systematically through whole books of the Bible, starting with Matthew. This practice was common in the early church, but in Zwingli’s time it was a radical innovation. Soon after his arrival at Zurich there was a severe outbreak of the plague, which killed nearly a third of the population. Zwingli stayed to minister to the sick and himself caught the plague, nearly dying. In 1522 he secretly married Anna Reinhart, having failed to get permission to marry from the bishop of Konstanz. Two years later