By Jonathan Seiling

The view that Anabaptists and their descendents represent the purest practitioners of the principle of sola scriptura has long been promoted by historians. Throughout the historiographic shift in Anabaptist origins that moved from a theory of monogenesis to polygenesis and beyond there have been many studies that have analyzed various aspects of how Anabaptists used Scripture compared to other Reformation movements. Already in the early debates of the sixteenth century the principle of sola scriptura was explicitly articulated in conjunction with the movement to produce quantities of vernacular Bibles. A re-shaping of the biblical canon happened almost concurrently, namely the distinction of the canonical books from the so-called Apocryphal writings contained in the Vulgate Old Testament.

One example of how historians have viewed the Anabaptist view of the biblical canon and Apocrypha, is found in the preface to J.C. Wenger’s, Separated Unto God, where he explains how Anabaptists held more closely to the Bible, and more thoroughly rejected ‘ecclesiastical tradition’ than the other Protestants. He warns that although we find in Anabaptists the best understanding of the relationship between the Old and New Testaments, there were still some problems with how they used the Bible. He states with a degree of embarrassment, "Not all Anabaptists, for example, may have been entirely clear on the noncanonicity of the Apocryphal books." This statement is no small distortion of the historical record. Other studies have offered statements of a more tentative nature, such as William Keeney who explains that Menno Simons and Dirk Philips quoted the Apocrypha "with apparent authority. They seemed to be judicious in their use of them, but never openly denied that they had any different value from other Biblical materials." What the following study seeks to clarify is the manner in which the Anabaptists’ continual and persistent use of the Apocrypha sheds light on their view of the Apocryphal writings, and Scriptural canon as a whole, and the way in which they interpreted and understood all of Scripture. The study will also examine some of the key doctrinal issues for which Anabaptists found support in the Apocrypha, in particular the doctrine of free will.

It is obvious from a cursory reading of primary Anabaptist texts from the sixteenth century and following that writers do not make a clear distinction between how they employ the Apocryphal writings compared with the rest of the biblical canon. In fact there are scarcely any distinctions made between which writings are canonical and which are not, and Anabaptist confessional statements are generally silent on whether the Apocrypha are to be excluded from the Canon. The Apocrypha were in fact used to provide Scriptural references in several confessional statements until recently. However Karl Koop believes that Article XXIX in the ‘De Ries Confession of Faith’ explicitly recognizes the "difference in authority between the canonical books of the Old Testament and the Apocrypha". It could be that the context in which De Ries wrote the confession, and those to whom it was addressed, influenced how the author defined ‘canonical’ Scripture.

The concept of sola scriptura seems to imply that biblical writings rest as the sole authority for doctrine, but many of its primary proponents also used Augustine and other sources in what appears to be an equally authoritative manner. After surveying the materials used for the present study the only explicit reference to the Apocrypha where someone rejected its authority is found in the trial records of Jacques D’Auchy in 1558. During the conversation with the inquisitor he rejects the authority of a passage from 2 Maccabees that supports the practice of prayers for the dead on the basis that it is an apocryphal text. What is perplexing here is that in the section of the dialogue that immediately precedes this statement, D’Auchy is asked if he would change his prior views and responds saying, "...I will not speak as a hypocrite against my conscience; for it is written that the Spirit of God fleeth all deceit." The last part is quoted directly from the Wisdom of Solomon 1:5. I would have shared the inquisitor’s confusion when D’Auchy subsequently rejected the Apocrypha as a whole after citing it as the apparently ‘authoritative’ basis for why he could not change his prior beliefs. D’Auchy seems overall to be an exception in the written sources of the Anabaptist tradition concerning the use of the Apocrypha, but his example does demonstrate the complexity of the manner in which those who used the Apocrypha may have had different views of its authoritative status, but continued to use it nevertheless.

One scholar who recognized, without great prejudice, the complexity of the matter was G.H. Williams in his classic work, The Radical Reformation. Already in his 1962 first edition he noted a clear difference in how Anabaptists and other radicals employed the Apocryphal writings compared to the Magisterial Reformers, and argued that their notion of the Canon was also at variance with the emerging Protestant norm. He seemed to understand the phenomenon primarily as a carryover from late Medieval spirituality and piety, with the possible implication that a populist movement might be led to unintentionally carry on the foregoing tradition. Walter Klaassen’s comment in Anabaptism in Outline seems to concur with Williams’ assessment: "Anabaptists seem to have leaned to the Catholic definition of the biblical canon, for they quote frequently from the Apocrypha without distinguishing them from the rest of Scripture as Luther did. The Zürich Froschauer Bible, which many Anabaptists used, did not separate the Apocrypha from the rest of the Old Testament."

Williams surveyed various sources and emphasized that usage of the Apocrypha was "particularly noteworthy among the Anabaptists of all persuasions," listing a broad range of leaders as Michael Sattler, Peter Riedemann, Pilgram Marpeck, Melchior Hofmann, Menno Simons and others including a writing by George Schnabel in 1538, that made exceptionally high use of various Apocryphal writings. Williams also mentioned John Umble’s study of "An Amish Minister’s Manual" that notes the continued use of Tobit in marriage ceremonies. Williams’ third edition of his classic study of the radicals include updates to his first edition, further noting the connection between distinctive Melchiorite hermeneutics and the continued use of the Apocrypha, especially in those leaders influenced by Hoffman. Although the present study seeks to approach the question from the broad definition of ‘Anabaptist’, it may well be that the Melchiorite stream would prove to be a fruitful area of a more specialized study on the present topic. Arnold Snyder notes how the Melchiorite tradition believed that the Holy Spirit "had never closed the canon of Scripture."

