The Anabaptists and Their Hermeneutic

Anabaptism was “born in the bosom of Zwinglianism in Zurich, Switzerland, in 1525.”¹ Huldrych Zwingli began his ministry at the Grossmünster in Zurich, under great opposition in 1518. He announced that he would no longer read the prescribed lectionary passages selected for each Sunday but would preach through the Gospel of Matthew straight from the Greek text.² Zwingli’s courageous departure from this tradition birthed the genesis of the Swiss Anabaptists. Out of Zwingli’s biblical preaching arose several men who were radically changed and convicted by the Word. In the congregation were young, radical reformers hungry to learn and apply the Scriptures. Conrad Grebel, Felix Manz, Simon Stumpf, Andreas Castleberg (Castleberger), and others formed a small group of Bible students. Zwingli introduced them to the Greek New Testament, and they could not get enough of it. In fact, Grebel continued his studies in Greek³ and clearly emerged as the leader of this circle of rising radicals.⁴ 

The earliest Anabaptists held such a staunch commitment to the Word of God that no other doctrine seemed to reach the pinnacle to that which they placed on Scripture. It became the foundation of every argument, every sermon, every aspect of their ecclesiology. “Most Anabaptists would never have questioned the reliability of Scripture in any instance.”⁵ 

On January 21, 1525, in the Zurich home of Felix Manz, a group of men who studied God’s Word together were convicted of the New Testament pattern of believer’s baptism. On that historic day, Conrad Grebel baptized George Blaurock. Afterwards, Blaurock baptized the others in attendance. That very moment “Anabaptism was born. With this first baptism, the earliest church of the Swiss Brethren was constituted.”⁶ As the baptismal waters of affusion flowed, this movement swept over a growing multitude of various classes—priest and pauper, the learned and the ignorant. Each of them longed for the Word of God. 

Anabaptist Theologian Balthasar Hübmaier

Balthasar Hübmaier studied under the most celebrated Roman Catholic theologian of the day, Johann Eck, better known as Eck of Ingolstadt. Eck, tall and solidly built, possessed (as one observer put it) the meaty face of a butcher and the lungs of a town crier. Known for his quick wit, overbearing manner, and prodigious memory, he could quote with equal facility from the Bible and the church fathers, as well as the Sentences and the decretals. Eck’s chief asset was his win-at-any-cost mentality. He could create diversions, twist opponents’ arguments, even adopt their positions as his own when it suited him.⁷ 

He held tremendous influence over the thinking and performance of Hübmaier. No doubt Hübmaier’s ability as a formidable debater should be credited to Eck’s investment in him. “It would be quite surprising if he (Eck) had not had a significant influence on Hübmaier’s theological development.”⁸ Eck was a student of the via moderna. Bergsten states that Hübmaier would have received his training along the same line.⁹ Hübmaier exchanged a commitment to use debate to win arguments for a conviction to use the Word to make his arguments after he embraced the evangelical faith. However, he had been extremely effective as a Romanist preacher and theologian. The year 1522 became what Estep calls, “the year of decision.”¹⁰ Of it, he writes, 

Sometime before, perhaps more than a year earlier, he [Hübmaier] had begun to study the Scriptures, paying special attention to the Pauline epistles. In June 1522 he journeyed to Basel, where he made the acquaintance of Erasmus and Glarean, Conrad Grebel’s old teacher. . . . After visiting other Swiss cities and noting the progress of the Reformation, he returned to Waldshut, becoming more intent than ever on a study of the New Testament, which was increasingly the source book of his theology.¹¹ 

In the same year he began to attend a Bible study led by Hans Blabhans, a devoted follower of Martin Luther. This growing circle of evangelicals exercised a profound impact on Hübmaier, who had already begun to preach through the Gospel of Luke. Concerning his experiences Hübmaier exclaimed, “Christ was beginning to sprout in me.”¹² 

Out of this study of Scripture, Hübmaier came to the realization that “the Catholic Church had departed, in doctrine, and practice, from the teachings of the apostles.” Hübmaier also came to the conscious knowledge that he needed to be saved “and sought personal salvation from Christ himself, and not from the Church and its sacraments.”¹³ 

