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Anabaptism: Abortive Counter-Revolt Within the Reformation

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 July 2009

Lowell H. Zuck
Lowell H. Zuck
Affiliation:
Eden Theological Seminary
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Extract

Within the past thirty years a painstaking literature has been produced by the descendants of the sixteenth century Anabaptists, mostly Mennonites, in an effort to replace the traditional European interpretation of Anabaptism as fanaticism beginning with the revolutionary mystic, Thomas Muentzer, and ending with the revolutionary polygamous debacle at Muenster in Westphalia ten years later. Thus were the Anabaptists discredited for centuries by Lutheran and Reformed theologians within the majority churches of Europe, the American Anabaptist historians say.

Type
Research Article
Information
Church History , Volume 26 , Issue 3 , September 1957 , pp. 211 - 226
Copyright
Copyright © American Society of Church History 1957

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References

1. The latest article in this series from an American Mennonite viewpoint, by Bender, Harold S., maintains that “neither Thomas Muentzer nor the Zwickau prophets were Anabaptists, and that neither had anything to do with the later Anabaptist movement.” In Theoologische Zeitschrift (07–08. 1952), 262 ff.Google Scholar and Mennonite Quarterly Review (01. 1953), 2 ffGoogle Scholar, he does admit that; some who were under the spell of Muentzer later became Anabaptists, e.g., Hans Hut and Melchior Rink ” (MQR, 16)Google Scholar, which contradicts his claim that Muentzer had “nothing to do with the later Anabaptist movement.” Note the very careful review on Anabaptist historiography by Littell, Franklin H. in The Anabaptist View of the Church (American Society of Church History, 1952).Google Scholar Littell follows the Mennonite interpretation generally, though he gives full consideration to violent aspects in the early stages of “Left-Wing Reformation.” Roland H. Bainton suggested the term “Left- Wing Reformation” for application to all of the groups, including Anabaptists in the Mennonite usage, to the “left” of Luther, Zwingli, and Calvin in the Reformation in Journal of Religion (07 1941), 124 ff.Google Scholar

2. Holl, Karl, in “Luther und die Schwaermer” in Gesammelte Aufsaetze zur Kirchengeschichte, (Tübingen, 1923), I, 420 ff.Google Scholar, presented the Lutheran view of Muentzer and his associates as enthusiasts or fanatics, though he was not without sympathy for Muentzer. Heinrich Boehmer, in a similar tradition, called Muentzer “der Urheber der grossen Taufbewegung” in “Thomas Muentzer und das Juengste Dentschland” (in his Gesammelle Aufsaetze, Gotha, 1927, 221).Google Scholar Generally speaking, if one chooses Zuerich (with Troeltsch) as the place of origin for Anabaptisin, the movement will be regarded from the prevailing American Mennonite standpoint as non-fanatical. If one chooses Wittenberg or Zwickau (with Holl), the movement will be regarded as fanatical, from the Lutheran standpoint. I would support a middle position, similar to that of Walther Koehler, who maintained that “Zuerich was the scene of the first Anabaptist congregation and performed the first adult baptism, but the idea of re-baptism and the separation of the brotherhood of believers from the peoples' church appeared first in the circles of the Wittenberg fanatics, with whom the Zuerich brotherhood maintained contacts without having been called into existence by them.” (In Religion in Geschichte und Geschichte und Gegenwart, second edition, 1931), V, 1915.Google Scholar “Contacts” is perhaps too strong, though one of the Zuerich party had been with Muentzer, and there is certainly a great similarity between the two movements.

3. Hans von Schubert's terminology. Suggestive Mennonite interpretations of basic Anabaptists views include Harold S. Bender, “The Anabaptist Vision” (“discipleship”), in Church History (03. 1944), 3 ff.Google Scholar and Robert Friedmann, “Conception of the Anabaptists” (Scriptural norms centered iii the Sermon on the Mount), in Church History (12. 1940), 341 ff.Google Scholar These articles take as standard for Anabaptism the continuing conservative Mennonite and Hutterite doctrines. All other views within the developing movement are ignored. The Mennonite Quoirterly Review has published scores of extremely valuable historical articles, within these limitations. See the index of MQR articles from 1927 to 1951 in MR (Jan. 1952, 65 ff.). From a non-Mennonite standpoint, Wilhelm Pauck, for example, has noted the significance of the “simplifying tendency” of Anabaptism for the future of Protestantism: “thus the Protestant spirit is a spirit of prophetic criticism.” The Heritage of the Reformation (Boston, 1950), 141.Google Scholar