While the general assessment that Anabaptists’ usage of the Apocrypha was a seemingly unintentional carryover from the Late Medieval era may be plausible, two additional reasons can be given for the Anabaptists’ persistent use of the Apocrypha, namely: 1) The importance of a few key passages that did in fact provide important Scriptural references for certain doctrines that distinguished Anabaptists from Magisterial Reformers, and 2) the notion of Scripture and biblical Canon and its function distinguished Anabaptists from other Reformers in general, as noted in general by many historians of Anabaptist origins.

In the era of increasing production of printed Bibles, the Apocrypha did not only circulate in as a part of the Vulgate, but they were popular writings in their own right. It was common in the years surrounding the Reformation to publish sections of the Bible, or single books, most notably the Psalms, sometimes with ancient and vernacular language parallel editions as well. In the VD16 series there is a listing of printed editions of the Bible in ancient languages and vernacular translations (see Table 1 in Appendix for complete listing). An analysis of the VD16 register shows that Sirach was by far the most popular separately-printed text from the Apocrypha during the sixteenth century. Sirach was published in over 128 separate editions including Latin (32), German (63), Dutch (26), Greek (6) and Hebrew (1). The only separate publications of Baruch in German were the translation by Ludwig Hätzer, which will be discussed in detail below. In Latin, German and Dutch there were 39 publications of the complete Apocrypha in addition to those that were included in various printings of the Bible. Many of these publications, especially those in Dutch and German, were printed with a title or preface stating that they are the books which are not counted among the Holy Scriptures, some adding that they are not found among the ‘Hebrew’, and that they are still good to read, approximating Luther’s own preface in his 1534 edition of the complete Bible. In the large, vernacular printed editions of the Bible that issued in the years following the Reformation, to be sure, all included the Apocryphal writings of the old Vulgate, and some even began to add others like 3 Maccabees. It was not until 1599 that the first Bibles were printed without the Apocrypha, in certain editions of the Geneva Bible printed in Antwerp. The issue became rather controversial for a time in England when in 1615 a law was passed outlawing the printing of Bibles that excluded the Apocrypha, although it appears that only a decade later, even the King James began to appear without the Apocrypha in some editions.

The selection of sources used in the following study aims at representing the various diverse groups within the Anabaptist tradition, while remaining a manageable size. For the writings of individual leaders I will largely work with the ‘Classics of the Radical Reformation’ series, and other additional texts where they are pertinent (see Table 2 in Appendix for a numerical comparison of Apocrypha references in the writers surveyed). Karl Koop’s study of the Anabaptist confessional period analyses the use of biblical references in collective statements of faith, and Howard John Loewen’s collection of Mennonite confessions of faith also includes numerous references to the Apocrypha. Recent publications from Pandora Press have also made available the Biblical Concordance of the Swiss Brethren, 1540. The Testamenterleuterung by Pilgram Marpeck and Leopold Scharnschlager contained numerous references to the Apocrypha, although this source has been of limited value in analyzing the various passages and doctrinal issues below. Lastly the Martyrs Mirror is the source that contains the most abundant references to Apocryphal writings and also demonstrates the longevity of the popular and confessional or ‘testimonial’ usage of the Apocrypha beyond the initial decades of the Reformation (see Table 3 in Appendix, a numerical comparison of citations from the above sources). These Anabaptist sources do not make use of the Apocrypha in a uniform fashion, reflecting perhaps varying degrees of importance. For example in the English edition of the Earliest Hymns of the Ausbund there is found an index of scriptural allusions, which shows rather weak evidence for the continued use of the Apocrypha.

Lastly on methodology my approach seeks to propose a general thesis concerning how Anabaptists used and viewed the Apocrypha. Unlike earlier ‘monogenesis’ Anabaptist historiography that sought to dismiss or negate those elements that did not conform a supposed ideal or norm, and also unlike the polygenesis approach that sought to emphasize the disunity of the movement in reaction to the previous historians, I will take a similar approach to Arnold Snyder’s ‘beyond polygenesis’ methodology. In the absence of internal dissent against particular ‘Anabaptist’ positions that are articulated, these positions may assume a quasi-normative quality, without implying an exclusion of variations. In the following section we will begin by examining the initial contexts in which the Protestant argument for the exclusion of the Apocrypha was articulated. Next we will look in detail at the reaction of Ludwig Hätzer in particular, as a representative voice within the Radical Reformation traditions, who articulated a position that attacked aspects of the Protestant sola scriptura argument, particularly that of its main proponent, Andreas Bodenstein von Karlstadt. The final section will examine certain passages from the Apocrypha that were used with greater frequency, and which relate to key, distinctive Anabaptist doctrines.

Neither Karlstadt nor Ludwig Hätzer would be considered Anabaptists in the strict sense of having received adult baptism. They were both anti-pedobaptists, which allows them a large degree of affinity with the Anabaptist movement. Although various studies have shown the tendency in the Radical Reformation to debate fiercely over the relationship of the ‘letter and spirit’, there appears to be a near absence of discussion by Anabaptists on the question of the definition of which Scriptures constitute the biblical Canon, with Karlstadt and Hätzer as the exceptions. The comparison between them is based on internal evidence in their extant writings, which show strong evidence of knowledge and engagement of each other’s writings. By outlining the context in which the debate over the Canon arose we will discuss how Karlstadt’s position, which ultimately was triumphant in Protestant circles, was attacked by Ludwig Hätzer, the Radical Reformer, biblical translator, and cohort of the influential leader, Hans Denck.

