Antipedobaptists: The first independent church within the general Anabaptist movement was formed at Zurich in 1523. On Jan. 18, 1525, the church began to baptize on profession of faith, despite the efforts of the authorities to suppress it by force, and about the same time kindred societies were founded at Augsburg, Nuremberg, and Worms. The plan of forming churches of pious Christians separated from the world originated in the Unitas Fratrum, and was not unknown to Luther, while at first infant bap. tism was not regarded as obligatory by Zwingli, Butzer, Farel, Erasmus, Capito, Schwenckfeld, Billican, Hubmaier, or Brunner. Although Anabaptism was no baseless phenomenon, suddenly evolved from the Reformation, there seems to be little evidence to show that it was derived from older religious bodies. Anabaptists denied the doctrine of a grace which was decreed from without, and which was, therefore, independent of personal piety and devoid of influence on life. Faith, they declared, must be personal; and they were, accordingly, influenced by the same spirit which led Michael Sattler to reject infant baptism simply because "piety and salvation are sought through it," and because. they "would not abandon their separation from the world" (i.e., the worldly churches). The doctrine that the grace of God must be regained by man, however, has been common among Protestants from the earliest times, while the monastic ideals of poverty and celibacy, attributed to the Anabaptists, were in reality antipodal to their real tenets. Nor did they consider themselves without sin, although they held that a Christian might have a good conscience and live blamelessly.
Immediately after the Peasants' War, Anabaptist communities sprang up throughout Germany in Strasburg, Augsburg, Salzburg, and elsewhere, headed by Denk, Gross, and Kautz. As early as Feb. 24, 1527, an assembly was convened at Schlatten near Schaffhausen by Sattler, who had founded the communities of Horb and Rottenburg-on-the Neckar. Throughout the Palatinate of the Rhine and Swabia many deserted both the Roman Catholics and the Protestants for the Anabaptists, even though the itinerant preachers, controlling neither the press nor large congregations, could only urge individuals to repentance and baptism. Communities also existed in St. Gall, Bern, and Basel, while in 1526 the Anabaptists entered the Tyrol and Moravia. After the spring of 1527, the extension of the movement was attended, except in Moravia, by bitter persecutions. According to the government records of Innsbruck, 700 persons were executed, banished, or otherwise punished in the Tyrol in 1530, while 600 were put to death in Ensisheim before 1535. Only Strasburg, Nuremberg, and Philip of Hesse refrained from the effusion of blood, and in Augsburg, which was protected by imperial privilege and the edict of Worms, Hut barely escaped the stake (see Hut, Hans). [But Hans Leupold, the minister of the antipedobaptists of Augsburg, was beheaded (cf. F. Roth, Augsburga Reformationsgeschichte, 1617-80, p. 251, Munich, 1901). J. HORSCH.] The Evangelical authorities at the Diet of Speyer concurred in the imperial decision of 1529 that all Anabaptists should be executed without a. trial before ecclesiastical judges, their motive probably being their fear that the separatistic tendency of the body would destroy all civil and social institions.
The erroneous opinion has long existed that antipedobaptism involved communism and the abolishment of private property. These were practised, however, only in Moravia, and even there surrender of private rights was purely voluntary and confined to members of that church. It is clear, on the other hand, that they denied the State the right to compel belief and to regulate religion, or to expel from home on account of belief, for "the earth is the Lord's "; yet, though " in the perfection of Christ " there was neither magistracy nor sword, they rendered obedience to the temporal authorities. It was an exception that Hut and some others taught the speedy coming both of the day of judgment and of the condemnation of the wicked by the righteous. Although Zwingli constantly charged the Anabaptists with immorality, there is no basis for his assertions, nor is it known that there were cases of polygamy among them, as there were later in Münster. This does not imply, however, that no discordant elements entered into Anabaptism, or that their persecutions, in particular, did not lead them to excesses. The position of the majority of the martyrs, as well as the wealthy members of the communities of the Tyrol, the writings of Denk, the Worms translation of the Prophets, and the rich hymnology, render it certain that the Anabaptists did not belong to the lowest grades of society.
