Church Discipline Among Anabaptists in Central Europe 1525-1550

Church Discipline Among Anabaptists in Central Europe eBook: Michael Morrison: leondumoulin.nl: Kindle Store.
Table of contents

Studies have found a very low percentage of subsequent sectarians to have taken part in the peasant uprising. Research on the origins of the Anabaptists has been tainted both by the attempts of their enemies to slander them and by the attempts of their supporters to vindicate them. Those desiring to correct this error tended to over-correct and deny all connections between the larger Anabaptist movement and the most radical elements. Bender said occupied "first position in the field of American Anabaptist historiography", made a major contribution with his A History of Anti-Pedobaptism A number of scholars e.

These baptisms were the first "re-baptisms" known in the movement. Stayer , Werner O. Packull , and Klaus Deppermann disputed the idea of a single origin of Anabaptists in a essay entitled "From Monogenesis to Polygenesis", suggesting that February 24, , at Schleitheim is the proper date of the origin of Anabaptism. On this date the Swiss Brethren wrote a declaration of belief called the Schleitheim Confession. The only question was whether or not it went back further to Saxony.

Melchior Hoffman influenced the Hutterites when they used his commentary on the Apocalypse shortly after he wrote it. Author Calvin Pater showed how Andreas Karlstadt influenced Swiss Anabaptism in various areas, including his view of Scripture, doctrine of the church, and views on baptism. Baptist successionists have, at times, pointed to 16th-century Anabaptists as part of an apostolic succession of churches "church perpetuity" from the time of Christ. The opponents of the Baptist successionism theory emphasize that these non-Catholic groups clearly differed from each other, that they held some heretical views, [d] or that the groups had no connection with one another and had origins that were separate both in time and in place.

A different strain of successionism is the theory that the Anabaptists are of Waldensian origin. Some hold the idea that the Waldensians are part of the apostolic succession, while others simply believe they were an independent group out of whom the Anabaptists arose. Ludwig Keller, Thomas M. Christian and Thieleman J.


  • Navigation menu?
  • c s erectors inc 96 09 09 97 Manual;
  • Foreign Investment in Ukrainian Agriculture;
  • »Ich gebe Ihnen mein Ehrenwort!«: Die Weltgeschichte der Lüge Ein Text von Traudl Bünger und Roger W.
  • HOLD ON, JESSICA, DONT LET GO;
  • Discipline, Church.

Anabaptism in Switzerland began as an offshoot of the church reforms instigated by Ulrich Zwingli. As early as it became evident that Zwingli was on a path of reform preaching when he began to question or criticize such Catholic practices as tithes, the mass, and even infant baptism. Zwingli had gathered a group of reform-minded men around him, with whom he studied classical literature and the scriptures.

However, some of these young men began to feel that Zwingli was not moving fast enough in his reform. The division between Zwingli and his more radical disciples became apparent in an October disputation held in Zurich. When the discussion of the mass was about to be ended without making any actual change in practice, Conrad Grebel stood up and asked "what should be done about the mass?

At this point, Simon Stumpf, a radical priest from Hongg, answered saying, "The decision has already been made by the Spirit of God. This incident illustrated clearly that Zwingli and his more radical disciples had different expectations. To Zwingli, the reforms would only go as fast as the city Council allowed them. To the radicals, the council had no right to make that decision, but rather the Bible was the final authority of church reform.

Feeling frustrated, some of them began to meet on their own for Bible study. As early as , William Reublin began to preach against infant baptism in villages surrounding Zurich, encouraging parents to not baptize their children. Felix Manz began to publish some of Karlstadt's writings in Zurich in late By this time the question of infant baptism had become agitated and the Zurich council had instructed Zwingli to meet weekly with those who rejected infant baptism "until the matter could be resolved". The council then called a meeting for January 17, The Council ruled in this meeting that all who continued to refuse to baptize their infants should be expelled from Zurich if they did not have them baptized within one week.

Since Conrad Grebel had refused to baptize his daughter Rachel, born on January 5, , the Council decision was extremely personal to him and others who had not baptized their children.

Anabaptism - Wikipedia

Thus, when sixteen of the radicals met on Saturday evening, January 21, , the situation seemed particularly dark. The Hutterian Chronicle records the event:. After prayer, George of the House of Jacob George Blaurock stood up and besought Conrad Grebel for God's sake to baptize him with the true Christian baptism upon his faith and knowledge. And when he knelt down with such a request and desire, Conrad baptized him, since at that time there was no ordained minister to perform such work. Afterwards Blaurock was baptized, he in turn baptized others at the meeting.

