Why
Baptists are not
Protestants
Or
The
Origin and the Doctrines of
the Anabaptists of the Reformation
By Raul
Enyedi
Introduction
|
T |
HE SUBJECT OF
ANABAPTISM of Reformation times is one
of the most debated subjects in world history.
Every aspect of their existence – their origin, their doctrines,
their
practice, their influence upon the world – has been affirmed and
questioned
over and over again in a number of ways.
Both their defenders and their accusers find that keeping their
composure and objectivity while investigating the Anabaptists is the
hardest
thing they can do. The Anabaptists were
known as men who shunned compromise, and one will either love or hate
their
positions, but he cannot pass them by with indifference.
We consider
that the world has
reached a point, especially in the religious realm, in which there is a
need
that the doctrines of the Anabaptists be known and proclaimed. This is
an
edifying but also challenging task for those who care for the
continuation of
pure Christianity and of churches shaped after the New Testament
pattern
(Epistle of Jude, vs. 3).
We live in an
age in which declaring
a doctrinal or denominational identity is considered to be obsolete. One who declares the Baptist identity is
called “narrow,”
“bigot,” “fanatic” or “lacking common
sense.” As
Baptists it is imposibile to know who we are and where we are heading
if we do
not know our history. No Baptist can
properly know his identity and origin, from where he comes and where he
is going,
unless he is acquainted with the Anabaptists.
The
Anabaptists significantly marked the history of Christianity and that
of the
world. The modern man who lives in a
society that grants him the right of free expression, and the right to
believe
whatever he considers proper, is greatly indebted for his priviledges
to the
sixteenth century Anabaptists. A great
host of them perished at the bloody hands of the executioner or in the
flames
of the heretic’s stake for proclaiming and defending these fundamental
rights
the civilized world enjoys today.
To the
persecuted, hunted and martyred Anabaptist that lived five centuries
ago, the
modern Baptist owes his existence, the doctrinal frame upon which his
church is
built and also the direction he follows.
Having such an inheritance, any Baptist should glory in his
forefathers,
and humble himself before such a great clowd of witnesses.
Today
Baptists ignore or repudiate the Anabaptists, being embarrassed if
identified
with them. Moreover, there are some who
call themselves Baptists, but openly confess that they would rather
identify
with the Protestant or even the Catholic party than with the
Anabaptists. This sad situation has two
main causes. The first is ignorance; the
second is the
involvement in the ecumenical movement.
Ignorance, on
the part of the common member is due mainly to the fact that the
teaching on
our Baptist origins ceased to be proclaimed from the pulpits long ago. Nevertheless, we remind every member that he
is responsible before God to search for the truth, to judge what is
being
preached – and what is not preached, to watch over the doctrinal and
practical
purity of the church to which he belongs.
The second
cause is much more dramatic. Most
Baptist leaders cannot be accused of ignorance – not an innocent one,
at least. The times in which the Baptists
were refused
access to higher education or to information are long past. The information exists and is available for
any one who wants to study it. The
teaching on Baptist origins is not preached because it is unknown, but
because
it does not fit in the program followed by the higher Baptist ranks. This is the ecumenical program pursued by all
great Christian denominations. The ecumenical movement does not look
favorably
upon the insistence on denominational histories, because it pursues the
bringing of the churches into a post-denominational era.
History (which inevitably emphasizes
denominational peculiarities) is minimized or even changed by those
from the
large ecumenical circle.
More than
any other denomination, the Baptists have a history that does not fit
with
ecumenical patterns, being thus extremely inconvenient.
It is not to be wondered that once the
Baptists became involved in ecumenism they changed their position
regarding
their origin. First they gave up the “succession view” (this view states that
the Baptists are the successors of the original Christians and that
Baptist
type churches, though known under different names, existed in every
century of
the Christian era); then the “Anabaptist
influence view” was given up, since the Anabaptists were
drastically
separated from the Catholics and from the Protestants and were
stigmatized as
fanatics, being made responsible for two tragic episodes from the time
of early
Reformation: The Peasants’ War
(1524-1525) and the
Kingdom of Munster (1535-1536). The “English separatism outgrowth view” was
chosen, which states that the Baptist origins are found in 1609, when
John
Smyth baptized himself and then the others that were with him,
organizing the
first Baptist church in the world. Such
a view is very convenient to the ecumenical cause because it places the
origin
of the Baptists in late Protestantism, being merely continuers of the
Reformation. They are also in this way
separated from the troubled sixteenth century and from all the medieval
dissident parties that opposed Catholicism vehemently, sometimes even
to
extermination.
The purpose
of this article is to bring to light a small part of the history of the
early
Anabaptists, of their vision, of their specific doctrines, of their
life
standards and struggle for preserving the faith, and of their
sufferings and
persecutions. Having access to essential
information, quotes from original sources and quotes from the most
important
researchers of Anabaptist history, we hope that the reader can form a
general
but fair opinion about the Anabaptists, in such a way that, at the end
of his
reading, he would be able to answer two questions: who were the
Anabaptists? And what did they
believe?
Defining the
Term “Anabaptist”
The name
“Anabaptist” was given to a movement that blossomed during the
Protestant
Reformation of the sixteeth century. Its
main characteristic was the protest against the baptism practiced by
the Roman
Catholic and the
They also
firmly held to the New Testament as sole authority in matters of faith
and
practice. They opposed the clergy and
believed in the equality of all church members.
They believed that following Christ meant living a life of
perseverance
unto holiness. They believed that every
man is free to choose what he wants to believe and in what church to be
a
member, regardless of where he finds himself.
From the
very first it should be emphasized that the opponents of the
Anabaptists
labeled as Anabaptists any party that opposed infant baptism and the
interference of the civil authorities in religious matters and the
ecclesiastical authorities in civil matters.
Thus, we shall meet under this name both peaceful and
revolutionary
groups, both evangelical and fanatical.
This generalization by their enemies was not accidental, but
intentional, with the purpose of making all of them hated by the common
people. Modern historians have noted
this distinction: “There are two kinds of
Anabaptists,
the sober and the fanatical. Failure to
make this distinction has done mischief and caused modern Baptists to
deny
their connection with the Baptists of the Reformation, whereas they are
the
lineal descendants of the sober kind and have no reason to be ashamed
of their
predecessors” (Schaff, The
New Schaff-Herzog Encyclopedia, Vol. 1, p.
370).
We
will attempt in this work to
distinguish the different groups catalogued as “Anabaptist” and to
differentiate the “evangelical Anabaptists” from the revolutionaries
and the
fanatics.
Any historian encounters
a serious problem when he
studies dissent in a monolithic, totalitarian society.
History is written by those in power, and
this is true in the case of the Anabaptists, as well.
In no state did they gain the power – in
fact, this was not their purpose – and their principles were applied
only in
the small communities they formed.
Schaff notices: “Information
concerning the Anabaptists is largely
derived from prejudiced and deficient sources” (Ibid.). The greatest host of
historical
sources comes from their enemies, either from the Catholics or from the
Protestants. These did not hesitate to
bring accusations against them of the most horrible and monstruous
crimes,
calumny being considered as being part of the arsenal of the “man of
God.”
Franklin Littell says: “…the
writings and records of the movement were successfully
suppressed, whereas the polemics of their enemies circulated widely and
were
early translated into various languages (including English)” (The
Anabaptist View of the
Church, p. 148).
For a long
time historians built an image of the Anabaptists using the materials
provided
by their greatest enemies. Only their
followers and few of those outside their circles did not consider them
the
yeast of society, devilish men, arch-enemies of Christ and of the
social order.
In any age, those who
identified themselves with the
Anabaptists longed for their acquittal.
C.H. Spurgeon hoped that “The time will probably arrive when history will
be
re-written, and the maligned Baptists of Holland and Germany will be
acquitted
of all complicity with the ravings of the insane fanatics, and it will
be
proved that they were the advanced-guard of the army of religious
liberty, men
who lived before their times, but whose influence might have saved the
world
centuries of floundering in the bog of semi-popery, if they had been
allowed
fair play” (Cook,
The Story of the Baptists, p. 56) .
The times Spurgeon longed
for have already started,
but most of their successors are not interested anymore in their
history.
The Anabaptists
and the Radical
Reformation
By their
origin and particularities, the Anabaptists distinguished themselves
both from
Catholics and Protestants. They formed a
distinct movement that did not identify with any of these parties,
remaining
always separate and independent from them.
“From all sides we are coming to
recognize in
the Radical Reformation a major expression of the religious movement of
the
sixteenth century. It is one that is as
distinctive as Lutheranism, Calvinism and Anglicanism, and is perhaps
comparably
significant in the rise of modern Christianity” (Williams, Spiritualist and Anabaptist Writers, p.
19).
The
Anabaptist movement is a part of what historians call “the
left wing of the Reformation” or the “Radical
Reformation.” This wing encircled a broad variety of
parties and ideas. There was little or
no cooperation but rather controversy between these parties.
Henry
Bullinger, the assistant of Zwingli, tried to distinguish them,
suggesting the
existence of thirteen different parties (see
Christian, A
History of the Baptists, Vol. 1,
p. 87), but the number of these
parties was even greater. Sebastian
Franck, another contemporary, noted the variety of thought among the
radicals: “…it appears to me that there are
not two to be found who
agree with each other in all points” (Ibid.).
Mosheim had
the same opinion, writing his Institutes of Ecclesiastical History:
“Whether
the orgin of this discordant sect which caused such mischief in both
the civil
and religious community, is to be sought for in
Philip Schaff, one of the
chief figures in
ecclesiastical history, states: “We must
carefully
distinguish the better class of Baptists and the Mennonites from the
restless
revolutionary radicals and fanatics, like Carlstadt, Muenzer, and the
leaders
of the Muenster tragedy” (History of
the Christian Church, Vol.
VII.,
p. 396).
Fritz
Blanke, in Anabaptism and the Reformation,
says: “Beside the main channel of the
Reformation
there flowed three other streams: Anabaptism, spiritualism and
anti-Trinitarianism. Although there were
transitions and borderline phenomena between these three streams, they
can
nevertheless be held as essentially different.
Anabaptism in turn can be divided into four branches: the Swiss
Brethren, the Hutterian Brethren in
More
recently, George Williams made one of the most thorough cataloguing of
the
different parties that formed together “the
left wing of the Reformation.” “Common
to all
participants in the Radical Reformation were disappointment in the
moral
aspects of territorial Protestantism, as articulated by Luther and
Zwingli, and
forthright disavowal of several of its doctrines and institutions. Among the dissidents in the Radical
Reformation,
there are three main groupings: the Anabaptists proper, the
Spiritualists and
the Evangelical Rationalists” (Ibid., p. 20).
The
Evangelical Rationalists were in their greatest part unitarians
(anti-trinitarians). They were numerous
in
The
Spiritualists were named thusly because they believed in the immediate
inspiration of the Spirit. They stressed
the “inner word,” considering it
superior to the written Scriptures. They
aimed for the creation of a new church, composed of believers, but a
return to
the New Testament model of a church they considered unnecessary. They rejected baptism in general, just like
the other sacraments. They opposed the
association of the Church with the civil powers. They
were nicknamed “Schwarmer,” i.e.
enthusiasts, fanatics.
Williams
indentifies three great camps among the Spiritualists: the Rationalists
(Sebastian Franck is the most representative); evangelicals (like
Caspar
Schwenckfeld) and the revolutionaries (Thomas Munzer, Andreas Carlstadt
–
Luther’s former associate). The
Revolutionaries preached the imminent end of the social order and the
establishment of the
The
Anabaptists, in their turn, were classified by Williams in three great
parties:
evangelical, contemplative and revolutionaries.
All of them longed for a spiritual church. All
baptized only adults. All struggled for
religious liberty. All practiced
“discipleship,” the following
of Christ. Nevertheless, the three
parties differed one from each other in important points, and the
cooperation
between them was scarce and limited.
The
Evangelicals represented the main stream of Anabaptism.
Among their leaders, the most renown were: in
the Swiss cantons – Conrad Grebel
(ca. 1498-1526);
Felix Manz (ca. 1498-1527); Georg
Blaurock (ca. 1492-1529); in the
southern German provinces, Austria and Moravia – Michael Sattler (ca. 1490-1527); Wilhelm Reublin (dead after
1559); Balthasar Hubmaier (1480?-1528); Pilgram Marpeck (d. 1556); in the Netherlands – Menno Simons
(1496-1561); Dietrich (Dirk) (1504-1568) and Obbe (ca.
1500-1568) Philips, in the first part of his
ministry. They were characterized
by
high moral standards, and were peaceful and prosperous.
They thought that every individual should be
free to believe according to the dictates of his conscience, and
believed in a
church composed of true believers, separated from the state and from
the world
of unbelievers. They stood against the
use of weapons and refused to give oaths or to serve as magistrates,
but they
subjected themselves to civil authorities. From the main body of the
Evangelical Anabaptists sprung the Hutterites lead by Jacob Hutter, who
preached
communitarianism (the common possesion of all the goods of the
community).
Balthasar
Hubmaier
Conrad Grebel
Menno Simons
George
Blaurock
The
Contemplative Anabaptists were those who, like the Spiritualists,
emphasized
the illumination of the Spirit. They
regarded the “inner word” and the
letter of the Scriptures as the two scales of the same balance. Their prominent representatives were Hans Denck (ca. 1500-1527) (for a time he was the
leader
of the Evangelical Anabaptists in Augsburg); Hans Hut (d.
1527) (in his last years, however, he labored
among the Evangelical Anabaptists); Ludwig Hatzer
(1500-1529); Adam Pastor (died between 1560-70). Denck and Hatzer
collaborated in the
translation of the major prophets from Hebrew into the German language,
five
years prior to Luther’s translation. The
death of Denck in exile and the martyrdom of Hatzer stopped the
translation of
the whole Old Testament.
The
Revolutionary Anabaptists were those who insisted on the establishment
of
Christ’s theocracy on earth. They based
their doctrine on the Old Testament prophecies and on their own “divine
inspiration.” Their leaders, Melchior Hoffman and Jan Matthijs,
considered
themselves to be the two prophets of the book of Revelation. Matthijs predicted the coming of the
apocalypse and of the Kingdom, whose capital would be the German city
of
The vast
differences in doctrine and practice that existed among the parties
gathered
under the flag of the Radical Reformation were not left unknown to the
Protestant and Catholic authorities.
