Bender, Harold Stauffer. Menno Simons' Life and Writings: A Quadricentennial Tribute, 1536-1936. Scottdale, Pennsylvania: Herald, 1936.
This is an old little copy that comes out of the nascent period of modern Anabaptist studies. It is illustrative of the strong idealism that was characteristic of that first generation of Anabaptist scholars, especially among Mennonite scholars. This book was written at the popular level and the idealism expressed helps explain why later generation reacted so strongly as to become perhaps too critical of the radical reformers.
This sometimes comes out laughably, as when Bender explained how Grebel, Mantz and Blaurock founded a "Mennonite" congregation in Zürich in 1525, a decade before Simons left the Catholic church. Such an obvious anachronism does not seem too unreasonable since Bender's purpose was to give the Mennonite church of his day a look at their heritage rather than to give an academic description of Simons' biography. For today's reader, the value of this book may serve as an introduction for others looking at their Mennonite or Anabaptist heritage or those looking to gain a rough understanding of a figure from that period.
Scholarship on Simons has been more intensive than most, if not all, of the other radical reformers and the material here is undoubtedly dated in places.The second half of the book is excerpts from Simons' writings. They are organized by various doctrinal and practical matters. One misgiving in this section is that there is no reference as to where these samples were excerpted. Beyond that, in the excerpt on the incarnation Simons questions the height of the mystery involved in the event and the impossibility of speculation as a means of discovering the truth of the matter. Choosing this excerpt masks the more definitive statements of Simons that followed Hofmann's Christology. With the later publication of the critical edition of Simons' writings, Simon's positions are more widely available for survey. An identification of the passages in this section would make it much more useful.
Tuesday, May 31, 2011
Tuesday, May 24, 2011
Review of The German Peasants' War and the Anabaptist Community of Goods, by James Mentzer Stayer
Stayer, James Mentzer. The German Peasants’ War and Anabaptist Community of Goods. McGill-Queen’s Studies in the History of Religion, no. 6. Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 1991.
Stayer’s work is a collection of essays on the two common topics mentioned in the title. Some of the essays had been published earlier but most are new and investigate different portions of the relations of those two topics. As such, the unity of the book is not from a defense of a singular thesis or research purpose but rather in that the essays derive from his interest in the topics and that they all operate from his paradigmatic understanding of the social aspects of the more radical elements of the Reformation period. The two keys of this paradigm that tend to control his view appear to be that the connection between the German Peasants’ War and Anabaptism was greater than previously believed by more conservative scholarship and that the community of goods had greater normativity among Anabaptists than accounts recognized. The crucial link in Stayer’s view is that the Anabaptist community of goods, as a cohering principle in the Anabaptist movement was derived from many of the concerns of the peasants’ revolt.
Stayer went to great lengths to demonstrate that the revolt was the expression of the Reformation in rural lands, especially appropriating Reformation anticlericalism as the peasants strove against clerical landlords and the attendant abuses (35, 43, 60). Since the clergy had a social hold over the peasants and villagers (Stayer pointed out that “peasants’” war is somewhat of a misnomer since the dissenters included many of the artisan class [9, 19]), the Reformation therefore took on a social tone over the theological priorities in the cities and universities. After Luther took the side of the obrigkeit against the peasants, the peasants became disillusioned with the Reformation as well, thus explaining why they had a tendency toward radical elements that would later arise.
Another issue at hand was that of territorial authority versus the autonomy of villages. In the peasants’ revolt, which Stayer regards as less of a war and more of a festive protest that did not turn violent until obrigkeit sought to put it down (21), this took the form of the peasants’ demand for localized control of territorial rights, thus decentralizing the control held by the larger regional cities. Peasants later resonated with the Anabaptist insistence on congregational autonomy as various villages sought to appoint their own pastors rather than accept the appointments of cities like Zurich (62). As some of the more militant radicals taught apocalyptic beliefs that emphasized the punishment of the wicked, i.e. the obrigkeit, his teaching became a recruiting tool that gained the sympathies of he peasants who still held resentment against their landowners (90).
This coincides with Stayer’s statistical findings of the involvement of Anabaptist leadership in the Peasants’ War, a revision of Claus-Peter Clasen’s earlier analysis of the same.[1] Stayer’s analysis revealed a greater involvement among Anabaptist leadership than Clasen had found (ch. 3). This findings would not only apply to the leadership of the movement but probably were true of the movement ranks unless those ranks were composed of groups that inexplicably gravitated to a group of Peasants’ War veterans without those ranks having been involved with the war themselves (91).
