Schaff - History of the Christian Church Vol. 8 - Media Sabda Org

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depended too much on Jerome and other Fathers instead of the Scriptures.
He told Cardinal Schinner in 1517 that popery had poor foundation in the
Scriptures. Myconius, Bullinger, and Capito report, in substantial
agreement, that Zwingli preached in Einsiedeln against abuses, and taught
the people to worship Christ, and not the Virgin Mary. The inscription on
the entrance gate of the convent, promising complete remission of sins,
was taken down at his instance. f35 Beatus Rhenanus, in a letter of Dec. 6,
1518, applauds his attack upon Samson, the restorer of indulgences, and
says that Zwingli preached to the people the purest philosophy of Christ
from the fountain. f36
On the strength of these testimonies, many historians date the Swiss
Reformation from 1516, one year before that of Luther, which began Oct.
31, 1517. But Zwingli’s preaching at Einsiedeln had no such consequences
as Luther’s Theses. He was not yet ripe for his task, nor placed on the
proper field of action. He was at that time simply an Erasmian or advanced
liberal in the Roman Church, laboring for higher education rather than
religious renovation, and had no idea of a separation. He enjoyed the full
confidence of the abbot, the bishop of Constance, Cardinal Schinner, and
even the Pope. At Schinner’s recommendation, he was offered an annual
pension of fifty guilders from Rome as an encouragement in the pursuit of
his studies, and he actually received it for about five years (from 1515 to
1520). Pucci, the papal nuncio at Zurich, in a letter dated Aug. 24, 1518,
appointed him papal chaplain (Accolitus Capellanus), with all the privileges
and honors of that position, assigning as the reason “his splendid virtues
and merits,” and promising even higher dignities. f37 He also offered to
double his pension, and to give him in addition a canonry in Basle or Coire,
on condition that he should promote the papal cause. Zwingli very properly
declined the chaplaincy and the increase of salary, and declared frankly that
he would never sacrifice a syllable of the truth for love of money; but he
continued to receive the former pension of fifty guilders, which was urged
upon him without condition, for the purchase of books. In 1520 he
declined it altogether,—what he ought to have done long before. f38 Francis
Zink, the papal chaplain at Einsiedeln, who paid the pension, was present at
Zwingli’s interview with Pucci, and says, in a letter to the magistracy at
Zurich (1521), that Zwingli could not well have lived without the pension,
but felt very badly about it, and thought of returning to Einsiedeln. f39 Even
as late as Jan. 23, 1523, Pope Adrian VI., unacquainted with the true state