Their identification of all the Anabaptists with a fanatic and
revolutionary minority was deliberate (this custom was old among the
Catholics). Luther, Zwingli, Calvin and
the other Reformers cannot be acquitted for their calumnies that
brought
repeated waves of persecutions and executions upon innocent Anabaptists
who
condemned and abhorred those abuses as much as the Reformers. “Yet
the major
Protestant Reformers and their associates were the bitterest foes and
persecutors of the Anabaptists; and Protestant scholars and
polemicists,
beginning with Martin Luther, Ulrich Zwingli, Phillip Melanchton, John
Calvin
and Henry Bullinger, drew and redrew a composite portrait of them as
fanatics
and revolutionaries” (Williams,
Ibid., p. 26).
Variety was
the label of the century – and not only among the Radicals. The Catholic party was divided.
Many opposed the excomunication of Luther and
expressed similar sentiments. More
voices, some even from the papal throne, asserted the need for a moral
reformation. Humanism, which flirted with
pagan
philosophy, tended toward a rejection of the superstitions and
“mysteries” of
the Church. The Cistercians stirred
trouble, pushing for the laymen to have access to the wine in the
Eucharist.
There was no
more unity in the Protestant camp either.
A motley crowd of varied interests gathered under the flag of
Luther. Hutten, Sickingen and Rubianus
were pushed by nationalist emancipation, not by religious sentiment. Some princes supported him because they hated
to see German gold draining toward
The Swiss
Reformation did not at first know more unity of thought.
Fritz Blanke says: “In
1523-24 Zwingli
himself distinguished three different groups within the population. There were people in Zurich (city and
canton), he said, who were protestant out of hatred toward Catholicism. There was the category (still extant) of
‘negative Protestants,’ who are Protestant because they under no
conditions
wish to be Catholics. The second group
is made up of libertinistic Protestants, who see in the Gospel nothing
but an
opportunity to lead a looser life. But
there is also a third circle: those who ‘work in the word of God,’ who
seek to
live according to the word of God and to penetrate ever deeper into the
Holy
Scriptures. This last group is Zwingli’s
‘staff,’ the narrow circle of his collaborators” (Hershberger,
Ibid., p. 58, 59).
The
Evangelical Anabaptists are the predecessors of the Baptists,
Mennonites and
Hutterites. Therefore, keeping in mind
the differences between all the parties classed as “Anabaptists,” we
will
concentrate our efforts to demonstrate that the Evangelical Anabaptists
did not
identify themselves with the Protestant camp, having a different origin
as well
as different doctrines and practices. From this point forward, we shall
employ
the term “Anabaptist” not in its general sense, but, if no mention is
made, in
the sense of “Evangelical Anabaptists.”
What is the
Origin of the Anabaptists?
Surprisingly
enough, no historian can give a sure and definite answer to this
question. There are two schools of thought
that
postulate two theories. The first states
that Anabaptism was a “son” of the Reformation and a constitutive part
of
it. The movement should be analyzed in
Reformation context, since it had no connection with the medieval
dissident
groups, even though they had similar doctrines and practices. The main arguments of this theory are: 1. There is no clear historical data that would
confirm the descent of the Anabaptists from the Waldenses, the Bohemian
Brethren and other such parties. 2. Most of the Anabaptist leaders came from
Catholicism to Anabaptism via Protestantism.
3. Anabaptism spread successfully
only in the territories where Protestantism gained the upper hand (this
argument is brought by Fritz Blanke in Anabaptism
and the Reformation). 4.
There were doctrinal and practical
differences between the Waldenses of Reformation times and the
Anabaptists, and
the former united with the Reformation party in 1532, not with the
Anabaptists. Some of the most
representative figures of this school, with some differences among
them, are
Bender, Littell, Estep, Blanke, Zijpp.
The second
theory states that the Anabaptists are the heirs of the medieval
evangelical
groups. Some of the most important
representatives of this school are the historians Keller, Vedder,
Christian,
Jarrel and Verduin. The absence of undeniable
evidence that points to a direct descent from the medieval groups is
admitted,
but the following aspects are found to give enough evidence for an
origin older
than 1517 (the beginning of the Reformation):
1. All
historians admit that Anabaptism started
at once in
Their
extraordinary growth cannot be explained unless we admit a previously
prepared
material. Henry Vedder says: “The seemingly sudden appearance of the
Anabaptists and
their rapid growth in
2. The
beginning of Anabaptism cannot be
attributed to one leader, not even to a group.
The Protestant churches can immediately identify the person who
founded
them. Mosheim declares: “The orgin of that sect who, from their
repetition of
baptism received in other communities, are called Anabaptists, but who
are also
denominated Mennonites… is involved in much obscurity [another
translation
reads: “is hidden in the remote depths of antiquity].
For they suddenly started up in various
countries of
3.
Their
specific doctrines are not new.
Schaff says: “The Anabaptists did not
invent
their rejection of infant baptism, for there have always been parties
in the
Church which were antipedobaptists” (The
New Schaff-Herzog Encyclopedia, vol. I,
p.
370). The translator
of Mosheim’s Institutes says: “Neither Menno nor the first Anabaptists had such
disciplined intellects as to be able thus systematically
to link together
their thoughts. Their tenets had been
advanced long before the Reformation by the Cathari, the Albigenses,
and the
Waldenses, as also by the Hussites. This
can be shown by unquestionable documents, from the records of the
Inquistion
and from Confessions; and Mosheim himself maintains the fact in sec. 2 of this chapter. Those
sects were indeed oppressed but not
exterminated. Adherents to their tenets
were dispersed everywhere in Germany, Switzerland, Bohemia and Moravia;
and
they were emboldened by the Reformation to stand forth openly, to form
a closer
union among themselves and to make proselytes to their tenets. From them sprang the Anabaptists, whose
teachers were men for the most part without learning, who understood
the
Scriptures according to the letter and, applied the words of the Bible
without
philosophical deductions, according to their perverse mode of
interpretation,
to their peculiar doctrines concering the church, anabaptism, wars,
capital
punishments, oaths, & c. Even their
doctrine concering magistrates they derived from Luke xxii:25 and 1
Corinth. vi.1, and the manner in which
they were treated by the magistrates may have had a considerable
influence on
their doctrine respecting them” (Ibid., p. 694,
note).
Leonard
Verduin says:
“What
erupted at the Second Front [Verduin calls the
struggle between the
Reformers and the Catholics the First Front of the battle of the
Protestants,
and their struggle against the Anabaptists the Second Front] was a resurgence of those tendencies and
opinions that had
for centuries already existed over against the medieval order; it was
connected
with ancient circles in which, in spite of the persecutions, a body of
ancient
opinions and convictions was still alive.
It was not a thing arising without deeper root out of the events
that
began in 1517” (The Reformers and
their Stepchildren, p. 14). “The dissent against the medieval order was in
1517 already
a millennium old and extremely widespread” (Ibid., p. 15). “The
Protestant Left was the heir of the medieval underworld.
It had categories of thought and a vocabulary
emerging from late medieval heresies…, a vocabulary that pre-existed
the
Reformation and had its own power and momentum, quite apart from Luther” (Ibid, p. 35-36). “The sources
single
out no man as the originator of the sixteenth century rebaptism… How so
radical
a practice sprang up anonymously is passing strange – if it is assumed,
as the
vogue is, that Anabaptism was simply the product of the sixteenth
century.
But
this silence as to who must be credited with the idea becomes wholly
explicable
once it is realized that what was known as Anabaptism in Reformation
times was
in no sense a new thing…No one is credited with having invented the
Anabaptism
of the sixteenth century for the sufficient reason that no one did” (Ibid., p. 189). “Rebaptizing is as
old as Constantinianism [this is the name by which Verduin
calls the
doctrine of the union of the Church and State]” (Ibid, p.190).
Some argue
that the Anabaptist leaders come from Protestantism, but this is not
true of
all. Leaders like Grebel, Manz, Blaurock
or Hubmaier came indeed to the Protestant camp first, and after that
they
became Anabaptists, but there were some leaders that came to the
Anabaptists
from the Waldenses. Among them were Hans
Hoch, Leonard Meister and others (see van
Braght, Martyr’s
Mirror, p. 413).
Some argue
that Anabaptism developed itself only in the territories in which
Protestantism
gained the upper hand, making Anabaptism an offshoot of Protestantism. But the Anabaptists were widely spread
in
several Catholic controlled territories, where Protestantism met with
little
success (
John T. Christian states: “In
those places
where the Waldenses floruished there the Baptists set deep root. This statement holds good from country to
country, and from city to city.” (Ibid., p. 89). Will Durant says: “At first, the Anabaptists manifested themselves
in Switzerland, where
the peaceful Christianity of the Waldenses of Southern France or that
of the
Beghards from the Low Countries may have slipped in” (Durant,
Civilizatii
istorisite [The Story of Civilisation], vol.
18, p. 85, translated from
Romanian).
Mosheim, the Lutheran
historian declares: “In the first place, I
believe the
Mennonites are not altogether in the wrong, when they boast of a
descent from
those Waldensians, Petrobrusians, and others who are usually styled the
Witnesses of truth before Luther. Prior
to the age of Luther, there lay concealed in almost every country of
Europe,
but especially in Bohemia, Moravia, Switzerland and Germany, very many
persons in
whose minds was deeply rooted that principle which the Waldensians, the
Wickliffites, and the Hussites maintained, some more covertly and
others more
openly…” (Ibid., p. 685).
Some argue
that the Anabaptists could not be the heirs of the Waldenses because of
the
doctrinal differences between these two parties. Moreover,
they point out, the Waldenses
united with the Swiss Reformers and not with the Anabaptists. It should be noted that only the Piedmontese
Waldenses accepted the pact with the Reformers, and not even all of
them, for
the older generation of barbs
[pastors] refused the compromise, considering it an act of treason;
sending
delegations to their brethren in Strassburg, Bohemia and Moravia (see
Verduin,
Ibid., p. 179). The Picards [one of the
general names by which the Waldenses outside the valleys of
The
Reformers themselves admitted the ancient and distinct origin of the
Anabaptists. Christian quotes Zwingli as
saying: “The institution of Anabaptism is
no novelty,
but for three hundred years has caused great disturbance in the Church
and has
acquired such strength that the attempt in this age to contend with it
appears
futile for a time” (Christian,
Ibid., vol. I, p. 86).
Luther
accuses them, saying: “In
our times the doctrine of the Gospel, reestablished and cleansed, has
drawn to
it and gained many who in earlier times had been suppressed by the
tyranny of
Antichrist, the Pope; however, there have forthwith gone out from us
Wiedertaufer, Sacramentschwarmer und andere Rotengeister [Anabaptists,
fantatics regarding the sacraments, and other faction makers]… for they were not of us even though for a while
they
walked with us” (Verduin,
Ibid., p. 18).
Indeed, the
separatist groups saluted the action of the Augustinian monk and hoped
for a
great revival. Sola Scriptura
were the words that attracted them and caused them
to support Luther. But when he
compromised with the secular power, these groups ceased to support him
and
condemned him for stoping half way to a thorough Reformation.
Robert
Barclay, who was a Quaker, said about the the Anabaptists: “As we shall afterwards shew, the rise of the
"Anabaptists" took place long prior to the formation of the Church of
England, and there are also reasons for believing that on the continent
of
Europe small hidden Christian societies, who have held many of the
opinions of
the "Anabaptists," have existed from the times of the Apostles. In the sense of the direct transmission of
Divine Truth, and the true nature of spiritual religion, it seems
probable that
these Churches have a lineage or succession more ancient than that of
the Roman
Church” (Inner
Life of the Religious Societies of the
Commonwealth, p. 11, 12).
The
Anabaptists claimed an origin more ancient than that of the Protestants. The Reformers and the Catholics also admitted
it. Some of the greatest historians
recognized a connection between the sixteenth century Anabaptism and
the
medieval dissenters. This is the
historic Baptist position because the Baptists always claimed that
their
historical route never intersected with the Catholic or the Protestant
one.
The Specific
Doctrines of the Anabaptists, Compared with their Catholic and
Protestant Counterparts
The
differences between these three camps are most clearly seen on
doctrinal
grounds. We shall attempt to present the
main theological differences (together with their practical
applications)
between the Catholic, the Protestant and the Anabaptist camps.
1.
The
Authority of the Scriptures
The
fundamental difference between the Anabaptists and all the other
parties is
found in the way the Anabaptists perceived the Scriptures.
This concept is the cause of all the other
differences between the Anabaptists, Protestants and Catholics that
sprang
forth later. This can be noticed when
observing that in the progress of some from Catholicism to
Protestantism and
then Anabaptism, the first doctrine they believed, the doctrine that
caused
their departure from papacy, was that of the sufficiency of the
Scriptures in
matters of faith and practice.
The Catholic
Church did not consider the Bible as normative for their faith and
practice. Her dogmas were founded on
Tradition and on the decrees of the Councils and of the pope (see
Neander,
History of Christian Dogmas, Vol. II, p. 623, 624).
Since these dogmas found themselves in
contradiction with the letter of the Scripture, the papacy tried to
hide the
Bible away from the people. The Bible
was not translated into the common languages, and the laymen were
forbidden to
read it. The average priests were
ignorant of it. Menno Simons said that
while in the Catholic priesthood, he avoided reading the Bible, being
afraid it
would lead him into error. “‘The Bible is like soft wax’, said Glapion, the
confessor
of Carol V to Spalatin, the chaplain of elector Frederic, warning that
no
system of faith could be built, without risks, entirely on the Bible”
(Durant,
Ibid., vol. 18, p.
38 – translated from Romanian).
The initial
position of the Protestants was similar with that of the Anabaptists. They considered the Scriptures as sufficient
and normative for faith and practice.
