Anabaptist New Testament Biblicism and the Shift of Expectations toward Radicalization

One of my current reads is Werner Packull’s Hutterite Beginnings: Communitarian Experiments during the Reformation.[1] I had read the publication of his dissertation, Mysticism and the Early South German-Austrian Anabaptist Movement, 1525-1531[2] and I am refreshed to once again read his writing, which to me is solid history that is very readable–a narrative that is fastened to historical details and is sympathetic from an outside perspective without feeling the need to be apologetic in Anabaptism’s defense. In a section titled, “The Forgotten Factor: The Availability of the Vernacular Scriptures,”[3] Packull composed a mini essay on the historical circumstances that contributed to the New Testament orientation of Swiss Anabaptist Biblicism.

In that section Packull reviewed the dates of printings of the Scriptures in the vernacular that would have been available to the book distributor Andreas Castelberger and the network of friends involved in the Bible study from which Anabaptism would spring. Luther’s New Testament was completed in 1522 and was widely available. Versions tailored to the Swiss dialects became available in the following years. The Old Testament began to be available in the vernacular shortly thereafter, with a first installment coming out of Basel at the end of 1523. While the Old Testament existed in the vernacular, it was several years before it was completely translated and the translations that were available were not as widely available.

In light of the certain New Testament preference of the New Testament over the Old,[4] Packull concluded that it was possible “that the New Testament orientation of Early Swiss Anabaptism was influenced by particular historical circumstances that included the limited availability of the vernacular Scriptures.”[5] Since the Anabaptists could be loosely characterized as a bottom-up hermeneutic community reflecting the practical concerns of the congregation rather than a top-down hermeneutic authority structure under the leadership of the learned for whom the availability of the vernacular Scriptures would have less consequence, despite that there were several learned leaders among the first Anabaptists, “Swiss Anabaptist vernacular biblicism, it can be argued [as Packull had just done], took shape before a wholistic reading of both testaments was an option for a hermeneutic community that had rejected the tutelage of the learned.”[6]

The Anabaptists had a different reform polity in mind than Zwingli and the incipient cause of limited availability of vernacular Scriptures lent the Anabaptists to appeal primarily to the New Testament. This dialogically led to further differences of reform polity as the paradigm of New Testament oriented Biblicism hardened in continued Anabaptist polemics. The turning point was the issue of baptism, which reflected both the difference over reform polity and hermeneutics. The Anabaptists appealed to the New Testament on the issue while Zwingli read the Old Testament rite of circumcision at an equal level with the New Testament, justifying this move by claiming that the New Testament church instituted baptism before writing the books and letters collected in the New Testament. Packull recognized that it was not insignificant that the correlation of the breaking point of baptism and Zwingli beginning to preach the Old Testament in the Münster.[7]

Packull’s awareness of the influence of this factor on the hermeneutics of the Anabaptists prevents interpreting their New Testament orientation as a “deliberately held principled position”[8] developed in the crucible of insular theological reflection. There is one further question that comes to my mind from Packull’s research. Is the New Testament orientation of the Anabaptists in accordance to the above-mentioned factors developed in distinction to an inherent Reformation hermeneutic that held both Testaments as equal or was that orientation developed as the logical conclusion of an early Reformation preference for the New Testament that set about those factors?

It was no accident that the New Testament was the first to be translated and printed. Luther’s translation was an effort to proliferate the gospel that Luther had grounded in the New Testament, especially in passages like Mark 1:15 and explicated in his lectures on Romans. Zwingli’s demonstrated the same preference for the New Testament by preaching from the New Testament long before systematically approaching the Old. Packull contended that Zwingli’s regard for the Old Testament was always present but was obscured by the New Testaments bases for his preaching. Packull wrote, “Zwingli’s own initial preoccupation masked potential differences.”[9] The exact status of the importance of the Old Testament in Zwingli’s hermeneutics has not been given (to my knowledge) treatment but would be a worthwhile avenue of future research. However, if his change from his initial doubts of infant baptism is any indication,[10] then it seems that Zwingli possibly held to a Anabaptistic New Testament orientation and only later did he elevate the Old Testament for the purposes of combating the Anabaptists.

