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The Birth and Evolution of Swiss Anabaptism (1520-1530)

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The Birth and Evolution of Swiss Anabaptism (1520-1530) C. ARNOLD SNYDER* Historical accounts of Anabaptism have long been dominated by debates concerning its origins, including its theological foundations. Already in the sixteenth century it was thought that identifying Anabaptist origins also laid bare the theological nature of the movement. It is perhaps not surprising, then, that polemic as well as apologetic approaches have played a constant role in the discussion of Anabaptist beginnings. The field has continued to be plowed assiduously down to the present, with results seemingly as varied as the narrators and their ideological commitments. The literature is vast—by the reckoning of one historian, second in volume in Reformation studies only to the body of work generated by the Luther-renaissance.1 We will not attempt a detailed description of this literature, nor rehearse the well-known historiographical shifts of the last century and a half.2 The question of the nature of Swiss Anabaptism, however, and the proper description of its origin and evolution, has been made the focus of attention once again with the publication in 2003 of Andrea Strübind's detailed study.3 Strübind has argued that Swiss Anabaptist origins must be read and described primarily as a theological narrative, and, further, that when read through the lens of historical theology, Swiss Anabaptism displayed a separatist, "free church" ecclesiology from the start, in unbroken continuity from the early Zurich radicals to the Schleitheim Articles. With this thesis Strübind wishes to "revise the revisionists" of the 1970s and 1980s, who argued that early Swiss Anabaptism, in particular, was *C. Arnold Snyder is professor of history, Conrad Grebel University College, Waterloo, Ontario. A shortened version of this essay will be appearing in A Companion to Anabaptism and Spiritualism, 1521-1700, ed. John D. Roth and James M. Stayer (Leiden: Brill Academic Publishing, forthcoming). 1. Hans-Jürgen Goertz, Religiöse Bewegungen in der Frühen Neuzeit (Munich: Oldenbourg Verlag, 1993), 79. 2. For a critical and thorough review (as of 1975), see James Stayer, Werner Packull and Klaus Deppermann, "From Monogenesis to Polygenesis: The Historical Discussion of Anabaptist Origins," MQR 49 (Apr. 1975), 83-122. A later "revisionist" perspective is found in Goertz, Religiöse Bewegungen, 75-89. For a recent overview, see John D. Roth, "Recent Currents in the Historiography of the Radical Reformation," Church History 71:3 (Sept. 2002), 523-535. 3. Andrea Strübind, Eifriger als Zwingli: Die frühe Täuferbewegung in der Schweiz (Berlin: Duncker & Humblot, 2003). See the review by James M. Stayer, and Strübind's response, in MQR (Apr. 2004), 297-313. 501 MQR 80 (Oct. 2006) 502 The Mennonite Quarterly Review ambivalent on questions of violence and political involvement, and became solidly sectarian and separatist only following the failure of the Peasants' War.4 It was Striibind's study, especially her insistence that theological and ecclesiological evidence be taken seriously, that led to this present essay, in which we will reexamine the sources and the historical studies that have shaped the narratives of Swiss Anabaptist beginnings. By sorting through the accumulated evidence we hope to provide, in conclusion, a balanced account of this decade of Anabaptist beginnings in Switzerland. In this essay the term "Anabaptist" is used to denote those sixteenth- century adherents who insisted on carrying out a water baptism of adults as the only proper, biblical baptism. Defining "Anabaptism" in this way has the merit of freeing the historical narrative from both polemical and hagiographical definitions, grounding the examination and description of the movement in an ecclesial practice recognized as central by adherents and their opponents alike. Excluded are radical opponents of infant baptism who never took the further step of instituting adult baptism, such as Thomas Müntzer and Andreas Karlstadt. This definition also clarifies the distinction between Spiritualists and Anabaptists, along the same lines that the baptizers themselves used: those who decided that only a spiritual baptism was needed were not considered "brethren" by those who continued to practice baptism in water. Of course, this definition must include among the baptizers people who were no great credit to Anabaptist descendants, such as the Münsterites and the Batenburgers, but this is simply to recognize the historical fact that not all Anabaptists were heroines, martyrs and saints. There is now no serious questioning of the fact that the earliest documented baptism of adults in the sixteenth century took place in Zurich, on or about the evening of January 21, 1525.5 