When Martin Luther stood before the imperial Diet at
“Martin,
your request to be tried after the Scriptures is that of all the
heretics. You do nothing but to repeat the
errors of
Wyclif and Huss. How can you claim that
you are the only one who understands the meaning of the Scripures? Do you think your judgement to be above that
of so many illustrious men and can you claim to know more than they? You have no right to question the holy
faith
ordained by Christ, the perfect lawgiver, spread in
the whole world by the apostles, sealed
with the blood of the martyrs, confirmed by the holy councils, defined
by the
Church… and about which the pope and the king forbid us to talk,
because such a
discussion will go nowhere. I ask you,
Martin, and you answer honestly and frankly, do you retract or not your
writings and the mistakes they contain?” (Durant, Ibid., p. 41 – translated from Romanian).
Luther
answered: “Only if I will be persuaded to
do it by the
testimony of the Scriptures or by the reason of evidence (for I do not
believe
either in the pope, or in councils: it is certain that they erred too
often and
contradicted themselves), otherwise I am bound by the texts I brought;
my
conscience is shut in the words of God.
To recant anything I cannot and do not want to do.
For acting against your conscience is
dangerous and not honest. So help me
God. Amen!” (Febvre, Martin Luther, un destin, p. 131 – translated from
Romanian).
In 1521, in
Zurich, Ulrich Zwingli, supported by the cantonal council, requested of
the
priests from that jurisdiction that they preach nothing that was not
found in
the Holy Scripures (see Durant,
Ibid., vol. 18,
p. 99).
Among
the theses defended by Zwingli in the dispute held on
Sola
Scriptura! Only the Scripure!
This was the cry of the Reformers. They
always appealed to it in the
disputations against the Catholics. But
when they found themselves before a major decision, that of keeping or
forsaking Tradition, the Reformers wavered.
Their cry decreased in intensity.
The Reformers were backed in a corner.
They were still bound by Tradition.
Their vision of church and society was not the one of the
ante-nicean
but that of post-nicean Christianity.
They were not prepared to take their Reformation beyond Emperor
Constantine. It was then that Anabaptism
raised its voice, appealing to Scriptures alone and accusing the
Reformers of
inconsistency, of stopping half-way to a thorough Reformation. This moment marks a clear separation between
the Anabaptists and the Protestants. “Martin
Luther
broke the pope’s pitcher, observed one Anabaptist, but had kept the
pieces in
his hands” (Liechty,
Early Anabaptist Spirituality, p. xvi).
The
Protestants were caught between two fronts.
Schaff says about the Reformation in
Samuel
Haskell remarks: “Luther, Zwingle and
others, in
combating papal corruptions, claimed to stand solely upon the word of
God; but
their attempt to apply this principle was only partial.
It was said of them at the time, with cutting
truth and justice, that, when arguing against the papists, they took
the
Baptist position; but when arguing against the Baptists, they went over
to the
Romish position (Heroes and Hierarchs, p.
100, 101).
The
Anabaptists were quick to remind the Reformers of their initial “Sola
Scriptura” position. In their attempt to
prove that they did not abandon this position and desperately seeking a
scriptural warrant for their doctrines, the Reformers came in numerous
occasions to strange and flexible hermeneutics that could be defended
only with
great difficulty. Most of the Reformers
were using the covenants and the theocracy of the Old Testament, which
allowed
them to make analogies with their own conception of the church and
society. But in their attempt to
formulate a consistent doctrinal system, the Reformers came to stress
more and
more tradition, condemning what they boldly affirmed at first.
The
Anabaptists were true “Biblicists.” For them, the Scriptures were the
final
standard of faith and practice.
Depending on the way that a person regarded the Scriptures they
considered him to be a true Christian or just a nominal one. Grebel wrote the following to Muentzer: “Just as our forebearers fell away from the true
God and
from the one, true, common, divine Word, from the divine institutions,
from
Christian love and life and lived without God’s law and gospel in
human,
useless, unchristian customs and ceremonies, and expected to attain
salvation
therein, yet fell far short of it, as the evangelical preachers have
declared,
and to some extent are still declaring, so today too, every man wants
to be
saved by superficial faith, without fruits of faith, without baptism of
trial
and probation, without love and hope, without right Christian
practices, and
wants to persist in all the old manner of personal vices, and in the
common
ritualistic and anti-Christian customs of baptism and of the Lord’s
Supper, in
disrespect for the divine Word and in respect for the word of the pope
and of
the anti-papal preachers, which yet is not equal to the divine Word,
nor in
harmony with it (Williams, Ibid., p. 74). “We
must not follow our
notions; we must add nothing to the word and take nothing
from it” (p. 76). “It is much
better that a
few might be rightly taught by the Word of God, believing and walking
aright in
virtues and practices, than that many believe falsely and deceitfully
through
adulterated doctrine” (p. 77).
For the
Anabaptists, the New Testament was normative.
The prescriptions of the New Testament were not only
recommendable,
desirable, yet optional, but both obligatory and possible.
They rejected Protestant covenant theology
and regarded the Old Testament just as a shadow of the New. They viewed the revelation of the Word
to be
progressive. In the
Even in
1523, in the
The
Anabaptists considered the simple letter of the Bible to be normative
both for
individual life and for the life of the church.
This view of the authority of the Scriptures was the cause of
all the
other doctrinal and practical stands we shall study.
2.
The Doctrine of Salvation
The second
great doctrine that brought the Anabaptists in direct conflict with the
Catholics
and with the Protestants was the doctrine of salvation.
Catholicism
asserted that salvation was contained in the Church and administrated
to all
the members through the use of sacraments, of which infant baptism was
the
first. The faith, in the Catholic view,
was intellectual consent to the dogmas formulated by the Church. To the sentiment of guilt due to sin, the
Catholic theology answered by the doctrines of confession of sin and
penance. Sinners could have access to
righteousness
and paradise because of the surplus of merit provided by Jesus and the
saints:
this surplus having been given to the Church for administration. The Church administered this surpus to those
who fulfilled their duties toward her.
Man could, therefore, obtain salvation by his works.
Anyone who
considers the Scriptures as normative, will come to question salvation
by
sacraments, by works. So did
Luther. The reading of the Scriptures
led him to affirm salvation by faith, not by works, by grace, not by
merit, as
the Catholic Church claimed. Sola
fide!
Sola gratia! Only faith! Only grace!
– cried he. Salvation comes by
grace! Justification is by faith! Luther’s theology stressed liberation from
guilt. Faith was regarded in its
traditional sense, that of intellectual consent to the work of the
historic
Christ, but to this sense Luther added the sense of fide,
total trust on God.
Good works, a changed life, were desirable consequences of a
Christian’s
experience, but their absence did not mean the lack of salvation.
Luther’s
theology contains a major inconsistency, eliminated by the other
Reformers. He regarded infant baptism as
a saving sacrament, while he affirmed salvation by faith.
Estep remarks that “…in
Lutheranism there has always been an irreconciliable contradiction
between the
theology of justification and the theological support of infant baptism” (Estep, p. 145).
For Zwingli,
too, faith – a gift from God – could exist without works.
He said:
“Against
those who unthinkingly accept the
idea that signs confirm faith we may oppose the fact of infant baptism,
for
baptism cannot confirm faith in infants because infants are not able to
believe” (
The
Anabaptists recognized salvation by grace, by faith, but for them faith
was not
merely an intellectual consent of certain truths, but the spring of a
new life
in Christ, following the new birth of the Spirit. In
their view, there could be no faith
without the new birth – that total transformation by which the man
became pre-disposed
to holiness, hating sin. “It
was this
constitutive element [the necessity of the new birth] that
distinguished the
Anabaptists from both the Roman Catholic ‘work
righteousness’ and
Lutheran sola fides” (Littell, The
Anabaptist View of the Church, p. 84).
Hubmaier, in
his articles of faith from Waldshut, makes the distinction between
Luther’s
theoretical faith and the practical faith of the Anabaptists.
“1. Faith alone makes us holy before God. 2.
This faith is the acknowledgment of the mercy of God which he
has shown
us in the offering of his only begotten son.
This excludes all sham Christians, who have nothing more than an
historical faith in God. 3.
Such faith cannot remain passive but must
break out (aussbrechen) to God in
thanksgiving and to mankind in all kinds of works of brotherly love. Hence all vain religious acts, such as
candles, palm branches, and holy water will be rejected” (Estep, Ibid.,
p. 145).
For the
Anabaptists, the faith that brings salvation was a living faith, one
that
produced works and could be tried by them.
This faith did not provide only justification, as for the
Protestants,
but holiness.
3.
The Doctrine of Discipleship
The
different opinions of the three camps, Catholic, Protestant and
Anabaptist
regarding the authority of the Scriptures lead to different perceptions
of the
essence of faith and its role in salvation.
These different perceptions resulted in different ways of living.
The Church
of Rome preached the virtue of good works, but did not practice them. The laymen were urged to good works and
virtuous life, but the Church also offered sinners alternative means to
purchase or earn the right of paradise.
Luther and
the other Reformers replaced good works for meriting salvation with
faith. Faith was the epicenter of
Protestant
theology. Luther went so far that he
refused to recognize the Epistle of James as inspired, calling it an
“epistle
of straw” because it insisted on a faith validated by works. But the combination of the doctrine of man’s
inability to do something for his own salvation with the doctrine of a
theoretical saving faith had unhappy consequences and resulted in the
moral
failure of Protestantism. “Provided one has
faith, adultery is no sin,” said Luther in his famous
sermon on marriage (Jarrel,
Baptist Church
Perpetuity, p. 228).
Luther wrote
to Melachton from Wartburg, in a letter dated
The message
of Luther is shocking, but even if we interpret these statements as
mere
exaggeration, after his well known custom, an analysis of the effect of
his
sermons among the Protestant population will show that these things
were not
taken figuratively by them, but were practiced literally.
The doctrine of the bondage of the will,
subjected to the sinful nature, the doctrine of predestination and the
doctrine
of salvation by a historical or theoretical faith were associated in
such a
manner in the mind of the Protestant that he found in them only an
excuse to
sin. This dangerous combination
triggered the assault of the Anabaptists against Protestant ethics.
Hans Denck
wrote: “On the one hand, some say that they
have freedom
of the will. Yet they are unwilling to
do even the smallest thing to please God.
On the other hand, there are those who say that [they] do not
have free
will because they see they cannot do what is right.
Yet they choose not to allow the Word [that
is, the inner Word, in Denck’s understanding]
to work
in them (Matthew 23).
In
themselves, both of these views are true, but they are both false also. For both speak of the human being as if there
were no other foundation than in himself.
One is boastful and arrogant about human freedom, while the
other seeks
only excuses – ‘God is finally responsible.’
The
first view, that the will is free, is an obviously brazen and foolish
claim
which gives no place for the fear of God.
It arrogantly assumes I can do whatever I want to do (James 4;
Proverbs
12, 28). The second view is a kind of
sham humility and craftiness that would have us believe that honor is
being
given to God and not to oneself. Yet it
certainly is no denial of self – in fact, it increases selfishness. This is in the eyes of God the highest form
of arrogance and pride” (Liechty,
Ibid., p.
129-130).
Denck
further writes: “Therefore,
the whole of
nominal Christendom (Christenheit) is
full of adulterers, misers, drunkards, and more of the same” (Williams,
Ibid., p. 106). “The
Word of God is already with you before you seek it; gives to you before
you
ask; opens up for you before you knock.
No one comes to himself to Christ except the Father draw him,
which he
truly does, of course, according to his goodness. Whoever
on his own initiative, however,
undrawn, wishes to come on his own, presumes to give God something he
has not
received from him. He wishes to be
deserving
from God in order he need not thank him for his grace… Therefore, no
one can
vaunt himself before God for his work or his faith, for whoever
glorifies
within himself has in himself sufficient satisfaction and is one of the
rich
whom God sends empty away. The poisoned
selffulness of the flesh which man has taken on himself against God and
without
God ought and must be mortified. Where
this has begun in a person and he ascribes to himself, such a one
steals from
God his honor and slurps up the poison and the devil’s milk and, more
than that,
all on his own wishes to be something against God – which he is not. But whoever does not want to endure this work
of mortification but prefers to practice the works of darkness will not
be able
to excuse himself before any creature and much less before God” (Ibid, p. 107, 108).
Hubmaier said: “It
is under just
the cloak of these aforementioned half-truths [1. ‘We
believe. Faith saves us.
2. We
cannot do anything good, God works in us the willing and doing, we have
no free
will’] that all sorts of wickedness, unfaithfulness, and
unrighteousness have
completely gotten the upper hand. For as
all histories demonstrate, the world is worse now (to God be our
lament) than
it was a thousand years ago. All this
takes place, sad to say, under the appearance of the gospel. For as soon as one says to them it is written
(Ps. 37:27): Depart from evil and do
good – immediately they answer: ‘We
cannot do anything
good; all things occur by the determination of God and of necessity’ –
meaning
thereby that it is allowed them to sin.
If one says further: It is written (John 5:29; 15:6; Matt. 25:41) that they who do evil will go to
eternal fire, immediately they find a girdle of fig leaves to cover
their
crimes and say: ‘Faith
alone saves us, and not our works.’
Indeed, I have heard from many people that
for a long time they have not prayed, nor fasted, nor given alms
because their
priests tell how their works are of no avail before God and therefore
they at
once let them go” (Ibid., p. 115).
Hans Hut asserted: “whoever
leans on them [on the Reformers] will be misled, for their doctrine is
nothing
but faith and goes no farther… Oh, how lamentably do they in our times
mislead
the whole world… with their false and trumped up faith, a faith from
which no
moral improvement follows” (Verduin,
Ibid., p.
105). Michael
Sattler condemned
the Reformers for the same things, saying that they “throw works without faith so far to one side
that they
erect a faith without works” (Ibid.).
In no other
respect were the Anabaptists more prominent than in this practical
aspect. Philip of Hesse, on whose domains
the
Anabaptists enjoyed more tolerance than in any other German territory,
said: “I verily see more of moral
improvement among them than with
those that are Lutheran” (Verduin, Ibid., p.
108). So great was the difference between the
Anabaptists and all the others that any one who attempted to live a
clean life
was suspected of being an Anabaptist.
