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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 03 November 2011
Parallel with the main current of the Protestant Reformation there ran from the very beginning another powerful current which has always received far less consideration from historians than it deserves. Some have supposed it to be a mis-guided, if not a monstrous, undertaking. Others have considered it one more among the many “lost causes” about which history is more or less silent. Neither of these positions is, however, quite tenable. It was, like Bunker Hill in the American Revolution, “a battle lost but a cause won,” since nearly everything which these minor reformers aimed at has since been achieved or is on the way to achievement.
1 Ludwig Keller was convinced that his researches established this point, but other scholars, including Dr. Ernst Troeltsch, do not endorse his claim. See especially Keller's Ein Apostel der Wiedertäufer. Troeltsch's great work, Die Soziallehren der christlichen Kirchen und Gruppen (Tübingen, 1912), is a very valuable contribution in this field, and I have carefully re-read the section of it bearing on my subject before writing this article.
2 Hübmaier's Twelve Articles of Faith.
3 It is estimated that six thousand persons became Anabaptists in and around Nikolsburg where Hübmaier preached.
4 Luther's tract, Wider die Mordischen und Reubischen Rotter der Bauern.
5 Letter written by Grebel to Münzer.
6 Even in the face of the terrific persecution that came down upon it as soon as it began, there were many thousands of Anabaptists in Middle Europe, and it has been estimated that thirty thousand were put to death in Holland alone.
7 Hans Hut, a disciple of Münzer, also preached apocalyptic hopes, though, unlike Hoffman, he remained non-resistant.
8 From Denck's two tracts, Was geredet sei, etc., and Vom Gesetz Gottes.
9 Franck's Paradoxa, Vorrede, sec. 13. and passim.
10 Vom Gesetz Gottes, p. 12.
11 Castellio's Contra Libellum Calvini.
12 Paradoxa, Vorrede, sec. 8.
13 Ibid., sec. 9.
14 Ibid., sec. 45.
15 Schwenckfeld's Schriften II, p. 290.
16 Schwenckfeld's Schriften I, p. 768 b.
17 Schriften II, p. 785.
18 The influence of Schwenckfeld is most marked in Boehme.
19 True Repentance.
20 See Bailey's Milton and Jacob Boehme (New York, 1914).