If a preference for the New Testament was the initial Reformation standard, then it would not be the case that the availability of the vernacular Scriptures caused Anabaptists to prefer the New Testament, although the strength of Packull’s research would confirm that that factor certainly reinforced the preference. It would then have been Zwingli, needing a polemical advantage, who turned to the Old Testament, which would have been available to him without translation. What then may be the case, as is fitting with my broader interpretation of the Reformation, is that it was not the Anabaptists radicalized their Biblicism beyond that of the reformers but rather that the reformers moderated on their previous positions, on which the Anabaptists remained consistent. Though a complete paradigm shift from the reformers/radical reformers paradigm to one of reformers (Anabaptists)/moderating reformers (Luther, Zwingli, et al.) may be more seismic than warranted, a push in that direction will move interpreters of the Reformation away from the default assumption that differences between the two parties were always a result of radicalization.

A more complex dynamic is at play. At times the radicals indeed took the reforms of the moderates beyond the positions the moderates consistently maintained. At other times the radicals were the ones who consistently maintained the initial positions on reform on which the moderates had drawn back. The continuity of ideas did not necessarily rest on the continuity of persons. What may more often be revealed to be the case was that the later split came on issues on which there was no firm position. For example, neither party retained Zwingli’s initial hesitance on infant baptism. The radicals went beyond it by practicing believer’s baptism while the reformers withdrew. Luther’s early consideration of an ecclesiola was radicalized into the separated church of Anabaptism while Luther set the idea aside for later institution (which never occurred). Historians of the Radical Reformation should be served well in gaining a new interpretive tool by being free of assuming all differences between the two camps resulted from the radicals going beyond positions that the moderates consistently maintained.

The same operating principle may be at play in the topic at hand, namely that the differing hermeneutics after the split over baptism were not necessarily indicative of one side standing firm and the other either radicalizing or moderating. The New Testament preference was observed by all but as the debates over reforms continued, Zwingli and his learned coterie lessened the distinction between the Testaments by elevating the Old to support their moderate reforms while the Anabaptists expanded on that preference almost to the exclusion of the Old Testament since they did not have it readily available to them. Their preference of the New Testament was so great that they were subject to the taunts of the moderates, who charged that they were reviving the error of Marcion.[11]

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[1](Baltimore, Maryland: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1995).

[2](Scottdale, Pennsylvania: Herald, 1977).

[3]Hutterite Beginnings, 27-29.

[4]In an endnote, Packull quoted John Howard Yoder’s claim that the preeminence of the New Testament among the Anabaptists is so certain that it is taken for granted. Packull called this an understatement (Packull, Hutterite Beginnings, 329). Importantly, Jonathan R. Seilig concluded that the Anabaptists treated the Apocrypha as equal to the rest of the canon (“Solae [Quae?] Scripturae: Anabaptists and the Apocrypha,” MQR 80, no. 1 [Jan. 2006]: 5-34). While these claims are not cotenable, Packull is only speaking of the emerging movement of the mid- to late 1520s while Seilig wrote of Anabaptism up until the mid-1600s. Before the first century of Anabaptism was completed the historical circumstance of extremely limited availability of the vernacular Old Testament had passed.

[5]Packull, Hutterite Beginnings, 28.

[6]Ibid., 32.

[7]Soon after arriving in Zürich in 1519, Zwingli had begun preaching from the Gospel of Matthew with the mandate to preach the complete text, genealogies and all—a project that would consume the first half of the 1520s (Bruce Gordon, The Swiss Reformation (New York: Manchester University Press, 2002), 51).

[8]Packull, Hutterite Beginnings, 28.

[9]Ibid., 29.

[10]Many sources attest to this change, but the most in depth that I have come across is that of Brian Brewer, “Zwingli’s Early Anabaptist Convictions: History or Mythology?” Paper presented at the annual meeting of the Sixteenth Century Studies Conference, Ft. Worth, Texas, October 2011.

[11]Packull, Hutterite Beginnings, 28.