Harold Bender, in his famous Anabaptist
Vision, quotes a positive testimony given by a fierce opponent of
the
Anabaptists: “And
the Roman
Catholic theologian, Franz Agricola, in his book of 1582, Against
the
Terrible Errors of the Anabaptists, says:
‘Among
the
existing heretical sects there is none which in appearance leads a more
modest
or pious life than the Anabaptist. As
concerns their outward public life they are irreproachable. No lying, deception, swearing, strife, harsh
language, no intemperate eating and drinking, no outward personal
display, is
found among them, but humility, patience, uprightness, neatness,
honesty,
temperance, straightforwardness in such measure that one would suppose
that
they had the Holy Spirit of God’”
(Hershberger, Ibid., p. 45).
The
Reformers themselves were forced to admit this fact.
Capito, the Reformer of Strassburg, testifies
that the radicals “guard themselves against
the
offensive vices which are very common among our people” (Verduin,
Ibid., p. 108). The Reformed
preachers of Bern noticed: “The Anabaptists
have the
semblance of outward piety to a far greater degree than we and all the
other
churches which in union with us confess Christ; and they avoid the
offensive
sins that are very common among us” (Verduin,
Ibid., p. 109). Luther
admits it, but he tries to take it lightly: “Doctrine
and life are to be distinguished, the one from the other.
With us conduct is as bad as it is with the
papists. We don’t oppose them on account
of conduct. Hus and Wyclif, who made an
issue of conduct, were not aware of this… but to treat of doctrine,
that is to
really come to grips with things” (Verduin,
ibid., p.
108).
Caspar
Schwenckfeld, a follower of Luther who latter became a Spiritualist,
said: “I am being maligned, by both
preachers and others, with the
charge of being Anabaptist, even as all others who lead a true, pious
Christian
life are now almost everywhere given this name" (Hershberger,
Ibid., p. 46-47).
“Bullinger
himself complained that there are
those who in reality are not Anabaptists but have a pronounced
averseness to
the sensuality and frivolity of the world and therefore reprove sin and
vice
and are consequently called or misnamed Anabaptists by petulant persons. The great collection of Anabaptist source
materials, commonly called the Taufer-Akten, now in its third
volume,
contains a number of specific illustrations of this.
In 1562 a certain Caspar Zacher of
Wailblingen in Wurttemberg was accused of being an Anabaptist, but the
court
record reports that since he was an envious man who could not get along
with
others, and who often started quarrels, as well as being guilty of
swearing and
cursing and carrying a weapon, he was not considered to be an
Anabaptist. On the other hand in 1570 a
certain Hans
Jager of Vohringen in Wurttemberg was brought before the court on
suspicion of
being an Anabaptist primarily because he did not curse but lived an
irreproachable life” (Ibid.).
The
Anabaptists were dedicated to “discipleship
theology.” For them, the Christian was saved from his sins, not in
them. The Christian could fall into sin,
but he could not live in it. Whoever
lived in sin was considered to be lost, no matter how straight his
doctrine
was. The guidance of the Spirit was not
limited only to guidance in true doctrine, but also in its application
in
everyday life. Bender says that “The
great word of the
Anabaptists was not ‘faith’
as it was with the reformers, but ‘following’
(nachfolge
Christi)”
( Hershberger, Ibid., p. 43).
For them,
loving the neighbor was the proof of the new birth.
Thomas Manz wrote while in prison, in one of
his last letters: “Therefore,
following
Christ in the true way which he himself showed us, his true servants
should
also hate no one. We have before us this
light of life and we rejoice to walk in that way. But
whoever is full of hatred and envy,
whoever villainously betrays, accuses, beats and quarrels, cannot be a
Christian”
(Liechty, Ibid., p. 19).
This kind of
life attracted the sympathy and the adherence of many.
Wenger quotes Sebastian Franck, who wrote as
early as 1530: “There arose from the letter
of
Scripture, independently of the state churches, a new sect which was
called
Anabaptists… By the good appearance of their sect and their appeal to
the
letter of Scripture to which they strictly adhered, they drew to
themselves
many thousand God-fearing hearts who had a zeal for God” (Hershberger,
Ibid., p. 175).
Harold Bender quotes Franck: “The
Anabaptists… soon
gained a large following,… drawing many sincere souls who had a zeal
for God,
for they taught nothing but love, faith, and the cross.
They showed themselves humble, patient under
much suffering; they brake bread with one another as an evidence of
unity and
love. They helped each other faithfully,
and called each other brothers… They died as martyrs, patiently and
humbly
enduring all persecution” (Hershberger,
Ibid., p.
46).
The
Anabaptists were struggling, like the parties before them, against the
moral
standard commonly accepted by society/Church [“conductual-averagism,”
as
Verduin called it]. This struggle was
one of the reasons they were identified with the Donatists and the
Cathars.
The
Anabaptists were accused by the Protestants as thinking themselves to
be
sinless or saints. But they always
rejected perfectionism. Menno said: “Think not that we boast of being perfect and
without
sin. Not at all. As
for me, I confess that often my prayers
are mixed with sin and my righteousness with unrighteousness” (Verduin,
Ibid., p. 103). Hubmaier
answers to the same accusation: “But the
charge that we boast that we can sin no more
after baptism, and such like things, is a monstrous injustice. For we know that both before and after
baptism, we are poor and miserable sinners, and if we say we sin not, we are liars, and the truth is not in
us”
(Estep,
Ibid., p. 155).
The
following of Christ, His imitation, brought them hatred, contempt,
sufferings,
persecution, and many times even the tragic end by the hands of the
executioner. The experience of the “bitter Christ,” as they called all
these sufferings, was for them a positive proof of true discipleship. Persecution and martyrdom strengthened their
conviction that they are the true flock of Christ, since He prophesied
that His
followers shall be persecuted. Indeed,
many of them died the martyr’s death with a prayer, a song or an
exhortation
for the spectators on their lips, dignified and unmoveable in their
decision to
follow their Lord to the end.
The three
great camps each promoted a “Christianity” that was different not only
in
appearance, but in essence. Catholicism
regards the essence of Christianity the reception of grace by the
mediation of
a sacramental-sacerdotal institution.
Protestantism has as an essence the experiencing of the grace of
God in
the depth of the heart by faith. For the
Anabaptists, the essence of Christianity is the transformation of life
by
faith, in imitation of Christ. These
three concepts could not be fused together.
The person
of Jesus Christ, as described in the Scriputures, was taken by the
Anabaptists
as their moral standard. They regarded
the Catholic and Protestant world as fallen into sin and separated from
God,
being thus a hindrance in their attempt to come as close as possible to
their
standard. Therefore, trying to persevere
unto holiness, the Anabaptists promoted a separation of the believer
from the
unbelievers. In the Schleitheim Confession
they declared:
“IV. We are
agreed [as follows] on separation: A
separation shall be
made from the evil and from the wickedness which the devil planted in
the
world; in this manner, simply that we shall not have fellowship with
them [the
wicked] and not run with them in the multitude of their abominations. This is the way it is: Since all who do not
walk in the obedience of faith, and have not united themselves with God
so that
they wish to do His will, are a great abomination before God, it is not
possible for anything to grow or issue from them except abominable
things. For truly all creatures are in but
two
classes, good and bad, believing and unbelieving, darkness and light,
the world
and those who [have come] out of the world, God's temple and idols,
Christ and
Belial; and none can have part with the other” (Noll, Confessions and
Catechisms of the Reformation, p. 52,
53).
But since
they did not believe in an isolation of the individual from society,
the
doctrine of separation lead them to the greatest “radical” doctrine
they
preached:
4. The
Doctrine of the Church
After the
doctrine of the authority of the Scriptures, the doctrine of the church
is the
second greatest point of difference between the Anabaptists, the
Catholics and
the Protestants. This particular
doctrine distinguishes the Anabaptists proper from the rest of the
Radicals.
1.
Church membership. All the
parties admitted that society could be divided into believers and
unbelievers. The disputes started from
the attitude of each toward the unbelievers.
Should these be accepted into the membership of the church and
then
taught, hoping for their improvement? Or
should the church be made of believers only?
In this point there were only two camps, for the Protestants and
the
Catholics held the same position.
It was not a
matter of importance for the Catholic Church whether a member was
virtuous or
not, if he fulfilled his duties towards the Church.
No change in life was required for membership
in the Roman Church, which incorporated members from their birth.
The matter
was more delicate for the Protestants, since they tried to build their
churches
using the Scriptures [We underline “using,” because the
Reformers were
never devoted to the Scriptures alone, since they were not able to
break loose
from Tradition. Rather, they used a part of the Scriptures and tried to
reconcile it with the Tradition]. The
Scriptures showed a church of believers in a world of unbelievers. The Reformers seemed tempted by such a
perspective, but they were afraid to adopt such a radical position,
since it
meant the loss of the support of the authorities and of the population. According to their view, the Church was not
ready to exclude unbelievers. Society
was not ready to be excluded from the Church.
The Reformers chose to retain unbelieving members within their
Church
ranks. At least for a while, until they
would be taught true Christianity, Luther thought.
He even had a project according to which the
lives of the members were carefully watched, and the names of those who
proved
to have Christian conduct to be written in a separate registry, these
persons
being gathered apart from the rest and taught the Scriptures more
deeply. Ecclesiola
in ecclesia, Luther suggested. He
was forced to abandon the project, since he did not find enough people
to
fulfill the conditions.
In contrast,
the Anabaptists, who were building a church after the apostolic
pattern,
claimed that believers only are proper candidates for chuch membership. The church had to be kept pure and purify
itself continually. This difference was
one of the causes of the rupture of the ties between the Anabaptists
and the
Protestants and the migration of many Protestants to the radical camp.
Because of
their struggle for purity both at an individual and at a church level,
the
Anabaptists were accused of being Donatists and Cathars.
Justus Menius, Luther’s associate and one of
the greatest enemies of the Anabaptists, said about them: “Like the Donatists long ago, they seek to rend
the Church
because we allow evil men in the Church.
They seek to assemble a pure Church and wherever that is
undertaken the
public order is sure to be overthrown, for a pure Church is not
possible, as
Christ cautioned often enough – we must therefore put up with them” (Verduin,
Ibid., p. 104).
Luther
stated: “From the beginning of the Church
heretics
have maintained that the Church must be holy and without sin. Because they saw that some in the Church were
the servants of sin they denied forthwith that the Church was the
Church and
organized sects… This is the origin of the Donatists and the Cathars…
and of
the Anabaptists of our times. All these
cry out in angry chorus that the true Church is not the Church because
they see
that sinners and godless folk are mixed in her and they separated from
her […]
The Schwarmer, who do not allow tares among them, really bring about
that there
is no wheat among themselves – by this zeal for only wheat and a pure
Church
they bring about, by this too great holiness, that they are not even a
Church,
but just a sect of the devil” (Verduin,
Ibid., p.
107). Later,
Calvin states the same: “Long ago there
were two kinds
of heretics, Cathars and Donatists.
These, the former as well as the latter, were in the same
phantasy in
which the contemporary dreamers are when they seek for a Church in
which there
is nothing to censure. They cut loose
from Christendom so as not to be soiled by the imperfections of others. And what was the outcome?
Our Lord confounded them and their understanding
so presumptuous. Let this be proof for
us all that it is of the devil, who under cover of zeal for perfection
inflates
us with pride and seduces us by hypocrisy so as to get us to abandon
the flock
of Christ… For since there is no forgiveness nor any salvation anywhere
else,
Acts
The arguments
of Luther and Calvin,
if taken further on their logical path, will come to bizzare
conclusions: if
living a life as imaculate as possible is a clear proof that one is
lead by the
devil, the reciprocal proposition must be true:
the more depraved one is, the clearer proof he brings that he is
lead by
God.
The Anabaptists
asserted the
opposite in the Schleitheim Confession: “From
this we
should learn that everything which is not united with our God and
Christ cannot
be other than an abomination which we should shun and flee from. By this is meant all Catholic and Protestant
works and church services, meetings and church attendance, drinking
houses,
civic affairs, the oaths sworn in unbelief and other things of that
kind, which
are highly regarded by the world and yet are carried on in flat
contradiction
to the command of God, in accordance with all the unrighteousness which
is in
the world. From all these things we
shall be separated and have no part with them for they are nothing but
an
abomination, and they are the cause of our being hated before our
Christ Jesus,
Who has set us free from the slavery of the flesh and fitted us for the
service
of God through the Spirit Whom He has given us” (Noll, Ibid., p. 53).
The
Anabaptists envisioned the true church as being composed of believers
only, as
serving Christ in sound doctrine and purity of life, watching
constantly to
purify itself for her Head’s sake.
2. The Nature of the church
The
Catholics affirmed that their Church was the only true one, was
universal and
visible, and the individual could not reach Christ but through the
mediation of
the Church. Neander says: “The whole Catholic Standpoint rests on this,
that the
relation of religious consciousness to Christ is made to depend on the
mediation effected by the Authority of the Church, and hence the latter
was
made the grand and fundamental point” (Ibid., p.
684).
Since Christ could not be reached apart from the Church, there
could be
no salvation outside of it; hence the doctrine that stated extra
ecclesia nulla salus – there is no salvation outside the
church.
When Luther
was excommunicated from the Catholic Church, he used the old argument
Augustine
brought in his debates with the Donatists.
Luther claimed the existence of an universal invisible
Church,
upon which the pope has no power. The
Lutheran interpretation of Ecclesia
Catholica [Universal Church] from the Apostle’s Creed was that the
Church
was “a community of men that are scattered
throughout
the World, but who agree with one another in the Gospel, who have in
common the
same Christ, and Holy Spirit, and Sacraments, whether they adopt the
same or
different usages” (Neander, Ibid., p.
686). Zwingli developed the idea
even further. He taught that the Church
is the “community of men all bound together
by one
faith and one spirit” (Neander, Ibid., p. 686).
He distinguishes between the visible Church, composed of all the
nominal
believers, and the invisible one, composed of the true believers only. Calvin understands the Church to be composed
of all the elect that lived, live or shall live.
