Balthasar Hubmaier (1480-1528) ****
South
German Reformer and writer. Born in Friedberg near Augsburg, Hubmaier was
sometimes known as Dr. Friedberger. He studied with the famous Johann Eck,
Luther's later opponent, at the University of Freiburg, and earned his B.A.
degree, but later followed Eck to the University of Ingolstadt, where he
received both the licentiate and the doctorate in theology. He was a priest in
the Regensburg Cathedral, in Waldshut in Breisgau (twice in each), and in
Schaffhausen. He engaged in both friendly discussions and bitter debates with Zwingli in Zurich, and ended up imprisoned there
(1525-26). He escaped with his life only by recanting. Like Luther, he
at first sympathized with the demands of the German peasants but later opposed
their armed revolt.
Hubmaier wrote voluminously. In 1524 he
issued his eighteen theses, as well as his famous booklet against the burning
of heretics. In 1525 he accepted baptism from Wilhelm Reublin, a colleague of
the Zurich founder of Anabaptism, Conrad Grebel. By
this time he had broken with Catholicism, as revealed in his marriage with
Elisabeth Hugeline. He wrote several books on baptism which were powerful
defenses of the baptism of believers. His catechism for the instruction of
catechumens appeared in 1526. The next year he issued treatises on church
discipline, baptism, the Lord's Supper, and free will. By 1527 he had broken
with the Swiss, South German, and Austrian Anabaptists on the subject of
nonresistance as set forth in his booklet on the sword; on that subject he
stood closer to Luther.
Arrested
in 1527, both Hubmaier and his wife were imprisoned in Vienna. He endured
torture on the rack, which sufficiently broke his spirit so that he offered to
"stand still" as to the practice of believer's baptism. But he
steadfastly refused to recant. Strangely enough, he was granted a formal
disputation with his old friend John Faber, a staunch Catholic theologian. For
a time he was imprisoned in Kreuzenstein in northern Austria, but was soon
taken back to prison in Vienna, from which he was led forth to the stake on
March 10, 1528. His wife was drowned several days later. Some people compared
his death with that of Jan Hus in 1415.