4. Zuck, Lowell H., “Anabaptist Revolution Through the Covenant in Sixteenth Century Continental Protestantism” (unpublished dissertation, Yale University, 1955).Google Scholar

5. Aleander stated that Luther was a revolutionary who had urged that the Germans should wash their hands in the blood of the papists. Deutsche Reichstagsakten (Gotha, 1896), II, 496 ff.Google Scholar Luther's statement referred to was in reply to Prierias. Wiemar Ausgabe, 6, 585.

6. W. A., 2, 278: “quod est Ihesus Christus, et auctoritate Petri 1.2 ubi Christum lapidem vivum et angularern appellat, docens, Ut superedificemur in donuni spiritualem. Alioquin si Petrus esset fundamentum ecelesie, lapsa fuisset ecciesia… ”

7. Luther: “Denn, das ieh oben ansahe, Was verzweivelter boesen Secten und Ketzerey haben sich erfuergethan, als Muentzer, Zwingeler, Widerteuffer und vial mehr.” W. A., 51, 587. “So solt ihr wissen, das des Muentzers geist auch noch lebt… ” W. A., 30, II, 276.

8. Toward the end of December 1524, Zwingli wrote “Wer Ursach gebe zu Aufruhr” [in Huldreich Zwinglis Saemtliche Werke,—Corpus Reformatorum 91, ed. Emil Egli, et al. (Berlin, 1905 ff.), II, 355 ff.]Google Scholar, and Grebel wrote a protest to the city council denying that he was seditious. See Bender, Harold S., Conrad Grebel, the First Leader of the Swiss Brethren (Goshen, Ind., 1950), 130.Google Scholar At the same time, Grebel wrote to his brother-in-law, Vadian: “Zwingli is writing about sedition; it wifi probably hit us. You will see that something will come of it.” (Translated in “Nine Letters of Conrad Grebel” by Edward Yoder, MQR, 928, 229 ff).Google Scholar

9. Menno, for example, said, “I was never in the company of the rebellious… It is France, Italy, Spain, and Burgundy, but also all the German nations who boast of the Word, who are guilty of fighting, warring, robbing, and shedding blood.” Simons, Menno, Complete Works (Elkhart, lnd., 1871), II, 62, 63.Google Scholar Compare the quotation referred to in note 49.

10. The term “revolutionary” includes not only outward manifestations of violence, but also that which contemporaries regard with horror as so unusual that it threatens the continued stability of orderly life. Note Brinton, Crane, The Anatomy of Revolution (New York, 1952)Google Scholar, for a typology of revolutions, political in this case.

11. There were unsuccessful counter-revolutionaries who were not Anabaptists. Hutten and Sickingen might be so regarded, though they appear rather to have been on the side of the leaders of Reform. Their motives were primarily political and nationalist, not religious. See Bainton, Roland H., Here I Stand (New York, 1950, Mentor edition), 100.Google Scholar The Peasants' War may be regarded as unsuccessful counter-revolution, though its antecedents went back well beyond the outbreak of the Reformation. See Rosenkranz, Albert, Der Bundschuh, die Erhebungen des Südwestdeutschen Bauernstandeg 1493- 1517 (Heidelberg, 1927).Google Scholar The Peasants' War was generally not much in flueneed by Anabaptism, though Muentzer attempted to lead. Its motivation was not primarily religious. See Franz, Guenther, Der deutsche Bauernkrieg (Muenehen, 1943).Google Scholar

12. Luther, ia typical fashion for his time, regarded as seditious any avoidance of public office or military service, which was the political platform of the peaceful Anabaptists. W. A., 31, I, 207 f. Compare similar interpretations held in some American (and foreign) sectors of thought in the twentieth century.

