As he was unable to condemn his opponents on any consistent grounds he was obliged to prefer against them two charges that were false, though probably believed true by himself.

As they were {155} ascetics in some particulars he branded them as monastic; for their social program he called them seditious.
The suppression of the Peasants' Revolt had the effect in Switzerland, as elsewhere, of causing the poor and oppressed to lose heart, and of alienating them from the cause of the official Protestant churches.

A disputation with the Anabaptist leaders was held at Zurich; [Sidenote: November 6-8, 1525] they were declared refuted, and the council passed an order for all unbaptized children to be christened within a week.
The leaders were arrested and tried; Zwingli bearing testimony that they advocated communism, which he considered wrong as the Bible's injunction not to steal implied the right of private property.

The Anabaptists denied that they were communists, but the leaders were bound over to keep the peace, some were fined and others banished.

As persecuting measures almost always increase in severity, it was not long before the death penalty was denounced against the sectaries, and actually applied.