ANABAPTISTS. — The term “anabaptist” is of complex classification, for since the 16th century it has embraced those radicals of Protestantism who were at times also called catabaptists, baptists, or rebaptizers (Wiedertäufer).
Amulet — A. suspended from a necklace from Samnium. Pre-Roman period — Naples, National Museum.
In many cases the principal meaning of the term applies to that faction within Protestantism which rejects infant baptism, administering it instead, not as a “sacrament,” but only as a “commandment,” to adults. In the strict historical sense, however, the term designates that faction of fanatical enthusiasts who were also called the Prophets of Zwickau and who, in 1520, had as their leader Thomas Münzer of Waldshut (1489–1525).
Münzer, educated at Halle and Leipzig, first entered into relations with Luther, whom he regarded as “an example and light of the friends of God.” Indeed, it was Luther who, in 1520, sent him to Zwickau, where, after virulent polemics with the local Catholic clergy, he formed an alliance with the weavers of the area, who constituted the majority of the population. Among them was the master weaver Nicholas Storch, who soon became a spiritualist leader after having been in contact with the Bohemian Brethren in Bohemia.
Their agreement resulted in further ferment of religious novelty, for, breaking also with Luther, they proclaimed the indispensable necessity of the inner light of the Spirit, through which God communicates truth to true believers even independently of the Bible. Encouraged by Münzer, Storch became the head of a new nucleus of dissenters within Protestantism itself and presented himself as the heavenly herald with the mission of establishing the “Kingdom of God” on earth. Accompanied by Marcus Stubner, a former student at Wittenberg, and by another weaver, Storch also traveled to this university center in order to win over the professors: Carlstadt, the rector, was his most notable conquest.
Other prominent Anabaptist figures included Hans Hut, Denck, Hetzer, Grebel, Phillips, Bundelerin, Czechowitz, Melchior Rinck, Melchior Hofmann, John Matthys, and others. All of these, influenced by the millenarian and socialistic views of Münzer and Storch and drawing support from the concurrent peasant insurrection in Germany—which they did not initiate but did encourage—found themselves at a certain point involved in the Peasants’ War, which broke out in arms in 1525 to demand the so-called “Twelve Articles,” apparently drafted by Hubmaier, which set forth their claims.
The uprising provoked reactions on both sides. The peasants razed castles, monasteries, and religious houses to the ground. Münzer then placed himself at the head of the peasants, who blindly followed his fanatical harangues, but in the number of some 100,000 they fell victim to the Swabian League, which organized itself to react to such fury. A few days after the disastrous day at Frankenhausen, Münzer himself was captured at Mühlhausen and beheaded on 27 May 1525.
The sect, however, did not end with the death of its original leader but, despite persecutions, spread further. Melchior Hofmann, a furrier from Swabia, in 1528 suddenly became a visionary preacher at Emden, where he installed as bishop John Matthiesen, a baker from Haarlem. From Emden, Matthiesen in turn dispatched apostles to spread Anabaptist doctrines. Two of them, with their incendiary preaching, gained control of the city of Münster. In this episode Matthiesen lost his life in a desperate sortie at the head of only thirty men against the Count of Waldeck, prince-bishop of Münster, who had laid siege to the city. Churches were then destroyed, and, following the model of the Old Testament, twelve judges were chosen from the tribes, and Bockhold was crowned king of this so-called “New Sion” under the name of John of Leiden. All this took place in 1534, but the following year, when Münster became a scene of every kind of licentiousness, several Protestant princes reconquered the city and, having removed its fanatical usurpers, put an end also to this “new kingdom” of biblical parody.
The later fortunes of Anabaptism bring us to Holland, where in Amsterdam the disciples of Bockhold, having abandoned the community of goods and of women, preached yet another “new kingdom” of pure Christians. In Moravia too the Anabaptists took root, distinguishing themselves in fact for their industrial virtue. Their later imprint, through Balthasar Hubmaier, is discernible, however, in the present-day denomination of the Baptists, who advocate absolute freedom of conscience and the strict separation of Church and State, as well as in the faction of the Mennonites promoted by the former priest Menno Simons, founder of independent congregations in the Netherlands and in Germany.