In March 1523 Hübmaier would travel to Zurich and meet with Zwingli, where the two would discuss a wide range of theological topics. During these meetings he drew up his first reformatory writings called, “The Eighteen Articles of April 1524.” In these articles, designed to engage the clergy in Waldshut, he discussed topics that ranged from the nature of salvation to baptism, as well as who should pay the pastor.¹⁴ 

The work of the Reformation in Waldshut expanded. During these days Hübmaier looked for ways to agree with and carry out the work of Zwingli. However, his endeavors would undergo a more radical and expansive change. On Easter Saturday, April 15, 1525, Hübmaier, along with sixty others, was baptized by Wilhelm Reublin; after which Hübmaier then baptized three hundred others over that Easter weekend. After the baptisms, they celebrated what they called “a mass” but was really a simple memorial meal. What actually occurred is that Hübmaier transitioned from the Magisterial Reformers to become a Radical Reformer, founding within Catholic Austria a region that would be home to the Anabaptists.¹⁵ In the midst of his spiritual transition, he was having to adjust, amend, and adapt personal hermeneutics. Hübmaier followed the rules for a historical, grammatical, contextual method, which later would be called exegetical interpretation, or even a text-driven message.¹⁶ He traversed through various hermeneutical options—from a Roman Catholic, to Magisterial Reformer, to Anabaptist. The conclusion of these hermeneutical jumps led him to assert the Bible as “the only norm for Christian faith and practice.”¹⁷ Something very “Baptistic sounding” resonates with that statement. 

Hermeneutical Principles

The natural place to begin with the discovery of an Anabaptist hermeneutic would be with their commitment to Scripture. The Anabaptist hermeneutic, whether in the form of apocalyptic gymnastics or a literalism that defied logic, required that their interpretations all ran through Scripture. The mainstream Anabaptists were deeply committed to the Word of God and saw it as the very utterance of God written by Holy Spirit-led men. This assertion does not discount the Magisterial Reformers’ regard for Scripture, rather it simply highlights the Radical Reformers’ commitment to the Word of God. Hübmaier and the Swiss Brethren were suspicious that a formal education clouded the plain simple meaning of Scripture. They believed that the Scriptures were plain, clear, and understandable even to the most uneducated person—“a position also held at various times by Erasmus, Luther, and Zwingli early in the Reformation.”¹⁸ While they did not employ the word inerrant, “they would have never questioned the reliability of Scripture.”¹⁹ 

Within the Reformation no group took more seriously the principle of sola Scriptura in matters of doctrine and discipline than did the Anabaptists. In this regard the Reformation stance of the Anabaptists is unequivocal. The authoritative position of the Scriptures among the sixteenth-century Anabaptists was apparent from the beginning. The Bible became and remained for them the supreme judicature by which all human opinions were to be tried.²⁰ 

For Hübmaier, a proper and biblical hermeneutic employed the clear, plain, simple meaning of a passage.²¹ He, along with other Anabaptists, saw a difference between their understanding of sola scriptura and the way the Magisterial Reformers viewed sola scriptura. The Anabaptists believed that Scripture must be “free to challenge all other authorities.”²² They saw evidence that the Reformers compromised too much with the early church fathers. As Murray contends: 

Anabaptist[s] believed sola Scriptura meant that Scripture must be free to challenge all authorities . . . . In particular, they were firm that the authority and adequacy of Scripture not be compromised by too much deference to doctrinal beliefs and traditional interpretations.²³ 

The Anabaptists were not opposed to studying the early church fathers. In fact, Hübmaier and other Anabaptists commonly quoted them. Their concern, however, was that the Reformers held that the writings of the church fathers were equal in authority to the Scriptures. As Murray explains, “The Reformers referred frequently to patristic interpretations to support their own conclusions. Anabaptists were much less inclined to do so. They quoted from authorities on occasion, but usually with the proviso that patristic opinions were interesting rather than authoritative and not on the level with Scripture.”²⁴ 

Over-emphasizing the authority Anabaptists placed on Scripture is nearly impossible. From the learned to the average uneducated, Anabaptist housewife, they not only believed the Word of God, but they knew it: 

