Menno Simons

Dutch religious reformer and scholar

• Born: 1496
• Birthplace: Witmarsum, Friesland (now in the Netherlands)
• Died: January 31, 1561
• Place of death: Wüstenfeld, Holstein (now in Germany)

Menno contributed a stabilizing influence to the Anabaptist movement of the sixteenth century and also to a defense of religious toleration. His most lasting contribution has been his emphasis on the Bible as the authority in religion and theology.

Early Life

Menno Simons (MEHN-oh SIHM-ohnz) was born in the Dutch village of Witmarsum, between the cities of Franeker and Bolsward, less than ten miles from the North Sea. His parents were devout Roman Catholics who consecrated their son to the service of their church. Menno’s education for the priesthood was most likely at the Franciscan monastery in Bolsward. While there, he performed the duties of a monk but never took the vows. He studied Roman Catholic theology, learned to read and write Latin, acquired a basic knowledge of Greek, and became familiar with the writings of the early church fathers. Conspicuously absent from Menno’s studies was the Bible.

Menno was ordained as a Roman Catholic priest in 1524 and remained faithful to that calling for twelve years. The last five years (1531-1536), he served as parish pastor in his home village of Witmarsum. Outwardly, he was the average country priest of the sixteenth century, performing his duties faithfully but with the least possible effort. With two fellow priests, his leisure time was spent “playing [cards], . . . drinking, and in such diversions as, alas, is the fashion . . . of such useless people.”

Inwardly, Menno was troubled by doubts concerning the ceremony of the Mass. He could not escape the thought, which he first attributed to Satan, that the bread and wine were not really transformed into the body and blood of Christ as he had been taught. Menno’s doubts may have been prompted by the Sacramentists, a group that denied the physical presence of Christ in the Lord’s Supper. Two years after becoming a priest, Menno sought and found his answer in the Bible. He later wrote, “I had not gone very far when I discovered that we were deceived. . . .” Menno then faced the same decision that faced other reformers: Would he rely on his church for authority, or would he take the Bible as his sole authority for doctrine and practice? His decision to accept the latter came in 1528.

Privately rejecting Roman Catholic authority did not mean an immediate break between Menno and the Church. Although not in agreement, he was willing to continue performing the Mass in the traditional way; at the same time, he became more deeply involved in personal Bible study.

Menno’s second question concerning the traditions of his church, and the one that eventually led to his departure from it, concerned infant baptism. In 1531, a man was beheaded in nearby Leeuwarden because of Anabaptism (rebaptism based on baptism for believers only). Menno’s Bible study soon convinced him that believers’ baptism (baptism of adolescents and adults who consent to the ritual) was the biblical position. By this time, small groups of Anabaptists were forming throughout the Netherlands, but Menno did not join any of them, partly because he enjoyed the comfortable life of a priest and partly because of the radical nature of some Anabaptists, such as those who violently captured Münster in 1534.

The greatest change in Menno’s life came in April, 1535, when he accepted, as a “sorrowing sinner, the gift of His [God’s] grace. . . .” He then rejected both the Roman Catholic Mass and infant baptism. On January 30, 1536, Menno renounced the Roman Catholic Church and joined the Anabaptists.

Life’s Work

Following his break with Rome, Menno began a period of wandering that would last about eighteen years, in which he served as an underground evangelist to the scattered Anabaptist communities. In late 1536, he settled briefly in the northern Dutch province of Groningen, where at least a semblance of religious freedom existed. While there, he was baptized with believers’ baptism and ordained as an elder in the Anabaptist movement. Soon thereafter, Menno was forced to resume his wandering. His exact points of residence can be traced only by noting those who were executed for sheltering him. On January 8, 1539, Tjard Reynders, a God-fearing Anabaptist in Leeuwarden, was executed solely because he had given a temporary home to Menno.

Until late 1543, Menno’s work was concentrated in the Netherlands. The authorities in Leeuwarden, the capital of West Friesland, seemed determined to be rid of Menno, whose hometown of Witmarsum was in their province. In 1541, they offered a pardon to any imprisoned Anabaptist who would betray him, but the offer was not accepted. On December 2, 1542, with the support of Charles V, emperor of the Holy Roman Empire as well as ruler of the Netherlands, they offered a reward of one hundred gold guilders, plus a pardon for any past crime, to anyone who would deliver Menno. These efforts testify to the importance ascribed by that time to Menno’s leadership of the movement.

