The Beliefs of the Early Anabaptists
Thomas Allen
The following is a brief presentation of the beliefs of the early Anabaptists as presented in
The Dutch Anabaptists: The Stone Lectures Delivered at the Princeton Theological Seminary, 1918-1919 by Henry Elias Dosker (published by The Judson Press, Philadelphia, 1921). Page numbers enclosed in parentheses are to Dosker’s book referenced above.
According to Doctor Harnack, the Anabaptists “‘were three hundred years ahead of their time’” (p. 1). “Doctor Vedder calls them ‘the radical
Reformation’” (p. 2).
Initially, two primary factions of Anabaptist existed: the radical and the conservatives. The radical faction lasted only about two decades before it burned itself out. However, their violent behavior left such a disdainful taste in Europe that Protestants and Catholics would persecute the Anabaptist for most of the sixteenth century and even beyond. Some of the beliefs of a few leaders of the radical Anabaptists are presented in the appendix.
Furthermore, many beliefs of the conservative Anabaptists, such as their rejection of infant baptism and taking oaths, terrified both Catholics and Protestants alike. Thus, both persecuted even the conservative Anabaptist. Luther, Melanchthon, Calvin, Zwingli, and other Protestant leaders condemned them as disciples of Satan (pp. 44-45). Seldom did the persecutors distinguish or even attempt to distinguish the various factions of the Anabaptist. They were all the same: heretical enemies of Church and State.
Unlike the radical Anabaptists, the conservative Anabaptists had no political aspirations or millennial dreams and shunned carnal lusts (p. 94). For the most part, the conservative “withdrew from the world with almost ascetic austerity” (p. 94). However, many of them manage to acquire a good deal of wealth. Unlike the radical Anabaptists, who paid little or no attention to the Scriptures, the conservatives “depended absolutely on the Scriptures for their faith” (p. 94).
In their practices, the Anabaptist had “[n]o regular priesthood, great simplicity of worship, no
bearing of arms, no oath, but simple affirmation, separation between Church and State, and rebaptism of those who joined them from the old Church” (p. 16). They did not recognize infant baptism; they only accepted “adult baptism, based on the confessed faith of the candidate” (p. 17). Anabaptists “were well versed in the Scriptures, exceedingly strict in their lives, and rigorous in their church discipline” (p. 33).
They believed themselves to be the chosen people; all others were gentiles. Only they were true Christians (p. 189).
Anabaptists had no fixed ecclesiastical organization. Each congregation was autonomous (p. 201).
Anabaptists believed in the absolute authority of the Holy Scriptures. They relied “on the Scriptures and on them alone” (p. 151). Each individual decided for himself what the Scriptures meant. However, they gave little weight to the doctrine of inspiration. Furthermore, “they spiritualize the Scriptures . . . [and] believe them explicitly” (pp. 152-153). Nevertheless, they tended to read the Scriptures extremely literally. Still, the Scriptures “have an inner meaning, which may or may not be the same to different individuals” (p. 153). Following the Church of Rome, nearly all Anabaptists seem to accept the Apocrypha of the
Old Testament as canonical (p. 153).
Baptism was a distinguishing characteristic of the Anabaptist. The distinction was not in the form or method of baptism. The Anabaptists followed the common practices of the day of using affusion, i.e., pouring water over the head, or sprinkling (pp. 32, 180). (Baptism by immersion was not used until the mid-seventeenth century when their Baptist descendants adopted immersion, which was the form used by the early Christians, as the only appropriate method of baptism [pp. 176-177, 182]) Initially, rebaptism was optional (p. 32).
Their distinction was their refusal to baptize infants and to accept the baptism of infants. To the Protestants and Catholics of the sixteenth century, such treatment of infants made them child-murders because “the age-long doctrine of the Church of Rome anent the absolute necessity of baptism to secure the salvation of the child” (p. 44). (Most Anabaptists did not even accept the baptism of children or teenagers.) Thus, the distinguishing characteristic “is the status of the child in the church of God. . . . It is the question of the immutability of the God of the covenant [Old Testament] and of the permanency of the covenant of grace [New Testament] and therefore of the true Scriptural significance of the sacrament of baptism” (pp. 183-184).
