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 An Investigation into the Relationship Between the Early English General Baptists and the Dutch Anabaptists, by Goki Saito

Saito, Goki. “An Investigation into the relationship Between the Early English General Baptists and the Dutch Anabaptists.” Ph.D. diss. Louisville, Kentucky, Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, 1974.

            Saito’s dissertation approached a topic that is still not entirely resolved. The strain of scholarly debate into which he entered, however, has mostly cooled down. The tendency has been for interpreters of early English Baptist history to remain firmly entrenched in their positions, with no significant advance of the conversation having been made since. This dissertation is of vital, even if heretofore not fully recognized, value to the study.

            The initial point of interest is Saito’s overview of the debate up to then. Particularly useful was his investigation into how the narrative of succession came into and was propagated in nineteenth-century histories of the Baptist movement. The introduction of critical historical methods challenged view with the earnest debate beginning in 1930. Summarily, the two sides either found Baptist theological origins in the Waterlander influence or in the Separatist tradition out of which the movement came.

If anything is lacking, Saito could have given greater detail in the overview, but that could be a project that could be brought up to date for contemporary historians currently investigating the same question. Saito’s most keen observation in this section is his conclusion that those taking the positive view (that Baptists derive theologically from the Anabaptists) emphasize the points of agreement between the two group while those of the negative view (that Baptists are better interpreted as an extension of Separatism) emphasize the points of disagreement.

This at once raise the question of pointillizing the various aspects of Waterlander and Early General Baptist belief. This recognition characterizes Saito’s subsequent method. In the following chapters, the method was to investigate the similarities and dissimilarities by comparing articles of faith or other confessional literature in almost an article-by-article fashion, when appropriate to the material being analyzed. Saito could thereby hope to discover the strains of individual theological concepts as they were accepted or rejected by the Waterlanders, Smyth, Helwys, Murton and the Early General Baptists successively. In this way, the moments when differences arose could be identified, thus providing essential data for his project.

Unfortunately, this pointillization creates a rather large set of data that a reader must keep track of, for the conclusion Saito drew were closely dependent on the analysis of continuity of several points of doctrine among several individuals and groups. An appendix outlining in parallel each article, when available, for each group, could have aided comprehension. An organization of this sort would have clarified the streams of thought and given the overall argument greater force.

The essential character, Smyth, is given due reserve. Saito remained aware that an exact conclusion could not be drawn but presented fairly plausible possibilities. Prominently was the fact that Smyth must not have been drawn to believers’ baptism by interaction with the Waterlanders because his se-baptism was performed out of necessity, in Smyth’s mind, on account of the lack of a true church into which to be baptized. It was not until later that Smyth recognized the Waterlanders as a church of like mind.

The period between that baptism of the congregation and the documentable interaction with the Waterlanders was a period of other theological change, but at what point in that period Smyth took on Anabaptist-like teachings might be indiscoverable. For instance, Saito notes, the Arminian tone of General Baptist theology ay have come not from the Waterlanders but from the Smyth congregation’s awareness of the theological debate in Amsterdam that was already in progress when they arrived. Saito leaned more toward an interpretation that credited Smyth’s independent reading of Scripture, not guided by the Waterlanders, as the primary genesis of his doctrine.

As time went on, Smyth did begin to move in a more Anabaptistic direction and he appropriated more of their thought. Helwys rejected this move and he and some followers returned to England. The Helwys congregation, therefore, explicitly denied identification with the Anabaptists; a point not lost on Saito since it was Helwys, not Smyth, who was normative for the continued development of the General Baptist movement. On the other hand, Saito did recognize that the Waterlanders might have indirectly influenced Helwys by his retention of several of Smyth’s teachings. This indirect influence sadly faces the same question as to whether those retained teaching were those developed by Smyth before or after Smyth’s tutelage under the Waterlanders.

Saito then moves onto the thought of Murton as a representative of a next generation of General Baptists. Though notable, this exploration does little to advance Saito’s arguments since it basically operates under the same principle as the analysis of Helwys. The difference is that this analysis is even more indirect, now proceeding through Helwys.