Even though some had rejected infant baptism before this date, these baptisms marked the first re-baptisms of those who had been baptized as infants and thus, technically, Swiss Anabaptism was born on that day. Anabaptism appears to have come to Tyrol through the labors of George Blaurock. Similar to the German Peasants' War , the Gasmair uprising set the stage by producing a hope for social justice. Michael Gasmair had tried to bring religious, political, and economical reform through a violent peasant uprising, but the movement was squashed.

While a connection between a violent social revolution and non-resistant Anabaptism may be hard to imagine, the common link was the desire for a radical change in the prevailing social injustices. Disappointed with the failure of armed revolt, Anabaptist ideals of an alternative peaceful, just society probably resonated on the ears of the disappointed peasants. Before Anabaptism proper was introduced to South Tyrol, Protestant ideas had been propagated in the region by men such as Hans Vischer, a former Dominican.

Some of those who participated in conventicles where Protestant ideas were presented later became Anabaptists. As well, the population in general seemed to have a favorable attitude towards reform, be it Protestant or Anabaptist. George Blaurock appears to have preached itinerantly in the Puster Valley region in , which most likely was the first introduction of Anabaptist ideas in the area.

European Calvinism: Church Discipline

Another visit through the area in reinforced these ideas, but he was captured and burned at the stake in Klausen on September 6, Jacob Hutter was one of the early converts in South Tyrol, and later became a leader among the Hutterites , who received their name from him. Hutter made several trips between Moravia and Tyrol, and most of the Anabaptists in South Tyrol ended up emigrating to Moravia because of the fierce persecution unleashed by Ferdinand I. In November , Hutter was captured near Klausen and taken to Innsbruck where he was burned at the stake on February 25, By Anabaptism in South Tyrol was beginning to die out, largely because of the emigration to Moravia of the converts because of incessant persecution.

Melchior Hoffman is credited with the introduction of Anabaptist ideas into the Low Countries. Hoffman had picked up Lutheran and Reformed ideas, but on April 23, he was "re-baptized" at Strasbourg and within two months had gone to Emden and baptized about persons. For the Mennonite side, the emphasis on the "inner" and "spiritual" permitted compromise to "escape persecution", while to the Joris side, the Mennonites were under the "dead letter of the Scripture".

Because of persecution and expansion, some of the Low Country Mennonites emigrated to Vistula delta, a region settled by Germans but under Polish rule until it became part of Prussia in There they formed the Vistula delta Mennonites integrating some other Mennonites mainly from Northern Germany. In the late 18th century, several thousand of them migrated from there to Ukraine which at the time was part of Russia forming the so-called Russian Mennonites.

Beginning in , many of them emigrated to the prairie states and provinces of the United States and Canada. In the s, the conservative faction of the Canadian settlers went to Mexico and Paraguay. Beginning in the s, the most conservative of them started to migrate to Bolivia. In , Mexican Mennonites migrated to Belize. Since the s, traditional Russian Mennonites migrated to Argentina. Smaller groups went to Brazil and Uruguay.

In , some Mennonites from Bolivia settled in Peru. In , there are more than , of them living in colonies in Central and South America. Although Moravian Anabaptism was a transplant from other areas of Europe, Moravia soon became a center for the growing movement, largely because of the greater religious tolerance found there. With the great influx of religious refugees from all over Europe, many variations of Anabaptism appeared in Moravia, with Jarold Zeman documenting at least ten slightly different versions. Wiedemann and those with him also promoted the practice of community of goods.

Persecution in South Tyrol brought many refugees to Moravia, many of whom formed into communities that practised community of goods. Jacob Hutter was instrumental in organizing these into what became known as the Hutterites. With the passing of time and persecution, all the other versions of Anabaptism would die out in Moravia leaving only the Hutterites. Even the Hutterites would be dissipated by persecution, with a remnant fleeing to Transylvania , then to the Ukraine, and finally to North America in South German Anabaptism had its roots in German mysticism.

Andreas Karlstadt , who first worked alongside Martin Luther , is seen as a forerunner of South German Anabaptism because of his reforming theology that rejected many Catholic practices, including infant baptism. However, Karlstadt is not known to have been "rebaptized", nor to have taught it. Hans Denck and Hans Hut , both with German Mystical background in connection with Thomas Muntzer both accepted "rebaptism", but Denck eventually backed off from the idea under pressure.

Introduction

Hans Hut is said to have brought more people into early Anabaptism than all the other Anabaptist evangelists of his time put together. However, there may have been confusion about what his baptism at least some of the times it was done by making the sign of the Tau on the forehead may have meant to the recipient. Some seem to have taken it as a sign by which they would escape the apocalyptical revenge of the Turks that Hut predicted.