Recent approaches to the study of biblical hermeneutics in general tend to critique the power relationship between the reader and text and try to analyze ways in which the text is interpreted in light of social or political dynamics. This method of analysis can lead to a better understanding of how Anabaptist hermeneutics differed from those of the Protestant Reformers. As Richard Duerden writes about power and hermeneutics during the Reformation period in England, "the Bible was a discourse many sought to appropriate." Historians, he suggests, may better understand how the Bible was read as a text in the 16th century if a distinction is made between two types of ideas of the ‘Bible as authority’. Duerden makes the distinction between the authority of text as 1) credibility, i.e. an epistemological matter, and 2) power to influence or compel belief or action, a political matter. In brief, for modernity authority means ‘credibility’ and for the early-modern reader authority meant ‘power’. Duerden writes, "when the sixteenth century asked about the authority of the Bible, it meant power-authority; it asked, ‘What does it lead people to do?’ It asked not what epistemological status the Bible has, but what power it has, and who has the right to wield it."

In the early debates between the Reformers and the papal representatives, both Luther and Karlstadt played key roles on the part of the camp that came to be known later as Protestants. While it is often assumed that Luther played the primary role in arguing for Scripture over against papal authority some scholars recognize that Karlstadt in fact played more of a leading role in explicitly rejecting all authority except that which can be based on Scripture. In the debates at Leipzig in 1519, statements made by Karlstadt and Luther about which scriptures were canonical needed to be further argued and clarified by both Reformers. It was remarkably fateful that the papal representative, Johann Ecke, began the Leipzig debate on free will with a text from Sirach. In fact this very text would play a pivotal role in whether Catholics or Anabaptists alike would retain the Apocrypha and use it to support doctrines. Luther also rebutted Ecke’s use of II Maccabees 12:43-45, which could be used as a proof-text for prayers or masses for the dead. It should be noted that Ecke was engaging the debate using the principle of sola scriptura based on the Vulgate canon. Also there are various writings of the Apocrypha that contain clear promise of merit through good works that Luther also rejected.

Already for Luther, the question of canon definition was marred by his rejection of the authority of various canonical books, most significantly the Epistle of James. The question of Luther’s distinction between canonical and apocryphal writings is further complicated by the fact that his writings show a clear preference for certain writings in the Apocrypha (or his translation of them) over some canonical writings. When Luther began to condemn the Epistle of James it became clear to Karlstadt that the definition of which writings were fully ‘canonical’ needed to be both clarified and defended. Karlstadt was arguably far more advanced, logical and detailed in his arguments regarding the Canon than his colleague Luther. Karlstadt’s argument for re-definition of the biblical canon, emphasizing the legitimacy of James, was made as much against Luther’s attempt to excise it from the canon as his treatise served as a basis to deny the Catholic ecclesiastical authority in the early days of reform when he sought to provide an argument for the objective basis for the authoritative Canon as such.

Karlstadt worked on a systematic argument for canon re-formation in Wittenberg from 1518-1520, which resulted in a 98-page treatise in Latin. In the same year he produced a distilled popular version in vernacular German called Weliche biecher Biblisch seind (22 pgs). According to Pater, Karlstadt was the only Reformer to publish a booklet on the canon of Scripture, and he notes the high sophistication of Karlstadt’s arguments, especially for the sixteenth century. Karlstadt’s treatise ostensibly establishes a set of primarily historical criteria as a basis for defining canonicity. Karlstadt’s treatise describes a threefold division, or three orders within the biblical writings, and relegates some canonical writings and other non-canonical texts found within the Vulgate Scriptures to the third order. The Apocrypha are all listed in the third order. The entire third order for Karlstadt denotes inferiority to the first and second orders of the canon. In the canonical section of the third ‘order’ Karlstadt includes among the writings in the third division of the Hebrew canon, i.e. the ‘Kethubim’, and the following New Testament writings: Hebrews, James, 2 Peter, 2 & 3 John, Jude and Revelation. In the vernacular edition, Weliche Biecher, he states, "Nun folgen die Apocriphen altes und neüs gsetzs / die sich die kirch gegen stark feinden / nit braucht / und also sy nit erkent nemlich:" and a list of all the OT apocryphal writings from the Vulgate follows, plus the so-called letter of Paul to the Laodoceans and the last chapter of Mark, presumably the portion from 16:9ff.

This apocryphal sub-category within the third order may be considered generally non-canonical in Karlstadt’s strict sense, but it is less clear whether he considers some of them to be Scripture. Karlstadt divides the apocryphal writings further into two sub-groups, namely those writings, or sections of the Vulgate’s text, some which are Holy Scriptures (agiographi) and others that are ‘worthy of a censor’s ban’. His list includes not only Old Testament apocryphal texts but other ‘canonical’ writings. The first list includes Wisdom, Sirach, Judith, Tobit and 1, 2 Maccabees which are ‘tamen agiographi’, but they are still considered apocryphal since they are not found in the ‘Hebrew canon’ as he calls it. Karlstadt listed the following as not worth reading: 1,2 Esdras, Baruch, Prayer of Manasseh and Additions to Daniel, which are all worthy of a censor’s ban. Even though Karlstadt seems to make a categorical distinction in the Vulgate Old Testament between Hebrew canon and ‘non-scripture’, the distinction is not so clear as Protestants now presume. Scripture, (i.e. agiographi) for Karlstadt, seems include Wisdom, Sirach, Judith, Tobit and 1,2 Maccabees, which he declares with supportive arguments and the distinction that all other apocryphal writings are to be discarded, and not treated as Scripture.

