A History of the Reformation Volume II Part 23

The old monotonous mode of describing Anabaptism has almost entirely disappeared with the modern careful examination of sources. It is no longer possible to sum up the movement in four stages, beginning with the Zwickau prophets and ending with the catastrophe in Munster, or to explain its origin by calling it the radical side of the Reformation movement.[603] It is acknowledged by careful students to have been a very complicated affair, to have had roots buried in the previous centuries, and to have had men among its leaders who were distinguished Humanists. It is now known that it spread over Europe with great rapidity, and attracted to itself an enormously larger number of adherents than had been imagined.

It is impossible within the limits of one brief chapter to state and criticise the various theories of the origin and roots of the movement which modern investigation has suggested. All that can be done is to set down succinctly the conclusions reached after a tolerably wide examination of the sources--admitting at the same time that more information must be obtained ere the history of the movement advances beyond the controversial stage.

It is neither safe nor easy to make abrupt general statements about the causes or character of great popular movements. The elements which combine to bring them into being and keep them in existence are commonly as innumerable as the hues which blend in the colour of a mountain side.

Anabaptism was such a complicated movement that it presents peculiar difficulties. As has been said, it had a distinct relation to two different streams of mediaeval life, the one social and the other religious--the revolts of peasants and artisans, and the successions of the _Brethren_.

From the third quarter of the fifteenth century social uprisings had taken place almost every decade, all of them more or less impregnated with crude religious beliefs. They were part of the intellectual and moral atmosphere that the "common man," whether in town or country district, continuously breathed, and their power over him must not be lost sight of. The Reformation movement quickened and strengthened these influences simply because it set all things in motion. It is not possible, therefore, to draw a rigid line of separation between some sides of the Anabaptist movement and the social revolt; and hence it is that there is at least a grain of truth in the conception that the Anabaptists were the revolutionaries of the times of the Reformation.

On the other hand, there are good reasons for a.s.serting that the distinctively religious side of Anabaptism had little to do with the anarchic outbreaks. It comes in direct succession from those communities of pious Christians who, on the testimony of their enemies, lived quiet G.o.d-fearing lives, and believed all the articles in the Apostles' Creed; but who were strongly anti-clerical. They lived un.o.btrusively, and rarely appear in history save when the chronicle of some town makes casual mention of their existence, or when an Inquisitor ferreted them out and records their so-called heresies. Their objections to the const.i.tution and ceremonies of the mediaeval Church were exactly those of the Anabaptists of the sixteenth century; and if we do not find a universal repudiation of infant baptism, there are traces that some did not approve of it. They insisted that the service ought to be in the vulgar tongue; they objected to all the Church festivals; to all blessing of buildings, crosses, and candles; they alleged that Christ did not give His Apostles stoles or chasubles; they scoffed at excommunications, Indulgences, and dispensations; they declared that there was no regenerative efficacy in infant baptism; and they were keenly alive to all the injunctions of Christian charity--it was better, they said, to clothe the poor than to expend money on costly vestments or to adorn the walls of Churches, and they kept up schools and hospitals for lepers. They met in each other's houses for public wors.h.i.+p, which took the form of reading and commenting upon the Holy Scriptures.[604]

As we are dependent on very casual sources of information, it is not surprising that we cannot trace their _continuous_ descent down to the period of the Reformation; but we do find in the earlier decades of the sixteenth century notices of the existence of small praying communities, which have all the characteristics of those recorded in the Inquisitors'

reports belonging to the end of the fourteenth or beginning of the fifteenth centuries. They appeared in Basel in 1514, in Switzerland in 1515, in Mainz in 1518, and in Augsburg somewhat earlier.[605] By the year 1524 similar "praying circles" were recorded as existing in France, in the Netherlands, in Italy, in Saxony, in Franconia, at Stra.s.sburg, and in Bohemia. They used a common catechism for the instruction of their young people which was printed in French, German, Bohemian, and perhaps Italian. In Germany, the Bible was the German Vulgate--a version retained among the Anabaptists long after the publication of Luther's.

They exhibited great zeal in printing and distributing the pious literature of the _Friends of G.o.d_ of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. Many of them taught Baptist views, though the tenets were not universally accepted, and they were already called Anabaptists or Katabaptists--a term of reproach. Some of their more distinguished leaders were pious Humanists, and _their_ influence may perhaps be seen in the efforts made by the _Brethren_ to print and distribute the _Defensor Pacis_ of Marsiglio of Padua.

This quiet Evangelical movement a.s.sumed a more definite form in 1524.

