' prophetic office by Bochhold and Knipperdolling. The churches were destroyed, and twelve judges were set over the tribes, as in Israel; but even this form of government was soon abolished, and Bochhold, under the name of John of Leyden, raised himself to the dig- nity of king of New Zion (so the Anabaptists of Miin- ster styled their kingdom), and caused himself to be formally crowned. From this period (1534) Minister
; was a theatre of all the excesses of fanaticism, lust, and cruelty. The introduction of polygamy, and the
I neglect of civil, order, concealed from the infatuated people the avarice and madness of their young tyrant
i and the daily increase of danger from abroad. Boch- hold lived in princely luxury and magnificence; he sent out seditious proclamations against neighboring rulers — against the Pope and Luther; he threatened to destroy with his mob all who differed in opinion from him ; made himself an object of terror to his sub- jects by frequent executions, and while famine and pestilence raged in the city, persuaded the wretched, deluded inhabitants to a stubborn resistance of their besiegers. The city was at last taken, June 24, 15S5, by treachery, though not without a brave defence, in which Rothmann and others were killed, and the king- dom of the Anabaptists destroyed by the execution of
■ the chief men. Bochhold, and two of his most active companions, Knipperdolling and Krechting, were tor- tured to death with red-hot pincers, and then hung up in iron cages on St. Lambert's steeple, at Miinster, as a terror to all rebels. In the mean time, some of the twenty-six apostles, who were sent out by Bochhold to extend the limits of his kingdom, had been success-
! ful in various places ; and many independent teachers, who preached the same doctrines, continued active in the work of founding a new empire of pure Christians, and propagating their visions and revelations in the countries above mentioned. It is true that they re- jected the practice of polygamy, community of goods,
j and intolerance toward those of different opinions, which had prevailed in Miinster ; but they enjoined upon their adherents the other doctrines of the early Anabaptists, and certain heretical opinions in regard
ANACIIORETS
211
ANACLETUS
to the humanity of Christ, occasioned by the contro- versies of that day about the sacrament. The most celebrated of these Anabaptist prophets were Melchior Hoffmann and David Joris. The former, a furrier from Suabia, first appeared as a teacher in Kiel in 1527; afterward, in 1529, in Emden ; and finally in Stras- burg, where, in 1540, he died in prison. He formed, chiefly by his magnificent promises of a future eleva- tion of himself and his disciples, a peculiar sect, whose scattered members retained the name of Hoffmannists in Germany till their remains were lost among the Anabaptists. They have never owned that H.offinann recanted before his death. David Joris, or George, a glass-painter of Delft, born 1501, and rebaptized in 1534, showed more depth of mind and warmth of im- agination in his various works. Amid the confusion of ideas which prevails in them, they dazzle by their elevation and fervor. In his endeavors to unite the discordant parties of the Anabaptists, he collected a party of quiet adherents in the country, who studied his works (as the Gichtelians did those of Bonnie), especially his book of miracles, which appeared at Deventer in 1542, and revered him as a kind of new Messiah. Unsettled in his opinions, he travelled a long time from place to place, till at last, to avoid per- secution, in 1554, he became a citizen of Basil, under the name of John of Bruges. In 1556, after an honor- able, life, he died there among the Calvinists. In 1559 his long-concealed heresy was first made public. He was accused, though without much reason, of profligate doctrine and conduct, and the Council of Basil con- demned him, and ordered his body to be burnt. A friend of Joris was Nicholas, the founder of the Fami- lists, who do not, however, belong to the Anabaptists.
It must not be supposed that all the Anabaptists of Germany were engaged in the excesses above recited. In fact, between these excesses and the doctrines of the Anabaptists, properly so termed, there does not seem to be the slightest connection. The fanaticism of some of the early Anabaptists is sufficiently ex- plained b}r the obvious tendency which exists in hu- man nature to rush into extremes. The. iron hold of the papacy, which had cramped the church for ages, being suddenly relaxed, men had yet to learn what were the true conditions whether of civil or religious liberty. But these considerations were overlooked, and the reformed churches, with one consent, regard- ed the Anabaptists with horror and disdain. The cor- respondence of the Reformers is full of allusions to the subject. They are seldom spoken of but with the se- verest reprobation, and no distinction is drawn be- tween the sober Christians and the worst fanatics of the party. It is probable, at least, that their faults have been exaggerated even by the best writers. A modern writer on their own side asserts that " it has been proved by irrefragable evidence from state pa- pers, public confessions of faith, and authentic books, that the Spanheims, Heidegger, Hoffmann, and others, have given a fabulous account of the German Baptists, and that the younger Spanheim had taxed them with holding thirteen heresies, of which not a single socie- ty of them believed one word ; yet later writers quote these historians as devoutly as if all they affirmed were allowed to be true." — Robinson, History of the Baptists; Marsden, Churches and Sects, i, 81; Ottii Annal. Anabaptist. (Basil. 1672) ; Cornelius, Gcschichts- quellen des Bisthums Miinster (Miinst. 1853): Hase, Dm Reich der Wiedertaufer (Leipz. 2d edit. 1860); Cornelius (Rom. Cath.), Geschickte des Miinsteriscken Anfrvhrs (Leipz. 1860). See Baptists; Dunkers; Hoffmann ; Mennonites.