
For Jesus Christ is the guide and leader, promised by God to all human beings, which promise was fulfilled. The sum and substance of the Gospel is that our Lord Jesus Christ, the true Son of God, has made known to us the will of his heavenly Father, and has with his innocence released us from death and reconciled God. All who say that the Gospel is invalid without the confirmation of the Church err and slander God. The articles and opinions below, I, Ulrich Zwingli, confess to have preached in the worthy city of Zurich as based upon the Scriptures which are called inspired by God, and I offer to protect and conquer with the said articles, and where I have not now correctly understood said Scriptures, I shall allow myself to be taught better, but only from said Scriptures. Punctuation has been altered at some points for clarity. The following text of the 67 Articles is taken from Selected Works of Huldrych Zwingli translated by Samuel Macauley Jackson, 1901, and from the article Zwingli’s Sixty-Seven Articles by Dan Graves of Christian History Institute.

Zwingli claimed there was no biblical justification for fasting, or even for Lent, and, claiming the Bible was the only authoritative source of spiritual truth, charged the Church with false teachings and corrupt practices which only enriched and empowered the clergy and did not represent Jesus Christ's message or ministry. Zwingli was already an advocate for reform by 1518 and, when he was appointed as the people's priest at the Grossmünster in Zürich in 1519, he began by immediately discarding church liturgy and reading the Gospel of Matthew directly to his congregation.īy 1522, Zwingli had published a number of his sermons, many critical of church policy, and attacked the tradition of fasting during Lent after an event known as the Sausage Episode when the printer Christoph Froschauer served sausage to his guests during Lent, defying the Church's prohibition on eating meat at that time. Erasmus never joined the Reformation movement but advocated for changes in church policy and practice from within. He may have even contributed to Erasmus' translation of the scriptures. Zwingli was first influenced by the humanist theologian, scholar, and priest Desiderius Erasmus (l. Even so, and whether the 95 Theses influenced the 67 Articles in any way, this does not dimmish the power or vision of the latter work which lay the foundation for the Swiss Reformation.īy 1522, Zwingli had published a number of his sermons, many critical of church policy, & attacked the tradition of fasting during Lent. When the two men later met at the Marburg Colloquy in 1529, Luther treated Zwingli poorly, and it is understood that, afterward, Zwingli minimized Luther's influence on his own work. He advocated for a return to the simplicity of early Christianity depicted in the biblical Book of Acts and, like Luther, denounced any traditions of policies that were not clearly established in scripture. Luther's work focused on the policy of selling indulgences – writs alleged by the Church to lessen one's time in purgatory – while Zwingli's Articles address a number of issues he saw as evidence of a corrupt and fallen Church. (138)Īlthough Zwingli's overall vision may have been influenced by Luther's, his 67 Articles differ significantly from the 95 Theses.
#Marburg colloquy full text free
If Zwingli really did develop the distinctively " Reformation" message of salvation by free forgiveness, apprehended through faith, simultaneously but entirely independently of Luther, it was the most breathtaking coincidence of the sixteenth century.