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All those, however, who might have given a theological formulation of their doctrines and have become leaders of distinction were soon snatched away by death. It is impossible to speak, therefore, of uniformity in their dogmas, especially as their doctrinal interests paled before their enthusiasm for practical Christianity. Their hymns, the treatises of Denk and Hübmaier, the letters of Sattler, and other memorials of the martyrs all breathe the same spirit; love of Jesus and the Bible; the cross as the token of the Christian; the joy of the consciousness of salvation; gratitude for safety from this evil world and horror of it; brotherly love; and full freedom of conscience. In all else there was the widest divergency. Denk, Kautz, and Hetzer regarded Christ as their predecessor and example, not as the mediator in the presence of God; but in their Getrewe Warnung the Strasburgers "know not why Anabaptists call Our Lord `Jesus Christ of Nazareth,' since he is of heaven." On the one hand, their baptismal hymn runs:
I am alone the only God, I am alone, T am not threewhile Hoffmann, on the other, was an avowed Trinitarian. The inner word interpreted the Scriptures to Denk, others based their exegesis on the literal meaning, and some Anabaptists laid special stress on revelations, visions, and dreams. The pantheistic trend of Desk was offset by the deep pietistic morality of Settler and the chiliasm of Hut. Some regarded baptism as indifferent, and the washing of feet was practised but rarely, as in Zurich and the Harz. AD, however, followed Zwingli in the breaking of bread in the Lord's Supper, as a witness of unity, while Arianism, sleep of the soul, and universal salvation were here and there taught among them. Their unifying bond was the belief that by the baptism of repentance and by the individual fear of God and love to him they were members of the church of Jesus Christ, separated from the world and purified by the power of the ban. Their creed, which was not dogmatic, but practiced, was the "Brotherly Union of some Children of God," formulated at the conference of Schlatten. This confession was known at Zurich as early as 1527 and was attacked by Zwingli in that year and by Calvin in 1541. In its articles some of their teachers united concerning seven points: baptism of repentance and change of life, the ban, the breaking of bread, separation, pastoral care, the sword, and the prohibition of oaths-all practical problems, rather than doctrinal. Over the questions of private property. and the paying of taxes levied for purposes of war a schism arose in Moravia in 1528.
About 1530 not only did the extension and the persecutions of the Anabaptists enter upon a new stage, but the obscurity which had thus far enveloped them was dissipated, and in the previous year the man was found and baptized at Strasburg who was to give the church anew home in the north, Melchior Hoffmann (q.v.). The same period was the beginning of the two tendencies which have continued side by side among the Mennonites
to the present time, although both are equally opposed to an official church which teaches faith and salvation by means of dogma and sacrament. The one body (Swiss, Moravian), founded by Hoffmann, lays stress on personal piety and the formation of a church which is to have sharp external delimitations. The other party (Desk, Hübmaier) regards Christianity se a sum total of inner feelings and as a spiritual tendency in the world, having no earthly church, yet retaining the ban.
After 1530 the outward condition of the Anabaptists gradually altered. Although many, including Luther and Melanchthon, still regarded them as rebels, they were free from peril of death in some districts, and they might live there in comparative quiet, despite occasional oppression; imprisonment, and banishment. Their numbers also increased in the Palatinate, Alsace, Hesse, the eastern part of the Canton of Bern, the bishopric of Basel, and especially in Moravia. Elsewhere, however, they were exposed to constant persecution, and every trace of them disappeared, the few survivors either dying out or fleeing to Moravia, this being the cams especially in Bavaria, the Tyrol, Austria. and Silesia, and eastern Switzerland. Despite many vicissitudes and even banishment in 1535, Anabaptists from Austria, Carinthia, sad Silesia sought refuge in Moravia, whence some of them later emigrated to Poland, Hungary, and Transylvania, while about 1550 and after 1561 the Venetian Anabaptists came into relation with their Tyrolese brethren. Many of these churches became very important. In 1537 the one at Lorsch contained some 240 adults; there were 250 at GrUaberg (Hesse) in 1538; between 1,400 and 1,500 were at the controversy of Rhenish Anabaptists held at Worms in 1556; and is the great Strasburg congress of 1557 representatives were present from nearly fifty churches in Moravia, Swabia, Switzerland, Wffrttemberg, Breisgau, and Alsace. In ! 545, according to a moderate estimate, the Moravian. Anabaptists numbered but 2,000; exact historians show that at a later time the church had increased considerably. Elsewhere, however, the persecutions continued with unremitting severity. In 1581, the Anabaptists knew of executions in South Germany and Austria to the number of 2;169, and many executions are not reported.
