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428 RELIGIOUS ENCYCLOPEDIA Simon
I. First Statement: Menno Simons, Dutch Anabaptist, was born at Witmarsum (5 m. s.e. of Har. ingen), Holland, 1492, and died near Oldesloe (25 m. n.e. of Hamburg), Germany, Jan. 13, 1559. Though the Mennonites (q.v.) bear his name, he was not their founder, for they existed
:. Early in Holland seven years before he Life and became a convert; but he was one Views. of their most influential leaders and by far their most important author. Many details of his life are uncertain, for his biog raphy remained unwritten both in his own and in the following generation, so that it must be gleaned from scanty allusions in his writings and in the works of his contemporaries. In 1515 or 1516 he held an ecclesiastical office at Pingjum, a short dis tance from his birthplace. In 1532 he became pas tor at Witmarsum, where, as he confessed in later years, he preached from motives of ambition rather than conviction. Much of his self-accusation, how ever, may be due to the morbid severity with which, like Bunyan and other converts, he judged him self, for no suspicion of reprehensibility seems to have attached to his name at any time, unless it be charged against him that he remained in the priesthood for twenty years despite his doubts. In the very first years of his parochial activity he be came skeptical of the doctrine of transubstantia tion, and found support for his views on baptism in the New Testament and the writings of Billican, who, with some other Protestants, permitted parents to choose between infant and adult baptism for their children. This and the execution of the Anabap tist Sicke Snijder at Leeuwarden in 1531 led to re newed study of the Bible and the works of the Reformers, with the result that Menno practically became an Evangelical preacher, though he had not yet broken openly with the Church. When he entered upon his new parish of Witmarsum, he seems already to have sympathized with Anabap tist views.Menno's attention was less directed, however, against Roman Catholic teaching than against errors which had recently sprung up in Ana 2. Paideutic baptism, such as the doctrines of earth-
Objective. ly power, sword, king, and the plurality of wives. In this spirit he wrote his first book, Een gantsch duydelycke end klaer beunya uyt die H. S. dat Jesus Christus is de reehte beloofde David inn den geeat . . . tegen de grouwelicke ende grootste blasphemie van Jan van Leyden, although it was not printed until 1627. Menno's ambiguous position received a rude shock in Apr., 1535, when 300 Anabaptists were defeated at Bolaward by the imperial troops, 130 falling in battle, while the remainder, including his own brother, were made prisoners and drowned. He felt himself responsible Relation to Rationalism (§ 6). Relation to the Reformers (¢ 7). Relation to the Swiss Brethren (¢ 8). Relation to hidnater Anabaptists Go). Victim of Intolerance (§ 10).in a sense for their fate, since he had not taught them the true way, and he also became convinced that his priestly office rendered it impossible for him to gain their confidence, so that on Jan. 12, 1536, he -resigned his pariah. This " conversion," or " rebirth," as Menno termed it, was characteristically Anabaptist, in that it was based less on a conviction of the grace of God through Christ in consequence of a sense of sin and repentance than on moral earnestness, renunciation, and devotion to divine truth, whether contained in the Bible or in the human heart. It was, therefore, the conversion of a layman rather than of a theologian or a priest. Yet Menno was not uneducated, for he wrote Latin fluently, was somewhat acquainted with Greek, and had a certain familiarity with the writings of his contemporaries (especially Erasmus) and the Church Fathers.
After his withdrawal from the priesthood and the Roman Catholic Church, Menno remained for a time in Friesland, where all who should
3. Later harbor him were threatened with death Life; in Oct., 1536. Two months later, at
Literary the earnest petition of a number of Activity. those who agreed with him in faith and life, he received the laying on of hands from Obbe Philips, and became an elder (bishop) of the community. Where Menno passed the first years after he left the church is uncertain, but it is not improbable that he lived in East Fries land, baptizing both there and in Groningen in 1537. He seems to have lived in East Friesland until 1541; in Amsterdam and North Holland from 1541 to 1543; again in East Friesland from 1543 to 1545; in and near Cologne and Limburg from 1545 to 1547; and after this latter year in or near Lilbeck, with the exception of a short residence at Wismar in 1553-54. His life during these years may be best traced by his writings, his first publications being the most important. To this category belong his Van de ware nieuwe geboorte; Veele goede . . . leringhen op den ,26. Psalm, perhaps the best work of its author; Van het rechte Christengeloove; and Van de geestelicke verriiaenime. The most impor tant of all his works, however, was the Fondament boek (c. 1539), in which he sought to p-ove the truth of his doctrines and urged the authorities to test the purity of the lives of the Anabaptists, thus ending the persecution and showing their wide divergence from the fanatics of Munster. In this book, moreover, Menno defines belief as trust in the grace of God and the promises revealed to man in the words and life of Christ, bringing sor row for sin, yet comforting the heart and strength ening it in conformity to the divine pattern. The substitution of adult for infant baptism is based by him on the commandment of Christ and on