December 13, 1524

On December 13, 1524, Conrad Grebel and others who had become critical of infant baptism met for a second time with the people’s priests of Zurich.  According to Ulrich Zwingli, the tenor of the conversation deteriorated at this meeting. “Since they could do nothing with the Scripture,” he wrote of his critics, “some of them carried on the affair with open abuse.”¹ Grebel, came away with a similar feelings about Zwingli and his fellow clerical authorities: “They summoned and abused the simplest one, yet nearest to God as God and the world know how.; but with the help of god and is truth, he has put their wisdom to shame.²  By the “simplest one,” Grebel was most likely referring to one of his colleagues whom he admired for his devotional fervency, even if he did not have knowledge of the Scriptures in Greek and Hebrew—which was an important qualification for biblical interpretation in Zwingli’s mind.  Indeed, as Zwingli recalled, the advocates of adult baptism had a follower attend the meeting who “could not read anything but German” but was “the most arrogant of all.” This follower contended that infant baptism was introduced in the 11th century by Pope Nicholas II, even though Zwingli had established the historical error of that claim already during the first discussion on baptism the week before. Readers of Tertullian’s works could see from his opposition to infant baptism that children were being baptized in Christian churches already by the 3rd century, and Augustine encouraged the practice in the 4th century, well before the bishops of Rome were setting policies for the church throughout western Europe.³  

December 13-28, 1524

With a sense that the meeting had not gone well, one of the objectors to infant baptism, Felix Mantz, followed up with a written defense to present to the Zurich Council. The “Petition of Defense” was the clearest and most concentrated rationale that Grebel’s circle produced for baptism of “those who reformed.”⁴ Born to the chief canon at the main church of Zurich, Mantz was a young layman; although he received an education in Latin and the Biblical languages, it is not clear whether he attended university like Conrad Grebel.⁵   

In the petition, Mantz noted that he would ground his position on a principle that he learned from the Zurich reformation’s “shepherds”: “that the Scriptures, to which we are not to add or subtract anything, must be allowed to speak for themselves.”⁶ And he then cast infant baptism as an addition to the practices of John the Baptist, Christ and the apostles. Mantz saw in their practice of baptism a consistent link to repentance, which infants could not formulate. John the Baptist’s ministry as a forerunner of Christ was important for his concept of baptism: “To those who wished to reform, he showed the Lamb of God that taketh away the sin of the world and also baptized them that their sins might be forgiven in the coming suffering of Jesus Christ, and that they might henceforth with changed lives bring forth proper fruit.”  While maintaining evangelical reformers’ emphasis that Christ, in his righteousness, was the agent of forgiveness for sins through his passion on the cross, Mantz stressed those who responded to John’s call to baptism were first convicted of their sins and wished for reform. Baptism itself, then, was not a good work on which any human could rest his righteousness, but it represented a “dying of the old man and a putting on of a new”—a new identity in Christ so that any works thereafter could be the fruits of Christ’s forgiveness in them. Likewise, Mantz argued that the apostles’ practice of baptism showed the correct interpretation of Christ’s Great Commission: “that as they went forth they should teach all nations that to Christ is given all power in heaven and in earth, and that forgiveness of sins in his name should be given to everyone who, believing on his name, should do righteous works from a changed heart.” Mantz repeated the metaphor of a “changed heart” in his text alongside another favorite phrase: “newness of life.” Both suggest a personal conversion beginning with conviction of sin: “only those should be baptized who reform, take on a new life, lay aside sins, are buried with Christ, and rise with him from baptism into newness of life.”⁷ For Mantz, education about Christ and a testimony of desire to live in closer conformity to Christ ought to precede baptism, as the apostles showed by example: “Christ commanded to baptize those who had been taught, the apostles baptized none except those who had been taught of Christ, and nobody was baptized without external evidence and certain testimony or desire.”⁸

Mantz was writing his defense during the same mid-December weeks that Zwingli wrote his treatise against “those who give cause for rebellion.” Zwingli sensed an elitist and separatist spirit among the opponents of infant baptism—alleging that instead of abiding with spiritually struggling neighbors they go to houses “of their own where they slyly meet in secret, sit in judgment and condemn everybody.”⁹ But Mantz’s petition shows a concern other than ecclesiastical perfectionism. He was convinced that the experience of baptism should be linked to the transformative experiences of repenting and asking for the forgiveness of sins that Christ extended on the cross. A church in which all members had memories of that experience might, he likely hoped, become a church characterized by greater humility.  

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. Ulrich Zwingli, “Elenchus,” in The Sources of Swiss Anabaptism: The Grebel Letters and Related Documents, ed. Leland Harder (Scottdale, PA: Herald Press, 1985), 300. ↩︎
2. Conrad Grebel to Joachim Vadian (Dec. 15, 1524), ibid., 301-302. ↩︎
3. Harder, Sources of Swiss Anabaptism, 691 fn. 13. ↩︎
4. Felix Mantz, “Petition of Defense” (Dec. 7-28), in ibid., 312. ↩︎
5. Harder, Sources of Swiss Anabaptism, 558. ↩︎
6. Mantz, “Petition of Defense,” in ibid., 312. ↩︎
7. Ibid., 312-313. ↩︎
8. Ibid., 314. ↩︎
9. Ulrich Zwingli, “Those Who Give Cause for Rebellion” (Dec. 7-28, 1524) in ibid., 317. ↩︎