Theologian · Early modern
Menno Simons
1496–1561 · Peaceful Anabaptism; Mennonite theology
A Frisian Catholic priest who left the Church in 1536 and spent the rest of his life as a hunted Anabaptist elder; the Mennonites who bear his name entered formal dialogue with Rome in 1998, and both sides repented of the sixteenth century in Called Together to Be Peacemakers (2003).
A parish priest in Friesland who, after years of doubt about the Mass and infant baptism, left the Catholic Church in 1536 in the aftermath of the Münster catastrophe and was rebaptized by the peaceful Anabaptists. His Foundation of Christian Doctrine (1539) gathered the scattered brethren of the Netherlands and north Germany around believer's baptism, the new birth shown in a visibly holy life, a church separated from the world and disciplined by the ban, and an absolute refusal of the sword and the oath. He rejected predestination and the magisterial Reformers' confidence that faith without visible fruit justifies, insisting that the regenerate truly keep Christ's commands, above all the Sermon on the Mount. His Christology held that the Word became flesh in Mary but not of her flesh, so that Christ's humanity was ‘celestial’; the churches that bear his name quietly dropped this.
Why he matters: The Mennonites, Amish and Hutterites are the Church's chief partners in the dialogue on Christian nonviolence, and Gaudium et Spes 78 praises the witness that Menno gave its Western form. The international Catholic-Mennonite dialogue (1998-2003) produced Called Together to Be Peacemakers, with a shared reading of baptism, peace and the persecutions of the sixteenth century.
Where to be careful
He denied infant baptism and the efficacy of the sacraments (Trent, Session 7, canons on baptism 12 and 13), rejected the Church's hierarchy, and his celestial-flesh Christology contradicts the teaching that Christ took His flesh from the Virgin (Lateran IV; CCC 488, 496); his nonresistance goes beyond the just war doctrine the Church holds (CCC 2308-2310). Common ground: the demand that faith bear fruit in a changed life, the freedom of faith from coercion (Dignitatis Humanae), and the honor the Church gives to conscientious objection (Gaudium et Spes 79).
Reading
-
Foundation of Christian DoctrineMenno Simons · His 1539 summary of believer's baptism, the new birth, nonresistance and the separated church.
-
The Complete Writings of Menno SimonsMenno Simons · The Wenger edition (1956), with the Reply to Gellius Faber on why he left Rome.
-
Called Together to Be PeacemakersInternational Catholic-Mennonite Dialogue · The 2003 report: a joint reading of the sixteenth century, baptism and the way of peace.
Documented positions
Where this thinker stands on each dispute the test covers.