Global Social Justice, Anabaptists and the Peasants’ War, Hermeneutics, and the Sovereignty of God in History

The rise of concern for global social justice is an undeniable trend within Evangelicalism, the prominence of which needs not be detailed here. Along with this new emphasis comes the usual fear of a revival of a social gospel a la Rauschenbusch, in which sanctification is replaced by mere social activism. At the same time, the movement is celebrated for reclaiming a proper understanding of social concern for the poor that had been lost by a greed-motivated western society. Though both motivations are likely in play in this new emphasis, it is most important to view the role of the awareness of global poverty that has had on Christian interpretation (or rather application) of Scripture on relevant passages and the relationship that this seems to have with radical movements in the Reformation era.

Anabaptists had an association with the Peasants’ War, an association of which the nature has long been in dispute. The Peasants’ War was an uprising late in the first decade of the Reformation that sought to overturn the existing structures of Central European economic life in favor of a more equal society. I may be painting with broad strokes in saying this, but the general sentiment toward the Radical Reformation taken by secular scholars has been that the socio-economic concerns of the peasants were the engine of the development of communitarian readings of Scripture.[1] Meanwhile, historical theologians would deny that Anabaptist social concern was merely a carryover from the Peasants’ War but were instead a fresh interpretation of Scripture.

Although these poles may be an overgeneralization, I ask the question, could it be that, rather than the politics of the peasants determining Anabaptist scriptural interpretation or rather than Anabaptist interpretation outside of any socio-economic influence, the God, being sovereign over history, used the social concerns of the peasants to direct the Anabaptists toward an interpretation of Scripture that recaptured the social impact of nachfolge life, i.e. could it be that the Peasants’ War removed the veil from the eyes of mainstream interpretation that had ignored the social impact of the gospel in favor of retaining the status quo of the feudal system?

If the study of the Anabaptists is to inform our approach to contemporary issues in the church (which is the overarching assumption of my interest, if not of all of church history), then it might be worth asking that same question of contemporary emphases on the social impact of following Christ. Could it be that this emphasis is not the result of progressivism overriding Christian hermeneutics but rather the social situation drawing our attention to what Scripture has been trying to tell us all along. Awareness of famine, poverty and warfare can no longer be considered “wholly other,” but in our age of communication the distress of the world is set before our eyes. The call of secular ethicists, starting from different assumptions, seem to have challenged some false assumptions through which the church has long interpreted Scripture.

For instance, Peter Singer wrote on global justice to say that globalization prohibits unconcern our distant neighbor in need. He wrote, “The fact that a person is physically near to us, so that we have personal contact with him, may make it more likely that we shall assist him, but this does not show that me ought to help him rather than another who happens to be further [sic] away.”[2] If it is possible for God to use a pagan King like Nebuchadnezzar to chastise his people, Israel, then it would not seem beyond God’s ways to use a secular ethicist to convict the church that it has been shallow in its interpretation of Scripture concerning global social justice. My conclusion is that God’s sovereignty over history is displayed in the influence of socio-economic and political concerns toward correcting Christian interpretations of Scripture. These concerns may be precisely what God uses to jar us out of our holding pattern hermeneutic that subjects the Bible to the maintenance of current social structures.

How did this look in the Radical Reformation? In some cases the economic dissenters were social reformers with religious overtones but in other cases they were part of a religious reform that had social implications. An example of the first might be Hans Hergot, who in On the New Transformation of the Christian Life outlined a new societal structure that was to encompass all of Europe.[3] Although this manifesto is lightly peppered with scriptural citations, it is apparent that his rigid, bottom-up hierarchical structure of a worldwide commonwealth is not an attempt to follow any scriptural formula but rather a pragmatic construction to facilitate a populist-empowered government. Even by Hergot’s own admission, the development of this reform program arose from his own personal realizations sparked by the imagery of John 10.[4]

References to Scripture often give the appearance of appeal to common religious awareness rather than exegetical conviction. This must be understood in the context of a society that was far more ensconced in Scripture than that of the present day. Scriptural allusions held far greater currency.[5] Nonetheless, Hergot did not make the claim that his system was founded on Scripture but was “that which the holy spirit shows me.”[6]