The second half of the book concerns itself with several loci of the community of goods–among the Swiss brethren, Müntzer, Münster and among Moravian Hutterites. Stayer’s general purpose was to deny the general ethos of interpretations of Anabaptism that relegate the community of goods as a idiosyncrasy among the Hutterites and fringe practice, like the non-Anabaptist events of Münster. Stayer found a concerted effort to follow Acts 2 and 4 among the Swiss brethren and it is any attempt to follow that model of the early church that Stayer had defined as the practice of the community of goods (9). Müntzer, given weight as a predecessr to the Anabaptists, had anticipations of the community of goods, especially alongside his support for the Peasants’ War. The Münsterite movement, as a genuine Anabaptist movement, also had its participation in the community goods as well as the Moravians. The force of these depictions is to portray the practice of the community of goods as a normative part of Anabaptist identity rather than an irregularity practiced among a few among them.
This second half, however, is more problematic than the first and some of those problems are definitional. For instance, Stayer’s definition of the community of goods as the attempt to follow Acts 2 and 4 is too broad. It allows for one to ignore the distinction between groups whose that practiced the community of goods voluntary and those groups for whom he practice was a requirement of community involvement a necessary indicator of one’s Christian nature. Stayer indeed made too little of this distinction, although shadows of that distinction to come out from time to time as they do in the epilogue, where he speaks of mutual-aid, or “barn-raising,” community of goods against the reflection of Michael Gaismair’s Landesordnung (160, 162). If Stayer’s paradigm rests on the essential commonality of the peasants’ program with the Anabaptist community of goods, then if all attempts to follow the early church model were compulsory the relationship with the peasants’ program would be much more clear. However, since the peasants’ program sought an institutionalized parity rather than a voluntary one, a distinction between compulsory and voluntary practice of the community of goods would weaken the ties since a voluntary practice would have an essential difference from the peasants’ program. It might have been a successful avenue of research to question whether social pressure in groups where the community of goods was voluntary may have led to a de facto community of goods as newcomers may have felt compelled to participate as a social norm within the group even though the practice may not have been institutionalized.
Another point of contention is Stayer’s identification of the Münster episode of 1535 as genuinely Anabaptist (123). This would be an objectionable label to most conservative scholars of the movement. Stayer attempted to show that Münster was not a city that had been overcome by Dutch outsiders, who high jacked the city’s leadership but rather that it was a city whose Anabaptist contingent rose to power under the influence of those Dutch prophets and retained a great deal of its authority throughout the entire siege. The power was never fully in the hands of the foreigners. Be that as it may, Stayer’s record of leadership merely shifts the problem one step so that it was not the city that had been overcome by the Dutch but rather the city’s pre-existent Anabaptist movement that had been taken over by the Dutch. Further, when Stayer mentioned off hand that Sebastian Franck was not an Anabaptist (132), which raises the perennially frustrating question of the categories into which different people and movements fit. Why are the Münsterites in this case Anabaptists while Franck is not? If there is no consensus to say that the Münsterites were genuine Anabaptists it takes away from Stayer’s case that the community of goods was a significant part of Anabaptist identity.
An interest item was raised in Stayer’s work that would apparently demand further question. Stayer mentioned that Hübmaier had baptized nearly the whole adult population of Waldshut (64) and repeated the testimony of Hans Schlaffer that Hübmaier’s Nikolsburg baptisms were “perfunctory mass affairs that gave little evidence of individual regeneration” (140). Stayer went on to call Hübmaier’s brand of Anabaptism a “magisterial Anabaptism.” This follows Stayer’s generally positive acceptance of Snyder’s work, which includes the thesis that the Anabaptism of the Unterland was of a more state-church variety.[2]
Stayer’s work will likely be hard to challenge considering the depth of his research into the literature on the Peasants’ War, a field generally not as well known among Anabaptist scholars. This is especially true of new students in conservative circles, for whom the Peasants’ War can seem a shadowy subject, its relationship to Anabaptism being obscured, if not denied. However, the significance of his findings remains up to debate. While Stayer’s work cannot allow for an underestimation of the place of the community of goods in Anabaptist practice, that practice must neither be overestimated.
[1]“Anabaptist Leaders: Their Numbers and Background; Switzerland, Austria, South and Central Germany, 1525-1618,” MQR 49, no. 2 (Apr. 1975): 122-164.
