Castelberg reading group

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The Castelberger Reading Group was a Zurich Bible Group named after its initiator and host Andreas Castelberger , which was founded around 1522/1523. He was one of the starting points of the Anabaptist movement .

background

Model of Castelberger and other Bible reading groups were probably by Conrad Celtis launched humanistic oriented Sodalities that through the mediation of Celtis students Huldrych Zwingli and Joachim Vadian summarized in Zurich foot. They were designed on the model of the Platonic Academy , saw themselves as a learning community and aimed at spreading humanistic educational material outside of the universities, which were still oriented towards the traditional.

Sodality and reading circle

Zwingli's sodality, which must have been founded in early summer 1520 at the latest, also included Konrad Grebel , who later co-founded the Zurich Anabaptist community. In a letter to Vadian dated September 15, 1520, Grebel announced that he was studying Greek with this group and, in this context, especially Plato . Felix Manz , another co-founder of the Zurich Anabaptist congregation, presumably took part in a Hebrew course from 1522 , which Zwingli offered within his sodality and which was about the study of the psalms . Another member of the sodality who later moved into Anabaptist circles was Simon Stumpf , who preached against the tithe raised by the church in 1523 and, in the same year, together with Grebel and Mantz von Zwingli, called for a more radical implementation of the Reformation.

The fact that at least the three men named and later Anabaptists belonged to Zwingli's sodality as well as to the later Castelberg reading group shows the interdependence of both groups. Whether Andreas Castelberger, in whose house the reading group gathered, was also a member of the sodality cannot be clearly proven, but according to Andrea Strübind it is "highly likely".

similarities and differences

There were striking similarities between the reading group and the sodality. Both circles did not meet in public spaces, but in private homes. The decisive thematic impulses were provided by a “teacher” (sodality) or a “reader” (reading group). The interpretation of the text, the friendly conversation about what was heard as well as meals together in a familiar atmosphere were part of the fixed program of both groups. The "organizational structures of sodality and reading circle also reveal similarities; they were - to put it briefly - anti-hierarchical and non-clerical .

Despite these similarities, the sodality and reading circle differed in some points, two of which should be mentioned here. While the humanistic learning community was equally concerned with biblical and philosophical texts, the reading group focused its interest primarily on the Bible . In contrast to the sodality, which primarily aimed at the learned and educated, the reading group opened up to a considerably broader spectrum of the Zurich bourgeoisie.

History and effectiveness

The exact beginnings of the Castelberg reading group are so far in the dark. A comparison of individual pieces of information results in a terminus a quo summer 1522 and a terminus ad quem spring 1523. There is also only fragmentary information about the doctrinal views represented in the reading group and the composition of its members, which are summarized below.

In addition to those already mentioned (Grebel, Manz, Stumpf) and others, the Zurich reading group included a. the following other members: Heinrich Aberli , Lorenz Hochrütiner , a certain W. Ininger and Bartlime Pur (also called Bartlime Pfister ). During an interrogation, Heinrich Aberli reported that the Castelberg reading group had come about because of a special request. He himself, Hochrütiner, Ininger and Pfister (= Pur) had the concern to develop further in the evangelical doctrine and especially in the writings of the apostle Paul . They then looked for a suitable teacher and came across Andreas Castelberger, a theologically educated bookseller.

Obviously, Aberli and his friends were not the only ones interested in studying biblical sources. The circle around Castelberger grew and forced the participants to look for new meeting places. The reading group became - especially with regard to the social status of its members - the Bible school of the common man .