Before that date the a.s.sociations of pious people acted like the Pietists of the seventeenth or like the Wesleyans of the eighteenth century. They a.s.sociated together for mutual edification; they did not obtrusively separate themselves from the corrupt or slothful Church. But in June 1524, delegates representing a very wide circle of "praying a.s.semblies" or _Readings_ met at Waldshut, in the house of Balthasar Hubmaier,[606] bringing their Bibles with them, to consult how to organise their Christian living on the lines laid down in the New Testament. No regular ecclesiastical organisation was formed. _The Brethren_ resolved to separate from the Papal Church; they published a Directory for Christian living, and drew up a statement of principles in which they believed. Amongst other things, they protested against any miraculous efficacy in the Sacraments in general, and held that Baptism is efficacious only when it is received in faith. This led afterwards to the adoption of Baptist views. A second conference was held at Augsburg in 1526, which probably dates the time when adult baptism became a distinctive belief among all the _Brethren_. This conference suggested a General Synod which met at Augsburg in 1527 (Aug.), and included among its members, delegates from Munich, Franconia, Ingolstadt, Upper Austria, Styria, and Switzerland. There they drew up a statement of doctrinal truth, which is very simple, and corresponds intimately with what is now taught among the Moravian Brethren. Their Hymn-book[607]

does not bear any traces of the errors in doctrine usually attributed to them. Its chief theme is the love of G.o.d awakening our love to G.o.d and to our fellow-men. Instead of infant baptism they had a ceremony in which the children were consecrated to G.o.d. Baptism was regarded as the sign of conversion and of definite resolve to give one's self up to the wors.h.i.+p and service of G.o.d. It was administered by _sprinkling_; the recipient knelt to receive it in the presence of the congregation. The Holy Supper was administered at stated times, and always after one or two days of solemn preparation. Their office-bearers were deacons, elders, masters and teachers, or pastors. They distinguished between pastors who were wandering evangelists and those who were attached to single congregations. The latter, who were ordained by the laying on of hands, alone had the right to dispense the Sacraments. All the deacons, elders, and pastors belonging to communities within a prescribed district, selected from among themselves delegates who formed their ecclesiastical council for the district, and this council elected one of the pastors to act as Bishop or Superintendent. It was the Superintendent who ordained by laying on of hands. The whole of the _Brethren_ were governed ecclesiastically by a series of Synods corresponding to those in the Presbyterian Churches. This organisation enabled the Anabaptists to endure the frightful persecution which they were soon to experience at the hands of the papal and Lutheran State Churches.

The chief leaders were Balthasar Hubmaier and Hans Denck. Hubmaier was a distinguished scholar. He became, at an unusually early age, Professor of theology at Ingolstadt (1512); he was Rector of the famous High School in that city (1515); and Cathedral preacher at Regensburg (Ratisbon) (1516). In 1519, feeling that he could no longer conscientiously occupy such positions, he retired to the little town of Waldshut. Hans Denck was a noted Humanist, a member of the "Erasmus circle" at Basel, and esteemed the most accurate Greek scholar in the learned community. Conrad Grebel, another well-known Anabaptist leader, also belonged to the "Erasmus circle," and was a member of one of the patrician families of Zurich. Like Hubmaier and Denck, he gave up all to become an evangelist, and spent his life on long preaching tours. These facts are sufficient to refute the common statement that the Anabaptists were ignorant fanatics.

Perhaps Denck was the most widely known and highly esteemed. In the summer of 1523 he was appointed Rector of the celebrated Sebaldus School in Nurnberg. In the end of 1524 he was charged with heresy, and along with him Jorg Penz, the artist, the favourite pupil of Albert Durer, and four others. Denck was banished from the city, and his name became well known. This trial and sentence was the occasion of his beginning that life of wandering evangelist which had among other results the conferences in 1526 and 1527, and the organisation above described.

Denck had drunk deeply at the well of the fourteenth and fifteenth century Mystics, and his teaching was tinged by many of their ideas. He believed that there was a spark of the divine nature in man, an Inner Word, which urged man to walk in the ways of G.o.d, and that man could always keep true to the inward monitor, who was none else than Christ.

The accounts given of some of his addresses seem to be echoes of Tauler's famous sermon on the Bridegroom and the Bride, for he taught that the sufferings of the faithful are to be looked upon as the love-gifts of the Saviour, and are neither to be mourned nor resisted.

