A Pledge of Love: Balthasar Hubmaier and Anabaptist Sacramentalism

By Brian C Brewer

Balthasar Hubmaier remains one of the most significant figures in the radical reformation of the sixteenth century. A Pledge of Love is close and thorough examination of Hubmaiers view of the sacraments within the context of worship. This ground-breaking work examines the distinctive theology of this important Anabaptist and his possible influence upon others.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Authentic Publishers
• Release date: Jul 8, 2014
• ISBN: 9781780783536

Brian C Brewer

Brian C. Brewer is Assistant Professor of Christian Theology at the George W. Truett Theological Seminary, Baylor University, USA. A native of Tulsa, Oklahoma, Dr. Brewer holds a B.A. in religion from Baylor University. His M.Div. degree is from the George W. Truett Theological Seminary, where he graduated Summa Cum Laude and was the very first graduate of the institution. Dr. Brewer subsequently earned a Master of Theology in Homiletics and Worship from Princeton Theological Seminary and also a Master of Philosophy and the Ph.D. degree, both in historical theology, from Drew University in Madison, New Jersey. A seasoned pastor, Dr. Brewer continues to stay connected to local congregations as a preacher and conference speaker, recognizing both preaching and teaching as his Christian calling.

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Introduction

Anabaptism, that left-wing¹ movement of the sixteenth century Protestant Reformation, has often been ignored or relegated to the footnotes of many historical accounts of Protestantism. Many Catholic and mainline Protestant scholars alike still hold erroneous stereotypes and continue to misunderstand the movement. Consequently, a more trustworthy history of Anabaptism has largely been left to the theological descendants of the Anabaptists, primarily Mennonite, Baptist and other believers’ church² scholars. The fortunate result of such research has uncovered the pregnant thought of numerous sixteenth century leaders and established a better understanding of the events that surrounded the Anabaptist movement.

Subsequently, the works of such Anabaptist leaders as Conrad Grebel, Felix Mantz, Hans Hut, Leonhard Schiemer, Hans Denck, Dirk Philips and others have been recovered and increasingly appreciated. Yet, a number of scholars point out that only the works of Menno Simons rival the contribution of Balthasar Hubmaier to the formative theologies of Anabaptism, and none approaches Hubmaier among first generation Anabaptists in the development of the movement’s early thought and Christian practice.

Balthasar Hubmaier is, undoubtedly, one of the most prominent names within Anabaptism. Such a place has been rightfully won, for Hubmaier was perhaps the most articulate defender of Anabaptist theology and its ordinal practices during the movement’s fledgling years. Nevertheless, many students of the Reformation period too quickly associate Hubmaier’s thought as being representative of Anabaptism, or even more inappropriately, as being commonplace among the early Brethren.³ Instead, this book will attempt to portray a Hubmaier who came to Anabaptist thought, and more specifically to an Anabaptist sacramental theology, through a different path from that taken by the other early leaders of the movement.

Hubmaier’s Distinctive Sacramentalism

All leading sixteenth century Anabaptists arguably came to their radical reformed beliefs based upon somewhat similar basic theological tenets as a visible ecclesiology, evangelical soteriology or a pre-Pietist or semi-Pelagian notion of ethics as a response to the reigning medieval Augustinianism. However, no other first generation Anabaptist appropriated these beliefs demonstratively through a structured sacramental system as did Hubmaier. For Hubmaier, the rites of the church are forefront in the development of his theology, both as a Catholic professor and teacher and as an Anabaptist pastor and leader. His consciousness of worship, its proper practice, and its impact on congregational life and Christian ethics was pervasive throughout his works. To this end, this book will focus on Hubmaier’s sacramental theology to bring a clearer understanding of the Waldshut reformer’s Christian thought and distinct early influence on Anabaptism.

A study into the sacramental theology of any sixteenth century Anabaptist may, on first appearance, seem preposterous. Indeed, a cursory reading of the primary and secondary works of this radical movement implicates Anabaptism as a non-sacramental movement.⁴ Anabaptism’s descendants in the believers’ church today generally, though not unanimously, re flect this spirit.⁵ Additionally, as James F. White points out, the term sacramentality is relatively novel.⁶ As such, the application of such a modern definition into a classic period may appear anachronistic. Nevertheless, this book will argue that such an approach is not only appropriate but also enlightening of the development and implication of Hubmaier’s thought.

