The second issue Vedder saw is in article 34, where Hübmaier quoted Job 6:16 as referring to “those who fear the frost”, whereas most English translations translate the phrase as referring the blackness because of the ice.3 Hübmaier’s translation is an alternative interpretation that, though a viable translation, is a minority translation.4 The reason Vedder counted this quotation as problematic seems to be that he did not recognize the alternative translation that Hübmaier followed.
The first problematic quotation that Vedder pointed out is a little more insightful into Hübmaier’s usage of Scripture. In article 12, Hübmaier wrote, “Blessed is the man who is a watcher at the door of the bridegroom’s chamber.”5 Hübmaier did not cite beyond the chapter in this instance, being Proverbs 8, as was customary for the time.6 Vedder’s complaint was that there was nothing in the chapter that “in the least corresponds” to what Hübmaier had written.7 Despite Vedder’s claim, verse 34 of the chapter has a close, though not perfect, correspondence to Hübmaier’s quotation; stating, “Blessed is the man that heareth me, Watching daily at my gates, Waiting at the posts of my doors.”8 Pipkin and Yoder apparently felt certain enough about this that they added the verse number to the in-text citation.9 Though there are similarities between Hübmaier’s quotation and the content of the quoted verse, they are different.
The essential difference between Hübmaier’s quotation and Proverbs 8 is the mention of the bridegroom’s chamber, which is not in the original Scripture. Vedder suggested that Hübmaier may have been including ideas from Matthew 9:15 and John 3:29.10 Those two passages include a bridegroom’s chambers but there is no mention of the idea of watchfulness. I propose that Hübmaier may have been conflating Proverbs 8:34 with Matthew 25, particularly verses 6 and 13.
In that parable, there is at least one person who had kept watch at the bridegroom’s chambers and announced the arrival of the bridegroom. It was to that announcement that the virgins had responded. The wise virgins then went into the wedding banquet and Jesus gave the warning to his listeners to stay alert. This parable has a bridegroom context and more importantly it has an exhortation to watchfulness, which is the subject of the Proverbs 8 beatitude. It would seem that Hübmaier conflated these two passages without citing the parable from Matthew 25.
There is a central difficulty with this proposition, though. Hübmaier is using the quotation in reference to vigilance against false doctrine. Verse 13 of the parable makes clear that the vigilance of the parable is toward the second coming. The parable is decidedly eschatological in scope.
Hübmaier himself in later writings had used the parable in its eschatological sense. It is included in A Form of Christ’s Supper and the Apologia.11 There, Hübmaier related the parable with Matthew 24:42 and Mark 13:32, which both state the ignorance of all regarding the coming of the Lord. So, Hübmaier, at least at the time of those writings, understood the parable in its eschatological sense and it might seem odd that he would use the Scripture in another way earlier in On Heretics.
Even earlier, however, Hübmaier had used the parable in relation to vigilance against false doctrine. In his statements at the second Zürich disputation, Hübmaier is recorded as having said:
“For holy Scripture alone is the true light and lantern through which all human argument, darkness, and objections can be recognized. This the prophet David knew perfectly well as he said to God, ‘Thy Word is a lamp to my feet” [Ps. 119:105]. Christ also himself taught us the same thing: that we should take the lantern of his salutary Word in our hand, so that when the bridegroom comes we can enter into the marriage feast with him [Matt. 25:1-13].”12
Here, Hübmaier set the lantern of the parable as Scripture, which he had interpreted as that by which all false teachings are discerned. Further he understands such vigilance within its eschatological context so that, being free of false doctrine on account of such vigilance, believers would be able to unite with Christ in the last days. So, it would be that if Hübmaier felt comfortable using the parable in that instance to comment on vigilance against false doctrine, then it is reasonable that he would have done the same in the twelfth article of On Heretics.
The significance of this is not merely to answer a question raised in a footnote in a century-old biography. The importance of identifying what Hübmaier had in mind in this reference is that we can gain insight into Hübmaier’s use of Scripture. Though the parable’s warning was specifically eschatological, Hübmaier seems to have extended it meaning as a warning against false doctrine. Hübmaier’s usage seems to be a bit more than typological in this case, for to do so would be to use the language of the parable to make another sort of warning.
To reinterpret the parable, however, would be to go against the Anabaptists’ general use of the Bible. On the parable of the wheat and the tares, the Anabaptist criticized the reinterpretation that made the field the church rather than the world, as Christ Himself had interpreted the parable. Hübmaier move in his interpretation of this parable is more justifiable. Guardedness against false doctrine might be part of what is meant by keeping watch for the Lord’s return, especially consider Paul’s prophecy in 2 Timothy 4:3, that there will be in that time an acceptance of false teachers.
So, Hübmaier’s use of Scripture, as illustrated at this point, has a certain complexity about it–a complexity that apparently threw Vedder of the scent. Hübmaier felt free to extend the meaning of a parable to speak more explicitly about something that might fall under the purview of that parable’s meaning. The biblicism of at least this Anabaptist was not mere literal proof-texting but has a dynamic character, demonstrating a sophistication usually not attributed to Anabaptist hermeneutics.
1Balthasar Hubmaier: Leader of the Anabaptists (New York: Knickerbocker, 1905), 84-88.
2Ibid., 85n.
3Ibid., 88. cf. H. Wayne Pipkin and John Howard Yoder eds., Balthasar Hubmaier: Theologian of Anabaptism, Classics of the Radical Reformation, no. 5 (Scottdale, Pennsylvania: Herald, 1989), 65.
4It is not certain whether Hübmaier was translating from the Hebrew or the Vulgate ate this point or even if he was using another German translation. Regardless, both the Hebrew and the Vulgate word can carry both the connotations of darkness and fear.
5Vedder, Hubmaier: Leader, 85. cf. Pipkin and Yoder, Hubmaier: Theologian, 61.
6Urs B. Leu, Die Froschauer-Bibeln und die Täufer: Die Geschichte einer Jahrhunderte Alten Freundschaft = The Froschauer Bibles and the Anabaptists: The History of an Old Friendship (Herborn, Germany: Sepher, 2005), 41. Leu states that verse numbers were first added in a 1548 French edition of the Vulgate.
7Vedder, Hubmaier: Leader, 85n.
8ASV, which has been chosen here because it would have been available to Vedder along with the KJV, which differs from the ASV of this verse only in capitalization.
9Pipkin and Yoder, Hubmaier: Theologian, 61. In the preface to the work, the editors promised to include verse numbers whenever they could identify them (20).
10Vedder, Hubmaier: Leader, 85n.
11Pipkin and Yoder, Hubmaier: Theologian, 406, 543.
12Ibid., 23-24.
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