Studies on the Life and Influence of Zwingli (7 vols.)

Gain deeper insight into the writings of Zwingli with this collection of short works by the Swiss reformer.

Contents:

• Preface
• Introduction
• “Visit of the Episcopal Delegation to Zurich,” April 1522
• “The Petition of Eleven Priests to Be Allowed to Marry,” July, 1522
• “The Acts of the First Zurich Disputation,” January, 1523
• “Zurich Marriage Ordinance,” 1525
• “Refutation of the Tricks of the Catabaptists,” 1527

“No other reformer struck out a more original and independent course than Ulrich Zwingli,” biographer William Blackburn notes, “No other man attempted to be, at the same time, a preacher, author, statesman, military patriot, and reformer.” In this volume he offers a portrait of Zwingli, “endeavor[ing] to set forth the man and his friends as they grew in piety and labored together in studying the Word of God, teaching and preaching the truth, and restoring the Church to the foundation of Christ and his Apostles.”

Examine the eventful life of the “Reformer of Switzerland” with this biography by Jean Grob. Translated and adapted for the Standard Library series, this volume commemorates the 400th anniversary of Zwingli’s birth, presenting “a reliable record of the man, in church and state, without entering into the details of political questions or theological problems.”

This general account of Zwingli’s life by J.G. Hess offers a warm and readable portrait of Luther and Calvin’s lesser-known Swiss compatriot. Translator Lucy Aikin notes that this “lively and feeling narrative of facts . . . . aims at giving such a picture of the truly evangelical character and spirit of the Swiss reformer and his doctrine as, by interesting the heart, may gently invite the reason to a closer investigation of those principles, which it was the business of his life to inculcate.”

J.J. Hottinger examines Zwingli not only as a Protestant reformer, but also as a statesman, and as fully human figure, noting that “if we regard him as merely a reformer of the church, he may perhaps appear to us surrounded by a brighter glory; but history demands a full representation, and such a representation exhibits him as a man ‘possessed of like passions with ourselves.’” Drawing upon numerous Latin and German works relating to the period, as well as “an immense mass of important and necessary state-papers, long buried in the archives of the Canton,” Hottinger offers an informative history of Zwingli’s life and work in the context of the broader history of the Swiss Reformation.

A book prepared in commemoration of the 400th anniversary of Zwingli’s birthday in 1884, American minister David Van Horne’s study of “the mountain boy of Wildhaus” is warm and personable, giving special attention to Zwingli’s early years. Van Horne hopes to appeal to younger readers with this focus on Zwingli’s formative years, noting that “in each aspect of his life, Zwingli presents a bold and striking figure, well calculated to arrest the attention of American youth.” But for readers young and old, the text provides an interesting study of the Swiss reformer as a young man.

R. Christoffel’s study offers a look at the life of the great Swiss reformer, situated within the context of the Reformation’s rise in Switzerland. Discussing “not only the Reformer himself . . . much light is [also] thrown upon his coadjutors in the work of Reformation, upon the rise and history of the great movement itself, and upon the manners and modes of thinking of the times which it took place.” Attempting to make the work as “autobiographical” in character as possible, Christoffel draws upon extracts from the Zwingli’s correspondence in creating what is also a personal study that spans from the “interior of his domestic life” to the “arena of his mighty contests” and the “vineyard in which he labored.”