> 00:04:04.580 life. The Dominicans were a preaching order, 00:04:04.759 --> 00:04:06.979 very intellectual, but they were always scouting 00:04:06.979 --> 00:04:10.120 for talent. They hear this young boy. He's brilliant. 00:04:10.340 --> 00:04:12.879 And apparently he has this absolutely angelic 00:04:12.879 --> 00:04:15.500 singing voice. And they want him. They tried 00:04:15.500 --> 00:04:17.459 to recruit him as a novice. They wanted to lock 00:04:17.459 --> 00:04:19.639 him away in the cloister. Exactly. And if that 00:04:19.639 --> 00:04:22.899 had happened, Swingly likely becomes a footnote 00:04:22.899 --> 00:04:25.939 in history. You know, some talented monk conducting 00:04:25.939 --> 00:04:28.560 a choir somewhere in a monastery. Yeah. But his 00:04:28.560 --> 00:04:31.220 father and his uncle Bartholomew, who was a cleric 00:04:31.220 --> 00:04:34.040 himself, they intervene. They realize that the 00:04:34.040 --> 00:04:36.399 Dominican order would just swallow him whole. 00:04:36.620 --> 00:04:39.089 They wanted him to serve the community. Not just 00:04:39.089 --> 00:04:41.629 a specific order. So they yanked him out of Bern. 00:04:41.750 --> 00:04:43.629 Which sends him off to university in Vienna and 00:04:43.629 --> 00:04:46.050 then Basel. He gets his Master of Arts in 1506. 00:04:46.910 --> 00:04:49.009 But we have to talk about the music. You mentioned 00:04:49.009 --> 00:04:51.810 his voice, but the sources list a, I mean, a 00:04:51.810 --> 00:04:54.110 staggering number of instruments he could play. 00:04:54.290 --> 00:04:57.509 It's an entire orchestra in one person. The violin, 00:04:57.670 --> 00:04:59.670 the harp, the flute, the dulcimer, the lute, 00:04:59.730 --> 00:05:02.269 the hunting horn. His enemies later mocked him, 00:05:02.329 --> 00:05:05.430 calling him the evangelical lute player. Wow. 00:05:05.819 --> 00:05:08.540 He was a complete virtuoso. Music was just in 00:05:08.540 --> 00:05:10.920 his bones. Which makes the later silence of the 00:05:10.920 --> 00:05:12.920 churches so much more profound. It wasn't that 00:05:12.920 --> 00:05:15.540 he hated music, it's that he sacrificed it. Exactly. 00:05:15.680 --> 00:05:17.660 But before he becomes a reformer, he becomes 00:05:17.660 --> 00:05:20.899 a priest. He's ordained in 1506 and gets his 00:05:20.899 --> 00:05:24.079 first post in Glarus. And this is where we encounter 00:05:24.079 --> 00:05:27.079 the dark underbelly of the Swiss economy at the 00:05:27.079 --> 00:05:30.000 time, the mercenary system. This is a piece of 00:05:30.000 --> 00:05:33.120 context we absolutely cannot skip. In the early 00:05:33.120 --> 00:05:36.920 16th century, Switzerland's main export wasn't 00:05:36.920 --> 00:05:40.459 cheese or chocolate. Right. It was blood. The 00:05:40.459 --> 00:05:43.339 Swiss pikemen were the most feared infantry in 00:05:43.339 --> 00:05:45.339 Europe. They had developed these pike square 00:05:45.339 --> 00:05:47.939 formations that could stop a cow recharge cold. 00:05:48.560 --> 00:05:50.480 And the cantons were basically renting these 00:05:50.480 --> 00:05:52.519 armies out to the highest bidder. It was big 00:05:52.519 --> 00:05:54.240 business. They called it the pension system. 00:05:54.319 --> 00:05:56.720 So kings of France, the pope, the holy Roman 00:05:56.720 --> 00:05:59.019 emperor, they would pay these massive pensions, 00:05:59.019 --> 00:06:01.860 which were really just bribes, to the politicians 00:06:01.860 --> 00:06:04.839 and cantons to secure these soldiers. A corrupt 00:06:04.839 --> 00:06:07.720 system. Oh, deeply corrupt. It enriched the elite 00:06:07.720 --> 00:06:10.519 while the young men, the farmer's sons, went 00:06:10.519 --> 00:06:13.389 off to die in Italian mud. And Zwingli is right 00:06:13.389 --> 00:06:15.290 there in the mud with them. He's a chaplain. 00:06:15.290 --> 00:06:17.149 He's not sitting in a comfortable rectory. He's 00:06:17.149 --> 00:06:19.529 marching over the Alps with the troops. He is 00:06:19.529 --> 00:06:22.189 seeing the carnage firsthand. He's at the Battle 00:06:22.189 --> 00:06:24.670 of Novara in 1513, which was actually a Swiss 00:06:24.670 --> 00:06:28.329 victory, but then came Marignano in 1515. Marignano 00:06:28.329 --> 00:06:30.350 was a slaughter. It was called the Battle of 00:06:30.350 --> 00:06:34.069 Giants. The Swiss were just... decimated by French 00:06:34.069 --> 00:06:36.910 artillery and armored cavalry. Thousands of young 00:06:36.910 --> 00:06:40.009 Swiss men, boys that Zwingli probably knew by 00:06:40.009 --> 00:06:43.089 name, whose confessions he had heard were hacked 00:06:43.089 --> 00:06:45.550 to pieces. That has to change a man. I mean, 00:06:45.569 --> 00:06:47.290 you can't see that and then go back to preaching 00:06:47.290 --> 00:06:50.069 about tides like nothing happened. It radicalized 00:06:50.069 --> 00:06:52.810 him. But what's interesting is it first radicalized 00:06:52.810 --> 00:06:55.100 his politics. He realized that the Swiss were 00:06:55.100 --> 00:06:57.019 selling themselves. He writes these allegories, 00:06:57.100 --> 00:06:59.920 one called the Ox and another called the Labyrinth. 00:06:59.920 --> 00:07:01.879 And he's basically screaming at his countrymen, 00:07:01.959 --> 00:07:04.819 why are we dying for foreign kings? Why are we 00:07:04.819 --> 00:07:07.579 letting the French or the Pope use us as pawns 00:07:07.579 --> 00:07:09.680 on their chessboard? So this is the birth of 00:07:09.680 --> 00:07:13.339 his patriotism. He wants a neutral, united Switzerland. 00:07:13.680 --> 00:07:16.199 But Marignano does something else. It pushes 00:07:16.199 --> 00:07:18.120 him toward the French side for a little while, 00:07:18.259 --> 00:07:20.899 but ultimately it just... completely sours him 00:07:20.899 --> 00:07:22.720 on the whole concept of the mercenary trade. 