The Short Lifespan of Anabaptists: Myth?

One fact(?) mentioned in Goncharenko's dissertation was that Anabaptists had an average lifespan of eighteen months after baptism, i.e. after a year and a half after accepting believer's baptism in the Anabaptist community the baptizand would be martyred.[1] He gave no reference, which is no surprise since I have heard this "fact" cited occasionally but never with any reference. In a wikiality world, I suspect I could impart truth to it by citing Goncharenko in Wikipedia.

This is one of those anecdotes that is shared to highlight the Anabaptists as being the persecuted church. It is supposed to be so hard to believe because we don't realize the extent of the persecutions. Maybe I am overly critical but the uncited Anabaptist lifespan may actually be too hard to believe.

I have my doubts for three reasons. The first is that I've yet to find a credible source for this fact. The search for this fact is obscured since mentions of it don’t point back to any reference. This should raise questions in the historian’s mind because it is no unique incident for “facts” to work their way into the body of knowledge on a subject.

One instance of this is the immersion baptism of Menno Simons. For many years it had been believed that Menno practiced baptism by immersion. John Horsch traced references to this “fact” back to one translation of a key text written by Menno but found that the translation suggesting Menno baptized by immersion was spurious and artificially inserted into the text.[2] Unfortunately, I cannot yet begin such a search since I cannot find any references to trace. I ask my readers’ assistance if you come across any citations. It may be that, if given a starting point, I can trace this back to a credible, verifiable source. It is also possible that I may find this to be a spurious insertion into our “knowledge” of the first generation of the Anabaptists.

The second reason is that it is no secret that this “fact” serves a polemical purpose of validating the Anabaptists as the persecuted church. Given Christ’s warning that the church would suffer for his name sake, acknowledging the persecution of the Anabaptists serves to validate them as the true church of Christ. Any hyperbole on this point would of course heighten the Anabaptist role as the church persecuted. To say that baptism was a veritable death sentence in the sixteenth century is too convenient an aid to Anabaptist polemics to not warrant a staid measure of scrutiny.

The third reason regards the manner by which we would come upon information about the post-baptismal lifespans of Anabaptists. While the first two reasons cannot prove against the “fact” but only prove it unwarranted, this third reason provides an explanation as to how such an error could be developed. The knowledge that we would be able to gather on the deaths of Anabaptists favors overrepresentation of those with shorter lifespans after baptism.

This overrepresentation arises in two ways, both based in the accessibility of records concerning Anabaptist martyrdom. The major figures with whom we are familiar today, primarily writing teachers in the church but also prominent leaders with no written legacy, were those who were prominent in their day also. Because of that prominence the biographical details including the accounts of their martyrdom are well known. It is that same prominence that would have made them higher priority targets for persecutors. So, the same prominence that resulted in these leaders’ higher rate of persecution also resulted in a higher availability off accounts of their martyrdom, which is to say that the Anabaptists who faced more acute persecution were those of whom we have more records. So, the records would be skewed toward a nonrepresentative sampling of baptized believers. The Anabaptists who were less prominent were under the radar (insert appropriate 16^th-century metaphor here–“beyond the nostrils of the hounds”?) of the authorities, thus living longer and consequently leaving less records of their longer post-baptismal lifespans.

The second way is similar but not in regards to prominence. Many of the records we have of individual Anabaptists comes from trial records. These trials were often seeking execution. So, those Anabaptists whose lives were cut short by persecution made it into the records while those who died of natural causes would have been far more likely to not have made it into the record as being Anabaptists. The Nicodemism under which some Anabaptists lived, particularly among the followers of David Joris, compounded this problem.[3] So again, it is the Anabaptists who were martyred who are overrepresented while those whose longer lives would extend the eighteen month average lifespan are those who would be underrepresented in calculating that number.

