Melchior Hofmann

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Melchior Hofmann (on an illustration from 1600)

Melchior Hofmann , last name also: Hoffmann , Hofman , Hoffman ; Nickname: Pel (t) zer = "Kürschner" (* around 1495 in Weckrieden near Schwäbisch Hall ; † probably 1543 in Strasbourg ), was one of the well-known leaders of the Anabaptist movement . His followers in Strasbourg, East Frisia and the Netherlands were called Melchiorites .

Beginnings

Hofmann was born in the last decade of the 15th century to simple parents. He learned the profession of furrier , which he later practiced - in addition to his preaching and teaching activities - to finance his living. At a young age he turned to Reformation theology. In 1518 Georg von Zedlitz and Neukirch brought him to Neukirch in the Duchy of Liegnitz , where he held the first Protestant church services on Silesian soil.

Intermediate stops on the way to Anabaptism

Stations on Melchior Hofmann's life

From 1523 Hofmann worked as a Lutheran messenger and writer in the Baltic States , Scandinavia and Schleswig-Holstein ( Kiel ).

Wolmar

In the middle of 1523 Melchior Hofmann arrived in the small Livonian town of Wolmar . Although it was initially only professional interests that had brought him to Wolmar, he soon began to preach the Lutheran message of the righteousness of faith , but combined this with the announcement of the imminent divine judgment on all those who were involved in the righteousness of works of the Roman Catholic Church held tight. In this context he particularly attacked the clergy. Their representatives, the clergy princes , knights and monks , he called night ravens, eagle owls and bats . For him, nuns and beguines were devil brides and heavenly whores . He called the funeral masses with their ringing, chattering and howling as the product of hell, as well as the oil idols of the holy images . Wolter von Plettenberg , the landmaster in Livonia of the Teutonic Order and thus responsible authority for Wolmar, expelled him from the city under threat of severe punishment.

Dorpat

View of the town of Dorpat 1553

Hofmann came to Dorpat in late 1523 or early 1524 . His reputation preceded him. The city council, which was dominated by the Great Merchants' Guild at this time , tolerated his sermon - against the resistance of Riga's Archbishop Johannes Blankenfeld , who was also Bishop of Dorpat. The Blackheads , the guild of the Hanseatic journeymen, were among his most active supporters. When the archbishop's bailiff tried to arrest him, they forcibly prevented his arrest. In the course of these disputes, four friends of Hofmann were slain by the Vogt's servants on January 10, 1524. This bloody act led to a revolt. Armed insurgents stormed the Dorpater Cathedral and all other churches in the city. Altars and pictures were smashed, the houses of the cathedral canons devastated. The seat of the bailiff, the episcopal castle, was besieged and finally evacuated by it without resistance. This so-called Dorpater iconoclasm is the first of a total of ten other actions of this kind that took place in and around Dorpat between 1524 and 1526 and whose - albeit unintentional - trigger was Melchior Hofmann.

As a result of this riot, Hofmann was asked by the Dorpater authorities to provide a theological report on his teaching activities. He first turned to the two Reformation theologians Andreas Knöpken and Sylvester Tegetmeier , whose letters of recommendation, however, were not considered sufficient certification by the city council of Dorpat. Hofmann decided to get a certificate of the reliability of his teaching in Wittenberg , the center of the Lutheran Reformation.

Wittenberg

In the late spring of 1525 Hofmann traveled to Wittenberg. He managed to win Luther's trust, so that he not only received the required testimony, but was also allowed to add his own missive to the letters of the reformers Martin Luther and Johannes Bugenhagen . This letter is entitled Jesus. Melchior Hofmann wishes the Christian community to Derpten ynn Lieflandt (= Dorpat) grace and friendship, strengthening of the faith of God the father and the Lord Jhesu Christo. Amen. In this letter, Hofmann acknowledged the Lutheran principles, but emphasized the importance of sanctification in addition to justification by faith alone . This missive is considered to be the oldest surviving script from the furrier from Schwäbisch Hall.

Second stay in Dorpat

Hofmann returned to Dorpat in the summer of 1525 and found a community which, in his absence, had split into two hostile camps: Hofmann's friends and enemies. The city council therefore refused the furrier - despite his Wittenberg certificate - the license to practice medicine, which he defended himself against with a public affront against the Dorpater mayor and his family. Hofmann was expelled and sought refuge in the Estonian Reval . But here too he was expelled from the country. In 1526 we find Melchior Hofmann in Stockholm . However, his activities in Livonia did not remain fruitless. This emerges from a letter that he wrote from the Swedish capital the same year he arrived in the Swedish capital to his fellow believers who had been left behind: Formaninghe to die vorsambling in Livonia .