In the sixteenth century the Anabaptists remained closely united, but at the close of this period the intercommunication diminished, partly in consequence of the disappearance of many Anabaptists through persecution, and partly because the condition of the others had become more settled and quiet. Simultaneously with this new security, on the other hand, came differentiar tions and even dissensions. The communistic followers of the Tyrolese Jacob Hutter separated from the other Germans, whom they celled "Swiss Brethren." In 1533 he succeeded in organizing the great majority of Moravian Anabaptists into a communistic body which remained unshaken for a century and a half, inspiring it with his spirit and giving it his name when he died at the stake in Innsbruck in 1536. During the administration
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of the active and talented elders who succeeded him, the Bavarian Hans Amon (d. 1542), the Silesian Peter Riedemann (1532-56), the Tyrolese Peter Walpot (1565-78), and Claus Braidl or Schuster (1585-1611), Hutter's followers received continual accessions of men of means, industry, and economy from other lands. Their watchword was separation from the world, but there was no trace of asceticism; while their entire interest was devoted to a moral life, the organization of the church, and economic and industrial development, so that they neglected theology entirely. They published but few works, which now have almost vanished, such as Peter Riedemann's Rechenschaft unserer Religion, Lehre and Glaubena (Brann, 1565; reprinted by the Huterites of South Dakota in 1902); but a number of treatises and a mass of hymns are extant only in manuscript. The followers of Hutter sent out many missionaries, including Ham Raiffer, or Schmidt (burned at the stake in Aachen, 1558), who were indefatigable in urging the faithful to go to Moravia and be received into the church. They were hostile, on the other hand, to the "Swiss" Anabaptists, among whom, in their turn, divergencies arose which were laid before congresses in the course of the century, although only the conferences of Strasburg are known.
The letters of these assemblies are among the best products of the non-Hutterian Anabaptists of the sixteenth century. On Aug. 24, 1555, at the instance of the Dutch brethren and the followers of Hoffmann, the first convention was held, and the doctrines of the incarnation and the Trinity were considered. Believing that their dissensions were, perhaps, a punishment for their endeavor to gain a higher knowledge than God has made attainable for man, they declared that all should be content henceforth to follow the commandments of God with a pure and humble heart and in a life dead to the world. In a second conference, held two years later, the greatest moderation was enjoined, espe cially in the use of the ban, nor, in case one of a married pair had fallen under excommunication, was the other required to avoid him or her. Thus they deviate sharply from the view of Menno and the majority of Dutch Anabaptists.
The cleavage between the disciples of Hutter and the Roman Catholics was far wider than between the German Anabaptists and the Reformed churches, although the latter could not accept the Mennonite insistence on the ban, nor agree that neither the sacraments nor obedience to the Church, but only inner and experimental faith, constituted a Christian. Gradually it came about that Lutherans and Calvinists no longer regarded Anabaptists as heretics and opponents of all ordinances, human and divine, who should be destroyed with fire and sword, but rather as erring souls who were to be won by gentle means to renounce their separatism and unite with the Church. This was the attitude of the diplomatic Butzer, who, at the request of the landgrave, held a conference of the Hessian brethren at Marburg in 1538. The controverted problems were the equality of the Old Testament with the New, which the Anabaptists denied, the atonement of Christ and his death, the incarnation, the necessity of works, Christian baptism, the oath and magistracy, and the ban. The refusal of the Anabaptists to submit to the organized state church roused the hostility of the authorities rather than their doctrinal heresy. It was contrary to the interest of the state, however, to expel the Mennonites by harshness, so that, while both in Hesse and in Bern all severity was exercised against the envoys of Hutter with their advocacy of emigration, provision was made for the property of the children of Mennonites who had been banished or punished. This explains the efforts of the authorities to induce the Anabaptists to enter the Church by means of religious conferences, as at Marburg, Pfeddersheim, and especially at Frankenthal (1571), while pleas for freedom of conscience for the Mennonites were made at Zurich and Bern as early as 1558.
