could interpret it, so that there was no need of a Council's decision. When the audience met after dinner, the Burgomaster Roust, who presided, declared in the name of the Council that Zwingli had not been convicted of heresy, and therefore ordered that he should go on preaching the Holy Gospel with the Holy Spirit's help. Zurich was thus committed to Zwingli, and the importance of the decision was shown by Faber's printing his own account of what took place as a correction of the Zurich account. The First Disputation marks Zwingli's control of the city as established, and their joint complete and open rupture with the past.
Zwingli was now sure of his ground and could proceed more rapidly: his literary activity was accompanied by practical changes. Leo Jud had translated the Baptismal Office into German and used it (August 10, 1523). A committee was appointed to deal with the Minster Chapter, for which a new constitution was issued (September 29, 1523). Fees for Baptism and Burial were abolished; holders of Minster offices were to discharge their duties to the utmost of their health and strength; as they died off, their places were to be left unfilled (unless chaplains were needed), and the income was to be applied to other purposes. The Chapter's fall was not undeserved; for, though there were some excellent members, it had become a refuge for men of good family and poor education. The Bible was to be read by the Minster clergy publicly an hour a day in Hebrew, Greek and Latin, with explanations; free lectures and fit lodgings were provided for candidates for the ministry, so that they need no longer go abroad. The public lectures were the origin of the later "prophesying." In this scheme of teaching Zwingli had able helpers in Leo Jud, people's priest at All Saints (1523), and Myconius, now (1524) at the Minster school. Zwingli remained faithful to the principles of Erasmus, and never fell into the easy error of underestimating education as compared with spiritual zeal. The educational scheme was completed for Zurich itself, after the dissolution of the monasteries which followed in December, 1524. What remained of the Chapter's income when education had been provided for, went to the poor and the aged; in his poor-laws, as in all his social legislation, Z wing] i showed a clear and almost modern appreciation of needs and methods, notably in his discouragement of mendicancy and use of careful enquiry.
The literary side of Zwingli's work in this stage was the Auslegung und Begründung der Schlussreden, an unsystematic explanation of the Theses for the Disputation. The work, which was preceded by a letter to the Council and people of Glarus, was a full and in parts lengthy exposition of the Theses; written in German, it was " a farrago of all the opinions which are controverted to-day." The explanations of the Theses upon the Papacy and the Mass are especially long, which is noteworthy, as Zwingli had as yet not attacked the Mass in practice.
