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Erasmus kindled it with his Greek New Testament and translations of the Church’s greatest thinkers. Luther struck the match. From Wittenberg to Zurich, Strassburg, Basel, and Bern the fire swept. It was a fire meant to cleanse the Church of greed and corruption—a fire to restore Christianity. But it did more than that. It changed the map of Europe. It changed lives. Princes gained ground from it; artisans and peasants gained power. It took religion out of the monastery and into the marketplace. It made of Christendom competing factions and gave powers of speech to “even women and simple folk.” It was a fire of ideas that occupied the attention with as much intensity as man’s walk on the moon in this century. To those called heretics (or Anabaptist) it gave the “mark of Christ”—confidence to give one’s own life like a brand to fuel the fire of the “true gospel.”

1516 Erasmus’ edition of Greek New Testament published

1517 Martin Luther posts 95 theses

1517 Erasmus publishes anti-war tract

1518 Luther summoned to Augsburg but refuses to recant

1519 Zwingli becomes People’s priest in Zürich

1520 Luther burns papal bull for his arrest

1521 Carlstadt celebrates first Protestant communion at Wittenburg

1521 Muntzer publishes Prague Manifesto justifying violence in the elect

1522 Luther introduces German liturgy in Wittenburg

1522 Muntzer marries and germanizes services in Allstedt; Zwingli secretly marries

1523 Zwingli holds Zürich disputations

1523 Reformer Martin Bucer arrives in Strassburg; German services introduced

1524 Storm on images in Zürich

1524 Planets align in sign of the Fish; widespread expectation of evil

1524 Carlstadt puts aside priestly vestments to become a “new layman”; declines to baptize infants

1524 Erasmus publishes tract on free will

1525 Luther marries

1526 Erasmus publishes the works of St. Augustine

1527 Urbanus Rhegius publishes anti-Anabaptist “Nikolsburg Articles”

1528 Reformation established in Bern

1529 Reformation becomes official in Basel

1529 Diet of Speyer—Luther’s followers name Protestants

1529 Luther and Zwingli convene at Marburg

1531 Bullinger succeeds Zwingli and publishes first book against Anabaptists

1536 William Tyndale, English reformer, burned at stake

1540 Pope recognizes order of Jesuits; will make them the chief agents of Counter Reformation

1541 John Calvin establishes theocracy in Geneva

1541 John Knox establishes Calvinist Reformation in Scotland

1521 Hubmaier comes to Waldshut, becomes friend of Zwingli

1522 Stump and Reublin challenge paying of tithes

1523 Hubmaier introduces German services in Waldshut, marries

1523 At Second Zürich Disputation radical followers break with Zwingli

1524 Manz brings Carlstadt’s tracts on infant baptism and Lord’s Supper to Zürich

1524 Swiss Brethren write to Muntzer, Carlstadt, and Luther

1524 Reublin and Brotli refuse to baptize infants

1525 January 17—First Zürich disputation with those opposed to infant baptism
January 21—First believer’s baptism in Zürich; Denck banished from Nuremberg for views on Lord’s Supper and living personal faith
January 21–29—First Anabaptist congregation of 35 converts established in Zollikon
February—First imprisonment of Anabaptists occurs in Zürich; they escape
Easter—Hubmaier establishes Anabaptism as state faith
May—Bolt Eberle executed in Schwyz, becomes first Protestant and first Anabaptist martyr
November—Third Baptismal Disputation in Zürich held in Grossmünster to accommodate the crowd

1526 Grebel dies

1527 Schleitheim Brotherly Union

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