Reports on the St. Gallen reading group show that the thematic priorities of the reading group meetings were determined by the participants . Thereafter, the letters to the Romans were the focus of interest in both St. Gallen and Zurich . The fact that the so-called reader was also determined by the participants can be concluded from the available source material: Castelberger was - as I said - asked for help by Aberli and his friends. From Johannes Kessler , who belonged to the St. Gallen reading group, we hear the following: “But no less wherever we come together, I want to be willing to submit to us and have fun with us from the gschrift and warhait ours Christian globens help to talk, read and hold talks so that we can grow and grow in the knowledge of Jesus Christ. ”After that, Kessler wants to“ submit ”, that means: respond to the request of the St. Gallen reading group and“ talk, read and discuss “help. This quotation conveys two further important pieces of information: On the one hand, the reading group did not just consist of a “ lecture ”, but above all a discussion about the text that was read out. On the other hand, the reader expected not only for his listeners but also for himself an increase and growth "in the knowledge of Jesus Christ".

practice

The reading of biblical texts and the subsequent Bible discussion were among the main items on the program of the meetings of the reading group. The texts to be negotiated were decided by a joint agreement of the participants, but the influence of the reader should not be underestimated. The Bible conversation that followed the reading of the Bible text (mostly commented on) often took the form of a lively disputation. Every now and then there were heated disputes and sometimes a split due to unresolved disagreements. Socially critical thoughts also seem to have become loud in the reading group itself or in its environment. For example, Castelberger taught that anyone who expropriates “home, farm, field or pastures” from the poor is no better than a murderer. "It seems - according to the Anabaptist researcher Werner O. Packull -" that Castelberger and his friends read the holy texts in the context of larger social contexts. "Later interrogation protocols show that Castelberger in particular repeatedly cited the New Testament against the War service and the mercenary being has pronounced: "Item, the Andrea [ Andreas Castelberger ] has side vil from the war; how the divine ler so violently opposed and how sin the syg [...] the same warrior syg before god almighty, also according to content Protestant ler a murderer and not better than him, so armout half tired or stele [...]. "

The fact that people also eat and drink at the meetings of the reading group emerges indirectly from rumors that arose in the vicinity of the reading group. It was said that at the gatherings one indulged in gluttony and gluttony. The reading circle participant Hochrütiner replied to these allegations that after each event some wine was served in order to avoid a subsequent visit to the public inns.

The Castelberg Reading Group and the Beginnings of the Anabaptist Movement

The fact that a number of well-known members of the reading group were among the initiators of the Anabaptist congregation that was formed a short time later has already been pointed out. It has not yet been possible to clarify whether the Zurich Bible Study Group in Felix Manz's mother's house, who decided to be baptized in the faith on January 21, 1525 and then carried it out, was identical to the Castelberg Reading Group or emerged from it. The parallels between this and that circle are not only obvious in terms of personnel. The biblicism of the Anabaptist movement, its ethics (e.g. pacifism ) and the basic features of its ecclesiology were already germinated in the reading group. The Anabaptist researcher Johannes Goeters comes to the following conclusion in his investigations: “In this group [= Castelberg Reading Circle], a lay movement gathering around the New Testament that withdraws equally from secular sociability and Catholic worship, we have the cradle of Anabaptism among the to see the citizens of Zurich. "

