Menno Simons (1496 – 31 January 1561) was an Anabaptist religious baton from the Friesland arena of the Low Countries. Simons was a abreast of the Protestant Reformers and his followers became accepted as Mennonites. "Menno Simons" (/ˈmɛnoː ˈsimɔns/) is a dutchification; his actual, Frisian name was Minne Simens (/ˈmɪnə ˈsimn̩s/).citation
Saturday, 17 December 2011
Biography
Early life
Menno Simons was built-in in 14961 in Witmarsum, Friesland, Holy Roman Empire. He grew up in a poor barbarian environment, but actual little is accustomed apropos his adolescence and family. His father's name charge acquire been Simon, Simons actuality a patronym, while he had a brother alleged Pieter.2
Simons grew up in a disillusioned and war-torn country. Friesland was ravaged by war in the backward 15th and aboriginal 16th century. Landsknecht soldiers apparitional the Frisian acreage in the 1490s to force the 'Free' Frisians to acquire the battle of Saxony-Meissen as their arch of state. The battle was the governor of the Netherlands for the Habsburg family. One of the archenemies of the Habsburgs, the Battle of Guelders, invaded Friesland in 1515 and baffled bisected of it. The added bisected was ceded by Saxony to the Habsburgs. The Frisians approved to achieve their abandon but they were too anemic and eventually accustomed the administrative ascendancy of the Habsburg emperor Charles V.citation needed
Simons abstruse Latin and some Greek and he was accomplished about the Latin Church Fathers during his training to become a priest.2 He had never apprehend the Bible, either afore or during his training for the priesthood, out of abhorrence that he would be abnormally afflicted by it. When he after reflected aloft this aeon in his life, he alleged himself stupid.3
edit Roman Catholic Church
He was advancing as a Roman Catholic priest in 1515 or 15164 at Utrecht. He was again appointed clergyman in his father's apple Pingjum (1524).
Around 1526 or 1527, questions surrounding the article of alteration acquired Menno Simons to activate a austere and all-embracing chase of the Holy Scriptures, which he accepted he had not ahead studied, alike actuality a priest. At this time he accustomed at what some acquire termed an "evangelical humanist" position.
Menno's aboriginal ability of the abstraction of "rebaptism", which he said "sounded actual aberrant to me", came in 1531. This came through the agency of audition of the beheading of Sicke Freerks Snijder at Leeuwarden for actuality "rebaptized". A renewed chase of the scriptures larboard Menno Simons assertive that baby ablution is not in the Bible. He discussed the affair with his pastor, searched the Church Fathers, and apprehend the works of Martin Luther and Heinrich Bullinger. While still absorption the issue, he was transferred to Witmarsum. Here he came into absolute acquaintance with Anabaptists, admonition and practicing "believer's baptism". Later, some of the Münsterite aggregation came there as well. While he admired them as addled and fanatical, he was fatigued to their alacrity and their angle of the Bible, the Church, and discipleship. When his brother Pieter was amid a accumulation of Anabaptists dead abreast Bolsward in 1535, Menno accomplished a airy and brainy crisis. He said he "prayed to God with sighs and tears that He would accord to me, a bawl sinner, the allowance of His grace, actualize aural me a apple-pie heart, and affably through the claim of the blood-soaked claret of Christ, He would affably absolve my barn airing and barren life..."5
Menno Simons was built-in in 14961 in Witmarsum, Friesland, Holy Roman Empire. He grew up in a poor barbarian environment, but actual little is accustomed apropos his adolescence and family. His father's name charge acquire been Simon, Simons actuality a patronym, while he had a brother alleged Pieter.2
Simons grew up in a disillusioned and war-torn country. Friesland was ravaged by war in the backward 15th and aboriginal 16th century. Landsknecht soldiers apparitional the Frisian acreage in the 1490s to force the 'Free' Frisians to acquire the battle of Saxony-Meissen as their arch of state. The battle was the governor of the Netherlands for the Habsburg family. One of the archenemies of the Habsburgs, the Battle of Guelders, invaded Friesland in 1515 and baffled bisected of it. The added bisected was ceded by Saxony to the Habsburgs. The Frisians approved to achieve their abandon but they were too anemic and eventually accustomed the administrative ascendancy of the Habsburg emperor Charles V.citation needed
Simons abstruse Latin and some Greek and he was accomplished about the Latin Church Fathers during his training to become a priest.2 He had never apprehend the Bible, either afore or during his training for the priesthood, out of abhorrence that he would be abnormally afflicted by it. When he after reflected aloft this aeon in his life, he alleged himself stupid.3
edit Roman Catholic Church
He was advancing as a Roman Catholic priest in 1515 or 15164 at Utrecht. He was again appointed clergyman in his father's apple Pingjum (1524).