The pressure of authority, wielded with mercy and even with recognition, gradually induced many to unite with the Church, so that by 1600 the Hessian communities, still flourishing after the Marburg conference of 1538, had almost disappeared. The Anabaptists no longer regarded the state church as anti-Christian in itself, but rejected it solely on account of its lack of spiritual fruits. Some even granted that infant baptism was not really ungodly, so that although it was not Biblical, it might be advantageous, in case it was followed by a Christian education. From this point of view it was indeed possible to organize a church of the pious which should be separated by means of the ban, but it gave equal scope to the opposite tendency by which each one might join a visible church. There were, moreover, many elements peculiar to the Anabaptists which could scarcely tend to strengthen the community: the lack of a formulated theology, the absence of dogmatism, their exclusion from the universities and all higher social culture, and the oppression and opposition of the churches. These disadvantages were augmented by the lack of organization, common to all similar bodies. In the period of their early enthusiasm this was no disadvantage, but with the waning of their zeal little was left to sustain the church, so that the south was not the district where the Mennonites could survive and preserve an active spiritual life; this land was Holland, especially the province of Friesland and the towns of Amsterdam and Haarlem.
III. Mennonites in Holland Prior to:536: Such Evangelical views as the denial of transubstantiation had long been current in the Netherlands, although the fact that Holland formed an imperial inheritance made it impossible for them to gain open acknowledgment until about 1530, when the Anabaptists from the Lower Rhine and East Friesland became influential among the Dutch. In that year the eloquent apocalyptic lay-preacher Melchior Hoffmann worked and baptized at Emden, teaching the Bible and the community of believers as opposed to the Church, yet inculcating obedience to the magistracy, non-resistance, and moral purity. Returning to Strasburg, he appointed Jan Volkerts Trijpmaker bishop, and the latter soon went to Amsterdam, where he founded the first Dutch community, but was beheaded, with nine others, Dec.
5, 1531. At Emden, on Dec. 10 of the previous|
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The persecutions, especially after 1550, drove hundreds from the south of Holland to the north, whence they were expelled to other countries, where they found an abode both on account of former immigrations and because of independent Anabaptist movements. Their safest refuge was East Friesland. After 1550, organized congregations existed in close contact with Holland, in Westphalia, Oldenburg, Cleves, Jtilich, Berg, Cologne, Aachen, and Odenkirchen. New circles or churches likewise arose in Holstein, Wismar, and Rostock, although, next to Emden, their chief center was Schottland, the suburb of Danzig, where Dirk Philips lived. Anabaptist congregations existed in Elbing and Montau near Graudenz as early as 1552, and even in Wisby; Gothland.
Since Reformed Protestantism prevailed in
nearly all these lands, the Mennonites were obliged
to protect themselves against it, while the Reformed,
in their turn, felt threatened by Anabaptism. The
claims of the churches, their preachers, and their
baptism to exclusive control over the people and
to validity among them, as well as the official
character of religion and the Church, were never recognized by the Mennonites, while their opponents
assailed the Anabaptist views of the State, war,
oaths, and similar tenets, but reserved their chief
polemics for their doctrine of the incarnation.
This dogma continued to be, as Hoffmann had taught,
that the Son of God is man, and "was made flesh"
(
As the Mennonites had saved their concept of a free church by bitter struggle from 1530 to 1580, so they were forced to endure internal strife for almost a century before their democracy could becorse independency. These problems found
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expression in the controversies over the ban and the avoidance of the faithful who had lapsed, as well as of everything connected with the secular church and religion. Their other characteristics were denial of original sin and emphasis of the freedom of the will, with a consequent standard of measurement in terms of morality, so that regeneration was the improvement of life, while they remained indifferent to all scholastic dogmas. It was doubtless from fear of exclusion from Christendom that Adam Pastor was attacked by Menno and banned by Dirk Philips for denying the Trinity, and asserting that Christ was one with the Father in works and purpose, but not in essence, else he could not have prayed to God in Gethsemane. In the eyes of the Mennonites neither baptism nor the Lord's Supper was, strictly speaking, a sacrament. In their gatherings only the Germans prayed audibly, which usage gradually permeated Holland also after the seventeenth century.