Although the use of such terminology has been deemed an anathema by recent free church scholarship, such an approach is not completely reflective of the spirit of its forebears in the sixteenth century, particularly in Hubmaier in the first generation of Anabaptism, as well as Bernhard Rothmann, Pilgram Marpeck, Dirk Philips and Menno Simons among subsequent generations of early Anabaptists. The free church today, then, demonstrates a reluctance to utilize sacrament to describe some of its church practices, but this hesitation may be based more on events and influences after the Reformation period which limited or made suspicious use of this terminology and not squarely on the early Radical Reformation.⁷

Anabaptist scholarship has generally continued this anti-sacramental sentiment, often by projecting their Mennonite and Baptist perspectives on their theological foreparents. To an extent, such an anti-sacramental position is appropriate. Grebel favored terminology which would avoid the implication of relapsing that which is spiritual to a sacramental form. He argued then for ceasing all priestly customs such as vestments, special bread and cup, and special water. Jakob Kautz wrote in his Seven Articles that No word, no sign, no promise and no sacrament can make a man completely certain.⁸ Melchior Hofmann spoke of priests as sacrament sorcerers and conjurers and accused Luther of making an idol of the sacraments. During his trial in 1570, one Anabaptist argued that the word sacrament did not exist in the Bible and should not be used in the church.⁹

These sentiments seem rather straightforward, then, as representative of Anabaptism. Consequently, when scholars encountered the works of Balthasar Hubmaier, they often made similar conclusions. For instance, Eddy Mabry notes:

… Hubmaier also rejected the medieval term ‘sacrament’ itself. Historically the term ‘sacrament’ had meant the visible sign of an invisible grace, which communicated that of which it was the sign. Hubmaier rejected the notion that the sacraments conveyed grace. As they did not convey grace, but were only done in obedience to the commands of Christ, Hubmaier called them, not sacraments, but ‘ordinances.’¹⁰

Mabry’s research on this point exposes more his own modern Baptist convictions and less Hubmaier’s true sacramental development in his theology.

More precisely, as a developing Protestant and Anabaptist, Hubmaier sought to transform the medieval notion of sacrament while still maintaining the use of its terminology. He wrote in his Form zu taufen:

That we have called the water of baptism, like the bread and the wine of the altar, a ‘sacrament’; and held it to be such, although not the water, bread, or wine, but in the fact that the baptismal commitment or the pledge of love is really and truly ‘sacrament’ in the Latin; i.e. a commitment by oath and a pledge given by the hand which the one baptized makes to Christ, our invincible Prince and Head, that he is willing to fight bravely unto the death in Christian faith under his flag and banner.¹¹

Hubmaier’s notion of the sacraments in his mature theological development did not disassociate itself from sacramentality, but merely transposed it from the signs of water, bread and wine to their companion acts of oath and promise. For Hubmaier, the sacraments were firmly rooted in a well-formulated ecclesiology accompanied by strong doses of anthropology and ethics.

Like his Anabaptist colleagues, Hubmaier strongly affirmed the notion of a gathered fellowship of genuine believers who submitted themselves to baptism, the Lord’s Supper, confession, and church discipline, in order to preserve a true church. The signs of baptism and the Lord’s Supper, as such, were important features emblematic of this ecclesial transformation. It is unfortunate that Hubmaier did not have more time before his premature death to develop further his notion of the gathered community of believers to leave for his fellow Anabaptists and for posterity. Nevertheless, Hubmaier’s extant writings indicate for him the importance of those signs and actions which were the fruits of the genuine church.