When he complained of the mainstream interpretation of Scripture, which maintained the old order against which the peasants struggled, he decried, “They always interpret Scripture and twist it to produce quarrelling and litigation.”[7] His complaint does not appear to be that they were misinterpreting Scripture but rather that they were doing any interpretation of Scripture in the first place. For Hergot, Scripture in the end provided an unreliable guide because it was a futile attempt to discover the true interpretation. This is why he followed that complain by writing, “But [you should] trust completely in God,”[8] thus echoing Thomas Müntzer’s complaint against the same protestant interpretations of the Bible. Müntze had condemned them for relying on “The mere words of Scripture,”[9] “The dead words of Scripture,”[10] and “The inexperienced papal text of the Bible.”[11] Müntzer preferred to “not pray to a dumb God [i.e. one speaking only through Scripture] but rather to one who speaks [in direct revelation],”[12] for “all true parsons must have revelations.”[13] So, although Hergot utilized Scriptural language, this was only in accordance to the speech patterns of his day and his brand of revolution bears more the mark of a social rather than exegetical genesis.

This origin of peasant protest, however, was not necessarily characteristic of the entire movement. The Eleven Mühlhausen Articles include scriptural citations in a manner reminiscent of confessional statements.[14] The phrases, “As it is written,” and, “According to the word of God,” are used in the articles, describing the approach that is taken in developing their content. The peasants at other times showed a reliance on Scripture, saying, “. . .[T]he basis of all peasants’ articles (as will be clearly seen) is directed toward hearing the gospel and living according to it . . ..”[15] They also declared an intention to submit to Scripture, saying, “. . . [Y]ou will also gladly release us from serfdom or show us from the gospel that we should be serfs.”[16]

This is not to naïvely assume that the hermeneutics of the peasants was exactly as they had claimed, but it does show that they were attempting to mold their program after the pattern of Scripture. Whether this attempt was successful at correctly interpreting the relevant scriptural texts is a valid question, but regardless of success or failure the attempt itself is sufficient to reframe our approach to Reformation hermeneutics in regard to social justice. The debate was not between the scriptural position and the socio-economic position, in which each party can be cast in either role. The debate was rather between competing interpretations of Scripture, each of which necessarily impacted the social order of the day either toward retention or revolution.

Nor should one simplistically assume that the radicals of the Reformation, peasants and Anabaptists alike, were all of one mind on how Scripture was to be interpreted. Conrad Grebel expressed his discontent with Müntzer for setting up tablets, presumably a copy of the ten commandments.[17] Andreas Karlstadt, representing Orlamünde, wrote that that community could not covenant with Allstedt because the former denied the appropriateness of armed resistance advocated by the latter.[18]

Though debate existed within the movement, many of the general tenets of the radicals have since found greater favor within Christianity in our day. Few contemporary Christians would challenge what had been contented during the Reformation. Peasant and Anabaptist demands such as, “Those who are in need should be looked after,”[19] or, “Should this pastor be in need, he should be provided for by the community that chose him,”[20] or that families should not have to pay their lords for the death of their relatives as payment for the loss of property,[21] a practice known as heriot. If Roland H. Bainton is correct, then religious liberty, a matter broadly accepted by evangelicals, owes its genesis to the Anabaptists.[22]

If it was the social situation that pointed the radicals toward interpretations of Scripture that were controversial in their time but have largely since become assumed exegetical conclusions, then the validity of socio-economic and political stimuli in the process of doctrinal development need not be so quickly disparaged. Perhaps it is that God, who is sovereign in history, could use historical events to shake Christian interpretations of Scripture loose of maintenance of standing social structures.

So, to those who might view the contemporary rise in concern for global social justice as having been prompted by extra-biblical stimuli as described above, one must be careful to be sure that interpretations favoring established social orders likewise are not bending hermeneutics to socio-economic pressures. The sword has two edges. This is the value of historical theology as this forum seeks to apply it–to see beyond our own situation by looking through the lens of doctrinal development from those of situations outside of our own. It may just be that God is once again proving his sovereignty over history by using the ethical concern generated by secular sources to prod the church toward a corrected reading of Scripture on matters of social justice.

For now, I only present an initial point of discussion. Much research still needs to be done on both the historical and contemporary issues, but I would hope that the ideas presented here might stimulate further consideration of the appropriation of the Radical Reformation heritage on this matter. I especially note that some might take issue with presenting the peasant rebels alongside more mainstream Anabaptists.