00:07:23.079 --> 00:07:25.740 And this political awakening, it coincides with 00:07:25.740 --> 00:07:28.500 an intellectual one. He moves to Einsiedeln in 00:07:28.500 --> 00:07:31.600 1516. Right. Einsiedeln was a pilgrimage site 00:07:31.600 --> 00:07:34.560 famous for its Black Madonna. It's much quieter 00:07:34.560 --> 00:07:38.379 than Glarus. And here, Zwingli does what any 00:07:38.379 --> 00:07:40.339 good scholar does when they finally have some 00:07:40.339 --> 00:07:43.800 free time. He reads. And specifically, he reads 00:07:43.800 --> 00:07:47.240 Erasmus. Yes. Erasmus of Rotterdam. We need to 00:07:47.240 --> 00:07:49.519 define this properly, though. When we say humanist 00:07:49.519 --> 00:07:52.120 in the 21st century, people often think secular 00:07:52.120 --> 00:07:54.459 humanist, maybe even atheist. That's not what 00:07:54.459 --> 00:07:56.980 this was. Not at all. Renaissance humanism was 00:07:56.980 --> 00:07:59.420 a deeply Christian movement. It was a movement 00:07:59.420 --> 00:08:01.540 that said, look, the Middle Ages have covered 00:08:01.540 --> 00:08:04.199 up the truth with layers of tradition, bad Latin 00:08:04.199 --> 00:08:06.740 translations and a lot of superstition. We need 00:08:06.740 --> 00:08:10.060 to go back to the source. The motto was ad fontes 00:08:10.060 --> 00:08:12.959 to the fountains. So for a guy like Erasmus and 00:08:12.959 --> 00:08:15.240 now for Zwingli, going back to the source meant 00:08:15.240 --> 00:08:17.759 learning Greek. It meant realizing that the Latin 00:08:17.759 --> 00:08:20.399 Vulgate Bible, which was the only Bible the church 00:08:20.399 --> 00:08:22.860 had used for a thousand years, was full of errors. 00:08:23.519 --> 00:08:26.180 Zwingli becomes obsessed. He copies out the epistles 00:08:26.180 --> 00:08:29.620 of Paul in Greek by hand. He memorizes them. 00:08:29.779 --> 00:08:32.820 Wow. And he starts to see that what is in the 00:08:32.820 --> 00:08:34.659 New Testament and what is actually happening 00:08:34.659 --> 00:08:36.980 in the Catholic Church are two very, very different 00:08:36.980 --> 00:08:39.759 things. So this is the powder keg. The politics 00:08:39.759 --> 00:08:42.419 of the mercenary trade provided the anger, the 00:08:42.419 --> 00:08:45.360 outrage, but the Greek New Testament provided 00:08:45.360 --> 00:08:48.279 the ammunition. That is perfectly put. He's building 00:08:48.279 --> 00:08:51.299 an arsenal of ideas. And he claims later that 00:08:51.299 --> 00:08:53.620 he started preaching the true gospel around this 00:08:53.620 --> 00:08:56.320 time, 1516, completely independent of Martin 00:08:56.320 --> 00:08:58.480 Luther. Right. That's a huge point of contention, 00:08:58.500 --> 00:09:00.759 isn't it? The whole who was first debate. It 00:09:00.759 --> 00:09:03.379 is. Zwingli was always adamant. He said, I did 00:09:03.379 --> 00:09:05.320 not learn from Luther. I learned from the word 00:09:05.320 --> 00:09:07.450 of God. He really wanted to establish that the 00:09:07.450 --> 00:09:09.850 Swiss Reformation was homegrown, that it wasn't 00:09:09.850 --> 00:09:11.929 an import from Germany. But practically speaking. 00:09:12.389 --> 00:09:16.309 Practically speaking, Luther broke the ice. Luther 00:09:16.309 --> 00:09:20.129 posted his theses in 1517 and took all the initial 00:09:20.129 --> 00:09:23.350 heat. Zwingli definitely benefited from the space 00:09:23.350 --> 00:09:26.009 that Luther created. So now we have this radicalized, 00:09:26.029 --> 00:09:28.669 Greek -reading, battle -hardened priest. And 00:09:28.669 --> 00:09:30.950 he gets the biggest pulpit in the entire region. 00:09:31.490 --> 00:09:34.610 Late 1518, he's called to be the people's priest. 00:09:35.159 --> 00:09:37.799 The lute priester at the Grossminster in Zurich. 00:09:38.000 --> 00:09:39.519 And this was a political appointment, make no 00:09:39.519 --> 00:09:41.919 mistake. Yeah. The Zurich council wanted him 00:09:41.919 --> 00:09:44.379 because he was anti -French. They knew he was 00:09:44.379 --> 00:09:46.460 a powerful, charismatic preacher. There were 00:09:46.460 --> 00:09:49.360 some rumors about his private life. A barber's 00:09:49.360 --> 00:09:51.179 daughter was mentioned. But they overlooked it. 00:09:51.299 --> 00:09:53.320 Why? Because they wanted his political voice. 00:09:53.399 --> 00:09:55.419 They wanted his influence. He arrives in Zurich 00:09:55.419 --> 00:09:59.019 in December of 1518. And on January 1st, 1519, 00:09:59.179 --> 00:10:01.340 his 35th birthday, he steps into the pulpit. 00:10:01.519 --> 00:10:04.019 The congregation is expecting the standard routine. 00:10:04.639 --> 00:10:06.480 You know, read the assigned snippet for the Sunday, 00:10:06.639 --> 00:10:09.000 say a few nice words, go home. The lectionary. 00:10:09.539 --> 00:10:11.860 It was the safe, curated path through the Bible 00:10:11.860 --> 00:10:14.279 that the church had laid out for centuries. And 00:10:14.279 --> 00:10:16.919 Zwingli just ignores it. Completely ignores it. 00:10:16.980 --> 00:10:19.279 He opens the Gospel of Matthew to chapter 1, 00:10:19.340 --> 00:10:23.100 verse 1, the genealogy of Christ. All those begats. 00:10:23.500 --> 00:10:26.179 And he says, we are going to read this whole 00:10:26.179 --> 00:10:29.059 thing from start to finish. Lectio continua. 00:10:29.379 --> 00:10:32.740 It sounds so minor to us now, but it was a profound 00:10:32.740 --> 00:10:36.100 act of rebellion. He was saying the church calendar 00:10:36.100 --> 00:10:39.120 doesn't determine what we hear. The text determines 00:10:39.120 --> 00:10:41.240 what we hear. Which means he couldn't skip the 00:10:41.240 --> 00:10:43.539 hard parts. Right. He preached straight through 00:10:43.539 --> 00:10:46.100 Matthew, then the book of Acts, then the epistles. 