In the positive sense sola scriptura was an argument that provided a newly defined set of texts, which could be used as a basis for doctrine. In a negative sense sola scriptura provided a safeguard against other types of ecclesiastical authority that would seek to establish doctrine on extra-scriptural grounds, e.g. councils, the papacy, canon law. This principle only afforded new problems in trying to define a hermeneutical approach that would allow the biblical Canon to function in a consistent manner. While Anabaptists initially joined enthusiastically with these principles they parted ways en masse with the Magisterial Reformers when it became clear that the learned Schrifftgelehrte held the sole power and authority over how the Scriptures could be interpreted or used. From their perspective the shift from the ‘papists’ to the Reformers was a mere de-centralization of authority from one Pope, to a new army of popes who seemed to wield the same level of authority over Scripture that the Pope had. The central question was the role of the Holy Spirit in interpretation, and whether the meaning led to a renewed life. Furthermore free will was a key doctrine that separated the Magisterial Reformers from the Anabaptists, which finds its clearest scriptural support in the writings of the Apocrypha.

The following section examines the antipathy that developed between Karlstadt and Ludwig Hätzer, both in their views of the Canon and their writings against the use of graven images. Although they initially agreed strongly on most issues Karlstadt seems ironically to represent for Hätzer one who would denigrate the authority of Scripture by daring to define, using historical and academic criteria, which Scriptures were to be used as a basis for teaching, and which were not. We will look initially at their highly significant iconoclastic writings from the early 1520s, and then examine a very noteworthy writing by Hätzer, the preface to his translation of Baruch, Susanna and Bel and the Dragon, in which he explicitly defends the Apocrypha as Scripture and makes statements that are critical of Karlstadt’s notion of biblical Canon. Although no attempt will be made to draw a causal connection between Hätzer’s position and the rest of Anabaptists who continued to employ the Apocrypha as Scripture, the relationship between these two figures is significant of the debate on the use of Scripture in general among various camps of Radical Reformers.

A study by Charles Garside clearly outlines the significance of Hätzer’s iconoclastic pamphlet, Ain Urtayl Gottes (1523), which was the first, and apparently only such writing on images in Zurich in the sixteenth century. It was hugely popular and eight editions were made of the German version and one in Latin. It is estimated that a total of 6,000-10,000 copies were produced in total. Garside also notes the significant influence Hätzer’s pamphlet had on Zwingli’s intellectual development. Karlstadt’s similar pamphlet on images (Von abtuhung der Bylder, 1521) was published a year and a half prior to Hätzer’s, and Garside’s study analyses where Hätzer obviously borrowed arguments and Scripture references from Karlstadt. One notable feature of Hätzer’s pamphlet compared to that of Karlstadt is that although Karlstadt used some biblical references, Hätzer’s pamphlet is comprised of 60% biblical quotations, all coming from the Old Testament, two of which come from Apocryphal writings (Wisdom and Baruch). Calvin Pater affirms Garside’s analysis and further comments on the significance of the later exchanges, although indirect, between Karlstadt and Hätzer. Pater notes the importance of Hätzer’s inclusion of Apocryphal writings, which happened after Karlstadt had made his argument against their usage in his De Canonicis, and he notes a ‘caustic’ allusion to this matter by Karlstadt already in 1524: "There is also one, not unknown to me, who - in plagiarizing - is accustomed to add what is his to my books." I would also concur with Pater’s initial, brief comments about Hätzer’s ‘oblique’ remarks in his Preface to Baruch, which are certainly aimed at Karlstadt. I will explore further what Pater briefly noted, referring to Hätzer’s preface.

Hätzer demonstrates in exemplary form the gulf that widened between various views on the re-definition and authority of Scripture. Hätzer states plainly that biblical, i.e. canonical writings do not agree everywhere, although this problem is also noted by Denck in his Paradoxes, and others in the Reformation, such as Sebastien Frank’s 280 Paradoxes or Wondrous Sayings, echoing Marcion’s Antitheses written in an earlier era in Canon controversy. Hätzer gives examples of how one might note that Ezekiel contradicted Moses, and that among Jews there was continuing debate, as to whether Ezekiel was truly a prophet. His argument also echos the early protests of Luther at Worms in 1521, when Luther’s argument for sola scriptura was partly based on the problem that ‘councils and popes have contradicted each other’. Hätzer’s comments here seem to be a veiled attack on Karlstadt’s argument that the Apocrypha should rejected, and only valued insofar as they agree entirely with the rest of Scripture. In so arguing Karlstadt effectively rendered the Apocrypha useless. Hätzer seems to be replying to Karlstadt’s implication that they cannot be efficacious as Scripture. Hätzer writes that the Apocryphal writings do in fact "give a righteous testimony of how one can and must return into the One, just as with the other books [of the Canon]". They are useful insofar as they provide a testimony that directs the reader toward God. In a summary statement he argues that knowledge of languages or the biblical writings is useless without the revelation of Christ to the believer. Hätzer also explains that in order to understand the Scriptures one must walk in the ‘school of Christ’ and hear the ‘living voice of God’ as the Scriptures are read aloud:

