Journal: Bibliotheca Sacra
Volume: BSAC 96:381 (Jan 1939)
Article: The Relation of Erasmus to the Reformation Part 3
Author: Charles A. Nash

BSac 96:381 (Jan 39) p. 51

The Relation of Erasmus to the Reformation
Part 3

Charles A. Nash

(Concluded from the October-December, 1938, Number)

III. Erasmus’ Relation to the Reformation in Switzerland, France, and the Netherlands

When we turn to Switzerland, France, and the Netherlands to consider the relation of Erasmus to the Reformation in those lands, we are confronted with a movement that was independent of the reform in Germany. Luther and his associates fought their battle with little or no help from outside forces, and being occupied with their own land gave little or no attention to the movements in other lands. What influence Luther had outside Germany was due to his writings and the mystical effect of his unconquerable soul.

All lands outside Germany affected by the Reformation owed much more to Humanism than did Germany, and to these lands belong those now under consideration. Taking each land separately from the others, although there is some difficulty in keeping the movements in Switzerland and France separate, we shall endeavor to trace the relation of Erasmus to each land. In Switzerland there were two men of prominence in the reform movement-Zwingli and Farel. Of the two Zwingli is acknowledged the leader of the Swiss Reformation. He was born on New Year’s Day, 1484, at Wildhaus in the valley of Toggenburg. He was a precocious lad and his education advanced rapidly. His family background was ecclesiastical and his training started him upon the clerical life which he followed. In 1494 Zwingli was sent to Basel, where he was under Gregory of Büngli, and in 1498 to Bern where under Heinrich Wölflin, then the most

BSac 96:381 (Jan 39) p. 52

famous humanist in Switzerland, he came definitely into contact with Humanism. In 1506, after graduating from the University at Basel, he was called to the charge of Glarus, and was ordained priest at Constance.

The influences forming the character of Zwingli were simple. He learned the democratic spirit of self-government in the village of his birth; his training as a parish priest gave a sense of responsibility, but the strongest impulse came from his humanistic training, which he had time to follow out at Glarus. In classics Erasmus was his guide; good letters and sound theology were to go together. Zwingli’s’study of the Scripture, rather than being determined by the example of Luther, was the result of the guidance of Erasmus. Unlike Luther, Zwingli had no deep personal religous experience. He was absorbed in the writings of his humanist master. That he never went to rest at night without having read a little of his master’s works, as he said in a letter to Erasmus, may not have been strictly true, but the dominant influence of Erasmus up...