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ See Andrea Strübind: Eager than Zwingli. The early Anabaptist movement in Switzerland. Duncker and Humblot, Berlin 2003, ISBN 3-428-10653-9 , p. 129: "The precise dating and the specific reason for its creation [...] cannot be clearly proven. After all research, the vague period of 1522 remains most likely until early 1523. "
  2. ↑ Andrea Strübind: Eager than Zwingli. The early Anabaptist movement in Switzerland. Duncker and Humblot, Berlin 2003, ISBN 3-428-10653-9 , p. 133
  3. ↑ This date can be derived from a letter from Oswald Myconius dated June 10, 1520, in which Myconius sent Zwingli's greetings to the sodality. See Andrea Strübind: Eager than Zwingli. The early Anabaptist movement in Switzerland. Duncker and Humblot, Berlin 2003, ISBN 3-428-10653-9 , p. 135
  4. ^ Ekkehard Krajewski: Life and death of the Zurich Anabaptist leader Felix Mantz. About the beginnings of the Anabaptist movement and the Free Church in the Reformation, Kassel 1958, p. 22f
  5. ↑ Homepage of the Schleitheimer Museum (wayback archive): From the beginning to the Schleitheimer Confession; ( Memento of October 27, 2006 in the Internet Archive ) accessed on December 10, 2013
  6. ↑ Andrea Strübind: Eager than Zwingli. The early Anabaptist movement in Switzerland. Duncker and Humblot, Berlin 2003, ISBN 3-428-10653-9 , p. 138
  7. ↑ See Heinold Fast : From the office of the reader to the compiler of the so-called art book. In the footsteps of Jörg Maler, in: Sources for the history of the Anabaptists, XVII. Volume, Gütersloh 2007, pp. 42–71
  8. ↑ See Emil Egli: Collection of Acts on the History of the Zurich Reformation, Zurich 1879, No. 623, pp. 276–278
  9. ↑ See Harold S. Bender: Conrad Grebel (1498–1526). The Founder of the Swiss Brethren, Sometimes Called Anabaptists, Goshen 1950, pp. 87f
  10. ↑ Leonhard von Muralt, Walter Schmid (Ed.): Sources for the history of the Anabaptists in Switzerland, Vol. I, Zurich 1974 (2nd edition), p. 405
  11. ↑ Hochrütiner also belonged to the St. Gallen reading group; see. Hanspeter Jecker: Hochreutiner (Hochrütiner), Lorenz. In: Historical Lexicon of Switzerland .
  12. ↑ On Pur see Leonhard von Muralt, Walter Schmid (ed.): Sources for the history of the Anabaptists in Switzerland, Vol. I, Zurich 1952 (1st edition), pp. 19, 65, 385
  13. ↑ See Andrea Strübind: Eager than Zwingli. The early Anabaptist movement in Switzerland. Duncker and Humblot, Berlin 2003, ISBN 3-428-10653-9 , p. 130
  14. ↑ Werner O. Packull: The beginnings of Swiss Anabaptism in the structure of the Reformation of the common man, in: Anabaptistes et dissidents au XVIe siécle. Actes du Colloque international d´histoire anabaptiste du XVIe siécle tenu al´occasion de la XIe Conférence Mennonite mondiale à Strasbourg, Juillet 1984, July 1984, Baden-Baden 1987, p. 54
  15. ↑ Heinold Fast (Ed.): Sources for the history of the Anabaptists in Switzerland, Vol. II, Zurich 1972, p. 593
  16. ↑ Quoted from Andrea Strübind: Eifriger than Zwingli. The early Anabaptist movement in Switzerland. Duncker and Humblot, Berlin 2003, ISBN 3-428-10653-9 , p. 141
  17. ↑ Compare to Andrea Strübind: Eifriger than Zwingli. The early Anabaptist movement in Switzerland. Duncker and Humblot, Berlin 2003, ISBN 3-428-10653-9 , p. 140
  18. ↑ Quoted from Werner O. Packull: The Origins of Swiss Anabaptism in the Context of the Reformation o the Common Man, in: The Reformation. Critical Concepts in Historical Studies (Ed. Andrew Pettegree), London 2004, ISBN 0-415-31667-7 , p. 334
  19. ↑ ibid.
  20. ^ Sources on the history of the Anabaptists in Switzerland, Volume I, No. 397, 387; quoted from Andrea Strübind: Eager than Zwingli. The early Anabaptist movement in Switzerland. Duncker and Humblot, Berlin 2003, ISBN 3-428-10653-9 , p. 144
  21. ↑ Andrea Strübind: Eager than Zwingli. The early Anabaptist movement in Switzerland. Duncker and Humblot, Berlin 2003, ISBN 3-428-10653-9 , p. 144
  22. ↑ cf. on this John C. Wenger: The Biblizismus der Anabaptist, in: Das Anabaptertum. Inheritance and commitment (Ed. Guy F. Hershberger), Stuttgart 1963, pp. 161–172
  23. ↑ JFG Goeters: The Prehistory of Anabaptism in Zurich, in: Studies on the History and Theology of the Reformation (Festschrift for Ernst Bizer), Neukirchen-Vluyn 1969, p. 255