This carries the essence of what Denck wrote in his ‘Recantation’ the previous year, "it is not possible for the Scriptures to improve an evil heart even if it is highly learned." Further Hätzer argues that those who struggle with passages that involve dreams and visions, and who dismiss such passages because they are obscure, are equated to blind people speaking about colors. Here again he seems to be attacking Karlstadt who expressed doubts and even criticism of the book of Revelations, whether it should be considered canonical. Hätzer also writes of the requisite Key of David to unlock the meaning of many passages, and likewise, if one has the Key, it is unnecessary for anyone to determine that a certain writing will or will not witness to God. He writes: "And so no one should have any sworn-away or disregarded books, but rather one who wishes may read them, and take from them a good testimony of the seed of God, with which the path and way will be pointed out..." He further explains the futility of using any means, including Scripture, to know God without the help of the Holy Spirit, which is tantamount to trying to understand God without God’s help. He argues that anyone can master Scriptures and quote them without knowing God. No one can know God outside of God’s self revelation:

Hätzer’s preface is one of his last extant original writings, and it is of no small significance that he attached these statements to his translation of the Apocryphal texts. It is remarkable that his clearest arguments concerning the biblical canon appear in a translation of what, by that time, where considered non-canonical writings by most Reformers. The texts that he translated were all found in Karlstadt’s second division of the Apocrypha, i.e. those ‘worthy of a censor’s ban’. Paradoxically he seems to be arguing that although Scripture is important, knowledge of God is ultimately not gained by merely studying Scripture. By arguing that Apocryphal writings do point toward ‘the One’, but like the rest of Scripture do not themselves necessarily equate with knowledge of God, Hätzer effectively raises the authority of the Apocrypha to the same level of the rest of the biblical canon.

If we compare Hätzer’s notion of Canon with what we find in other Anabaptist writers, Anabaptists provide a diversity of statements on how the Scripture should be viewed as an authority. Walter Klaassen writes that Anabaptists did, like the other Reformers, "elevate the authority of Scriptures to fill the vacancy of the Pope and Councils", citing Marpeck, Phillips, Hoffman, Riedemann, in their shared belief that Scriptures are the Christian’s final authority. Menno Simons also made statements such as "all must be judged according to Scripture" noting also the importance of the ‘whole’ of Scripture. These statements are from his Foundation of Christian Doctrine, in which he quotes from several Apocrypha including 4 Esdras, 2 Macc., Baruch and Wisdom.

Some examples of Anabaptist notions of the Canon, like Pfistemeyer, show a more Lutheran, Christocentric approach to all of Scripture. The so-called Humanist view may have allowed for a looser definition of the biblical Canon because there was a less rigid sense that the written words themselves changed the heart of the believer. Klaassen also notes the rejection by some Anabaptists of the strict identification of Word of God with Scripture, e.g. Denck, Hut, Stadler. Ulrich Stadler explains that Scriptures are not the wine, but the sign outside the inn which advertises the wine. Scriptures thus are the outer word, the ‘sign’, and the ‘wine’ is the voice of God in the soul, the inner word. Such an affinity between one’s view of the letter of Scripture and the ‘voice of God’ reading the word is intimately linked with one’s view of the relationship between the two Testaments, and the shape of the Canon in general.

For most Anabaptists, excluding some of the more extreme Spiritualist-oriented writers, the written Word preceded the living Word. However the written word may not become another idol to be worshipped. On this matter Stadler writes:

Others, like Schiemer emphasized that parts of Scripture are more plain than others, and that the New Testament is the clearest place to find rightful instruction.

In regards to the Anabaptist notion of the division of the biblical Canon, there are many and various views as well. To cite two contrasting examples, Hans Hut speaks of tripartite division of Scripture, as 1) matter i.e. creaturen, which points to 2) proclamation of the cross and suffering as a means to obeying 3) the commands of how to live according to God. Pilgram Marpeck offers quite a different tripartite understanding of Scripture as 1) teaching as witness to the revelation of God, which relieves ignorance, 2) admonition and warning and 3) commands, wrath and punishment. Those Anabaptist writers who made great efforts to explain how the biblical writings were multi-layered did not seem to include any explanation for why one might exclude the Apocrypha. Rather it seems that various Anabaptist hermeneutical approaches allowed for the use of a diverse groups of texts.

There are two excellent studies of Anabaptist hermeneutics that deal briefly with the question of how two Anabaptist leaders used the Apocrypha. In his published doctoral dissertation focusing on the hermeneutics of Pilgram Marpeck, William Klassen states clearly the importance of the Apocrypha for Marpeck. He notes its use especially in the Verantwurtung II, a doctrinal defense against Schwenckfeld’s criticism, but that Marpeck used the Apocrypha in his early writings as well. He states that, "At no point whatever is any indication given that these books are not considered part of the canon." Robert C. Holland has given a brief analysis of the matter in his dissertation on Peter Riedemann’s hermeneutics. Besides noting that Riedemann’s writings contain over 100 references, comprising 3.5% of all his scriptural references, he provides the following comment on the importance of the Apocryphal writings: "Together with references from the Old and New Testament, these verses form a part in his presuppositions, especially on sin, the community of goods and government. Hermeneutically, [the Apocryphal writings] have simply been read by Riedemann and incorporated into his thinking and quotations." The study of Dutch Anabaptism by Keeney mentioned above includes references that show a similar pattern in the writings of Menno Simons and Dirk Philips.

The following section presents observations taken from the comparative survey conducted on the usage of specific verses found in the various Anabaptist sources described above. Although the comparison revealed a large number of passages that were cited by more than one source there were very few passages that were cited by more than four of the sources, with the clear exception of passages that support free will, most importantly Sirach 15:14-17. It was only through such a comparative analysis that it became clear that the doctrine of free will may point to a significant reason why Anabaptists retained the Apocrypha and used it as authoritative scripture. Admittedly not every writer surveyed made use of the Apocrypha in defense of free will, and not all wrote explicitly on free will. However it is the one doctrinal issue that comes the closest to being a universally shared position among Anabaptists, distinguishing them on the whole from Protestants.