We are told in the quaint _Chronicle_ of Sebastian Frauck, that the Baptist current swept swiftly through the whole land; many thousands were baptized, and many hearts drawn to them. "For they taught nothing but love, faith, and crucifixion of the flesh, manifesting patience and humility under many sufferings, breaking bread with one another in sign of unity and love, helping one another with true helpfulness, lending, borrowing, giving, learning to have all things in common, calling each other 'brother.'"[608] He adds that they were accused of many things of which they were innocent, and were treated very tyrannically.

The Anabaptists, like the earlier Mystics, displayed a strong individuality; and this makes it impossible to cla.s.sify their tenets in a body of doctrine which can be held to express the system of intellectual belief which lay at the basis of the whole movement. We have three contemporary accounts which show the divergence of opinion among them--two from hostile and one from a sympathetic historian.

Bullinger[609] attempts a cla.s.sification of their different divisions, and mentions thirteen distinct sects within the Anabaptist circle; but they manifestly overlap in such a way as to suggest a very large amount of difference which cannot be distinctly tabulated. Sebastian Franck[610] notes all the varieties of views which Bullinger mentions, but refrains from any cla.s.sification. "There are," he says, "more sects and opinions, which I do not know and cannot describe, but it appears to me that there are not two to be found who agree with each other on all points." Kessler,[611] who recounts the story of the Anabaptists of St.

Gallen, notes the same great variety of opinions.

It is quite possible to describe the leading ideas taught by a few noted men and approved of by their immediate circle of followers, and so to arrive with some accuracy at the popularity of certain leading principles among different parties, but it must be remembered that no great leader imposed his opinions on the whole Anabaptist circle, and that the views held at different times by prominent men were not invariably the sentiments which lay at the basis of the whole movement.

The doctrine of pa.s.sive resistance was held by almost all the earlier Anabaptists, but it was taught and practised in such a great variety of ways that a merely general statement gives a misleading idea. All the earlier Anabaptists believed that it was unchristian to return evil for evil, and that they should take the persecutions which came to them without attempting to retaliate. Some, like the young Humanist, Hans Denck, pushed the theory so far that they believed that no real Christian could be either a magistrate or a soldier. A small band of Anabaptists, to whom one of the Counts of Liechtenstein had given shelter at Nikolsburg, told their protector plainly that they utterly disapproved of his threatening the Austrian Commissary with armed resistance if he entered the Nikolsburg territory to seize them. In short, what is called "pa.s.sive resistance" took any number of forms, from the ordinary Christian maxim to be patient under tribulation, to that inculcated and practised by the modern sect of Dunkers.

The followers of Melchior Hoffman, called "Melchiorites," held apocalyptic or millenarian views, and expected in the near future the return of Christ to reign over His saints; but there is no reason to suppose that this conception was very widely adopted, still less that it can be called a tenet of Anabaptism in general. All the Anabaptists inculcated the duty of charity and the claims of the poor on the richer members of the community; but that is a common Christian precept, and does not necessarily imply communistic theories or practices. All that can be definitely said of the whole Anabaptist circle was that they did keep very clearly before them the obligations of Christian love. The so-called Communism in Munster will be described later.

When we examine carefully the incidental records of contemporary witnesses observing their Anabaptist neighbours, we reach the general conclusion that their main thought was to reproduce in their own lives what seemed to them to be the beliefs, usages, and social practices of the primitive Christians. Translations of the Bible and of parts of it had been common enough in Germany before Luther's days. The "common man," especially the artisan of the towns, knew a great deal about the Bible. It was the one book he read, re-read, and pondered over. Fired with the thoughts created in his mind by its perusal, simple men felt impelled to become itinerant preachers. The "call" came to them, and they responded at once to what they believed to be the divine voice.

Witness Hans Ber of Alten-Erlangen, a poor peasant. He rose from his bed one night and suddenly began to put on his clothes. "Whither goest thou?" asked his poor wife. "I know not; G.o.d knoweth," he answered.

"What evil have I done thee? Stay and help me to bring up my little children," "Dear wife," he answered, "trouble me not with the things of time. I must away, that I may learn the will of the Lord."[612] Such men wandered about in rude homespun garments, often barefooted, their heads covered with rough felt hats. They craved hospitality in houses, and after supper produced their portions of the Bible, read and expounded, then vanished in the early morning. We are told how Hans Hut came to the house of Franz Strigel at Weier in Franconia, produced his Bible, read and expounded, explained the necessity of adult baptism, convinced Strigel, the house father, and eight others, and baptized them there and then. He wandered forth the same night. None of the baptized saw him again; but the little community remained--a small band of Anabaptists.[613]

