Early Anabaptist writers on Divorce and Remarriage

[Bootstrap]

I think Menno Simons and Michael Sattler were more correct about divorce, for instance,

Does anyone know where I can get an electronic copy of this writing without gettting it from MQR? Gameo and others say that "Concerning Divorce" is from the Swiss Brethren, presumably written by Sattler.

This sounds like an Edsel question to me. I was able to find this summary online:

Another fine example of Anabaptist theology is the little tract entitled Concerning Divorce, also of the first years of the Anabaptist movement. P. J. Twisck (1565-1636), who was married to Menno Simons' granddaughter, assigned it to Sattler. The anonymous author begins by asserting that monogamous marriage was God's original plan for the race, but that Moses permitted divorce for rather trivial reasons. It was Jesus who restored the original Ordnung (regulation or ordinance) of God; and he permitted divorce for only one reason: marital infidelity. Christ's word on this subject is only one example of his advance over the lower ethical standards of the Old Testament. But, says the tract, if one is married to an unbeliever, it is likely that the Christian life and witness of the believer will so arouse the enmity of the non-Christian as to terminate the union. In any case the Christian's union with Christ is more significant than any earthly marriage. It is better to separate from an unbelieving spouse than to suffer damage to one's spiritual life. The main thrust of the tract is not on divorce and its limitation at all; rather it is on the primacy of loyalty to Christ. Nevertheless, the church must scrupulously obey her Lord; she cannot therefore tolerate remarriage unless the divorce was granted because of unfaithfulness to the marriage vows.

This at least claims to be a direct quote from that:

He who divorces without fornication, the only reason, and remarries, commits adultery; and he who takes a divorced woman causes her to commit adultery; for Christ says, “these two are one flesh.” But he who cleaves to a harlot, as Paul says, 1 Cor. 6, sins against his own body and is one flesh with the harlot. Thus he is by this act separated from his own flesh, in that he has attached himself to the alien flesh of the prostitute, and thus the marriage is broken; for they are no longer one flesh, since the fornicator has become one flesh with the harlot. The one who finds herself
thereby divorced, may now marry, whom she will, only let it be in the Lord…

That seems in keeping with the Wismar Articles (1554, written by 7 key Dutch Anabaptist leaders, including Menno Simons, Dirk Phillips, and Leonard Bouwens):

Article IV. In the fourth place, if a believer and an unbeliever are in the marriage bond together and the unbeliever commits adultery, the marriage tie is broken. And if it be one who complains that he has fallen in sin, and desires to mend his ways, then the brethren permit the believing mate to go to the unfaithful one to admonish him, if conscience allows it in view of the state of the affair. But if he be a bold and headstrong adulterer, then the innocent party is free – with the provision, however, that she shall consult with the congregation and remarry according to circumstances and decisions in the matter, be it well understood.

And in keeping with what Menno Simons wrote in A Humble and Christian Defense:

We say one husband and one wife, and not one husband and two, three, or four wives, and these counted as one, as many, alas, charge us without any truth. These two, one husband and one wife, are one flesh, and cannot be separated from each other, to marry again, otherwise than for adultery, as the Lord says, Matt. 5:19; Mark 10; Luke 16.

[Bootstrap]

Dirk Philips ,in 'The Evangelical Ban and Shunning', as quoted in the Dietrich Phillip Handbook:

The Lord desired and commanded that men should do this no more (freely divorce their wives for any cause),
except in case of fornication, which is the only and true reason or cause for which a man may leave or put away his wife and take another.

[Bootstrap]

The Martyr's Mirror contains this Confession of Faith from around 1600

Of marriage. Of marriage we confess: That the same is honorable and an ordinance of God, who in the beginning instituted this state with the two human beings first created in the image of God, blessed it, and joined them together. And since this divine ordinance, through the hardness of the heart and the evil wantonness of man had fallen into great disorder, so that men, through the lusts of the flesh, married whomsoever they would, and took unto them many wives, and then, for divers reasons, dismissed them by a bill of divorcement and married others; therefore Christ as a perfect Lawgiver, rejected and abolished the writing of divorcement and permission of Moses, together with all abuses thereof, referring all that heard and believed him to the original ordinance of his heavenly Father, instituted with Adam and Eve in Paradise; and thus re-establishing marriage between one man and one woman, and so inseparably and firmly binding the bond of matrimony, that they might not, on any account, separate and marry another, except in case of adultery or death. Hence, every believer who desires to enter into matrimony, must follow this doctrine of Christ and the above example, and unite himself in marriage only with one person, who has been, by a like faith with him, born from above, of God, and renewed, and created after the image of God. And such persons, after their parents and the church have given their consent, shall, in the presence of the church, with fervent prayer to God, be joined together by a minister. This we believe to be marrying in the Lord, of which God is Himself the Author and Joiner. II Pet. 1:1; Jno. 3:3; I Jno. 5:4.

[Franklin]

but that Moses permitted divorce for rather trivial reasons.

I would like to respond to this. Divorce is discussed in Deuteronomy 24:1. King James translates this as "because he hath found some uncleanness in her". But the Hebrew for "uncleanness" is better translated as "indecency" and is based on the idea of nakedness. To make this concrete, if you find your wife half naked in another man's house, you can't prove adultery but you have enough evidence for divorce. This is what I understand the Old Testament as saying.

[Josh]

Something interesting to me is that modern conservative Anabaptists aren't interested in the historic Anabaptist views on these things at all.

[Bootstrap]

Something interesting to me is that modern conservative Anabaptists aren't interested in the historic Anabaptist views on these things at all.

To be fair, the early Anabaptists were all about returning to simple obedience to Jesus and Scripture, and would not have wanted us to obey a tradition or to exalt their opinions.

But it certainly is ironic when people suggest that you can't be an Anabaptist or a Mennonite if you believe what the original Anabaptists and Mennonites taught. Are they saying that the original Anabaptists and Mennonites were guilty of all the things they accuse others of if they believe the same things?

[Neto]

Something interesting to me is that modern conservative Anabaptists aren't interested in the historic Anabaptist views on these things at all.

To be fair, the early Anabaptists were all about returning to simple obedience to Jesus and Scripture, and would not have wanted us to obey a tradition or to exalt their opinions.

But it certainly is ironic when people suggest that you can't be an Anabaptist or a Mennonite if you believe what the original Anabaptists and Mennonites taught. Are they saying that the original Anabaptists and Mennonites were guilty of all the things they accuse others of if they believe the same things?

I agree that we should not blindly follow what the early anabaptists did. But I also think that if we followed what they believed, we would look beyond them, and follow Christ, because that is what they taught, more than anything else. What i see too often is the tendency to try to validate or support one's own viewpoint by representing it as "what the early anabaptists taught" without actually KNOWING much at all about them or their actual beliefs.

[Ernie]

But it certainly is ironic when people suggest that you can't be an Anabaptist or a Mennonite if you believe what the original Anabaptists and Mennonites taught.

I don't know of anyone who believes this. Do you know of some?

[Ernie]

What i see too often is the tendency to try to validate or support one's own viewpoint by representing it as "what the early anabaptists taught" without actually KNOWING much at all about them or their actual beliefs.

[temporal1]

From Page 1:
A Mennonite view of divorce and remarriage
viewtopic.php?f=4&t=197

I would like to insert that while we Mennonites may discuss what Menno Simons wrote and thought, we do not hold him up as a prophet or his writings up as super important or semi-inspired.

I hope anyone reading this doesn't go away with the wrong impression.