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 assumption that he owed his views to Luther always roused his indignation, and a common Pauline element fully explains the likeness of their opinions, slight as it is. Zwingli tried to clear himself from the charge^ of imitation, and claimed for himself originality. In doing so he was justified, though his treatment of the charge shows some petulance and self-satisfaction. But it is too much to say that the bold stand made by Luther and the whole set of problems he raised had no effect upon Zwingli's mind and did nothing to direct his activity into new channels. Their original impulses, however, were very different, and their several treatment of Indulgences illustrates the difference. To Luther the question presented itself as a mistaken doctrine which struck at the root of religion; to Zwingli it was more a practical abuse, an encroachment of the Church upon the individual life.

The divergence of Zwingli from Erasmus and its occasion are also instructive. Hütten, in his energy and contempt for tradition, his licence and disregard of morality, had little in common with Erasmus on the one hand or with Luther on the other, although his love of learning and width of outlook joined him to both. Before his death, however, in August, 1523, a quarrel with Erasmus brought out the fundamental opposition between them. Zwingli, linked to Erasmus by early indebtedness and a scholar's reverence, had yet more in common with Hütten; and when the dying outcast, disowned by the calmer souls, reached Zurich, Zwingli befriended him; he did this, not from mere human sympathy, but also from the feeling of a common cause against the old society and the old traditions. But his action caused a breach between him and Erasmus, and with Glareanus also, "the shadow of Erasmus." This marks a certain separation of Zwingli from the aims of the humanist circles in which he had hitherto lived; for Basel and Einsiedeln, unlike Luzern, were both centres of learning.

In his sermons Zwingli, who was both outspoken and effective, attacked monasticism and the doctrines of Purgatory and the Invocation of Saints. But the first conflict took place when he attacked the principle of tithes. In a Latin sermon preached before the Chapter, he maintained that tithes had no foundation in the Divine Law, and should be voluntary. The Provost urged him in vain to recant, and not to furnish arms for the laity to use against the clergy (early in 1520). The same year a simplification of the breviary for the Minster was prepared and introduced (June 27, 1520)-a change arising out of Zwingli's earlier liturgical studies, and showing that the majority of the Chapter was on his side.

Religious parties were already forming themselves around him. He met with opposition both from the conservatives in the Chapter (including Conrad Hoffman, who had supported his election) and from the monks. The excitement raised was shown by a decree of 1520, ordering priests in town and country to preach conformably to the Gospels and Epistles and according to the guidance of the Holy Spirit and the