Baden disputation
The Baden Disputation , held in the parish church in Baden in Aargau, from May 19 to June 8, 1526, was a public debate between representatives of the Old Believing Church and supporters of the Reformation, attended by around 200 participants who were known by name . It was the attempt, coordinated with the Austrian transitional government in Württemberg and the Bishop of Constance , by the Swiss places , which at the time were still mostly Old Believers, to silence the Zurich reformer Huldrych Zwingli and to preserve the religious unity of the Confederation . The failure of this attempt marks the actual beginning of the denominational coexistence that is characteristic of Switzerland, with political and social consequences that continue to the present day.
Character, course and meaning
The three theologians Johannes Eck , Johann Fabri and Thomas Murner were invited on the old believing side and Ulrich Zwingli on the new believing side. Zwingli, however, refused to appear in Baden despite the promise of safe conduct . So primarily Johannes Eck on the one hand disputed with Johannes Oekolampadius and Berchtold Haller on the other. It was the first disputation of the Zwinglian Reformation outside of Zurich . In the end, nine states of the Diet decided in favor of the old faith, four of them the new. The Baden Disputation thus consolidated the denominational separation in the Old Confederation and was of decisive importance for Swiss history and for the denominational disputes of the Reformation period.
The disputation was convened by the Diet , which also determined the rules, with the traditional side being preferred in various respects. Four presidents chaired the disputation, including the abbot of Engelberg and the rector of the University of Basel , who clearly took sides with the old believers. The disputation took place in German, which is typical for the disputations of the Zwinglian Reformation and contrasts with, for example, the Leipzig disputation .
The Baden disputation is unusually well documented for a theological disputation from the Reformation period. Four scribes (two old and two new believers each) recorded them on the order of the daily statute. Each of these scribes had an overseer on the other side. In the evening, the clerks, to whom the Lucerne city clerk Johannes Huber came fifth, compared their notes and then deposited them with the governor. It was expressly prohibited that anyone else could keep records. Four logs came to Zurich during the Second Villmerger War and are now in the Zurich Central Library , two logs are kept in the Lucerne State Archives.
The Lucerne city clerk combined the five protocols into one. The Franciscan Thomas Murner published this on May 15, 1527 in Lucerne as a printed edition. However, the print was of very poor quality, with some misprints that distorted the meaning. A modern annotated edition of the protocol based on the print template by Johannes Huber was published in April 2015.
In addition to the minutes, there are still various letters, reports and pamphlets from those present, despite the ban on the agenda, confirming the content of the minutes. Zwingli was also very well informed about the course, thanks to the Basel humanist Thomas Platter , who camouflaged as a chicken seller came into town in the morning and left it again in the evening. On the other hand, the participants in the disputation were often surprised that texts by Zwingli were read out in the morning that exactly responded to the arguments of the previous day.
Edition of the protocol
- The Baden Disputation of 1526. Annotated edition of the protocol. Edited by Alfred Schindler and Wolfram Schneider-Lastin, with the collaboration of Ruth Jörg , Detlef Roth and Richard Wetzel. With a historical introduction by Martin H. Jung. TVZ, Zurich 2015.
Prints
- The disputacion in front of the xij places of a laudable eidtgnoscreation ... because of the unity in christian faith in irish lands and terthons. Edited by Thomas Murner. Lucerne 1527. doi : 10.3931 / e-rara-652
- Caussa Helvetica orthodoxae fidei. Disputatio Helvetiorum in Baden superiori. Edited by Thomas Murner. Lucerne 1528. Digitized
literature
- Irena Backus: disputations. In: Historical Lexicon of Switzerland .
- Irena Backus: The principle “Sola scriptura” and the church fathers in the disputations of Baden (1526) and Bern (1528). Theological Publishing House, Zurich 1997, ISBN 3-290-10996-8 .
- Thomas Fuchs: Denomination and Conversation. Typology and function of religious conversations during the Reformation period (= norm and structure. Vol. 4). Böhlau, Cologne et al. 1995, ISBN 3-412-04895-X .
- Leonhard von Muralt : The Baden Disputation 1526 (= sources and treatises on the history of the Swiss Reformation. 6, ZDB -ID 517938-5 ) Heinsius, Leipzig 1926.
- Ernst Staehelin : Johannes Oekolampad's theological life's work (= sources and research on the history of the Reformation. 21, ISSN 0171-2179 ). Heinsius, Leipzig 1939, (reprint. Johnson, New York NY et al. 1971).