§ 26. PERSECUTION OF THE ANABAPTISTS. 81
ian and the Roman Catholic hymns of the fifteenth century, but under express reservation of his high-Lutheran orthodoxy. He refuses to acknowledge the Anabaptists as martyrs any longer (as he had done in his former work on German hymnology), because they stand, he says (III. 439), " aussevhalh der Wahrheit, ausserhalb der heiligen lutherischen Kirche!" Hymnology is the last place for sectarian exclusiveness. It furnishes one of the strongest evidences of Christian union in the sanctuary of worship, where theological quarrels are forgotten in the adoration of a common Lord and Saviour. Luther himself, as Wackernagel informs us, received unwittingly in his hymn book of 1545 a hymn of the Anabaptist Griinwald, and another of the Schwenkfeldian Reusner. Wackernagel is happily inconsistent when he admits (p. 440) that much may be learned from the Anabaptist hymns, and that a noble heart will not easily condemn those victims of Rome and of the house of Habsburg. He gives first the hymns of Thomas Miinzer, who can hardly be called an Anabaptist and was disowned by the better portion.
Burragc, in Baptist Hymn Writers, Portland, 1888, p. 1 sqq., gives some extracts of Anabaptist hymns. The following stanza, from a hymn of Schiemer or Schoner, characterizes the condition and spirit of this persecuted
people : —
" We are, alas, like scattered sheep.
The shepherd not in sight, Each far away from home and hearth,
And, like the birds of night That hide away in rocky clefts,
We have our rocky hold, Yet near at hand, as for the birds.
There waits the hunter bold."
§ 26. Persecution of the Atiabaptists.
We pass now to the measures taken against the separatists. At first Zwingli tried to persuade them in private conferences, but in vain. Then followed a public disputation, which took place by order of the magistracy in the council hall, Jan. 17, 1525. Grebel was opposed to it, but appeared, together with Manz and Reubli. They urged the usual arguments against infant baptism, that infants cannot understand the gospel, cannot repent and exercise faith. Zwingli answered them, and appealed chiefly to circumcision and 1 Cor. 7 : 14, where Paul speaks of the children of Christian parents as " holy." He afterwards published his views in a book, " On Baptism, Rebaptism, and Infant Baptism " (May 27, 1525). Bullinger, who was present at the disputation, reports that the Anabaptists were unable to refute
82 THE SWISS EEFORMATIOlSr.
Zwingli's arguments and to maintain their ground. Another disputation was held in March, and a third in November, but with no better result. The magistracy decided against them, and issued an order that infants should be baptized as heretofore, and that parents who refuse to have their children baptized should leave the city and canton with their families and goods.
The Anabaptists refused to obey, and ventured on bold demonstrations. They arranged processions, and passed as preachers of repentance, in sackcloth and girdled, through the streets of Zurich, singing, praying, exhorting, abusing the old dragon (Zwingli) and his liorns, and exclaiming, "" Woe, woe unto Zurich ! " ^
The leaders 'were arrested and shut up in a room in the Augustinian convent. A commission of ministers and magistrates were sent to them to convert them. Twentyfour professed conversion, and were set free. Fourteen men and seven women were retained and shut up in the Witch Tower, but they made their escape April 5.
Grebel, Manz, and Blaurock were rearrested, and charged with communistic and revolutionary teaching. After some other excesses, the magistracy proceeded to threaten those who stubbornly persisted in their error, with death by drowning. He who dips, shall be dipped, — a cruel irony.
It is not known whether Zwingli really consented to the death sentence, but he certainly did not openly oppose it.^
1 Zwingli, Opera, III. 364.
2 Egli {Die Ziircher Wiedertaufer, p. 93) thinks that if he consented, he did it with reluctant heart, not, like Calvin in the case of Servetus, with a strong sense of duty. Keller (Die Reformation, p. 407, note) asserts, on the strength of Hiibmaier, that Zwingli preached in 1525 that Anabaptists should be beheaded "according to the imperial laws," but there is no proof of this, and Baur (II. 180) denies it. Comp. the correspondence of Capito with Zwingli on the case of Manz, Opera, VIII. 16, 30, 44. Capito of Strassburg was disturbed by the execution of Manz, who had died so heroically, as reported (mortem obiise magnijice, p. 16) ; but Zwingli assured him that the magistracy condemned him to death reluctantly and from necessity {quam coacte Senatus