so skillfully that the giant fell prostrate on the ground. Therefore let us never cease to sing with
joy: ’Saul has slain his thousands, and David his ten thousands’ (1 Sam. 18:7). He was the Hercules
who slew the Roman boar .... I have always been grateful to my teachers, how much more to that
excellent man whom I can never expect to equal in honor and merit! With no men on earth would
I rather he agreed than with the Wittenbergers .... Many have found the true religion before Luther
became famous; I have learnt the gospel from the same fountain of the Scriptures, and began to
preach it in 1516 (at Einsiedeln), when I diligently studied and copied with mine own hand the
Greek epistles of Paul,^912 before I heard the name of Luther. He preaches Christ, so do I, thanks to
God. And I will be called by no other name than that of my Captain Christ, whose soldiers we
are."^913
I may add here the impartial testimony of Dr. Köstlin, the best biographer of Luther, and
himself a Lutheran: —
"Zwingli knew how to keep himself under control. Even where he is indignant, and
intentionally sharp and pointed, he avoids the tone of passionate excitement, and uses the
calm and urbane language of a gentleman of humanistic culture, and thereby proves his
superiority over his opponent, without justifying the suspicion of Luther that he was
uncertain in his own mind, and that the attitude he assumed was only a feint. His polemics
forms thus the complete opposite to Luther’s book, ’That the words of Christ,’ etc. Yet it
presents also another aspect. Zwingli characterizes, with select words of disregard, the
writers and contents of the Syngramma, to which Luther had given his assent, and clearly
hints at Luther’s wrath, spite, jealousy, audacity, and other faults poorly concealed under
the cover of bravery, constancy, etc.; yea, here and there he calls his arguments ’childish’
and ’fantastic,’ etc. Hence his new writings were by no means so ’friendly’ as the title
indicates. What is more important, we miss in them a sense for the deeper, truly religious
motives of Luther, as much as we miss in Luther an appreciation of like motives in Zwingli
.... He sees in Luther obstinate blindness, while Luther discovered in him a devilish
spirit."^914§ 111. The Eucharistic Theories compared. Luther, Zwingli, Calvin.
We now present, for the sake of clearness, though at the risk of some repetition, the three
Protestant theories on the real presence, with the chief arguments.
Luther, Zwingli, and Calvin agree, negatively, in opposition to the dogma of
transubstantiation, the sacrifice of the mass, and the withdrawal of the cup from the laity; positively,
in these essential points: the divine institution and perpetuity of the Lord’s Supper, the spiritual
presence of Christ, the commemorative character of the ordinance as the celebration of Christ’s
(^912) The neat manuscript is still preserved in the library of the Wasserkirche at Zürich, where I examined it in August, 1886.
(^913) I have given the substance of several passages scattered through his polemical writings, and collected in the useful edition of Zwingli’s
Sämmtliche Schriften by Usteri and Vögelin, vol. II., Part II., p. 571 sqq.
(^914) Martin Luther, II. 96 sq.