These wandering preachers, "prophets" they may be called if we give them the early Christian name, were not drilled in any common set of opinions. Each conceived the primitive teaching and social life as he seemed to see it reflected in the New Testament; and no two conceptions were exactly the same. The circ.u.mstances and surroundings produced an infinite variety of thought about the doctrines and usages which ought to be accepted and practised. Yet they had traditional modes of interpretation handed down to them from the praying circles of the "Brethren." Compare what the Austrian Inquisitor says of the "Brethren"

in the thirteenth century, with what Johann Kessler tells about the Anabaptists of St. Gallen, and the resemblance is striking so far as external appearance goes. "Haeretici cognosc.u.n.tur per mores et verba,"

says the Inquisitor. "Sunt enim in moribus compositi et modesti; superbiam in vestibus non habent, nec pretiosis, nec multum abjectis utuntur.... Doctores etiam ipsorum sunt sutores et textores. Divitias non multiplicant, sed necessariis sunt contenti. Casti etiam sunt....

Temperati etiam in cibo et potu. Ad tabernas non eunt, nec ad ch.o.r.eas, nec ad alias vanitates. Ab ira se cohibent; semper operantur, disc.u.n.t vel docent, et ideo parum orant.... Cognosc.u.n.tur etiam in verbis praecisis et modestis. Cavent etiam a scurrilitate et detractione, et verborum levitate, et mendacio, et juramento."[614] Kessler tells us that the walk and conversation of these Anabaptists was "throughout pious, holy, and blameless"; that they refrained from wearing costly apparel, despised luxurious eating and drinking, clothed themselves in rough cloth, wore slouch hats on their heads. Franck relates that they refused to frequent wine-shops and the "gild" rooms where dances were held.

As they lived again the life of these mediaeval sectaries, so they reproduced their opinions in the same sporadic way. Some of them objected to all war even in self-defence, as did some of the earlier Lollards. Their Lord had said to His first disciples: "Go your ways: behold, I send you forth as lambs in the midst of wolves." They flung from them the sword, with which peasant and artisan were then alike girt, and went about as the apostles were ordered to do, with staves in their hands--the _Stabler_ or _staffmen_ who would have nothing to do with the weapons of wolves. Others, also like some of the Lollards, would not enter the "huge stone houses with great gla.s.s windows which men called 'churches.'" The early Christians had preached and "broken bread" in houses; and they would follow their example; and in private rooms, in the streets, in the market-places, they proclaimed their gospel of peace and contentment. The infinitesimal number who taught something like "free love," and who were repudiated by the others, were reproducing the vagaries of the mediaeval _Brethren and Sisters of the Free Spirit_, who gave Meister Eckhart so much trouble centuries before in the Rhineland. All the more extravagant ideas and practices which appear among small sections of these Anabaptists of the sixteenth century can be found among the sectaries of the Middle Ages. For the whole Anabaptist movement was mediaeval to the core; and, like most of the mediaeval religious awakenings, produced an infinite variety of opinions and practices. The one idea common to all was, that the Christians of the sixteenth century were called to reproduce in thought and life the intellectual beliefs and usages of the primitive Christians. It is simply impossible to give any account of opinions and practices which were _universally_ prevalent among them. Even the most widely spread usages, adult baptism and the "breaking of bread," were not adopted in all the divisions of the Anabaptists.

What is more, they were modern enough, at least in the earlier stages of the movement, to be conscious of this (which the Mystics were not), and to give it expression. All felt and thought as did a "simple man," Hans Muller of Medikon, when brought before the Zurich magistrates: "Do not lay a burden on my conscience, for faith is a gift given freely by G.o.d, and is not common property. The mystery of G.o.d lies hidden, like the treasure in the field, which no one can find but he to whom the Spirit shows it. So I beg you, ye servants of G.o.d, let my faith stand free."[615] And the Anabaptists, alone of all the religious parties in those strenuous times, seem to have recognised that what they claimed for themselves they were bound to grant to others. Great differences in opinion did not prevent the strictest brotherly fellows.h.i.+p. Hans Denck held a doctrine of non-resistance as thoroughgoing as that of Count Tolstoy, and fully recognised the practical consequences to which it led. But this did not prevent the ardent and gifted young Humanist working loyally with Hubmaier, who did not share his extreme opinions.

The divergences among the leaders appeared in their followers without destroying the sense of brotherhood. Franck tells us in his _Chronicle_[616] that some, but very few, held that no Christian could enter the magistracy, for Christians had nothing to do with the sword, but only with spiritual excommunication, and that no Christian should fight and slay. The others, he says, including the very great majority, believed that Christians might become magistrates, and that in case of dire necessity and when they clearly saw the leading of G.o.d, might take their share in fighting as soldiers.