The exact time and place when Menno married Geertruydt are not known; in 1544, however, he wrote “to this hour I could not find in all the country . . . a cabin or hut . . . in which my poor wife and our little children could be put up in safety.” Menno continued throughout these years to express concern for his family, all of whom, except one daughter, preceded him in death. From 1541 to 1543, Menno concentrated his labor farther south around Amsterdam, but details of this work are scarce. He evidently baptized many, although the names of only two have been preserved.

The most enduring part of Menno’s work is his writing. By 1543, at least seven books from the pen of Menno Simons were circulating throughout the Netherlands, including Dat fundament des christelycken leers (1539; A Foundation of Plain Instruction , 1835), Van dat rechte christen ghelooue (c. 1542; The True Christian Faith , 1871), and Verclaringhe des Christelycken doopsels (c. 1542; Christian Baptism , 1871). Rather than being academic treatises designed for theologians, they are commonsense presentations for the average layperson. Precisely because Menno’s works were so accessible, church authorities were particularly determined to destroy them.

In the fall of 1543, Menno and his family left the Netherlands, and for the last eighteen years of his life, he labored primarily in northwest Germany. His first German refuge was Emden, in East Friesland, ruled by the tolerant Countess Anna of Oldenburg. Menno had visited the province, which had become a haven for all Anabaptists, many times previously. By this time, however, Anna was being pressured by Charles V to suppress all the outlawed sects.

The superintendent of the East Friesland churches, on whose advice Anna relied, was John a’Lasco, a Zwinglian reformer of Polish descent. Although on friendly terms with Menno, a’Lasco’s goal was a state-controlled Reformed church. Countess Anna decided to suppress those whom a’Lasco declared to be heretical. To this end, a theological discussion was held on January 28-31, 1544, involving a’Lasco, who hoped to bring the Anabaptists into the state church, and Menno, who hoped to preserve the tolerant spirit in East Friesland. The discussion revealed three irreconcilable differences. First, Menno strongly opposed the concept of a state-controlled church, which he believed always led to compromise and spiritual lethargy. Second, a’Lasco could not reconcile believers’ baptism to a state church. The final point concerned Menno’s unique understanding of the Incarnation of Christ; he taught that the body of Christ, to be completely sinless, had to be given completely to the Virgin Mary by the Holy Spirit. A’Lasco interpreted this as a denial of the humanity of Christ, weakening his position as the savior of humankind; he therefore declared that Menno was guilty of heresy.

In 1545, Anna issued a decree that the more radical Anabaptists were subject to execution, while the “Mennisten” were to be examined and, if they did not conform to the state church, were to leave the province. This decree was the first official document to recognize Menno’s leadership by applying his name to the peaceful branch of the Anabaptist movement.

Menno left East Friesland in May, 1544, for the lower Rhine area of Cologne and Bonn, where he spent two fruitful years; the last fifteen years of his life were spent in the province of Schleswig-Holstein. There, in 1554, Menno finally found a permanent home for his weary family in Wüstenfelde, between Lübeck and Hamburg.

Menno’s final years were productive in that he had time for more writing, including revising some of his earlier books. They were also troublesome years in which Menno had to settle disputes and defend himself within the Anabaptist movement. The most serious dispute concerned the ban and shunning of excommunicated members; Menno took the strict position that all human ties, even those of marriage and family, had to be broken under the ban of the church.

By 1560, Menno’s health was failing. The years of hardship and privation, as well as the burden of the church, had taken a heavy toll. He often used a crutch as a result of an injury suffered in Wismar around 1554. Menno died in his own home on January 31, 1561, exactly twenty-five years after his break with Rome, and was buried in his own garden. Unfortunately, Wüstenfelde was destroyed during the Thirty Years’ War (1618-1648), and the site of Menno’s grave could only be approximated in the early twentieth century, when a simple memorial was erected.

