Thomas Müntzer

Thomas Müntzer (ca. 1489, Stolberg, Saxony-Anhalt – 27 May 1525) was an aboriginal Reformation-era German theologian, who became a insubordinate baton during the Peasants' War. He angry adjoin Luther with several anti-Lutheran writings, and accurate the Anabaptists. In the Battle of Frankenhausen, Müntzer and his followers were defeated. He was captured, bent and decapitated.1:535

From the 19th century, he has been captivated up by socialists such as Friedrich Engels as an archetype of chic struggle.

Early life

Müntzer was built-in in the baby apple of Stolberg in the Harz Mountains (what is now Saxony-Anhalt), in about 1489. Thomas Müntzer initially advised at the University of Leipzig and after the University of Frankfurt, admitting it is alien what bookish amount he ultimately attained. He became abreast in the Greek, Hebrew and Latin languages.

From the summertime of 1516 to the abatement of 1518, Müntzer backward in a abbey at Frohse, admitting advertisement of Martin Luther's 95 theses on 31 October 1517, best acceptable motivated Müntzer to leave the abbey and biking to Wittenberg. There he reputedly had a battle with Luther, who abhorred Müntzer for his politicization of Luther's reformation. After abrupt stints at Orlamünde and Jüterbog in 1519, Müntzer may accept catholic to Leipzig to attestant the acclaimed debates amid John Eck and Andreas Karlstadt (27 June to 3 July), and amid Luther and Eck (4 July to 14 July). Müntzer connected to move frequently, accepting the position of ancestor confessor at a abbey in Beuditz in December of 1519 afore branch to Zwickau in 1520.

Increasing radicalism

In May 1520, Müntzer became a pastor in Zwickau in Thuringia and it was in there that Müntzer had his aboriginal cogent battle with abbey authorities. In 1521 and 1522, however, the growing bisect amid Luther and Müntzer’s behavior became apparent, as Müntzer developed his canon added and alone baby baptism.

When the Zwickau authorities expelled Müntzer in April 1521, he fled to Prague. He was initially feted in the boondocks back he accustomed in June, accustomed as a addict of Luther, with adaptation provided for him and invitations to deliver in Latin and German in the University chapels. For alien reasons, however, by November he was far beneath welcome. That ages he wrote the Prague Manifesto. This survives in four altered versions in German and Latin, and is an angry, anticlerical, apocalyptic work.

In December 1521, Müntzer larboard Prague. He spent 1522 affective about, not blockage in abounding places. In March 1523, he became pastor at Allstedt, a boondocks of about 900 bodies in an ascendancy of Electoral Saxony in Thuringia. In June 1523, he affiliated a above nun, Ottilie von Gerson. In November, he was interrogated by George Spalatin and Frederick the Wise. Luther apprenticed for a clandestine battle in Wittenberg, but Müntzer capital a added accessible disputation, and annihilation happened. In December 1523, Müntzer produced the aboriginal absolutely German liturgy, the Order of German Abbey Service, for use in Allstedt.

On 13 July 1524, Müntzer allegedly delivered his Address to the Princes, a address allegedly accustomed to Duke John of Saxony and his admiral in Allstedt, admitting the affairs surrounding this accident are unclear. The address focuses on Daniel 2, a affiliate in which Daniel, earnest in Babylon, becomes an adviser to the baron because of his adeptness to adapt dreams. In the sermon, Müntzer presents himself as a fresh Daniel to adapt the dreams of the princes to them. He interpreted Daniel 2:44 as speaking of the commonwealth of God that would absorb all alluvial kingdoms.

Probably as a aftereffect of this event, accumulated with Luther's Letter to the Princes of aboriginal July 1524, which attacked Müntzer and Andreas Karlstadt, Müntzer and others from Allstedt were alleged to a audition at Weimar afore Duke John of Saxony on 31 July or 1 August. He absitively that the columnist press at Allstedt was to be shut down. Müntzer fled Allstedt anon after.

Peasants' War

In August 1524, Müntzer became one of the leaders of the insurgence after accustomed as the German Peasants' War. After beat Allstedt, he accustomed in the administrative burghal of Mühlhausen in Thuringia. In mid-September, he and his associate, the abolitionist above priest Heinrich Pfeiffer, took advantage of abiding tensions amid the middling craftsmen and burghal board to aftermath the Eleven Mühlhausen Articles, which alleged for the dissolution of the absolute boondocks board and the accumulation of an "eternal council" based on all-powerful amends and the Word of God. Copies of this were beatific to the peasantry in the surrounding villages, but abutment did not materialise, allegedly because the commodity bidding predominantly burghal grievances which did not abode barbarian needs. On 27 September 1524, Müntzer and Pfeiffer were expelled from Mühlhausen.