Melchior Hoffman, while he believed in the incarnation, held that Jesus received His flesh directly from G.o.d, and did not owe His body to the Virgin Mother, through whom He pa.s.sed "as light through a pane of gla.s.s." He also held that the whole history of the world, down to the last days, was revealed in Scripture, and could be discovered through prayer and meditation. He was an eloquent and persuasive preacher, and his views were accepted by many; but it would be a great mistake to a.s.sume that they were shared in by the Anabaptists as a community. Yet even contemporaries, who were opponents, usually attribute the extreme opinions of a few to the entire body.

It ought to be observed that this tolerance of different opinions within the one society did not extend to those who remained true to the State Churches, whether Romanist or Reformed. The Anabaptists would have nothing to do with a State Church; and this was the main point in their separation from the Lutherans, Zwinglians, and Calvinists. It was perhaps the _one_ conception on which all parties among them were in absolute accord. The real Church, which might be small or great, was for them an a.s.sociation of believing people; and the great ecclesiastical inst.i.tutions into which unconscious infants were admitted by a ceremony called baptism long before they could have or exercise faith, represented to them an idea subversive of true Christianity. They had no wish to persecute men who differed widely from them, but they would not a.s.sociate with them. This enforced "separation," like everything else connected with Anabaptism, differed considerably in the way in which it was carried into practice. In some of the smaller sections it appeared in very extravagant forms. Wives and husbands, Anabaptists whose partners belonged to the State Churches, were in some small sections advised to refuse cohabitation. It is more than probable that some recorded sayings on which opponents have founded charges of encouraging s.e.xual irregularities,--that it was better for women to have connection irregularly with members of the brotherhood than to cohabit with unbelieving husbands,--were simply extravagant ways of expressing this duty of separation.

It is also true that as time went on and sects of extreme opinions multiplied, the excommunication of members for their views came to be a common practice. It was as frequent among some of the smaller divisions as it is among modern Plymouth Brethren; but the occasion was, as a rule, difference of opinion about the way to express and exercise the duty of not returning evil for evil--was it permitted to pay taxes or not? was it lawful to see without protest their protectors using force to prevent their enemies from attacking them, etc.?

The earlier ideas of non-resistance, whatever practical shape they might take, gave way before the continuous and terrible persecution which the Anabaptists had to endure. They were first definitely condemned by Melchior Hoffman and his followers. They believed in the speedy establishment on earth of the millennial kingdom of Christ, and they declared that they were ready to fight for it when it appeared. With them the conception was simply a pious opinion, and they had no occasion to reduce it to action. The Anabaptists, however, who followed the teaching of Jan Matthys and of his disciple Jan Bockelson, repudiated pa.s.sive resistance both in theory and in practice.

Of course, there are many things about some, perhaps all, great religious awakenings which critics can lay hold of to their disparagement; and it was so with the Anabaptist movement. Everything, from the scientific frame of mind to the religious sensibility, has the defects of its qualities. When a man is seized and possessed by a new spiritual emotion which seems to lift him above all previous experience of life or of thought, all things are new to him, and all things seem possible. His old life with its limitations has departed. He is embarked on a sea which has no imprisoning sh.o.r.es. He is carried along on a great current of emotion, and others are borne with him. Human deep calleth unto deep when they exchange confidences. He and his fellows have become new creatures; and that is almost all that they know about themselves.

Such experiences are quite consistent with soundness of mind and clearness of vision of G.o.d and Divine things--that is usual; but sometimes they are too powerful for the imperfect mind which holds them.

The converts are "puffed up," as St. Paul said. Then arise morbid states, distorted vision, sometimes actual s.h.i.+pwreck of mental faculties, not seldom acute religious mania. Leaders in a great religious awakening have always to reckon with such developments--St.

Paul, Francis of a.s.sisi, Eckhart, Tauler, to say nothing of modern instances. The Apostle addressed morbid souls with severe sarcasm. Did any man really think, he asked, that to commit incest, to take to wife his father's widow, was an example of the freedom with which Christ had made them free?

The Anabaptist movement had its share of such cases, like other religious movements; they grew more frequent as the unfortunate people were maddened by persecution; and these exceptional incidents are invariably retailed at length by historians hostile to the movement.