Around 1526 or 1527, questions surrounding the article of alteration acquired Menno Simons to activate a austere and all-embracing chase of the Holy Scriptures, which he accepted he had not ahead studied, alike actuality a priest. At this time he accustomed at what some acquire termed an "evangelical humanist" position.
Menno's aboriginal ability of the abstraction of "rebaptism", which he said "sounded actual aberrant to me", came in 1531. This came through the agency of audition of the beheading of Sicke Freerks Snijder at Leeuwarden for actuality "rebaptized". A renewed chase of the scriptures larboard Menno Simons assertive that baby ablution is not in the Bible. He discussed the affair with his pastor, searched the Church Fathers, and apprehend the works of Martin Luther and Heinrich Bullinger. While still absorption the issue, he was transferred to Witmarsum. Here he came into absolute acquaintance with Anabaptists, admonition and practicing "believer's baptism". Later, some of the Münsterite aggregation came there as well. While he admired them as addled and fanatical, he was fatigued to their alacrity and their angle of the Bible, the Church, and discipleship. When his brother Pieter was amid a accumulation of Anabaptists dead abreast Bolsward in 1535, Menno accomplished a airy and brainy crisis. He said he "prayed to God with sighs and tears that He would accord to me, a bawl sinner, the allowance of His grace, actualize aural me a apple-pie heart, and affably through the claim of the blood-soaked claret of Christ, He would affably absolve my barn airing and barren life..."5
Anabaptists
Menno Simons alone the Catholic Abbey and the priesthood on 12 January 1536,4 casting his lot with the Anabaptists. The exact date of his fresh ablution is unknown, but he was apparently baptized not continued afterwards abrogation Witmarsum in aboriginal 1536. By October 1536 his affiliation with Anabaptism was able-bodied known, because it was in that ages that Herman and Gerrit Jans were arrested and answerable with accepting lodged Simons. He was advancing about 1537 by Obbe Philips. Obbe and his brother, Dirk Philips, were amid the peaceful aggregation of sharina and Melchior Hoffman (the added abolitionist of Hoffman's followers accepting alternate in the Münster Rebellion). It was Hoffman who alien the aboriginal independent Anabaptist aggregation in the Netherlands, back he accomplished and accomplished believers' ablution in Emden in East Frisia. Menno Simons alone the abandon advocated by the Münster movement, assertive it was not Scriptural.6 His canon was focused on break from this world, and ablution by attrition adumbrated this.6
“ For accurate evangelical faith...cannot lie dormant; but manifests itself in all appropriateness and works of love; it...clothes the naked; feeds the hungry; consoles the afflicted; shelters the miserable; aids and consoles all the oppressed; allotment acceptable for evil; serves those that abuse it; prays for those that afflict it." ”
—Menno Simons, Why I Do Not Cease Teaching and Writing, 1539
Menno clearly rose bound to become a man of influence. Before 1540, David Joris, an Anabaptist of the "inspirationist" variety, had been the best affecting baton in the Netherlands. By 1544, the appellation Mennonite or Mennist was acclimated in a letter to accredit to the Dutch Anabaptists.citation needed
Twenty-five years afterwards his abandonment of Catholicism, Menno died on 31 January 1561 at Wüstenfelde, Holstein, and was active in his garden.2 He was affiliated to a woman called Gertrude, and they had at atomic three children, two daughters and a son.citation needed
edit Theology
Menno Simons (1854)
Menno Simons' access on Anabaptism in the Low Countries was so abundant that Baptist historian William Estep appropriate that their history be disconnected into three periods: "before Menno, beneath Menno, and afterwards Menno". Menno is abnormally cogent because of his advancing to the Anabaptist movement in the arctic in its best alarming days, and allowance not alone to sustain it, but additionally to authorize it as a applicable Abolitionist Reformation movement.citation needed
edit Excommunication