An inquisitor rebuked an Anabaptist woman, Claesken, in 1559 with this question: “Do you know better than the holy fathers fifteen hundred years ago? You should think that you are simple.” Her reply is typical of Anabaptists’ confidence that scholarship, learning, and theological reputation were not the keys to correct hermeneutics: “Though I am simple before men, I am not simple in the knowledge of the Lord. Do you not know that the Lord thanked His Father, that He had hid these things from the wise and prudent, and had revealed them to the simple and unto babes?”²⁵ 

Most Baptists today would have very little reason to argue with the Anabaptists over their high, authoritative view of Scripture. In fact, their high view of the Word of God served as the basis for their hermeneutics, just as the majority of contemporary Baptists acclaim today. 

Context

The Anabaptists utilized the biblical context of a passage in order to understand and interpret Scripture. Its use proved central to Hübmaier’s hermeneutic: 

The Bible also interprets itself in that any passage must be viewed in the context of what precedes and what follows. The crucial passage, if torn out of context, will admit to all kinds of interpretations, but if placed in the light of the context will be quite clear and plain.²⁶ 

Hübmaier cautioned Anabaptists against what he called, “patchwork with Scriptures.” He insisted that they “compare opposing Scriptures and unite both into a whole judgement.”²⁷ This contention was not only Hübmaier’s understanding and practice; Dirk Philips also grasped this hermeneutic principle—that is, that a text had to be understood in its immediate context, but also in the context of the Scripture as a whole.²⁸ 

The Magisterial Reformers followed a different path, all the while claiming they adhered to interpreting Scripture in its appropriate context. However, they followed a more Augustinian process of “combining theology and biblical interpretation . . . . They argued Scripture must be understood in light of certain fundamental doctrines.”²⁹ The Anabaptists rejected this hermeneutic because to them, it set doctrine above Scripture.³⁰ Once again, like their concern over the early church fathers, the Anabaptists were very cautious that no human hand taint the Scriptures. 

Grammar

The Anabaptist commitment to biblical context did not mean they did not labor with interpreting texts. In his work on the Eucharist, Einfältiger, which means “simple,” Hübmaier proposed several hermeneutical principles. In it, he rejected his Roman Catholic hermeneutic, even the Reformed interpretation, for a uniquely, Anabaptist understanding. For Hübmaier the word sacrament became redefined, not as salvific but as an expression of commitment to Jesus Christ as Lord. He viewed baptism and the Lord’s Supper “not [as] means of grace but [as] responses to grace.”³¹ In his argument for the bread and the wine to be seen as elements and not sacerdotal, he turned to the grammar of the little verb est (that is, “is”). The argument Hübmaier addressed dealt with the phrase “this is My body,” (cf. Matt 26:26; Mark 14:22; Luke 22:19; 1 Cor 11:24). 

Andreas Karlstadt, influenced by his mysticism, claimed that “this is My body” referred not to the bread, but to Jesus himself.³² Zwingli, according to Hübmaier, claimed that this statement “signifies” Christ’s body.³³ Here, the Anabaptist theologian concerns himself with the tropological exegesis of the passage. He interpreted “this is My body” to mean that the bread refers to the body of Christ in memory, not in some reality. He also stated that the body of Christ is positioned at the right hand of the Father, therefore he could not reside in the broken bread. Hübmaier contended that the bread was simply bread, and the wine was simply wine.³⁴ 

Hübmaier used three hermeneutical principles in his argument. His first principle taught that one must “interpret an obscure passage in light of a plain one.”³⁵ Luke and Paul both expressed Jesus’s words with the phrase, “Do this in remembrance of me,” (Luke 22:19; 1 Cor 11:24). On this principle he based his position that the bread and wine simply serve as a remembrance. 