Present and 4. James M. Stayer, Anabaptists and the Sword (Lawrence, KS: Coronado, 1972); James Stayer, "Die Anfänge des schweizerischen Täufertums im reformierten Kongregational­ ismus," in Hans-Jürgen Goertz,ed. Umstrittenes Täufertum (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1977), 19-49; Martin Haas, "Der Weg der Täufer in die Absonderung," in Goertz, Umstrittenes Täufertum, 50-78. The classic "revisionist" article is Stayer, Packuli and Deppermann, "From Monogenesis. ," noted above. See also Hans-Jürgen Goertz, "History and Theology: A Major Problem of Anabaptist Research Today," MQR 53 (July 1979), 177-188; idem., Pfaffenhaß und Groß Geschrei (Munich, 1987); Hans-Jürgen Goertz, The Anabaptists (London: Routledge, 1996) for arguments "de-theologizing" Anabaptist history and arguing for socio-historical causes. James Stayer and Werner Packull have both softened the initial "genetic" division between Swiss and South German Anabaptist groups in recent publications. See James M. Stayer, The German Peasants' War and Anabaptist Community of Goods (Montreal and Kingston: McGill-Queen's University Press, 1991); Werner O. Packull, Hutterite Beginnings (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins, 1995). 5. The date is established by Fritz Blanke, Brothers in Christ, trans. J. Nordenhaug The Birth and Evolution of Swiss Anabaptista 503 participating were Conrad Grebel and Felix Mantz, former friends and students of Huldrych Zwingli, and George Blaurock, a lapsed priest from Chur. There were other persons present, but they remain unnamed in the sources. The Bulimìe Chronicle describes the event: After the prayer, Georg Blaurock stood up and asked Conrad Grebel in the name of God to baptize him with true Christian baptism on his faith and recognition of the truth. With this request he knelt down, and Conrad baptized him. Then the others turned to Georg in their turn, asking him to baptize them, which he did.6 The documented first baptisms in Zurich rendered obsolete the hoary tale of all "Anabaptism" originating in Saxony with the Zwickau Prophets and Thomas Müntzer, but it raised significant new issues: - Given that the first baptizers had been followers of Zwingli, what caused the rupture between them? - When did the "radical party" emerge, and what was the nature and origin of the issues that motivated the radicals? - Did Swiss Anabaptism begin with aspirations of popular reform, arriving at an eventual separatism only after the failure of the Peasants' War, or was Swiss Anabaptist separatism inherent in its earliest beginnings? - How did early Swiss Anabaptism evolve, as political repression set in? In seeking to provide answers to these questions, we will examine first the prehistory of Swiss Anabaptism, then look in detail at the first year in the life of the Swiss baptizing movement (1525), concluding with an examination of the evolution and spread of Swiss Anabaptism from 1525 to 1530 in neighboring Swiss and South German territories. I. THE PREHISTORY OF SWISS ANABAPTISM: BEGINNINGS IN ZURICH EARLY RADICAL ZWINGLIANISM TO THE FIRST ZURICH DISPUTATION, JANUARY 1523 Huldrych Zwingli assumed the office of people's priest in Zurich in January, 1519; by 1522, he had accepted the principle that Scripture alone (Scottdale, PA: Mennonite Publishing House, 1966), 20. 6. The Chronicle of the Hutterian Brethren, Known as Das grosse Geschichtbuch der Hutterischen Brüder (Rifton, Ν. Y. : Plough Pub. House, 1987), 45. 504 The Mennonite Quarterly Review was the ultimate authority for Christian doctrine and life.7 The Reformation principle of sola scriptura was the bedrock on which the Zurich reformation was built; it was on this same foundation that the Anabaptist movement rested when it emerged in Zurich in 1525. Zwingli's adherence to the scriptural principle led him to strong critiques of non-reformed clergy as well as of traditional beliefs. Zwingli's public sermons were the medium through which he reached the masses with his reforming ideas; he preached also on Fridays to the crowds gathered for market day in Zurich. In his sermons Zwingli targeted traditional practices such as enforced fasts, clerical celibacy and the misuse of tithe and interest income. There was no separating religious from social or political issues in Zurich: an appeal to scriptural authority could not avoid calling into question the social and political structures of authority that had long been sanctioned by the church and in which church institutions themselves were implicated. The study of Scripture and ancient languages was important to Zwingli from the time of his arrival in Zurich; he initially pursued Greek studies with a learned circle of friends.8 By the fall of 1520 Conrad Grebel was part of the group, which had expanded its interests to the study of Hebrew; Felix Mantz and Simon Stumpf joined
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