The great spiritual movement of the 15th and 16th centuries had for its
most general characteristic, revolt against authority. This showed itself
not merely in the anti-papal reformation of Luther, but also in the
anti-feudal rising of the peasants and in a variety of anti-ecclesiastical
movements within the reformation areas themselves. One of the most notable
of these radical anti-ecclesiastical movements was that of the Zwickau
prophets, (Marcus Stuebner, Nikolaus Storch and Thomas Muenzer): the most
vigorous and notorious that of the Muenster Anabaptists. Although they have
been called the "harbingers" of the Anabaptists, the characteristic
teaching of the Zwickau prophets was not Anabaptism. (See, however,
ANABAPTISTS.) For although Muenzer repudiated infant baptism in theory, he
did not relinquish its practice, nor did he insist on the re-baptism of
believers. The characteristic teaching of the Zwickau movement, so closely
linked with the peasant rising, was the great emphasis laid upon the "inner
word." Divine revelation, said Muenzer, was not received from the church,
nor from preaching, least of all from the dead letter of the Bible; it was
received solely and directly from the Spirit of God. It is this daring
faith in divine illumination that brings the Zwickau teachers most nearly
into touch with the Anabaptists. But if they are not typical of Anabaptism,
still less are the later representatives of the movement in the last sad
months at Muenster.
The beginnings of the Anabaptist movement proper were in [v.03 p.0371]
Zuerich, where Wilheld Reubli (1480-1554), Konrad Grebel (d. 1526), Felix
Manz (d. 1527) and Simon Strumpf separated from Zwingli and proposed to
form a separate church. They repudiated the use of force, advocated a
scriptural communism of goods, and asserted that Christians must always
exercise love and patience towards each other and so be independent of
worldly tribunals. But their most radical doctrine was the rejection of
infant baptism as unscriptural. They rapidly gained adherents, among whom
was Hans Broedli, pastor of Zollikon. Their refusal, however, to baptize
infants, and the formation of a separate church as the outcome of this
refusal, brought upon them the condemnation of Zwingli, and a number of
them were banished. This act of banishment, however, drove Joerg Blaurock,
Konrad Grebel and others to take the step which definitely instituted
"Anabaptism": they baptized one another and then partook of the Lord's
Supper together. This step took them much farther than the repudiation of
paedobaptism. It formed a new religious community, which sought to fashion
itself on the model of primitive Christianity, rejecting all tradition and
accretions later than New Testament records. Its members claimed to get
back to the simple church founded on brotherly love. The result was that
their numbers grew with astonishing rapidity, and scholarly saints like
Balthasar Hubmaier (_ca._ 1480-1528) and Hans Denck (_ca._ 1495-1527)
joined them. Hubmaier brought no new adherents with him, and in 1525
himself baptized 300 converts. This baptism, however, was not immersion.
Blaurock and Grebel baptized each other, and many adherents, kneeling
together in an ordinary room. Hubmaier baptized his 300 from one bucket.
The mode was sprinkling or pouring. In all this the Anabaptists had
maintained one central article of faith that linked them to the Zwickau
prophets, belief in conscience, religious feeling, or inner light, as the
sole true beginning or ground of religion; and one other article, held with
equal vigour and sincerity, that true Christians are like sheep among
wolves, and must on no account defend themselves from their enemies or take
vengeance for wrong done. Very soon this their faith was put to fiery test.
Not only were Catholics and Protestants opposed to them on doctrinal
grounds, but the secular powers, fearing that the new teaching was
potentially as revolutionary as Muenzer's radicalism had been, soon
instituted a persecution of the Anabaptists. On the 7th of March 1526 the
Zuerich Rath issued an edict threatening all who were baptized anew with
death by drowning, and in 1529 the emperor Charles V., at the diet of
Spires, ordered Anabaptists to be put to death with fire and sword without
even the form of ecclesiastical trial. A cruel persecution arose. Manz was
drowned at Zuerich and Michael Sattler (_ca._ 1495-1527) burned to death
after torture in 1527; Hubmaier was burned in 1528 and Blaurock in 1529,
and Sebastian Franck (1499-1542) asserts that the number of slain was in
1530 already about 2000.
Two results followed from this persecution. First, the development of a
self-contained and homogeneous community was made impossible. No
opportunity for the adoption of any common confession was given. Only a few
great doctrines are seen to have been generally held by Anabaptists--such
as the baptism of believers only, the rejection of the Lutheran doctrine of
justification by faith as onesided and the simple practice of the breaking
of bread. This last, the Anabaptist doctrine of the Lord's Supper, was to
the effect that brothers and sisters in Christ should partake in
remembrance of the death of Christ, and that they should thereby renew the
bond of brotherly love as the basis of neighbourly life. In the second
place, the persecution deprived the Anabaptists of the noble leaders who
had preached non-resistance and at the same time provoked others to an
attitude of vengeance which culminated in the horrors of Muenster. For
Melchior Hofmann (_ca._ 1498-1543 or 1544) having taken the Anabaptist
teaching to Holland, there arose in Haarlem a preacher of vengeance, Jan
Matthisson or Matthyszoon (Matthys) (d. 1534) by name, who, prophesying a
speedy end of the world and establishment of the kingdom of heaven,
obtained many adherents, and despatched Boekebinder and de Kniper to
Muenster. Here the attempt was made to realise Matthisson's ideals. All who
did not embrace Anabaptism were driven from Muenster (1533), and Bernt
Knipperdolling (_ca._ 1495-1536) became burgomaster. The town was now
besieged and Matthisson was killed early in 1534. John (Johann Bockelson)
of Leiden (1510-1536) took his place and the town became the scene of the
grossest licence and cruelty, until in 1535 it was taken by the besieging
bishop. Unhappily the Anabaptists have always been remembered by the crimes
of John of Leiden and the revelry of Muenster. They should really be known
by the teaching and martyrdom of Blaurock, Grebel and Hubmaier, and by the
gentle learning and piety of Hans Denck--of whom, with many hundred others,
"the world was not worthy."
