May 27-29, 1525

On the same day that Thomas Müntzer was executed near Mühlhausen in the aftermath of the Battle of Frankenhausen, a more theological disturbance arose in the Swiss cantons. In late May, Ulrich Zwingli had published a treatise on baptism that he had been working on since last December, when he was involved in two intense discussions with Conrad Grebel and others about the propriety of infant baptism. He titled the treatise On Baptism, Rebaptism and Infant Baptist, but it became known colloquially in Zurich as the Taufbüchlein, or “Baptism Booklet,” and Zwingli specifically sought to counter the Anabaptists’ arguments in this text.¹

Zwingli knew that St. Gall was now facing a significant Anabaptist movement among its townspeople, so he ensured that copies would be taken quickly to St. Gall to aid the clergy in defending their practices of infant baptism. Joachim Vadian, who led the reformist party on the St. Gall city council, stayed in close touch with Zwingli and his associates in Zurich, and the clergy whom he supported in filling the pulpits of the St. Gall churches were looking to Zwingli as their theological guide.

The book appeared at a crucial moment for St. Gall. Recognizing the popularity of adult baptism among the people in the town, Vadian wrote his own text to counter the Anabaptists. (All copies of it, however, have been lost.) He then scheduled a debate with Anabaptists, to take place in early June.²

When Zwingli’s booklet became available to circulate, the council and the clergy also planned for it to be read at an evening church meeting. But when St. Gall pastor Dominic Zili read it out loud, Anabaptist Wolfgang Uliman “lifted up his voice” from the balcony of the church and “cried out”: “Oh, I am sorry that the poor people present here are to be misled by such a book. Stop reading and give us God’s Word instead of Zwingli’s.” The chronicler Johannes Kessler wrote that the assembly of people appeared to side to Uliman. “The people regarded [the Anabaptists] as if the truth of God were with them, but they regarded Dominic as if he were giving the doctrine of men.” “How many words were spoken back and forth!” Kessler wrote, as he recalled the meeting. Seeing a “disunited parish,” Vadian and the council began to fear political repercussions from popular disrespect for the clergy’s Zwinglian doctrines. They followed up the meeting by selecting one hundred men “who would have the sworn duty to come to the defense and protection of the government if need should arise.” But they did not resolve to legally suppress Anabaptists, as the Zurich council had done.³

At the same time, Bolt Eberli was on the south bank of Lake Zurich, facing the ultimate test of faith. Eberli was the peasant who, upon traveling to St. Gall and accepting baptism there on Easter Week, was suddenly thrust into the role of outdoor evangelist for the Anabaptists there. The St. Gall sources tell us that Eberli departed the town by the end of the week. He only resurfaces in sources again in his home town of Lachen. Although Lachen was situated at the southern side of Lake Zurich, it lay under the jurisdiction of the canton of Schwyz, whose councilors had no interest in Zwingli’s evangelical Reformation. They had even less sympathy for Zwingli’s more reform-minded dissenters. When Eberli returned to Lachen sometime after Easter, then, his attractiveness as a speaker for Anabaptism brought him quickly into the crosshairs of the government’s watch. Court records on the circumstances of Eberli’s arrest no longer exist, nor records on any examination or opportunities to recant that he might have withstood before he received his sentence. All that can be known comes from the St. Gall chronicler, Johannes Kessler, who wrote that he was arrested “as soon as he arrived home in the canton of Schwyz,” along with a priest—whose name is not known—who was with him. And we know from Kessler that they were sentenced to burning at the stake as heretics. On May 29, Kessler recorded, “both approached the fire stakes with joyful bearing and died willingly.” The two became the first martyrs of the Anabaptist movement.⁴

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. Leland Harder, ed., The Sources of Swiss Anabaptism: The Grebel Letters and Related Documents, ed. (Scottdale, PA: Herald Press, 1985), 362-74. ↩︎
2. Ibid., 362, 374, 380-81. ↩︎
3. Johannes Kessler, Sabbata, in The Sources of Swiss Anabaptism: The Grebel Letters and Related Documents, ed. Leland Harder (Scottdale, PA: Herald Press, 1985), 383-84. ↩︎
4. Johannes Kessler, Sabbata, in The Sources of Swiss Anabaptism: The Grebel Letters and Related Documents, ed. Leland Harder (Scottdale, PA: Herald Press, 1985), 377. ↩︎