00:10:46.279 --> 00:10:49.000 He was exposing the people of Zurich to the full, 00:10:49.059 --> 00:10:52.100 unfiltered Bible in their own Swiss German dialect, 00:10:52.379 --> 00:10:54.639 probably for the first time in their lives. And 00:10:54.639 --> 00:10:56.899 the people ate it up. They'd been starved for 00:10:56.899 --> 00:10:58.899 this kind of direct engagement. But then just 00:10:58.899 --> 00:11:01.559 eight months later, the world nearly ends, August 00:11:01.559 --> 00:11:05.159 1519. The plague hits Zurich. And we are not 00:11:05.159 --> 00:11:07.440 talking about a mild flu season. This is the 00:11:07.440 --> 00:11:09.779 Black Death. It kills a quarter of the city's 00:11:09.779 --> 00:11:11.980 population in a matter of months. The streets 00:11:11.980 --> 00:11:14.299 are empty except for the dead carts. The smell 00:11:14.299 --> 00:11:16.860 of burning juniper and, you know, death is everywhere. 00:11:17.120 --> 00:11:20.179 And Zwingli stays. He stays. He visits the sick. 00:11:20.299 --> 00:11:23.820 He comforts the dying. And inevitably, he collapses. 00:11:23.840 --> 00:11:26.500 He contracts the plague. He's delirious, fading 00:11:26.500 --> 00:11:29.019 in and out of consciousness. The rumors actually 00:11:29.019 --> 00:11:31.419 started to spread that he had died. But he survives. 00:11:31.700 --> 00:11:34.139 And he writes the pestle, the plague song. The 00:11:34.139 --> 00:11:36.700 verses are just incredibly raw. Do as thou wilt, 00:11:36.779 --> 00:11:39.340 for I lack nothing. Thy vessel am I, to make 00:11:39.340 --> 00:11:42.159 or break altogether. That moment is the crucible. 00:11:42.759 --> 00:11:45.480 Before the plague, Zwingli was a reformer and 00:11:45.480 --> 00:11:48.419 a scholar. After the plague, he sees himself 00:11:48.419 --> 00:11:51.480 as a prophet. He believes God spared him for 00:11:51.480 --> 00:11:56.139 a specific mission. That vessel imagery is key. 00:11:56.340 --> 00:11:58.600 He no longer feels he has the right to compromise 00:11:58.600 --> 00:12:01.559 because his life isn't his own anymore. It belongs 00:12:01.559 --> 00:12:04.399 to God. It has a purpose. So the vessel is ready 00:12:04.399 --> 00:12:06.899 to be poured out. He recovers and he just starts 00:12:06.899 --> 00:12:08.899 hammering at the cracks in the church structure. 00:12:09.080 --> 00:12:12.259 He attacks indulgences. He attacks tithing, which 00:12:12.259 --> 00:12:13.639 really, really annoyed the church authorities 00:12:13.639 --> 00:12:15.940 because that's their revenue stream. He argued 00:12:15.940 --> 00:12:18.220 that tithing wasn't in the New Testament, so 00:12:18.220 --> 00:12:20.840 it should be voluntary, not compulsory. You can 00:12:20.840 --> 00:12:22.399 imagine how well that went over with the bishop. 00:12:22.860 --> 00:12:25.580 But Zwingli is smart. He doesn't just yell from 00:12:25.580 --> 00:12:28.610 the pulpit. He uses the city council. He's slowly 00:12:28.610 --> 00:12:31.350 convincing the Zurich politicians that they should 00:12:31.350 --> 00:12:33.769 be the ones making these decisions, not some 00:12:33.769 --> 00:12:36.230 bishop in Constance or a pope in Rome. Which 00:12:36.230 --> 00:12:40.490 brings us to 1522, the Lenten season, and the 00:12:40.490 --> 00:12:43.429 famous affair of the sausages. I feel like this 00:12:43.429 --> 00:12:46.110 story often gets told as, you know, Zwingli likes 00:12:46.110 --> 00:12:48.909 snacks, but it's so much more than that. It's 00:12:48.909 --> 00:12:51.870 a deliberate provocation, a planned event. It's 00:12:51.870 --> 00:12:55.149 Lent. Eating meat is forbidden under pain of 00:12:55.149 --> 00:12:57.990 mortal sin. Christoph Froschauer, who is the 00:12:57.990 --> 00:13:00.590 main printer for the Reformation, hosts a gathering 00:13:00.590 --> 00:13:02.730 at his workshop. They've been working hard. They're 00:13:02.730 --> 00:13:04.669 hungry. And someone brings out smoked sausages. 00:13:04.929 --> 00:13:06.990 Exactly. They cut them up. They pass them around. 00:13:07.210 --> 00:13:09.850 Yeah. And they eat them, openly defying the fast. 00:13:10.090 --> 00:13:12.169 And Zwingli is there. The sources say he doesn't 00:13:12.169 --> 00:13:14.269 eat, but he watches. And the very next day, he 00:13:14.269 --> 00:13:17.610 defends them. He preaches and then publishes 00:13:17.610 --> 00:13:19.750 a sermon called Regarding the Choice and Freedom 00:13:19.750 --> 00:13:22.549 of Foods. And here is the core of his argument. 00:13:23.500 --> 00:13:26.639 The Bible does not forbid eating meat in Lent. 00:13:26.820 --> 00:13:29.940 The church forbids it. Since the church is just 00:13:29.940 --> 00:13:32.080 made up of men and the Bible is the word of God, 00:13:32.240 --> 00:13:36.039 you are free. Christian liberty. Exactly. It 00:13:36.039 --> 00:13:38.899 seems so trivial, sausages. But the implication 00:13:38.899 --> 00:13:41.700 is nuclear. If the church has no authority to 00:13:41.700 --> 00:13:44.000 ban sausage, what else does it have no authority 00:13:44.000 --> 00:13:47.159 to do? Can it demand clerical celibacy? Can it 00:13:47.159 --> 00:13:49.399 demand you buy indulgences? He was pulling the 00:13:49.399 --> 00:13:51.419 thread that would unravel the entire sweater. 00:13:51.620 --> 00:13:54.159 That's it. And he didn't stop at sausages. He 00:13:54.159 --> 00:13:56.179 immediately pivots to the issue of celibacy. 00:13:56.500 --> 00:13:59.139 Which, to be fair, was a little bit self -serving. 00:13:59.220 --> 00:14:01.259 Because he was already secretly married. It was 00:14:01.259 --> 00:14:03.899 the worst kept secret in Zurich. He had married 00:14:03.899 --> 00:14:06.220 Anna Reinhardt, a widow. They were living together. 00:14:06.480 --> 00:14:08.580 This was actually pretty common. Many priests 00:14:08.580 --> 00:14:12.340 had housekeepers or concubines. But Zwingli wanted 00:14:12.340 --> 00:14:14.659 to make it honest. He petitions the bishop to 00:14:14.659 --> 00:14:17.179 allow priests to marry, arguing again from scripture. 