It could only be conjectural to assume that Anabaptists might have cherished this passage from Sirach to such a degree that they would retain the whole of the Apocrypha in order to maintain this passage as part of Scripture. Although free will is a doctrine they shared with the Catholics, Anabaptists do not seem to have honored the Tridentine definition of Canon either. The wealth of citations from 2 Esdras by various writers, and in many confessions of faith, attests to this discrepancy. G.H. Williams argues that the doctrine of psychopannichism, the post-mortem ‘sleep of the soul’, finds its proof-text in 2 Esdras 7:32. Ironically this idea is also found in Karlstadt and Williams believes to be a widespread Anabaptist doctrine. This apocryphal writing, written in the genre of apocalyptic literature, was deemed non-canonical at the Council of Trent in 1546 and attached to the Vulgate only later as an appendix. However it was included in Protestant vernacular Bibles with the Apocrypha and for many Anabaptists, including the authors of certain confessions of faith, it appears to have remained equal to Scripture. Another difference between Anabaptists and Catholics may be found in the absence of references to certain passages by Anabaptists, for example the sources surveyed for this study revealed no use of II Macc. 12, containing the proof-text for prayers for the dead. However Menno Simons himself cited some of the very same passages that Catholics cited to support good works, for which Luther found reason to condemn certain Apocryphal writings.

Examples below will show that they provided scriptural support to Anabaptists, where they otherwise may not have found scriptural basis in the Protestant canon. The most significant case in which a text from an Apocryphal writings is used as the primary, if not the sole basis to support a doctrine, is that of free will. The famous passage from Sirach, with which Johann Ecke used in his attack on Luther and Karlstadt in 1519 is found in 15:14-17:

The question of free will has been the subject of debate throughout much of the history of the Church. This same passage from Sirach served as the basis for Erasmus’ De Libero Arbitrio, provoking Luther’s famous treatise on the ‘Bondage of the Will’. We find Anabaptist writers as diverse as Hubmaier, Denck and Philips using the text in their writings to support the notion that we freely choose good or evil, life or death, fire or water without coercion. In the Swiss Concordance of 1540, we find three references and one citation of the passage from Sirach Ch.15. In the section on ‘God will repay all according to their deeds’ the full text of Sirach 15:11-20 is cited. In Hubmaier’s Apologia (1527) he defends his theological positions against accusations of Lutheranism, and associating with the apocalyptic views of other radical leaders. In the Sixth Article he attacks the view that our actions are determined by necessity. Before citing Sirach 15:14-17, Hubmaier refers obliquely to 2 Cor. 9:7 and writes, "He therefore gave both kinds of being a free and unforced will, as the Scriptures testify and say [Sir.15:14-17]". In another writing from the same period Hubmaier cites the same Sirach passage in Freedom of the Will, I. He writes, "Here the Scripture clearly and plainly shows us that the human being originally, in body, soul, and spirit, was given a free will to will and to perform good or evil", which changed after the fall for the body and soul, but not the spirit. In his Freedom of the Will, II, Hubmaier again bases his scriptural argument on Sirach 15. Hubmaier’s theology of free will begins with a division between the body-soul-spirit, arguing that only the spirit remains free to choose good, while the soul and flesh can only choose evil, echoing Augustine’s similar argument. Through the Word of God incarnate, those reborn in the Spirit can have a free will and begin to choose good over evil, as before the Fall. In the above references there is a clear acknowledgement that what he is quoting is authoritative Scripture, and not simply a human writing that demonstrates a logical argument. The importance of Sirach for Hubmaier, and the scriptural support it provides for his understanding of free will, is strengthened by the fact that in his collected works he used the Apocrypha in only twelve places.

In Hans Denck’s 1526, Whether God is the Cause of Evil, he provides Sirach 15:14, after writing, "[God] gives humankind first free will (as he gave in the beginning), so that one may reach either the good or the vile, as Scripture testifies." Leonard Schiemer also cites 15:17 demonstrating that Scripture attests to our responsibility to choose between good and evil, life and death. Dirk Phillips, who on the whole uses passages from the Apocrypha more than any other Anabaptist writer, cites Sirach 15:14 in his Enchiridion, in a different way. While criticizing hypocritical teachers and false prophets who serve their own belly he writes, "they also can [neither] do nor teach anything good as it is written, a godless [person] cannot teach correctly for it does not come from God. For to the correct teaching belongs wisdom, then God grants his grace thereto, [Sirach] 15:14". It seems that Dirk appealed to the notion that divine wisdom is what determines the truth of a teacher, and not their own determination. A godly teacher must first choose divine wisdom. The Martyrs Mirror contains a total of five references to Sirach 15:14-17. In ‘a testament left by Joriaen Simons to his son Simon’ he cited Sirach in a very similar vein as what Philips wrote. He warns his son of the "evil and deadly poison" of the Lutherans and Zwinglians and others, and admonishes his son to compare all teachings he hears with Scripture and use it to govern his life. The following passage he quotes from Sirach 15:16, again viewing it as a warning to choose wisely between all that is set before him. In another testament, Soetgen van den Houte uses the passage as a warning to choose between good and evil teachings, and emphasizes the responsibility of choosing to live in a way that will lead either to (eternal) life or death. Lastly in another testament from Joost de Tollenaer in 1589, after citing two earlier passages from Sirach, he quotes 15:16-17, referring to assisting the poor and choosing to receive eternal blessing over temporal satisfaction. These martyrs all cite the section of the passage that mentions choosing between ‘fire and water’, meaning the choice between life and death and relate the notion of free will to one’s responsibility to remain faithful.

