On Snyder and Sattler, Again.

When reviewing C. Arnold Snyder’s biography of Michael Sattler,[1] I wrote, “It [Snyder’s argument to setup the relationship of Sattler’s Benedictine past to is later Anabaptism] 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.”[2] In that review I also summarized the subsequent debate with Heinhold Fast regarding baptism. Now I wish to similarly summarize, although more briefly, the debate with Dennis D. Martin, whose objections were much broader.

Martin’s article, “Monks, Mendicants and Anabaptists,”[3] in general agrees with my assessment given above, comes from Martin’s background of scholarship in Medieval Monasticism. Looking at the categories of sola scriptura, “Practical Christocentrism” (i.e. discipleship), soteriology, and sectarianism, Martin repeatedly gives the cases that although Sattler could have gotten some of those ideas from the sources to which Snyder ascribed in his reconstruction of the evidential silence, those themes had other possible origins of influence on Sattler. For instance, Sattler’s biblicism need not have been learned in the Scriptorium of St. Peter’s in the Black Forest since it could have also been picked up from the Protestants. Martin then concludes to say that Snyder’s arguments are streams of plausibilities that added together have the statistical effect of being implausible.[4] At best, if Snyder did not successfully demonstrate the direct influence of Sattler’s monasticism on his Anabaptism, then, Martin concluded, the best Snyder could show is the parallels between the two theologies, which would be a parallel that had already been accepted as a foregone conclusion.[5]

The real issue seems to me to be about methodology. Martin lamented, “[T]he North American thesis format emphasizes interpretation at the expense of diligent archival work.”[6] While Snyder’s biography attempted to reconstruct the silence of the evidence, Martin seems to have preferred not to conjecture too far into that silence. Snyder was himself aware of the difference of methodology, saying, “[N]o historian of the sixteenth century can avoid working with less than coercive evidence.”[7] Snyder is certainly correct to say this since even when evidence is available, the accuracy of that evidence is often in question, especially considering that much evidence from the period is stained with the polemical dyes of the debates in which they were composed. The matter then does not appear to be of whether it is appropriate to use non-coercive evidence but rather of how non-coercive may evidence be as a basis for interpretation.

Snyder did not help himself in his case by saying that he had a “strong suspicion” for one fact and a “lurking (and probably unprovable) suspicion of another.[8] He at the same point conceded the incompleteness of his archival searches but stated that further enquiry at a time of “requisite leisure and access” might provide valuable insight.[9] This is precisely the sort of methodology to which Martin objected at the outset. It is one thing to offer possible explanations for gaps in the evidence but it is quite another to build an entire framework of biographical interpretation on the assumption that one or the other of those explanations is true.

Snyder did tackle the objection that other sources may have influenced Sattler besides Benedictine monasticism. While he admits the possibility of other sources, he complained that Martin himself offered no constructive counter-thesis. Most tellingly, Snyder wrote, “[T]he burden of proof is on Martin to present either the historical or literary evidence leading to his counter hypothesis in the Sattler case.”[10] Again, the difference in methodology determines the way that each scholar is judging the others’ arguments. Snyder accused Martin of not offering a better counter thesis while Martin had no intention of offering such but only to show that Snyder’s interpretation was not necessarily warranted. Martin seems to have been happy with merely bringing archival sources to light and stating little more than the evidence suggested while Snyder insisted that an interpretation must be set forth; and if not then his must be accepted until a better interpretation is found.

Snyder’s interpretive framework does remain as the most viable working hypothesis on the source of those aspects of Sattler’s thinking, but Martin has shown that there is a great possibility for that working hypothesis to be undone. Snyder’s paradigm has extensive explanatory power if not concrete historical evidence. It could one day be substantiated beyond the circumstantial if new evidence arose but it remains equally susceptible to having the legs kicked out from under it by those same evidences that as of yet sit in historical silence.

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[1]The Life and Thought of Michael Sattler, Studies in Anabaptist and Mennonite History, no. 27 (Scottsdale, Pennsylvania: Herald, 1984).

[2]http://wederdooper.blogspot.com/b/post-preview?token=AqezSjkBAAA.RXB9G-cXkE62_pe8CtiJNA.gR_Vazl021bEAfaWQiy0NA&postId=7745240353806073617&type=POST. According to the Google stat tracker, only six of my dear readers have read this. Go read it. Now. You’re not actually down here in the footnotes, are you?

[3]“Monks, Mendicants and Anabaptists: Michael Sattler and the Benedictines Reconsidered,” MQR 60, no. 2 (Apr. 1986): 139-164.

[4]Ibid., 162.

[5]Ibid.

[6]Ibid., 140n. It is worth noting that Martin’s dissertation was completed at a North American university, the University of Waterloo.

[7]“Michael Sattler, Benedictine: Dennis Martin's Objections Reconsidered,” MQR 61, no. 3 (July 1987): 263.

[8]Ibid., 269.

[9]Ibid.

[10]Ibid., 276.