00:14:17.419 --> 00:14:19.820 The Bible doesn't forbid it. And the bishop, 00:14:19.860 --> 00:14:22.779 of course, says no. So Zwingli... Place his trump 00:14:22.779 --> 00:14:25.019 card. He doesn't appeal to the pope. He turns 00:14:25.019 --> 00:14:27.519 to the Zurich City Council. He basically invites 00:14:27.519 --> 00:14:30.019 the bishop to a public debate, the first Zurich 00:14:30.019 --> 00:14:33.879 disputation in January of 1523. This is the moment 00:14:33.879 --> 00:14:36.019 the Swiss Reformation becomes a legal reality. 00:14:36.419 --> 00:14:39.259 The council sets the terms. And the standard 00:14:39.259 --> 00:14:42.580 for the debate is scripture alone. All arguments 00:14:42.580 --> 00:14:45.360 must be based on the Bible. The bishop's representative, 00:14:45.620 --> 00:14:48.600 a man named Johannes Fabri, shows up thinking 00:14:48.600 --> 00:14:50.480 he just needs to assert the church's authority. 00:14:50.909 --> 00:14:52.970 You know, I represent the church, so you listen 00:14:52.970 --> 00:14:56.110 to me. But Zwingli shows up with his 67 articles. 00:14:56.450 --> 00:14:59.690 He's prepared. He's ready to rumble. Fabry is 00:14:59.690 --> 00:15:01.970 completely outmatched and, frankly, outmaneuvered. 00:15:01.990 --> 00:15:04.649 He refuses to debate serious theology with a 00:15:04.649 --> 00:15:07.149 bunch of laymen on a city council. He keeps saying, 00:15:07.190 --> 00:15:09.330 we should take this to a proper university. We 00:15:09.330 --> 00:15:11.490 should take this to the pope. And Zwingli's response? 00:15:11.870 --> 00:15:14.330 Zwingli basically says, no, the Bible is right 00:15:14.330 --> 00:15:16.110 here. We can all read. The council can decide. 00:15:16.330 --> 00:15:19.610 And the council does decide. They ruled that 00:15:19.610 --> 00:15:22.269 Zwingli can continue preaching the gospel as 00:15:22.269 --> 00:15:25.870 he has been. It's a coup, an absolute coup. The 00:15:25.870 --> 00:15:28.070 city of Zurich has effectively declared that 00:15:28.070 --> 00:15:30.809 it has the final say on religion, not the Bishop 00:15:30.809 --> 00:15:33.029 of Constance. And this is the birth of the state 00:15:33.029 --> 00:15:35.289 church in the Reformed tradition. It's a huge 00:15:35.289 --> 00:15:38.009 moment. Zwingli essentially hands the keys of 00:15:38.009 --> 00:15:40.570 the kingdom to the magistrate. He believed a 00:15:40.570 --> 00:15:43.009 Christian city council was the legitimate arm 00:15:43.009 --> 00:15:45.870 of God on earth. So once he has that green light, 00:15:45.950 --> 00:15:50.090 he just floors it. The period from 1523 to 1525 00:15:50.090 --> 00:15:53.730 is a whirlwind of change. We see the regulative 00:15:53.730 --> 00:15:55.909 principle come into play. And this is a major, 00:15:55.950 --> 00:15:58.070 major difference from Luther. A huge difference. 00:15:58.289 --> 00:16:00.750 Luther's rule was basically, if the Bible doesn't 00:16:00.750 --> 00:16:03.039 forbid it, you can keep it. That's why Lutheran 00:16:03.039 --> 00:16:05.200 churches today still have altars and candles 00:16:05.200 --> 00:16:07.820 and vestments and sometimes even incense. Okay. 00:16:08.059 --> 00:16:10.460 Zwingli's rule was the opposite. If the Bible 00:16:10.460 --> 00:16:13.019 doesn't explicitly command it, you must get rid 00:16:13.019 --> 00:16:16.000 of it. Which leads directly to the second disputation 00:16:16.000 --> 00:16:18.559 and the stripping of the altars. Iconoclasm. 00:16:19.539 --> 00:16:22.159 Zwingli's followers, led by men like his friend 00:16:22.159 --> 00:16:24.799 Leo Judd, start removing all the images from 00:16:24.799 --> 00:16:27.340 the churches. Statues are smashed. Paintings 00:16:27.340 --> 00:16:29.700 are taken down. Relics are dug up and buried. 00:16:29.899 --> 00:16:32.500 They whitewash the walls. Why? I mean, to us, 00:16:32.500 --> 00:16:34.399 that just looks like vandalism. It looks like 00:16:34.399 --> 00:16:37.299 destroying priceless art. To them, it was destroying 00:16:37.299 --> 00:16:39.620 idolatry. And Zwingli believed very strongly 00:16:39.620 --> 00:16:41.860 in the principle of finitum non capax infiniti. 00:16:42.059 --> 00:16:45.000 The finite cannot contain the infinite. You cannot 00:16:45.000 --> 00:16:47.600 trap God in a statue. You cannot trap God in 00:16:47.600 --> 00:16:49.940 a piece of bread. And if you try, you end up 00:16:49.940 --> 00:16:52.299 worshiping the object, not the creator. It's 00:16:52.299 --> 00:16:54.620 a distraction from true worship. And the ultimate 00:16:54.620 --> 00:16:57.179 distraction in his mind was the music. This one 00:16:57.179 --> 00:16:58.759 still breaks my heart. The man who played the 00:16:58.759 --> 00:17:00.759 lute and the harp who had the voice of an angel. 00:17:01.549 --> 00:17:04.390 He silences the church. He bans it all. No organ, 00:17:04.529 --> 00:17:08.069 no choir, no congregational singing. For Zwingli, 00:17:08.130 --> 00:17:10.049 worship was a purely intellectual act. It was 00:17:10.049 --> 00:17:11.970 about conscious attendance to the word of God 00:17:11.970 --> 00:17:14.630 being preached. He felt that beautiful polyphony 00:17:14.630 --> 00:17:17.269 and Latin chanting just lulled people into a 00:17:17.269 --> 00:17:19.809 kind of sensual stupor. You're feeling the music, 00:17:19.809 --> 00:17:21.930 not thinking about the text. So the organs are 00:17:21.930 --> 00:17:25.099 smashed. The organist at the Grossminster is 00:17:25.099 --> 00:17:28.420 literally weeping as they dismantle his instrument 00:17:28.420 --> 00:17:31.880 piece by piece. The church becomes this stark, 00:17:32.119 --> 00:17:35.880 white, silent space. Just the sound of the preacher's 00:17:35.880 --> 00:17:38.759 voice reading the Bible. It was radical austerity. 