13. An example is the recent article, “Anabaptists,” by Bender, Harold S. in Twentieth Ceatury Encyclopedia of Religious Knowledge (Grand Rapids, Mich., 1955), I, 35 ff.Google Scholar

14. For r ecent literature on the Muenster kingdom, consult “Das Reich der Wiedertaeufer zu Muenster 1534–5,” by Blanlee, Fritze, in Archiv fuer Reformationsgeschichte (Leipzig 1940), 13 ff.Google Scholar A recent useful collection of source materials may be found in Loeffler, Klemens, Die Wiedertaeufer vu Muenster 1554–5 (Jena, 1923).Google Scholar The typical Anahaptist terminology for rebaptism (“covenant of a good conscience with God”) is found on page 102.

15. The Anabaptists were not nearly as much concerned about the actual performance or form of baptism (the controversy about immersion did not occur in this period), as were later Baptists. The name was thrust upoa them by their opponents, giving legal grounds for repressing “re-baptism.” The Aaabaptist preference for the term “Brethren” indicates that their covenantal relationship in opposition to the main Reformers was more important to them than external concerns with doctrines or rites, including baptism. Compare Menno's words, “We are not regenerated because we have beea baptized. We are baptized because we have been regenerated by faith and the Word of God,” (Complete Works, 1871, I, 35)Google Scholar, with Luther's on the other side, “Gerade als were die tauffe em vergeaglich menschen werk gewesen, gleich wie die widerteuffer leren, und nicht em ewiger bund.” (W. A., 30, II, 308).

16. Alfred Hegler and Ernst Troeltsch insisted upon a strict separation between the Biblical literalist, disciplined “Taeufer” and the more individualist “Spiritualisten.” [Geist und Schrift bei Sebastian Franek (Freihurg, 1892)Google Scholar and Social Teechings of the Christian Churches (New York, 1931)Google Scholar ]. Johannes Kuehn distinguished further between “mystics” and “spiritualists” in Toleranz und Offenbarung (Leipzig, 1923), 140, 271.Google Scholar Roland H. Bainton finds “mystical,” “spiritual,” “eschatological,” and “revolutionary” motifs in the left-wing Reformers in David Joris: Wiedertaeufer und Kaempfer fuer Toleranz im 16. Jahrhundert (Leipzig, 1937), 8 ff.Google Scholar

17. I refer to marginal “spiritual Aaabaptists” like Hans Denek (who was rebaptized by Baithasar Huebmaier, a non-pacifist Anabaptist), Ludwig Hetzer, and, to a lesser extent, Johannes Bueaderlin, Casper Schwenckfeld, Sebastian Franek, and others. Franck's pattern of rejection of other church doctrines indicates the point, though he could hardly be called an “Anabaptist” by any standard, including my own: “In our times, there are already three faiths which have a large following, the Lutheran, Zwinglian, and Anabaptist. But a fourth is already on the way to birth, which dispenses with external preaching, ceremonies, sacraments, the ban, and offices as unnecessary, and which seeks to gather only an invisible, spiritual church in the unity of the Spirit and of faith, governed wholly by the eternal, invisible Word of God.” [Chronica und Beschreibung der Tuerkey (Nuermberg, 1530), K.3bGoogle Scholar, quoted by Jones, Rufus M., Spiritual Reformers of the 16th end 17th Centuries (London, 1914), 49Google Scholar, a sympathetic interpreter of these people.[ It is interesting to try to squeeze Erasmus into this category, though precision in terminology is exceptionaliy difficult within the ineffable province of mysticism and inner, individual faith.

18. Ernst Troeltseh and Wilhelm Dilthey have pointed out (perhaps modernizing too much) that these men have been vindiented by the growth of “spiritual” faith within nineteenth and twentieth century Protestant religious life. In spite of present-day reaction against the theological implications of their positions, Troeltsch and Dilthey have stressed a most significant point historically. Note Dilthey's Auffassang und Analyse des Menschen im 15. und 16. Jahrhundert, in Geseinmelte Aufsaetze (Berlin, 1924), II, 109.Google Scholar

19. The relative membership of varying religious traditions in America would seem to prove this point, e.g., Baptists are most numerous among Protestants, within a free situation, though they are not Anabaptists according to a sixteenth century standard. Also, elaborate theological justifications for each of the contending Reformation parties have tended to obscure for their adherents some of the underlying personal, social, and politienl factors which contributed to the splintering of Protestnntism. The man on the street is sometimes more aware than are the theologians of additional motives besides the theological which sometimes exacerbate theological disagreements. Imperialism, unfortunately, is still as much at home on the ecclesiastical as on the political scene.