[2]C. Arnold Snyder, The Life and Thought of Michael Sattler, Studies in Anabaptist and Mennonite History, no. 27 (Scottsdale, Pennsylvania: Herald, 1984).
Tuesday, May 17, 2011
Anabaptist Polemics against the Lack of Protestant Moral Reform: II. Hans Denck
Identifying Denck’s polemical style can often be obscured by the fact that he did not mention the names of his opponents in his writings. Also obscuring a view of Denck’s polemic is the general view that Denck, because of his high view of religious tolerance, was less-involved in proving others wrong than in seeking the freedom of conscience for all. Packull felt comfortable enough with this conception to label Denck an “Ecumenical Anabaptist.”[1] On the other hand, Fellman noted that, though Denck was indeed a strong proponent of religious liberty, Denck was not without “kräftige und heftige [strong and violent]” words in dispute with other religious positions.[2]
The strongest statement in Denck on the matter is in Concerning the Law of God, but his criticism is evident elsewhere, demonstrating how pervasive the critique was in formulating many of his doctrinal positions. For instance, like Hübmaier, Denck also fit his criticism of Protestant morality within the context of the polemic regarding free will. In The Order of God, Denck raised the question about the extent of predestination, charging, “Nevertheless, you can gorge and drink and practice every debauchery–who taught you that? You say, We must do it, we are foreordained. Oh, brethren, brethren, what injustice you do the Most High… Your own will drives you (John 8), but you wish to blame God.”[3]
Denck further pointed out the link between doctrine and practice, saying, “They say that they believe; as they believe, so they speak. They have never left the old life and not accepted the new…”[4] That link between doctrine and conduct, where conduct is in accordance to doctrine comes again in Denck’s Recantation. Denck wrote, “For there can be no truthful heart where neither speech nor deed is found.”[5] This is consistent with Denck’s conception of faith, which is both obedience to and confidence in God.[6] It would seem then that Denck’s critique could be summed up by saying that the Protestants may have demonstrated confidence in God’s promises but did not have obedience to him. Thus, the Protestants, by Denck’s definitions, would not truly have a complete faith.
Denck’s work, On the Law of God is his fullest treatment on the subject and seems to have been written specifically as a response to Protestant antinomianism.[7] Denck viewed his time as having been that than which no greater time of depravity reigned.[8] Denck outlined that some claimed to be able to follow God’s law, and they were in his assessment right on this point, but they were unwilling to do so lest they give airs that the Law in some way brought about their salvation.[9] Others, however, claimed to be unable to follow God’s law for they saw themselves as not having been empowered to do so. These, Denck claimed, cast the blame for their own sin on God.[10]
Denck continued, saying to both parties, “Woe to him who looks elsewhere than to this goal;[11] for whoever supposes he belongs to Christ must walk the way Christ walked.”[12] This critique of the way that Protestants had treated God’s law was the impetus to the rest of the discussion in the booklet. In stating that reason, Denck pointed out that this abuse of the law was not merely a distortion among the people of the teaching of the Protestants as though the general populace had misunderstood Protestant teaching. Rather, even the pastors had erred and thus the error must have been a part of the entire Protestant system.[13] [1]Werner O. Packull. Mysticism and the Early South German-Austrian Anabaptist Movement, 1525-1531, Studies in Anabaptist and Mennonite History, no. 19 (Scottdale, Pennsylvania: Herald, 1977). His use of this classification for Denck seems to spring from his agreement with the assumption that Denck was a universalist (44), an assumption that is not without its detractors. cf. William Klassen, “Was Hans Denck a Universalist?” MQR 39, no. 2 (Apr. 1965): 152-154.
[3]In The Spiritual Legacy of Hans Denck: Interpretation and Translation of Key Texts [SL], ed. and trans. Clarence Bauman, Studies in Medieval and Reformation Traditions, no. 47 (Leiden, Netherlands: E. J. Brill, 1991), 213. Also, demonstrating a polemical technique of speaking the opponents position that was also used by Hübmaier in Dialogue with Zwingli’s Baptism Book, Denck voiced similar concerns about placing God as the author in Whether God is the Cause of Evil, saying, “You say: Since God is in all creatures and performs all things in them, then it must follow that he also commits sin,” in SL, 81.
[6]Ibid.
[9]Ibid.
[10]Ibid.
[11]Apparently the goal is subjecting one’s self to admonition.
[13]Ibid., 129.