00:17:38.759 --> 00:17:41.220 And they didn't just strip the church interior. 00:17:41.359 --> 00:17:43.619 They stripped the social structure. They took 00:17:43.619 --> 00:17:45.700 the wealth of the monasteries, which was vast, 00:17:45.960 --> 00:17:48.700 and they seized it. But they didn't just pocket 00:17:48.700 --> 00:17:51.240 it. No. They created what was called the mush 00:17:51.240 --> 00:17:53.869 haven or the convent. They used the money for 00:17:53.869 --> 00:17:56.549 poor relief. They turned monasteries into hospitals 00:17:56.549 --> 00:17:58.829 and schools for the needy. This is the prophecy 00:17:58.829 --> 00:18:01.069 or prophesy, right? Yes. They set up a system 00:18:01.069 --> 00:18:03.349 of daily Bible study and translation work. This 00:18:03.349 --> 00:18:05.150 is where the famous Zurich Bible comes from. 00:18:05.309 --> 00:18:08.349 It was printed in 1531, complete with a foreword 00:18:08.349 --> 00:18:10.890 by Zwingli himself. It became this incredible 00:18:10.890 --> 00:18:13.369 hub of scholarship that rivaled anything else 00:18:13.369 --> 00:18:15.779 in Europe at the time. So Zwingli has won. He 00:18:15.779 --> 00:18:18.000 has the city. He has his theology. He has the 00:18:18.000 --> 00:18:20.680 Bible translated. But revolutions always have 00:18:20.680 --> 00:18:23.180 a way of spinning out of control. And Zwingli 00:18:23.180 --> 00:18:25.799 is about to learn that you can't teach people 00:18:25.799 --> 00:18:28.220 to question authority and then expect them to 00:18:28.220 --> 00:18:30.980 stop questioning your authority. Enter the Anabaptists. 00:18:31.079 --> 00:18:33.380 Yeah. And this is, without a doubt, the darkest 00:18:33.380 --> 00:18:35.359 chapter of Zwingli's life. And these weren't 00:18:35.359 --> 00:18:38.119 strangers. These were his students. Conrad Grebel, 00:18:38.279 --> 00:18:40.259 Felix Mantz. These were the guys who sat in his 00:18:40.259 --> 00:18:41.839 living room. They learned Greek from him. They 00:18:41.839 --> 00:18:44.339 were his disciples. Yeah. And they did exactly 00:18:44.339 --> 00:18:46.339 what he had taught them to do. They read the 00:18:46.339 --> 00:18:48.519 New Testament for themselves. And they came to 00:18:48.519 --> 00:18:51.319 him and they said, Master Zwingli, we have looked 00:18:51.319 --> 00:18:53.779 everywhere in the Greek text and we cannot find 00:18:53.779 --> 00:18:56.339 a single instance of a baby being baptized. Right. 00:18:56.619 --> 00:18:58.859 It's always believe and be baptized. Babies can't 00:18:58.859 --> 00:19:01.279 believe. So why are we baptizing them? That's 00:19:01.279 --> 00:19:04.200 a logic trap. Zwingli is cornered by his own 00:19:04.200 --> 00:19:06.680 regulative principle. If the Bible doesn't command 00:19:06.680 --> 00:19:09.500 it, we don't do it. The Bible does not command 00:19:09.500 --> 00:19:11.900 infant baptism. Theologically, he was stuck. 00:19:12.910 --> 00:19:15.670 But politically, politically, he was terrified. 00:19:15.789 --> 00:19:18.150 You have to understand, in the 16th century, 00:19:18.349 --> 00:19:21.250 baptism wasn't just a religious right. It was 00:19:21.250 --> 00:19:23.650 your social security number. It was your certificate 00:19:23.650 --> 00:19:26.410 of citizenship. If you weren't baptized, you 00:19:26.410 --> 00:19:28.109 weren't on the tax rolls, you weren't a citizen, 00:19:28.269 --> 00:19:30.329 you couldn't be drafted into the army. So if 00:19:30.329 --> 00:19:31.930 you stopped baptizing babies, you completely 00:19:31.930 --> 00:19:34.650 unraveled the state. Exactly. And Zwingli had 00:19:34.650 --> 00:19:36.670 just finished tying the church directly to the 00:19:36.670 --> 00:19:38.650 state council. He couldn't allow a movement that 00:19:38.650 --> 00:19:41.890 uncoupled them. So he hedges. He comes up with 00:19:41.890 --> 00:19:44.170 this argument that baptism in the new covenant 00:19:44.170 --> 00:19:47.150 replaces circumcision in the Old Testament. It's 00:19:47.150 --> 00:19:48.809 a covenant sign for the children of believers. 00:19:49.049 --> 00:19:51.130 But Manz and Grebel aren't buying it. Not for 00:19:51.130 --> 00:19:53.269 a second. They call him a hypocrite. They say 00:19:53.269 --> 00:19:54.789 he's compromising with the Turks on the city 00:19:54.789 --> 00:19:57.230 council, selling out the pure gospel for political 00:19:57.230 --> 00:19:59.750 power. So they escalate. We escalate. January 00:19:59.750 --> 00:20:03.769 21st, 1525. In the house of Felix Manz's mother, 00:20:03.950 --> 00:20:07.250 they pray. And then a man named George Blaurock 00:20:07.250 --> 00:20:11.269 asks Conrad Grebel to baptize him. Adult baptism. 00:20:11.490 --> 00:20:14.089 It was illegal. It was heresy. And they did it. 00:20:14.150 --> 00:20:17.190 The re -baptizers. The Anabaptists. The city 00:20:17.190 --> 00:20:19.970 council panicked. They arrested them. They tried 00:20:19.970 --> 00:20:22.509 to debate them, but the Anabaptists were stubborn. 00:20:23.190 --> 00:20:25.569 Zwingli tried to talk them down, but the rift 00:20:25.569 --> 00:20:28.349 was just too deep. Finally, the council issued 00:20:28.349 --> 00:20:31.509 the notorious mandate. Anyone who re -baptizes 00:20:31.509 --> 00:20:33.529 another person shall be put to death by drowning. 00:20:33.730 --> 00:20:36.769 And Zwingli, he let it happen. He did. Felix 00:20:36.769 --> 00:20:39.420 Mann's his former student, his friend. January 00:20:39.420 --> 00:20:43.259 5, 1527. They took him out on a boat onto the 00:20:43.259 --> 00:20:45.259 Limat River. They bound his hands behind his 00:20:45.259 --> 00:20:48.079 knees with a stick. A preacher stood by, trying 00:20:48.079 --> 00:20:50.700 to get him to recant one last time. And he refused. 