The Sirach

[Neto]

I could also add that, in regards to the "Wenger Edition" of The Complete Writings of Menno Simons, I DID eventually find a ragged copy, which I purchased for the amazing price of 25 cents. (It was that ragged.) (I mentioned this intention in the last post I made in this thread, just above Temp's.
I was quite surprised, and pleased, to find such an additional copy here in Ohio, because Mennonites here do not tend to be very fond of him, or of his writings.)

My oldest son and I completely dismantled it, and he scanned the entire book. I do not, however, feel free to "distribute" the PDF version to anyone who does not own a printed copy, because I'm pretty sure it is still under copyright.

What year is it?

It was first printed in 1956. My copy is from the 3rd printing, 1974, by Herald Press.

I tried to find copyright info, but I don't know how to do that for sure. I found that it was published as an ebook and as a printed copy (paperback) in August 2010, apparently by MennoMedia.

I saw a full text scan at
https://archive.org/stream/mennosimonsh ... l_djvu.txt
but it has not been cleaned up (checking for scan errors, removing hyphens inside of words, etc.). This is a VERY time-consuming process, especially for a volume of this size. (I have also seen the Martyrs' Mirror available as such, but the one I saw was in this same state. You really have to have a printed copy in order to do this type of corrections. There is also the task of marking the footnotes in such a way that they do not appear to be a part of the main text.

The copy of Menno Simons we scanned from was from the original printing. The scans would have probably been better if done from a later printing, but dismantling the book made it much easier to get the pages straight, etc. My son at least started on the process of converting the text to a file type that he could load on his book reader, but I don't know if he has finished it.

I think this has been posted here (or on MennoDiscuss) previously, but the older Dutch to German to English version (by Funk) is available at
https://quod.lib.umich.edu/m/moa/AGV904 ... 1?view=toc
as well.

[temporal1]

The Title Page from Neto’s second link just above:

[MaxPC]

I could also add that, in regards to the "Wenger Edition" of The Complete Writings of Menno Simons, I DID eventually find a ragged copy, which I purchased for the amazing price of 25 cents. (It was that ragged.) (I mentioned this intention in the last post I made in this thread, just above Temp's.
I was quite surprised, and pleased, to find such an additional copy here in Ohio, because Mennonites here do not tend to be very fond of him, or of his writings.)

This surprises me, Neto, that there are Mennonites who are not fond of Menno Simons' writings. Why is that, do you suppose?

[Josh]

I could also add that, in regards to the "Wenger Edition" of The Complete Writings of Menno Simons, I DID eventually find a ragged copy, which I purchased for the amazing price of 25 cents. (It was that ragged.) (I mentioned this intention in the last post I made in this thread, just above Temp's.
I was quite surprised, and pleased, to find such an additional copy here in Ohio, because Mennonites here do not tend to be very fond of him, or of his writings.)

This surprises me, Neto, that there are Mennonites who are not fond of Menno Simons' writings. Why is that, do you suppose?

Most people in Holmes Co. are of Swiss Brethren background and actually don’t have any “Mennonite” connections at all. For them, “Mennonite” just means “Amish who got cars”.

[Soloist]

Basically Menno Simons taught differently then modern Mennonites. He didn’t teach the Protestant view of salvation that you see in many Mennonite churches and he taught the ban as well but not like the Amish.
Mennonites are mostly ignorant of what he taught despite many of the leaders having his writings.
They don’t like that he quoted from apocryphal writings as Scripture among other things.

[Neto]

I could also add that, in regards to the "Wenger Edition" of The Complete Writings of Menno Simons, I DID eventually find a ragged copy, which I purchased for the amazing price of 25 cents. (It was that ragged.) (I mentioned this intention in the last post I made in this thread, just above Temp's.
I was quite surprised, and pleased, to find such an additional copy here in Ohio, because Mennonites here do not tend to be very fond of him, or of his writings.)

This surprises me, Neto, that there are Mennonites who are not fond of Menno Simons' writings. Why is that, do you suppose?

Josh touches on a large part of it. The 'Mennonites' east of the Mississippi aren't really Mennonite at all, not in terms of the distinctive doctrines between the Swiss Brethren "anabaptists" and the Dutch Mennonite "baptism-minded". It is ironic that the Swiss group that came to be called 'Mennonite' are those from whom the Amish split (although read Unser Leit, by LeRoy Beachy for a different conclusion, saying that the Amish actually sprang from totally new conversions, people from the Calvinist State church, not from any established 'Mennonite' congregation), and especially that the inability to resolve their differences was in large part due to Jakob Amman's acceptance of Menno Simon's view on the extent to which excommunication for moral lapse should extend, namely, to the home itself, marital and family relationships. [That is, the Amish were theologically much more 'Mennonite' than the 'Mennonites' in that ethnic setting.]

Menno also accepted the 'exception clause' in the Gospel from Matthew to refer to permitting remarriage within the body of believers of the innocent party where the spouse who had gone into adultery was persistently unrepentant. (Dwight Gingerich has an interesting series of 'articles' in which he examines the question of which view was the early one, even among the Swiss Brethren, the current 'conservative' one, or Menno's. I haven't read all of his work on this, but detractors might say that he depends too heavily on books and documents of Dutch origin.) You will also note in Josh's comments about this issue, that the Church of God in Christ Mennonite (Holdeman) also follows Menno on this, or, I should say, is of the same understanding as that of Menno. Menno didn't 'invent' this understanding of the Scripture. This was one of the things I was 'grilled on' when I first came to Holmes County to visit my (future) wife. In this way I came to realize the tenuous relationship these 'Mennonites' have toward Menno. And, as Soloist says, most [Swiss Brethren derived] Mennonites know very little of what Menno actually taught. And for those who THINK they do, they are usually wrong, or grossly misrepresent his actual meaning. (Such as the case of what they refer to as Menno’s “Doctrine of the Celestial Flesh”, implying that he believed that Jesus bodily descended from heaven as an existing human child. This is not at all what he actually wrote.)

