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Recent Interpretations of Anabaptism*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 July 2009

Robert Friedmann
Robert Friedmann
Affiliation:
Western Michigan College of Education
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Extract

When in the process of historical research the step is taken from a mere collecting of facts to a meaningful interpretation of these facts, we may speak of the maturity of this historical research. If that is true in general history, it is even more significant in the field of church history where ideas and spiritual principles dominate the scene. But the difficulties in this area are even more conspicuous than elsewhere. A perfectly objective church historiography is almost impossible due to the inevitable bias of the writer, his sympathies and his restricted ability to appreciate phenomena in widely different fields. In fact, no historiography can do without a set of categories and concepts of a specific nature, and the choice of these is definitely the work of the particular research person and his preferences.

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Type
Research Article
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Church History , Volume 24 , Issue 2 , June 1955, pp. 132 - 151
Copyright
Copyright © American Society of Church History 1955

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References

1. Friedmann, Robert, “Conception of an Anabaptist,” Church History, 1940, 341–364.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

2. In Church History, 1944.

3. Pub. by The Mennonite Historical Society, Goshen, Indiana, 1949.

4. Bender, Harold S., Conrad Grebel, 1498–l526, The Founder of the Swiss Brethren, Sometimes Called Anabaptists, The Mennonite Historical Society, Goshen, Indiana, 1950.Google Scholar

5. The Mennonite Quarterly Review, January 1950 (contains: C. Krahn, “Prolegomena to an Anabaptist Theology,” R. Friedmann, “Anabaptism and Protestantism,” H. S. Bender, “The Anabaptist Theology of Discipleship,” Franklin H. Littell, “The Anabaptist Doctrine of the Restitution of the True Church,” L. Verduin, “Menno Simons Theology Reviewed,” John C. Wenger, “The Doctrinal Position of the Swiss Brethren as revealed in their polemical tracts,” Don E. Smucker, “Anahaptist Theology in the Light of Modern Theological Trends”).

6. Pub. by Mennonite Publishing House, Scottdale, Pa., 1950.

7. Littell, Franklin H., The Anabaptiut View of the Church, an Introduction to Sectarian Protestantism, American Society of Church History, 1952.Google Scholar

8. In Menn. Quart. Review, XXVI, 1952, 22–47, 142–160.Google Scholar

9. Pub. by J. G. Oncken Verlag, Kassel, Germany, 1952.

10. Bender, H. S., “Anabaptist Manuscripts in the Archive at Brno, Czechoslovakia,” Menu. Quart. Rev., 1949, 105 ff.Google Scholar

11. Blanke, Fritz, “Zollikon 1525, Die Entstehung der ältesten Täufergemeinde,” Theologische Zeitschrift, Basel, VIII, 1952, 241–261;Google Scholar English trans. in Menu. Quart. Rev., 01. 1953, 17–33.Google Scholar

12. In Archiv für Reformationsgeschichte, 1953, 32–51.Google Scholar

13. Frank J. Wray in an unpublished 1953 Yale Dissertation, “History as seen through the eyes of Sixteenth Century Anabaptists” has also a good chapter on the Free Will issue.—The theology of atonement in Anabaptist understanding is very well represented in an early anonymous tract, “Concerning the Satisfaction of Christ,” translated and edited by Wenger, John C., Menn. Quart. Rev., XX, 1946, 243–254.Google Scholar

14. In Menn. Quart. Rev. XXVIII, 1954, 5–26, 128–142.Google Scholar

15. In Menn. Quart. Rev., 1954, 27–38.Google Scholar

16. Bainton, Roland H., “The Left Wing of the Reformation,” Journal of Religion, 1941, 127.Google Scholar

17. The idea of “restitution” within the Left-Wing of the Reformation was for the first time discussed by Bainton, Roland H. in his study, “Changing Ideas and Ideals in the Sixteenth Century,” Journal of Modern History, VIII, 1936, 417–443.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

18. Wray, Frank J., “The Anabaptist Doctrine of the Restitution of the Church,” Menn. Quart. Rev., 07 1954, 186–196.Google Scholar

19. In a letter to this writer, Roland H. Bainton makes a fine differentiation concerning this principle of Restitution. “The ideal of restitution or restoration was common in the age of Reformation, and all parties desired to restore something. The difference was only as to what, and how far back to go. Luther wished to restore the church of the early Middle Ages; for him the great corruption was the rise of the temporal power of the papacy in the eighth century. The Anabaptists went back further than any of the other groups, and turned exclusively to the New Testament. Even within the New Testament they tended to neglect Paul and to push back to Jesus. That is why the ideal of Restoration tends to coincide with the ideal of the imitation of Christ.”

20. According to Luther's translation.

21. Friedmann, R., “Peter Riedemann on Original Sin and the Way of Redemption,” Menn. Quart. Rev., 1952, 214.Google Scholar

22. Menn. Quart. Rev., 1952, 43Google Scholar (in the study quoted in note 8). Compare also the excellent study of Wiswedel, Wilhelm, “The Inner and the Outer Word, A Study in the Anabaptist Doctrine of Scripture,” Menn. Quart. Rev., XXVI, 1952, 171–191.Google Scholar

23. Stauffer, Ethelbert, “Täufertheologie und Märtyrertum,” Zeitschrift für Kirchengeschichte, LII, 1933, 545–598Google Scholar; English trans. “The Anabaptist Theology of Martyrdom,” Menn. Quart. Rev., XIX, 1945, 179–214.Google Scholar

24. A copy of the pamphlet in Goshen College Library. Comp. the article “Faber (Fabri)” by Neff, in Menn. Lex., I, 1913, 624.Google Scholar

25. Bender, Harold S., “The Theology of Discipleship,” Menn. Quart. Rev., XXIV, 1950, 25–32.Google Scholar

26. Luther, . Deutsche Messe, Werke, W. A., XIX, 75Google Scholar; compare also Ritschl, Albrecht, Geschichte des Pietismus, I., Bonn, 1880, 73,Google Scholar and Bainton, Roland H., “The Development and Consistency of Luther's Attitude toward Religious Liberty,” Harvard Theological Review, XXII, 1929, 130–1.Google Scholar

27. See note 16.

28. See note 11.

29. Wach, Joachim, “Caspar Schwenckfeld, a pupil and a teacher in the school of Christ,” in his Types of Religions Experience, Christian and Non-Christian, Chicago, 1951, 135–170,Google Scholar in particular note 19.

