Zwingli Embraces the Sources, Scripture and the Classical Tradition

A Scholar Before a Reformer

Before he was known for his preaching in Zurich, Ulrich Zwingli was a dedicated student of language, literature, and theology. His education, first in Vienna and later in Basel, placed him in the heart of the humanist revival that was sweeping northern Europe in the late fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries.

This was no dry scholasticism. Zwingli’s instructors introduced him to the tools of classical learning, including the Greek New Testament, Hebrew grammar, and the writings of Plato, Aristotle, Cicero, and Augustine. He read them not as detached curiosities, but as living voices that could sharpen both mind and soul.

He once wrote that it was Erasmus who “led him by the hand” to read the Scriptures in the original tongues. Zwingli owned and annotated a copy of Erasmus’s Greek New Testament, and he made it his goal to preach directly from the biblical text, not from secondhand glosses or medieval summaries.

Christian Humanism in Practice

Zwingli’s love of language was not isolated from his faith. Like other Christian humanists, he believed that the renewal of the church must begin with the renewal of learning. Scripture, rightly understood, had to be the foundation for theology, preaching, and reform.

He studied Hebrew so he could teach from the Psalms and the Prophets with greater precision. He memorized long passages from Greek texts and became fluent enough to quote Homer and Chrysostom in his letters. But he always returned to the New Testament, which he read daily in the original, believing that it offered the clearest window into the mind of Christ.

In one of his letters, he wrote that he would “rather speak five words in the language of the apostles than ten thousand in the garbled phrases of tradition.” This was not mere rhetoric. In Zwingli’s Zurich, sermons from Greek and Hebrew texts became the norm, and he pushed for the education of clergy and laity alike.

Reading the Ancients, Reforming the Present

Zwingli was not interested in repeating the past for its own sake. What he found in the classics and in the early church fathers was a vision of virtue, reason, and spiritual clarity. These values, he believed, had been obscured by centuries of ecclesiastical excess and theological confusion.

Christian humanism offered a different model. It aimed to recover not only the content of the Scriptures, but the method by which they were read and lived. It taught that truth must be pursued through careful study, honest inquiry, and moral integrity. Zwingli took this to heart and carried it into every part of his ministry.

Though he would later be known for his bold reforms in worship, his rejection of images and masses, and his role in political theology, the core of Zwingli’s reforming impulse was always textual. He trusted the Scriptures because he had studied them, not through filters, but in their own voice.

A Legacy of Learning

Zwingli’s alignment with Christian humanism shaped not only his theology, but his style of leadership. He encouraged the city of Zurich to establish schools and teach children to read. He surrounded himself with scholars and corresponded with fellow humanists across Europe. He preached not only for piety, but for understanding.

In this way, Zwingli stood at the crossroads of two great movements, the revival of letters and the reform of the church. By committing himself to Greek, Hebrew, and the wisdom of the ancients, he prepared himself to become one of the central voices of the Swiss Reformation.

His learning was not ornamental. It was, for him, the path to truth.