At that time six of us went home to St. Gall: and on our arrival at
Glyss, one Saturday, we heard that the priests were singing Vespers.
After Vespers one of them came and asked, "Whence do you come?" I, as
the boldest, replied, "From Zurich." On this the priest said, "What
have you done in that heretic city?" I became angry and said, "Why
heretic city?" The priest replied, "Because they have put away the
Mass, and removed the pictures from the church." Thereupon I said,
"That is not so, for they still celebrate Mass there; they have also
pictures; why are they then heretics?" "For this reason," he replied,
"because they do not consider the Pope as the head of the Christian
Church, and do not call upon the Saints." I went on, "Why is the Pope
the head of the Christian Church?" He said, "Because St. Peter was Pope
at Rome, and has given the Popedom there to his successors." I said,
"St. Peter very likely was never at Rome;" pulled my New Testament out
of the bag, and shewed him how in the Epistle to the Romans the Apostle
salutes so many, and yet never mentions St. Peter, who, according to
his assertion, was the most eminent among the Christians of that place.
Thereupon he said, "How could that be true, then, that Christ met St.
Peter outside the city of Rome, and was asked by him where he was going
to? whereupon he answered. To Rome, to allow myself to be crucified." I
asked, "Where have you read this story?" He said, "I have often heard
it from my grandmother." Thereupon I answered, "So, then, I perceive
that your grandmother is your Bible! And why should we call upon the
Saints?" Answer--"Because it is written, God is wonderful in all his
works." Then I stooped down, plucked a little plant, and said, "If one
were to collect all men together, they would not be able to make a
plant like this." He then became angry, and so our conversation ended.
We had besides more than an hour's walk before us that night. Early on
Sunday we came to Visp, where a lazy ignorant priest was to celebrate
his first mass; for which reason a great many priests and scholars, and
a great crowd of other people, came together. We scholars helped the
priest to sing the mass. Then one who passed for the most eminent
preacher preached from a window, and said amongst other things, to the
young priest, "O thou noble knight! thou holy knight! thou art holier
than the mother of God herself: for she only bore Christ once, but thou
shalt hear him every day of thy life henceforth." Then one on the
bridge, a Basle Master of Arts, out of Sitten, said a little too loud,
"Priest! you lie like a miscreant." The priests had all an eye upon
me;--I knew not why, till I saw the priest with whom I had disputed the
day before; then I could well imagine that he had complained of me.
When the mass was over, all the priests and scholars were invited to
dinner; but no one invited me. No man can believe how happy I then was,
and how willing I was to fast for Christ's sake. When however my mother
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
The Autobiography of Thomas Platter, a schoolmaster of the sixteenth century. — John Shaqi
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