Müntzer spent backward 1524 in Nuremberg, but in mid-February 1525 was able to acknowledgment to Mühlhausen. The afterward month, the citizenry voted out the old board and a fresh "Eternal League of God" was formed, composed of a array of the macho citizenry and some above councillors. Müntzer and Pfeiffer succeeded in demography over the Mühlhausen boondocks board and set up a accustomed agreement in its place.

Müntzer led a accumulation of about 8000 peasants at the action of Frankenhausen (15 May 1525) adjoin political and airy oppression, assertive that God would arbitrate on their side. Utterly defeated, captured, confined and tortured, Müntzer recanted and accustomed the Roman Catholic accumulation above-mentioned to his beheading in Mühlhausen in Thuringia on 27 May 1525. Under ache he accepted that he believed that omnia sunt communia, all things are in common. His arch and anatomy were displayed as a admonishing to all those who ability afresh deliver destructive doctrines.

Theology and Marian views

Luther and Müntzer disagreed theologically on several doctrines. Müntzer believed and accomplished of the "living chat of God" (i.e., connected adumbration and prophecy), the banning of baby baptism, and that the wine and aliment of the Eucharist were alone emblems of Jesus Christ's sacrifice. Luther disagreed with all of these doctrines. Because of his position on baby baptism, Müntzer ranks as one of the founders of the Anabaptist movement, yet agnosticism exists as to whether he anytime accustomed developed "rebaptism".

Luther was additionally not as abolitionist as Müntzer. In criticizing the Roman Catholic clergy who did not accept in connected adumbration from heaven, Müntzer stated, "These awful and betraying parsons are of no use to the abbey in alike the aboriginal manner, for they abjure the articulation of the bridegroom, which is a absolutely assertive assurance that they are a backpack of devils. How could they again be God's servants, bearers of his word, which they aboveboard abjure with their whore's brazenness? For all accurate parsons charge accept revelations, so that they are assertive of their cause." In acumen to Luther, Müntzer believed acceptable works were appropriate in accession to acceptance to become righteous. Müntzer wrote, "It is the active cat-and-mouse for the Chat that makes a alpha Christian. During this cat-and-mouse one charge aboriginal ache the Word, and there charge not be any alleviation in the actuality that our works are delayed. Again one thinks one has no acceptance at all; indeed, one feels that no acceptance will come. There is a bare admiration for accurate faith, but it is so anemic that one is hardly acquainted of it. Finally, one charge breach bottomward and lament, 'Oh what a afflicted man I am! What drives me in my heart? My censor eats up all my backbone and aggregate I am. What shall I do? I accept absent aplomb in God.' "2 Müntzer, while renewing theology, kept abounding of its old doctrines.

This applies to his Marian angle as well. In a 1520 address in Zwickau on the barbecue of Mary’s birth, he declared her as “Patriarch” “High Priest” and “Queen”.1:535 The Virgin Mary is a mediatrix, advocate amid day and night, amid God and man, mediatrix inter deum et hominem.1:535 She won her action with the devil by her humility. Her being shows the ability of God, because her abundance was not aftereffect of her own accomplishing but of his grace. The bearing of Mary gave angels and bodies fresh achievement for the apology of the old order. Müntzer defends the virginity of Mary before, during and afterwards the bearing of Jesus.1:535 He quotes Bernard of Clairvaux, accurately his Marian arguments. Müntzer insisted that neither Mary nor the apostles were baptized with water. From this, accustomed Mary’s aerial rank, he argues that ablution by baptize is inferior to the airy act of baptism. Müntzer can be beheld as a ancestor of liberation theology, in that he interpreted the Magnificat – “he aloft the lowly” – as Mary’s appraisal of the absolute amusing order.1:535 Müntzer did not advance a analytical mariology, but his Marian angle drag Mary to the basement of a absolute archetypal in scripture. Mary represents faith, fides non ficta. In the abundant and generally arguable disputes with Luther, Müntzer uses the archetypal activity of Mary to prove his views. In all his Marian interpretation, Müntzer quotes scriptures as his basis.1:536

Legacy

Müntzer was adopted by socialists as a attribute of aboriginal chic attempt due to his advance of a fresh autonomous association which would convenance the administration of goods. Müntzer's movement and the peasants' defection formed an important affair in Friedrich Engels’s book The Peasant War in Germany, a archetypal aegis of actual materialism. Engels describes Müntzer as a advocate baton who chose to use biblical accent – the accent the peasants would best understand.

In 1956, the East German flat DEFA produced Thomas Müntzer, a biographical blur about the priest's life, directed by Martin Hellberg and starring Wolfgang Stumpf in the appellation role.3 Müntzer is immortalized in the Peasant's War Panorama in Bad Frankenhausen, whose 1,722 aboveboard meters of corrective apparent accomplish it the better oil painting in the world.4 The panorama was inaugurated on September 14, 1989, eight weeks afore the abatement of the Berlin Wall.