The Peasant War in Germany

Let  us  now  compare  the  plebeian  revolutionary,  Muenzer,  with  the  middle-class
reformist, Luther.
Thomas  Muenzer  was  born  in  Stolberg,  in  the  Harz,  in  1498.  It  is  said  that  his  father
died  on  the  scaffold,  a  victim  of  the  wilfulness  of  the  Count  of  Stolberg.  In  his  fifteenth
year,  Muenzer  organised  at  the  Halle  school  a  secret  union  against  the  Archbishop  of
Magdeburg and the Roman Church in general. His scholarly attainments in the theology of
his  time  brought  him  early  the  doctor’s  degree  and  the  position  of  chaplain  in  a  Halle
nunnery.  Here  he  began  to  treat  the  dogmas  and  rites  of  the  church  with  the  greatest
contempt. At mass he omitted the words of the transubstantiation, and ate, as Luther said,
the  almighty  gods  unconsecrated.  Mediaeval  mystics,  especially  the  chiliastic  works  of
Joachim of Calabria,
[14]
were the main subject of his studies. It seemed to Muenzer that the
millennium and the Day of Judgment over the degenerated church and the corrupted world,
as announced and pictured by that mystic, had come in the form of the Reformation and the
general restlessness of his time. He preached in his neighbourhood with great success. In
1520  he  went  to  Zwickau  as  the  first  evangelist  preacher.  There  he  found  one  of  those
dreamy chiliastic sects which continued their existence in many localities, hiding behind an
appearance of humility and detachment, the rankly growing opposition of the lower strata
of society against existing conditions, and with the growth of agitation, beginning to press
to the foreground more boldly and with more endurance. It was the sect of the Anabaptists
headed  by  Nicolas  Storch.
[15]
 The  Anabaptists  preached  the  approach  of  the  Day  of
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Judgment  and  of  the  millennium;  they  had  “visions,  convulsions,  and  the  spirit  of
prophecy.” They soon came into conflict with the council of Zwickau. Muenzer defended
them, though he had never joined them unconditionally, and had rather brought them under
his  own  influence.  The  council  took  decisive  steps  against  them,  they  were  compelled  to
leave the city, and Muenzer departed with them. This was at the end of 1521.
He then went to Prague and, in order to gain ground, attempted to join the remnants of
the  Hussite  movement.  His  proclamations,  however,  made  it  necessary  for  him  to  flee
Bohemia also. In 1522, he became preacher at Allstedt in Thuringia. Here he started with
reforming the cult. Before even Luther dared to go so far, he entirely abolished the Latin
language,  and  ordered  the  entire  Bible,  not  only  the  prescribed  Sunday  Gospels  and
epistles, to be read to the people. At the same time, he organised propaganda in his locality.
People  flocked  to  him  from  all  directions,  and  soon  Allstedt  became  the  centre  of  the
popular anti-priest movement of entire Thuringia.
Muenzer at that time was still theologian before everything else. He directed his attacks
almost  exclusively  against  the  priests.  He  did  not,  however,  preach  quiet  debate  and
peaceful progress, as Luther had begun to do at that time, but he continued the early violent
preachments of Luther, appealing to the princes of Saxony and the people to rise in arms
against the Roman priests. “Is it not Christ who said: ‘I have come to bring, not peace, but
the  sword’?  What  can  you  [the  princes  of  Saxony]  do  with  that  sword?  You  can  do  only
one thing: If you wish to be the servants of God, you must drive out and destroy the evil
ones who stand in the way of the Gospel. Christ ordered very earnestly (Luke, 19, 27): ‘But
these  mine  enemies,  that  would  not  that  I  should  reign  over  them,  bring  hither,  and  slay
them  before  me.’  Do  not  resort  to  empty  assertions  that  the  power  of  God  could  do  it
without  aid  of  our  sword,  since  then  it  would  have  to  rust  in  its  sheath.  We  must  destroy
those  who  stand  in  the  way  of  God’s  revelation,  we  must  do  it  mercilessly,  as  Hezekiah,
Cyrus, Josiah, Daniel and Elias destroyed the priests of Baal, else the Christian Church will
never  come  back  to  its  origins.  We  must  uproot  the  weeds  in  God’s  vineyard  at  the  time
when  the  crops  are  ripe.  God  said  in  the  Fifth  Book  of  Moses,  7,  ‘Thou  shalt  not  show
mercy unto the idolators, but ye shall break down their altars, dash in pieces their graven
images and burn them with fire that I shall not be wroth at you.’” But these appeals to the
princes were of no avail, whereas the revolutionary agitation among the people grew day
by day. Muenzer, whose ideas became more definitely shaped and more courageous, now
definitely  relinquished  the  middle-class  reformation,  and  at  the  same  time  appeared  as  a
direct political agitator.