To those who criticized Hubmaier for his focus in ink and voice on these rites, Hubmaier responded in his Von der brüderlichen Strafe,

So all of those who cry: ‘Well, what about water baptism? Why, all the fuss about the Lord’s Supper? They are after all just outward signs! They’re nothing but water, bread and wine! Why fight about that?’ They have not in their whole life learned enough why the signs were instituted by Christ, what they seek to achieve or toward what they should finally be directed, namely to gather a church, to commit oneself publicly to live according to the Word of Christ in faith and brotherly love, and because of sin to subject oneself to fraternal admonition and the Christian ban, and to do all of this with a sacramental oath before the Christian church and all her members, assembled partly in body and completely in spirit, testifying publicly, in the power of God.¹²

The signs testify to the genuineness of the gathered fellowship and must be accompanied by discipline. This was particularly important in light of Hubmaier’s notion of the church as Christ’s body on earth. Since he took seriously the biblical tradition of Christ’s ascension into heaven, His sitting on the right hand of God and His promise not to return until the great day of judgment,¹³ Hubmaier reasoned that it was impossible for Christ to be present or contained in any object such as water or bread. The words of institution found in Luke and I Corinthians were interpreted by Hubmaier to be acts of memorial of Christ’s presence, not invocations of Him. Instead, Christ’s presence on earth was to be found in the body of disciplined believers. On this point, John D. Rempel rightly concludes:

It follows from this that the dominical ceremonies of baptism and the Lord’s Supper are not means of grace but responses to grace. Their agent is not God but the church and, within the church, the believers in it. These signs are part of what constitutes the church because they embody the condition of its existence, that is, the response of faith and obedience. For Hubmaier, sacraments are human pledges and witnesses that the gospel has been believed and acted on. In that indirect sense only are they signs that God is present and at work.¹⁴

God’s indwelling presence, though, is prerequisite to such gathering, obedience, discipline and ritual signs. God’s previous action in transforming the person inwardly through the preached Word by the work of the Holy Spirit provides comfort and strength to enter into the church’s disciplined community. As such, Rempel testifies, the word, without any relationship to the elements, functions sacramentally as the outward sign and means of an inward reality.¹⁵

Consequently, Hubmaier maintained the traditional view of the outward and visible as conveying the inward and spiritual realities. Nevertheless, the notion of sacrament was transferred from the signs themselves to their corresponding oaths and pledges taken with them. This approach and unabashed continued usage of medieval Christian and magisterial reformed language, albeit shifted into new contexts, places Hubmaier not as commonplace but as unique among his Anabaptist contemporaries in the first generation of Anabaptism. Yet his idea of Christian ethics in response to God’s inner workings causes this Anabaptist to elevate the rites and proper practice of the ordinances of the church to a place of great significance in his writings and theology. This study into Hubmaier’s sacramental theology should then serve to clarify the whole of his theology and bring greater light to the diversity of thought within early Anabaptism.

History of Research

Anabaptism has been a much ignored and maligned movement of the sixteenth century. Only in recent decades has mainstream scholarship begun to recognize the important role Anabaptism played during the Protestant reformation and in the development of several significant Christian ideals and traditions.

Excellent biographies have been published through the course of the twentieth century on Balthasar Hubmaier. The 1905 biography Balthasar Hübmaier: The Leader of the Anabaptists¹⁶ was the groundbreaking study of Hubmaier in the English language. Written by Baptist church historian Henry C. Vedder, the book was a volume contribution to the Heroes of the Reformation series edited by Samuel Macauley Jackson. That Hubmaier was considered a hero of the sixteenth century Protestant movement was indicative of the changing attitudes in the last century towards Anabaptism. Vedder’s book praised Hubmaier for his defense of biblical Christianity and provided an excellent biographical background for understanding the development of Hubmaier’s sacramental theology. At the same time, Vedder downplayed Hubmaier’s recantations and weaknesses.

In 1914 Carl Sachsse, theology professor in Bonn, published his work, D. Balthasar Hubmaier als Theologe, which evaluated Hubmaier’s theological works and contribution to Reformation studies.¹⁷ Sachsse argued that Hubmaier’s views developed over time and, consequently, were exposed to numerous theological traditions and life experiences. Consequently, Hubmaier’s theology was eclectic and revealed some doctrinal inconsistencies. Such inconsistencies could be extrapolated to affect his unique sacramental theology.

Most prominent among secondary works on Hubmaier was Torsten Bergsten’s Balthasar Hubmaier: Seine Stellung zu Reformation und Täufertum, 1521-1528, published in 1961.¹⁸ Bergsten’s text, a fresh reconsideration of the life and thought of Hubmaier, was in such demand in Britain and America that it was translated and edited into an English version by Irwin Barnes and William R. Estep and published in 1978 under the title, Balthasar Hubmaier: Anabaptist Theologian and Martyr.¹⁹ This text develops the theological similarities between Hubmaier and Zwingli, even on their ecclesiologies. Bergsten noted that while the Lord’s Supper was a general common ground between these two, baptism was the main doctrine that divided the two reformers.

