500 years ago, the Mennonites were a cursed sect of the Anabaptists led by a former priest named Menno Symons (1496 - 1561). "Seize and apprehend him and throw him in prison!"

"Menno Simons from Friesland" 1608 engraving by Christoffel van Sichem

The Mennonites are a cursed sect of the Anabaptists led by a former priest named Menno Symons -- seize and apprehend him and throw him in prison!

Alsatian Mennonite woman, from the 18th or 19th century. Plate from the collection "Costumes de divers pays" (Clothing of various countries), Lanté et Gatine (1827) - The Alsatian Museum, Strasbourg

"The error of the cursed sect of the Anabaptists … would doubtless be and remain extirpated, were it not that a former priest Menno Symons … has misled many simple and innocent people," complained a letter to the regent of the Netherlands in 1541. "To seize and apprehend this man we have offered a large sum of money, but until now with no success. Therefore we have entertained the thought of offering and promising pardon and mercy to a few who have been misled … if they would bring about the imprisonment of the said Menno Symons." 

The Emperor joins the witch hunt but Menno is never caught

Rembrandt, The Mennonite Preacher Anslo and his Wife, 1641

Holy Roman Emperor Charles V joined in the hunt, offering 100 gold guilders for Menno's arrest. One Dutch man was broken on the wheel and executed merely for allowing Menno to stay with him. But the former priest, a pacifist armed with ideas but no weapons, was never caught. Instead, he led the Anabaptists out of their radical, violent, millennialist fantasies into a moderate, devotional, pacifist movement. Neither the first nor the most original interpreter of the radical Reformation's Anabaptism, he was such an outstanding leader that the movement today is known by his name: Mennonites. 

Menno starts out refusing to read the Bible

Des mennonites alsaciens en 1815. Charles Mathiot, Roger Boigeol, Recherches historiques sur les anabaptistes de l'ancienne principauté de Montbéliard, d'Alsace et du territoire de Belfort, Flavion (Belgique), Éd. Le Phare, p.339 (coll. « Essais sur l'histoire du protestantisme français »).

Little is known about Menno's early life until his ordination as a priest at age 28. Though educated in a monastic school and trained for ministry, he had never even touched the Scriptures. "I feared if I should read them they would mislead me," he later wrote. "Behold! Such a stupid preacher was I for nearly two years." 

The church Menno was born into deceived him

Birth of Mennonite movement by Ammon Monroe Aurand, Jr., 1938

After those two years, he had a crisis of faith. The bread and wine he dispensed at each Mass did not seem to transubstantiate into Christ's body and blood as Roman Catholic doctrine taught. He figured such thoughts had been suggested by the Devil, and prayed for God to ward them off. "Yet, I could not be freed from this thought," he wrote. "Finally, I got the idea to examine the New Testament diligently. I had not gone very far when I discovered that we were deceived, and my conscience, troubled on account of the aforementioned bread, was quickly relieved." 

Menno leaves the church he was born into to preach the Word of God but continues to gamble and drink

Portrait of the Amsterdam Mennonite Brak family, Tibout Regters (1710–1768)

Believing the Bible to be authoritative, Menno developed the reputation as an "evangelical" preacher. "Everyone sought and desired me," he recounted. "It was said that I preached the Word of God and was a good fellow." But to Menno, it was a lie; his life was still empty and full of "diversions" like gambling and drinking. 

Menno cannot find any infant baptism in the Bible

Alles begann mit Ansgar. Hamburgs Kirchen im Spiegel der Zeit (Hamburg: Pressestelle der Freien und Hansestadt Hamburg, 2006), p. 48, 1750.

Three years later, an otherwise unknown Leeuwarden Anabaptist was beheaded, sending Menno into another spiritual crisis. "It sounded very strange to me to hear of a second baptism," he wrote. "I examined the Scriptures diligently and pondered them earnestly but could find no report of infant baptism." Again, he wrote, "I realized that we were deceived." But his life changed little: "I spoke much concerning the Word of the Lord, without spirituality or love, as all hypocrites do."

Anabaptists capture a town and are willing to die for their beliefs

The burning of a 16th-century Dutch Anabaptist, Anneken Hendriks, who was charged by the Spanish Inquisition with heresy.

Eventually, he was hit with a final crisis. Three hundred violent Anabaptists, dreaming of the imminent end of the world and attempting to escape persecution, captured a nearby town—and were savagely killed by the authorities. Among the dead was Menno's brother, Peter. 