Anabaptists believed in “adult baptism on confession of a personal faith in Christ” (p. 176). According to Anabaptist teaching, faith must precede baptism. As infants and young children lack the capacity to understand the gospel, the baptism of infants and young children was rejected. Moreover, “[i]nfant baptism is anti-Christian and of Satanic origin” (p. 185).
The Anabaptists were not Trinitarians in the orthodox sense of the Trinity. They objected to the Trinitarian teachings of “consubstantiality” and “person” because of their lack of Scriptural support. However, they freely used the term “Trinity” by which they seem to mean God’s impenetrability or an expression of God’s being (pp 153-154).
They may not have been Trinitarians in the sense of the Athanasian Creed. However, many Anabaptists believed that the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit were so intertwined that they were inseparable — the “one is not without the other,” that is, the “one must be conjoined with the other, or the entire Deity is denied” (p. 156). Others held that only one God existed, and in the New Testament, this God is called the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit (p. 156).
For most, “the Holy Spirit has no independent personal existence. He is merely the ‘inspiration,’ ‘the inward moving of the heart to things that are good’” (p. 155). Moreover, “God’s Spirit cannot thus separate itself from God” (p. 155). Besides, “God’s Spirit can [not] be conceived apart from himself . . . [or else the Spirit] would form a separate, self-existent, personal being” (p. 155). Also, the Father is a self-existing being, but the “Holy Spirit is no independent or personal being” (p. 155).
In summary, the Anabaptists lacked a clear idea of the Trinity. Some approached the Catholic
Trinity Doctrine whereas others resembled Modalism (God, who is one person, exists in three modes or manifestation: the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit). Yet, others approached Unitarianism or Socinianism (p. 157).
Some Anabaptists believed that Jesus Christ had two natures: divine and human (p. 157). Others denied Christ divine honors (p. 159). Still, for others, Christ had only a divine nature.
On the incarnation, most Anabaptist believed “that Christ had not taken his human body from Mary” (p. 82). They rejected the notion that Christ was incarnated of the Virgin Mary because of her sinful flesh (p. 160). Christ, the Word, did not take “his flesh and blood from the Virgin Mary; but has become flesh and blood in Mary’s womb, that is, he has been changed into it” (p. 160).
God “‘has sent his own eternal word of power into this world, in the flesh, which has become flesh and a body, in form like any other man, without sin, and that he has been a bodily, visible word of God. . . . He has not taken flesh unto himself, but has become flesh and a body’” (pp. 160-161). Thus, Christ did not take his flesh and blood from Mary. He, as the Word, was made flesh and blood in Mary. Therefore, Christ did not possess two natures (p. 162).
Whereas the Mennonite Anabaptists and most other Anabaptists accepted the notion of a preexisting Christ and, by that, an incarnation similar to that taught by the Church of Rome, some rejected it. For those who rejected the incarnation, Jesus was a natural but a sinless man. However, “‘God’s word, God’s will, God’s spirit, [and] God’s nature’” (p. 163) indwelt Christ along with an imminent conversation with God, which made him more than
Adam’s flesh. Christ was the Son of God, “in so far as he was like God, in all the operations of heart and soul and mind, and thus felt himself to be the Son of God” (p. 164).
However, most Anabaptists accepted the divinity of Christ. As for his humanity, most believed that the “‘Word within the body of Mary was changed into flesh, without taking over anything from the nature of Mary’” (p. 165). Christ had abandoned “his first, eternal, divine substance or essence . . . [and] was changed into another, i.e., a human substance and thus became man, able to suffer and to die, and has lost his first essence’” (p. 166). Thus, Christ had no human father or mother or relations. Nevertheless, many embraced the Catholic concept of the incarnation (p. 170).
