Abstract
A movement occupying a separate place in the religious life of the 16th century, but certainly not without a close connection with what has already been said, is that of the Baptists. If the question of philosophy of life or doctrine of salvation is raised, then the Baptists, of whatever kind, certainly belong to those who see the essence of Christianity in the promise of remission from sinfulness and death, the certainity of immortality and admission to the heavenly home, thanks to the mystery of the Death upon the Cross and the resurrection of Christ. But more than all those who followed Wittenberg or Rome (with whom they profess the certainty and unreasoned acceptance of this miracle received from supernatural grace), the Baptists testify to the unconditional exigence of manifesting faith through complete rebirth; they put the predominating nature of the ethical element in the foreground, even more than Erasmus did. This blending of the two extremes, which was typical of them, is expressed in some articles of the Credo dating from 1527,1 which were framed by a former monk in South Germany. “Baptism,” he says “will be given to all those to whom penitence and alteration of life (the italics are mine) are preached and who believe in the truth that their sins are removed by Jesus Christ, and to all those who wish to walk in the resurrection of Jesus Christ.” The sentence of banishment from the community of the brothers was to be pronounced only if a brother or sister “haer ontgaet” (deviates), namely from the narrow path of virtue.
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References
“Broederlijke vereniging van sommige kinderen Gods aangaande zeven ar-tikelen”: Bibliotheca Reformatoria Neerlandica V (1910): 583-650.
N. van der Zijpp, Geschiedenis der Doopsgezinden in Nederland (1952): 69.
Cf. for the ideas of the Baptists: Van dèr Zijpp, op. cit.: chapt. I-IV; — W. J. Kühler, Geschiedenis der Nederlandsche Doopsgezinden in de zestiende eeuw, I (1932): chap. I, II, VII; — The Mennonite Encyclopaedia, a comprehensive Work on the Anabaptist-Mennonite Movement (1955, ff.), s.v. Mennonites and other words.
Rufus M. Jones, Spiritual Reformers in the 16th and iyth Centuries (1914), introduction: XLVII.
J. Lindeboom, Een Franc-tireur der Reformatie, Sebastiaan Franck (1952): 15.
According to Koyré he is the least mystical; this ‘least’ seems to me too strong, although Franck kept little of the ecstasy of his first friends, once the Lutheran influences were overcome in his ideas (Alex. Koyré, Mystiques, Spirituels, Alchimistes [du XV Ie siècle allemand]. (1955).
Jones, op. cit.: 59.
Der Glaube ist nicht anderes als wann Christus in uns Menschen geboren und das Wort in uns Fleisch ward.… Glaube ist gottgelassen sein, (quoted in: Lindeboom, op. cit.: 27).
Jones, op. cit.: 48.
An illustration of this conception of history is the title of one of his tracts, the Handbüchlein, 1539 published in Frankfürt: Siben hauptpuncten … darin angezeugt wird leben und to dt, Himel und Hell, was Gott gebeut und verbeut, lohnt und strafft, mit allen tun und lassen, dass Gott von uns begert, für ein jeden Mensch zu wissen nützlich, von Sebastian Franck: it is divided into seven chapters, of which I quote: (5) dasz Christus unser eyniger priester, gnadenthron, mitler und fürsprech sei bei Gott, der uns vertritt und wir alleyn in frid und ein freien Zugang zum Vatter haben.…; (7) how to bear our cross wie nötig es zum leben sei, also dasz wir on disz nit genesen und alleyn im diesen creutzweg, durch viel trübsal, distel und dorn zur Glorie in das leben eingehen müssen ….. (Wilhelm E. Peuckert, Sebastian Franck, ein deutscher Sucher (1943): 429 note.
In 1530 he still says, completely in the manner of Erasmus, that all work, words, fasting, singing of praise, praying and all virtuous deeds are only good in so far as he who does them is good or bad and in so far as they result from a vivifying faith; they are not of themselves good. Later he rejects them completely. (Loc. cit.: 94).
Lindeboom, loc. cit.: 33.
man lauft nit mit den Füssen us der Welt, sondern mit dem Gemüt. (Stadelmann, Vom Geist des ausgehenden Mittelalters: 117.
Koyré, op. cit.: 33, 32; — Jones, op. cit.: 61; — Dilthey, Weltanschauung und Analyse: 85.
Jones, op. cit.: 62.
“Mensch, Welt, Fleisch und Teufel sei eins”: Peuckert, op. cit.: 243.
Lindeboom, op. cit.: 23.
Koyré, op. cit.: 31.
Peuckert, op. cit.: 236.
Dilthey, op. cit.: 81.
Peuckert, op. cit.: 210; — we also find in Franck the idea (cf. the Florentines) that man was created to admire creation and the Creator, the most eminent of all that was ever created (Koyré, op. cit.: 37).
Lindeboom, op. cit.: 42.