"I saw that these zealous children, although in error, willingly gave their lives and their estates for their doctrine and faith … But I myself continued in my comfortable life and acknowledged abominations simply in order that I might enjoy comfort and escape the cross of Christ." 

Menno preaches Anabaptist theology from his Catholic pulpit

Menno Simons, Leipzig, 1854.

The realization led to an emotional, tearful cry to God for forgiveness. For nine months thereafter he essentially preached Anabaptist doctrine from his Catholic pulpit, until he finally left the church and (a year later) fully cast his lot with the radical Reformers. 

Even Protestant Reformers like Martin Luther and John Calvin oppose the Anabaptists

Historical drawing of the execution of the leaders of the Münster rebellion. In the background the cages are already in place at the old steeple of St. Lambert's church

At the time, however, Anabaptists were unloved by all. Even Protestant Reformers like Martin Luther and John Calvin opposed them as "fanatics," "scatterbrains," and "asses"—just as bad as the papists. Those feelings weren't helped in 1535 when a despotic Anabaptist leader took over the town of Münster, ruling as a cruel theocratic dictator until Catholic and Protestant troops overran the city in bloody battle. 

Menno leaves the Catholic church and is ordained as an Anabaptist

Photograph of an old order Mennonite, horse and carriage in Oxford County, Ontario, Canada by Allan Walker, 2006.

Menno was as worried about the violent Anabaptists as anyone and had even tried to stem their fanaticism as a priest. Sympathetic, he knew they had zeal without knowledge. But once he left the Catholic church, he met a group of peaceful Anabaptists who strongly opposed Münsterite thinking. He joined them and was ordained. 

Menno spreads Anabaptist propaganda throughout the Netherlands and Germany

George W. Bush meets with Amish and Mennonite residents in Lancaster, PA. Date : Wednesday, Aug. 16, 2006.  White House photo by Kimberlee Hewitt

For the rest of his life, Menno (and, later, his wife and his children) lived in constant danger as heretics. He traveled throughout the Netherlands and Germany, writing extensively and establishing a printing press to circulate Anabaptist teaching. He took the Bible extremely literally, sometimes even legalistically; though he defended the doctrine of the Trinity in a small book, he refused to use the term because it did not appear in Scripture. 

Menno defends the faith against Catholic and Protestant attacks

Portrait of Jan van Leiden (Anabaptist Leader) as King of Münster by Heinrich Aldegrever, in prison shortly before his execution, 1536.  Menno wrote The Blasphemy of Jan van Leyden

His writings aren't the most articulate Anabaptist theological treatises, nor are they the first. But they served to defend the faith against both Catholic and Protestant attacks and to distance the group from more zealous militants. In one of his first writings, The Blasphemy of Jan van Leyden, Menno opposed the unchristlike "proponents of the sword philosophy": "It is forbidden to us to fight with physical weapons … This only would I learn of you whether you are baptized on the sword or on the Cross?" 

Menno is a pacifist

Detail of portrait of the regents of the Mennonite orphanage, Haarlem, 1834. Jan Adam Kruseman (1804–1862)

The Christian's duty was to suffer, not fight, Menno believed. "If the Head had to suffer such torture, anguish, misery, and pain," he asked, "how shall his servants, children, and members expect peace and freedom as to their flesh?" 

Menno practices shunning of excommunicated church members

Mennonite on the cell phone, Serge Melki from Indianapolis, USA, 2010.

In his later years, he was occupied with other internal Mennonite struggles, mainly over shunning excommunicated church members. But in each of his writings (more than 40 survive), he began by quoting Paul's letter to the Corinthians: "No other foundation can any one lay than that which is laid, which is Jesus Christ." He finally laid his pen down at age 66, as he became ill on the twenty-fifth anniversary of his renunciation of the Catholic church. The next day, he died a natural death. Today nearly 900,000 Mennonites follow his teachings.

Source: Galli, Mark and Ted Olson, eds. 131 Christians Everyone Should Know. Nashville: B&H Publishing Group, 2000, pages 166-168.

Bede (673-735) documents the abolition of idolatry and the adoption of the truth of Christianity upon its first introduction in Britain 1,400 years ago

The Venerable Bede (673-735)

OF THE COUNCIL HE HELD WITH HIS CHIEF MEN ABOUT EMBRACING THE FAITH OF CHRIST, AND HOW THE HIGH PRIEST PROFANED HIS OWN ALTARS. [A.D. 627.]

