The Dutch Anabaptist; the Stone lectures delivered at the Princeton theological seminary, 1918-1919

Front matter

C^ Dutch Anabaptists

KEsDosker

THE GIFT OF PRESIDENT WHITE

Preface

Dr. Henry E. Dosker, the author of this volume, is the Professor of Church History in the Presbyterian Theological Seminary, Louisville, Ky. Doctor Dosker gave this course of lectures at Princeton University a year or more ago. The American Baptist Publication Society examined the manuscript with a view to publication, as it deals with the history of the Dutch Anabaptists, and is naturally of interest to Baptists. The Society requested me to read the manuscript before publication. This I have done and have been greatly interested in it.

It follows, naturally, that there are a number of things in it with which I do not agree and, as I understand the matter, the Publication Society is issuing it because of its wide general interest. Being a discussion of the history of the Dutch Anabaptists by a Presbyterian, it has an added interest. The history of the Dutch Anabaptists is not generally known. Doctor Dosker has done much scholarly research work in connection with the preparation of his manuscript, and while it contains some things which Baptists will not accept, it contains a great deal which will be of exceeding interest to them.

The style is clear and concise, and the book is easy to read, and no doubt it will be read by a large number.

E. Y. MULLINS.

Introduction

The field of geography is practically exhausted ; only here and there, in remote corners of the world, restricted areas are still awaiting the explorer's daring.

It is different in the field of history. The earth's records are practically indestructible, and they remain from generation to generation. Those of history are evanescent; men and customs change, nations appear and disappear, national boundary-lines are continually melting away, and the written records of human events are perishable. This is specially true of Church History, since ecclesiastical prejudice and bigotry have often deliberately tried to wipe out the literature which explains and illuminates historic movements and ecclesiastical changes.

In the period of the early ages of Christianity, the incessant persecutions, under the Empire, were directed against the written records of the nascent Church, as well as against its living members. And thus, alas, much has been lost which would be of infinite value were it extant today. The word traditores, born in Christian circles from this effort, is a mute witness to the extent and intensity of the attempt to rob the Christians of their sacred writings, inasmuch as it was specially directed against the latter.

We are by no means sure that the canon of the New Testament, as we have it today, represents the sum total

INTRODUCTION

of the literary work of the apostles and their contemporaries. Some apostolic writings we know to be lost, and it is practically inconceivable that of all the apostles only those whose literary remains we possess, should have endeavored to express their ideas in writing.

A similar effort to destroy heretical literature was made, in the age of the Reformation, by the Roman Catholic Church. The Inquisition exerted itself to the utmost in this direction. In Italy and Spain, in Austria and Holland, wholesale heretical book-burnings were a common occurrence. And we learn the efficiency of this combing process from the fate of a book, originating in the circles of The Oratory of the Divine Love, in Italy. It was entitled " The Benefits of Christ's Death "—1542— and has usually been ascribed to Aeqnio Paleario, till Ranke and Benrath proved it to be written by a Neapolitan monk, Don Benedetto de Mandova. It seemed as if the efforts of the Inquisition to destroy this work had been completely successful, since in thirty years not a copy of the original was thought to exist, and in a century all translations had been apparently wiped out. And yet a single copy remained, which was found at Cambridge in 1853 and pubhshed, with a translation, in 1855.

This same bitter attempt to destroy the writings of all heretics was made in Holland in the days of the Reformation, and it exerted itself most keenly against those of the Anabaptists, so that of all their numerous writings only fragments remained here and there.

And it was these scattered fragments which were gathered together in the ten volumes of the Bibliotheca Re-

INTRODUCTION

formatoria Neerlandica, 1903-1914. The reading of this ancient Anabaptist and reformatory literature first led me to the plan of attempting to shed some light on the Dutch Anabaptists, who suffered so unspeakably and who exerted an influence on the course of ecclesiastical development in Protestantism wholly disproportionate to their numbers.

I make no special literary claims for this work; its dress may please or displease the reader; I am simply after the facts. Since the language of practically all this literature is a bar to nearly all English and American students of Church History, it seemed worth while to give them at least a glimpse of this terra incognita, in which the Dutch Anabaptists have dwelt so long, in a perpetual twilight.

The invitation to deliver the Stone Lectures, 1918- 1919, at Princeton, facilitated my plans.

I place this little volume in the hands of the friends and students of Church History. In it they will learn where the Dutch Anabaptists originated, what were the normal and abnormal developments of their history, who were their great leaders, what they believed, what they practised, what were their weaknesses, and what was the secret of their strength, how they were swayed by outside influences, and what is the ecclesiastical status of the remnant today.

Henry Elias Dosker.

Presbyterian Theological Seminary of Kentucky, Louisville, Ky,

Contents

LECTURE PAGE

I. Origin and Early Development 1-46

1. The Sources 4