Christof Windhorst also added to the new interest in Hubmaier studies with his work Täuferishes Taufverstandnis: Balthasar Hubmaiers Lehre Zwischen Traditioneller und Reformatorischer Theologie.²⁰ Here, Windhorst presented a more contemporary view of Hubmaier. In particular, the author brought much insight into Hubmaier’s baptismal theology as both borrowing from his medieval Catholic training and as utilizing a fresh, biblical approach to the sacraments.

In addition to these works, other scholars have explored one or another ordinance in Hubmaier’s theology. Perhaps there has been no better study into the doctrine of baptism and its development in Anabaptism than Rollin S. Armour’s doctoral dissertation at Harvard, The Theology and Institution of Baptism in Sixteenth-Century Anabaptism, later published as Anabaptist Baptism: A Representative Study.²¹ Armour, a professor at Stetson and later Auburn University, analyzed the baptismal theologies of Hubmaier, Hut, Melchior Hofman, and Pilgram Marpeck. While such a work was significant for Anabaptist studies, Armour’s text downplayed baptism’s importance as a core issue in Anabaptism. A similar dissertation-turned-book written by John D. Rempel on the Lord’s Supper was published in 1993. Titled The Lord’s Supper in Anabaptism: A Study in the Christology of Balthasar Hubmaier, Pilgram Marpeck and Dirk Philips, the text offered new insights not only into Eucharistic theology but Anabaptism’s broader critique of Catholic and magisterial reformed sacramentalism.²²

Additionally, Eddie Mabry’s 1982 dissertation, The Baptismal Theology of Balthasar Hubmaier, provided an excellent study of Hubmaier’s medieval influences in developing his baptismal theology.²³ Mabry later revised and expanded his work into the book, Balthasar Hubmaier’s Doctrine of the Church, published in 1994.²⁴

Nevertheless, through the course of the twentieth century no scholar had taken the whole of Hubmaier’s sacramental thought as the basis of research into his overarching theology. Studies on baptism and the Lord’s Supper had certainly isolated slim segments of Hubmaier’s theology for close investigation, yet no single study had adequately stepped back to comprehend his sacramental thought as a whole, satisfactorily relating the ceremonial rites of the church to their corresponding sacramental promises in oath and covenant in Hubmaier’s theology.

However, after the initial publication of this present work in the form of a dissertation at Drew University in 2003, Kirk R. MacGregor published in 2006 his revised dissertation from the University of Iowa under the title, A Central European Synthesis of Radical and Magisterial Reform: The Sacramental Theology of Balthasar Hubmaier. MacGregor argues that Hubmaier’s sacramental theology depended heavily on Bernard of Clairvaux, a figure of importance to Hubmaier’s mentor, Johannas Eck. With the caveat of arguing a literary dependence which does not speculate on whether Hubmaier had actually read Bernard or not, MacGregor argues that Hubmaier’s sacramental thought was an amalgamation of Bernard of Clairvaux and Hubmaier’s contemporaries in Martin Luther, Ulrich Zwingli and the Grebel circle.²⁵

Another recent work of importance to Hubmaier studies is H. Wayne Walker Pipkin’s 2008 publication, Scholar, Pastor, Martyr: The Life and Ministry of Balthasar Hubmaier (ca. 1480-1528). This book, which is the published edition of Pipkin’s 2006 Hughey Lectures at the International Baptist Theological Seminary in Prague, Czech Republic, outlines the changing perspectives within Hubmaier studies, Hubmaier’s formative education and relationships in his early ministry, freshly reviews Hubmaier’s conflict with Ulrich Zwingli, details the events of Hubmaier’s Nikolsburg church and subsequent execution, and posits Hubmaier’s Baptist theology.²⁶

Similarly to MacGregor, the work presently in your hands posits Hubmaier as one who arrived at his mature, Anabaptist sacramental thought by conjoining his Catholic theological training to his magisterial and Reformation theology. However, Hubmaier’s Catholicity may only safely be described as deriving from Johannes Eck and Hubmaier’s own scholastic training, without conjecturing on the various strains of scholastic thought for his day. Instead, this book maintains that the retention of some of Hubmaier’s Catholic thought influenced his understanding of baptism, the Lord’s Supper and other church practices. The development of this thought provides greater insight into this Anabaptist thinker’s consciousness of worship and ethical practice in the Anabaptist community of faith and helped to shape early Anabaptism and subsequent theologians and leaders of the movement.