20. For example, the edict of the Diet of Worms, in condemning Luther, stated that Luther had destroyed obedience to authority and had published writings which served only to foment revolt, schism, and bloody dissensions. Text in Deutsche Reichstagsakten. (Gotha, 1896), II, 640 ff.Google Scholar Jacques Maritain wrote that “Protestantism, that wild revolutionary work… promises rest to the reason only in contradiction. It sets a universal war within us. It has inflamed everything, and healed nothing.” In Three Reformers: Luther- Descartes-Rousseau (New York, 1929), 50.Google Scholar A Protestant would not agree, suggesting the ecumenical movement as evidence to the contrary.

21. Religious toleration was emphatically not characteristic of the Reformation as Roland Bainton, among others, has pointed out. See “The Struggle for Religions Liberty,” in Church History (06 1941, 3 ff.)Google Scholar Amid the almost universal religious intolerance of the sixteenth century, it appears to me that the Anabaptists were among the most intolerant toward views not their own and were not necessarily unwiffing to use constraint, as this paper indicates. Harold S. Bender, however, argues to the contrary in “The Anabaptists and Religious Liberty in the Sixteenth Century” in Archiv fuer Reformat ionsgeschichte (1953), 32 ff.Google Scholar Religious tolerance is best proved when evidenced by parties in a position to persecute, rather than among those undergoing persecution for their faith. Both Catholic and Protestant church history indicates that religious tolerance is usually the cry of the weaker parties, the reluctant solution for a deadlock, or a result of a latitudinarian or doubtful faith. One may express the hope that religious tolerance in America today has a deeper basis than the motives suggested here.

22. Calvin and the Catholic Inquisition could collaborate, for instance, in an effort to suppress an Anabaptist-Anti. Trinitarian heretic, Michael Servetus, but otherwise they fought bitterly against each other. Note Bainton, Roland H., Heretic, Hunted, the Life and Death of Michael Servetus 1511- 1553 (Boston, 1953), 156, 157.Google Scholar

23. See note 1 above.

24. Muentzer was German, Grebel was Swiss. Muentzer had been trained as a Catholic priest, and, agonizingly religious, sought to overcome his doubts whether God really exists (compare Luther's less radical question whether God could be gracious to a sinner). Grebel, on the other hand, educated as a humanist, enjoyed reading Plato and writing epigrams in imitation of the Greek sophist, Lucian, before he became Zwingli's convert. Muentzer was a born preacher and demagogue. Grebel preferred to write rather than to speak in his own defense. Otto H. Brandt presented Muentzer's life and writings, in modernized German, in Thomas Mueatser, Sein Leben und Seine Schriften (Jena, 1933).Google Scholar Heinrich Boehmer's work on Mueatzer was described in note 2 above. Thomas Mueatzer's Briefwechsel, ed. Ham- rich Boehmcr and Paul Kim (Leipzig, 1931)Google Scholar, is useful, together with Anne- marie Lohmann's Zur Geistigen Entwicklung Thomas Muentzers (Leipzig, 1931),Google ScholarLuther, Carl Hinrich's and Muentzer, , Ihre Auseinandersetsung Ueber Obrigiceit und Widerstandsrecht (Berlin, 1952)Google Scholar, and a dissertation by Gerdes, Hayo, Luthers Streit mit den Schwaermern um das rechte Verstaendnis des Gesetzes Mose (Gocttingen, 1955), 76 ff.Google Scholar A Socialist account of Muentzer is by Walter, L. G., Thomas Munzer et les luttes societies a 1'époque la réforme (Paris, 1927)Google Scholar, and a recent Russian Communist view of Muentzer as a proto-Marxist is by Smirin, M. M., Die Volksreformation des Thomas Muenser and der grosse Bauernlcrieg (Berlin, 1952)Google Scholar, tr. from the edition published in Moscow in 1947.