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[1]A caricature view would be Friedrich Engels, Der Deutsche Bauernkrieg, Moscow, 1956.; but modern, more tempered views can be found in Claus-Peter Clasen, Anabaptism: A Social History: Switzerland, Austria, Moravia, and South and Central Germany (Ithaca, New York: Cornell University Press, 1972).; and James Mentzer Stayer, 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). An excellent summary of the latter can be found in A. James Reimer, “From Denominational Apologetics to Social History and Systematic Theology: Recent Developments in Early Anabaptist Studies,” Religious Studies Review 29, no. 3 (Jul. 2003): 237. Stayer concluded that communitarianism was not a fringe view within Anabaptism but rather normative in compliance to the community of goods portrayed in Acts.

[2]“Famine, Affluence, and Morality,” Philosophy and Public Affairs (1973), reprinted in Ethical Theory: Classical and Contemporary Readings, 5^th ed., ed. by Louis P. Pojman (Belmont, California: Thomson Wadsworth, 2007), 244. Emphasis in original. Let it be noted that this is one of the few points with which I would ever agree with Singer.

[3]In The Radical Reformation, ed. Michael G. Baylor, Cambridge Texts in the History of Political Thought. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991), 210-225. It has been my reading of this source book that has been the springboard of my thought in this area.

[4]Ibid., 211.

[5]In our day, a phrase like “wiser than Solomon” may draw more than a few blank stares and references to going the “extra mile” are usually made in ignorance of Matthew 5:41.

[6]On the New Transformation, 219.

[7] Ibid., 224. The quintessential example of a Protestant interpretation in defense against the peasants is Martin Luther’s 1524 “Letter to the Princes of Saxony Concerning the Rebellious Spirit,” Weimar Ausgabe XV [The critical edition of Luther’s complete works in their original languages], 210-221. Hergot’s manifesto is from 1527.

[8]On the New Transformation, 224. The bracketed material is of Baylor.

[9]The Prague Protest, in The Radical Reformation, 8.

[10]Ibid., 6.

[11]Ibid.

[12]Ibid., 10. Bracketed material mine.

[13]Ibid., 4.

[14]In The Radical Reformation, 227-230. Müntzer, although just show to have not taken an entirely benevolent stance on the text of Scripture, did have a hand in drafting these articles, but Baylor pointed out that others such as Heinrich Pfeffer were also instrumental in the articles’ composition, which reflected local concerns that predated Müntzer’s arrival in Mühlhausen.

[15]The Twelve Articles of the Upper Swabian Peasants, in The Radical Reformation, 232.

[16]Ibid., 234.

[17]Letter to Thomas Müntzer, in The Radical Reformation, 39.

[18]Letter from the Community of Orlamünde to the People of Allstedt, in The Radical Reformation, 33-35.

[19]The Mühlhausen Articles, 228.

[20]Michael Sattler, The Schleitheim Articles, in The Radical Reformation, 176.

[21]The Twelve Articles, 237.

[22]“The Parable of the Tares as the Proof Text for Religious Liberty to the End of the Sixteenth Century,” Church History 1, no. 2 (1932): 67.; A key text would Balthasar Hübmaier, On Heretics and Those who Burn Them, in Balthasar Hubmaier: Theologian of Anabaptism, edited by H. Wayne Pipkin  and John Howard Yoder, Classics of the Radical Reformation, no. 5. (Scottdale, Pennsylvania: Herald, 1989), 58-66. However, there are those who would attribute religious liberty to the Reformed tradition, such as Jon Witte, Jr., “Law, Authority, and Liberty in Early Calvinism,” in Calvin and Culture: Exploring a Worldview, edited by David W. Hall and Marvin Padgett, Calvin 500 Series (Phillipsburg, New Jersey: P & R, 2010), 17-39.

The Spirit of the Prophets: Ludwig Haetzer on Scripture and the Voice of the Spirit

Disclaimer: Any inaccuracies in the following report are due to the nature of presenting papers. Below is represents with the greatest attempt for accuracy but there is not text available for review. Points of uncertainty in the author’s ideas will be evident in how I represent them.