The last topic is a comparison and history of the Waterlanders and the General Baptists in the 1620s. Though only twenty years removed from the Smyth-Helwys split, the movement was distinctly far enough from the Waterlanders that a proposed union would have been unacceptable to the latter. This is revealed by the Tookey group’s exit from the Baptists over the issue of the strictness of discipline. When the Tookey group sought union with the Waterlanders, who themselves departed the Frisian Mennonites over their objection to the latter’s harshness in church discipline, the Waterlanders could not agree to more than “friendly relations” because of the severe disagreements over other issues such as the oath, magistracy and the sword. The Waterlanders could not come into full union with the Tookey group precisely because of the doctrines that were not at issue between Tookey and the rest of the General Baptists, indicating that the General Baptists, sharing those doctrines, were by this time far enough from Waterlanders identity as to prevent full union. Though this conclusion and its significance jumps off the page, Saito did not draw it himself nor even mention Tookey in his recap of the chapter in his conclusion. Rather, he used the debate as a means to cull data with which to compare the teachings of the movements outside of the group’s attitudes toward the teaching of the other.

Having pointillized the analysis, Saito did not give an all-encompassing answer to the question of whether Baptists may rightly be considered part of the Anabaptist heritage, either yes or no. The most he could answer was to show Anabaptist influence on certain points, namely the sacraments, good works, church discipline and eschatology. This is an appropriate reservation to show because it does not presume to overshadow how each group identified its defining characteristics.

Moving forward, we must take that reservation to heart. When trying to identify Baptists as heirs to the Anabaptist tradition, we must remain aware of how each group identifies itself and its theological distinctives. This was readily apparent in the Tookey split. The matters of the magistracy, oath and the sword were not essential enough to prevent fellowship with the Waterlanders, with whom they agreed on issues of the believers’ church, church discipline and scriptural authority, the Waterlanders saw these points as essential enough to their core convictions that they would be part of the characteristics that form the sine qua non of their identity. The Tookey group, without those teachings that the Waterlanders saw to be so essential, could not be taken into fellowship despite their agreement on the issues that the Baptists saw as decisively essential.

If that was true in the early Seventeenth Century, it is more so true today as the groups become more polarized in their understandings of group identity. In the editorial preface to the January 2010 issue of the Mennonite Quarterly Review, John Roth recognized that Hübmaier had not received the deserved study on account of modern Mennonite scholars’ distaste of Hübmaier different opinion on pacifism. By that point in history, pacifism had become such a core conviction of Anabaptist identity that one who would by most other estimation be part of the origins of that tradition would in many ways be ignored.

On the other side, Baptist historians, especially among conservatives, readily accept the teachings of a free church, believers’ church and baptism, scriptural authority and discipline as central identifier of their heritage. Seeing those same characteristics in the Anabaptists, it is no surprise that they would feel a theological kinship and that they would interpret history in a way that would identify themselves as part of a broader movement including Anabaptists. Meanwhile, even though those points are important to Anabaptists generally, they are not the points by which they identify themselves. Therefore, just like the Waterlanders facing the request for fellowship with the Tookey group, Anabaptists can quickly see Baptists as having a distinct identity from them.

This matter of self-identification of core convictions would thus put out of reach any legitimate answer to the question of whether Baptists are Anabaptists. What would thus be more helpful is a clear understanding of the similarities of particulars without providing an answer for the whole. For this, Saito is to be commended for having not given an answer beyond the particulars. As new evidence is inevitably revealed as scholarship on the matter goes forward, it would be helpful to be mindful of Saito’s model of analysis in this direction.

Review of The Theology of Anabaptism: An Interpretation, by Robert Friedmann

Friedmann, Robert. The Theology of Anabaptism: An Interpretation. Scottdale, Pennsylvania: Herald, 1973.

Friedmann’s Theology of Anabaptism is a guide toward what he admits is a seeming oxymoron–Anabaptist Theology. The heart of the interpretation he presents is that Anabaptist theology is an implicit theology, unlike the explicit theology of the Protestant Reformers (21). Whereas the Lutheran Reformation was primarily doctrinal, the Anabaptists centered their efforts on what Friedmann terms existential Christianity (30 ff.).

That Anabaptist Christianity was existential was not intended to compare the movement to existentialism but rather to highlight the Anabaptist emphasis on how one acts as a Christian in a practical way. For this reason the Anabaptists were more concerned with right living than with right doctrine (31). As such, any theology would be implicit rather than explicit. However, Friedmann understood Anabaptism to be within the limits of creedal orthodoxy even if they understood the authority for their orthodoxy as having derived from Scripture rather than the early councils.