25. Grebel's manner of address to Mucntzer indicated that he felt Muentzer was not swift enough in implementing his radical proposals: “We admonish and beseech you… the more willingly, because you have so kindly listened to our brother and confessed that you too have given way too much [!], and because you and Carlstadt are esteemed by us the purest proclaimers of the purest words of God… Go forward with the Word and establish a Christian church, with the help of Christ and His rule… If you or Carlstadt will not write sufficiently against infant baptism, with all that implies, I (Cunrat Grebel) will try my hand… ” The exclamation point is mine. This was written before the first re-baptisms had begun in Zucrich.

26. Except the Marxists (see note 24 above). Muentzer is related to New England Puritanism insofar as he introduced the necessity for inward conversion experiences in order to qualify for church membership as one of the elect, characteristic of the troubled piety of early Puritans in New England. Noted in Bainton's, Reformation of the Sixteenth Century (Boston, 1953), 66, 115.Google Scholar Muentzer was also the first to use the covenant idea in the Reformation (1524), again indicating his relationship to later Calvinist ideas. Compare note 46.

27. The title of Bender's very thorough Grebel biography. An article on Grebel with source materials in German, by Christian Neff, appeared in the Gedenkschrift zum 400. Jahrigen Jubitaeum der Mennoniten oder Taufgesinnten 1525–1925 (Ludwigshafen, 1925), 65 ff.Google Scholar

28. Grebel's words to Muentzer: “We too are rejected by our learned shepherds … who preach a sinful sweet Christ.” (In Muentzers Briefwechsel, 96).

29. Indicated by the important letter of Grebel and his Swiss associates to Muentzer, September 5, 1524. Muentzers Briefwechsel, 92. A fine translation and commentary by Walter Ranschenbusch appeared in the American Journal of Theology (01 1905, 91 ff.).Google Scholar

30. The Anabaptists certainly exemplified all of the characteristics, positive and negative, which H. Richard Niebuhr attributes to the “Christ against culture” type of Christian organization. Christ and Culture (New York, 1950), 45 ff.Google Scholar

31. Examples of Mnentzer's virulent abuse of Luther: “Es dnenkt die Welt und die unversuchtea Schriftgclehrten das allerunmoeglichste Ding zu sein, dass die Niedrigen sollen erhoben und abgesondert von den Boesen werden … Es muss ein jeder die Knnst Gottes, den rechten Christenglauben, nit durch stinkenden Atem teuflischer Schriftgelehrten bekommen, sondern durchs ewige kraeftige Wort des Vaters im Sohn mit Erlaenterung des heiligen Geists und also erfuellet werden in seiner Seel … Und Gott sagt zum gottlosen Prediger: ‘Wer hat dich geheissea meine Gerechtigkeit predigen? Und du nimmst meinen bezeugten Bund in deinen Mund und hast die Zucht gehasset.’ Wie sollen er sagen: Willst du meinen lieben gekreuzigten Sohn der Welt um deines Bauches willen predigen und weisst nit, wie man ihm muss gleichfoermig werden, Röm. 8? … Also muss der rechte Glaub den Sieg gewinnen, I Johannes 5, nachdem er die Welt ueberwindet…” In Brandt, 173, 177, 181, 179.

32. Compare some similar attitudes and statements of a successful present-day statesman, John Foster Dulles. Paul Tillich suggests that the views of Muentzer have had more influence upon American churches and politics than those of Luther, who was more metheval and European. Tillich notes especially courage and violent activity as American derivatives from the spirit of Muentzer. See Tillich's, The Courage to Be (New Haven, Conn., 1952), 171.Google Scholar

33. Luther's words in quieting the Wittenberg disturbances are typical: “Do not suppose that abuses are eliminated by destroying the object which is abused. Men can go wrong with wine and women. Shall we then prohibit wine and abolish women? … Such haste and violence betray a lack of confidence in God … Had I wished I might have started a revolution at Worms. But while I quietly waited and drank beer with Philip and Amsdorf, God dealt the papacy a mighty blow.” W. A., 10, III, 24 f., 18 f.

34. Observe Zwingli's account of Grebel's proposals referred to in note 42 below. It is interesting that Grebel's only popular success was among the peasants in Grueningen, where the peasants had just plundered a monastery, and in Toess, where a popular peasants' assembly was attempting revolt near the time when Grebel visited there. See Bender's Grebel, which denies any connection, 148, 154.

