On this date in 1528, Anabaptist Ambrosius Spittelmayr was beheaded in Cadolzburg, Bavaria.
Baptized by Hans Hut only the year before, Spittelmayr propounded his outlaw adult-baptism creed as a wandering preacher in Upper Austria and southern Germany before his arrest.
The energetic Spittelmayr left his interrogators a 3,000-word confession of faith that has been of great value to scholars probing Hut’s own theology, which was deeply influential in southern Germany. Spittelmayr’s confession emphasizes a Godly life, including a version of primitive communism that called on the faithful to share their worldly effects — a prominent feature in much Anabaptist thought that helped certainly raised the hackles of those with property to protect.
Nobody can inherit the kingdom unless he is poor with Christ, for a Christian has nothing of his own; no place where he can lay his head. A real Christian should not even have enough property on earth to be able to stand on it with one foot. This does not mean that he should go and lie down in the woods and not have a trade, or that he should not have fields and meadows, or that he should not work, but alone that he might not think they are for his own use and be tempted to say: this house is mine, this field is mine, this dollar is mine. Rather he should say it is ours, even as we pray: Our Father. In summary, a Christian should not have anything of his own but should have all things in common with his brother, that is, not allow him to suffer need. In other words, I will not work that my house be filled, that my larder be supplied with meat, but rather I will see that my brother has enough, for a Christian looks more to his neighbor than to himself. Whoever desires to be rich in this world, who is concerned that he miss nothing when it comes to his person and property, who is honored by men and feared by them, who refuses to prostrate himself at the feet of his Lord … will be humbled. (Via)
On this day..
- 1927: Mateo Correa Magallanes
- 1952: Alfred Moore
- 2013: Kepari Leniata burned as a witch
- 1967: Sunny Ang, a murderer without a body
- 1557: Martin Bucer and Paulus Phagius, already in their coffins
- Themed Set: Anabaptists
- 1481: Diego Suson, by his daughter's hand
- 1997: Michael Carl George
- 1839: Amos Perley and Joshua Doane, for the Upper Canada Rebellion
- 1821: Owen Coffin, main course
- 1885: George Gibson and Wayne Powers
- 1945: Robert Brasillach, intellectual traitor
- 1615: Patrick Stewart, 2nd Earl of Orkney