The Zwickau Prophets
In the early days of the Reformation, not all voices were united. Today, Stephen Nichols tells the story of the Zwickau Prophets, a group of radical preachers whose mystical and apocalyptic teachings clashed with Martin Luther’s commitment to Scripture alone.
Welcome back to another episode of 5 Minutes in Church History. Let's go back to 1521 and to Zwickau in Saxony, Germany. Zwickau is about 200 kilometers south of Wittenberg. There a small group of lay preachers were settling on an alternative to Luther's view and the Reformation across the rest of Germany. They were holding doctrines that would come to be identified with the Anabaptist movement, which started formerly in 1525 in Switzerland. But here we see some precursors to it. A key figure here is Thomas Muntzer. He was a Roman Catholic priest, and like Luther, he was troubled by the Roman Catholic Church and he eventually joined with Luther at Wittenberg. And after a few years, Luther dispatched Muntzer to Zwickau. Muntzer developed a very heightened eschatology. He thought the end of the world was very eminent and began his apocalyptic preaching. In addition to his eschatology, Muntzer was also influenced heavily by mysticism, and he himself was becoming more and more of a mystic.
Well, there at Zwickau, he joined up with a lay preacher who was also a weaver, Nikolaus Storch. They put a high emphasis on receiving direct revelation from God, hence the Zwickau prophets. In fact, Muntzer would say, “I, Thomas Muntzer, beseech the church not to listen to a mute God, but a living and a speaking one.” Well in April of 1521, Muntzer, because of his extreme views, was expelled from Zwickau. That same month on April 18th, 1521, to be exact, Luther developed his here I stand speech at Worms. And we know that after Worms, Luther was sent in exile to the castle overlooking the Wartburg, he would arrive there in May of 1521, and he would be there until March of 1522. While meanwhile, back at the ranch, in December of 1521, the Zwickau prophets led by Nikolaus Storch and also including Thomas Drechsel and Marcus Stubner. The latter, a former student at Wittenberg, went to Wittenberg and they brought their apocalypticism and their mysticism with them.
In addition, they were beginning to promote the idea of a separation of church and state. This would become a significant feature of anabaptism or what we call sometimes the Radical Reformation that would develop in Switzerland in 1525. But here they were coming into Wittenberg, and they were initially very warmly received by Andreas Karlstadt, Luther's colleague at the University of Wittenberg. Karlstadt wanted to accelerate the reform in Wittenberg. He was not a very patient man, and he saw allies in the radicalism of the Zwickau prophets. Well, meanwhile, Melanchthon was opposed to it all, but he wasn't quite able to stand against it. So he wrote a letter to Frederick the Wise. He said, “I can scarcely tell you how deeply I am moved, but who shall judge them other than Martin? I do not know. Since the gospel is at stake, arrangements should be made for them to meet with him. I would not have written to you if the matter were not so important.” So, Melanchthon wants Luther to come back from the Wartburg to handle these prophets.
Luther didn't want to initially in December, but as things heated up back in Wittenberg, Luther realized that he needed to come back. And so he left the Wartburg and he arrived back in Wittenberg in March of 1522. He immediately preached a series of eight sermons against, and this is a term that Luther coined the Schwärmer. Schwärmer, of course, means to swarm and used it to refer to these fanatics. They were like a swarm of buzzing bees. Luther said, “They fill the world with their chattering and scribbling as if the Spirit could not come through the Scriptures, the spoken word of the apostles. But the Spirit must come through their own writings and their own words.” Well, there it is for Luther. It's always sola Scriptura. So that's Luther and the Schwärmers, the Zwickau prophets. And I'm Steve Nichols and thanks for listening to 5 Minutes in Church History.