Stockholm

The fact that Hofmann made his way to Stockholm was probably related to his hope to find a financial livelihood there and thus an independent mission opportunity. At the time, the Swedish capital was an important staging area for furs of all kinds; So for a furrier it offered the best conditions. Melchior Hofmann was called to be their preacher by the German congregation in Stockholm. In addition to the formaninghe already mentioned , he published two of his important writings here: The little book of Judgment Day and an interpretation of the 12th chapter of the book of Daniel : The XII. Chapter of the prophet Danielis expounded, and the evangelion of the other special day, fallen in Advent, and of the zeyches of the last judgment… MDXXVI . The views and dogmatic explanations represented in these writings marked the turning point on Hofmann's path from Lutheran messengers to radical Anabaptism.

The Swedish King Gustav I. Wasa issued an ordinance in 1526 by which Hofmann was prohibited from preaching in front of the common crowd . That may have been the reason why Melchior Hofmann left Sweden for Lübeck in the winter of 1526/1527 . Again, it came through his appearance riots, he was with his wife and child in the to which resulted in Denmark belonging Holstein withdrew.

Holstein and second stay in Wittenberg

In the spring of 1527 Hofmann accepted an invitation from Frederick I to come to Kiel . He was given permission to work as a lay preacher all over Holstein. But soon there was a dispute with Marquard Schuldorp , who had been the first Protestant preacher at the Nikolaikirche in Kiel since 1526 . Schuldorp (~ 1495–1529) came from a Kiel council family and had made friends with the Magdeburg preacher Nikolaus von Amsdorf while studying in Wittenberg . There were arguments about Hofmann's apocalyptic sermons. He also insulted the city's dignitaries. He accused them - probably not wrongly - of having enriched themselves in the church property. With this and with the call to disobey the landed gentry, who are very unpopular in the city, he gained the approval of the Kiel people. Schuldorp complained to Luther.

In search of support, Hofmann made a second trip to Wittenberg in the summer of 1527. The first goal of his trip was a visit to Amsdorf in Magdeburg, which Hofmann wanted to win over to his views. In the meantime, however, Luther had lost his previous good opinion of Hofmann and warned Amsdorf. He recommended Hofmann to return to his craft. Hofmann was not even received in Wittenberg. On his return to Magdeburg he was arrested.

Back in Kiel, Hofmann published two writings against Amsdorf in his own print shop in 1528. In it he urged him on the one hand in a factual tone to deal with the apocalyptic texts of the Bible, but on the other hand threatened him with Judgment Day . Amsdorf wrote a reply in which he did not go directly into Hofmann's arguments, but warned that senseless speculation about eschatological questions supplanted the preoccupation with the core of Christianity, the doctrine of justification and charity.

Although Schuldorp had in the meantime been appointed by the Danish king as a preacher at the Schleswig Cathedral , the dispute between the two evangelical preachers escalated and was further fueled by the Catholic city pastor, an Augustinian canon of the Bordesholm monastery . Thematically it was now about the doctrine of the Lord's Supper . Hofmann spoke out against the Lutheran teaching of the real presence of Christ. Hofmann also personally attacked Schuldorp because of his marriage to his own niece. Both preachers are said to have fought in the pulpit. Despite his deviation from Lutheran doctrine, Hofmann trusted the royal assistance, as evidenced by the appeal to the royal letter of protection in the writings against Amsdorf and the dedication of his Dat Boeck Cantica Canticorum to Queen Sophia, printed in Kiel in 1529 . This writing is an interpretation of the Song of Songs , in which Hofmann describes earthly suffering as "inner baptism through fire and spirit" and thus as necessary for salvation.

On the recommendation of Luther, the Flensburg disputation , convened by the king, took place on April 8, 1529 in the Flensburg Barefoot Monastery in Schleswig, chaired by the Crown Prince Duke Christian . Johannes Bugenhagen and Hermann Tast represented the Lutheran position of the real presence of Christ in the Lord's Supper. Hofmann, on the other hand, denied the bodily presence of Christ. Christ - according to Hofmann - is only enjoyed in a spiritual sense under the signs of bread and wine. As a result of this disputation Hofmann and his supporters were expelled from the country.

