Zwingli’s Observations on War and Peace

Zwingli writes, masterfully

… We [i.e., speaking in the voice of the Roman Church] wish to seem devoted to peace, even when we hold arms in our hands and live in camp.

So grateful a thing is peace to poor mortals, which yet these persons [i.e., the Roman Catholic Pope and Bishops] are strongly bent upon disturbing. For, the reason they take such pains to pretend that they are seeking peace is that they may meanwhile devour all things with their teeth.

For where peace flourishes, what churches are there, pray, in which they do not make demands like beggars? And if you do not put cakes into their mouths, but refuse, they even hallow a war against you. What princes, pray, for too many years now have refused anything to these Romanists, the bishops and their satellites, that the latter have not declared war upon them?

How often have we seen compacts broken by them! How many myriads of souls have they struck down!

I say nothing of the havoc done to bodies, property, and estates, of the destruction of cities, the ruin of chastity and faithfulness, the extinction of general righteousness, the barbarizing of men’s natures, all of which war brings with it.

Hence it comes that night is unto us instead of vision, that is, that we embrace darkness instead of light. Are we not all blinded to the clear light of truth? And do we not pretend not to see what we really do see? But through whose wiles does this come about? Those of the false prophets, who prophesy for money [that is, the Roman Bishop and his underlings].

Peace, in short, isn’t what Rome desired- it desired money and would do anything for it, including declaring war on all who opposed it. Mutatis mutandis, this is what war is always about- money.