If we were to find a credible source for this eighteen month lifespan, the most it could say is that it was among those of whom we have record that the average post-baptismal lifespan was eighteen months while recognizing that this cannot take into account those of whom we have no record, whose lives were likely considerably longer and would thus redefine the statistic.

Two final notes: I don’t mean to pick on Goncharenko, especially since I was less than generous in my previous review. He only cites this fact that seems to circulate without proper credibility. For the sake of clearing his name as a sole transgressor, here is another example of someone mentioning the fact without citation:

http://lakeswampbaptist.com/templates/System/details.asp?id=31214&PG=xCast&LID=4014&CID=20828

Also, I may update this post sometime in the future. Someone might find a citation I can follow that opens the path to begin following this line of investigation. I might find it myself. I might also take some time to crunch some numbers out of the Martyr’s Mirror and various biographies I have laying around. Perhaps this calculation will confirm the number. Today, however, I only wish to raise the warning against accepting “common knowledge” to readily. I’m more interested in what really happened in the Radical Reformation than in polemical expediency.

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[1]149n in the dissertation, but I don't know where it is in the book. Perhaps the fourteenth footnote in the last chapter like it is in the dissertation.

[2]John Horsch, “Did Menno Simons Practice Baptism by Immersion?” Mennonite Quarterly Review 1, no. 1 (Jan. 1927): 54-56.

[3]J. Denny Weaver, Becoming Anabaptist: The Origin and Significance of Sixteenth-Century Anabaptism, 2^nd ed. (Scottdale, Pennsylvania: Herald, 2005), 138.

Review of “Menno Simons,” by John Christian Wenger and “Thomas Muentzer,” by Hans Joachim Hillerbrand, in Reformers in Profile, edited by B. A. Gerrish.

Wenger, John Christian. “Menno Simons.” In Reformers in Profile, ed. B. A. Gerrish, 194-212. Philadelphia: Fortress, 1967.

Hillerbrand, Hans Joachim. “Thomas Muentzer.” In Reformers in Profile, ed. Bryan Albert Gerrish, 213-229. Philadelphia: Fortress, 1967.

These two short biographical profiles come from an edited collection of profiles of reformers and proto-reformers.  Simons and Müntzer are the representatives of radical form in the collection.

Wenger writes as a long-established authority on Anabaptism, particularly on Marpeck but he also served as editor of the critical edition of the English translation of Simons’ works. This profile, along with that of Müntzer, is among the shortest of the profiles.  The brevity of the profile was not entirely economical. Much of the space was given to outlining a background of the Dutch/North German Anabaptist movement. Wenger also spent much space quoting Simons on a number of doctrinal emphases. This section does illustrate Simons’ as generally representative of the doctrine of the radicals.  This does not illustrate, however, the importance of Simons’ ministry, which was more of his role as an organizer rather than as a theological innovator. There is some mention of Simons having acted in that role, but those details are woven in as a  few extra facts from his biography. Wenger’s profile tried to highlight Simons’ significance but the true mark of that significance was not sufficiently portrayed.

Hillerbrand’s treatment of Müntzer achieved more. A scholar of the Reformation more broadly, Hillerbrand sought to give a more balanced interpretation of an historical figure who has often been the subject of niche interpretations. Though recognizing the radical tendencies of Müntzer, Hillerbrand did not take this tendency as an opportunity to caricature Müntzer as an extremist from the beginning. He allowed that Müntzer’s difference with Luther early on may have been more in degree rather than in kind and that the true radicalism of Müntzer came only after the influence of Carlstadt’s radicalism. Hillerbrand was also careful not to take the socio-economic dimension of Müntzer’s thought as central as had the Marxist interpreters but he still found within Müntzer’s thought an assumed equality of all people within a political community–an equality that would be a prerequisite to further democratic development. This assessment seems fair and at the least provides caution for future interpreters of Müntzer to not  be too rigid in interpretational schemes of Müntzer’s thought, for it is more complex than may have been previously anticipated.

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.

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[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.

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.