Hofmann as a Baptist

It is not yet clear when exactly Hofmann became an Baptist. Even the question of whether Hofmann himself received the baptism of the faithful must remain unanswered. There is only evidence that after his first stay in Strasbourg, where he got to know the Anabaptist movement with its various branches, he appeared as an Anabaptist in Emden in 1530.

East Frisia and Strasbourg

After a brief first stay in East Frisia ( Pilsum ?), Where he met Karlstadt , Hofmann traveled to Strasbourg in June 1529 , where he was received as a follower of Zwingli's doctrine of the Lord 's Supper . Here he also published his report from the disputation in Flensburg.

After the Peasants' War, various outsiders who were persecuted elsewhere found refuge in Strasbourg, where there was extensive religious tolerance . There Hofmann met Caspar Schwenckfeld and various currents of Anabaptism . In a conversation with Schwenckfeld, with whom he shared the common rejection of the Lutheran and the Zwinglian doctrine of the Lord's Supper, Hofmann developed his Monophysite Christology . For the first time he found an open ear and like-minded people among the Anabaptists. From the followers of Hans Denck he took over the spiritualistic doctrine of the inner word and the conviction that sin is based solely on the free will of man, while God always means well with all his creatures. Therefore, on the one hand, he counted on a universal reconciliation. On the other hand, however, after the conversion and the betrothal of the soul with God in baptism, he considered sins committed to be unforgivable. With this he completely distanced himself from the Lutheran direction of the Reformation.

Differences to the Reformed preachers, especially to Martin Bucer , soon became apparent: von Hofmann's writings here worried and angered them, in particular, the interpretation of the secret revelation of Joannis the holy apostle and evangelists, based on the visions of the prophets Ursula Jost and Lienhard Jost as well Barbara Rebstock was calm. In this work Hofmann divided church history into three ages: the millennial kingdom from the apostles to the popes , the supremacy of the popes, whom he counted together with the emperor to the incarnations of the " beast ", and thirdly the Reformation , which he began with Hus and whose characteristic it is that the letter gives way to the spirit. Two witnesses of the Spirit were to appear, to fight against which the papists would unite with the followers of the letter (ie the evangelicals for whom sola scriptura is the standard). In it he dated the second coming of Christ to 1533. He saw Strasbourg as the heavenly Jerusalem and himself as Elijah , one of the two witnesses and thus the sole standard for the true interpretation of the divine word. In this capacity, he called on the Strasbourg Council to assist the believers in the destruction of the wicked that would precede Judgment Day. The Anabaptists themselves - like the perfecti of the Cathars - should only support the struggle with prayers.

In April 1530 he asked the council to equate the Anabaptists with the state church and to grant a church. The council then issued an arrest warrant against Hofmann, which he evaded on April 23, 1530 by fleeing to East Frisia .

Second stay in East Frisia

Emden around 1575

When Hofmann returned to East Friesland, Karlstadt had already been expelled. From May 1530 he appeared in the Great Church of Emden, where his sermons sparked a great popular movement for a short time. Here he showed himself to be a member of the Anabaptist movement for the first time. Over three hundred East Frisians were baptized by Hofmann and a little later constituted a community that still exists today under the name Mennonite Congregation and can therefore look back on an uninterrupted tradition. Melchior Hofmann gave the Anabaptist congregation a strictly hierarchical order, the Ordonnantie Godt, at the head of which the so-called apostolic messengers , to whom he assigned himself, stood. These were considered perfect, incapable of sin, and the absolute standard for correct teaching. They should evaluate the visions of their subordinate prophets and instruct and supervise the pastors who preside over the churches. Before Hofmann moved on to Amsterdam , he placed the Emden community under the shepherd Jan Folkertsz Trypmaker . When some of those he had baptized were executed in Amsterdam, Hofmann ordered the baptism to be suspended until the victory that was expected in 1533. Thereupon the Melchiorites in the Netherlands remained unmolested until Jan Matthys , who believed himself to be Enoch , the second of the witnesses proclaimed by Hofmann, won the Amsterdam congregation for himself in November 1533 and began baptizing again.

Hofmann's work in East Friesland soon got around to Wittenberg. As early as June 1530, Luther warned the preachers in Bremen in writing about Hofmann's influence. After an exchange of letters between the evangelical clergy and Luther, Hofmann was expelled from East Friesland in 1533 and turned back to Strasbourg - in the hope of being able to experience the onset of the Kingdom of God , which he expected this year.