The Anabaptists, as a whole, were subjected to persecutions, especially from the Romanists and the Lutherans, much more harsh than befell any of the religious parties of the sixteenth century. Their treatment in Zurich may be taken as an example of how they came in contact with the civil authorities, and how their treatment grew in severity.[617]

The Swiss Anabaptists were in no sense disciples of Zwingli. They had held their distinctive principles and were a recognised community long before Zwingli came from Einsiedeln, and were the lineal descendants of the mediaeval Waldenses. They welcomed the Reformer; some of them were in the company who challenged the authorities by eating meat during Lent in 1522; but a fundamental difference soon emerged. After the Public Disputation of 1523, when it became clear that Zurich meant to accept the Reformation, a deputation of the _Brethren_ appeared before the Council to urge their idea of what a Reformed Church should be. Their statement of principles is an exposition of the fundamental conceptions which lay at the basis of the whole Anabaptist movement, and explains why they could not join either the Lutheran or the Reformed branch of the Reformation Church. They insisted that an Evangelical Church must differ from the Roman Church in this among other things, that it should consist of members who had made a personal profession of faith in their Saviour, and who had vowed to live in obedience to Jesus Christ their _Hauptmann_. It could not be like a State Church, whether Romanist or other, to which people belonged without any individual profession of faith. They insisted that the Church, thus formed, should be free from all civil control, to decide for itself what doctrines and ceremonies of wors.h.i.+p were founded on the Word of G.o.d, and agreeable thereto, and should make this decision according to the opinions of a majority of the members. They further asked that the Church should be free to exercise, by brotherly admonition and, as a last resort, by excommunication, discipline on such of its members as offended against the moral law.

They also declared that the Church which thus rejected State control ought to refuse State support, and proposed that the t.i.thes should be secularised. The New Testament, they said, knew nothing about interest and usury, t.i.thes, livings, and prebends.

These views were quite opposed to the ideas of the Zurich Council, who contemplated a State Church reformed from Romanist abuses, but strictly under the control of the State, and supported by the t.i.thes, as the mediaeval Church had been. They refused to adopt the ideas of the Anabaptists; and this was the beginning of the antagonism. The Council found that the great majority of the pet.i.tioners had doubts about infant baptism, and were inclined to what are now called Baptist views; and they brought matters to a crisis by ordering a Public Disputation on Baptism (Jan. 17th, 1525). Among the Anabaptists who appeared to defend their principles, were young Conrad Grebel the Humanist, Felix Manz, and Brother Jorg from Jacob's House, a conventual establishment near Chur, who is always called "Blaurock" (Blue-coat). They were opposed by Zwingli, who insisted that infant baptism must be maintained, because it took the place of circ.u.mcision. The Council decided that Zwingli's contention was right, and they made it a _law_ that _all children must be baptized_, and added that all persons who refused to have their children baptized after Feb. 1st, 1525, were to be arrested. The Anabaptists were not slow to answer the challenge thus given. They met, and after deliberation and prayer Blaurock asked Conrad Grebel to baptize him in a truly Christian fas.h.i.+on, "there being no ordained person present," and Grebel did so. "When this had been done the others entreated Blaurock to baptize them, which he did; and in deep fear of the Lord they gave themselves to G.o.d." They resolved to preach and baptize, because in this they ought to obey G.o.d rather than men.[618]

When the Council heard that adult baptism had begun, they enacted that all who had been rebaptized after Feb. 8th (1525) were to be fined a silver mark, and that whoever was baptized after the issue of their decree should be banished. They also imprisoned the leaders. When they found that neither fines, nor threats, nor imprisonment, nor banishment had any effect on the Anabaptists, the Town Council thought to terrify them by a death sentence. Two were selected, Manz and Blaurock. The latter was not a citizen, and the sentence of death was commuted to one of public scourging and being thrust out of the town; but Felix Manz, a townsman, was put to death by drowning (1527). Zwingli insisted that this judicial murder was not done because of baptism, but because of rebellion!

What was done in Reformed Switzerland was seen all over Roman Catholic and Lutheran Germany. It is only fair to say that the persecution was more murderous within the Romanist districts; but the only Lutheran Prince who refused to permit a death penalty on Anabaptism was Philip of Hesse. He was afterwards joined by the Elector of Saxony.

In 1527 (Aug. 26th), the Archduke Ferdinand of Austria published an imperial mandate threatening all Anabaptists with the punishment of death. Two months later, two thousand copies of this proclamation were sent to the provinces of the German Empire, calling on the authorities to extirpate these unfortunate people. The rulers in Salzburg and in the Tyrol obeyed the order at once, and a fierce persecution soon raged.

