RELIGIOUS ENCYCLOPEDIA
Amulet Anabaptists
a conditional universal grace to the unconditional
P Amyraut first published his ideas in his Traite de la predestination (Saumur, 1634), which immediately caused great excitement. The controversy became so heated that the national synod at Alencon in 1637 had to take notice of it. Amyraut and his friend Testard were acquitted of heterodoxy, and silence was imposed on both sides. The attacks continued, however, and the question came again before the synod of Charenton in 1644-45, but with the same result. Amyraut bore himself so well under all these assaults that he succeeded in conciliating many of his opponents, even the venerable Du Moulin (1655). But at the synod of Loudun in 1659 (the last for which permission was obtained— partly through Amyraut 's influence_fr0m the crown), fresh accusations were brought, this time including Daille, the president of the synod, because he had defended what is called " Amyraldism." This very synod, however, gave Amyraut the honorable commission to revise the order of discipline. In France the harmlessness of his teaching was generally recognized; and the controversy would soon have died out but for the continual agitation kept up abroad, especially in Holland and Switzerland.
Amyraut's doctrine has been called " hypothetical universalism "; but the term is misleading, since it might be applied also to the Arminianism which he steadfastly opposed. His main proposition is this: God wills all men to be saved, on condition that they believe — a condition which they could well fulfil in the abstract, but which in fact, owing to inherited corruption, they stubbornly reject, so that this universal will for salvation actually saves no one. God also wills in particular to save a certain number of persons, and to pass over the others with this grace. The elect will be saved as inevitably as the others will be damned. The essential point, then, of Amyraldism is the combination of real particularism with a purely ideal universalism. Though still believing it as strongly as ever, Amyraut came to see that it made little practical difference, and did not press it in his last years, devoting himself rather to non -controversial studies, especially to his system of Christian morals (La morale chrestienne, 6 vols., Saumur, 1652-60). The real significance of Amyraut's teaching lies in the fact that, while leaving unchanged the special doctrines of Calvinism, he brought to the front its ethical message and its points of universal human interest. See Calvinism. (E. F. Karl Muller.)
Bibliography: E. and E. Haag, La France Protestante, i. "2-80, Paris, 1846 (gives a complete list of his voluminous works); E. Saigey, in Revue de theologie, pp. 178 sqq., Paris, 1849; A. Schweizer, Tubinger theologische Jahrbiicher, 1852, pp. 41 sqq., 155 sqq.
ANABAPTISTS.
I. The Sober Anabaptists. II. The Fanatical Anabap-
In Switzerland (§ 1). tists.
Anabaptist Tenets (§2). The Zwickau Prophets
In the Netherlands and (§1).
England (§ 3). In Strasburg and Mun-
ster (§ 2).
The name " Anabaptists " (meaning " Rebaptizers ") was given by their opponents to a party I.— 11
among the Protestants in Reformation times whose distinguishing tenet was opposition to infant baptism, which they held to be unscriptural and therefore not true baptism. They baptized all who joined them; but, according to their belief, this was not a rebaptism as their opponents charged. In opposition to the Church doctrine they held that baptism should be administered only to those who were old enough to express by means of it their acceptance of the Christian faith, and hence, from their point of view, their converts were really baptized for the first time. Another epithet often applied to them was " Catabaptists," meaning pseudobaptists, as if their baptism were a mockery, and with an implication of drowning, which was considered the appropriate punishment for their conduct and frequently followed their arrest.
In studying this movement the following facts should be borne in mind: (1) The Anabaptists did not invent their rejection of infant baptism, for there have always been parties in the Church which were antipedobaptists (cf. A. H. Newman, History of Antipedobaptism, Philadelphia, 1897). (2) There are two kinds of Anabaptists, the sober and the fanatical. Failure to make this distinction has done mischief and caused modern Baptists to deny their connection with the Baptists of the Reformation, whereas they are the lineal descendants of the sober kind and have no reason to be ashamed of their predecessors. (3) Even among the fanatical Anabaptists there were harmless dreamers; not all the fanatics were ready to establish a Kingdom of the Saints by unsaintly deeds. (4) Information concerning the Anabaptists is largely derived from prejudiced and deficient sources.
I. The Sober Anabaptists: These were the product of the Reformation in Switzerland started by Zwingli. Shortly after he began to preach Reformation doctrine in Zurich, in 1519, some of his hearers, very humble persons mostly, gathered in private houses to discuss his sermons, and Zwingli often met with them. He had laid it down as a principle that what is not taught in the Bible is not a law of God for Christians, and had applied this principle to the payment of tithes and the observance of Lent. In 1522 these friends of Zwingli asked him where he found his plain Scripture authorizing infant baptism and whether, according to his principle he was not compelled to give it up. Zwingli, however, though he wavered at first, decided to stand by the Church, arguing that there was fair inferential support in the Bible for the practise, and that it was the Christian substitute for the Jewish rite of circumcision. Over this point an estrangement took place between him and his parishioners. The little company received accessions of a desirable character, and came to include scholars and theologians like Felix Manz and Conrad Grebel, who socially and intellectually were the peers of Zwingli's followers. Hubmaier was a visitor. In 1524 as the result of letters or visits from Thomas Mtinzer and Andreas Carlstadt they took very decided antipedobaptist positions; but public opinion in Zurich was against
i. In
Switzerland.
Anabaptists Anacletus