In 1555 the "Waterlanders" seceded from the strict Mennonites, rejecting the ban without previous warning, as well as avoidance of the lapsed in any relations except those of religion, and opposing patience and adaptability to the rigor of the elders. Between 1566 and 1567 the church was divided into the Frisians and the Flemings, the latter permitting themselves greater luxury in clothing, insisting on a more friendly attitude toward the world, and opposing certain organizing and centralizing measures of the elders. The result was unending division and subdivision, until after 1600 many adopted the point of view of the "Waterlanders," who regarded the church as an ordinance of man and granted the individual local congregations a considerable degree of self-government. In Holland, the government by elders was retained, however, by the "Old Frisians" and the "Old Flemings," who adhered most closely to tradition, until the end of the eighteenth century, while in Prussia and Russia it has survived until the present time, like rebaptism and the washing of feet, both of which disappeared in Holland about 1780.
2. In Holland and North Germany 1580 (1840)1700: After the "Waterlanders" and their leader Hans de Ries (1553-1638) had striven from 1577 on to unite their own communities, and all others which were available, into an organic union free from a rigorous application of the ban. the milder Mennonites grew closer and closer together. Many "Waterlanders" attended the Frisian and High German conference at Cologne, May 1, 1591. Conventions of that sort were held occasionally until 1640. The conferences gave rise to the first symbolic writings of the Mennonites, such as the creed of Hans de Ries and Lubbert Gerrit at Cologne (1591), the symbol adopted at a conference between "Waterlanders" and a community of English Brownists or Independents (1615; see Browne, Robert; and Congregationalism, I., 1, §§ 1-2), the creed of the olive-tree (1627) and of Jan Cents (1630) and the Dort symbol of Adrian comensz (1632). All these symbolical statements were formulas of union, not of government in dogmatics.
A new factor had meanwhile entered the church.Since 1580 the unitarian tendency of the Mennonites had received fresh life from the Socinians, despite the opposition of Hans de Ries and others. The "Old Flemings," most strict in regard to the community and practical life, were the most liberal in doctrine. Many Mennonites stood in equally close relations with the Remonetrants, and sought their theological training in the Remonstrant seminary. Both parties furnished recruits for the Collegians or Rhynaburgers, who in 1622 borrowed from the Socinians baptism by immersion. This entire Socinian and anti-ecclesiastical rationalistic tendency was blended with pietistic elements, but an intense opposition developed, which led at Amsterdam in 1664 to a division between the liberals and the conservatives. Almost without exception the Dutch churches took sides with one faction or the other, but the controversy was of short duration, and the two parties were working together in brotherly harmony in 1672, although the dual administration continued in Amsterdam until 1801.
Throughout the seventeenth century the Mennonites were opposed by the Reformed as despising the Church and denying Christian doctrines, original sin, predestination, and the divinity of Christ, although their principle of non-resistance and their refusal to take oaths were respected. They were debarred, however, like all the non-Reformed, from official positions. Notwithstanding this, their numbers and their wealth rendered them an influential body. Between 1580 and 1660 they counted at least 200,000 adherents, more than a tenth of the population, and they included some of the greatest artists, poets, and engineers of Holland's prime. Since the Reformed theological faculties were closed to them, they devoted themselves chiefly to medicine and science. It was not until the eighteenth century that they had salaried pastors who did not occupy themselves with other callings.