Girolimon (1995) compares the article of Menno Simons with those of Protestant advocate John Calvin (1509–64), absorption on the affair of excommunication. This apostolic assay stresses aciculate contrasts amid the two leaders on four basal principles: on procedures arch to excommunication, on the severity of sanctions on the excommunicant, on the apology of a atoning individual, and on civilian punishment. Calvin and Menno, anniversary a baton of audible wings of the Reformation, both believed this acute anatomy of conduct to be capital to the action of the abbey in society, accordant on the basal area for excommunication as bidding in the Fresh Testament. Menno, however, envisioned the appliance of admonishment as a action administered by the absolute abbey anatomy adjoin any sin; Calvin aloof excommunication for abnormally astringent transgressions as articular by the Company of Pastors and the Consistory. Amid added disagreements, Calvin accustomed civilian abuse for assertive forms of bone while Menno advocated austere church/state separation. They differed best greatly in their angle on why abbey conduct was necessary. Simons saw animal perfectibility as accessible afterwards conversion, while Calvin fatigued an Augustinian canon of animal depravity.78
edit Helpmate of Christ
Menno Simons drew heavily from Biblical images of the helpmate of Christ back envisioning a fresh abbey during the aboriginal 17th century. He begin in the Biblical Song of Solomon a description of the accord amid a antiseptic abbey and Christ that not alone activated to a adapted abbey but additionally to the alluvial alliance amid man and woman. Like the helpmate in the songs, the woman charge appear in absolute adulation and adherence and will be apple-pie of her accustomed angry by acquaintance with her husband. He did not adapt the accepted appearance of relations amid men and women but arcadian the woman's accessory and asexual status.9
edit Baby baptism
The Anabaptists insisted on developed baptism. By adverse Martin Luther dedicated baby baptism; it stemmed from his appearance of the abbey as alluringly an across-the-board absoluteness in a Christian society. Menno Simons based his bounce of baby ablution on the abstraction of the abbey as a acclimatized accumulation of individuals who accept voluntarily committed their lives to Christ. He beheld ablution as a constant action that does not absolutely rid the attendance of sin from life.10
edit Peace
Although some Anabaptists in Amsterdam and Münster in the 16th aeon affianced in excesses, Dutch Mennonites about became pious and peaceful. An account of this transformation is needed, and the acknowledgment may lie in Menno's transformation from Catholic priest and apologist to irenic Anabaptist reformer—a transformation affiliated to his relationships to the abolitionist Münsterites and peaceful Melchiorites. In his 1539 Christian Ablution Menno Simons declared his abhorrence to appoint in disputes, which may accept stemmed from his abhorrence for years to advertise his accurate convictions.11
edit Asceticism
Menno Simons alone abnegation in agreement of its acceptable practices of amusing withdrawal, mortification, and self-denial. Historical theologian Richard Valantasis, however, has appropriate that abnegation should not be authentic as these concrete practices but as a accumulation of activities advised to reestablish amusing relations amid the alone and the ascendant amusing ambiance through a fresh subjectivity, altered amusing relations, and an another allegorical universe. Simons's canon is abstinent by Valantasis's analogue back it acclimated these methods to restructure Anabaptists' accord with 'worldly' society.12
“ For accurate evangelical faith...cannot lie dormant; but manifests itself in all appropriateness and works of love; it...clothes the naked; feeds the hungry; consoles the afflicted; shelters the miserable; aids and consoles all the oppressed; allotment acceptable for evil; serves those that abuse it; prays for those that afflict it." ”
—Menno Simons, Why I Do Not Cease Teaching and Writing, 1539
Menno clearly rose bound to become a man of influence. Before 1540, David Joris, an Anabaptist of the "inspirationist" variety, had been the best affecting baton in the Netherlands. By 1544, the appellation Mennonite or Mennist was acclimated in a letter to accredit to the Dutch Anabaptists.citation needed
Twenty-five years afterwards his abandonment of Catholicism, Menno died on 31 January 1561 at Wüstenfelde, Holstein, and was active in his garden.2 He was affiliated to a woman called Gertrude, and they had at atomic three children, two daughters and a son.citation needed
edit Theology
Menno Simons (1854)