35. In his letter to Muentzer, Grebel admitted that “with us there are not twenty who believe the Word of God. (Others) trust the persons, Zwingli, Leo (Judae), and others, who are esteemed learned elsewhere also. If you must suffer, you know well that it cannot be otherwise.” (Muensters Briefwechsel, 100).

36. In spite of the scattered origins and places of spread of Anabaptism (Thuringia, Saxony, Switzerland, South Germany, Moravia, Strassburg, the Netherlands, Westphalia, and elsewhere), there was a strong consciousness of “party line” across provincial and national boundaries. Notice how Obbe Philips, from a Dutch Anabaptist standpoint, discussed together Thomas Muentzer, Melchior Hofmann, Jan of Leiden, David Joris, Menno Simons, and himself (though he insisted that he and Menno were non-resistant), in a way the present-day American Mennonites would consider highly improper. Philips, Obbe, “Bekentenisse” (1584), in Bibliotheca Reformatoria Neerlandica, ed. Cramer, S. and Pijper, F. (s'Gravenhage, 1910), VII, 114, 118, 119.Google Scholar

37. The two mandates of the Zuerich city council, early in 1525, decreed banishment from the canton with wife, children, and goods, for refusal to have a child baptized. (In von Muralt, Leonhard, ed., Quellen zur Geschichte der Taeufer in der Schweiz (Zuerich, 1952, 35, f.)Google Scholar. In November, Grebel, Manz, and Blaurock were sentenced to life imprisonment. (von Muralt, 136). By March 1526, drowning was set as the penalty for re-baptism, and Manz was executed by drowning on Jan. 25, 1527, for having rebaptized. (von Muralt, 181, 226).

38. “… Wo jemand leren wolt, das Christus nicht Gott sey, sondern ein schlechter mensch und gleich wie ein ander prophet, wie die Tuercken und die Widderteuffer halten, die sol man auch nicht leiden, sondern als die offentlichen lesterer straffen. Denn sie siud auch nicht schlecht allein ketzer, sondern offentliche lesterer.” (1530), W. A., 31, I, 208.

39. Gerbert, Camill, Geschichte der Strassburger Seotenbewegung 1524–1534 (Strassburg, 1889).Google Scholar Robert Kreider notes the treatment of the Anabaptists by the Strassburg Reformers in “The Anabaptists and Civil Authorities of Strasbourg 1525–55,” in Church History (06 1955, 99 ff.)Google Scholar. For Hesse, consult the abundance of sources in Koehler, Walter et al. , ed., Urkundliche Quellen zur hessischen Reformationsgeschichte, Wiedertaeuferakten 1527–1626 (Marburg, 1951).Google Scholar

40. Muentzers Briefwechsel, 150. (“Prager Anschlag,” 1521).

41. Brandt, 162, 163. (“Die Fuerstenpredigt,” 1524).

42. Emil, Egli, ed., Actensammlung zur Geschichte der Zuercher Refermation in den Jahren 1519–33 (Zuerich, 1879), I, 72.Google Scholar

43. Muentzers Briefwechsel, 92 ff.

44. Paul, Wappler, ed.,Die Taeuferbewegung in Thueringen von 1526–1584 (Jena, 1913), 279, 281.Google Scholar (Parentheses are mine, with information therein). References to the influence of Hut and Muentzer are plentiful throughout the Thueringian processes, e.g., 243, 432, 462.

45. Testimony of Mekhior Hofmann, April 15, 1535, in Zeitschrift fuer die historische Theologie (Gotha, 1860), 98.Google Scholar

46. Gottlob Schrenck argued that “Zwingli was the real renewer of covenant thought for Reformed theology, but the suggestion for it came from his Anabaptist opponents.” In Gottesreich und Bund in Aelteren Protestantismus (Gütersloh, 1923), 36.Google Scholar This cannot be proved. Zwingli used a covenant argument to support the continuing validity of infant baptism (parallel to circumcision) in his 1525 work against Anabaptism, , “Von der Touff, Widertouff, mid Kindertouff,” in Zwinglis Werke 91, IV, 188 ff.Google Scholar, partly translated in Bromiley, G. W., Zwingli and Bullinger (“The Library of Christian Classics”) (Philadelphia, 1953), 24 ff.Google Scholar Thomas Muentzer, however, declared in July 1524 that the covenant was his basis for violent revolution (Muentzer Briefwechsel, 74 ff.), and the princes became alarmed when they realized the implications of his covenant organization. My dissertation discusses Muentzer and Anabaptist covenant thought at length.

