RELIGIOUS ENCYCLOPEDIA
Mennonites
year, he had baptized Sicke Freerks Snyder, who was beheaded at Leeuwarden on Mar. 20, 1531. Within an incredibly short time " covenanters " were found in large numbers throughout Holland, Zeeland, and Friesland, so that the testimonies of prisoners speak of 3,500 in Amsterdam, and 400 in Kampen. The converts were all adherents of Hoffmann, regarding baptism as the token of the covenant through which they were to share in the coming kingdom of Christ. Many of them were gentle, righteous pietists, even after Nov., 1533, when Jan Matthysen proclaimed himself Elijah, the immediate precursor of the kingdom of Christ, and when passive expectancy became active aggression. A minority endeavored from Nov., 1533, to May, 1535, to gain fortified positions. That this was but a small group is clear both from the trials and from the fact that only forty or fifty of the many Anabaptists took part in the attack on Amsterdam, May 11, 1535, while their bishop, Jacob of Kampen, condemned all violence. After 1534, pure and impure elements alike, chiefly from Holland and Friesland, but also from the Rhine and Westphalia, united to seek Munster, the city chosen by God as the New Jerusalem, where they were carried away by John of Leyden (see Munster, Anabaptists in). With the fall of Munster, June 2 [24-25], 1535, the hopes of temporal power, held by a faction, vanished. The conference in a village near Bockholt (Westphalia) marked the amicable separation between those who were unwilling to renounce the expectation of an earthly kingdom (which was not, however, to be established by force), and those who found the kingdom in the hearts of the regenerate, the latter party being in harmony with Obbe and Dirk Philips, and obtaining a leader in Dec, 1536, in Menno Simons. Persecutions in Holland drove the Anabaptists into exile in Holstein, Mecklenburg, England, and Prussia. They found many sympathizers in the country last named, especially among the followers of Schwenckfeld, and succeeded in remaining there, despite some official expulsions up to this time. There were also French-speaking Mennonites about 1536, probably in Walloon Belgium, Ghent, and Strasburg, while Anabaptists were even found in Sweden. Representatives from various countries were either present or expected in Bockholt. In 1540 all the Mennonites formed a single, though loosely organized, " church of Christ." IV. In the North.— 1. In Holland 1536-80 (1640): After 1536 the elders (Menno Simons, Dirk Philips, Adam Pastor, Gillis of Aachen, Lenaert Bouwens, and others) toiled to bring order out of the confusion. Their crucial task was the maintenance of the true church of Christ, as opposed both to the national church in East Friesland and Prussia on the one hand, and to the teachings of David Joris (see Joris, Jan David) on the other, who refused to form openly a congregation, and exposed his followers to excessive moral perils. Menno and his successors continually warned their disciples not to form a sect, but rather to establish the true church of Christ. The Mennonites are important, therefore, as being the only body in the sixteenth century who did not seek to reform the Church, but believed themselves justified in rees-
tablishing beside it the ancient apostolic teachings, and appealed diligently to the Church Fathers, desiring to revivify the church of the apostles, which had been obscured for a time, rather than to continue the medieval secularized ecclesiasticism. The unremitting toil of the elders and, in still greater degree, the charm exerted by the piety of the brethren brought success, and neither the persecutions of the Roman Catholics nor the later oppression of the Evangelical authorities were able to check the growth of the Mennonites. Probably 5,000 Protestants were executed by the Roman Catholic authorities in the Netherlands after 1530. Of these 3,700 were Mennonites; of the Lutherans and others six per cent and of the Mennonites thirty per cent were women. In the north the last to die was burned at the stake in 1574, and in the south a young woman was buried alive in 1597.
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, Julich, 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 " (John i. 14), being transformed into man. Jesus received nothing in his conception by Mary, nor did he have a unity of two natures. The Reformed not unjustly charged the Mennonites with unitarianism. When the Dutch magistracy and church were reformed after the revolution of 1572, William of Orange protected the Anabaptists both in their civil and in their religious rights, although they were frequently assailed by the Reformed Church and its preachers. The communities and their doctrines thus gained safety in Holland, and enjoyed freedom of conscience after the Union of Utrecht in 1579.
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 become independency. These problems found
Mennonites