Significance

Hubmaier’s writings clearly reveal the importance he placed on the rites of the church within the development of his theology. While most studies on Hubmaier have provided general overviews of his life, ecclesiology or a single ordinance in his thought, little study has deeply probed Hubmaier’s sacramentalism as a whole and the implicit connections between baptism, the Lord’s Supper and other ethical responses to God’s grace. To this end, this book will concentrate on Hubmaier’s sacramental theology in order to elucidate further his theology and its distinct influence on Anabaptism.

To accomplish this goal, the first chapter of this book will set the theological context of Hubmaier’s sacramental thought within a historic background of his life. This is to portray, as with all theologians, that doctrinal thought is not developed in a vacuum but is shaped by life experience and circumstance. Hubmaier, of course, is no exception to this. A trained Catholic priest who had attained a doctorate in theology, Hubmaier grappled with the tradition of his upbringing as he encountered the reformation writings of Luther, Zwingli and early Anabaptists. Consequently, the argument will be made that all of this life experience helped to shape Hubmaier’s thought as unique among the first Anabaptists and his sacramental thought as nonpareil among his generation of Anabaptist peers.

Subsequently, the book will analyze the development of Hubmaier’s doctrines of Eucharist, baptism, and other possible signs of sacrament individually in order to comprehend further Hubmaier’s uncommon view of sacrament. The volume will then conclude by reviewing Hubmaier’s liturgical contributions to Anabaptist worship and measure the possibility of any influence of Hubmaier’s sacramental thought on later Anabaptism, the believers’ church tradition and the church universal.

¹ Left Wing of the Reformation was Roland H. Bainton’s nomenclature for various sixteenth-century groups which became disenchanted with the Lutheran and Zwinglian movements’ relative conservatism of magisterially supported church reform. See his article, The Left Wing of the Reformation, Journal of Religion 21 (1941), 124-34. George H. Williams popularized the analogous term radical reformation in his landmark study of Anabaptism, The Radical Reformation (Philadelphia: The Westminster Press, 1962), particularly xxvi-xxxi.

² Donald Durnbaugh introduced this term as a more precise label for free churches which claim some historical or typological tie to Anabaptism. See Donald F. Durnbaugh, The Believers’ Church: The History and Character of Radical Protestantism (Scottdale: Herald Press, 1968), particularly 4-8.

³ John Howard Yoder, for instance, once observed that "in the sixteenth century there was christological originality among the Anabaptists (though not in Hubmaier). See John Howard Yoder, The Believers’ Church Conferences in Historical Perspective," The Mennonite Quarterly Review [hereafter MQR] 65 (January 1991), 17 [italics mine].

⁴ Most Anabaptist scholars tend to avoid the usage of the term sacrament. Indeed, Walter Klaassen notes that "Anabaptism testifies uniformly that sacredness or holiness does not attach to special words, objects, places, persons or days. … There are no sacred things. ‘The bread is nothing but bread.’ … Therefore ordinary bread ought to be used and it should be treated like ordinary bread." Klaassen, Anabaptism: Neither Catholic nor Protestant (Waterloo: Conrad Press, 1973), 11-12, [italics his]. Here, while Klaassen does not name sacrament as a rejected term outright, the flavor of his writing certainly implies at least the spirit of Free Church antitransubstantiationism. John D. Rempel has noted that Anabaptism was both anticlerical and antisacramental. See his Mennonite Worship: A Multitude of Practices Looking for a Theology, Mennonite Life 55, no. 3 (September 2000), 1. Additionally, Thomas Finger notes that Mennonites are thought to be a- or even anti-sacramental. See Thomas Finger, Sacramentality for the Catholic-Mennonite Theological Colloquium (April 2005), 28.