Anabaptist Polemics against the Lack of Protestant Moral Reform: III. Menno Simons
Writing with a sharp quill, Simons often composed pointed words toward his polemical opponents. He wrote against the radicals at Münster, Catholics, Protestants–both of Lutheran and Zwinglian varieties–and even against some of those self-identified with the Anabaptist movement. In many of his works against those opponents, Simons turned toward the lack of moral reform as a high point of criticism.
Against the Lutherans, Simons wrote words that are quite similar to those of Hübmaier above. In The True Christian Faith, he wrote:
God be praised, we caught on that all our works avail nothing, but that the blood and death of Christ alone must cancel and pay for our sins. They strike up a Psalm, Der Strick ist entzwei und wir sind frei, etc. (Snapped is the Cord, now we are free, praise the Lord) while beer and wine verily run from their drunken mouths and noses. Anyone who can but recite this on his thumb, no matter how carnally he lives, is a good evangelical man and a precious brother.[1]
He continued on to write that those who would admonish against sin would be condemned as believing that salvation is by good works. The similarity with Hübmaier’s words is significant. Menno noted the first point of the reformation was that “works avail nothing” while Hübmaier wrote that “we can do nothing good of ourselves.” Both pointed toward the doctrine of total depravity as a positive result of the Protestant reformation.[2]
Also, whereas Hübmaier set the other point as “We believe. Faith saves us,” i.e. sola fide, Simons identified forensic justification by the atonement as the second point. Though the foci are separate, both writers are essentially hitting at the same point, for the justifying work of the atonement is the object of the faith that alone saves.[3] So, both writers came to the same conclusion–though there was a true belief that man can do nothing to save himself and that man can be saved by faith in what Christ had done, the Protestant reformation did not bring those doctrines to the result of answering the question of what men are to do in response to what Christ has done. Though Protestant doctrine may have been sound on those two points, Protestant moral practice was against the command of Christ.
Though Protestants charged that the Anabaptist position on this point was a turn to the Pelagian heresy that one is saved by works, Simons affirmed his agreement with the Protestants on those first two points. In his Reply to False Accusations, Simons assented, “…we cannot be saved by means of anything in heaven or on earth other than by the merits, intercession, death, and blood of Christ…”[4] He continued by saying that:
All may find a place in their sect who will but keep their ceremonies, and acknowledge them to be the true preachers and messengers, no matter how they live… [There is] no drunkard, no avaricious or pompous person, etc… so great and ungodly but he must be called a Christian. If he but say, I am sorry, then all is ascribed to his weakness and imperfection, and he is admitted to the Lord’s Supper, for, say they, he is saved by Grace and not by merits.[5]
What Simons then desired was not to overturn those Protestant doctrines per se.[6] His objection was that the Protestants used the doctrines as an excuse to live against the manner of life to which Christians were supposedly called, thus cheapening the grace that had been proclaimed from the pulpit by the preachers. Simons’ conclusion was that by their lifestyles, despite their admirable doctrine, the Protestants exhibited that they were not those who would inherit the kingdom.
In Simons’ mind, the privation of good works that were to result from the gospel essentially nullified any proclamation of faith. In the Brief Defense to All Theologians, Simons wrote, “…men everywhere live and carry on as though never a prophet nor an apostle, nor a Christ nor a Word of God had been on earth! And still you folks call yourselves the holy Christian church and sound teachers…”[7] All that the church had become, in Simons’ estimation, was the mere practice of ceremonies that made the works of the new life unnecessary.[8]
To Simons, treating the gospel as unnecessary was no neutral position toward the gospel. Simons more derisively set the Protestant preachers as being actively opposed to the gospel. Simons’ A Pathetic Supplication to All Magistrates clarified that the preachers “…by their doctrine, sacraments, and conduct oppose the Word of the Lord…”[9] Simons went on to say that, if the Anabaptists were heretics for teaching conformity to the image of Christ,[10] then Christ, the prophets and the apostles would likewise be heretics and that all of Scripture, “which teaches naught but moral improvement, and everywhere points us to Christ, must have been naught but deceit and falsehood!”[11] For Simons, to heed not the call to the new life was not merely to ignore Scripture but to be in rebellion against it.
Lest Simons be viewed as merely playing party politics, taking sides along denominational lines, it is important to recognize that he had also turned his pen against those who identified themselves as Anabaptists and yet failed in moral reform. This is not only a polemic against the Münsterites, from whom Simons constantly desired the Anabaptists to be distinguished, but also against tho who might have been identified more with the Anabaptist mainstream.[12]
O brethren, how far some of us, alas, are still distant from the evangelical life which is of God! Notwithstanding that they stay out of the churches and are outwardly baptized with water, yet they are earthly and carnally minded in all things, thinking perhaps that Christianity consists in external baptism and staying away from the churches.[13]
Being identified by external sign with Simons’ own group was not enough to escape Simons’ admonition against the carnal life.