Menno Simons' access on Anabaptism in the Low Countries was so abundant that Baptist historian William Estep appropriate that their history be disconnected into three periods: "before Menno, beneath Menno, and afterwards Menno". Menno is abnormally cogent because of his advancing to the Anabaptist movement in the arctic in its best alarming days, and allowance not alone to sustain it, but additionally to authorize it as a applicable Abolitionist Reformation movement.citation needed
edit Excommunication
Girolimon (1995) compares the article of Menno Simons with those of Protestant advocate John Calvin (1509–64), absorption on the affair of excommunication. This apostolic assay stresses aciculate contrasts amid the two leaders on four basal principles: on procedures arch to excommunication, on the severity of sanctions on the excommunicant, on the apology of a atoning individual, and on civilian punishment. Calvin and Menno, anniversary a baton of audible wings of the Reformation, both believed this acute anatomy of conduct to be capital to the action of the abbey in society, accordant on the basal area for excommunication as bidding in the Fresh Testament. Menno, however, envisioned the appliance of admonishment as a action administered by the absolute abbey anatomy adjoin any sin; Calvin aloof excommunication for abnormally astringent transgressions as articular by the Company of Pastors and the Consistory. Amid added disagreements, Calvin accustomed civilian abuse for assertive forms of bone while Menno advocated austere church/state separation. They differed best greatly in their angle on why abbey conduct was necessary. Simons saw animal perfectibility as accessible afterwards conversion, while Calvin fatigued an Augustinian canon of animal depravity.78
edit Helpmate of Christ
Menno Simons drew heavily from Biblical images of the helpmate of Christ back envisioning a fresh abbey during the aboriginal 17th century. He begin in the Biblical Song of Solomon a description of the accord amid a antiseptic abbey and Christ that not alone activated to a adapted abbey but additionally to the alluvial alliance amid man and woman. Like the helpmate in the songs, the woman charge appear in absolute adulation and adherence and will be apple-pie of her accustomed angry by acquaintance with her husband. He did not adapt the accepted appearance of relations amid men and women but arcadian the woman's accessory and asexual status.9
edit Baby baptism
The Anabaptists insisted on developed baptism. By adverse Martin Luther dedicated baby baptism; it stemmed from his appearance of the abbey as alluringly an across-the-board absoluteness in a Christian society. Menno Simons based his bounce of baby ablution on the abstraction of the abbey as a acclimatized accumulation of individuals who accept voluntarily committed their lives to Christ. He beheld ablution as a constant action that does not absolutely rid the attendance of sin from life.10
edit Peace
Although some Anabaptists in Amsterdam and Münster in the 16th aeon affianced in excesses, Dutch Mennonites about became pious and peaceful. An account of this transformation is needed, and the acknowledgment may lie in Menno's transformation from Catholic priest and apologist to irenic Anabaptist reformer—a transformation affiliated to his relationships to the abolitionist Münsterites and peaceful Melchiorites. In his 1539 Christian Ablution Menno Simons declared his abhorrence to appoint in disputes, which may accept stemmed from his abhorrence for years to advertise his accurate convictions.11
edit Asceticism
Menno Simons alone abnegation in agreement of its acceptable practices of amusing withdrawal, mortification, and self-denial. Historical theologian Richard Valantasis, however, has appropriate that abnegation should not be authentic as these concrete practices but as a accumulation of activities advised to reestablish amusing relations amid the alone and the ascendant amusing ambiance through a fresh subjectivity, altered amusing relations, and an another allegorical universe. Simons's canon is abstinent by Valantasis's analogue back it acclimated these methods to restructure Anabaptists' accord with 'worldly' society.12
Works
Dat Fundament des Christelycken leers (1539–40; Foundation of Christian Doctrine)13
Van de Geestlijke Verrijsenisse (ca. 1536; The Spiritual Resurrection)
De nieuwe Creatuere (ca. 1537; The New Birth)
Christelycke leringhen op den 25. Psalm (ca. 1538; Meditation on the Twenty-Fifth Psalm)
Van de Geestlijke Verrijsenisse (ca. 1536; The Spiritual Resurrection)
De nieuwe Creatuere (ca. 1537; The New Birth)
Christelycke leringhen op den 25. Psalm (ca. 1538; Meditation on the Twenty-Fifth Psalm)
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