The other main point of Friedmann’s interpretation is that of setting the Anabaptists within the context of the Reformation. Friedmann saw Anabaptism as a third way (in agreement with George Huntston Williams) to approaching the questions of the day (18). The distinction of the Protestant and Anabaptist ways as reforms against the Catholic Church was between the doctrinal and existential forms of Christianities that each way sought to restore. Friedmann set this interpretation against that of Roland H. Bainton, whose portrayal of Anabaptism as a “left wing” of the Reformation Friedmann frames as the Anabaptists being an extension of the Reformation.

This does not fully capture the nuance of Bainton’s expression of the Reformation was not that there were two ways–Catholic and Protestant, of which Anabaptism was part. Bainton saw each localized attempt at reformation, whether that of Wittenberg, Zurich, Geneva or Canterbury, as unrelated in their geneses. His view was that they were sister movements rather than lineal descendents of a parent movement. Anabaptism, then, whether monogenetic or polygenetic, would not simply be the radical half of the Reformation but rather one way among many ways, each generally localized.[1]

The bulk of the book gives survey to the implicit theology systematically in the traditional categories. Two exceptions are notable. The first is the Anabaptist doctrine of Scripture. Generally an opening chapter to theology, Friedmann gave no full treatment of the Anabaptist use or understanding of the Scripture even though he acknowledged the role of the Bible in the formation of Anabaptist thought. Perhaps Friedmann passed this by due to the relative paucity of resources of this little-investigated area of Anabaptism. Also, the traditional order is reversed when ecclesiology is switched from last with ecclesiology taking the final position. That section, ecclesiology, is given the most space in the book, perhaps reflecting the emphasis of Littell of ecclesiology as the controlling character of the movement.

The systematic section had opened not with prolegomena but rather with the doctrine of the two kingdoms, which he titled the “heart” of Anabaptist theology. This must be compared to existential Christianity. It is not as though existential Christianity as the center of Anabaptist thought competes with the doctrine of the two kingdoms as the heart of Anabaptist theology. Rather, they exist on two levels–the theology, centered on the two kingdoms, behind the primary understanding of faith, which is as existential.

It becomes obvious at several points that Friedmann wrote with an Anabaptist audience in mind. He accepted a near equivocation of Anabaptist faith and practice with that of the apostolic era. For instance, Friedmann wrote that the ban was a third sacrament in the apostolic era and the Anabaptists thus imitated that model in their elevation of the practice of church discipline (144). This might work fine for a Mennonite or a Hutterite audience (Friedmann himself being a Hutterite) but those outside of the Anabaptist community may be thereby provoked to take some of Friedmann’s more idealistic claims with reservation.

For now, Friedmann’s work remains an excellent introduction to the topic. However, as the book nears the 40-year mark, a new project with the same goal but incorporating the wealth of research that has since been done would be of great help to future students of Anabaptism. Alongside Snyder’s Anabaptist History and Theology, Friedmann’s effort will go a long way toward directing the future of study in the movement. Though updates could be made, the power of the book lays in its interpretation of the broader ideas of Anabaptist theology as essentially an existential type of Christianity with an implicit theology that existed not as a radicalization of the Reformation but rather as a different type of Reformation altogether. In this way, The Theology of Anabaptism can continue to serve the discussion of students of the movement attempting to identify an essence, or even if there is an essence, of Anabaptism and trying to understand its place within the Reformation period and beyond.

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[1]Bainton spoke of Anabaptism as a “third type” but not as a third after Catholicism and Protestantism but rather after Luther and Zwingli and before a fourth and fifth type found in Calvin and the Spiritualists. The Reformation of the Sixteenth Century enlarged ed. (Boston: Beacon Hill, 1985), 95.

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]

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[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.

[2]Fellman, “Irenik und Polemik,” 110.

[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.

[4]The Order of God, SL, 213.

[5]SL, 253.

[6]Ibid.

[7]Baumann, SL, 118.

[8]SL, 123,125.

[9]Ibid.

[10]Ibid.

[11]Apparently the goal is subjecting one’s self to admonition.

[12]Concerning the Law of God, SL, 127.

[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.

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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 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.

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[1]“The Life and Thought of Michael Sattler, Anabaptist.” Ph.D. diss., McMaster University, 1981.

[2]“Michael Sattler’s Baptism: Some Comments.” MQR 30, no. 3 (July, 1986): 364-373.

[3]“Michael Sattler’s Baptism: Some Comments in Reply to Heinhold Fast.” MQR 62, no. 4 (Oct. 1988): 496-506.

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.