urged the replacing of the early Mass by a sermon and the Lord's Supper. The committee, however, did not altogether follow him as to the Mass; this was left in use, but the images were removed. The tardy intervention of the Bishop, defending the Mass and images, was disregarded. This decision was adopted by both Councils and sent round to the bailiffs in the country for execution (June-July). The majority of a village, however, could decide to keep or remove images as they pleased. Removal was to be carried out by the pastor and responsible men; the use of organs, the passing bell, and extreme unction were also abolished. A reply to the Bishop was composed by Zwingli, who was now all-powerful, and approved by the Council. The section on the Mass is Zwingli's first complete statement of his views, which he was now developing. He carried on a controversy, partly as to this subject, with Jerome Eraser of Leipzig, who had attacked Luther for his alteration of the Canon; in his Àntïbolon (August 18) in answer to this opponent, in an Apology addressed to Diebold Geroldseck (October 9, 1523), in his De Canone Missae Epichiresis (1523), in his Subsidium sive Coronis de Eucharistia (1525), and in his De Vera et Falsa Religione (1525) Zwingli dealt with this central point. Negatively, he repudiated all sacramental efficacy, and reduced the rite to a mere sign (nuda signa): positively, he laid great stress-notably in his reply to Eraser-upon its aspect as a feast and a corporate act; it was therefore social, not merely individual in its importance.
The Mass at Zurich was abolished in April, 1525, but the religious Houses had been previously suppressed; the monks who did not return to the world were placed together in the Franciscan monastery; the convent of the Minster of our Lady (December 4, 1524) and the Chapter of the Great Minster (December 20) gave up their possessions to the city; the monasteries throughout the Canton followed. The incomes were devoted to education or the poor; a gymnasium, for instance, was endowed with the funds of the Great Minster, and Zwingli himself became rector of the Carolinum (April 14, 1525) as the united scholastic foundations were called. His scheme of graduated studies leading up to the ministry was adequate and well thought out. By a development of the plan of Biblical instruction begun in 1523 the prophesyings or expositions took the place of the choir services, while the linguistic instruction was extended (July 19, 1525). When a Synodal organisation (September 23, 1527) and Church Courts (Stillstände) for discipline and marriage-cases were set up (May 10, 1525), the Reformation upon its constructive as well as its destructive side was completed. As a purely civic organisation even in its details it was systematic and orderly: a register of baptisms, for instance, was begun in 1526 for the city and afterwards extended to the Canton. Of the elaborate system thus established Zwingli was the "Bishop" and the soul.
It seems strange to find the Council at this date (August 19, 1524)