Significance

The Anabaptist movement began in 1525; for the next eleven years, Menno Simons was a Roman Catholic priest. Therefore, he was only a leader, not the founder, of the church that bears his name: the Mennonite church. Menno’s role in the Reformation is not as obvious as that of his contemporaries, Martin Luther, Huldrych Zwingli, and John Calvin; yet his true significance is revealed in three areas of influence: his character, his message, and his work.

The character of Menno was ingrained with a sensitivity for the truth, an unswerving devotion to his convictions, and a deep trust in God. These traits enabled him to have a steadying influence on the diverse Anabaptist communities of the Netherlands and northern Germany.

The foundation of Menno’s message was the Bible. He declared that he “would rather die than to believe and teach my brethren a single word or letter . . . contrary to the plain testimony of the Word of God. . . .” He identified the heart of his message when he said, “I strive after nothing . . . but . . . that all men might be saved. . . .” As a reward for this message, however, “we can expect nothing from them (I mean the evil disposed) but the stake, water, fire, wheel, and sword. . . .”

The significance of Menno’s work is that he united the northern wing of the Anabaptist movement, thus preventing its disintegration through persecution. Unlike other reformers, he did this without the aid of the state. The endurance of the Mennonite church throughout the centuries is the best testimony that his work was in the providence of God.

Bibliography

Doornkaat Koolman, Jacobus ten. Dirk Philips: Friend and Colleague of Menno Simons, 1504-1568. Translated by William E. Keeney. Edited by C. Arnold Snyder. Kitchener, Ont.: Pandora Press, 1998. Biography of one of Menno’s closest colleagues and an important leader of the Dutch Anabaptists in his own right. Includes bibliographic references and index.

Estep, William R. The Anabaptist Story: An Introduction to Sixteenth-Century Anabaptism. 3d ed. Grand Rapids, Mich.: William B. Eerdmans, 1996. Emphasizes the calming influence of Menno on the diverse Anabaptist groups in the Netherlands. Estep argues that Menno’s leadership enabled the movement to survive the persecution, as well as the violent and visionary elements within the movement. Includes bibliographic references and index.

Horsch, John. Mennonites in Europe. 2d ed. Scottdale, Pa.: Mennonite Publishing House, 1950. Includes an account of Menno’s doubts about Roman Catholic doctrine. Covers his early contacts with the Anabaptist movement. Identifies sources of information about Menno’s early labors as an Anabaptist evangelist.

Littell, Franklin H. A Tribute to Menno Simons. Scottdale, Pa.: Herald Press, 1961. Written to recognize the historical significance of Menno Simons on the quadricentennial of his death. Emphasis on his contributions to the Anabaptist movement, in particular, and to Protestantism, in general. Author’s position is that Menno has great significance to modern Christianity.

Menno Simons. The Complete Writings of Menno Simons. Edited by J. C. Wenger, Scottdale, Pa.: Herald Press, 1956. Complete English translation of Menno’s literary works. Includes an introduction and a good brief biography. Also includes the location of the writings in other editions. Contains books, tracts, letters, hymns, and all other available writings. Gives direct insight into the philosophy and theology of Menno. Good illustrations.

Miller, Keith Graber. “Complex Innocence, Obligatory Nurturance, and Parental Vigilance: ’The Child’ in the Work of Menno Simons.” In The Child in Christian Thought, edited by Marcia J. Bunge. Grand Rapids, Mich.: W. B. Eerdmans, 2001. Study of Menno’s theology and teachings about the nature of childhood and the obligations of parents and other adults to children. Includes bibliographic references and indexes.

Smith, C. Henry. Smith’s Story of the Mennonites. 5th ed. Newton, Kans.: Faith and Life Press, 1981. Includes a good summary of the inner conflicts experienced by Menno in his relationship to the Roman Catholic Church. Illustrations, bibliography, and index.

Voolstra, Sjouke. Menno Simons: His Image and Message. North Newton, Kans.: Bethel College, 1997. An attempt to recover the authentic voice of Menno, emphasizing his belief in sincere penitence and forgiveness, his understanding of the importance of baptism, and his break with the Catholic church. Includes illustrations, bibliographic references, and index.