“The Spirit of the Prophets: Ludwig Haetzer on Scripture and the Voice of the Spirit.” - Geoffrey Dipple, Augustana College

Dipple’s paper sought to answer several questions concerning the development of Ludwig Hätzer’s thought. He observed that Hätzer’s earliest theology reflected the Biblicism of Zürich but later moved toward the Spiritualist theology for which he is known. The main period of development was from 1523 to late 1527, shortly following the publication of his and Denck’s translation of the Old Testament from Hebrew.

            An early emphasis in Hätzer’s activity was the matter of God’s forbidding of graven imagery. In the controversy over whether images could be allowed in the church, Hätzer’s polemic intentionally sought a scriptural foundation Further, the strong body/spirit dichotomy that was characteristics of the Spiritualists was not evident. Despite this attempt to firmly ground this early polemic on Scripture, Hätzer gradually manifested a greater reliance on direct revelation from God than on revelation mediated through Scripture.

            What then was the impetus for this move? Dipple pointed toward Hätzer’s stay in Auspitz, during which he would come under the influence of Karlstadt. Karlstadt had also entered into controversy against the evangelical reformers on the matter of imagery in the church. I believe Dipple was making the point that both Hätzer and to a lesser degree Karlstadt utilized Spiritualistic arguments as an additional resource to the scriptural arguments, for Scripture served as a resource to both the evangelicals and the radicals.

            More evident was the influence of Karlstadt’s doctrine of gelassenheit. That yieldedness was formulated as a spiritual type of discipleship. The direct spirituality of gelassenheit would extend into Hätzer’s doctrinal formulations, both in respect to revelation and to the sacraments. An essential resource for identifying Hätzer’s concept of the spirit is his translation of the Hebrew ruach. Hätzer’s translation of the word in the varying instances displayed a greater complexity than previous translations.

On Hübmaier's Use of Scripture

            In Henry Clay Vedder’s 1905 biography of Balthasar Hübmaier, he gave his own translation of Hübmaier’s On Heretics and Those Who Burn Them.1 In that translation, Vedder pointed out what he saw to be two textual issues. Though he conceded that Hübmaier’s use of Scripture was generally fairly accurate, these two citations seemed to have been problematic.2

            The second issue Vedder saw is in article 34, where Hübmaier quoted Job 6:16 as referring to “those who fear the frost”, whereas most English translations translate the phrase as referring the blackness because of the ice.3 Hübmaier’s translation is an alternative interpretation that, though a viable translation, is a minority translation.4 The reason Vedder counted this quotation as problematic seems to be that he did not recognize the alternative translation that Hübmaier followed.

             The first problematic quotation that Vedder pointed out is a little more insightful into Hübmaier’s usage of Scripture. In article 12, Hübmaier wrote, “Blessed is the man who is a watcher at the door of the bridegroom’s chamber.”5 Hübmaier did not cite beyond the chapter in this instance, being Proverbs 8, as was customary for the time.6 Vedder’s complaint was that there was nothing in the chapter that “in the least corresponds” to what Hübmaier had written.7 Despite Vedder’s claim, verse 34 of the chapter has a close, though not perfect, correspondence to Hübmaier’s quotation; stating, “Blessed is the man that heareth me, Watching daily at my gates, Waiting at the posts of my doors.”8 Pipkin and Yoder apparently felt certain enough about this that they added the verse number to the in-text citation.9 Though there are similarities between Hübmaier’s quotation and the content of the quoted verse, they are different.

             The essential difference between Hübmaier’s quotation and Proverbs 8 is the mention of the bridegroom’s chamber, which is not in the original Scripture. Vedder suggested that Hübmaier may have been including ideas from Matthew 9:15 and John 3:29.10 Those two passages include a bridegroom’s chambers but there is no mention of the idea of watchfulness. I propose that Hübmaier may have been conflating Proverbs 8:34 with Matthew 25, particularly verses 6 and 13.

