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ZWI
1422
ZWI

trates forbade the shameless monk to enter the city. In 1522 he demanded of the bishop of Constance and all the governments of the confederation the abolition of the celibacy of priests. On the 29th of January, 1523, in a public disputation at Zurich, he triumphantly defended the gospel against Faber, the general vicar of the bishop of Constance; and in another public disputation, held in the same year at Zurich on the 26th of October, he as triumphantly vindicated the Reformation from all participation in the communistic and revolutionary doctrines of the anabaptists. On the 2nd April, 1524, he married Anna Reinhardt, a widow; and on the 3rd of November of the same year, all the convents in the canton of Zurich were broken up, and their revenues appropriated to other uses—of religion, education, and charity. In 1528 he took a prominent part in the disputation of Berne, which issued in the abolition of Romanism and the introduction of the Reformation into that important canton. In 1529 he went to Marburg to confer with Luther and Melancthon on the subject of the Lord's supper—a conference which unhappily failed in bringing about a better understanding between the Saxon and Swiss divines. Zwingli proffered to Luther the right hand of brotherhood; for though no disciple of his—having begun to preach the gospel two full years before he had even heard his name—he had always cherished and expressed the greatest veneration for his character and services. But Luther rejected the hand of his fellow-soldier with words which brought tears to the eyes of the warm-hearted Zwingli—"It is no use talking of brotherhood; you have not the right spirit."

It was the chief error and fault of Zwingli's action as a reformer that he did not sufficiently separate the provinces of political and ecclesiastical life. When the church of Zurich cast off the authority and jurisdiction of Rome, her leader too readily and rashly placed her in the hands of the civil magistrates, instead of reviving the action of her own inherent synodical power. This led to a pernicious commingling of politics and religion in the government of the canton, and involved the reformer in public transactions and troubles which ended in his premature death. Under his impulse and advice the protestant cantons grasped at worldly weapons to promote and defend the interests of the gospel, and were doomed to experience the painful truth of our Lord's warning—"They that use the sword shall perish by the sword." In 1531 war broke out between the protestant and catholic cantons; and on the 9th of October Zwingli fell dead on the bloody field of Cappel. Armed with halberd and helmet like a man of war, he died the death of a warrior, rather than that of a herald of God's peace and love. So violent was the exasperation of his enemies against him, that when his body was recognized upon the field the day after the battle it was shamefully dishonoured, quartered, and burnt, and its ashes scattered to the winds. "But still lives his spirit," says one of his latest Swiss biographers: "it lives on in the intellectual life of Zurich which he awakened; it lives in the free preaching of God's word, which he began and so powerfully set forward; and it lives in the disinterested patriotism, of which he set an example to the noblest of her sons. A pear tree once marked the spot where he fell upon the field of Cappel in the presence of the Alps. That tree is now fallen; but not so the noble stem which he planted as a shoot from the tree of life in the soil of Zurich, and which he guarded and fostered and watered with his blood. In the place of that pear-tree now stands a mass of unhewn granite, reminding the beholder of the Rock upon which the church of God is built—that Rock on which Zwingli took his firm stand, and from which he never suffered himself to be moved."

As the independence of Zwingli's teaching and reformation in relation to Luther's is a point of great historical importance, the following words of Zwingli himself may here he quoted. They occur in a passage where he is replying to the Swiss papists, who had thought it the readiest way of discrediting him to accuse him of being a disciple and follower of Luther. "I began to preach the gospel in 1516, before the name of Luther had been heard by a single individual in this country. His name was unknown to me for two years after I had begun to look to the Bible alone as the source of truth. Do you say I must be a Lutheran because I preach as Luther writes? I answer, I preach also as Paul writes; why then do you not call me a Paulian? Yes! I preach the word of Christ; why then do you not rather call me a Christian. No man can think higher of Luther than I do; still I declare before God and men that never in all my life have either I written a single syllable to him or he to me; and I have abstained from doing so because I would have all men to see in this the oneness of the spirit of God, that he and I should be so remote from each other and yet in our teaching should be so much at one." His writings were numerous, but for the most part posthumous. The first collection of them was published by his son-in-law, Rudolph Gualter, in 1541-45; a second by Leo Juda and Megandus. There have also been numerous lives of him. The latest and one of the best is by Christoffel, and forms, along with a selection from his writings, the first volume of a valuable series entitled Leben und ausgewählte Scriften der Väter und Begründer der Reformïsten Kirche (Lives and select writings of the Fathers and Founders of the Reformed Church), edited by Professor Hagenbach of Basle.—P. L.

ZWIRNER, Ernst Friedrich, an eminent German architect, was born at Jakobswald in Silesia, February 28, 1802. He studied in the academies of Munich and Breslau, completing his professional education in the royal school of architecture, Berlin university. His attention was specially directed to the mediæval architecture of Germany, and his devotion to it was confirmed by his being employed to carry out Schinkel's designs for the restoration of the town hall of Colberg, and some other Gothic buildings. The ability with which he executed these commissions, led to his nomination as architect of Cologne cathedral on the death of Ahlert in May, 1833. For several years, at first under Schinkel and afterwards under Ahlert, the substantial repairs necessary for the preservation of the building had been in progress; but what had been done of a decorative character was little in harmony with the old work, and had satisfied neither the archæologist nor the public. The king of Prussia was desirous to have the cathedral—the glory of old German architecture—completed and restored according to the original intention, and Zwirner was directed to report upon its practicability. He entered upon his task with enthusiasm. His designs were approved; and the zeal of the king and his architect was shared by all classes, every one joining in raising the funds necessary to carry on the work. Henceforth the restoration of Cologne cathedral was the business of Zwirner's life. He had to make out the details of every part as well as the general plan, and to train his assistants till they also caught something of the spirit of the mediæval workmen. The work met with various interruptions; but during the eight and twenty years that he directed it, enough was accomplished to render apparent the grand outline of the original design. Zwirner's object was from first to last to make the cathedral, as a whole and in every part, exactly what it would have been had the original architects completed it. But he did not hesitate to adopt any new means where the old were impracticable. Thus the great piers proving unequal to carry a central turret of stone, he determined to have one of iron; and so with the great roof of the nave. These innovations are condemned by ecclesiologists, but Zwirner was working in the spirit of the old architects, who availed themselves without scruple of any means which would most readily effect their purpose. The restoration of Cologne cathedral, as far as it proceeded under Zwirner, is the greatest work of the kind yet accomplished. Zwirner built a church or two, a baronial residence for Count von Fürstenberg at Herdringen, and restored one or two Rhine castles; but he will be remembered as the restorer of Cologne cathedral. He died in 1861.—J. T—e.