47. Bibliotheca Reformatoria Neerlandica, VII, 129Google Scholar tr. in Horsch, John, Mennonites in Europe (Scottdale, Pa., 1942), 177.Google Scholar Obbe Philips vividly portrayed the errors of violent Anabaptism.

48. B. R. N., VII, 461. Cornelius Krahn's biography, Menno Simons 1496–1561 (Karlsruhe, 1936), 28 ff.Google Scholar, judiciously examines violent aspects within Dutch Anabaptist origins. Henry E. Dosker treated the same subject in The Dutch Anabaptists (Philadelphia, 1921), 84 ff.Google Scholar

49. Simons, Menno, “Renunciation”, Complete Works, I, 4.Google Scholar Compare the Dutch edition, Opera Omnia Theologica (Amsterdam, 1681), 257.Google Scholar At about the same time, hundreds of Netherlanders were swarming to the Muenster kingdom. They came from a score of districts, but especially were influenced from Amsterdam and Leiden. See a recent review of the evidence in a Dutch dissertation, Mellink, A. F., De Wederdopers in de Noordelijke Nederlanden 1531–1544 (Groningen, 1953), 102 ff.Google Scholar The Bolsward assault, the attempt to burn Leiden, the siege of Amsterdam, and the riot at 't Zand were by no means the only instances of violence within early Dutch Anabaptism.

50. Complete Works, I, 205.Google Scholar “The Cross of Christ.”

51. Rothmann, Bernhard, “Von Verborgenheit der Sehrift des Rickes Christi vnd Von dem Dage des Herrn,” in Hochhuth, E. W. H., Bernhard Rothmanns Schriften (Gotha, 1857), 47, 50.Google Scholar

52. The grisly details are in Loeffler, 234 ff.

53. Compare Roland Bainton's latest treatment of Anabaptism, a careful statement which sees in the early stages of the movement a multitude of minutely varied little groups behind different leaders, all hopeful for complete vindication but unwilling to co-operate with their slightly different colleagues. The Age of the Reformation (Princeton, N. J., 1956, paper), 41 ff.Google Scholar Though separatism was most characteristic of these people, a survey of what they held in common is not without value.

54. See note 14. I have been unable to find the source for the statement that 1400 Muenster citizens had already been rebaptized in January 1534, before the arrival of Jan of Leiden and the subsequent rage for re-baptism had been completed, mentioned both in Loeffler, 5, and Koehler, , Realenzyklopaedia fuer protestantische Theologie und Kirche, third edition, ed. A. Hauck, 13, 547.Google Scholar

55. A remarkable aspect of early Anabaptism is thus not so much its occasional violence, as its frequent exhibition of sobriety and good sense amidst emotional upheaval and martyrdom.

56. See note 49.

57. Stauffer, Compare Ethelbert, “Maertyrertheologie und Taeuferbewegung,” in Zeitschrift fuer Kirchengeschichte (1933), 545 ff.Google Scholar

58. Christian Faith and Communist Faith, ed. D. M. Mackinnon (London, 1953), 247.Google Scholar Albert Camus, from a different perspective, notes the validity of revolt, although it is always threatened by either sterility or spiritual pride. Revolution takes the passionate side of man into consideration, he says: “Revolution, though apparently negative since it creates nothing, is profoundly positive in that it reveals the part of man which must always be defended. … And so the real drama of revolutionary thought is revealed. In order to exist, man must rebel, but rebellion must respect the limits that it discovers within itself—limits where minds meet, and in meeting, begin to exist … In contemplating the results of an act of revolution, we shall have to say, each time, whether it remains faithful to its first noble purpose or whether, through lassitude or folly, it forgets its purpose and plunges into a mire of tyranny or servitude.” The Rebel (L'homme revolte) (New York, 1954), 25, 27, 28.Google Scholar