8. In Holland 1700-1909: The Mennonites and the Remonatrants were the most zealous adherents and propagandists of the scientific and philosophical doctrines of the illumination which made headway in Holland in the eighteenth century. They grudged neither financial nor diplomatic aid in behalf of their oppressed coreligionists in Switzerland, the Palatinate, Jülich, Poland, and Lithuania, while they became more and more convinced that all ecclesiastical distinction was antiquated. Additional elements of dissolution were the sympathy felt for the Moravians by the pietistic party among them, the restriction of public office to those who belonged to the Reformed Church, and the frequent 1aek of preachers in the country districts. Increasing numbers joined the established church, and neither the theological seminary founded by the community at Amsterdam in 1735 nor the unions of congregations for mutual financial and spiritual support could check the movement. In 1808 the Mennonites numbered but 28,000. This decline was ended, however, by the foundation of the Algemeene Doopagezinde Soci&eit at Amsterdam in 1811, which took charge of the theological seminary and the care of needy communities. Now all congregations have ministers who have received academic train-
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ing. The Mennonites now have 134 communities with 126 preachers and 60,000 adherents, almost 10,000 being in Amsterdam. The other Protestants are no longer hostile to them; their pastors frequently officiate in the churches of other denominations, and vice versa, and the teachers in their theological seminary rank as professors of the University of Amsterdam. The fact that some of them represent orthodoxy in opposition to the prevalent rationalism does not destroy their inherent unity. They, are associated with their coreligionists outside of Holland chiefly by their board of foreign missions which works in Java and Sumatra. Their hostility to the State has disappeared, many of the congregations receive state aid, and Mennonites now take part in public office. Their distinctive features are abstinence from taking oaths, adult baptism, and the substitution of moral earnestness and piety for dogma. The congregations possess full autonomy, and are directed by the preacher, who need have no official authorization or qualification, and by the deacons, who are chosen by all members, male and female.
V. On the Lower Rhine, and in North Germany and Russia iToo-rgog: During the period of oppression, which lasted until 1720, the majority of the Mennonites in Jalich, Berg, Cleves, and neighboring districts emigrated to Holland, while many settled in Crefeld, where they came in contact with such pietists as Hochmann and Tersteegen. This community still flourishes, like that in Altona and the congregations in East Friesland. The chief Mennonite center of Germany, however, is West Prussia, where the body numbers 11,000 out of a total in Germany of 18,000. All these communities have passed through the same stages as their Dutch coreligionists, although the two bodies have been far less closely associated since 1780. They maintained their doctrine of non-resistance until 1868, when political equality and the growth of culture put an end to their isolation from their fellow citizens. To avert the danger of absorption into larger religious bodies, the Vereinigung der Mennonitengemeinden im deutschen Reiche was founded at Hamburg in 1884. The chief organ of the German Mennonites is the MenmonBlatter, established in 1854.
The Russian grant of large territories and the unrestricted right of religious freedom led a few thousand Mennonites to emigrate from Prussia to Russia in 1788, where they received numerous accessions until 1824. They now have, together with the followers of Hutter, who in 1874 emigrated from Hungary to the United States, 70,000 members, and are settled in the governments of Yekaterinoslav, Taurida, Warsaw, the Crimea, Saratof, Samara, the Caucasus, and Khiva. In their communities, which are sharply defined socially and economically, the churches and schools are excellently organized, the former being rigidly controlled, as in the rural congregations of Prussia, by elders and by preachers chosen from among the brethren and exercising their office in addition to their civil calling. They are noteworthy, moreover, for their industry, especially in agriculture. Thousands emigrated to America when military service was forced upon them. Immigrant Prussians have also founded communities in Galicia. All these congre. gations have been affected by the activity of Bap. tist and Methodist missionaries, and are characterized by a liberal spirit, although they are tenacious of their ancient customs and still faithful to their old doctrines of sobriety, independence, and separation of Church and State.
VI. The South German and Swiss Mennonites :boo-:gog: Throughout the seventeenth century the Mennonites were subject to oppression from the Swiss governments, nor was it until 1715 that imprisonment and deportation to the Italian galleys ceased at Zurich. In Bern, on the other hand, the emigration, with the financial assistance of the Dutch, of all Mennonites whom the government could seize, that they might seek new homes in America, was powerless to prevent the continuance of churches in the Emmenthal, the bishopric of Basel, and Neuenburg, which have survived to the present day. Their organ is the Zzompilger. After 1600 a large number of Mennonites was settled by Alsacian nobles on their estates, where they amalgamated with older Anabaptist communities and still exist, like their French-speaking coreligionists in eastern France. In the nineteenth century their numbers were much diminished by emigration to America. Many also entered the Palatinate, and thence sought America, after accepting the rigid teachings of Jacob Amman, who, about 1690, introduced into the highlands of Bern the doctrines of avoidance of all under the ban, the washing of feet, and the condemnation of such luxuries as the use of buttons on clothing, thus founding the "Amish" sect. The fate of the followers of Hutter was most pathetic. Driven from Moravia in 1622, they settled in Hungary and Transylvania, where they renounced their communism in 1685. They were unable, however, to make headway against the Jesuits after 1680, and entered the Roman Catholic Church in increasing numbers subsequent to 1762.