00:20:51.059 --> 00:20:53.839 He refused. He sang out in Latin. Into your hands, 00:20:53.900 --> 00:20:55.980 father. I commend my spirit. And they pushed 00:20:55.980 --> 00:20:58.579 him overboard. The executioner sneered. He likes 00:20:58.579 --> 00:21:00.380 water so much. Let him have it. They drowned 00:21:00.380 --> 00:21:03.339 him. It was this grotesque, cruel parody of baptism. 00:21:03.700 --> 00:21:06.480 And Zwingli stood by. He justified it as necessary 00:21:06.480 --> 00:21:08.759 for the order and stability of the state. It 00:21:08.759 --> 00:21:10.660 shows the absolute limit of his idea of freedom. 00:21:10.819 --> 00:21:12.619 You were free to agree with Zwingli, but you 00:21:12.619 --> 00:21:14.799 weren't free to go beyond him. It's a stain on 00:21:14.799 --> 00:21:17.380 his legacy that never really watches out. But 00:21:17.380 --> 00:21:19.900 while he's crushing dissent at home, he's trying 00:21:19.900 --> 00:21:22.700 to build a coalition abroad. The entire Protestant 00:21:22.700 --> 00:21:24.400 movement is under threat from the Holy Roman 00:21:24.400 --> 00:21:27.759 Emperor. They need allies. Which brings us to 00:21:27.759 --> 00:21:31.279 the Marburg Colloquy of 1529. The Great Showdown. 00:21:31.960 --> 00:21:35.700 Philip of Hesse, a German prince, wants to form 00:21:35.700 --> 00:21:38.369 a Protestant NATO, essentially. He wants the 00:21:38.369 --> 00:21:40.769 Swiss and the Lutherans to join forces militarily. 00:21:41.150 --> 00:21:43.589 But Luther refuses to have a military alliance 00:21:43.589 --> 00:21:45.670 with anyone who doesn't agree with his theology 00:21:45.670 --> 00:21:49.069 100%. So Philip invites them all to his castle 00:21:49.069 --> 00:21:51.210 in Marburg to work it out. I just love the visual 00:21:51.210 --> 00:21:53.630 of this. A castle on a hill, the greatest minds 00:21:53.630 --> 00:21:56.289 of the age, Zwingli and Luther meeting face -to 00:21:56.289 --> 00:21:58.750 -face for the first and only time. And the personalities 00:21:58.750 --> 00:22:00.730 couldn't be more different. Luther is earthy, 00:22:00.730 --> 00:22:03.509 explosive, emotional. He's a former monk who 00:22:03.509 --> 00:22:06.289 literally believes he wrestles with devils. Zwingli 00:22:06.289 --> 00:22:09.079 is a polished... humanist, a soldier, a politician, 00:22:09.359 --> 00:22:11.940 cool and logical. They were just oil and water. 00:22:12.180 --> 00:22:14.119 So they go through all the Articles of Faith. 00:22:14.240 --> 00:22:16.180 They agree on almost everything. The Trinity, 00:22:16.420 --> 00:22:19.099 justification by faith, original sin, check, 00:22:19.180 --> 00:22:21.220 check, check. But then they get to Article 15, 00:22:21.539 --> 00:22:25.220 the Lord's Supper. The Eucharist. The sticking 00:22:25.220 --> 00:22:28.799 point. Luther reads the words of Jesus. Hoc es 00:22:28.799 --> 00:22:32.710 corpus, ma 'am. This is my body. And Luther is 00:22:32.710 --> 00:22:35.410 a complete literalist here. He believes in the 00:22:35.410 --> 00:22:38.170 real presence. He says Christ is physically present 00:22:38.170 --> 00:22:41.569 in, with, and under the bread and wine. And Zwingli 00:22:41.569 --> 00:22:44.009 just says that's impossible. Zwingli argues from 00:22:44.009 --> 00:22:46.349 the ascension. He says, look, the Bible says 00:22:46.349 --> 00:22:48.089 Jesus ascended to the right hand of the Father. 00:22:48.250 --> 00:22:50.910 He has a human body. A human body can only be 00:22:50.910 --> 00:22:53.329 in one place at one time. If he is physically 00:22:53.329 --> 00:22:55.609 in heaven, he cannot be physically in the bread 00:22:55.609 --> 00:22:58.529 on a thousand altars at once. So for Zwingli, 00:22:58.650 --> 00:23:01.789 the word is means signifies. Exactly. Just like 00:23:01.789 --> 00:23:04.210 when Jesus says, I am the vine, he doesn't mean 00:23:04.210 --> 00:23:06.970 he is literally a plant with leaves. Zwingli 00:23:06.970 --> 00:23:09.029 argued that the bread is a symbol. It's a memorial. 00:23:09.549 --> 00:23:12.769 Do this in remembrance of me. He said that eating 00:23:12.769 --> 00:23:15.440 physical flesh profits nothing. It's the spirit 00:23:15.440 --> 00:23:17.579 that gives life. But Luther wasn't having any 00:23:17.579 --> 00:23:19.740 of it. The story goes that he took a piece of 00:23:19.740 --> 00:23:22.299 chalk. He pulled the velvet cloth off the table 00:23:22.299 --> 00:23:25.420 and wrote in big letters on the wood, Hoc est 00:23:25.420 --> 00:23:28.920 corpus meum. This is my body. He pointed at it. 00:23:28.940 --> 00:23:31.319 He slammed his fist on it. He said, I do not 00:23:31.319 --> 00:23:33.839 understand how it happens, but God says it is 00:23:33.839 --> 00:23:37.700 so, and I believe it. He accused Zwingli of using 00:23:37.700 --> 00:23:40.640 mathematical arguments against God's holy word. 00:23:40.960 --> 00:23:43.299 And Zwingli in turn accused Luther of staying 00:23:43.299 --> 00:23:45.220 stuck in the Middle Ages. He basically said, 00:23:45.319 --> 00:23:48.079 you've rejected the pope, but you kept the pope's 00:23:48.079 --> 00:23:51.140 magic bread. It got nasty. Zwingli argued that 00:23:51.140 --> 00:23:53.680 Luther's view was dangerously close to cannibalism. 00:23:54.230 --> 00:23:56.230 Luther retorted that Zwingli and his followers 00:23:56.230 --> 00:23:58.309 had a different spirit, that they weren't true 00:23:58.309 --> 00:24:00.470 Christians. And it ends in tears, literally. 00:24:00.750 --> 00:24:03.569 Yes. Zwingli, who was desperate for this military 00:24:03.569 --> 00:24:06.049 alliance to protect Zurich, he extended his hand 00:24:06.049 --> 00:24:08.190 with tears in his eyes. He said, there are no 00:24:08.190 --> 00:24:10.069 people on earth with whom I would rather be at 00:24:10.069 --> 00:24:12.670 one than the Wittenbergers. And Luther refused 00:24:12.670 --> 00:24:15.029 to shake his hand as a brother in Christ. He 00:24:15.029 --> 00:24:17.349 would only shake it as a stranger, a nonbeliever. 