Mennonite Handbook of Information/Chapter 1

by Lewis James Heatwole

CHAPTER I

LIFE AND LABORS OF MENNO SIMONS

This man of God from whom the Mennonite Church takes its name was born at Witmarsum, Holland, located about four miles from the eastern shore of the North Sea. The waves also of the great Zuider Zee roll not far away over a large district of country where, nearly five hundred years ago, seventy villages were overflowed and in which many thousands of people perished.

Menno Simons was born near these shores in the year 1496. His father and mother were members of the Roman Catholic Church. He was educated for the priesthood, and into this office he was installed at the age of twenty-eight years. In time, however, he came to have some positive convictions of his own—relative to infant baptism, the eucharist partaking of the properties of flesh and blood, and elemental water having the efficacy to wash away sin.

He finally made the Word of God and its plain teachings, rather than the dogmas of Catholicism, his guide to truth. In later years, because of his social and religious prominence among the peaceful Anabaptists and Waldensian believers, these people as a class became known to their friends, and especially to their enemies, as "Mennonites."

Historians inform us that Menno Simons received baptism on confession of faith from Obbe Philip, one of the peace-loving Anabaptist ministers of the Netherlands. This event is said to have occurred Jan. 12, 1536, and that it was sometime during the following year that he was ordained to the ministry by the same person. By this time he was obliged to keep much in seclusion and fled from place to place to escape death from the hands of enemies. A price was put on his head and a written description of his clothing and personal appearance was posted publicly on the church doors.

It seems unbelievable that so great a reformer as Martin Luther should refer to Menno Simons as a hedge-preacher, and one of those sneaking fellows, who associate themselves with laborers in the harvest fields, or the charcoal burners in the woods. This language indicates that Martin Luther never got as far away from the Catholic Church as Menno Simons did. Luther's position was that the Christian should fight for his country when he was called into the defending ranks. Other reformers, like Luther, thought it right to go to war when one's country is invaded, but Menno Simons proclaimed to his hearers that under all circumstances it was wrong for believers to engage in carnal warfare. He also preached the doctrine of absolute separation between Church and state and upheld the principle that the believer must give to God the things that are God's, and to Caesar the things that are Caesar's.

Menno Simons was the reformer of the reformers and thus held them to teaching the "all things" of the Gospel. They failing to teach a whole Gospel, he proved that as reformers in the real sense they were not sincere. In giving up the Catholic faith he declared that he had renounced all worldly honor, and meekly submitted to persecution and the reproach of those who sought to make life hard for him.

His advance to the point when he could make this solemn declaration was when he was at the age of forty years, and after thirteen years of service had been given to the Roman Catholic Church. During the remaining twenty-four years of his life, in all his preaching and writings, we see the foundation principles set forth on which, in the next seventy years after his death, his followers were able to clearly set forth what are today known as the Eighteen Articles of the Mennonite Confession of Faith.

Briefly summed up, the following points appear:

1. God, as the Creator of all Things.
2. The Fall of Man and the Entrance of Sin into the World.
3. Restoration of Man through the Promises of God.
4. The Coming of Christ into the World.
5. The Gospel Message as given in New Testament Scriptures.
6. Repentance and the renewed Life in Righteousness.
7. Holy Baptism for Adults by Pouring.
8. The Visible Church of Christ on Earth.
9. Teachers, Deacons, and Deaconesses Chosen by the Church.
10. Emblems of the Sacrament—Bread and Wine.
11. Washing (literally with hands) of the Saint's Feet.
12. The State of Matrimony—and Sign of Woman's Place in the Church.
13. The Place and Purpose of Civil Authority.
14. On Revenge and Carnal Warfare.
15. On Swearing of Oaths.
16. Separation from disobedient members—the Church Ban.
17. Non-Secrecy and Shunning of the Separated.
18. The Resurrection of the Dead and the last Judgment.

Portraits that have appeared in histories of our time represent Menno Simons as wearing a full beard, the whole scalp being covered by a closely fitting skull-cap like that long worn by the monks and friars of the mediaeval Church. In these portraits his personal attire shows him to be clothed in flowing robes that when standing reach to his feet.