(voluntas) semper libera et semper serva, potens omnia et impotens tantum (Koyré, op. cit.: 37).
Loc. cit.: 31.
Dilthey, op. cit.: 83; — Peuckert, op. cit.: 454.
Jones, op. cit.: XLIX, 62; — Lindeboom, op. cit.: 29.
The formulation is of Jones (op. cit.: 52).
Also sind auch unter den Heiden zu aller Zeit Christen gewesen, die auch nicht wissen ob je ein Christus gewesen oder sein wird, (quotation from Paradoxa, in: Dilthey, op. cit.: 86); — Lindeboom, op. cit.: 36.
Lindeboom, op. cit.: 32; — Jones op. cit.: 53; — Peuckert, op. cit.: 105 ff.
Lindeboom, op. cit.: 37; — one volume of his Chronica oder Geschichtsbybell has been known as Ketzerchronyk, it was widely spread in the 16th century and contains a description of all those who suffered persecution before and after the foundation of the Church.
Lindeboom, op. cit.: 29; — Koyré, op. cit.: 31.
Jones, op. cit.: XLVIII.
Wer nit mer auß Gottes wercken (die das lebendig Wort und Evangelium sind) leret dann auß den todten buchstaben der Schrift, der wirt Gottes Wort nit versteen noch wissen. (Quotation from Geschichtsbibell in Peuckert, op. cit.: 50).
Koyré, op. cit.: 29.
Peuckert, op. cit.: 157.
Mußt.. gedenken, daß die Welt weit und schier unendlich ist mit eitel Gottes Werk, die er nit hassen kann, besetzt, und daß ein Turk, Heyd etc. ebensowohl zu dem Bildnis Gottes erschaffen und ein Werk Gottes ist, als ein Teutscher, denn allen der unparteiisch Gott sein Bild eingössen, und sein Gesatz, Willen, Wort in ihr Herz geschrieben hat. (quoted from the preface of Das Weltbuch, in Stadelmann, op. cit.: 181).
Dilthey, op. cit.: 87.
Hans Sckommodau, Die religiösen Dichtungen Margaretes von Navarra (1954).
She apparently had little appreciation of Erasmus’s philological-historical treatment of the Scriptures: Lucien Feb vre, Autour de l’Heptaméron; amour sacré, amour profane (1944): 64.
Sckommodau, op. cit.: 58.
Loc. cit.: 153.
Febvre, op. cit.: 261.
Probably Margaret’s mother, Louise de Savoie.
Sckommodau, op. cit.: 25.
Ferd. Brunetière, Histoire de la litérature française classique, I (1904): 177 ff.; Febvre, op. cit.: 66.
She scarcely took any notice of Luther’s theses and first works, when she read something of his after 1525, it was his treatises concerning monastic vows and the Lord’s Prayer; she also seems to have known the debate of Luther and Erasmus concerning free and servile will. (Sckommodau, op. cit.: 49).
Feb vre, op. cit.: 67.
Sckommodau, op. cit.: 49-51, 80, 72-75; — Febvre, op. cit.: 68.
Cf. her last poem, “Les Prisons”: Sckommodau, op. cit.: 147.
Sckommodau, op. cit. 151.
Margaret says of him: Clarté de Dieu c’est l’esprit véritable, Cette lumière a Socrates reçu. Nature en lui était illuminée D’une clarté qui du haut ciel est née. (Socrates received the bright light of God, that is the true spirit; nature was illuminated in him by a brightness [insight] which came from heaven) (quoted in: Febvre, op. cit.: 68).
Abel Lefranc, Les Grands écrivains français de la Renaissance, (1914): 205 ff: “Marguerite de Navarre et le Platonisme de la Renaissance.”
Raoul Morçay, La Renaissance, Histoire de la littérature française sous la direction de J. Calvet I (1933): 269.
Veneration of the saints is mentioned in a positive sense only in her earlier work (Sckommodau, op. cit.: 48-60).
The woman who, in one of Margaret’s comedies, defends against one called ‘la sage’ (the wise) orthodoxy on this point, is called “la Supersticieuse” (the superstitious): Sckommodau, op. cit.: 133; — Febvre, op. cit.: 274.
Sckommodau, op. cit.: 80.
La bonne œuvre, c’est le bon cœur naïf, Rempli de foy par charité prouvée A son prochain …… (quoted: loc. cit.: 83).
Feb vre, op. cit.: 48, 54, 275.
Sckomrnodau, op. cit.: 60.
Loc. cit.: 158.
hoc. cit.: 86; — Margaret nowhere touches on the then topical problems of mass and Last Supper, she likewise nowhere mentions the sacrament of the eucharist or communion as being of any importance to her from a religious point of view.
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© 1961 Martinus Nijhoff, The Hague, Netherlands
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van Gelder, H.A.E. (1961). The Baptists, Sebastian Franck and Marguerite D’Angoulême. In: The Two Reformations in the 16th Century. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-011-9564-5_8
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