Menno Simons (1496-1561) ***
Best
known as the founder of a loosely related group of Reformation believers known
today as Mennonites. In the days of Menno family names were not yet established
in the Netherlands; the name Simons is simply a patronymic: "son of
Simon." We know little more of his life than he himself writes in his book
directed to the Reformer Jelle Smit, who wrote under the name Gellius Faber.
That brief autobiography was written to demonstrate that Menno had no
connection with the Munsterites, the militant wing of the Melchiorites.
Menno
was born in the Fsisian village of Witmarsum and trained for the Roman
priesthood. He was consecrated in 1524 at the age of twenty-eight. His first
parish service was from 1524 to 1531 at the neighboring village of Pingjum, and
from 1531 to 1536 in his home town of Witmarsum.
In
the first year of his priesthood Menno came to doubt the doctrine of
transubstantiation, and after much distress he fearfully took up the Scriptures
for the first time in his life. As a result of reading the NT, he gave up the
doctrine of the miraculous change of the bread and wine into the body and blood
of the Lord. In 1531 Menno heard of the execution of Sicke Snijder at
Leeuwarden, capital of Friesland, for being rebaptized. This terrified him, and
led to much soul searching. In the end he came to believe that baptism should
follow conversion. Finally, Menno's brother joined a nonpeace group of
Anabaptists and perished in a struggle with the authorities in 1535. This
tragedy broke Menno's heart, and he made a total surrender of himself to
Christ. For about nine months he remained in the Catholic Church, preaching his
new understanding of the gospel.
On
January 31, 1536, Menno renounced his Roman Catholicism and went into hiding.
He accepted baptism, probably from the leader of the Peace Wing of the Frisian
Anabaptists, Obbe Philips, who also ordained Menno as an elder (bishop) in the
province of Groningen in 1537. Menno served in the Netherlands (1536-43), in
northwest Germany, mainly in the Rhineland (1543-46), and in Danish Holstein
(1546-61). The first major collection of his writings appeared in 1646.
Menno
was a good shepherd and leader, and escaped martyrdom only by moving about. He
was an evangelical who held to the major doctrines of the Christian faith. He
differed from Luther and Calvin by defending the baptism of believers only, by
teaching the doctrine of peace and nonresistance, and by rejecting the oath. He
assumed the separation of church and state. He held to the Melchiorite doctrine
of the incarnation, which taught that Christ brought to earth his own
"heavenly flesh," receiving nothing from Mary, not even his humanity.
And since no man was the earthly father of Jesus, God must have created a body
for him. Our Lord was therefore in Mary prior to his birth, yet he was not of
Mary.