Protestation odder empietung Tome Müntzers vo(n) Stolberg am Hartzs Seelwarters zu Alstedt seine Lere betreffende, unnd tzum Anfang von dem rechten Christen Glawben, unnd der Tawffe.
[Eilenburg]: Nikolaus Widemar, 1524.
Price: $18,000.00
Quarto: 19.1 x 14.4 cm. [20]p. A-B4, C2 (gathering B nested in bifolium C). Complete.
FIRST EDITION.
Sewn. Housed in a folding chemise case. With a large title page woodcut of a German “Wildman” bearing a shield with the arms of Allstedt. Although “Allstedt” is cut into the woodblock on the title, the place of printing is Eilenburg. A fine copy with minor soiling and some mild edge-wear to the inner margin of the title and a small adhesion scar to the blank margin of the same leaf.
First edition of this fiery manifesto written by the radical preacher Thomas Müntzer, one of the central figures of the Peasants’ War, one of the bloodiest chapters in the turbulent early history of the German Reformation. A little more than a year after publishing his “Protestation”, in May 1525, Müntzer would be defeated in battle and executed by beheading. His body was impaled and his head stuck on a stake, outside the gates of Mühlhausen, where it remained for years.
By the time his “Protestation” appeared, in early 1524, Müntzer had already begun to radicalize the area of Allstedt, preaching that the ungodly were to be eliminated, the elect would establish a kingdom of Christ on earth, and threatening the political rulers of the area with rebellion. Müntzer divided the Allstedt citizenry into military units in order to resist any outside interference in his activities. He openly challenged and attacked Luther, who was opposed to Müntzer’s ministry and would later write, “I killed Müntzer; his death is on my shoulders. But I did it because he wanted to kill my Christ”.
The “Protestation” is a window into the mind of Müntzer in the mature phase of his radicalization. In it, he defends his persecuted ministry and condemns the corruption and spiritual emptiness of the Catholic and Lutheran churches. Written in vivid, earthy language rich with biblical and domestic imagery, the “Protestation” was a radical theological manifesto, appealing beyond ecclesiastical power to a universal court of the faithful. Müntzer decries the hypocrisy and moral decay of conventional Christianity; contrasting its shallow comfort and corruption with the purity and suffering of true faith.
The Protestation:
In late 1523, Thomas Müntzer clashed with Count Ernest von Mansfeld, who tried to suppress Müntzer’s growing religious influence under an imperial mandate forbidding new polemics. Müntzer responded defiantly, demanding an impartial tribunal of the “elect” to judge the accuracy of his teachings. Müntzer wrote “all I ask is that judgement should be delivered on me before the whole world and not in some obscure corner. For this I pledge myself, life and limb, scorning any devious defence by human hand.” (transl. Matheson, 208)
“It is absolutely crucial for Müntzer to demonstrate that it is only by way of despair, madness, error, crime, sin, unbelief — all adult prerogatives — that true initiation into faith can take place, as fear of the Lord becomes a sudden and desperate reality. The fear of the Lord is the beginning of all beginnings: the groaning, yearning of the elect friends of God, conscious of their virtual submergence in, and over-shadowing by, the towering arrogance of the godless. To reach the living waters of apostolic Christianity the elect have to turn their backs both on the hypocritical moralism of the Roman Church and on the counterfeit faith of the Lutherans, and to foster the disciplined nurture of their children in a Christ-formed life. (Matheson 184-186)
The “Protestation” combined both a defense and a declaration of faith, portraying the church as corrupted by false authority, infant baptism, and spiritual blindness. Müntzer argued that true faith arises only through adult experience of despair and divine transformation, not through ritual or scholastic theology. He called for a rebirth of the apostolic Church through the spiritual baptism of the elect. “True baptism is no longer understood. The very foundations of the Church, as a result, are unsound, built on sand, on dregs. In reality this water baptism of children means that Christianity has become infantile, drunk on the wine of licentious living.” (ibid. 184-193)
He rails against “the unfaithful false scholars… who approve of gluttony and boozing and devote themselves to their lusts, living in luxury and snarling like dogs with sharp teeth if one contradicts one word they say. These fattened pigs are called false prophets by CHRIST; in their own eyes they are the clever ones.” (ibid. 206)
The Peasants War:
The Peasants’ War was one of the bloodiest chapters in the turbulent early history of the German Reformation. The uprising began in upper Swabia in early 1524 and quickly spread to southern and western Germany, as well as to parts of Switzerland and Austria. The peasants were motivated by a number of factors: crushing taxation, lack of a voice in government, no recourse to the courts, crop failure, and helplessness in the face of their feudal masters’ demands. But whereas these conditions had resulted in smaller uprisings in the past, the massive rebellion of 1524-5 was also a result of the turbulent upheaval caused by the nascent Reformation. By the time the rebellion was crushed in late 1525, some 100,000 combatants and civilians had been killed. Reprisals were carried out for the next two years, and the peasants’ demands, as outlined in their Twelve Articles, came to nothing.
Franz, Thomas Müntzer: Schriften und Briefe, 6; Hillerbrand, Thomas Müntzer: A Bibliography (16th Century Bibliography, No. 4), 2710; VD16 M6748; BMG, p. 634