Conclusions
What must be avoided in any interpretation among several Anabaptist writers is the temptation to avoid overly universalizing their combined opinions to attempt to present, as would be in this case, the Anabaptist polemic against the lack of Protestant moral reform. Though the Anabaptist movement is often highly particularized, it would still not be a fruitless task to notice some common characteristics among these three writers.
1) Though doctrine and practice are in the thought of these Anabaptists abstractly separable concepts, the two must always go together. Denck stated it, “As they believe, so they speak.” Simons consistently tied conduct with doctrine. The force of this is as to say that, even if the doctrine of the Protestants was as an abstractly separable concept in agreement with Anabaptist beliefs, the lack of moral reform was enough to nullify the whole teaching of the Protestants or perhaps even showed that there was an inherent flaw in the Protestant doctrines that expressed itself in their conduct.[14]
2) Similarly, though Anabaptists may have at many points agreed with the doctrine of the Protestants, the necessity of moral reform was of such importance that a separate identity as the true church would be needed against the Protestants as yet another false church.
3) In consideration of the Anabaptists’ general acceptance of the Erasmian position on free will against the Lutheran doctrine of predestination, Hübmaier and Denck both clearly expressed that they saw the Protestant connection between lifestyle and God’s ordination to be in error. Neither could accept the position that any sin in an individual’s life could be explained away as though such sin were the will of God. Hübmaier especially pointed toward God as having revealed His will to be that of obedience to His commands.
Certainly there are other fields within Anabaptist polemics that can be fruitfully researched. Even within this topic, the writings of other Anabaptist leaders deserve examination so that more conclusions could be drawn and perhaps a more universal core of Anabaptist polemics against Protestant morality could be formed. Perhaps investigation could also be given to the validity of Anabaptist claims and Protestant responses to them. Among these writers, though, it is seen that the lack of moral reform among the Protestants as these writers saw it was a significant breaking point between the two parties and that the conception of Christianity without the evidence of a regenerate life was intolerable to them.
[1]In The Complete Writings of Menno Simons [MS], ed. John Christian Wenger, trans. Leonard Verduin (Scottdale, Pennsylvania: Herald, 1956), 334.
[2]Although Denck does not a have a passage with such a strong parallel to these, it does seem that he also heard the Protestant doctrine of depravity favorably. He wrote, “…all flesh is so perverse that, as much as possible, it always debases even the very best that God imparts to it.” Concerning the Law of God, SL, 123.
[3]As was stated above, Denck’s conception of faith is bifurcated such that he might at this point say that the Protestants taught correctly on faith qua confidence but erred in faith qua obedience.
[4]MS, 569.
[5]Ibid.
[6]It is possible that Simons may have vacillated between the positions of accepting Protestant doctrine while rejecting their conduct and of rejecting their conduct and the doctrine that fostered it. While the above evidence seems to indicate the former position, the latter is a more probable understanding of his comment in Brief and Clear Confession, when he declares that the Protestants were at fault “both in doctrine and life.” MS, 445.
[7]MS 537. The paragraph from which the admonition comes is repeated elsewhere in Simons writings, at least in the Reply to False Accusations (Ibid., 557).
[8]Ibid.
[9]MS, 526.
[10]That the Christian life was to be lived as manifesting the characteristics of Christ or revealing the image of Christ after which the imago dei follows is an occasional expression for the regenerate life lived according to the commands of Christ. cf. A Kind Admonition on Church Discipline, MS, 409; The New Birth, MS, 93.
[11]Reply to False Accusations, MS, 527-528.
[12]e.g. Simons’ first publication was against one of the Münsterite leaders: The Blasphemy of John of Leiden, MS, 31-50. Also, Simons replied against the accusation that his sect was to be identified with the Münsterites in Reply to False Accusations, MS, 547-549.
[13]A Kind Admonition on Church Discipline, MS, 410. The editor’s note on these lines reminds us that “‘The churches’ refer to the state churches of the period, whether Roman Catholic, Lutheran, or ‘Zwinglian’ (Reformed),” for Anabaptists would often stay away from them.