In the
visible organization of their churches, the Reformers preserved the
Catholic
formula. They organized the masses into
territorial churches, which included all the citizens of those
territories [Volkskirche]. Their
visible churches looked very much like
the Catholic Church, except they were not “universal.” In the
Protestant
states, the administrative frontiers were the same with the religious
ones. The Church confounded itself with
the State.
There was a
difference of opinion among the radicals as well regarding the nature
of the
church. The Spiritualists Frank and
Schwenckfeld saw a purely invisible church, ungathered, spiritual, that
had no
external rite. Munzer and the
revolutionary Anabaptists identified the Church with the
The Anabaptists
generally rejected
the idea of an “invisible
church.” Franklin H. Littell says: “I agree
wholeheartedly with Robert Friedmann’s denunciation of the doctrine of
‘the
invisible church’ as alien to Anabaptism… This teaching, which is
spiritualizing in effect and perhaps in origin, has been from the 16th
century to the present day the major underground tunnel by which
leaders of
established Protestant churches have been able to escape from the
position to
which their biblical insurgency at first has led them” (Hershberger,
Ibid., p. 122, [note]).
Harold
Bender writes: “The original Anabaptist
movement
rejected the idea of an invisible church, which was the invention of
Luther
holding that the Christian community in any particular place is as
visible as
the Christian man, and that its Christian character must be ‘in
evidence’” (Mennonite
Encyclopedia,
under Church, doctrine of).
In place of
the universal invisible church and that of the church of the masses [Volkskirche, Corpus Christianum], the
Anabaptists put the local, visible church, the “gathering of believers”
[Gemeinde,
Such a
visible church could be only a voluntary association of
believers. The Anabaptists were averse to
the usage of
force. The idea of forced membership by
forced baptism [the Catholics and the Protestants practiced it with the
Jews
and the Anabaptists] was foreign and repugnant to them.
Hans Denk said: “…in
matters of faith, everything should be free, voluntary and without
compulsion” (Vedder,
Ibid., p. 160).
About Grebel
and his
The Anabaptists
followed the New
Testament principle, building independent churches composed of
believers only,
voluntarily associated for the common purpose of worshipping God,
continuing
the work of Christ, and ministering one to another.
5.
The Doctrine of Baptism
Many
historians consider that the principal doctrine that marked the
Anabaptists as
different from the Catholics, Protestants and the rest of the Radical
parties
was the doctrine of baptism. Some,
though, like Bender, consider their main doctrine to be discipleship,
while
Estep thinks it is that of the church.
This author’s opinion is that the Anabaptist fundamental
characteristic
is their attitude towards the Scriptures.
The recognition of the supreme authority of the Scriptures and
its
literal interpretation logically led to all the other differences. If the Reformers had applied completely, not
just partially, the Sola Scriptura principle, as they started doing
initially,
there is no doubt that they would have arrived to positions similar –
to say
the least – with those held by the Anabaptists.
The doctrine
of baptism was derived from the doctrine of the church and was
secondary in
importance to it. Says Schaff: “Radicalism [in
Blanke
writes: “Their real interest was not in
baptism, but
in the church… The baptism of believers was simply the most striking
external
manifestation of this new kind of church” (Hershberger,
Ibid., p. 60).
This is the true reason why they considered it so important.
The Catholic
Church practiced the
baptism of infants. It was associated
with salvation, because it was thought to confer grace to the
participant. It meant the integration of
the infant in the
Church and in society. The Catholic
clergy arrogated to itself the right of being the proper administrator
of
Christian baptism. In the Council of
Trent, which marked the tactics of Counter-Reformation, the canons
regarding
the sacrament of baptism state: “Whoever
shall affirm
that baptism is indifferent – that is – not necessary to salvation –
let him be
accursed.” “Whoever shall affirm that the true doctrine of the
sacrament of
baptism is not in the Roman Church, which is the mother and mistress of
all
churches: let him be accursed” (Cramp,
History of the Council of Trent, p. 129).
The
Protestants eliminated the useless rituals, spittle, salt and oil. But they kept the practice.
Even though few Reformers thought that infant
baptism had saving power, they accused those who opposed it of
preaching that
the children who died before reaching the years of discretion were
eternally
lost.
For the
Lutherans, baptism was the seal of faith, grace being received by it
(Neander,
Ibid., p. 688). The
Lutheran Augsburg Confession of 1530
states under the ninth article, on baptism: “It
is taught among us that baptism is necessary and that grace is
offered through it. Children, too,
should be baptized, for in baptism they are commited to God and become
acceptable
to him.
On this
account the Anabaptists, who teach that
infant baptism is not right, are rejected” (Noll, Confessions, p. 90).
Zwingli did
not consider infant baptism as saving, but rather as a sign of the new
covenant, being thus the continuation of the circumcision of the old
convenant. He alluded to 1 Corinthians
7:14, where apostle Paul discussed the holiness of the believer’s
children. The Anabaptists asked Zwingli
to bring scriptural proofs in support of infant baptism.
Hubmaier wrote to him: “You said in
opposition to Faber [the general vicar
of the bishop of
In his book
against the Anabaptists, On Baptism,
Re-baptism and Infant Baptism (1525), Zwingli tried to bring these
proofs. But his hermeneutics made many
to question the validity of his arguments.
The following is an example: “In
Matthew 3 we
read: ‘In those days came John the Baptist, preaching in the wilderness
of
In order to
escape from the problem of re-baptism of the disciples in
Hubmaier’s
answer was not late to come. He answered
Zwingli in Christian Baptism of Believers,
a treatise thought to be one of the best apologies for believer’s
baptism ever
written.
“Every
pious Christian can see and comprehend that he who wants to purify
himself with
water must previously have a good understanding of the Word of God, and
a good
conscience toward God; that is, he must be sure that he has a
graciously kind
God, through the intercession of Christ…
Therefore
baptism in water is not what cleanses the soul, but the ‘yes,’ [of] a
good
conscience toward God, given inwardly by faith.
Therefore
the baptism in water is called a baptism in
Remissionem Peccatorum (Acts second chapter), that is, for the
pardon of
sins. Not that through it or by it sins
are forgiven, but by virtue of the inward ‘yes’ of the heart, which a
man
outwardly testifies to in submitting to water baptism, saying that he
believes
and is sure in his heart that his sins are forgiven through Jesus
Christ” (Estep, Ibid.,
p. 59).
The
Protestants were, again, in a delicate position. The
Catholics freely admitted that the
Scriptures do not offer a basis for infant baptism.
They did not need one from the Scriptures. They
based their argumentation on established
Tradition.
The
Anabaptists also claimed that the Scriptures do not offer a basis for
such a
baptism. Since they based their faith on
the Scriptures alone, they rejected infant baptism.At first, the
Protestants
were inclined to reject it, as well.
Zwingli complained in the beginning of his career: “Nothing grieves me more than that at the present
I have to
baptize children, for I know it ought not to be done” (Verduin,
ibid., p.
198). “I leave
baptism
untouched, I call it neither right nor wrong; if we were to baptize as
Christ
instituted it then we would not baptize any person until he has reached
the
years of discretion; for I find it nowhere written that infant baptism
is to be
practiced…”
(Ibid., p. 199).
Later, the
Anabaptists were quick to remind Zwingli of his earlier stand. Hubmaier wrote to him: “You used to hold to the same ideas, wrote and
preached them
from the pulpit openly; many hundreds of people have heard it from your
mouth. But now all who say this of you
are called liars. Yes, you say boldly
that no such ideas have ever entered your mind, and you go beyond that,
things
of which I will hold my tongue just now” (Verduin,
ibid., p. 200).
Answering
back, Zwingli admits it hesitantly: “…For
some time I
myself was deceived by the error [of baptism as a sign of faith] and I thought it better not to baptize children
until they
came to years of discretion. But I was
not so dogmatically of this opinion as to take the course of many
today, who
although they are far too young and inexperienced in the matter argue
and
rashly assert that infant baptism derives from the papacy or the devil
or
something equally non-sensical” (Bromiley,
Ibid., p. 139).
The
Protestants chose to retain infant baptism, but there was difference of
thought
among them regarding the benefits of the rite, “…they
united certain invisible benefits with baptism: some supposed it a
physical
cleansing from sin; others, a conveyance of moral qualities; and others
a seal
or sign of a contract between Almighty God and the faithful and the
children of
the faithful; or, as they by a Jewish figure expressed it, the seed of
the
godly, implying that godliness, and expressly declaring that sin, were
both
propagated by natural generation” (Robinson,
History of Baptism, p. 478).
After the
arguments of the Reformers failed to prove the scriptural propriety of
infant
baptism, they betrayed their Sola Scriptura position.
Luther surprisingly stated: “There
is not sufficient evidence from Scripture that one
might justify the introduction of infant baptism at the time of the
early
Christians after the apostolic period… But so much is evident, that no
one may
venture with a good conscience to reject or abandon infant baptism,
which has
for so long a time been practiced” (Verduin,
Ibid., p. 203, 204).
Oecolampadius cried out
against the Anabaptists using very un-Protestant terms: “I know only too well that you keep calling
‘Scripture, Scripture!’ as
you clamor for clear words to prove our point… But if Scripture taught
us all
things then there would be no need for the anointing to teach us all
things” (Verduin,
ibid., p. 204).
Melancthon
vindicated infant baptism
with Tradition (see Neander, Ibid., p.
693). Zwingli
brings the argument of silence, saying that the Scriptures do not
cleary forbid
infant baptism.
Hubmaier, on
behalf of the Anabaptists, answers sarcastically: “It
is clear enough for him who has eyes to see it, but it is not expressed
in so
many words, literally: ‘do not baptize infants.’ May one baptize them? To that I answer: ‘if so I may baptize my dog
or my donkey, or I may circumcise girls… I may make idols out of St. Paul and St.
Peter, I may bring infants to the Lord’s Supper, bless palm
branches,
vegetables, salt, land and water, sell the Mass for an offering. For it is nowhere said in express words that
we must not do these things” (Estep, Ibid.,
p.
60).
For the
Anabaptists, baptism was the entrance door into the church – the
gathering of
believers. Hubmaier said: “Where baptism in water does not exist, there is
no Church,
no brother, no sister, no fraternal discipline, exclusion or
restoration… By
receiving baptism the candidate testifies publicly that… he has
submitted
himself to his brothers and sisters… that is, to the Church” (Estep, Ibid.,
p. 60).
In the
Schleitheim Confession, they declared:
“I. Observe concerning baptism:
Baptism shall be
given to all those who have learned repentance and amendment of life,
and who
believe truly that their sins are taken away by Christ, and to all
those who
walk in the resurrection of Jesus Christ, and wish to be buried with
Him in
death, so that they may be resurrected with Him and to all those who
with this
significance request it [baptism] of us and demand it for
themselves. This excludes all infant
baptism, the highest and chief abomination of the Pope.
In this you have the foundation and testimony
of the apostles. Matt.
28, Mark 16, Acts 2, 8, 16, 19. This
we wish to hold simply, yet firmly and
with assurance” (Mark Noll, Ibid., p.
51, 52).
Conceiving
the church as the assembly of believers and baptism as the entrance
door into
the church, infants could not be regarded as proper candidates for this
act. They could not find any allusion to
infant baptism in the Scriptures, therefore they condemned it as an
invention
of the devil. They did not associate
salvation with baptism, therefore they did not believe, as they were
slandered,
that the infants that die unbaptized will go to hell.
Some believed all infants that die will be
saved. Hubmaier left the matter “in the hands of a gracious Father.” He
continued: “Into His hands will I commit
them. […] His will be done.
And there I leave the matter. Without
his will it would do no good for me
to be baptized a thousand times. For
water does not save” (Estep, Ibid.,
p. 158, 159).
Indeed, all
the Anabaptists insisted upon this truth, water
does not save.
“Not to be baptized does not damn… But not to believe, that
damns,”
said Hubmaier
(Estep, Ibid., p. 158).
They
insisted that baptism is a sign
of existent faith, of Hubmaier’s “yes” to the teaching of God. For them, baptism was a pledge to God and to
the church in which they were entering, that they will live a life of
obedience
toward the Words of God to the end of their life.
In turn, Luther raged: “How can baptism be more grievously reviled and
disgraced
than when we say that baptism given to an unbelieving man is not good
and
genuine baptism! …What, baptism rendered
ineffective because I do not believe?...
What more blasphemous and offensive doctrine could the devil
himself
invent and preach? And yet the
Anabaptists and the Rottengeister [faction makers] are full up to their ears with this teaching. I put forth the following: Here is a Jew that
accepts baptism, as happens often enough [Luther refers to the
forced
baptisms, when, under threats, many Jews allowed themselves or their
children
to receive baptism], but does not believe,
would you
then say that this was not real baptism, because he does not believe? That would be to think as a fool thinks not
only, but to blaspheme and disgrace God moreover” (Verduin,
ibid., p. 201).
The
Anabaptists saw that once this baptism was enforced by law, the nature
of the
church would be drastically changed. The
church would cease to be the assembly of believers in the midst of an
unbelieving society, but an institution that would include the whole
society,
believers and unbelievers as well. The
wheat and the tares from Jesus’ parable would not represent any more
the
assembly (the wheat) and the society (the tares), but believers and
unbelievers
in the church-society. Infant baptism
would become not merely a sign of church membership, but also a sign of
society
citizenship. To reject it would mean the
rejection of the whole social order.
Grebel and Manz knew this well.
Grebel stated that the medieval order “…can
be laid low
with nothing as well as with the termination of infant baptism” (Verduin,
Ibid., p. 205). Another
Anabaptist leader, Hans Seckler from
In the
Protestant mind, the Church and the State were one.
For them, the demolition of the Church meant
also the demolition of the social order.
“They don’t want to hear of infant
baptism nor
allow it; but this will at the last put an end to the secular rule,”
said a clerk of Courts about the Anabaptists (Ibid.).
The
Anabaptists viewed the church as a faction of society, and baptism as
the sign
that distinguished between believers and unbelievers.
The
mode of baptism practiced
by the Anabaptists has caused a fiery debate.