00:24:17.470 --> 00:24:20.390 That refusal, it fractured Protestantism forever. 00:24:20.549 --> 00:24:22.309 We end up with the Reformed tradition and the 00:24:22.309 --> 00:24:24.849 Lutheran tradition. And they never merged. The 00:24:24.849 --> 00:24:27.589 alliance failed. Which meant Zwingli went back 00:24:27.589 --> 00:24:30.910 to Zurich alone and very, very vulnerable. And 00:24:30.910 --> 00:24:33.670 the wolves were circling. The Catholic cantons, 00:24:33.670 --> 00:24:36.750 the five states, were furious at the spread of 00:24:36.750 --> 00:24:39.109 Zwingli's reforms. They formed an alliance with 00:24:39.109 --> 00:24:41.769 Austria. Austria, the arch enemy of the Swiss 00:24:41.769 --> 00:24:44.410 Confederacy. That's how much they hated Zwingli 00:24:44.410 --> 00:24:46.869 and what Zurich was doing. Tensions boiled over 00:24:46.869 --> 00:24:50.849 in 1529, the first Kappel War. But this is the 00:24:50.849 --> 00:24:53.650 most Swiss war ever fought. The armies marched 00:24:53.650 --> 00:24:55.750 to the border at a place called Kappel. They 00:24:55.750 --> 00:24:58.589 faced off. But the soldiers, they didn't want 00:24:58.589 --> 00:25:00.849 to kill their neighbors. They knew these guys. 00:25:01.109 --> 00:25:03.190 This is the famous soup war. Right. While the 00:25:03.190 --> 00:25:05.470 generals were off negotiating, the soldiers from 00:25:05.470 --> 00:25:08.569 Zurich brought out a huge pot of milk. The Catholic 00:25:08.569 --> 00:25:10.470 soldiers from the other side brought loaves of 00:25:10.470 --> 00:25:13.329 bread. They placed the pot exactly on the borderline 00:25:13.329 --> 00:25:15.859 between the two armies. And they ate a milk soup 00:25:15.859 --> 00:25:18.299 together, dipping the bread in the milk. It's 00:25:18.299 --> 00:25:21.099 this beautiful moment of common humanity. And 00:25:21.099 --> 00:25:24.380 a peace treaty was signed. But it was a bad treaty. 00:25:24.720 --> 00:25:27.359 It was a band -aid on a gaping wound. Zwingli 00:25:27.359 --> 00:25:29.519 wasn't satisfied. He wanted the right to send 00:25:29.519 --> 00:25:31.460 preachers into the Catholic territories to spread 00:25:31.460 --> 00:25:34.000 the gospel. The Catholics absolutely refused. 00:25:34.700 --> 00:25:37.339 Zwingli felt that God's word was being held hostage. 00:25:37.660 --> 00:25:40.079 So the pacifist humanist becomes the aggressor. 00:25:40.119 --> 00:25:43.180 He starts pushing for war. He does. He advocates 00:25:43.180 --> 00:25:46.680 for a preemptive strike. But his allies, specifically 00:25:46.680 --> 00:25:49.900 the powerful Canton of Bern, say no. They propose 00:25:49.900 --> 00:25:53.099 a different tactic, a blockade. They cut off 00:25:53.099 --> 00:25:55.359 the grain and salt shipments to the five Catholic 00:25:55.359 --> 00:25:57.900 cantons. They tried to starve them out. It was 00:25:57.900 --> 00:26:00.880 a cruel and terrible miscalculation. You don't 00:26:00.880 --> 00:26:03.240 starve mountain people into submission. You starve 00:26:03.240 --> 00:26:05.799 them into a rage. The five states realized they 00:26:05.799 --> 00:26:08.079 were either going to die slowly from hunger or 00:26:08.079 --> 00:26:10.740 die fighting. They chose fighting. October 9, 00:26:10.940 --> 00:26:13.839 1531. They declare war. And Zurich is totally 00:26:13.839 --> 00:26:16.380 unprepared. The blockade had made them complacent 00:26:16.380 --> 00:26:18.519 and overconfident. The warnings came too late. 00:26:18.680 --> 00:26:21.960 The Catholic army moved incredibly fast. On October 00:26:21.960 --> 00:26:24.599 11, they were at Capel again. But this time, 00:26:24.599 --> 00:26:28.039 there was no soup. There were 7 ,000 angry, desperate 00:26:28.039 --> 00:26:31.019 Catholic troops ready for battle. And Zurich 00:26:31.019 --> 00:26:33.400 scrambles to put together a defense force. It's 00:26:33.400 --> 00:26:35.859 only about 3 ,500 men. There's no organization. 00:26:36.809 --> 00:26:39.670 No clear command, and Zwingli rides out with 00:26:39.670 --> 00:26:42.490 them. He kisses Anna and his children goodbye. 00:26:43.109 --> 00:26:45.829 He takes his sword and his helmet. He rides out 00:26:45.829 --> 00:26:48.930 not just as a chaplain, but as a combatant. He 00:26:48.930 --> 00:26:51.289 believed this was the final apocalyptic battle 00:26:51.289 --> 00:26:54.089 for the gospel. And the battle lasted less than 00:26:54.089 --> 00:26:56.789 an hour. It was a complete rout. The Zirk line 00:26:56.789 --> 00:26:58.750 held for a moment, and then it just collapsed. 00:26:59.069 --> 00:27:02.380 The Catholic pikemen swarmed them. 500 men from 00:27:02.380 --> 00:27:04.500 Zurich were slaughtered. Among them were many 00:27:04.500 --> 00:27:07.299 of the city's leaders, council members, and Zwingli's 00:27:07.299 --> 00:27:09.460 closest friends. And Zwingli himself? He was 00:27:09.460 --> 00:27:11.559 found wounded on the field. He was lying under 00:27:11.559 --> 00:27:14.039 a pear tree. Catholic soldiers found him still 00:27:14.039 --> 00:27:16.200 alive. They asked him if he wanted to confess 00:27:16.200 --> 00:27:18.839 to a priest and receive last rites. He shook 00:27:18.839 --> 00:27:21.119 his head and looked up at heaven where the soldiers 00:27:21.119 --> 00:27:23.880 recognized him. He shouted, It's the heretic 00:27:23.880 --> 00:27:27.039 Zwingli! And drove a sword through his neck. 00:27:27.140 --> 00:27:29.339 And the desecration that followed. It's just 00:27:29.339 --> 00:27:32.059 brutal. It was medieval barbarity. They put his 00:27:32.059 --> 00:27:35.019 body on trial for treason posthumously. They 00:27:35.019 --> 00:27:37.339 quartered it. Then they burned the pieces. And 00:27:37.339 --> 00:27:40.160 then, to ensure no relics could ever be recovered, 