His theologic-philosophic doctrine attacked all the main points not only of Catholicism
but  of  Christianity  as  such.  Under  the  cloak  of  Christian  forms,  he  preached  a  kind  of
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pantheism, which curiously resembles the modern speculative mode of contemplation, and
at times even taught open atheism. He repudiated the assertion that the Bible was the only
infallible  revelation.  The  only  living  revelation,  he  said,  was  reason,  a  revelation  which
existed  among  all  peoples  at  all  times.  To  contrast  the  Bible  with  reason,  he  maintained,
was to kill the spirit by the latter, for the Holy Spirit of which the Bible spoke was not a
thing  outside  of  us;  the  Holy  Spirit  was  our  reason.  Faith,  he  said,  was  nothing  else  but
reason become alive in man, therefore, he said, pagans could also have faith. Through this
faith, through reason come to life, man became godlike and blessed, he said. Heaven was
to  be  sought  in  this  life,  not  beyond,  and  it  was,  according  to  Muenzer,  the  task  of  the
believers to establish Heaven, the kingdom of God, here on earth. As there is no Heaven in
the beyond, so there is no Hell in the beyond, and no damnation, and there are no devils but
the evil desires and cravings of man. Christ, he said, was a man, as we are, a prophet and a
teacher,  and  his  “Lord’s  Supper”  is  nothing  but  a  plain  meal  of  commemoration  wherein
bread and wine are being consumed with mystic additions.
Muenzer  preached  these  doctrines  mostly  in  a  covert  fashion,  under  the  cloak  of
Christian phraseology which the new philosophy was compelled to utilise for some time.
The  fundamental  heretic  idea,  however,  is  easily  discernible  in  all  his  writings,  and  it  is
obvious that the biblical cloak was for him of much less importance than it was for many a
disciple of Hegel in modern times. Still, there is a distance of three hundred years between
Muenzer and modern philosophy.
Muenzer’s  political  doctrine  followed  his  revolutionary  religious  conceptions  very
closely, and as his theology reached far beyond the current conceptions of his time, so his
political  doctrine  went  beyond  existing  social  and  political  conditions.  As  Muenzer’s
philosophy  of  religion  touched  upon  atheism,  so  his  political  programme  touched  upon
communism, and there is more than one communist sect of modern times which, on the eve
of  the  February  Revolution,  did  not  possess  a  theoretical  equipment  as  rich  as  that  of
Muenzer  of  the  Sixteenth  Century.  His  programme,  less  a  compilation  of  the  demands  of
the  then  existing  plebeians  than  a  genius’s  anticipation  of  the  conditions  for  the
emancipation  of  the  proletarian  element  that  had  just  begun  to  develop  among  the
plebeians,  demanded  the  immediate  establishment  of  the  kingdom  of  God,  of  the
prophesied millennium on earth. This was to be accomplished by the return of the church
to its origins and the abolition of all institutions that were in conflict with what Muenzer
conceived as original Christianity, which, in fact, was the idea of a very modern church. By
the kingdom of God, Muenzer understood nothing else than a state of society without class
differences,  without  private  property,  and  without  superimposed  state  powers  opposed  to
the members of society. All existing authorities, as far as they did not submit and join the
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