Protestant historians claim that there was no prescribed mode,
that the
Anabaptists insisted only upon the candidate, not upon a certain mode,
therefore they might have regarded it – immersion, pouring or
sprinkling – as a
matter of indifference, just as the Reformers.
The
Mennonites today practice pouring, and the Mennonite historians are
inclined to
regard immersion as being an exception from the general custom. The Baptists practice immersion exclusively,
and their historians try to prove the fact that this was the only way
the
Anabaptists practiced baptism. What can
we learn from history?
After
Grebel’s party separated from Zwingli on
A month
after Grebel reportedly was baptized by pouring, he was found in the
canton of
St. Gall, preaching and teaching adult
immersion on profession of faith as the only valid baptism. Kessler, the reformed preacher from St. Gall, bears witness to this, telling about: “Wolfgang Ulimann, how he being taught earlier by
Laurence
Hochrutiner against infant baptism, pressed forward on a journey to
Schaffhausen
to Conrad Grebel, and coming through him to such a high knowledge of
Anabaptism, would not be merely watered with a dish with water, but,
fully
unclothed and naked, he was drawn under and covered over out in the
Rhine by
Grebel” (Sabbata,
vol. 1, p. 266
– translated from German). [It should be
noted that being naked was not part of the rite, but they practiced it
sometimes, in isolated cases, when they baptized at rivers, when the
candidates
did not have another change of clothes].
Immersion
is here called “a high knowledge of Anabaptism.” In this
knowledge they rejected sprinkling or pouring.
It should be noted that it was not Ulimann’s previous knowledge
that
made him unwilling to be baptized by pouring, but the knowledge he
received
from Grebel. It would be
strange, to say the
least, for Grebel to strongly reject in February what he practiced in
January. Moreover, the season of
Ulimann’s baptism was winter.
Considering the medieval man’s fear of cold water, if they
thought the
mode was not important, they would have used anything but immersion in
the
freezing cold waters of the Rhine. So we
are inclined to doubt the report that Grebel baptized by pouring.
Furthermore,
Arx, the Swiss historian, writes about the practice of
Grebel in St. Gall: “They
[Grebel
and Hochrutiner] sought to persuade
everybody to allow
themselves to be baptized once more and preached in St.
Gallen under the linden trees of Multerthore,
in fields and forests. They were so
successful that the people of the St.
Gall territory, from Appenzell and from Toggenburg swarmed to
the city
of St. Gall asking about the baptistery
and allowing themselves to be baptized there.
The number of converts became so great that the baptistery could
not
contain the multitude of the candidates for baptism and they had to use
the
streams and the Sitter river; to which on Sundays those who desired
baptism
walked in similar numbers, their march in procession making them to be
immediately noticed” (Geschichten des Kantons St.
Gallen, vol. 2, p.
501 – translated from German).
These events took place
in March. The baptistery was a great
wooden cask. “Augustus
Naef,
Secretary to the Council of St. Gall, in
a work published in 1850, records the success of the Baptist movement. He says: ‘They baptized those who believed
with them in rivers and lakes, and in a great wooden cask in Butcher's
Square
before a great crowd’” (Christian,
Ibid., p.
119). The
only reason they needed a cask and not a dish was because they
practiced
immersion.
Zwingli also bears
witness to the
practice of baptism among the Anabaptists when he sarcastically answers
them: “Good
news! Let’s all go for a plunge in the
Limmat!” (Verduin, Ibid., p. 217). Quoting
Manz, who spoke of baptism as “going under,” Zwingli said: “Let him who talks about ‘going under’ go under
[the water]” (Ibid.). His words inspired the
law issued by
the Council who stated: “Qui
mersus fuerit
mergatur,” “Him who
dipps shall be dipped.” Under this law Manz
perished having been
sentenced to drowning in the waters of the river Limmat (Christian,
Ibid., p. 122).
In the southern German
territories, the Anabaptists
practiced immersion. “The Anabaptist leaders, Hubmaier, Denck, Hetzer,
Hut,
likewise appeared in
Jarrel quotes the
definition Hubmaier gives to baptism
in Christian Baptism of Belivers: “To baptize in water is to cover the confessor of
his sins
in external water, according to the divine command, and to inscribe him
in the
number of the separate upon his own confession and desire” (Ibid., p. 200).
A few years
later, Menno says: “…after
we have searched
ever so diligently, we shall find no other baptism besides dipping in
water
[doopsel inden water] which is acceptable to God, and maintained in his
word”
(Robinson, Ibid., p. 499).
The
Protestants generally looked with indifference upon the mode, but they
nevertheless preffered immersion. Luther
recommended it. When defining the word
baptism, Zwingli wrote: “First
it is used for the immersion in water whereby we are pledged
individually to
the Christian life” (G.W. Bromiley, Ibid., p. 132). The Schleitheim
confession does not
mention the mode, but this because the Anabaptists were not condemned
on
account of practicing immersion, not because they regarded the mode as
indifferent.
Baptism was
important to the
Anabaptists because of its meaning. “The
baptism of a believer is a symbol of the sinking in the death of Christ
and of
being raised again (“new birth”) in His resurrection.
No one can come into the Kingdom unless he be
born again (John 3:3), and this was the spiritual event symbolized by
water
baptism into the community” (Littell, Ibid., p. 84).
Immersion was the only mode of baptism that could properly
symbolize
“the sinking in the death of Christ” and the raising in His
resurrection. Neither pouring nor
sprinkling of water
symbolizes properly the spiritual event portrayed in baptism.
The proofs in
favor of immersion are overwhelming. If
there were indeed exceptions from
immersion in Anabaptist practice, these were scarce and were due to the
transition period of the persons involved from Catholicism or
Protestantism to
Anabaptism.
The Anabaptists
considered adults only as proper candidates for baptism,
as a certain understanding of the responsibilities of a Christian was
required;
they thought the water to be a mere symbol of inward washing and
cleansing;
they thought immersion to be the proper picture of the inward work of
the
Spirit of Christ in regeneration; and they considered that only
churches like
theirs were baptizing and doing Christ’s work aright.
6.
The Doctrine of Church Discipline
The doctrine
of church discipline was another important point of difference between
the
Anabaptists and their opponents. In that
age this doctrine was an Anabaptist distinctive since they were the
only ones
who practiced it after the New Testament pattern.
The Catholic
Church practiced only
excomunication, by which it taught the loss of salvation.
No moral purification was enforced among its
ranks, but only a doctrinal one. The “heretics” were
confronted
with the dogma, and if they did not conform, they were condemned to
death,
which punishment was most of the time carried through.
But no one was ever burned for being depraved
and immoral.
The issue of
discipline among the
Protestants was similar with the one from the Catholic camp, even
though the
Reformers wished for a moral improvement in their converts. But, keeping the vision of the sacral
society, they could not exclude one from the church unless he was also
excluded
from society. They preffered to try to
correct this handicap from within, but their failure is well known.
The local
assembly of believers was, in the Anabaptists’ vision, Christ’s
representative
in the world, and therefore, it had to be preserved pure.
The Anabaptists applied the New Testament
model, found in Matthew 18, for the purging and purification of the
assembly. Anyone who lived in sin or
erred from the biblical faith was first taught, and if no change
occurred, such
person was excluded, or “left alone,” as Grebel said.
Exclusion was necessary both for the
perseverance unto holiness of the members and for the maintance of
spiritual
and scriptural leadership of the church.
The
Schleitheim Confession states:
“II. We are
agreed as follows on the ban: The ban
shall be employed with all
those who have given themselves to the Lord, to walk in His
commandments, and
with all those who are baptized into the one body of Christ and who are
called
brethren or sisters, and yet who slip sometimes and fall into error and
sin,
being inadvertently overtaken. The same
shall be admonished twice in secret and the third time openly
disciplined or
banned according to the command of Christ.
Matt. 18. But
this shall be done according to the
regulation of the Spirit (Matt. 5)
before the breaking of bread, so that we may break and eat one bread,
with one
mind and in one love, and may drink of one cup” (Mark Noll, Ibid., p. 52).
The doctrine
of discipline throws a supplementary light on the Anabaptist view of
the
church. First, such a practice shows
that the Anabaptists did not think the church to be just a fellowship
of
believers in which significant differences in doctrine and practice
were
tolerated. For them, the church was a
body whose unity and purity was kept by a strict discipline. This was the main purpose of disciplining.
The
secondary purpose of the ban was the straightening of the disciplined. It was not a revenge of the community against
the one fallen into sin, but a means to restoration, by helping the
disciplined
to return to the blessed fellowhip of the church, which he lost by
being
excluded.
Later, among
the Dutch Mennonites, the ban came to affect not only the relationship
of the
excluded with the church, but also with his family.
It was recommended that no kind word should
even be said to the excluded by his family until he repents and returns
to the
church. But this form of the ban, called
“shunning”, was not the general practice of the Anabaptists.
Among
Anabaptists the disciplining was
performed publicly, by the whole congregation who acted democratically. Hubmaier said, “By
receiving baptism, the candidate testifies publicly that… he has
submitted
himself to his brothers and sisters… that is, to the Church” (Estep, Ibid.,
p. 60). “In
the perfection
of Christ, however, only the ban is used for a warning and for the
excommunication of the one who has sinned, without putting the flesh to
death -
simply the warning and the command to sin no more” (Schleitheim
Confession, Noll,
Ibid., p. 54).
The doctrine
of church discipline was one of the Anabaptist particularities that
kept them
from gross sins, contributing to their living virtuous lives.
7.
The Doctrine of the Lord’s Supper
For the
Catholics, the Eucharist, or the Mass, was a perpetual sacrificing or
offering
of Christ by the clergy. Under the
intercession of the priest, the bread and the wine were transformed
miraculously into the body and the blood of Christ.
This dogma is called transubstantiation. The
congregation had access only to His “body,” the “blood” being consumed
only by
the priests. The Mass was considered a
sacrament, meaning that it conferred grace to the participants. It was one of the most important rites, since
it united around it the whole society, whose borders were confounded
with those
of the Church.
Luther
rejected the doctrine of transubstantiation, but proclaimed Christ’s
real
presence to be with and around the elements.
This doctrine is called consubstantiation. This is the way Luther explained it: “Just as in a red-hot bar the fire and the metal
do not lose
their identity, he reasoned, so is Christ in, with and under the
elements of
the eucharist. Or, just as God and man
became one in Christ, so do the elements and Christ’s body become one,
both
retaining, however, their distinct essence” (Loewen, Luther and
the
Radicals, p. 41).
Zwingli
rejected both the Catholic and the Lutheran doctrines, this being one
of the
reasons why the Lutherans and the Zwinglians never collaborated. For Zwingli and for the Swiss reformers, the
Supper represented only a symbol, a commemoration of Christ’s sacrifice. This was one of the doctrines Zwingli
defended from the very beginnings of his reformation.
One of the theses defended by Zwingli and his
partisans, among which there were at that time Hubmaier, Grebel, Manz
and
others who later became Anabaptists, was the following: “18. Christ, who has
once offered
himself as a sacrifice, is for eternity a perpetual enduring and
efficacious
sacrifice for the sins of all believers.
Therefore we conclude that the Mass is not a sacrifice but a
memorial of
the one sacrifice and a seal of redemption that Christ made good for
us” (Mark
Noll, Ibid., p. 41). This
came to be the chief distinctive of
Zwingli’s theology. “’Zwinglianism’ came to be identified not with
any positive
theological or liturgical construction, but with a denial of the
presence of
Christ in the Eucharist” (Lindberg, The Reformation Theologians,
p. 157).
According to Zwingli, Christ is spiritually, not physically
present in
the Supper. The rite presents the past
work of Christ, but also the present one – this making the rite
important. “…‘This
is my body,’ that is This represents my body, the eating of this bread
being
the sign and symbol that Christ, the soul’s true consolation and
nourishment,
was crucified for us” (Bromiley, Ibid., p.
226).
The Radicals
rejected the doctrine of the real presence as held by the Catholics and
the
Protestants. The most ardent opponent of
it was Carlstadt, who published treatises against this doctrine. “Carlstadt must be
held responsible for initiating the so-called sacramental controversy
which
caused so much strife among the Protestants.
Carlstadt’s views on the Lord’s Supper were shared, with minor
variations, by most radicals and Anabaptists of the sixteenth century”
(Harry Loewen, Luther and the Radicals, p.
40). Some historians consider
that Luther never gave up the doctrine of the real presence because of
his
ongoing controversies with Carlstadt. In
fact, this is was one of the main causes that changed Luther from a
persecuted
“heretic” into a persecutor “pope”. All
who opposed him, Protestants, Spiritualists or Anabaptists were
persecuted by
Luther and his followers on this account.
Even though
the Anabaptists believed, like Zwingli and Carlstadt, in the Supper as
a
memorial, in the elements as symbols, they went further than them. Zwingli could only go as far as declaring
that those who partook of it in an unworthy manner condemn themselves. For the Anabaptists, the Supper represented
not only the remembrance of the death of Christ, but also the unity of
the
church. The Schleitheim Confession
states:
“III. In the
breaking of bread we are of one mind and are agreed (as follows):
All those who wish to break one bread in remembrance of the broken body
of
Christ, and all who wish to drink of one drink as a remembrance of the
shed
blood of Christ, shall be united beforehand by baptism in one body of
Christ
which is the church of God and whose Head is Christ. For
as Paul points out, we cannot at the same
time drink the cup of the Lord and the cup of the devil.
That is, all those who have fellowship with
the dead works of darkness have no part in the light.
Therefore all who follow the devil and the
world have no part with those who are called unto God out of the world. All who lie in evil have no part in the
good.
Therefore
it is and must be (thus): Whoever has not been called by one God to one
faith,
to one baptism, to one Spirit, to one body, with all the children of
God's
church, cannot be made (into) one bread with them, as indeed must be
done if
one is truly to break bread according to the command of Christ” (Mark
Noll,
Ibid., p. 52).
The
Anabaptist stand implied the purification of the church before the
rite, by
admonition, discipline or the exclusion of those who were not in
spiritual
unity with them. The church unity that
was so much desired by the Protestants – yet so absent in their
churches as a
whole – was magnificently and most simply attained by the local
congregations
of the Anabaptists.
