§ 21. Other Changes. A Theological School. The Carolinum. A System of Theology.

Other changes completed the Reformation. The Corpus Christi festival was abolished, and the Christian year reduced to the observance of Christmas, Good Friday, Easter, and Pentecost. Processions and pilgrimages ceased. The property of convents was confiscated and devoted to schools and hospitals. The matrimonial legislation was reconstructed, and the care of the poor organized. In 1528 a synod assembled for the first time, to which each congregation sent its minister and two lay delegates.

A theological college, called Carolinum, was established from the funds of the Great Minster, and opened June 19, 1525. It consisted of the collegium humanitatis, for the study of the ancient languages, philosophy and mathematics, and the Carolinum proper, for the study of the Holy Scriptures, which were explained in daily lectures, and popularized by the pastors for the benefit of the congregation. This was called prophesying (1 Cor. 14:1).¹⁰⁹¹⁰⁹    Comp. Pestalozzi, Leo Judae, p. 76, and Güder on "Prophezei," in Herzog2, XII. 288. Zwingli wrote a tract on Christian education (1526).¹¹⁰¹¹⁰    Republished by Emil Egli, U. Zwingli’s Lehrbuchlein, oder wie man die Jugend in guten Sitten und christlicher Zucht auferziehen und lehren solle. Zurich, 1884. With an appendix of documents relating to the school at Zurich in Zwingli’s time. He organized this school of the prophets, and explained in it several books of the Old Testament, according to the Septuagint. He recommended eminent scholars to professorships. Among the earliest teachers were Ceporin, Pellican, Myconius, Collin, Megander, and Bibliander. To Zwingli Zurich owes its theological and literary reputation. The Carolinum secured an educated ministry, and occupied an influential position in the development of theological science and literature till the nineteenth century, when it was superseded by the organization of a full university.¹¹¹¹¹¹    Prof. Dr. Georg von Wyss, in his festive discourse on the University of Zurich (Die Hochschule Zürich in d. Jahren 1833-1883, Zürich, 1883), gives a brief sketch of the development of the Carolinum. The first theological faculty of the university consisted of three Zurichers, Hirzel, Schulthess and Salomon Hess, who had been professors of the Carolinum, and two Germans, Rettig and Hitzig. Besides there were five Privatdocenten, ministers of Zürich. See also Prof. Steiner’s Festrede zur 50 jährigen Stiftungsfeier der Züricher Universität, 1883.

Zwingli wrote in the course of three months and a half an important work on the true, evangelical, as opposed to the false, popish faith, and dedicated it to Francis I., king of France, in the vain hope of gaining him to the cause of the Reformation.¹¹²¹¹²    Commentarius de vera et falsa religione, March, 1525. Opera, III. 145-325. Leo Judae published a German translation, 1526. When Erasmus received the book, he said, "O bone Zwingli, quid scribis, quod ipse prius non scripserim?" So Zwingli reports in a letter to Vadian, Opera, VII. 399. It completes his theological opposition to the papacy. It is the first systematic exposition of the Reformed faith, as Melanchthon’s Loci was the first system of Lutheran theology; but it was afterwards eclipsed by Calvin’s Institutes, which were addressed to the same king with no better effect. Francis probably never read either; but the dedication remains as a connecting link between the Swiss and the French Reformation. The latter is a child of the former.