             In that parable, there is at least one person who had kept watch at the bridegroom’s chambers and announced the arrival of the bridegroom. It was to that announcement that the virgins had responded. The wise virgins then went into the wedding banquet and Jesus gave the warning to his listeners to stay alert. This parable has a bridegroom context and more importantly it has an exhortation to watchfulness, which is the subject of the Proverbs 8 beatitude. It would seem that Hübmaier conflated these two passages without citing the parable from Matthew 25.

            There is a central difficulty with this proposition, though. Hübmaier is using the quotation in reference to vigilance against false doctrine. Verse 13 of the parable makes clear that the vigilance of the parable is toward the second coming. The parable is decidedly eschatological in scope.

            Hübmaier himself in later writings had used the parable in its eschatological sense. It is included in A Form of Christ’s Supper and the Apologia.11 There, Hübmaier related the parable with Matthew 24:42 and Mark 13:32, which both state the ignorance of all regarding the coming of the Lord. So, Hübmaier, at least at the time of those writings, understood the parable in its eschatological sense and it might seem odd that he would use the Scripture in another way earlier in On Heretics.

            Even earlier, however, Hübmaier had used the parable in relation to vigilance against false doctrine. In his statements at the second Zürich disputation, Hübmaier is recorded as having said:

“For holy Scripture alone is the true light and lantern through which all human argument, darkness, and objections can be recognized. This the prophet David knew perfectly well as he said to God, ‘Thy Word is a lamp to my feet” [Ps. 119:105]. Christ also himself taught us the same thing: that we should take the lantern of his salutary Word in our hand, so that when the bridegroom comes we can enter into the marriage feast with him [Matt. 25:1-13].”12

            Here, Hübmaier set the lantern of the parable as Scripture, which he had interpreted as that by which all false teachings are discerned. Further he understands such vigilance within its eschatological context so that, being free of false doctrine on account of such vigilance, believers would be able to unite with Christ in the last days. So, it would be that if Hübmaier felt comfortable using the parable in that instance to comment on vigilance against false doctrine, then it is reasonable that he would have done the same in the twelfth article of On Heretics.

            The significance of this is not merely to answer a question raised in a footnote in a century-old biography. The importance of identifying what Hübmaier had in mind in this reference is that we can gain insight into Hübmaier’s use of Scripture. Though the parable’s warning was specifically eschatological, Hübmaier seems to have extended it meaning as a warning against false doctrine. Hübmaier’s usage seems to be a bit more than typological in this case, for to do so would be to use the language of the parable to make another sort of warning.

            To reinterpret the parable, however, would be to go against the Anabaptists’ general use of the Bible. On the parable of the wheat and the tares, the Anabaptist criticized the reinterpretation that made the field the church rather than the world, as Christ Himself had interpreted the parable. Hübmaier move in his interpretation of this parable is more justifiable. Guardedness against false doctrine might be part of what is meant by keeping watch for the Lord’s return, especially consider Paul’s prophecy in 2 Timothy 4:3, that there will be in that time an acceptance of false teachers.

            So, Hübmaier’s use of Scripture, as illustrated at this point, has a certain complexity about it–a complexity that apparently threw Vedder of the scent. Hübmaier felt free to extend the meaning of a parable to speak more explicitly about something that might fall under the purview of that parable’s meaning. The biblicism of at least this Anabaptist was not mere literal proof-texting but has a dynamic character, demonstrating a sophistication usually not attributed to Anabaptist hermeneutics.

1Balthasar Hubmaier: Leader of the Anabaptists (New York: Knickerbocker, 1905), 84-88.

2Ibid., 85n.

3Ibid., 88. cf. H. Wayne Pipkin and John Howard Yoder eds., Balthasar Hubmaier: Theologian of Anabaptism, Classics of the Radical Reformation, no. 5 (Scottdale, Pennsylvania: Herald, 1989), 65.

4It is not certain whether Hübmaier was translating from the Hebrew or the Vulgate ate this point or even if he was using another German translation. Regardless, both the Hebrew and the Vulgate word can carry both the connotations of darkness and fear.

5Vedder, Hubmaier: Leader, 85. cf. Pipkin and Yoder, Hubmaier: Theologian, 61.

