The Swiss Brethren: An Exercise in Historical Definition
The Swiss Brethren originated “in, with and under” the Reformation. They lacked the traditional mystical thought patterns which were so influential for Thomas Müntzer, Hans Hut and Hans Denck and their followers in South and Central Germany. Although they possessed a vivid apocalyptic sense, which t...
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| Format: | Electronic Article |
| Language: | English |
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| Fernleihe: | Fernleihe für die Fachinformationsdienste |
| Published: |
Cambridge Univ. Press
1978
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| In: |
Church history
Year: 1978, Volume: 47, Issue: 2, Pages: 174-195 |
| Online Access: |
Volltext (JSTOR) Volltext (lizenzpflichtig) Volltext (lizenzpflichtig) |
| Parallel Edition: | Non-electronic
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| Summary: | The Swiss Brethren originated “in, with and under” the Reformation. They lacked the traditional mystical thought patterns which were so influential for Thomas Müntzer, Hans Hut and Hans Denck and their followers in South and Central Germany. Although they possessed a vivid apocalyptic sense, which they shared with many of the Reformers, they did not permit their eschatological expectancy to crystallize into the concrete and violent prophecies of a Hans Hut or a Melchior Hoffman. Thus they avoided the chiliasm which at first stimulated, but eventually blighted, German and Dutch Anabaptism. They did not move from sectarian congregations to communalism like the Hutterites, with the result that in the later sixteenth century they were preyed upon and denounced by Hutterite missionaries anxious to lead their members to the promised land. They were willing to regard the Christological speculations of the Melchiorites as adiaphora, but Menno Simons remained too much a Melchiorite to accept the hand of brotherhood which they extended from Strassburg. Despite their impulses toward “Anabaptist ecumenicism,” followers of that other would-be Anabaptist ecumenicist, Pilgram Marpeck, denounced them in the Kunstbuch as a “harmful and corrupting sect” which sought Christ “outside the human heart … in the Scriptures or other dead creatures.” The relations of the Swiss Brethren to the German and Swiss Reformations, their relations to other Anabaptist groups and the phases of their development remain historical problems, in some cases controverted, in others insufficiently studied. |
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| ISSN: | 1755-2613 |
| Contains: | Enthalten in: Church history
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| Persistent identifiers: | DOI: 10.2307/3164732 |