RELIGIOUS ENCYCLOPEDIA
Mennonites
ites, arose among his followers, proclaiming, on the ground of revelations with which he had been favored, that the time when the persecution was to cease was now at hand and the saints themselves were to be used of God to inaugurate a new order of things. A new state church was to be established, not like the Roman Catholic and Protestant state churches, in which saint and sinner alike were compelled by the State to hold membership, but one which should, be truly the communion of the saints and used of God to bring judgment upon those who had deserved it. It is worthy of notice that some of the most offensive teachings and appalling excesses of the Munsterites are of later date (see Muenstbe, Anabaptists in). Matthysen's principal opponent from the ranks of the Melchiorites was Obbe Philips, who, with his brother Dirk, not only saw in him a wolf in sheep's clothing and a fanatic, but also realized that some of Melchior Hoffmann's ideas and teachings were unsound. Obbe and his friends became strict Biblicists; the Word of God was the only standard of doctrine and the New Testament the rule of life and practise; special revelations were considered dangerous and unnecessary. Christian believers must bear the cross and follow the lowly and non-resistant Nazarene; they must suffer with him if they would reign with him in the world which is 'to come. Only those who are willing to follow in the footsteps of the Savior and have been baptized upon the confession of their faith may be members of Christ's church. Without fear or favor Obbe Philips excommunicated all who yielded to Miinsterite influences, no one being permitted to keep company with them or eat with them (according to I Cor. v. 11). This was the beginning of the practise of the avoidance of the excommunicated which was destined to lead to endless disputes and various schisms among the Mennonites. The latter name superseded the designation Obbenites after Obbe Philips had (in 1540) withdrawn from that body and Menno Simons had become their principal leader. Menno's writings afford thorough information regarding the doctrines, practises and aims of the Obbenites. Menno testifies that the Obbenites, when he identified himself with them, were " unblamable in doctrine and life," in other words, their characteristics did not undergo a change through his influence. This statement is corroborated by other evidence and is entirely trustworthy. Hoffmann's doctrine of the perfection of believers and of the impossibility of obtaining forgiveness for sins that have been knowingly committed after regeneration was rejected by the Obbenites. They insisted on the strict avoidance of the excommunicated except in cases of emergency; even the marital relation must, in a given case, be suspended. The refusal of the Waterlander churches, in Holland, to sanction marital avoidance led to the first schism among the followers of Menno, in 1555. It was on " avoidance " and on the incarnation that the Swiss Brethren differed from Menno and his friends. The former held a conference at Strasburg in South Germany in 1555 and again in 1557 and stated their position on these points. The conference of 1557 wrote a friendly letter to Menno
Simons pleading for union and brotherhood notwithstanding the prevailing differences. But Menno held that a doctrine of the Scriptures was at stake. In his opinion the rejection of " avoidance " was a matter of grave importance. At the disputation of Frankenthal in the Palatinate, in 1571, the Swiss Brethren declared that " Menno is not and never has been of one mind with us." They never accepted his teaching on the points in question, although some of them, at a much later date, adopted the name Mennonites, recognizing in Menno Simons the principal representative and expositor of their fundamental teachings.
Among those Mennonites whose ancestors were
the followers of Menno Simons two great groups are
r^ to be distinguished: (1) The churches
3. Two Q£ H0iian(i anci 0f northwestern Ger-
Churches. manv; (2) the churches of West Preussen, a province of Prussia, including their descendants in Russia and America. All Mennonites of South Russia, as well as those who emigrated from Russia and Prussia to America are the descendants of the churches of West Preussen. They are principally of Dutch ancestry. About the middle of the sixteenth century a number of Netherlandish families fled to what is now West Preussen, but was then a part of Poland. The majority of the Mennonites of this group, numbering not less than 110,000 souls of whom at least 30,000 are found in America, descended from those Dutch fugitives. They continued to use the Dutch language in worship until after the middle of the eighteenth century. The fact deserves notice that the number of family names in this group is surprisingly small; most of the names are represented by a large number of families; and the names found in the Russian Mennonite settlements in America are the same as those of the Mennonites of West Preussen and Russia. Emigration from Prussia to Russia began in 1788, and from both these countries to America in 1874. The language of all Mennonites of this group, including those of Russia, is German. While the churches of this group, as well as those who are the descendants of the Swiss Brethren, are thoroughly and conservatively orthodox on such leading doctrines as the Trinity, the deity of Christ, the atonement, the inerrancy of the Scriptures, the resurrection, etc., the Mennonites of Holland and northwestern Germany are of a decidedly liberal, rationalistic type. The supposition advanced by some of them that early Mennonite teaching had a liberalistic tendency has never been established by evidence. The more liberal wing of the early Mennonites, the Waterlanders who seceded from the main body in 1555, accepted unreservedly orthodox doctrines, as is established by their comprehensive confession of 1577. The confessions of all other Mennonite factions teach the same doctrines. Menno Simons, as well as Dirk Philips, a coworker with Menno, was orthodox on the preexistence and deity of Christ. It was at a much later date that the churches of Holland and northwestern Germany accepted rationalistic views. These churches are to-day scarcely holding their own as far as numbers are concerned. The Vereinigung der Mennonitengemeinden im deutschen Reiche,
Mennonitei