Hübmaier’s second principle gets to the issue of the syntactical or structural exegesis of the text. It asserted that “Preceding words should be understood in relation to those that follow them.”³⁶ The bread could only be Christ’s body in symbol because it—the bread—was not crucified for us. His third hermeneutical principle suggests that challenging texts should be compared to texts with similar forms of speech.³⁷ 

Textual Considerations

Hübmaier demonstrated his grasp of a textual hermeneutic, that is, that the text dictates the interpretation. In his defense, On the Christian Baptism of Believers, he deals with Mark 1:4-5: 

John the Baptist appeared in the wilderness preaching a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. And all the country of Judea was going out to him, and all the people of Jerusalem; and they were being baptized by him in the Jordan River, confessing their sins. 

Hübmaier addressed two theological beliefs that this text teaches. He identified two principal verbs—baptízwn and khrússwn—which describe the heart of the pericope. He stated in his argument: 

Here the opponent cries, “Do you see that here baptism precedes preaching?” Answer: Deo gratie. Do you also see that preaching is followed by baptism? For Luke says, “And they all let themselves be baptized by him [Luke 3:21].” Away with quarreling for ourselves, so that we do not confuse anybody with strange glosses. It is the following: John was in the wilderness and baptized with water, undoubtedly nobody but those to whom he had preached beforehand and led to the recognition of their sins. Set the above-mentioned passages alongside this passage as one must do for the interpretation of the Scriptures.³⁸ 

He demonstrated not only a textual hermeneutic, but a grasp of the textual and the contextual when he used Matthew 21:25 in the same argument: “‘Whence was the baptism of John?’ Christ asked the high priests. ‘Was it from God, or from men?’” Here, Hübmaier confronted the issue of the word, baptism, with the Reformers. Hübmaier did not contest that the meaning referred to the water baptism of John, but that was not the question Jesus asked. “He, Christ, only wants to know whether John baptized—yes, in water—by the command of God or of men. There the high scholars got stuck and were unable to answer. Therefore, let this passage stay with its simple meaning as long as neither the preceding nor succeeding words compel or lead us differently.”³⁹ 

Languages

For Hübmaier, knowledge of the biblical languages proved extremely important. Trained in Hebrew, Greek, and Latin, he used the languages. One such evidence of this linguistic hermeneutic lay in the agreement between Luther and Hübmaier on Matthew 16:16-19. They both agreed on the masculine singular of Pétros for the proper noun Peter used with the feminine singular pétra for rock. This interpretation gives the understanding of the words of Christ to mean that Peter’s confession that Jesus was the Christ, “not that Peter himself, constituted the antecedent of ‘rock.’”⁴⁰ Kirk MacGregor goes on to say, “Luther would concur with the radical’s following exegesis of the 1516 Greek New Testament: Christ says, ‘You are Peter, and on this rock (in other words, that which you confess) I will build my church’. . . . the Christian church [is] built . . . on the oral confession of faith that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the living God.”⁴¹ 

He further used the language of the New Testament and the verb tense in this passage from Matthew 16:19, where Jesus stated, “I will give thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven.” Hübmaier sees a difference in the singular use of “you” and the plural use of the pronoun in this passage. Of Hübmaier’s view, Mabry wrote, 

The use of the singular “you” referred to the unity of the church, in the sense that all members constitute the one “you.” When Christ used the “you” in the plural sense, it meant for Hübmaier all of the many people who were to be in this unity. The point is, that for Hübmaier, the “you” was always to be understood in this particular passage as referring to the whole church.⁴² 

In his treatise, On the Christian Baptism of Believers, Hübmaier states his position on languages and his caution, “Although I do not reject tongues or languages for the exposition of dark passages, still for sun-clear words one needs neither tongues nor lungs.”⁴³ 

Believer’s baptism is the primary, outstanding distinctive most people consider when they think of the Anabaptists. However, as this examination has demonstrated, hermeneutics was also a notable contribution of these radical expositors. 

Christocentric Hermeneutic

For the Anabaptists, Christ occupied the center of everything. He especially was positioned at the center of the Christian life, as well as the center of Scripture, itself. Because Jesus was the center of their lives, community, and interpretation, many Anabaptists employed a Christocentric hermeneutic. Like nearly everything else, their use of such a hermeneutic was misunderstood by the Reformers. This misunderstanding was not all the fault of the Magisterial Reformers, because agreement varied among the Anabaptists themselves as to what they meant by a Christocentric hermeneutic. 