Anabaptists believed “that sin entered this world through Adam’s disobedience” (p. 171). However, Christ removed everything that Adam’s sin introduced, including death, into the world. As for children, the obedience of Christ, not baptism, liberates children from the liability of eternal damnation. Thus, “‘they deny absolutely that original sin, in young children, tends to eternal death’” (p. 172). For most Anabaptists, the atonement of Christ wiped out original sin.
Anabaptists believed that all have sinned, but most believed that all “are called to salvation, because Christ died for all. This universal call presupposes the power to answer it. The cause of one’s damnation never lies with God” (p. 174). Although God forces no man, he desires all to turn from self to him. They contend that all “salvation is from grace, but that grace is common to all” (p. 175). Like the Church of Rome, “they saw in justification a medicinal rather than a forensic act of God” (p. 175).
Anabaptists “believed in salvation through Christ, but they glorified the Christian life” (p. 152). This stress was the result of “the legalistic character of their theology” (p. 152). Many so overemphasized the Christian life in the present that little regards were given to heaven or hell (p. 175).
Anabaptists opposed “the mass, with its altars, images, garments, and, all its
heathenish ceremonies” (p. 151). Most followed the teachings of other Protestants on the Lord’s Supper. However, a few modified it (p. 185). Their churches lacked musical instruments (p. 214).
A major cause of strife among the Anabaptists was the “ban”, i.e., excommunication. One congregation would ban one of its members or even another congregation over matters ranging from important doctrinal issues to such trivial matters as how one walked. Although the Anabaptists were “governed by the principle of individualism” (p. 190), the ban became popular and was a major cause of controversy among the Anabaptists and the primary cause of schisms.
Anabaptists were “a body of believers who had deliberately turned their backs on the world and now were a people separate unto the Lord” (p. 189). Any member who failed to live up to the ascetic standards of the congregation was banned, excommunicated. Whereas some congregations were fairly tolerant, others were extremely strict and would ban a member for any deviation.
An example of the rigorousness of the ban was a marriage between a church member and a nonchurch member. For some, only marriages between members of the Anabaptist church were recognized (in this regard, they were similar to the Church of Rome). Anyone who married someone outside the church was banned and could never be reconciled or readmitted to the church (p. 190).
Besides an inappropriate marriage, a person could be banned because his house, furniture, clothing, or ornamentation was above the standards of the congregation. (Although the Anabaptists did not condemn wealth, they did condemn ostentatiousness [p. 199].) Likewise, one could be banned for social contact with nonchurch members or a banned person or for attending the funeral of a nonchurch member (p. 194).
Members of the church were not to have anything to do with a banned person, even if the person banned was a parent, child, spouse, or sibling. The ban prohibited all intercourse with the banned person, including buying, selling, eating, drinking, or conversing (p. 193).
Although eschatology was important to many Anabaptists in the early years, the fanaticism that it caused resulted in the Mennonite descendants of the Anabaptists virtually to ignore eschatology, the future, heaven, and hell (p. 196).
Women were not allowed to speak in their meetings and were not allowed to vote in the election of elders and deacons (p. 17). However, women occupied an honored place in their church life (p. 214).
Some beliefs peculiar to a small minority of Anabaptist were polygamy (because “the Bible saints had practised it” [p. 82]) and the refusal to wear clothes (because “they were the naked truth, the image of God, and therefore were ashamed of nothing” [pp. 88-89].
As shown above, the Anabaptists lack uniformity in their beliefs. They were highly variable on many important doctrines of Christianity, which should be expected from its decentralized structure and individualism with each congregation and even each individual free to decipher the truth from the Holy Scriptures.
Because of the fanatics, the name “Anabaptist” had become synonymous with “violence, outrage, rebellion, sensuality, and every kind of outrage” (p. 92). Because of the stigma attached to “Anabaptist,” most Anabaptists rebranded themselves under different names. They became the Baptists and Mennonites. Many faded into the nonconformist movement in the Church of England (p. 46). Also, included among their descendants are the Quakers, English Independents, and Congregationalists (pp. 292-293).
Copyright © 2018 by Thomas Coley Allen
Part 2: Appendix
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