Hut even went so far as to predict a coming of the kingdom of God. When the prediction failed, some of his converts became discouraged and left the Anabaptist movement. The large congregation of Anabaptists at Augsburg fell apart partly because of persecution and those who stayed with Anabaptist ideas were absorbed into Swiss and Moravia Anabaptist congregations. Roman Catholics and Protestants alike persecuted the Anabaptists, resorting to torture and execution in attempts to curb the growth of the movement. The Protestants under Zwingli were the first to persecute the Anabaptists, with Felix Manz becoming the first martyr in The Tudor regime, even the Protestant monarchs Edward VI of England and Elizabeth I of England , persecuted Anabaptists as they were deemed too radical and therefore a danger to religious stability.

The persecution of Anabaptists was condoned by ancient laws of Theodosius I and Justinian I that were passed against the Donatists , which decreed the death penalty for any who practised rebaptism. Martyrs Mirror , by Thieleman J. Continuing persecution in Europe was largely responsible for the mass emigrations to North America by Amish , Hutterites , and Mennonites.

Unlike Calvinists , Anabaptists failed to get a recognition in the Peace of Westphalia of and persecution continued in Europe well after that treaty. Different types exist among the Anabaptists, although the categorizations tend to vary with the scholar's viewpoint on origins. Estep claims that in order to understand Anabaptism, one must "distinguish between the Anabaptists, inspirationists, and rationalists".

Ritchie follows this line of thought, saying, "The Anabaptists were one of several branches of 'Radical' reformers i. Two other branches were Spirituals or Inspirationists, who believed that they had received direct revelation from the Spirit, and rationalists or anti-Trinitarians, who rebelled against traditional Christian doctrine, like Michael Servetus. Those of the polygenesis viewpoint use Anabaptist to define the larger movement, and include the inspirationists and rationalists as true Anabaptists.

Stayer used the term Anabaptist for those who rebaptized persons already "baptized" in infancy.

Walter Klaassen was perhaps the first Mennonite scholar to define Anabaptists that way in his Oxford dissertation. This represents a rejection of the previous standard held by Mennonite scholars such as Bender and Friedmann. Historians and sociologists have made further distinctions between radical Anabaptists, who were prepared to use violence in their attempts to build a New Jerusalem , and their pacifist brethren, later broadly known as Mennonites.

Within the inspirationist wing of the Anabaptist movement, it was not unusual for charismatic manifestations to appear, such as dancing, falling under the power of the Holy Spirit, "prophetic processions" at Zurich in , at Munster in and at Amsterdam in , [44] and speaking in tongues. Pilgram Marpeck , for example, wrote against the exclusion of miracles: God has a free hand even in these last days. Moreover one also marvels when he sees how the faithful God Who, after all, overflows with goodness raises from the dead several such brothers and sisters of Christ after they were hanged, drowned, or killed in other ways.

Even today, they are found alive and we can hear their own testimony Cannot everyone who sees, even the blind, say with a good conscience that such things are a powerful, unusual, and miraculous act of God? Those who would deny it must be hardened men. Just "a short time afterwards such a violent storm and flood came that the bridge was demolished". The Anabaptists insisted upon the "free course" of the Holy Spirit in worship, yet still maintained it all must be judged according to the Scriptures.

One reason given for not attending the state churches was that these institutions forbade the congregation to exercise spiritual gifts according to "the Christian order as taught in the gospel or the Word of God in 1 Corinthians 14". When someone comes to church and constantly hears only one person speaking, and all the listeners are silent, neither speaking nor prophesying, who can or will regard or confess the same to be a spiritual congregation, or confess according to 1 Corinthians 14 that God is dwelling and operating in them through His Holy Spirit with His gifts, impelling them one after another in the above-mentioned order of speaking and prophesying.

Several existing denominational bodies are the direct successors of the continental Anabaptists. Martini Buceri Opera Latina, ed. De regno Christi Iesu servatoris nostri , Paris et al. The Belgic Confession , in: Confessio Belgica von , in: The Second Helvetic Confession , in: Confessio Helvetica posterior, , in: Busch, Eberhard et al. Calvin-Studienausgabe, Neukirchen-Vluyn —, vol. Avec le remede contre la poison, Geneva , online: Articuli a facultate s.

Early Swiss and Rhenish Alternatives, 1520–1530

Cum Antidoto , in: CR 35, , pp. Antidote to the Articles of the Theological Faculty of Paris, in: Tracts and Treatises, trans. Tracts Relating to the Reformation 1. Institutes of the Christian Religion, ed. Ford Lewis Battles, Philadelphia , vol. Institutio Christianae Religionis , in: Pour armer tous bons fideles contre les erreurs de la secte commune des Anabaptistes, Geneva , online: Draft Ecclesiastical Ordinances , in: Theological Treatises, Philadelphia , pp.