For the teaching of the Anabaptists, see ANABAPTISTS.
Reference has already been made to the reason why a common Anabaptist
confession was never made public. Probably, however, the earliest
confession of faith of any Baptist community is that given by Zwingli in
the second part of his _Elenchus contra Catabaptistas_, published in 1527.
Zwingli professes to give it entire, translating it, as he says, _ad
verbum_ into Latin. Whatever opinion may be held as to the orthodoxy of the
seven articles of the Anabaptists, the vehemence with which they were
opposed, and the epithets of abuse which were heaped upon the unfortunate
sect that maintained them, cannot fail to astonish those used to
toleration. Zwingli, who details these articles, as he says, that the world
may see that they are "fanatical, stolid, audacious, impious," can scarcely
be acquitted of unfairness in joining together two of them,--the fourth and
fifth,--thus making the article treat "of the avoiding of abominable
pastors in the church" (_Super devitatione abominabilium pastorum in
Ecclesia_), though there is nothing about pastors in the fourth article,
and nothing about abominations in the fifth, and though in a marginal note
he himself explains that the first two copies that were sent him read as he
does, but the other copies make two articles, as in fact they evidently
are. It is strange that the Protestant Council of Zuerich, which had
scarcely won its own liberty, and was still in dread of the persecution of
the Romanists, should pass the decree which instituted the cruel
persecution of the Anabaptists.
After Muenster had fallen the harassed remnants of the Anabaptists were
gathered together under Menno Simonis, who joined them in 1537. His
moderation and piety held in check the turbulence of the more fanatical
amongst them. He died in 1561 after a life passed amidst continual dangers
and conflicts. His name remains as the designation of the Mennonites
(_q.v._), who eventually settled in the Netherlands under the protection of
William the Silent, prince of Orange.
Of the introduction of Anabaptist views into England we have no certain
knowledge. Fox relates that "the registers of London make mention of
certain Dutchmen counted for Anabaptists, of whom ten were put to death in
sundry places in the realm, _anno 1535_; other ten repented and were
saved." In 1536 King Henry VIII. issued a proclamation together with
articles concerning faith agreed upon by Convocation, in which the clergy
are told to instruct the people that they ought to repute and take "the
Anabaptists' opinions for detestable heresies and to be utterly condemned."
Thomas Fuller (1608-1661) tells us from Stow's _Chronicles_ that, in the
year 1538, "four Anabaptists, three men and one woman, all Dutch, bare
faggots at Paul's Cross, and three days after a man and woman of their sect
was burnt in Smithfield." In the reign of Edward VI., after the return of
the exiles from Zuerich, John Hooper (bishop of Gloucester and Worcester,
d. 1555) writes to his friend Bullinger in 1549, that he reads "a public
lecture twice in the day to so numerous an audience that the church cannot
contain them," and adds, "the Anabaptists flock to the place and give me
much trouble." It would seem that at this time they were united together in
communities separate from the established Church. Latimer, in 1552, speaks
of them as segregating themselves from the company of other men. In the
sixth examination of John Philpot (1516-1555) in 1555 we are told that Lord
Riche said to him, "All heretics do boast of the Spirit of God, and every
one would have a church by himself, as Joan of Kent and the Anabaptists."
Philpot was imprisoned [v.03 p.0372] soon after Mary's accession in 1553;
and it is very pleasing to find, amidst the records of intense bitterness
and rancour which characterized these times, and with which Romanist and
Protestant alike assailed the persecuted Anabaptists, a letter of
Philpot's, to a friend of his, "prisoner the same time in Newgate," who
held the condemned opinions. His friend had written to ask his judgment
concerning the baptism of infants. Philpot in a long reply, whilst
maintaining the obligation of infant baptism, yet addresses his
correspondent as, "dear brother, saint, and fellow-prisoner for the truth
of Christ's gospel"; and at the close of his argument he says, "I beseech
thee, dear brother in the gospel, follow the steps of the faith of the
glorious martyrs in the primitive church, and of such as at this day follow
the same."
Many Anabaptist communities existed in England toward the end of the 16th
century, particularly in East Anglia, Kent and London. Their most notable
representative was Robert Cooke, but they were more notorious for heretical
views as to the Virgin Mary (see ANABAPTISTS) than for their
anti-paedobaptist position. It was for these views that Joan Boucher of
Kent was burnt in 1550. There is no doubt that these prepared the way for
the coming of the modern Baptists, but "the truth is that, while the
Anabaptists in England raised the question of baptism, they were almost
entirely a foreign importation, an alien element; and the rise of the
Baptist churches was wholly independent of them."