The Change in the Understanding of Zwingli in Recent Research

The editors of Vox Theologica have asked me for a "survey of Zwingli research in the last five to ten years.” However, to understand this subject thematically and methodologically one must go farther back. For the prevailing image of Zwingli today has been formed by three well-known books: 1) Die Kirchenratsauswahl, 1918; 2) Paul Wernle, Zwingli, 1919; 3) Walther Köhler, Huldrych Zwingli, 1943/1954. Walther Köhler (1870-1946), a native of strongly Reformed Wuppertal-Elberfeld, Professor of Church History in Zürich from 1909 to 1929, himself theologically of liberal orientation, was one of the foremost authorities not only on the Reformation as a whole but also on the other movements of the sixteenth century, especially Humanism and Anabaptism. Through countless books, articles and reviews, and through his introductions in the great critical edition of Zwingli's works, he became actually the dean of Zwingli research. Even those who, like this writer, did not know him personally and who differ from him on essential points owe him reverenc