6Urs B. Leu, Die Froschauer-Bibeln und die Täufer: Die Geschichte einer Jahrhunderte Alten Freundschaft = The Froschauer Bibles and the Anabaptists: The History of an Old Friendship (Herborn, Germany: Sepher, 2005), 41. Leu states that verse numbers were first added in a 1548 French edition of the Vulgate.

7Vedder, Hubmaier: Leader, 85n.

8ASV, which has been chosen here because it would have been available to Vedder along with the KJV, which differs from the ASV of this verse only in capitalization.

9Pipkin and Yoder, Hubmaier: Theologian, 61. In the preface to the work, the editors promised to include verse numbers whenever they could identify them (20).

10Vedder, Hubmaier: Leader, 85n.

11Pipkin and Yoder, Hubmaier: Theologian, 406, 543.

12Ibid., 23-24.

Balthasar Hubmaier: Hermeneutical Prophet?

              Key to the debate between Zwingli and Hubmaier on the question of infant baptism was hermeneutical method. Zwingli, following the normative principle, defended infant baptism on account that it had not been prohibited in Scripture. Hubmaier, following the regulative principle, rejected it because there was no Scriptural precedent for the practice.

               Hubmaier evidently felt the reformed argument was lacking in Scriptural foundation. Hubmaier wrote, "We have a clear word for baptizing believers and you have none for baptizing your children, except that you groundlessly drag in several shadows from the Old Testament."1 Hubmaier had also challenged Zwingli to defend his position with "bright, clear, and simple writing... without any additions."2 This Hubmaier requested after saying that he "would report on and testify to [his] reasons in the divine Scriptures that infant baptism is a work without any basis."3 Hubmaier's view was that those within the magisterial reformation that held over the practice of infant baptism were weak in their use of Scripture, adding to the Word in order to justify their position.
              Hubmaier had pointed words directed toward the magisterial reformers use of Scripture that allowed them to hold to infant baptism. This abuse of the Scripture was against the sola scriptura ideal that had in large part sparked that reformation and Hubmaier recognized that the magisterial reformers were ignoring the Scriptures that had given them their starting point in the doctrine of justification by faith. He wrote:

            "You twist yourself, you bend back and forth, but no clear Scripture will come forth. Remember what you said against Faber and published in the Article 15,4 that all truth stands clear in the Word of God. If now infant baptism is truth, then point it out in the clear Word of God. Show it to us for God's sake. Do it; do not forget. Or the vicar will complain that you have used a sword against him that you now unbelt and that you cannot suffer to be stabbed with."

            The force of Hubmaier's rebuke here is clear. As strong as Hubmaier's words may have been, they are quite chilling when compared to these lines from John Eck, former mentor of Hubmaier and constant antagonist to Luther:

            "Even though, in the preceding and following articles, the new Christians [reformers] set up the principle that they would accept nothing that could not be defended with clear biblical references; after the Anabaptists had arisen they could not defeat them and were forced to give up their principle (foundation) and concede that many things had to be believed and practiced that were not written (contained) [in Scripture], as Zwingli asserted with respect to the baptism of Mary and also the baptism of children.”5

            Just as Hubmaier had claimed, it did not go unnoticed among the Catholics that the magisterial reformers had turned against what they had once held up as their guide for truth, Scripture. Eck admitted that in terms of biblicism it was the Anabaptists who had the stronger argument. The Catholics indeed observed the magisterial reformers place back in its sheath the sword of Scripture that they had formerly wielded against their Catholic opponents. Hubmaier died before Eck wrote these words in 1530 but his rebuke foresaw what would become the rebuke of the Catholics against the same group.

1Balthasar Hubmaier, "Dialogue with Zwingli's Baptism Book," in H. Wayne Pipkin and John Howard Yoder eds. Balthasar Hubmaier: Theologian of Anabaptism, Classics of the Radical Reformation, no. 5 (Scottdale, Pennsylvania: Herald, 1989), 182.

2Ibid., 172.

3Ibid.

4This was an article in Zwingli's sixty-seven theses compiled for the first Zurich disputation, which set the pace for the growing reformation movement in that city.

5John Eck, Enchiridion, quoted in Abraham Friesen, In Defense of Freedom: Russian Mennonites and the State Before and During World War I (Winnipeg, Manitoba: Kindred, 2006), 348-349.