[14]It has been noted that there was among other Anabaptist the conclusion that the Protestants were indeed correct in their doctrine but had only misapplied Christian practice: Timothy Wayne Dalzell, “The Anabaptist Purity of Life Ethic,” Ph.D diss., Denton, Texas, North Texas State University, 1985.
Monday, May 9, 2011
Review of The Life and Thought of Michael Sattler, by C. Arnold Snyder
Snyder, C. Arnold. The Life and Thought of Michael Sattler. Studies in Anabaptist and Mennonite History, no. 27. Scottsdale, Pennsylvania: Herald, 1984.
The primary aim of Snyder’s work, originally his doctoral dissertation,[1] is to set out a new paradigm for Michael Sattler’s biography and a new interpretation of Sattler’s theological influences. Previous works had not critically attempted to put forward a detailed analysis of the source material in order to arrive at firm conclusion of biographical details. Snyder did not overturn all of the details he looked into but many of the details from the previous paradigm were challenged.
Snyder’s new paradigm describes Sattler’s life as follows. Having become a prior at St. Peter’s monastery, Sattler left the monastery when it was overrun during the peasant’s revolt in May of 1525, likely having accepted their critiques of monastic abuses. Sattler then become what might be called an Anabaptist seeker, with but not of the Anabaptists and fielding the questions raised within himself. As such a seeker, he attended the November 1525 disputation in Zürich but was still not committed to the Anabaptist cause. Snyder concluded that Sattler became involved, working as a weaver, with the Anabaptists of the Unterland, north of Zurich. He finally committed to Anabaptism, accepting baptism, in the Summer of 1526. After acting as an ardent yet amiable apologist for Anabaptism in Strasbourg later that year, Sattler headed the Schleitheim conference in February 1527, which yielded the confession bearing that name. Snyder lastly recites the already well-attested trial and execution account.
Further looking into Sattler’s thought, Snyder found traces of Benedictine influence in Sattler’s Anabaptist theological formulations. Though Snyder cautiously did not describe the whole of Sattler’s thought as having arisen from his monastic background, he does strongly posit the parallels between Sattler’s distinctive form of Anabaptism, especially against the Zürich Oberland group of Grebel and Mantz. Snyder drew stark differences between the Anabaptists north of Zürich and those of the south Zürich Oberland Anabaptists. The former he viewed as more willing to follow the state-church model until persecution precluded that possibility. The latter had far more separatist tendencies.
The separatist model of Anabaptism that Sattler taught, then, Snyder explains as having resulted from his application of the Benedictine rule of separation from the world into an Anabaptist framework. Snyder also saw similarities with the stress of the nachfolge and imitatio Christi themes. There is some attribution to non-Benedictine sources for Sattler’s thought, however, for Snyder viewed the early Anabaptists as responsible for Sattler’s understanding of the believer not as one headed toward righteousness as a viator but as one who is immediately made righteous as sancti (166).
The historical groundwork that Snyder has provided is appreciated but the journey from historical evidence to conclusions is not as firm as Snyder seems to present it. Snyder often states his conclusions as “obvious” and “clear,” even if they rest on not entirely certain ground. The entire paradigm has the feeling of being able to be disassembled at the dismissal of only a few pieces of evidences after further research or at the introduction of even the slightest bit of new, contradicting research. It is like a three-legged stool in that taking out one leg will tip over the stool but it is also unlike a three-legged stool in that there are far more than three legs. There may be better interpretation should new evidence be brought forward but the unfortunate case is that sources are not extensive. Though Snyder’s conclusion might not be as certain as he suggests, his paradigm does appear to be the most competent interpretation of the available data.
Snyder’s evaluation of Sattler’s theological thought primarily asks the question of influence. Investigations into key areas of Sattler’s thought lead Snyder to conclude that Sattler incorporated elements from monasticism, Protestantism and earlier Swiss Anabaptism. Snyder concluded that Sattler’s Benedictine past was the essential distinctive driving Sattler’s unique brand of Anabaptism and other elements were incorporated insofar as they were consistent with that monastic heritage (197, 199).
While Snyder does draw clear parallels between Sattler’s thought and its historical antecedents, Snyder might be too trusting of the assumption that historical precedence indicates theological influence by appearing too eager to label what might simply be parallels as the propagation of earlier systems. For example, Snyder’s analysis of Sattler’s soteriology concluded that Sattler’s regard for justification and sanctification being a single event internal to the believer was a continuation of the Catholic conception of the same rather than an acceptance of the reformer’s doctrine, which bifurcated the event in forensic justification, making justification an external act on the believer (177). Sattler’s agreement with the reformers on this point was rather that he accepted the Catholic conception but rejected the sacramental means of mediating that inward righteousness.
