Menno Simons
The Anabaptist movement travelled throughout Europe like
wildfire. Despite severe persecutions, from both Catholics and Protestants,
their number multiplied rapidly; where one died at the hands of the persecutors,
there were many more willing to take his place.
One of the followers of Luther, named Melchior Hoffman had
travelled to Strasbourg where he first came across Anabaptists. Convinced of
their teaching, he was baptised as a believer in 1530. From Strasbourg, Hoffman
travelled to other parts of Europe, including an area of Holland called East Friesland.
Hoffman baptised wherever he went and people accepted his teaching, including
one Sicke Freerks Snijder. This latter went to Leeuwarden, the capital of the
Dutch province of Friesland, where he was burned to death for his believer’s
baptism in 1531. The news of his martyrdom came to the ears of a priest in
Leeuwarden, named Menno Simons
[click on the name to see a complete biography]
Menno Simons was born in the year 1496 in the village of
Witmarsum. All that is known about his family is that his father was named
Simon, hence Menno’s surname – Simons, or ‘Simonszoon’ (son of Simon) and he
may have had a brother named Pieter.
At the age of 28, Menno was ordained to the priesthood at
Utrecht in 1515 or 1516 and became the chaplain in the village of Pingjum in
1524. He was familiar with the Latin Fathers’ writings and knew Latin and Greek,
but he did not read the Bible at all, for fear it would prejudice his learning.
In later years he said his former view of the Bible was ‘stupid’. Ten years
after his ordination, news had arrived in Holland of the dispute over the
status of the bread and wine at communion. It was at this time Menno began to
study his Bible. It was not until 1531 however that Menno’s views began to
change.
He was aware that Snijder had been executed for having been ‘re-baptised’.
This was something Menno found strange; until that time, he had never been
aware of baptism on confession of faith, but had followed the church’s teaching
on infant baptism. The news aroused in him a desire to look further at the
matter and he did an in depth study of what the Bible taught about the baptism
of infants. To his surprise, he found that infant baptism is nowhere taught in
the New Testament. He also studied the writings of Martin Luther and Heinrich
Bullinger. Around this time, he was transferred to Witmarsum as a priest. It was
at Witmarsum that he came into direct contact with Anabaptists for the first
time. He was attracted by their zeal for God and their understanding of the
Bible, but it wasn’t until 1536 that he was truly converted, after the death of
his brother Pieter at Bolsward. In January 1536, he left the priesthood and
rejected the Catholic church and was probably baptised at this time, though the
exact date is unknown, throwing in his lot with the Anabaptists. By October that
same year, it is clear his attachment to the Anabaptists was well known to the
authorities, for two Anabaptists, Herman and Gerrit Jans, were arrested and
charged with having lodged at the home of Menno Simons.
Melchior Hoffman had introduced the first Anabaptist
congregation in Holland and Menno became a part of this. His doctrine focused
on separation from the world, symbolised by baptism. He believed that the true
Christian faith would manifest itself not in fighting and war, but in good
works and love:
“For true evangelical
faith...cannot lie dormant, but manifests itself in all righteousness and works
of love; it...clothes the naked, feeds the hungry, consoles the afflicted,
shelters the miserable, aids and consoles all the oppressed, returns good for
evil, serves those that injure it, prays for those who persecute it,” Menno
Simons, 1539 Why I Do Not Cease Teaching
and Writing.
Menno rose quickly to prominence in the Anabaptist movement
in Holland. Prior to 1540, the most influential leader in the Dutch Anabaptist
church was David Joris; by 1544, the Anabaptists were being known as ‘Mennists’
or ‘Mennoists’. That term was later replaced with the word ‘Mennonites’. He was
not the founder of the Anabaptist movement in Holland, but he was certainly a
crucial leader at a time when Anabaptism was in danger of losing its
distinctive identity in the Netherlands. His prolific writing and moderate leadership were essential in unifying the non-violent wing of
the Dutch Anabaptists, after the Munster uprisings, which he vigorously
denounced.
Of his private life, it is recorded that he married a woman
named Gertrude and had three children, two daughters and a son. He died of old
age, some twenty five years after he renounced Catholicism, on January 31st
1561, at Wüstenfelde, Holstein. He was buried in the garden of his home.
Distinctive
Teachings of Menno Simons and the Anabaptists
- Salvation is
by faith in Christ and not through sacraments or good works
- The Bible not
the church is the final authority for all matters of faith and practice
and is interpreted by the Holy Spirit, not priests, bishops or Popes
- Believers’
baptism, by which is meant the inner work of cleansing of sin at the time
of coming to faith together with the outward expression of that inner
faith, being baptised in water. The Anabaptists also spoke of a ‘baptism
of blood’ whereby they expected to be persecuted even to the death.
- Discipleship,
which was the outward evidence of the inward change of heart and included
separation from the world (ie living differently from the rest of the world,
such as feeding the hungry and not accumulating personal wealth)
- Church discipline,
as explained in Matthew 18v15-18; including shunning, or ‘the ban’ whereby
a person who had fallen into sin would be excommunicated.
- Communion as
a commemoration, not a re-sacrifice, and shared between believers only
- Separation of
church and state
- Separation from
the world
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