The Anabaptists held the life of Christ as an example to follow, which was critical for their understanding of Scripture. As Murray described of their Christocentric hermeneutic, “Not only must the historical Jesus be central to the text, but the Christ of faith must be central to the life-experience of the interpreter.”⁴⁴ 

This Christocentric hermeneutic was called by the Reformers a literalistic view of Scripture, or a legalistic view of Jesus’s teachings. However, the Anabaptists saw in Christ’s teaching, suffering, and ministry the key not only to how they were to live the Christian life, but the way they were to interpret Scripture. Jesus was fundamental, not only for salvation but for living out their salvation; therefore, the living Word of God became the means for interpreting the written Word of God. When examining their background, the fact that they were being hunted, arrested, tried, and executed by everyone who called themselves by the name Christian makes it understandable that they would find in Jesus everything for their faith, practice, and interpretation. 

Both groups, the Magisterial Reformers and the Radical Reformers, would agree that Jesus Christ was the supreme revelation of God to mankind. The Reformers, however, emphasized Jesus in the doctrines of salvation and justification, that is, soteriologically. The Anabaptists radically differed in the focus of their hermeneutic. They were tied more to the humanity of Jesus. Luther said: 

Now because much more depends upon the word than upon the works and deeds of Christ, and because if we had to do without one or the other, it would be better to lack the works and the history than the words and the doctrine, it is fair to give the highest praise to those books which deal more with the doctrine and the words of the Lord Christ.⁴⁵ 

The Anabaptists would assess that statement as diminishing Jesus and His life. “They feared the Reformers had lost sight of Jesus as a person and were left only with a theological principle.”⁴⁶ 

Anabaptist hermeneutics have been downgraded at best, and ignored in the least, over the past five-hundred years of preaching history. For a multiplicity of reasons, Anabaptists have been relegated to the church ash heap and forgotten by most. However, they had a hermeneutic much like the Reformers—grammatical, linguistical, and contextual. At times in their short history, they rivaled the greatest theological minds of their day. After Hübmaier and Zwingli came into fierce disagreement over baptism, “Zwingli, in replying to Hübmaier’s treatise on Infant Baptism, uses many hard words as usual, but shows great respect for his abilities. He calls Hübmaier, ‘that distinguished Doctor,’ and admits in a passage that he has a greater faculty for speaking than himself.”⁴⁷ 

These hermeneutical principles have found their way into the study life of most Southern Baptist preachers. One by one we find Baptist preachers marked by the Anabaptist hermeneutic, not even realizing from where their principles of interpretation came or to whom they owe thanks. 