00:27:40.400 --> 00:27:43.519 they mixed his ashes with pig dung and scattered 00:27:43.519 --> 00:27:46.440 them to the wind. He was only 47 years old. It's 00:27:46.440 --> 00:27:49.160 such a violent, abrupt end. And the reaction 00:27:49.160 --> 00:27:52.480 from the rest of the world was just cold. Luther's 00:27:52.480 --> 00:27:54.799 reaction was chilling. When he heard the news, 00:27:54.839 --> 00:27:58.720 he said, it was a judgment of God. They were 00:27:58.720 --> 00:28:02.099 a proud people. He saw Zwingli's death on the 00:28:02.099 --> 00:28:04.400 battlefield as divine proof that Zwingli was 00:28:04.400 --> 00:28:07.460 wrong about the Eucharist. He who lives by the 00:28:07.460 --> 00:28:10.299 sword shall die by the sword. Even Erasmus, his 00:28:10.299 --> 00:28:13.019 old mentor, seemed relieved. He wrote, we are 00:28:13.019 --> 00:28:15.519 freed from great fear. They honestly thought 00:28:15.519 --> 00:28:17.460 Zwingli's radicalism was going to destroy the 00:28:17.460 --> 00:28:19.440 entire Reformation movement. It looked like the 00:28:19.440 --> 00:28:21.960 end. Zurich was defeated. The Catholic mass was 00:28:21.960 --> 00:28:24.480 reinstated in some areas. The Reformation in 00:28:24.480 --> 00:28:26.220 Switzerland could have died right there under 00:28:26.220 --> 00:28:28.339 that pear tree. But it didn't, and that's thanks 00:28:28.339 --> 00:28:30.319 to the man who picked up the pieces, Heinrich 00:28:30.319 --> 00:28:33.000 Bullinger. The unsung hero of the Swiss Reformation. 00:28:34.480 --> 00:28:37.500 Bullinger succeeded Zwingli. He was calmer. more 00:28:37.500 --> 00:28:40.099 patient, more of a diplomat. He took Zwingli's 00:28:40.099 --> 00:28:43.559 fiery, brilliant ideas and built a stable, lasting 00:28:43.559 --> 00:28:46.200 church structure around them. He nurtured the 00:28:46.200 --> 00:28:48.619 movement for decades. And he did what Zwingli 00:28:48.619 --> 00:28:51.099 couldn't do. He made peace with the other reformers. 00:28:51.500 --> 00:28:54.519 Specifically with John Calvin in Geneva. Years 00:28:54.519 --> 00:28:57.900 later, in 1549, Bollinger and Calvin signed the 00:28:57.900 --> 00:29:00.420 Consensus to Guérinus. They found a middle ground 00:29:00.420 --> 00:29:02.980 on the Eucharist, this idea of a spiritual presence. 00:29:03.470 --> 00:29:06.250 It wasn't Zwingli's pure memorialism, and it 00:29:06.250 --> 00:29:08.549 wasn't Luther's physical presence. It was the 00:29:08.549 --> 00:29:10.910 bridge that united the Swiss and French movements. 00:29:11.190 --> 00:29:13.589 And that bridge created what we now call the 00:29:13.589 --> 00:29:16.609 Reformed tradition. Yes. If you go to a Presbyterian 00:29:16.609 --> 00:29:18.789 church today, or a Dutch Reformed church, or 00:29:18.789 --> 00:29:20.869 the United Church of Christ, you are standing 00:29:20.869 --> 00:29:22.990 in the stream that started with Zwingli and was 00:29:22.990 --> 00:29:25.529 then stabilized and guided by Bollinger. So when 00:29:25.529 --> 00:29:27.549 we step back and look at the third man, what 00:29:27.549 --> 00:29:30.430 do we see? I see a man of just incredible, almost 00:29:30.430 --> 00:29:32.950 unbelievable contradictions. I see a man who 00:29:32.950 --> 00:29:35.589 believed in the power of the mind, but got trapped 00:29:35.589 --> 00:29:38.569 by the reality of political power. He liberated 00:29:38.569 --> 00:29:40.630 the individual conscience from the pope, but 00:29:40.630 --> 00:29:43.029 then he chained it to the city council. He preached 00:29:43.029 --> 00:29:45.710 the gospel of peace, but he died fighting a blockade 00:29:45.710 --> 00:29:48.430 that he himself had helped instigate. But I also 00:29:48.430 --> 00:29:51.950 see a man who was shockingly modern. This idea 00:29:51.950 --> 00:29:55.220 that worship... should be rational. The idea 00:29:55.220 --> 00:29:58.480 that nothing is sacred just because we've always 00:29:58.480 --> 00:30:00.740 done it that way. That is his enduring legacy. 00:30:01.220 --> 00:30:04.279 Zwingli demanded that faith make sense. He refused 00:30:04.279 --> 00:30:06.539 to check his brain at the church door. Truth 00:30:06.539 --> 00:30:08.980 is the face of God, he once said. And he was 00:30:08.980 --> 00:30:11.220 willing to stare into that face even if it burned 00:30:11.220 --> 00:30:13.079 him. And that brings us to the final thought 00:30:13.079 --> 00:30:14.779 I really want to leave with everyone. It's the 00:30:14.779 --> 00:30:17.299 Marburg problem. You have Zwingli and Luther, 00:30:17.440 --> 00:30:19.960 both geniuses, both obsessed with the Bible, 00:30:20.119 --> 00:30:22.980 both fluent in Greek and Hebrew, and they read 00:30:22.980 --> 00:30:26.680 the exact same four words, hacus corpus meum, 00:30:26.779 --> 00:30:29.019 and they come to completely opposite conclusions. 00:30:29.480 --> 00:30:31.380 Conclusions so different that they can't even 00:30:31.380 --> 00:30:33.460 acknowledge each other as Christians. It really 00:30:33.460 --> 00:30:37.440 exposes the fragility of the idea of sola scriptura, 00:30:37.500 --> 00:30:40.579 scripture alone. If there is no pope, no council. 00:30:41.039 --> 00:30:44.960 No authority to break the tie. Who decides? Zwingli's 00:30:44.960 --> 00:30:47.559 answer was the rational mind. Luther's answer 00:30:47.559 --> 00:30:50.559 was the paradox of faith. And we are still living 00:30:50.559 --> 00:30:52.440 in the tension between those two answers today. 00:30:52.559 --> 00:30:55.039 Can we ever truly see the face of God without 00:30:55.039 --> 00:30:57.039 seeing our own reflection in the mirror? That 00:30:57.039 --> 00:30:59.200 is the question Zwingli leaves us with. And it's 00:30:59.200 --> 00:31:01.039 a question worth wrestling with. Thanks for diving 00:31:01.039 --> 00:31:02.500 deep with us. We'll see you next time.