Two problems come to the fore, the first being particular to this aspect of Snyder’s evaluation and the second being more generally applied to Snyder’s overall conclusions. The first is that Anabaptists do not seem to have merely held on to the Catholic conception of the unity of justification and sanctification but seem to have been reuniting the two after the reformers had divided them and resulting in what the Anabaptists generally critiqued as an allowance for libertinism. Sattler’s agreement with then would then be derived from Anabaptism, which itself could be characterized not by a continuation of Catholic thought but a reaction against the Protestant overreaction to Catholic thought. The second problem is that Snyder did not give much consideration to the formation of Sattler’s thought directly from his reading of Scripture, even if Sattler’s Biblicism was not of the same humanistic vein that produced the initial group of Zürich Anabaptists. In raising the question of the origin of Sattler’s eschatology, Snyder only allowed for a unique contribution from Sattler only after not being able to find a historical antecedent. It would seem that Sattler’s Biblicism deserved greater weight.
Further, in identifying Sattler’s ecclesiology of a separated community as having stemmed from the Benedictine sense of separation (191-194), Snyder did not account for a significant difference between monastic separation and that of Anabaptism. In monasticism, the separation was within the church while Anabaptist separation was from the world. This essential difference does not indicate as strongly that Sattler was keeping Benedictine separation but could indicate that Sattler derived his understanding unmediated from Scripture. Essentially, the question is of which factors carry more weight, whether the similarity of separation or the difference of the separation as being within the church or being the church separated from the world. Snyder appears to occasionally assign weight to these factors arbitrarily in order confirm his broader thesis of asserting Benedictine priority in the formation of Sattler’s thought. This he does in his analysis of Sattler’s understanding of the struggle between the flesh and the spirit. He claimed that the structures of Sattler’s and Benedict’s portrayal of the struggle were the same while the aims and conceptions of each were different. It appears to be an arbitrary assignment of greater weight on the structures of those portrayals that lends evidence toward Snyder’s overall conclusion.
That discussion of separation was instrumental in the last of Snyder’s conclusions, which was to challenge the arguments that emphasized the socioeconomic concerns of Anabaptism. Those arguments were that Anabaptist separation resulted from the failed establishment of Anabaptist civil and societal reform. Only after those attempts failed did the movement pragmatically turn toward a separatist doctrine. Snyder labeled this a necessary condition but rejected that it was sufficient (201-202). Sattler’s Benedictine-inspired sectarianism, in Snyder’s view, was injected into the Anabaptist movement right at the time when the attempt at social reform failed. It was then Sattler’s sectarianism tat completed the Anabaptist turn toward sectarianism in the wake of the failure of social reform. Snyder thus offers a corrective to an interpretation that overemphasizes the social dimensions of the Radical Reformation. This further highlights the need to explore the normativity of Schleitheim for later generations of Anabaptists
Regarding the debate that has followed the book, Heinold Fast challenged a key document that would seem to undermine Snyder’s paradigm in this way.[2] Fast suggested that the Michal referred to in a letter dated May 21, 1526 was not Sattler but Michael Wüst, Bullinger’s cousin. That letter referred to this Michael as not having yet been rebaptized. Subtly pointing to Snyder’s overconfident tone, Fast concludes that this then takes away a key piece of evidence that suggests a later date for Sattler’s baptism, which then could have been at the earlier points of Sattler’s contact with Anabaptists in 1525 rather than Snyder’s date of late Summer of 1526. Fast was gracious to Snyder, allowing that the source material was not widely available at the time of Snyder’s writing but Fast still suggested that this left many new questions to be asked of Snyder’s paradigm.
Should Fast’s objection be sustained, this would not cause as grave of doubts as Fast suggested but would only leave yet more empty spaces. The stool might not fall over but it might wobble like your high school math desk. Snyder did respond,[3] acknowledging the strength of Fast’s remarks but holding to his position. He offered that the Michaels of the letter could be the reverse of what Fast had argued, further proposing that Wüst could have been the “brother Michael in the white coat” who had been arrested in Zürich in March 1525. The answer to this debate may be lost to history and philology might never be conclusive, yet Snyder’s paradigm seems to hold in light of the available historical data and the most that could be at stake is a switching of a date while the order would likely remain.