1. Harold S. Bender, The Anabaptist Vision (Waterford, Ireland: CrossReach Publications, 2018), 15.  ↩︎
2. Roland H. Bainton, The Reformation of the Sixteenth Century, enlarged edition (Boston: Beacon Press, 1985), 82.  ↩︎
3. William R. Estep, The Anabaptist Story (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1996), 12.  ↩︎
4. Michael G. Baylor, ed., The Radical Reformation (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1991), 262.  ↩︎
5. Paige Patterson, “What Contemporary Baptists Can Learn from the Anabaptists,” The Anabaptists and Contemporary Baptists, ed. Malcolm Yarnell (Nashville: B&H Academic, 2013), 14. ↩︎
6. Estep, Anabaptist Story, 14.  ↩︎
7. Michael Massing, Fatal Discord: Erasmus, Luther, and the Fight for the Western Mind (New York: HarperCollins Publishers, 2018), 360.  ↩︎
8. Torsten Bergsten, Balthasar Hübmaier: Anabaptist Theologian and Martyr, ed. W. R. Estep (Valley Forge, PA: Judson Press, 1978), 51.  ↩︎
9. Bergsten, Balthasar Hübmaier, 51.  ↩︎
10. William R. Estep, Renaissance and Reformation (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1986), 207. ↩︎
11. Estep, Renaissance and Reformation, 207.  ↩︎
12. Christof Windhorst, “Balthasar Hübmaier: Professor, Preacher, Politician,” in Profiles of Radical Reformers, ed. Hans-Jürgen Goertz (Scottdale, PA: Herald Press, 1982), 147.  ↩︎
13. Henry Clay Vedder, Balthasar Hübmaier (1905; repr., Columbia, SC: The Perfect Library, 2020), 28.  ↩︎
14. Estep, Renaissance and Reformation, 208. ↩︎
15. Windhorst, “Hübmaier: Professor, Preacher, Politician,” 150.  ↩︎
16. Graeme R. Chatfield, Balthasar Hübmaier and the Clarity of Scripture (Eugene, OR: Pickwick Publications, 213), 111.  ↩︎
17. John D. Rempel, The Lord’s Supper in Anabaptism: A Study in the Christology of Balthasar Hubmaier, Pilgrim Marpeck, and Dirk Philips (Waterloo, ON: Herald Press, 1993), 57.  ↩︎
18. Chatfield, Hübmaier and the Clarity of Scripture, 57.  ↩︎
19. Patterson, “What Contemporary Baptists Can Learn from the Anabaptists,” 14. ↩︎
20. Estep, Anabaptist Story, 190.  ↩︎
21. H. Wayne Pipkin and John Yoder, eds., Balthasar Hübmaier: Theologian of Anabaptism (Scottsdale, PA: Herald Press, 1989), 111-113.  ↩︎
22. Stuart Murray, Biblical Interpretation in the Anabaptist Tradition (Kitchener, ON: Pandora Press, 2000), 45.  ↩︎
23. Murray, Biblical Interpretation, 45.  ↩︎
24. Murray, Biblical Interpretation, 45. ↩︎
25. Murray, Biblical Interpretation, 46-47.  ↩︎
26. Murray, Biblical Interpretation, 61.  ↩︎
27. Pipkin and Yoder, Balthasar Hübmaier, 428.  ↩︎
28. Murray, Biblical Interpretation, 61. ↩︎
29. Murray, Biblical Interpretation, 47.  ↩︎
30. Murray, Biblical Interpretation, 47.  ↩︎
31. Rempel, The Lord’s Supper in Anabaptism, 48.  ↩︎
32. Andreas Karlstadt followed Martin Luther’s reformation for a period of time, then became an Anabaptist. He left Anabaptism and went back to the Magisterial Reformers. He was mystical, or a Spiritualist, which is where Hübmaier parted with him. This difference can be seen in Bergsten, Balthasar Hübmaier, 192-195.  ↩︎
33. Rempel, The Lord’s Supper in Anabaptism, 59.  ↩︎
34. Rempel, The Lord’s Supper in Anabaptism, 58-59. ↩︎
35. Rempel, The Lord’s Supper in Anabaptism, 59.  ↩︎
36. Rempel, The Lord’s Supper in Anabaptism, 59.  ↩︎
37. Rempel, The Lord’s Supper in Anabaptism, 59. Hübmaier lists five criticisms of the Anabaptists position and then refutes them by the use of his hermeneutical principles. Rempel walks the reader through each one of these and shows how Hübmaier resolves the issue with these hermeneutical principles. ↩︎
38. Pipkin and Yoder, Balthasar Hübmaier, 109.  ↩︎
39. Pipkin and Yoder, Balthasar Hübmaier, 114.  ↩︎
40. Kirk R. MacGregor, A Central European Synthesis of Radical and Magisterial Reform (New York: University Press of America, 2006), 28-29.  ↩︎
41. MacGregor, Central European Synthesis, 29. ↩︎
42. Eddie Mabry, Balthasar Hübmaier’s Doctrine of the Church (New York: University Press of America, 1994), 78.  ↩︎
43. Pipkin and Yoder, Balthasar Hübmaier, 99.  ↩︎
44. Murray, Biblical Interpretation, 79. ↩︎
45. Gerhard Ebeling, Luther (London: Collins, 1972), 131.  ↩︎
46. Murray, Biblical Interpretation, 85. ↩︎
47. John A. Broadus, Lectures on the History of Preaching (1893; repr., Birmingham: Solid Ground Christian Books, 2004), 130. ↩︎