Hosius on the Anabaptists
By Stephen M. duBarry, 2009
Baptists historians have often cited the hostile testimony of Stanislaus Hosius concerning the Anabaptists. Hosius was a Polish Roman Catholic who became prince-bishop of Warmia in 1551, rose to cardinal in 1561, and was one of five papal legates who presided over the third period of the Council of Trent from 1561 to 1563.
1His distinguished rank and illustrious reputation among Catholics of the Reformation period give his remarks on the Anabaptists, though hostile, particular weight in the consideration of Baptist history.
A typical quote in relation to the history of the Baptists is found in a letter to the editor published in the
Baptist Magazine in 1826:
It is well known that these good people (the foreign Baptists) were formerly most severely and barbarously persecuted; and it may not perhaps be unacceptable to many of your readers, to see a few instances of their sufferings, which I have selected from "Brandt's History of the Reformation;" and which I shall preface in the words of Cardinal Hosius, one of the Pope's Presidents at the Council of Trent, who said thus of them: "If the truth of religion were to be judged of, by the readiness and chearfulness which a man of any sect shows in suffering, then the opinion and persuasion of no sect can be truer or surer than that of the Anabaptists; since there have been none for these twelve hundred years past, that have been more grievously punished, or that have more cheerfully and steadfastly undergone, and even offered themselves to the most cruel sorts of punishments, than these people." 2
Abraham Booth cites Hosius' opinion that the Waldenses were Anabaptists in his 1829 book
Pedobaptism Examined:
I will here add the following testimony from cardinal Hosius, who was president of the Council of Trent. "The Anabaptists are a pernicious sect; of which kind the Waldensian Brethren seem also to have been. Concerning whom it appears, that not very long ago they rebaptized persons; though some of them lately, as they testify in their apology, have ceased to repeat baptism. Certain it is, however, that in many things they agree with the Anabaptists. . . . Nor is this heresy a modern thing; for it existed in the time of Austin."3
Another passage is given by Edward Bean Underhill in his
Struggles and Triumphs of Religious Liberty, first published in 1851:
Let a catholic reply, the president of the famous council of Trent. "If you behold their cheerfulness in suffering persecutions, the anabaptists run before all their heretics. If you will have regard to the number, it is like that in multitude they would swarm above all others, if they were not grievously plagued and cut off with the knife of persecution. If you have an eye to the outward appearance of godliness, both the Lutherans and Zuinglians must needs grant that they far pass them.
"If you will be moved by the boasting of the word of God, these be no less bold than Calvin to preach, and their doctrine must stand aloft above all the glory of the world, must stand invincible above all power, because it is not their word, but the word of the living God. Neither do they cry with less boldness than Luther, that with their doctrine, which is the word of God, they shall judge the angels. And surely, how many soever have written against this heresy, whether they were catholics or heretics [reformers], they were able to overthrow it, not so much by the testimony of the scriptures, as by the authority of the church."4
These quotations are all taken from Hosius' Latin work "Verae, christianae catholicaeque doctrinae solida propugnatio," first published in Cologne in 1558.
5 The first section of the book, entitled "De origine haeresium nostri temporis" ("The beginning of heresies in our time"), features his discourse on the Anabaptists. An English translation by Richard Shacklock of "De origine haeresium nostri temporis" was published in 1565 under the title "
The Hatchet of Heresies."
6 While some of the quotes given by Baptist authors appear to derive from original translations of Hosius' Latin, many are taken from Shacklock's translation. The following appendix gives the full text of Hosius' discussion of the Anabaptists given in "
The Hatchet of Heresies."
Appendix: Text of Hosius on the Anabaptists
The following are the two main passages in which Stanislaus Hosius discusses the Anabaptists in "De origine haeresium nostri temporis," the first section of his 1558 book "Verae, christianae catholicaeque doctrinae solida propugnatio." The text is taken from Richard Shacklock's 1565 translation entitled "
The Hatchet of Heresies." Archaic spellings have been modernized.
(Front Page of
The Hatchet of Heresies)