⁵ The Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) historically has utilized this term and some Baptist traditions do not outright reject it. See Mark G. Toulouse, Joined in Discipleship: The Shaping of Contemporary Disciples Identity (St. Louis: Chalice Press, 1997), 159-160 and D. Duane Cummins, A Handbook for Today’s Disciples in the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) (St. Louis: Chalice Press, 1991), 25-30, for examples of the Disciples’ usage of this terminology. Additionally, see Norman H. Maring and Winthrop S. Hudson, A Baptist Manual of Polity and Practice, revised ed. (Valley Forge: Judson Press, 1991), 145, for reference to historic Baptist use of this term. In this latter work, Maring and Hudson note that while Baptists in general seem to prefer to speak of ordinances rather than sacraments,… there was a time when they were less hesitant to call the Lord’s Supper a sacrament, and that term is still more common among British Baptists.

⁶ James F. White, The Sacraments in Protestant Practice and Faith (Nashville: Abingdon, 1999), 13.

⁷ This is especially true of those who understand sacrament to mean the dispensation instead of merely the conveyance of grace. As such, they would consider sacrament as nearly synonymous with magical and would thereby reject usage of such a term. Baptist linguist and Greek scholar A.T. Robertson opened his address to the 1911 convocation of the Baptist World Alliance in Philadelphia stating: This is the one thing that Baptists stand for against the great mass of modern Christians. The Greek Church, the Roman Catholic Church, the Lutheran Church, the High Church Episcopalians, and the Sacramental wing of the Disciples attach a redemptive value to one or both of the ordinances. It is just here that the term ‘Evangelical Christianity’ comes in to emphasize the spiritual side of religion independent of rite and ceremony, here cited in R. Wayne Stacy, Baptism in R. Wayne Stacey (ed.), A Baptist’s Theology (Macon, GA: Smyth and Helwys, 1999), 153. To Robertson’s historic quote, Stacy himself adds: "believer’s baptism by immersion in a nonsacramental sense is perhaps the sine qua non of Baptist theology …", here cited in Stacy (ed.), A Baptist’s Theology 154.

⁸ Here cited in Gerhard J. Neumann, The Anabaptist Position on Baptism and the Lord’s Supper, MQR 35 (April 1961), 147.

⁹ Neumann, The Anabaptist Position on Baptism and the Lord’s Supper, 147.

¹⁰ Eddie Mabry, Balthasar Hubmaier’s Doctrine of the Church (Lanham: University Press of America, 1994), 166.

¹¹ G. Westin and T. Bergsten (eds), Balthasar Hubmaier Schriften (Gütersloh: Gerd Mohn, 1962) [hereafter Schriften], 352; H. Wayne Pipkin and John H. Yoder (eds), Balthasar Hubmaier: Theologian of Anabaptism, Classics of the Radical Reformation, vol. 5 (Scottdale: Herald Press, 1989), [hereafter Hubmaier], 391. This latter work will be the translation cited, compared with the original, and will be hereafter amended when noted.

¹² Hubmaier, 384 [italics mine]; Schriften, 346.

¹³ Hubmaier, 336; Schriften, 303.

¹⁴ John D. Rempel, The Lord’s Supper in Anabaptism: A Study in the Christology of Balthasar Hubmaier, Pilgram Markpeck, and Dirk Philips (Scottdale, PA: Herald Press, 1993), 48 [italics his].

¹⁵ Rempel, The Lord’s Supper in Anabaptism, 49.

¹⁶ Henry C. Vedder, Balthasar Hübmaier: The Leader of the Anabaptists (New York: G.P. Putnam’s Sons, 1905).

¹⁷ Carl Sachsse, D. Balthasar Hubmaier als Theologe (Berlin: Trowizsch & Sohn, 1914).

¹⁸ Balthasar Hubmaier, Balthasar Hubmaier Schriften (Gunnar Westin and Torsten Bergsten, eds.; Gütersloh: Verlagshaus Gerd Mohn, 1962).

¹⁹ Torsten Bergsten, Balthasar Hubmaier: Anabaptist Theologian and Martyr (trans. Irwin J. Barnes and William R. Estep; Valley Forge: Judson Press, 1978).