Snyder’s work is valuable for understanding this significant figure and, because of its review of the previous literature, might serve well as a first in-depth look into Sattler’s life alongside the primary material of Yoder’s The Legacy of Michael Sattler. Again, Snyder generally seems surer of his conclusions than the evidence might warrant but a cautious reader expressing a critical reservation toward this end would greatly benefit from the discussion. Snyder has not given into the purely socioeconomic interpretation of Anabaptism but this work can be instructive for future students of the movement in that it does not display the over-idealism that is often presented in Anabaptist studies.
Sunday, May 1, 2011
Review of The Concept of Grace in the Radical Reformation, by Alvin J. Beachy
A republication of his 1960 Harvard dissertation, Beachy's work investigates the many facets of theology that grace effects within the thinking of a representative sample of seven South German and Dutch Anabaptists. The central thesis is that the Anabaptist concept of grace was in conflict with the concept of grace among the magisterial reformers. For the latter, grace was viewed in terms of forensic justification whereby the believer, in accordance to the motto simul iustus et peccator, remained a sinner but was given the legal standing of righteousness. The Anabaptists, however, took an ontological view whereby the viator was not just declared righteous but was made actually righteous. This difference allowed the Anabaptists to make the move to righteous living as more than a believer's response to the act of grace but as the outworking of a changed nature.
Beachy also sought to show that the radical reformers taught a soteriology stressing divinization as was consistent with the theology of John's Gospel. He saw this as explicit in the teaching of all but two of the radical at whom he looked, including Hübmaier, Marpeck, Denck, Simons, Hofmann, Dirk Philips and Schwenkfeld. Aside from the relationship of Hübmaier to it, the Swiss movement is not represented.
Beachy made wide allowances in order to include some teachings into his scheme of interpreting radical reformation theology of grace as divinization. Although his thesis was clearer among some of those with more spiritualistic tendencies, this was not convincingly applicable to all. The normativity of the divinization scheme decreases especially if one were to include the more biblicist Swiss brethren. Further, the assumption that divinization is indeed the Johannine teaching of grace is not put to any critical analysis and might otherwise be contested. So, the suggestion that divinization is an integral part to the radical reformation's concept of grace must be taken with hesitation.
Beachy's central thesis that the radicals preferred an ontological interpretation of justification is enlightening to our understanding of radical reformation theology. It is unfortunate that this information has not been incorporated more into subsequent literature. This is likely due to this book being less accesible to a wider audience of students of Anabaptism. Further, this work is part of the early literature in support of the polygenesis paradigm, especially in the appendices added to the original dissertation material that forms the bulk of the book.
One last note about my copy of the book, which is a review copy that had been sent to Jan Kiwiet and might not be representative of all the copies, is that the typography got worse as the book went on. After about page 90, typos became frequent. Also, the front matter lists pages 1-381 as having been the dissertation. The book is only 238 pages and this note should have included only up into the appendices after the first bibliography.
Beachy also sought to show that the radical reformers taught a soteriology stressing divinization as was consistent with the theology of John's Gospel. He saw this as explicit in the teaching of all but two of the radical at whom he looked, including Hübmaier, Marpeck, Denck, Simons, Hofmann, Dirk Philips and Schwenkfeld. Aside from the relationship of Hübmaier to it, the Swiss movement is not represented.
Beachy made wide allowances in order to include some teachings into his scheme of interpreting radical reformation theology of grace as divinization. Although his thesis was clearer among some of those with more spiritualistic tendencies, this was not convincingly applicable to all. The normativity of the divinization scheme decreases especially if one were to include the more biblicist Swiss brethren. Further, the assumption that divinization is indeed the Johannine teaching of grace is not put to any critical analysis and might otherwise be contested. So, the suggestion that divinization is an integral part to the radical reformation's concept of grace must be taken with hesitation.
Beachy's central thesis that the radicals preferred an ontological interpretation of justification is enlightening to our understanding of radical reformation theology. It is unfortunate that this information has not been incorporated more into subsequent literature. This is likely due to this book being less accesible to a wider audience of students of Anabaptism. Further, this work is part of the early literature in support of the polygenesis paradigm, especially in the appendices added to the original dissertation material that forms the bulk of the book.
One last note about my copy of the book, which is a review copy that had been sent to Jan Kiwiet and might not be representative of all the copies, is that the typography got worse as the book went on. After about page 90, typos became frequent. Also, the front matter lists pages 1-381 as having been the dissertation. The book is only 238 pages and this note should have included only up into the appendices after the first bibliography.
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