[Speaking of Soloist, I don’t know what is meant by saying that Menno “didn’t teach the Protestant view of salvation as seen in many Mennonite churches.” My confusion is partially due to not knowing who is being referred to as ‘Mennonite’ – the ‘real Mennonites’ or the Swiss Brethren ‘Mennonites’. Also, I can see differences between Menno’s application of excommunication and the Amish, mainly that it was much more so confined to moral transgressions for him than is at least some Amish districts. However, the extent to which it is to be taken is shared to a much greater extent.]

[Josh]

What we call "Mennonites" in Ohio usually actually is Swiss Brethren people, overwhelmingly of Amish background, who have adopted evangelical doctrines to varying degrees in the 19th and 20th centuries.

In a place like Kansas this is rather different, although most Mennonite Brethren are best described as Dutch Mennonite background people who adopted evangelical doctrines in the 19th centuries in Ukraine.

To get a better feel for what Dutch Anabaptism is like, one can take a peek at Old Colonists, or at Holdemans from Kansas or Canada. These people are legitimately "Mennonites".

The rest are best called "Amish-Mennonites", and indeed they called themselves that until that went out of vogue, the appellation "Amish" seeming too old-fashioned for them. (I suppose calling themselves "Swiss Brethren" would also not have been stylish enough). These days, most such people are trying not to call themselves Mennonites either, and tend to name their churches something like "Christian Fellowship", "Way of the Cross Church", "Dwelling Place", and so on (I will admit we have referred to these places by names like "Way Around the Cross", and so forth.)

[Soloist]

As an outsider I don’t see these divisions between one “Mennonite” group and another. I’m not saying they don’t exist… I heard one man boast that you could tell a person’s doctrine by their last name… that horrified me.
I don’t see Menno Simons teaching shunning between spouses like The Amish do, and I’m not familiar enough with Jacob to know if he actually taught that.
As for divorce and remarriage, are you sure you read his quote correctly? I seem to recall you getting on my case over the whole celestial flesh thing despite me having just read the section he wrote on it. I don’t have a copy of his book, I’ve only borrowed it twice for lengthy plane flights when I read through it. Can you post the quote or pm it to me?

[Neto]

In a place like Kansas this is rather different, although most Mennonite Brethren are best described as Dutch Mennonite background people who adopted evangelical doctrines in the 19th centuries in Ukraine.

To get a better feel for what Dutch Anabaptism is like, one can take a peek at Old Colonists, or at Holdemans from Kansas or Canada. These people are legitimately "Mennonites".

As a former MB, and a student of the history of both the Dutch "baptism-minded" in general, and also specifically of the MB church's doctrine & history, I do not find these statements to be true, unless some terminology is being used differently than I suspect. I'll only speak for my own people, and admit that the Old Colony Mennonites are a severe distortion of the early 'Dutch Mennonite' beliefs and practices, and that the MB conference has also lost much of its original focus, but this all came about in the last 40 years or so, certainly not in the colonies, at their beginning.

[Neto]

As an outsider I don’t see these divisions between one “Mennonite” group and another. I’m not saying they don’t exist… I heard one man boast that you could tell a person’s doctrine by their last name… that horrified me.
I don’t see Menno Simons teaching shunning between spouses like The Amish do, and I’m not familiar enough with Jacob to know if he actually taught that.
As for divorce and remarriage, are you sure you read his quote correctly? I seem to recall you getting on my case over the whole celestial flesh thing despite me having just read the section he wrote on it. I don’t have a copy of his book, I’ve only borrowed it twice for lengthy plane flights when I read through it. Can you post the quote or pm it to me?

There are different Amish groups, all of which we are referring ta as though they are a homogeneous whole. I don't know how they practice excommunication NOW. I was commenting in respect to what I've read about the original parting of ways between the congregations led by Jakob Ammon and the Swiss Brethren. (If what I have made wrong conclusions from what I read, then I accept correction. My understanding is that in cases of persistent immorality, the excommunication was to extend to family relationships, specifically that they were not to eat together. This was Menno's position, and it was my understanding that Jakob took the same view.)

As to the 'celestial flesh' deal, while Menno may have used this terminology, my point is that he clearly didn't mean it in the way it is represented by opponents I've spoken with in Swiss Brethren circles here in Ohio. He never said that the BODY of Jesus descended in physical form from heaven, just that it was of "heavenly origin", not "physical origin". That is, he followed John 1 literally, that the WORD BECAME flesh. (Not "took on human flesh" as say Calvin and his followers.) (This is an area in which Menno does what he cautions his readers NOT to do - going beyond Scripture to "fill in the blanks" in what truth can be found there. He utilized a false scientific explanation of conception to bolster his understanding.)
I apologize, but I don't have the time necessary to find and quote his 'exact' words. (Assuming that the English translation available to me accurately reflects the original Dutch.) I do recall having been accurately corrected in the past here, on something I said about what Menno wrote, so perhaps this is the case you recall. I just don't remember the specifics, and I don't do well with the search feature on this forum.