30. Ecke, Karl, Schwenckfeld, Luther und der Gedanke einer Apostolischen Reformation, Berlin, 1911.Google Scholar and by the same author, Caspar Schwenckfeld, Stuttgart, 1952 (a brief condensation of the earlier book). Both books deal extensively with Schwenckfeld's reaction to the Anabaptist way. He calls the Anabaptists false apostles for “they do not know the true way of salvation, and have no living experience of salvation. … They know little of sin and forgiving grace [i.e. of the solafide theology]. They do not know anything essential about man's basic corruption and do not teach the power of sin. Hence they are ignorant of the true justifying faith. They have an unbiblical genius of judging and self-righteousness (Richtgeist), and show spiritual arrogance. The sacraments they dispose with lightly. Marpeck in particular has a very superficial judgment concerning original sin and salvation. In short: the Anabaptists represent a new type of Judaism [i.e. legalism], etc., etc.” These remarks show impressively that Schwenckfeld was unable to grasp the genius of Anabaptism, due most likely to his own “sola-fide” approach, and they show at the same time the deep gulf between the latter and the Anabaptist vision. It was much easier for a spiritual reformer like Sebastian Franck to appreciate the positive qualities of Anabaptism without, however, ever identifying himself with it.

31. Cpr. Wenger, John C., “Pilgram Marpeck, Tyrolese Engineer and Anabaptist Elder,” Church History, IX, 1940, 24–36.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

32. Pilgram Marbecks Antwort auf Kaspar Schwenckfelds Beurteilung des Buches der Bundesbezeugung von 1542, von Johann Loserth, Herausgegeben (under the heading: Quellen und Forschungen zur Geschichte der Oberdeutschen Taufgesinnten des 16. Jahrhunderts), Vienna and Leipzig, 1929Google Scholar; a volume of nearly 600 pages in folio. The 47th chapter on p. 153–162.

33. Quoted by Friedmann, R., Archiv für Reformationsgeschichte, 1931, 109.Google Scholar

34. Friedmann, R., “Anabaptism and Protestantism,” Menn. Quart. Rev. 1950, 14.Google Scholar

35. Fosdick, Harry Emerson, Great Voices of the Reformation, New York, 1952, 542.Google Scholar

36. A good illustration of this situation may be also drawn from the following Luther quotation, “When God speaks and gives signs [sacraments], man must firmly and wholeheartedly believe that what God says and signifies is true…. Then God, in turn, will count this faith unto our righteousness, good and sufficient to salvation.” Luther, Martin, Works, ed. Jacobs, , Philadelphia, III, 20f.Google Scholar

37. It is true that also the Pietists speak of promoting the Kingdom of God but it seems to me that their idea of the Kingdom is rather of a sentimental (non-“existential”) nature. We meet here a similar difference in shade (perhaps in kind) as with the contradistinction of conventicle and koinonia, the Anabaptist brotherhood. The difference, however, is too subtle to be discussed in a brief footnote.

38. What in Biblical terminology is called “rebirth” (John 3:3), Kierkegaard calls “the leap,” that is the sudden change in spiritual levels.

39. Compare Otto, Rudolf, The Kingdom of God and the Son of Man, London, 1943Google Scholar (German 1932) p. 312, a book which helped me greatly to understand not only the apostolic church but also the Anabaptist genius with its great inner kinship to that apostolic church.

40. The only exception from this general rule is perhaps Melchior Hofmann (1495–1543), the beginner of evangelical Anabaptism in the Netherlands. Tragically he saw all his expectations come to naught. He died after many years of imprisonment in Strassburg. See Neff's, article in Mennonitisches Lexikon, II, 326–335.Google Scholar

41. “Two kinds of obedience, An Anabaptist tract on Christian Freedom,” translated and edited by Wenger, John C., Menn. Quart. Rev., XXI, 1947, 18–22Google Scholar; also in H. E. Foslick, op cit., 296–299.

42. Friedmann, R., “Reason and Obedience: an old Anabaptist letter of Peter Walpot, 1571, and its meaning,” Menn. Quart. Rev., XIX, 1945, 27–40.Google Scholar

43. See note 8.

44. Ehrenpreis, Andreas, Ein Sendbrief …, 1652, (reprinted Scottdale, Pa., 1920)Google Scholar. Menno Simons has a similar quotation, cf. Krahn, Cornelius, Menno Simons, Karlsruhe, 1936, 142.Google Scholar It is noteworthy that also Martin Luther once quoted this parable, in his 1519 sermon “Von dem hochwürdigen Sakrament des heiligen wahren Leichnams Christi,” yet without further applications. Most remarkably, this parable is still today in use among the Old Order Amish in their communion sermons.

45. Rudolf Otto, loc. cit. (note 43), 312.

46. Roland H. Bainton, see above note 16.

47. Mennonite Quart. Rev., 1952, 37Google Scholar (in the article quoted in note 8).