Treatises Against the Anabaptists and the Libertines, ed. Campi, Emidio et al. The First Helvetic Confession , in: Confessio Helvetica Prior von , in: The First Confession of Basel , attributed to Oecolampadius, in: Das Basler Bekenntnis von , in: Theologiae sincerae loci communes de Deo et homine, Basel , online: Kolb, Robert et al. The Book of Concord: The Confessions of the Evangelical Lutheran Church, trans. In ambas apostoli Pauli ad Corinthos epistolas, comentarii, Basel , col. Loci communes in usus sacrae Theologiae candidatorum parati, Basel , loc. Defence of the Answere to the Admonition , reprint: The Works of John Whitgift, Cambridge , vol.

Refutation of the Tricks of the Baptists, trans.

Anabaptists / Anabaptism / Anabaptist / Radical Reformation

Samuel Macauley Jackson ed. Selected Works of Huldrich Zwingli — The Reformer of German Switzerland, Philadelphia , pp. The Sixty-Seven Articles of Zwingli, trans. Scottish Journal of Theology 30,4 , pp. Church Discipline or Civil Punishment: On the Origins of the Reformed Schism, —, in: Andrews University Seminary Studies 23,1 , pp.

Calvin's Discipline and the Early Reformed Tradition: Bullinger and Calvin, in: In Defense of Magisterial Discipline: Bullinger's "Tractatus de excommunication" of , in: Covenant, Causality, and Law: Christ's Churches Purely Reformed: Die Korrespondenz zwischen Bullinger und Thomas Erastus, in: From Martin Bucer to Richard Baxter: Church History 70,4 , pp. The Communion of Saints: Radical Puritan and Separatist Ecclesiology, —, Oxford Conflict and Reform in the Pays de Vaud, —, Dordrecht Bullingers Einfluss auf die Reformation in Ungarn und Polen: Emidio Campi et al. Zurich, Basel, and the Swiss Reformation, in: Calvin Theological Journal 44,2 , pp.

Sixteenth Century Journal 22,3 , pp. The Yoke of Christ: Bullinger's Early Political and Theological Thought: Bruce Gordon et al. Bullingers Rechts- und Staatsdenken, in: Evangelische Theologie 64 , pp. Irena Backus et al. Calvin and his Influence, —, Oxford , pp. John Calvin and Peter Martyr Vermigli: A Reassessment of Their Relationship, in: Irene Dingel et al. Calvin's View of Ecclesiastical Discipline, in: Calvinist Preaching and Iconoclasm in the Netherlands, —, Cambridge No Discipline, No Church: An Anabaptist Contribution to the Reformed Tradition, in: Sixteenth Century Journal 13,4 , pp.

Calvin's and Oecolampadius' Concept of Church Discipline, in: Calvinus Ecclesiae Genevensis Custos: From Zwingli to Calvin: Alfred Schindler et al. RGG 4 4 , col. The Ambivalent Face of Calvinism in the Netherlands, —, in: International Calvinism, —, Oxford , pp. Christian Magistrate and Territorial Church: Johannes Brenz and the German Reformation, Toronto Wolfgang Musculus on the Office of the Christian Magistrate, in: Thomas Erastus and the Palatinate: An International News Network, in: Die Reformation in Deutschland und Europa: The Control of Morals in Calvin's Geneva, in: Exegesis and Discipline, in: Torrance Kirby et al.

Peter Martyr Vermigli on Church Discipline, in: Humanism, Republicanism, Reformation, Geneva , pp. Forrester Church et al. Continuity and Discontinuity in Church History, Leiden , pp. A Reformed Culture of Persuasion: Relics of the Amorites: The Civil Magistrate and Religious Uniformity, in: The Anabaptists and the Civil Authorities of Strasbourg, —, in: Church History 24,2 , pp.

Scottish Bulletin of Evangelical Theology 16 , pp. Calvinism in Geneva in the Time of Calvin and of Beza — , in: New Light on Butzer's Significance, in: Reformation Studies, Richmond, VA , pp. The Ecclesiology of Theodore Beza: The Reform of the True Church, Geneva Studien zu Heinrich Bullingers Reformationsgeschichtsschreibung, Leiden , vol. Viret and the Zurich Reformers, unpublished paper presented at Colloque international: Calvin and Eastern Europe, in: Calvin und Osteuropa, in: Heinrich Bullinger als Kirchenpolitiker, in: Heinrich Bullinger as Church Politician, in: Studies in the Development of a Theological Tradition, Oxford