September 1525

Ludwig Haetzer, the Hebrew scholar who had supported Zwingli’s early reforms in Zurich, moved to Constance and then Augsburg in the spring and summer of 1525. He had been active in evangelical publishing in Augsburg the year before, and he now rejoined the trade as a proofreader for a publisher named Silvan Otmar, who often printed evangelical texts.¹

Soon, in late summer or September 1525, Otmar’s press came out with a booklet that Haetzer wrote: On Evangelical Carousing and On Christian Speech.² In the tract, Haetzer expressed dismay about a failure of evangelical Christians to apply Christ’s ethics to their everyday conduct. Although Haetzer never joined the Anabaptists in believers’ baptism—and actually became quite critical of them as he moved toward spiritualism and unitarianism in later years—this tract shows that his set of concerns at this point in time merged with Anabaptists’ growing dissatisfaction with the evangelical option for reform: they did not see improvement in the devotional and ethical lives of many churchgoers after town councils implemented evangelical reforms, so they sought out a more ardent community of believers—even if it meant separating from the officially-endorsed local churches. Haetzer was therefore a notable part of the early free-church movement.

In the tract, Haetzer first addressed the conduct he was observing among evangelicals when their social clubs, such as trade guilds, gathered for celebratory feasts. Trade guilds were an important part of everyday life for artisans in medieval European towns like Augsburg. When Catholicism was predominant, they often fused a common interest in supporting the economic flourishing of the members’ trades with a desire to do communal acts of Christian charity that would support the civic life of their town. They were also devoted to providing “proper” funerals, with masses for the dead, for members whose families could not afford them. And by the late fifteenth century it became increasingly common for guild-related groups to form to spur each other on in greater devotional piety by attending confessions and mass more frequently and giving more generously of alms. Trade guilds also commonly engaged in festive activities each year by preparing a float or banners to participate in a procession in honor of a patron saint, framing their activity within an act of piety. But evangelicals in the trade guilds now scorned the honor of saints and masses for the dead, but they still wanted to have entertainment and feasts for celebrations. The end result, Haetzer was observing, was that the Protestant clubs savored nothing of Christ at all. With “unseemly feasting and drinking,” he wrote, they were instead showing more devotion to Bacchus—the pagan god of drinking and wild behavior. Satan was winning at his work of deception, Haetzer projected, when people come to associate “evangelical” with the libertine spirit that he witnessed at these feasts.³

Haetzer was notable for his era in suggesting that Christians should not even partake in moderate consumption of wine. Just a few drinks “in good company” are not harmless, he wrote. True “evangelical” gatherings would not run the risk of leading attendees away from the Gospel. Whereas wine loosened people’s tongues to say shameful things, they would be devoted to filling people up with God’s word, with mutual comfort, prayer, and encouragement to be faithful. In contrast to the raucous drinking and shouting that he witnessed at the taverns and inns of Augsburg, Haetzer wrote, that true Christian life involves experiencing the “bitter inns of the Evangelical Cross”—periods of difficulty from persecution or struggle against sin. Though sobering, they would bring lasting spiritual joy, in the end, and prepare us for entering God’s kingdom.⁴

To convince his readers of the Bible’s consistent message against drunkenness and gluttony, Haetzer summarized passages from Proverbs 20 and 23, Hosea 4, Ecclesiastes 7, Luke 16, 17, and 21, I Corinthians 5, and Ephesians 5. The life of Noah also showed how indulgence led to shame and destruction of family unity. He also compiled passages from Luke 14, Romans 12, I Peter 4, and Hebrews 13 to make the case that true “evangelical meals” would be gestures of care for those in need, from poverty or persecution, where resources entrusted by God are shared with a sense of both generosity and stewardship.⁵

Second, Haetzer addressed the qualities of “Christian speech.” Too often among the new evangelicals, he heard unseemly and unpleasant words, which were a “disgrace” to the Gospel (especially when drinking was involved). A person’s speech reveals the treasures of one’s heart. Thus Paul wrote the Ephesians and Colossians to make sure no obscene and foolish talk comes from their mouths, but rather speech that is “always gracious, seasoned with salt.”⁶

Haetzer also addressed the matter of swearing oaths, which he grouped with loose speech because they invoke God’s name for human purposes rather than worship and prayer. Simple honesty with our words was what Christ desired from his followers.⁷ The oath-making, tattle, and shouting of those who claim to be “new Christians” leads unbelievers to observe no improvement in their lives on account of Christ and thus brings shame upon his name. Haetzer expressed fear that the many nominal evangelicals were, with their sense of liberty, failing to pattern their lives and words after Christ. Attention to Christian speech would be a prime way to put on the “new cloak” of a new man, regenerated in Christ.⁸

This tract shows Haetzer’s position between the prominent evangelical reformers and Anabaptist ones. He considered fellow evangelicals his audience, but he was leading them to question the everyday culture that evangelical reforms had created when they were merely implemented politically from the top down. Haetzer’s time in Augsburg would run short, though. In the city two main camps had formed over the nature of reform: a Lutheran-style reformation, supported by most of the town council and clergy now preaching in the Augsburg churches, and a Zwinglian reform, supported by many lay people who had read tracts by Karlstadt and Zwingli that had circulated in the city. Haetzer believed, like Zwingli, that God’s presence was only spiritual now that Christ had ascended to heaven and was seated at the right hand of the Father.⁹ John 6:63 would become a key verse that Lutherans and Zwinglians debated, concerning images and the nature of the Eucharist: “The Spirit gives life; the flesh counts for nothing. The words I have spoken to you are full of the Spirit and life.” When Haetzer heard a sermon by the Lutheran pastor, Urbanus Rhegius, on this verse, he disparaged Rhegius’ interpretation in a conversation and tried to explain why the Zwinglian interpretation was faithful to the plain meaning of Christ’s words. Word of Haetzer’s comments reached Rhegius, who then challenged Haetzer to a disputation. But Haetzer did not appear, likely figuring that Rhegius had the support of the town council and would be declared the winner. Indeed, the town council “expelled him from the city as a disturber of the peace” at Rhegius’ urging. Haetzer moved to Basel next and, having renounced relationships with Anabaptists he once supported in Zurich, soon circulated in the city again with Zwingli’s approval.¹⁰

About This Series

This post is part of a series entitled “The Reformation at 500: Timeline of the Free-Church Movement.” Click here for more information on this series.

Featured image courtesy of the Wick’sche Sammlung, ca. 1575, Zentralbibliothek Zurich, Ms. F 23, fol. 294.

1. Gerhard Goeters, “Haetzer, Ludwig (1500-1529),” Global Anabaptist Mennonite Encyclopedia Online, at https://gameo.org/index.php?title=Haetzer,_Ludwig_(1500-1529)&oldid=145371. ↩︎
2. Ludwig Hätzer, Von den Evangelischen Zechen, Vnd von der Christen Red aus Hailiger geschrift [Augsburg: Otmar] (1525), available at: https://www.digitale-sammlungen.de/en/details/bsb00103367. ↩︎
3. Ibid., Aiv/v, B/v. ↩︎
4. Ibid., Aii/r. ↩︎
5. Ibid., B/r-Biii/v. ↩︎
6. Ibid., C/r (citing Eph. 4-5, Col. 3-4). ↩︎
7. Ibid., Biv/r (citing Matt. 5, 12; Luke 6). ↩︎
8. Ibid., Ciii/r. ↩︎
9. Haetzer wrote to Zwingli on September 14 to ask him to send a tract explaining his position on the Lord’s Supper to be distributed in Augsburg. Goeters, “Haetzer, Ludwig.” ↩︎
10. Ibid. ↩︎