²⁰ Christof Windhorst, Täuferisches Taufverständnis: Balthasar Hubmaiers Lehre Zwischen Traditioneller und Reformatorischer Theologie (Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1976).

²¹ See both Rollin S. Armour, The Theology and Institution of Baptism in Sixteenth-Century Anabaptism, MQR 38 (July 1964), 305; and Armour’s Anabaptist Baptism: A Representative Study (Scottdale: Herald Press, 1966).

²² John D. Rempel, The Lord’s Supper in Anabaptism: A Study in the Christology of Balthasar Hubmaier, Pilgrim Marpeck, and Dirk Philips (Scottdale: Herald Press, 1993).

²³ Eddie L. Mabry, The Baptismal Theology of Balthasar Hubmaier (Unpublished dissertation, Princeton Theological Seminary, 1982).

²⁴ Mabry, Balthasar Hubmaier’s Doctrine of the Church (Lanham: University Press of America, 1994).

²⁵ MacGregor further postulates that Hubmaier is not to be associated with the Anabaptists of Zurch but instead should be seen as a magisterial reformer who had accepted credobaptism. Kirk R. MacGregor, A Central European Synthesis of Radical and Magisterial Reform: The Sacramental Theology of Balthasar Hubmaier (Lanham: University Press of America, 2006), esp. 91-129.

²⁶ H. Wayne Walker Pipkin, Scholar, Pastor, Martyr: The Life and Ministry of Balthasar Hubmiaer (ca. 1480-1528) (Prague: International Baptist Theological Seminary of the European Baptist Federation, 2008).

CHAPTER 1

The Sacraments in Hubmaier’s Life and Theological Development

The study into the life of any thinker may provide avenues to understanding his or her thoughts and written contributions for posterity. Balthasar Hubmaier was shaped by his home life, his vast education, his wide reading of contemporary theology, his dialogue with other reformers, and, arguably, his staunch independence among magisterial and Anabaptist reformers.¹

One of Hubmaier’s greatest contributions to the believers’ church tradition and to ecumenical dialogue as a whole was the development of his view of sacramentality, a position which was unique among the very early Anabaptists. The Anabaptist Hubmaier saw the sacraments as neither magical rites with cleansing water and wine nor as mere symbols of redemption and memorial respectively. Nevertheless, he was steeped in the former tradition and lingered in the latter in order to complete his own unique theological sojourn. This exploration concluded with a notion of sacrament as an inward commitment accompanied by an outward pledge, the former as a believer’s true covenant, the latter as his or her conveyance of such. Consequently, tracing Hubmaier’s life-journey is worthy of the effort in order to bring light into his unusual assembly of Catholic, Protestant and Radical influences upon his thought.

Early Life and Education

Hubmaier means farmer on the hill, and most researchers of his biographical material conjecture his upbringing to be not far removed from his surname.² Born into a lower class family between 1480 and 1485 in the town of Friedberg,³ five miles east of Augsburg, Hubmaier was approximately the same age as both Luther and Zwingli (b. 1483 and 1484 respectively). Little is known of Hubmaier’s childhood years, save for an early development of Catholic piety and a strong veneration of the Virgin Mary as attributed to a staunchly Roman Catholic upbringing.⁴ The child Hubmaier was baptized in the Catholic Church and later probably attended Latin school in Augsburg.⁵ In 1503 Hubmaier began studies at the University of Freiburg, only to withdraw shortly thereafter because of dwindling finances. After teaching for a short period of time at a school in Schaffhausen, Hubmaier returned to Freiburg in 1507, probably after receiving his consecration as a priest at Constance. Upon his return to Freiburg, he quickly earned both a bachelor’s and master’s degree.⁶

Hubmaier’s theological training was markedly different from that of many of his soon-to-be reformer contemporaries. Hubmaier was schooled in the more conservative tradition of German scholasticism representative of the late middle ages. This movement rejected the modern brand of Christian humanism which sought to decipher meaning in Scripture through philological exegesis. Erasmus and Jacques Lefevre d’Etaples were leading figures in this new approach to textual study in which original language, grammar and rhetoric were taken seriously. For Hubmaier and his conservative education, such innovation was superfluous.⁷ The resulting interpretive cleavage between Hubmaier and his reformer counterparts in Zwingli, Luther, and Oecolampadius would be reflected in their