CARLSTADT (CARLSTAD, KARLSTAD, ROLSTADT), ANDREAS. — A celebrated German reformer, born probably in 1481, and died in Basel on 24 December 1541. His real name was Andreas Rudolph Bodenstein; but he was called Carlstadt from the town of Karlstadt, where he was born. He studied at Erfurt and Cologne. After being ordained a priest, he was elected an archdiaconal canon of the collegiate church at Wittenberg; in 1515 he went to Rome, where he obtained a doctorate in both civil and canon law. On his return to Wittenberg, he found the city in turmoil because of the doctrines of Luther, which at first he sought to oppose but later embraced; indeed, he worked with Luther for some time in complete harmony.
The theses he published against the *Obelisci* of John Eck, professor at the University of Ingolstadt and a staunch defender of the Catholic Church in Germany, led him and Luther to the famous Leipzig Disputation (1519), where the topics discussed included free will, the primacy of the Pope, confession, purgatory, and indulgences. In the matter of free will, Eck’s superiority and Carlstadt’s faulty memory in recalling Scripture texts gave Eck an easy victory. Luther, who then debated the other points, though he drew attention with his fiery eloquence, had to admit that he was not satisfied with the outcome of the disputation, and Carlstadt felt humiliated both before Eck and in comparison to Luther. As a proud man, he wanted to be first in every initiative he took; this led to a secret resentment against Luther that he carried all his life.
He seized the opportunity when, in 1521, Luther was placed under imperial ban and, protected by Elector Frederick, remained hidden in Wartburg Castle, while Wittenberg was left at Carlstadt’s disposal. Together with the apostate George Zwilling (also called Didymus), he suppressed the Mass, celebrated the Lord’s Supper in lay attire, distributed Communion under both kinds, launched a full-scale iconoclastic campaign against all sacred images, and on 26 December of the same year 1521 contracted a public marriage with Anna of Mochau. Meanwhile, some of the so-called “Zwickau prophets” or “Anabaptists,” including Nicholas Storch, had arrived in Wittenberg and began preaching of the “new kingdom of Christ.” At first Carlstadt seemed hesitant, but gradually he came to adopt some of their doctrines, such as the uselessness of study and secular learning for ministers of the Lord.
When Luther learned of all this, he secretly left his refuge in Wartburg on 19 March 1522, returned to Wittenberg, and with his prestige and eloquence restored order. Carlstadt, much against his will, had to yield. He withdrew for a time to the countryside, lived as a simple peasant, and entered into relations with Thomas Müntzer. In 1523, called by the inhabitants of Orlamünde, he went there as minister and with renewed zeal began to propagate his doctrines, destroy sacred images, and suppress schools. This provoked some popular disturbances, and since his connections with the Anabaptists were also known—ever more restless and troublesome to the civil authorities—the Elector of Saxony banished him from Saxony in 1524.
For a time he wandered through Germany. At the outbreak of the Peasants’ War and amid the abuses and calamities that accompanied it, though he had taken no part in it, he nevertheless fell under suspicion because of his association with Müntzer. To save him from certain death, his friends lowered him in a basket down from an open window in the walls of Rothenburg.
In these grave and perilous circumstances, he saw no other remedy for his safety than to humble himself before Luther, to whom he wrote asking for protection and refuge. Luther granted this in 1524, hiding him for a time and even baptizing his son. But since he could not adapt to such a hidden life, he fled in 1527 to Strasbourg, thence to Zurich, where he was well received by Zwingli. When Zwingli was killed in the Battle of Kappel in 1531, Carlstadt became minister at Allstedt, and in 1534 accepted a professorship at Basel, where he died of the plague on 24 December 1541.
Carlstadt was a volatile figure: from a Catholic priest he became Lutheran, and while still Lutheran he embraced some Anabaptist doctrines before finally adhering to Zwingli. From Luther he retained a firm belief in the principle of free examination, indeed using it against Luther himself, whom he refused to acknowledge as his superior. In opposition to Luther’s original stance, he invoked arguments against the veneration of sacred images and with true fanatical iconoclasm destroyed as many as he could. Along with the Anabaptists, he not only condemned infant baptism but also declared secular studies useless, claiming that the Bible alone sufficed; with the Zwinglians he defended the purely symbolic presence of Christ in the Eucharist and dared to speak of “the flesh of the idol that the priests eat.” It is therefore no wonder that even Protestants do not speak of him with much enthusiasm.