Two citations of Sirach 15:14 are found in early confessions of faith. First, in the beginning section of the Martyrs Mirror where the early confessions are listed, the verse is cited with other passages that purportedly demonstrate how humans are responsible for their sin, and God’s justice requires that sins be repaid. The Sirach text demonstrates how this is prefigured in the Old Testament. Sirach, Baruch and Wisdom are included among other references from both testaments in its statements on free will, connecting it with the created nature and fall of humanity. The earlier Mennonite ‘Confession of Faith, According to the Holy Word of God’ includes a reference to Sirach 15:14-17, referring to "various Scripture passages ascribing a will to man" after which the text of the confession reproduces the full passage, and then provides three additional references, which seem to concur with the Sirach text.

In a more recent confession of faith the text from Sirach is cited again as the scriptural proof for the doctrine of free will. Article 16 of the 1881/1913 confession of the Evangelical Mennonite Conference - Kleine Gemeinde, signed in Manitoba, concerns free will. It begins by paraphrasing the Sirach passage, then refers to Deuteronomy 30:15, which contains the passage, "I have set before you this day life and good, death and evil", however the Deuteronomy passage contains no mention of the will, only obedience. Then it refers to the Sirach passage and relates the gift of free will as part of the endowment of creation, referring then to Genesis 3.

Another apocryphal text that is related to the question of free will is from Wisdom of Solomon 1:13, which states that God did not create death. In Denck’s ‘Divine Order’ of 1527, he cites this verse independently of others in showing that it is not God’s action that causes evil or death, for God is good alone. Shortly after he cites Sirach 15:21, which states that God causes no one to sin. Peter Riedemann, in his Confession of Faith, uses Wisdom 1:13 five times. He writes, "it was the devil himself in the form of a serpent who deceived and beguiled Adam", citing the verses also surrounding it which are more generally related to God’s lack of responsibility for Adam’s fall. Shortly after he cites it again in the section on ‘Harm Caused by Original Sin’. Original sin is the cause of physical death, and were it not for sin, people would not die since God did not create death. Several pages later he again cites the same passage from Wisdom in contrasting the endurance of God’s good purpose even after the serpent deceived people. Similarly he emphasizes that humans were created in God’s image, without the corrupting poison, since God desired that humans would remain in the divine nature. The same confession of faith from 1600, referred to above, contains Wisdom 1:13 as a proof-text, along with others, after the following statement: "Read here all the Scriptures which unanimously testify that God does not desire the death of the sinner, but that he be converted, and live." Wisdom is a writing that Conrad Grebel also cites to support a doctrinal position. In his famous letter to Müntzer (Sept. 5, 1525), in which he spells out in some detail the main doctrinal statements about believer’s baptism, he refers to Wisdom 12[v.19] as Scripture, but this is apparently the only reference Grebel makes to any apocryphal text.

Aside from the issue of free will we see that in many cases Anabaptists demonstrate that the Apocrypha was considered equal to the rest of Scripture. They took the Apocrypha seriously even when certain passages seemed to contradict what was found in other parts of Scripture. For example one passage that poses an obvious exegetical problem for those who seek a neat, systematic harmonization of the meaning of all Scripture is Sirach 24:21. It reads concerning the ‘Praise of Wisdom’, "Those who eat of me will hunger for more, and those who drink of me will thirst for more"(RSV). In Hut’s instruction on ‘Comparing and Interpreting Divine Scripture’, the fact that he includes this verse and others from the Apocrypha alongside those of the canonical Scriptures, even comparing them with NT passages, shows that he considered them of equal authority as the rest of Scripture. He juxtaposes the Sirach passage with John 4:14. These are the same as found in Denck’s 1527 Paradoxa, who produced a similar list of apparently contradictory Scriptural passages, which can be understood only when the higher, perhaps mystical sense of Scripture is attained. He says the purpose in providing the list is to enrich God’s own people. Denck is concerned with the Holy Spirit’s role in finding the "ground of truth" to reconcile opponents who use such opposing passages against each other. He writes, "one is contained in the other, as the lesser is in the greater, time in eternity, finitude in infinity." Dirk Philips seems to take up the challenge made by both Hut and Denck. He writes in comparing passages from John’s Gospel with Sirach, "Christ actually spoke of the satisfaction and refreshing which all Christians have at all times through God’s Word and through the Holy Spirit, and shall have in perfection in eternity." Soon after he comments that Sirach "speaks of a hunger and thirst which still remain in a Christian when [one] has already eaten the Word of God and drunk the water of life… The reason? A Christian who is of a true character has at all times desire to hear God’s Word…" The passage from the Gospel of John he reads as referring to the eternal satisfaction of the Word, and the passage from Sirach refers to the experience of temporally receiving that same Word. We see clearly from this example that Denck, Hut and Philips did not treat the Apocrypha as Karlstadt had advised. Rather they compared passages from the Apocrypha with the rest of Scripture and they did not reject those that did not match the rest of Scripture. We see here the same principle as articulated by Hätzer in his Baruch preface, where he acknowledges that within the so-called canonical writings there are passages that do not agree with each other, but are still considered Scripture.