8. The
Anabaptist Public Worship
Public
worship was an important part in the religious life of the Anabaptist
people. Their church service differed
largely from those of the other camps.
Catholic
public worship was a complex ritual, announced in the community by the
sounding
of bells. The places of worship, of a
unique and meaningful architecture, were decorated with many
representations of
God and the saints (statues, paintings and coloured glass windows). The services were liturgical, that is, they
were carried on according to specifically prescribed rites. Their yearly liturgy was developed according
to the celebrations of the Church. They
chanted their prayers, Scripture reading and certain ritual sermons.
In keeping a
clergy, in the performing the rite of infant baptism, in keeping the
holidays,
in their liturgy, in taking over the Catholic church buildings where
they
gained majority of population, the Protestants had a public worship
that was similar
with the Catholic one. The Reformers,
however, opposed images and chanting, though they continued to keep
them for
some time. They emphasized preaching
instead of rituals.
Public
worship was a central element of the Anabaptists’ church life, as well. Their meetings were not announced with bells,
but were most of the time, held in the utmost secrecy, because of
persecution. They never took over a
church building, but met in private houses, in forests, in fields and
sometimes
on boats. Because of this they were
nicknamed “Winckler” – people who gather in a corner or in hidden away
places
and their preachers were nicknamed “hedge-preachers.” They opposed the
use of
images of God and did not need any images of saints since they rejected
the
doctrine of the saints’ intercessions (they held that each believer had
direct
access to God by Christ). They had no
sacerdotal class, since they thought that every believer is a priest
before
God.
Even though
they opposed the chanting of sermons and prayers, they did sing in
their
services. The tunes were taken from
popular folk songs of the day. Their
songs expressed, probably even better than their writings, their
spiritual and emotional
state. Several songs were written during
imprisonments, in expectation of the authors’ execution.
The following is an example. The
song from which the following excerpts
were taken was composed by Annelein of Freiberg. Nothing
is known about this woman except that
she was drowned and then burned in 1529, some sources indicating that
she was
only seventeen years old when imprisoned.
“Eternal
Father in Heaven,
I
call on you so ardently,
Do
not let me turn from you.
Keep
me in your truth
Until
my final end.
O,
God, guard my heart and mouth
Lord,
watch over me at all times,
Let
nothing separate me from you,
Be
it affliction, anxiety or need,
Keep
me pure in joy.
My
everlasting Lord and Father,
Show
and teach me,
Poor,
unworthy child that I am,
That
I heed your path and way.
In
this lies my desire.
To
walk through your power into death
Through
sorrow, torture, fear and want,
Sustain
me in this,
O,
God, so that I nevermore
Be
separated from your love.
…
They
have imprisoned me
I
wait, O God, with all
my heart
With
very great longing,
When
finally you will
awake
If
you would only stir
And
set your prisoners
free. …”
(Snyder and
Hecht, Profiles of
Anabaptist Women, p. 199, 200)
The
Anabaptist church service was of an amazing simplicity.
It had three distinct elements: prayer,
singing and the preaching or exposition of the Bible.
They were most emphatic on the latter, since
knowing the Scriptures was necessary in order to be faithful to Christ
in all
things, as their desire was.
9. Church
Ministers
In a church
of the Anabaptists, all members were equal.
The preachers and the pastors were considered to be the servants
of the
church, and they did not form a special class, a ruling clergy. These had the responsibility of watching over
the “flock,” for its spiritual and moral wellness.
The churches of
the Anabaptists thought
their ministers had to know a craft that could bring them an income if
the
church was unable to support them. They
opposed taxes for the support of the clergy, considering that the needs
of the
ministers and the expenses of the ministry should be met by the local
churches. “This
one [the
pastor] moreover shall be supported of the church which has chosen him,
wherein
he may be in need, so that he who serves the Gospel may live of the
Gospel as
the Lord has ordained” (Schleitheim Confession, Mark Noll,
Ibid., p.
54). All the
Anabaptists felt a strong aversion toward preachers paid from the
public
budget. Hans Hut wrote: “Therefore I admonish all godly people who seek
after and
love righteousness to earnestly guard themselves from all usurious,
haughty and
hypocritical scholars who preach for money.
They do not look out for your good, but only for their own
bellies” (Liechty, Ibid., p. 65).
To have been
an Anabaptist preacher or pastor in that time meant to be in constant
peril. If ordinary members were fined or
banished, the leaders were always executed.
They did not enjoy priviledges or recognition from either the
civil or
ecclesiastical authorities of the established religions.
Repeatedly, the Anabaptist ministers were
called to seal their testimony with their own blood.
Even in such times, they sought to honor
their King, to be an example and an encouragement for their little
flock.
10. The
Roles of the Believer and of the Church
in Society
If seen only
from outside, Anabaptism best strikes the eye because of its radical
stand on
the place the Christian and the church must occupy in society.
The Catholic
Church preached the doctrine of Constatine the Great, the merging of
the
borders of the Church with those of the State.
The Church was “Corpus
Christianum,” the totality of Christians.
Since infant baptism was enforced by law, Corpus
Christianum also meant the totality of the citizens in a
“Christian society.” The civil authority was considered to be vassal to
the
ecclesiastical power, since the former was temporal and the latter
eternal. In the Middle Ages, the pope
installed and dethroned kings. The civil
authority also had to serve the ecclesiastical one.
The king had to serve the pope. The
magistrate had to serve the priest.
Thomas
Aquinas stated: “The State, through which
earthly
objectives are reached, must be subordinated to the Church; Church and
State
are two swords which God has given to Christendom for protection; both
these
swords however are by Him given to the pope and the temporal sword is
then by
the pope entrusted to the rulers of State” (Verduin, Ibid., p. 43). This
doctrine was not a mere theoretical scholastic subtlety, but an
instrument
frequently used by the papacy to reach its goals, when negotiation or
persuasion
failed. This concept made innumerable
victims among those classed by the Catholics as “heretics.”
The
Reformers could not free themselves from this Constantinian doctrine. In this respect they always remained
tributary to
Urbanus
Rhegius, Protestant leader of
Just as in
the case of infant baptism, when the Anabaptists requested from the
Protestants
Scripural proofs for this doctrine, they brought the most fanciful
interpretations in order to support the union of church and state. Beza, Calvin’s colleague, found a support
text for this doctrine in the book of Acts.
“With what power, pray, did Peter put
to death
Ananias and Sapphira? And with what
power did Paul smite Elimas blind? Was
it with the power vested in the Church?
Of course not. Well, then, it
must have been with the power that is vested in the magistrate, there
being no
third kind of power” (Verduin, Ibid., p. 54).
The
Anabaptists believed in the complete separation of Church and State. They affirmed in the Schleitheim Confession:
VI. We are agreed as follows concerning the
sword:
The sword is ordained of God outside the perfection of
Christ. It punishes and puts to death
the wicked, and guards and protects the good… In the
perfection
of Christ, however, only the ban is used for a warning and for the
excommunication of the one who has sinned, without putting the flesh to
death -
simply the warning and the command to sin no more (Mark Noll, Ibid., p. 54).
The
Anabaptists did not try to overthrow the social order.
They were not anarchists, neither were they
revolutionary fanatics, even though they were accused of these things. Hubmaier’s words are representative of their
stand: “We confess openly that there should
be secular
government that should bear the sword.
This we are willing and bound to obey in everything that is not
against
God” (Vedder, Ibid.,
p. 160). They opposed a sacral,
monolithic
society, in which there was no difference between the church and the
world. They recognized the civil
authorities
as being ordained by God, but “outside the perfection of Christ,” that
is,
outside the church. They distinguished
between “general grace” given by God to society and represented by the
social
order and the “special grace” given to believers only and represented
by the
church. But in the society to which
they belonged, in which the church meant the totality of the citizens,
and the
state meant the totality of the Christians, the true believer could not
serve
the state as a magistrate, since that meant also to bring service to a
church
that he thought to be apostate.
Therefore, the Anabaptists affirmed that a Christian could not
occupy
public offices.
The
Anabaptists required nothing from the authorities.
They did not long for financial benefits, nor
for the state’s recognition. They only
requested the right – banal now, but unacceptable then – to be allowed
to
worship God according to the dictates of their conscience.
They taught that a Christian cannot
persecute, but rather suffers quietly all things. The
church’s role in society was to represent
Christ, whom, though persecuted and killed, did not strike back, nor
speak evil
of his persecutors. They envisioned a
society
different from all the orders of the day – a society in which the civil
authorities supervised only social matters, a composite society in
which all
its citizens could exercise the right to choose if they wanted to be
part of a
certain church or not.
11.
The Struggle for Freedom
Baptists
always have been the champions of human rights and liberties. In this, they followed their Anabaptist
predecessors. Anabaptist thought was
superior to the age in which they lived.
The whole of modern free society is based on the principles for
which
the sixteenth century Anabaptists lived and died.
The sacral
society, in which the authorities recognize one state religion/church,
cannot
allow its citizens to be free to choose their own religion. It cannot allow dissidence, faction, sect
[this word comes from the latin sequor
which gives the idea of following, and in religious context – following
other
ways than the one recognized or imposed].
It cannot allow the luxury of granting freedom to the individual
to
judge for himself and make a decision regarding his faith.
In this vision, a centralized and controlled
religion is absolutely necessary for the good order of the society. In
such a
society there can only be tolerance at best, and this only where
Church-State
relationship is less “intimate.” But tolerance is not freedom. By its definition, tolerance is an allowable
deviation from the standard. In a sacral
society, the State recognizes as valid only one faith.
The rest of them are considered deviant.
The Catholic
Church is the best example of this monolithic mentality.
Armed with the doctrine of the two swords,
the papal church started the battle of converting all those who
differed from
it. It is thought that during the dark
ages millions of
Before 1529,
waves of persecution
led to the beheading of early Anabaptism.
In the Catholic territories, Michael Sattler, Balthasar
Hubmaier, Georg
Blaurock and Wolfgang Ulimann were burned at the stake and Hans Hut was
killed
in prison. Numerous other local leaders
were also killed. Words cannot describe
the cruelty of these acts. The trial and
execution of Michael Sattler, on May 21st, 1527, is an illustrative
example. This account is in the Martyr’s
Mirror, p. 416-418. The
sentence passed by the judges was the
following: “In the case
of the Governor of his Imperial Majesty
versus Michael Sattler, judgement is passed, that Michael Sattler shall
be
delivered to the executioner, who shall lead him to the place of
execution, and
cut out his tongue; then throw him upon a wagon, and then tear his body
twice
with red hot tongs; and after he has been brought without the gate, he
shall be
pinched five times in the same manner.” Estep, quoting another
source adds “…and
then burn his body to powder as an arch-heretic” (Estep, Ibid.,
p. 40). He goes on
describing the scene of the martyrdom: “The
torture, a
prelude to the execution, began at the market place where a piece was
cut from
Sattler’s tongue. Pieces of flesh were
torn
from his body twice with red-hot tongs.
He was then forged to a cart. On
the way to the scene of the execution the tongs were applied five times
again. In the market place and at the site
of the
execution, still able to speak, the unshakeable Sattler prayed for his
persecutors. After being bound to a
ladder with ropes and pushed into the fire, he admonished the people,
the
judges, and the mayor to repent and be converted. Then
he prayed, ‘Almighty, eternal God, Thou
art the way and the truth: because I have not been shown to be in
error, I will
with thy help to this day testify to the truth and seal it with my
blood.
As
soon as the ropes on his wrists were burned, Sattler raised the two
forefingers
of his hands giving the promised signal to the brethren that a martyr’s
death
was bearable. Then the assembled crowd
heard coming from his seared lips, ‘Father, I commend my spirit into
Thy
hands’” (Estep,
Ibid., p. 47).
After 1529, not
only the leaders
were executed, but ordinary Anabaptists as well. Seeing
that the public executions only
thickened their ranks, the authorities of Suabia called a special
militia for
the tracking down of the Anabaptists.
This militia had authority to kill on the spot, with no trial
and
indifferent of sex and age, all those suspected of being Anabaptists. Many thousands Anabaptists perished this
way. C.A. Cornelius,
the Roman Catholic historian,
described part of the results of the persecution that followed the Diet
of
Spires.
"In
The
Anabaptists did not face a better treatment in Protestant territories. The initial position of the Reformers, when
they were threatened by the Catholics, was similar to that of the
Anabaptists. Luther said in 1520, “We should overcome heretics with books, not with
fire, as
the old Fathers did. If there were any
skill in overcoming heretics with fire, the executioner would be the
most
learned doctor in the world” (Vedder, Ibid., p.
162).
In 1527, writing against the Anabaptists, Luther maintained that “It
is not right, and I am very sorry, that such wretched people should be
so miserably
murdered, burned, and cruelly killed.
Every one should be allowed to believe what he pleases…” (Vedder,
Ibid., p. 162, 163). But
the Muenster rebellion caused Luther to
recommend the usage of the sword against all Anabaptists, peaceful or
revolutionary
(see
Durant,
Ibid., p. 92).
Bullinger,
in the beginning of the Reformation, declared: “One
cannot and should not
use force to compel anyone to accept the faith, for faith is a free
gift of
God. It is wrong to compel anyone by
force or coercion to embrace the faith, or to put to death anyone for
the sake
of his erring faith. It is an error that
in the church any sword other than that of the divine Word should be
used. The secular kingdom should be
separated from
the church, and no secular ruler should exercise authority in the
church. The Lord has commanded simply to
preach the
Gospel, not to compel anyone by force to accept it.
The true church of Christ has the characteristic
that it suffers and endures persecution but does not inflict
persecution upon
anyone” (Hershberger,
Ibid., p. 31).
But as soon as the
reformers gained the support of the
authorities in a certain region, they went back on their words and
promoted the
old Catholic doctrine. The persecution
suffered by the Anabaptists in Protestant territories was as cruel as
the
Catholic persecution. In Protestant
territories, Felix Manz was condemned to death by drowning, Grebel and
Denck,
hunted and weakened physically, fell pray to an epidemic, escaping,
thus from
the hands of the executioners. Balthasar
Hubmaier reproached the Protestants of Zurich for locking up in a tower
some
twenty Anabaptists, men, young women, pregnant women, and widows,
sentencing
them to be left there, on bread and water, without ever seeing the sun
again,
until they will all die in that cell. “‘O God,’ he further writes, ‘what a terrible,
severe, and
rigorous sentence against pious Christian people, of whom none could
say any
evil thing, only that they, according to the commandment of Christ, had
received water baptism!’” (van Braght,
Martyrs’ Mirror, p. 465).