Back in Strasbourg

Presumably in March 1533 Melchior Hofmann returned to Strasbourg, where he lived unnoticed for several weeks. There was a heated atmosphere there thanks to Hofmann's prophecies, which had found many followers among the numerous religious refugees in the city. In addition, in the meantime Bucer, who feared an overthrow of the Melchiorites, had largely prevailed with his insistence on dogmatic unity in the city. On May 20, 1533 Melchior Hofmann was arrested and imprisoned. A prophet in Emden had predicted that, as Obbe Philips reported, but only limited to six months. Melchior Hofmann did not leave the prison, however, because he was convicted of an unteachable heretic in June 1533. In addition, the news that Melchiorite Anabaptists had taken power in Münster aroused fears: Strasbourg now declared the Confessio Tetrapolitana to be the official norm of faith. Even so, the city was not compelled to believe as long as the Anabaptists obeyed civil laws. Hofmann died after 10 years imprisonment during which he wrote more than 35 writings, more than half of which have been lost.

With his idea of ​​a theocratic intermediate empire before the return of Christ after a military conflict between the emperor and evangelical cities, Hofmann had a strong influence on the theology of the Munster Anabaptists . Jan Matthys and Bernd Rothmann , the theoretical head of the Münster Anabaptists, adopted Hofmann's theology and apocalyptic view of history with only a few differences: In contrast to Hofmann, they took the view that the believers themselves should fight against the godless authorities. They also represented the right to polygamy . Hofmann only criticized the latter.

After the fall of the Anabaptist empire of Munster and after the parousia of Christ prophesied by Hofmann did not materialize despite being postponed several times, his following fell apart. David Joris and Obbe Philipps tried to unite the remaining groups at a conference in Bocholt in 1536. In 1539 the last Melchiorites in Strasbourg returned to the bosom of the Evangelical Church. Despite the attempt by the Basel reformers and former supporters to persuade Hofmann to withdraw, he only gave in on the question of infant baptism , as this was too unimportant to argue about it. As a result, he remained imprisoned and presumably died in late 1543.

Hofmann's theology

Polemics in Melchior Hoffman's writings , 2015

Melchior Hofmann moved further and further away from Lutheran theology. During his first stay in Strasbourg at the latest, he replaced the doctrine of justification by faith alone with a step model. Accordingly, Jesus Christ did abolish original sin through his death on the cross , which man can accept in free will . The baptism is a purely outward sign of this decision, not necessary for salvation. However, converted people must earn the reception of the Holy Spirit through good works. At this second level of justification, he is no longer bound by the letters of the Holy Scriptures, but has direct access to God's Word.

He developed an apocalyptic view of history in which he himself played a decisive role as one of the two eschatological witnesses named in the Revelation of John chapter 11 . He understood the Bible as a secret revelation, for the understanding of which a special gift of the spirit is required. For him, the biblical stories consisted of so-called "figures" that can only be interpreted using a key . His interpretation of the scriptures thus corresponded to the medieval allegorical method that Luther rejected . Against the background of this understanding of Scripture, Hofmann set himself the following tasks in particular: 1. Preaching the gospel throughout the world; 2. Gathering the true church of Jesus; 3. The expectation of the annihilation of Christ's enemies, which will be carried out by God's judgment.

Works (selection)

  • The XII chapter of the prophet Danielis explained / and the evangelion of the other special day / fallen in the Aduent  / and from the zeychenn of the last judgment / also from the sacrament / confession and absolution / eyn nice instruction to the Christians in Lieflandt and eym yden to know useful ( 1526)
  • Prophecy usz holy divine written. Of the troubles of this last time. From the heavy hand and firm of god above all godless being. About the future of the Turkish Thirannen and all his appendages. How he can bring his tears to a tight and tight slide. As by the power of God his repudiation and rigorously escaped (1529)
  • Die Ordonnantie Godts / De welckw hy / door zijnen Soone Christum Jesum / inghestelt ende bevestigt heeft / op die werachtige Discipulen des Eeuwigen woort Godts (1530)
  • Verclaringe van den geuangen ende vrien wil des Menschen / wat ook die waerachtige gehoorsaemheyt des gheloofs / ende warachtighen eewighen Euangelions sy ( ca.1532 )
  • Van der were glorious eynigen magestadt of god / vnnd vann of the original incarnation of the eternal word vnd Suns of the very highest / eyn kurtze zeucknus and instruction to all lovers of the own wority (1532)
  • The noble hoghe end trostlike sendebrief / which the holy apostle Paulus screuened to the Romeren heeft  / verclaert end very vlitich [= "hardworking"] with serious van woort to woorde wtgelecht Tot eener costeliker nuttichheyt [= "usefulness"] ende troost allen [ godtvruchtigen = "God-fearing" ] riehebbers of the eewighen onentliken [= "infinite"] waerheyt (1533)

