Since 1885, when Ludwig Karl Keller published his Reformation und die älieren Reformparteien. In ihrem Zusammenhange dargestellt (Leipzig), the question of the true origin of the Anabaptists has been a matter of debate. With considerable ingenuity and show of reason, Keller argues for the historical genesis of the sect from the well-known medieval movements of the Petrubrusians, the Apostolic Brothers, the Arnoldists, the Humiliati, the Lollards, the Spirituals, the Friends of God, the Brethren of the Common Life, the Waldensians, the Moravian Brethren, and the German Mystics. Kolde and Carl Mueller have shown the untenability of this theory, and yet it is appealed to again and again by that class of Baptist historians who endeavor to set up for their theological views a quasi apostolic succession