After
Zwingli gained control of the religious affairs in
Calvin, in his turn, was
just as intolerant: "Whoever shall now
contend that it is unjust to put
heretics and blasphemers to death will knowingly and willingly incur
their very
guilt. This is not laid down on human
authority; it is God who speaks and prescribes a perpetual rule for his
Church. It is not in vain that he banishes
all those human affections which soften our hearts; that he commands
paternal
love and all the benevolent feelings between brothers, relations, and
friends
to cease; in a word, that he almost deprives men of their nature in
order that
nothing may hinder their holy zeal. Why
is so implacable a severity exacted but that we may know that God is
defrauded
of his honor, unless the piety that is due to him be preferred to all
human
duties, and that when his glory is to be asserted, humanity must be
almost
obliterated from our memories?" (Schaff,
Ibid., vol. VIII, p.
545, 546).
Erasmus did
not hesitate to reproach the Protestants their inconsistency: “They who are so very urgent that heretics should
not be put
to death. did yet capitally punish the
Anabaptists, who were condemned for much fewer articles, and were said
to have
among them a great many who had been converted from a very wicked life,
to one
as much amended; and who, however, they doted on their opinions, had
never
possessed themselves of any churches, or cities, or fortified
themselves by any
league against the force of princes, or cast any one out of his
inheritance or
estate” (Epistolarum de Erasmus, XXXI.
59. A. D.
1530, quoted by Christian, Ibid., p.
100).
Hubmaier’s
position is that of all the Anabaptists.
In a book called Of Heretics And
Those Who Burn Them, he pleaded not only for the Anabaptists, but
even for
the atheists and the Muslims. “The burning of heretics cannot be justified by
the
Scriptures. Christ Himself teaches that
the tares, should be allowed to grow with the wheat.
He did not come to burn, or to murder, but to
give life, and that more abundantly. We
should, therefore, pray and hope for improvement in men as long as they
live. If they cannot be convinced by
appeals
to reason, or the Word of God, they should be let alone.
One cannot be made to see his errors either
by fire or sword. But if it is a crime
to burn those who scornfully reject the Gospel of Jesus Christ, how
much more
it is a crime to burn the true expounders and exemplars of the Word of
God. Such an apparent zeal for God, the
welfare of the soul, and the honor of the church is a deception. Indeed to every one it must be evident that
the burning of heretics is a device of Satan” (Christian,
Ibid., p. 102). He
continues: “Hence it follows that the
inquisitors are
the greatest heretics of all, since they against the doctrine and
example of
Christ condemn heretics to fire, and before the time of harvest root up
the
wheat with the tares… And now it is clear to everyone, even the blind,
that a
law to burn heretics is an invention of the devil.
Truth is immortal” (Vedder, Ibid.,
p. 161).
The Anabaptists were
among the first defenders of
human rights. They militated for all the
people, not only for those of the same faith with them.
The Anabaptist martyrs, whether illustrious
scholars or unknown peasants, sealed with their own blood their plea
for
liberty. If their cry had been heard,
the history of the world and of Christianity would have been different
in these
past five centuries.
Conclusion
Who were the Anabaptists,
and what was their place in
history? Bender quotes the answer given
by Rufus Jones: "Judged
by the reception it met at the hands of those in
power, both in Church and State, equally in Roman Catholic and in
Protestant
countries, the Anabaptist movement was one of the most tragic in the
history of
Christianity; but, judged by the principles, which were put into play
by the
men who bore this reproachful nickname, it must be pronounced one of
the most
momentous and significant undertakings in man's eventful religious
struggle
after the truth. It gathered up the
gains of earlier movements, it is the spiritual soil out of which all
nonconformist sects have sprung, and it is the first plain announcement
in
modern history of a programme for a new type of Christian society which
the
modern world, especially in America and England, has been slowly
realizing – an
absolutely free and independent religious society, and a State in which
every
man counts as a man, and has his share in shaping both Church and
State" (Hershberger, Ibid., p. 29).
The hope
Spurgeon had, and many like him, that “The
time will probably arrive when history will be re-written, and the
maligned
Baptists of Holland and Germany will be acquitted of all complicity
with the
ravings of the insane fanatics…” has been
fulfilled. We
salute the arrival of those
times, and rejoice that the Anabaptists are finally aquitted from the
many
calumnies brought against them. We
salute the enthroning of human rights and of the freedom to chose, the
liberation of the State from servitude to a religious or political
dogma, and
the constitution of a democractic and composite society.
Truth flourishes in
freedom!!!
***
What does the Anabaptist
movement mean to us? A dramatic chapter of
history, buried in the
dust of time? In what measure are their
doctrines, practices, and vision still actual?
Philip Schaff
concludes: “The blood
of martyrs is never shed in vain. The
Anabaptist movement was defeated, but not destroyed; it revived among
the
Mennonites, the Baptists in
Even though the
Anabaptist positions are largely
deserted, they are as true today as five hundred years ago, the attacks
of
their opponents are just as furious as then, the controversies they
raise are
just as fiery. Their followers are under
the same siege and are called today to stand and defend the doctrines
of their
predecessors, the doctrines of the Scriptures.
The fundamental
Anabaptist doctrine – The Scripture as
final authority – is mightly assaulted.
Never was the authority of the Bible so much discredited and
undermined
as it is now. Even those who call
themselves “Baptists,” who were supposed to be “people of the Book,”
accept
unbiblical doctrines and practices, forsaking the old Anabaptist
position. For instance, the liberal
theological view of
“once saved always saved” gained huge popularity, replacing the old
theology of
discipleship, causing the spiritual and moral standard to be in
continual
regression…
The doctrine of
separation is assaulted by those
involved in the ecumenical movement.
Baptist leaders seek and accept the support of secular
authorities, they
recognize false churches as sisters, as equals, and work together with
them,
betraying the position for which their predecessors lived and died! Those who take a stand for separation are
accused of legalism, hypocrisy and narrow-mindedness.
But
this is the old Baptist position!
The Schleitheim
Confession declares: “From this
we should learn that everything which is not united with our God and
Christ
cannot be other than an abomination which we should shun and flee from. By this is meant all Catholic and Protestant
works and church services, meetings and church attendance…” (Mark Noll,
Ibid., p.
53).
Bullinger describes their
separation from the
Protestant, “evangelical” perspective: “From
the
beginning it was principally a matter of separation for the purpose of
creating
a divided church…, because they wished to abandon the Papists and the
Evangelicals… and live in a new Baptist order, which they call the
true,
blessed, Christian church, therefore their leaders received baptism… as
a sign
of the separation” (Verduin,
Ibid., p. 208).
The modern
Baptist movement denies this separation and cooperates with the
“papists” and with
the “evangelicals.” But doing this, do they not abandon the very
“Baptist
order,” thus switching camps?
Baptism was
for the Anabaptists a sign of separation, of identity.
They refused to accept the baptisms practiced
by the parties that did not stand doctrinally with them, they did not
recognize
them to be true churches, and their rites were considered null and void. For this stand they met with hatred, calumny
and persecution from the evangelicals.
Zwingli told them: “Run
along, live as Christian-like as you please…, only lay off on the
re-baptizings, for it is as plain as day that with it you are making a
faction!” (Verduin, Ibid.).
What
are the implications of the
compromise offered by Zwingli? To accept
it meant to trespass a part of the Scriptures and to repudiate the most
important Ana/Baptist doctrines (the authority of the Scriptures – by
accepting
or tolerating something condemned by the Scriptures; the whole doctrine
of the
church – its nature, ordinances, leadership, discipline, etc.; the
doctrine of
separation – from civil authorities, from false churches, from the
so-called
brethren, etc.).
By their
origin, doctrines and practices, the Anabaptists could not be
integrated in the
Protestant camp. Luther, Zwingli, Calvin
tried to reform the old Catholic Church, which they considered the true
church,
though polluted and corrupt. Like their
predecessors, the Anabaptists regarded Catholicism, and later
Protestantism as
different forms of the same apostasy.
They denounced the Reformation as semi-popery, and the reformed
doctrines as half-truths, thought to be worse than error.
Baptists are
not Protestants. Those who accept the
compromise of Zwingli cease to be Baptists, even though they may keep
the name
and the appearance. They can be anything,
Protestants, Neo-protestants, Evangelicals, but not Baptists, not in
the same
sense their forefathers were Baptists.
Not all the Baptists, though, accepted Zwingli’s compromise, the
Protestant, “evangelical” baptism. A
minority still refuses it with the same stubbornness as their
Anabaptist
predecessors refused it.
The
Anabaptist vision calls us today to take a stand. To
take the Anabaptist stand means to live a
life of discipleship, to persevere unto holiness, to depart from
anything that
is evil, be it worldy amusement, wicked company or false doctrine. It means to separate from compromised
churches that either fell from the truth of the Scriptures or never
held it,
and to unite with the true churches of Christ, that stand for His
teachings,
and faithfully put them into daily practice!
If the
struggle of the Anabaptists was wrong, if they died in vain, let us
change
camps, let us abandon the Baptist faith, for we fight against God! But if they suffered for a right cause, for
the truth, for God, then we are called to follow their example, to walk
on the
same path, for it leads to the desired destination!
Bibliography:
Adams, John Q., Baptists,
The Only Thorough Religious Reformers, Backus Book
Publishers, New York, 1980
Barclay,
Robert, The Inner Life of the Religious Societies
of the Commonwealth, Hodden and Stoughton, London, 1877
Braght,
Thieleman J. van, Martyr’s
Mirror, Herald Press, Scottdale, Pennsylvania, 1950
Bromiley,
Geoffrey W.,
Zwingli and Bullinger, Westminster
John Knox Press, Philadeplhia, 1953
Christian,
John T., A History of the Baptists, Vol. 1, Bogard Press Edition, 1922
Cook, Richard, The
Story of the Baptists, The Baptist Standard Bearer, Paris, AR,
2001
Cramp, J. M., A
Brief
History of the Council of Trent, published by Daniel Appleton, New
York,
1831
Durant, Will
and Ariel, Civilizaţii istorisite [The Story of
Civilisation], vol. 18, published by Prietenii Cartii, Bucharest,
2005
Estep,William, The
Anabaptist Story, Eerdmans Publishing Company, Grand Rapids,
1986
Febvre, Lucien, Martin
Luther, un destin [Martin
Luther: A Destiny], published by
Corint, Bucharest, 2001
Haskell,
Samuel, Heroes and Hierarchs, American
Baptist Publication
Society,
Hershberger, Guy, The
Recovery of the Anabaptist Vision, The Baptist Standard Bearer,
Paris, AR, 1957. This is a compilation
of several writings of important historians on the Anabaptists. The following works were quoted here: Harold
S. Bender, The Anabaptist
Vision; Fritz Blanke, Anabaptism and the Reformation;
N.
van der Zijpp, The Early Dutch
Anabaptists; Franklin H. Littell, The Anabaptist Concept of the Church
Jarrel, W.A., Baptist
Church
Perpetuity, publicată de autor, Dallas, TX, 1894
Kessler,
Johannes, Sabbata, vol. 1,
Scheitlin & Zollikofer, St. Gallen,
1866
Liechty,
Daniel, Early Anabaptist Spirituality, Paulist
Press, New York, 1994. This is a
compilation of English translations of original writings of several
Anabaptist
leaders. The following works were quoted
here: Thomas Manz, Letter from Prison;
Hans Hut, On the Mystery of Baptism;
Hans Denck, Divine Order
Lindberg,
Carter, The Reformation Theologians, An
Introduction to Theology in Early Modern Period, Blackwell
Publishing,
Littell,
Franklin H.,
The Anabaptist View of the Church,
The Baptist Standard Bearer, Paris, AR, 2001
Loewen,
Harry, Luther and the Radicals: Another Look at
some Aspects of the Struggle
Between Luther and the Radical Reformers, published by Wilfrid
Laurier
University Press,
Mennonite
Encyclopedia,
www.gameo.org
Mosheim,
Johann L., Institutes of Ecclesiastical History,
William Tegg, Londra, 1867
Neander,
Augustus,
Lectures on the Christian Dogma, Vol.
II, published by Henry G. Bohn,
London, 1858
The New
Schaff-Herzog Encyclopedia of Religious Knowledge, Grand Rapids, MI: Baker
Book
House, 1951,
Vol. 1, Christian Classics
Ethereal
Library
Noll, Mark A.,
Confessions and
Cathechisms of the
Reformation,
Regent College Publishing, Vancouver, BC, 2004.
From this work Zwingli’s Sixty Seven Articles of 1523, the
Anabaptist
Schleitheim Confession of 1527 and the Lutheran Augsburg Confession of
1530
were quoted.
Robinson,
Robert, The History of Baptism, Press of Lincoln
and Edmands, Boston, 1817
Schaff, Philip,
History of the Christian Church, Second Revised Edition,
vol. VII şi VIII. Christian
Classics Ethereal Library, www.ccel.org
Snyder,
C. Arnold and Linda Agnes Hubert Hecht, Profiles
of Anabaptist Women: Sixteenth Century Reforming Pioneers,
Published by Wilfrid Laurier University Press, Waterloo, ON, 1996
Vedder,
Henry, A Short History of the Baptists,
The American Baptist Publication Society,
Verduin,
Leonard, The Reformers and their
Stepchildren, Eerdman’s Publishing Company,
Williams, G. and A. Mergal, Spiritualist and Anabaptist Writers, Westminster John Knox Press, Philadelphia, 1957. This is a compilation of several writings of the most renown leaders of the Radical Reformation. The following works were quoted here: Conrad Grebel, Letters to Thomas Muntzer; Hans Denck, Whether God is the Cause of Evil; Balthasar Hubmaier, On Free Will
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