The Chief the the Priests confesses to the King that the gods that they are currently worshipping are worthless and that they should immediately adopt Christianity

St Edwin of Northumbria (616 - 633), King of Deira and Bernicia

THE king, hearing these words, answered, that he was both willing and bound to receive the faith which he taught; but that he would confer about it with his principal friends and counsellers, to the end that if they also were of his opinion, they might all together be cleansed in Christ the Fountain of Life. Paulinus consenting, the king did as he said; for, holding a council with the wise men, he asked of every one in particular what he thought of the new doctrine, and the new worship that was preached? To which the chief of his own priests, Coifi, immediately answered, "O king, consider what this is which is now preached to us; for I verily declare to you, that the religion which we have hitherto professed has, as far as I can learn, no virtue in it. For none of your people has applied himself more diligently to the worship of our gods than I; and yet there are many who receive greater favours from you, and are more preferred than I, and are more prosperous in all their undertakings. Now if the gods were good for any thing, they would rather forward me, who have been more careful to serve them. It remains, therefore, that if upon examination you find those new doctrines, which are now preached to us, better and more efficacious, we immediately receive them without any delay." 

Another of the King's chief men urges adoption of Christianity due to the brevity of human life

Depiction of Edwin from John Speed's 1611 "Saxon Heptarchy".

Another of the king's chief men, approving of his words and exhortations, presently added: "The present life of man, O king, seems to me, in comparison of that time which is unknown to us, like to the swift flight of a sparrow through the room wherein you sit at supper in winter, with your commanders and ministers, and a good fire in the midst, whilst the storms of rain and snow prevail abroad; the sparrow, I say, flying in at one door, and immediately out at another, whilst he is within, is safe from the wintry storm; but after a short space of fair weather, he immediately vanishes out of your sight, into the dark winter from which he had emerged. So this life of man appears for a short space, but of what went before, or what is to follow, we are utterly ignorant. If, therefore, this new doctrine contains something more certain, it seems justly to deserve to be followed." The other elders and king's councillors, by Divine inspiration, spoke to the same effect. 

Coifi confesses that the worship of the false gods is superstition, that their temples and altars should be destroyed, and that instead they should worship the True God

A page from a copy of Bede's Lives of St. Cuthbert, showing King Athelstan presenting the work to the saint. This manuscript was given to St. Cuthbert's shrine in 934.

But Coifi added, that he wished more attentively to bear Paulinus discourse concerning the God whom he preached; which he having by the king's command performed, Coifi, hearing his words, cried out, "I have long since been sensible that there was nothing in that which we worshipped; because the more diligently I sought after truth in that worship, the less I found it. But now I freely confess, that such truth evidently appears in this preaching as can confer on us the gifts of life, of salvation, and of eternal happiness. For which reason I advise, O king, that we instantly abjure and set fire to those temples and altars which we have consecrated without reaping any benefit from them." In short, the king publicly gave his licence to Paulinus to preach the Gospel, and renouncing idolatry, declared that he received the faith of Christ: and then he inquired of the high priest who should first profane the altars and temples of their idols, with the enclosures that were about them, he answered, "I; for who can more properly than myself destroy those things which I worshipped through ignorance, for an example to all others, through the wisdom which has been given me by the true God?" Then immediately, in contempt of his former superstitions, he desired the king to furnish him with arms and a stallion; and mounting the same, he set out to destroy the idols; for it was not lawful before for the high priest either to carry arms, or to ride on any but a mare. Having, therefore, girt a sword about him, with a spear in his hand, he mounted the king's stallion and proceeded to the idols. The multitude, beholding it, concluded he was distracted; but he lost no time, for as soon as he drew near the temple he profaned the same, casting into it the spear which he held; and rejoicing in the knowledge of the worship of the true God, he commanded his companions to destroy the temple, with all its enclosures, by fire. This place where the idols were is still shown, not far from York, to the eastward, beyond the river Derwent, and is now called Godmundinghan, where the high priest, by the inspiration of the true God, profaned and destroyed the altars which he had himself consecrated.

Source:

Bede, Ecclesiastical History of the English Nation. Book 2, Chapter 13.  Translator not clearly indicated (But it seems to be L.C. Jane's 1903 Temple Classics translation), introduction by Vida D. Scudder, (London: J.M. Dent; New York E.P. Dutton, 1910).

Folio 3v from the St Petersburg Bede (a manuscript of Bede's Ecclesiastical History of the English People)