Literature (selection)

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Gerd Wunder : Melchior Hofmann, Anabaptist. In: Roland Biser (Ed.): The Schwäbisch Hall district. 2nd Edition. Theiss, Stuttgart / Aalen 1987, ISBN 3-8062-0472-1 , p. 169.
  2. ↑ Hugo Weczerka (Ed.): Handbook of historical sites . Volume: Silesia (= Kröner's pocket edition . Volume 316). Kröner, Stuttgart 1977, ISBN 3-520-31601-3 , p. 342.
  3. ^ Friedrich Otto zur Linden: Melchior Hofmann, a prophet of the Anabaptists; Haarlem, 1885, p. 61.
  4. ^ Klaus Deppermann: Melchior Hoffman. Social unrest and apocalyptic visions in the age of the Reformation. Göttingen 1979; P. 90.
  5. ^ Klaus Deppermann: Melchior Hoffman. Social unrest and apocalyptic visions in the age of the Reformation . Göttingen 1979, pp. 100-101.
  6. ^ Carl Bertheau:  Schuldorp, Marquard . In: Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie (ADB). Volume 32, Duncker & Humblot, Leipzig 1891, p. 657 f.
  7. ^ Klaus Deppermann: Melchior Hoffman. Social unrest and apocalyptic visions in the age of the Reformation . Göttingen 1979, p. 95.
  8. ↑ a b Dieter Götz Lichdi: The Mennonites in history in the present. From the Anabaptist movement to the worldwide free church. Großburgwedel 2004 (2nd significantly changed and expanded edition), ISBN 3-88744-402-7 , p. 68
  9. ↑ Dialog and green report of the disputation held in the land of Holstein and the künig von Denmarck of the noble sacrament or the night of the Lord. In the present kü. ma. sun hertzog Kersten sampt kü. councils, vilen corn nobility and grand priesthood meeting. Now recently happened the other Thursday after Easter in the Jar of Christ when it was 1529.
  10. ^ Klaus Deppermann: Melchior Hoffman. Social unrest and apocalyptic visions in the age of the Reformation . Göttingen 1979, p. 193.
  11. ^ Klaus Deppermann: Melchior Hoffman. Social unrest and apocalyptic visions in the age of the Reformation . Göttingen 1979, p. 163.
  12. ^ Klaus Deppermann: Melchior Hoffman. Social unrest and apocalyptic visions in the age of the Reformation . Göttingen 1979, p. 204.
  13. ↑ Nanne van der Zijpp: Article January Volkertsz Trypmaker (d 1,531th). In: Global Anabaptist Mennonite Encyclopedia Online; accessed on April 18, 2012.
  14. ^ Klaus Deppermann: Melchior Hoffman. Social unrest and apocalyptic visions in the age of the Reformation . Göttingen 1979, p. 254.
  15. ↑ Heinold Fast: The left wing of the Reformation. Testimonies of faith of the Anabaptists, spiritualists, enthusiasts and anti-Trinitarians, Bremen 1962, p. 322 f.
  16. ^ Klaus Deppermann: Melchior Hoffman. Social unrest and apocalyptic visions in the age of the Reformation . Göttingen 1979, p. 269.
  17. ^ Klaus Deppermann / Hans-Jürgen Goertz: Hoffman, Hof (f) mann, Melchior, in mennlex.de.
  18. ^ Klaus Deppermann: Melchior Hoffman. Social unrest and apocalyptic visions in the age of the Reformation . Göttingen 1979, p. 293.
  19. ^ Klaus Deppermann: Melchior Hoffman. Social unrest and apocalyptic visions in the age of the Reformation . Göttingen 1979, p. 324.
personal data
SURNAME Hofmann, Melchior
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Hoffmann, Melchior; Peltzer, Melchior
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Personality of the Anabaptist movement, Chiliast, involuntary pioneer of the Anabaptist Empire in Münster
DATE OF BIRTH around 1495
PLACE OF BIRTH Schwäbisch Hall
DATE OF DEATH 1543
Place of death Strasbourg