The minds of the population were inflamed by infamous calumnies. It was said in Salzburg that the Anabaptists had planned to ma.s.sacre all the priests and monks within the princ.i.p.ality. The well-known dislike of the brethren to war was tortured into the accusation that on a Turkish invasion they would side with the enemy against all loyal Germans. A certain Leopold d.i.c.kius, who wrote an atrocious book against the Anabaptists, demanded that all the men should be slain and the women and children suffered to perish from starvation; in this way only, he said, could their errors be stamped out.

The Salzburg chronicler, Kilian Leib, a Romanist, gives details of the persecution. He tells us that men, women, and young maidens suffered death by fire, beheading, and drowning, not only uncomplainingly, but with solemn joy. He dwells on the case of "a beautiful young girl" of sixteen, whose gentle innocence excited universal compa.s.sion, and who utterly refused to recant. The executioner pinned her hands to her sides, plunged her head downwards into a horse trough, held her there till she was suffocated, and then took her body away to burn it. The official lists show that the victims came from all cla.s.ses in society.

n.o.blemen, girdle-makers, wallet-makers, shoemakers, a town clerk, and ex-priests.

The persecution in the Tyrol was severe and thorough. A large number of the miners of the district were Anabaptists, and it was resolved to root out the so-called heresy. Descriptions were published of prominent Anabaptists, who wandered from place to place encouraging their brethren to steadfastness. "One named Mayerhofer has a long brown beard and wears a grey soldier's coat; a companion, tall and pale, wears a long black coat with tr.i.m.m.i.n.g; a third is shorter; a fourth, thin and of a ruddy complexion, is known as a cutler." Conrad Braun, an a.s.sessor to the imperial Chamber and an eye-witness to the persecutions, wrote,--"I have seen with my own eyes that nothing has been able to bring back the Anabaptists from their errors or to make them recant. The hardest imprisonment, hunger, fire, water, the sword, all sorts of frightful executions, have not been able to shake them. I have seen young people, men, women, go to the stake singing, filled with joy; and I can say that in the course of my whole life nothing has moved me more."[619] In the Tyrol and Gorz the number of executions by the year 1531 amounted to a thousand, according to the chronicler Kirchmayr. Sebastian Franck reckons the number in Enisheim, within the government of Upper Austria, at six hundred. Seventy-three martyrs suffered in Linz within six weeks.

The persecution in Bavaria was particularly severe; Duke William ordered that those who recanted were to be beheaded, and those who refused were to be burned. The general practice, made a law by Ferdinand of Austria in 1529 (April 23rd), was that only preachers, baptizers, Baptists who refused to recant, and those who had relapsed after recantation, were to be punished with death.[620]

In these b.l.o.o.d.y persecutions, which raged over almost all Europe, most of the earlier leaders of the Anabaptists perished; but the great body of their followers were neither intimidated nor disposed to abjure their teaching. Persecution did not come unexpectedly. No one was admitted into an Anabaptist community without being warned of the probable fate which lay before him. Baptism was a vow that he would be constant unto death; the "breaking of bread" strengthened his faith; the sermon was full of exhortations to endurance unto the end. Their whole service of wors.h.i.+p was a preparation for and an expectation of martyrdom.

The strain of Christian song seemed to rise higher with the fires of persecution. Most of the Anabaptist hymns belong to the time when their sufferings were greatest. Some are simply histories of a martyrdom, as of Jorg Wagner at Munich, or of the "Seven Brethren at Germund." They are all echoes of endurance where the notes of the sob, the trust, the warning, the hosanna of a time of martyrdom, blend in rough heroic strains. They sing of Christ, who in these last days has manifested Himself that the pure word of His Gospel may again run through the earth as it did in the days of the early Church. They tell how the arch-enemy of souls seeks to protect himself against the advancing host of Jesus by exciting b.l.o.o.d.y persecutions. They utter warnings against false prophets, ravening wolves in sheep's clothing, who beset all the paths of life leading towards the true fold, who pour forth threats and curses against the people of G.o.d, and urge on the rulers of this world to torture and to slay. They depict how the evil world storms against the true Church, shrieks out lies against the true followers of Jesus, and threatens them with burnings and all manner of cruel deaths. They mourn that the disciples of Jesus are slaughtered like sheep who have lost their shepherd; that they wander in wildernesses full of thorns that tear; that they have their homes like the night-birds among the cliffs or in the clefts of the rocks; that they are snared in the nets of the fowler; that they are hunted with hounds like the hares. Others, inspired by the internal hope which lives undying in every Christian heart, tell how Christ the Bridegroom seeks the love of the soul His bride, and how He wins her to Himself by His love-gifts of trial and of suffering, till at last the marriage feast is held, and the soul becomes wholly united to her Lord. The thoughts and phrases of the old Hebrew prophets, of the Psalmist, of the hymns of the Apocalypse, which have fed the fears and the hopes of longing, suffering, trusting generations of Christian people, reappear in those Anabaptist hymns. Life is for them a continuous Holy War, a Pilgrim's Progress through an evil world full of snares, of dangers, of temptations, until at last the weary feet tread the Delectable Mountains, the River of Death is pa.s.sed, and the open gates of the heavenly Jerusalem receive the wayfarer who has persevered to the end.