VIL In the United States and Canada i683iyog: Mennonites from the Netherlands and Holstein settled in New Amsterdam (New York) as early as 1650, and on Oct. 6, 1683, thirteen families from Crefeld occupied the territory on the Delaware which they had purchased from Penn, and founded Germ-town, now a part of Philadelphia. In 1688 their numbers were augmented by coreligionists from the Palatinate and Crefeld, and they began an emigration which lasted throughout the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. After 1820 they received new additions from Switzerland and South Germany, while they were joined by entire communities of Russians subsequent to 1870. Many American Mennonites stood in close relations with the Quakers, the Schwenkfeldians, and other bodies. Others, however, maintained their individuality, usually separating themselves rigidly from all others. These still retain the washing of feet and excommunication in case of mixed marriage. Only after long deliberation did they permit elders who had not received the laying on of hands in Europe to administer baptism and the Lord's Supper. The majority of Mennonites cling to their past, remem-
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VIII. In America. 1. Antecedents: Of the various bodies of Mennonites in America some represent schisms and subdivisions from the church in 1. Swiss which Menno Simons was the most Brethren. prominent leader, while others antedate Menno's renunciation of the Church of Rome. The modern Mennonites are the direct successors of three distinct Anabaptist denominations of the Reformation time-the Swiss Brethren, Obbenites, and Hutterites.
The Swiss Brethren, the leading Anabaptist denomination of Switzerland and southern Germany, were first organized at Zurich, in Jan., 1525. Their first leaders were Conrad Grebel, Felix Manz, Georg Blaurock, Michael Sattler, and Pilgram Marbeck (q.v.). The Swiss Brethren were the only Anabaptist body in South Germany and Switzerland that survived the relentless persecution of the dissenters. Their principal stronghold was Strasburg, where their sufferings stopped short with banishment, confiscation, and imprisonment. As to their doctrinal position there are extant various reliable sources, such as the confession of Schlatten (1527, republished by W. Köhler, Giessen, 1908; cf. the articles of Kautz in Selected Works of Huldreich Z-evingli, ed. S. M. Jackson, pp. 177 sqq., Philadelphia, 1901); the protocols of the disputations of Zofingen (1532), St. Gall (1532), and Frankenthal (1571); the proceedings of a number of conferences, held at or near Strasburg, in 1555, 1557, 1568, and 1607, at Oberstilzen (exact date unknown) and at Offstein in 1688; also numerous epistles and the Ausbund, the hymnal of this denomination, published for the first time in 1570 or 1571 (R. Wolkan, Die Lieder der Wiedertdufer, p. 122, Berlin, 1903), which has been reprinted for the tenth time, Lancaster, Pa., 1908, besides editions published at Elkhart, Ind. From Menno Simons the Swiss Brethren differed on certain points to which Menno ascribed great importance. Between 1693 and 1700 Jacob Amann, a Swiss minister, began to insist on the avoidance of the excommunicated, as taught by Menno; his agitation resulted in a schism which has continued to this day. The followers of Amann, called Amannite or Amish Brethren, number now over 15,000 in America, although only the Old Order Amish have retained all their former peculiarities. After the secession of the Amish from the Swiss Brethren, the latter were sometimes named Reist Brethren, from Hans Reist, their leading minister at the time of the schism. The largest Mennonite body in America, known in some states as "Old Mennonite," descends from the Swiss (Reist) Brethren, whom they follow in doctrine and practise. Both the Reist and Amish Brethren, with the exception of the Old Order Amish, have in South Germany and America adopted the name Mennonite; in Switzerland and France this name is not officially used by them.
On the relation of the Swiss Brethren to Menno Simons, it is first of all to be said that Menno's
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