Other important apocryphal writings used by several Anabaptists include Baruch Ch.6, also known as the Letter of Jeremiah, which is cited in various Anabaptist writings in the context of worshipping God alone, and rejecting images. Hätzer included a paraphrase of this writing in his ‘Ain Urtayl’, and Hubmaier also cites it in his ‘Christian Catechism’. Menno Simons also quotes it twice. Riedemann refers to it three times total, in a section concerning taking oaths and in a discussion about the Lord’s Supper. In the section on the Lord’s Supper, Riedemann notes that Israel was criticized for misusing God’s gifts, and he gives Baruch 6:7-15 as a scriptural reference. The passage refers to the abuse of sacred duties by priests, who are false, and take benefit for themselves, and the reference seems to demonstrate for Riedemann that since the power can be abused, as noted in Scripture, the bread itself cannot be seen as itself containing the ‘gift’. He argues that the actual bread itself is not life giving, "nor can it be of use to itself". In the Martyrs Mirror a letter from Joost Verkindert (1570), describes how he was arguing with the Bishop while in prison. He challenged the Bishop to explain why the Catholic Church still used images in Church and cited Baruch 6:3. In a similar vein another letter from a martyr, Hans Bret, tells of the challenge he made to a priest to demonstrate, from Scripture, where it says that "Christ and His apostles, in this manner, went around the street with an idol, with torches, lanterns and bells", citing Psalm 112:4 and Baruch 6:4, where it warns how such a practice will be seen in Babylon, but must be avoided. The Psalms passage relates only to people’s wealth, not the ceremony that Bret criticized, making the Baruch passage the primary text and the text from Psalms of secondary importance as an illustration. It appears that Bret believed that not only was Baruch part of Scripture, but that it could not be contradicted by Scripture.

The importance of Baruch in particular is that it is the only book of the Apocrypha that would be considered to be from the prophetic genre. Susanna, Bel and the Dragon et al. are outtakes from the Greek version of Daniel, but they belong to other literary genres. Although Baruch can be seen to have large continuity with Jeremiah the prophet, and Lamentations, there is one particular passage in Baruch that gained importance in the early Church period, which describes God providing a way of knowledge to Israel, and afterward this way of knowledge "appeared on earth and lived with humankind" (3:37). Dirk Philips, in continuity with patristic tradition, cites this verse twice as denoting the incarnation of the wisdom of the Lord..Philips also quotes from Baruch 3:20-21 in his tract Concerning the True Knowledge of Jesus Christ, which speaks of destroying the wisdom of the wise, making foolish the wisdom of the world, stating that in order to become wise, one must "maintain, confess, and attest Jesus Christ alone as the wisdom of God…"

In addition to the general observation of previous historians who implied that Anabaptists may have retained its usage primarily out of habit, we have shown additional reasons why the Apocrypha remained a vital part of the Scriptures, most significantly by using various passages as support for the doctrine of free will. As well the Anabaptists found these writings useful as words of comfort in times of persecution, primarily in Maccabees. They used them as guidance to live in faith, obedience and piety, and some passages resonated strongly with those who rejected the Catholic Church’s use of images (bylder). It may be that the Protestant Reformers denied the Apocrypha the status of a text which could wield power over believers, a power reserved for the Canon, while Anabaptists in general, rejected an attempt by those in seats of Magisterial authority to use any text to wield such influence over them. The Holy Spirit was the only authority which could wield that power, and the Spirit was not confined to admonish the heart of the believer through a strict set of texts, whose meaning could be distorted, as they charged the Schrifftgelehrte of doing. Rather the set of texts through which the Spirit spoke to the faithful not only included the Apocrypha, but the suffering and redemption of nature, the material world, preached as the Gospel for all creation.

The Protestant prohibition against using the Apocrypha to support Church doctrine was apparently ignored by many Anabaptist groups. While Protestants denied they were equal to Scripture, Luther and others like Oecolampadius advised they were ‘profitable and good to read’, and not entirely to be despised. This somewhat echoes the preface that St Jerome provided in his translation of the Old Testament Solomonic writings where he states that such writings that are apocryphal are "for the edification of the people, not to give authority to doctrines of the Church." However we might add that for many Anabaptists it might suffice to consider all Scripture, canonical and apocryphal, as primarily suited to the task of edifying the faithful, and avoid any strict identification of the written Word with the establishment of doctrine. It this manner the Bible need not be handled as a collection of words to serve as proof-texts. When we understand that the historical controversy over indulgences and the doctrine of free will were coincidental with the Reformers’ exclusion of the Apocrypha from the so-called canonical Scriptures, i.e. those writings that gave support to such Catholic teachings as these, the doctrine of sola scriptura is seen in a rather different light.

While this study sought to survey the issue in the early Anabaptist tradition many further studies could illuminate more specific aspects of the phenomenon. In addition studies of how various Spiritualists used the Apocrypha may find additional insight into how usage continued in the sixteenth century and beyond. The problem of how to define the status and role of the Apocrypha in relation to the rest of Scripture is one that has caused serious divisions in the Church, and it remains a problem even today. The German Bible Society has published a collection of studies on the question of how the Church has viewed the Apocrypha. Although effort was made to include various denominational traditions, there was no article representing the Anabaptist traditions. The possible exception was the article on the Baptists, which begins in the seventeenth century. Part of the impetus for the present study was to shed light on some of the complexities in this topic that were not adequately addressed previously. As bible societies strive to provide publications that can be considered ecumenical, the issue of including the Apocrypha remains a contentious one. Ultimately there may never be a complete consensus in the Church on exactly how to define and circumscribe the scriptural canon and ascribe to it a definitive type of authority. Due to this expected ambiguity it may be fruitful for the entire Church to learn from the various approaches taken by representatives from the Radical Reformation tradition, who sought to balance a diligent and serious use of Scripture with the authority of Spirit residing in and working through the community of believers, while resisting statements of certitude about which specific biblical writings may govern the life and faith of the Church, and how.

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Jonathan Seiling

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