These poor persecuted people naturally sought for some city of refuge, _i.e._ a munic.i.p.ality or district where baptism of children was not enforced under penalties, and where the rebaptism of adults was not punished by imprisonment, torture, and death. For a time they found many such asylums. The Anabaptists were for the most part good workmen, and patient and provident cultivators of the soil, ready to pay all dues but the unscriptural war-tax. They were a source of wealth to many a great landed proprietor who was willing to allow them to live their lives in peace. Moravia, East Friesland, and, among the munic.i.p.alities, Augsburg, Worms, and Stra.s.sburg gave shelter until the slow determined pressure of the higher authorities of the Empire compelled them to act otherwise.

All that the Anabaptists desired was to be allowed to live in peace, and we hear of no great disturbances caused by their presence in any of these "cities of refuge."

This brings us to what has been called "The Kingdom of G.o.d in Munster,"

and to the behaviour of the Anabaptists there--the communism, polygamy, and so forth, which are described in all histories of the times.

Munster was the capital of the large and important ecclesiastical princ.i.p.ality which bears the same name. The bishop was a Prince of the German Empire, and ruled his princ.i.p.ality with all the rights of a secular prince. Clergy filled almost all the important posts of government; they levied taxes on imports and exports; the rich canonries of the cathedral were reserved for the sons of the landed gentry; the townspeople had no share in the richer benefices, and chafed under their clerical rulers. The citizens lived in a state of almost permanent disaffection, and their discontent had frequently taken the form of civic insurrections. They rose in 1525, in 1527 (in which year the name of a wealthy burgher, Bernardin Knipperdolling, first appears as a leader of his fellow-citizens), and in 1529, the dreadful year of famine and plague.[621] Many have been disposed to see in these _emeutes_, antic.i.p.ations of the struggle which followed; but nothing in the sources warrants the conclusion. They were simply examples of the discontent of the unprivileged cla.s.ses which had been common enough in Germany for at least a century.

The city of Munster had been slow to receive the religious Reformation, but in 1529 the people began to listen to the preaching of an obscure young chaplain attached to the Church of St. Maurice, built outside the walls of the town.[622] Bernhard Rothmann was a scholar, imbued with Humanist culture, gifted with the power of clear reasoning, and with natural eloquence. It is probable that he had early been attracted by the teaching of Luther;[623] but while he dwelt upon justification by faith, his sermons were full of that sympathy for the down-trodden toiling ma.s.ses of the community which was a permanent note in all Anabaptist teaching. His sermons were greatly appreciated by the townsfolk, especially by the artisans, who streamed out of the gate to hear the young chaplain of St. Maurice. Was he not one of themselves, the son of a poor smith! The cathedral Canons, who, in the absence of the Bishop, had the oversight of all ecclesiastical affairs, grew alarmed at his popularity. Their opportunity for interference came when the mob, excited, they said, by Rothmann's denunciations of relic and image wors.h.i.+p, profaned the altars, tore the pictures, and destroyed the decorations in St. Maurice on the eve of Good Friday, 1531. Rothmann's influence with the townsmen might have enabled him to defy the Canons, especially as the Prince Bishop, Friedrich von Wied, showed no inclination to molest the chaplain, and was himself suspected of Evangelical sympathies. But he quietly left the town and spent a year in travelling. He visited Wittenberg, where he made the acquaintance of Luther, Melanchthon, and Bugenhagen; went to Marburg, Speyer, and Stra.s.sburg. At Stra.s.sburg he had long intercourse with Capito and with Schwenkfeld the Mystic, who is frequently cla.s.sed with the Anabaptists.

An irresistible impulse seems to have drawn him back to Munster, where he was welcomed by the people, and the church of St. Maurice became henceforth the centre of a movement for religious Reformation; the preacher was supported by the "gilds" of artisans and by most of the citizens, among whom the most noted was Bernhard Knipperdolling.