Page:Balthasar Hübmaier.djvu/210

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Balthasar Hübmaier
[1524–

Zwingli tells us that he and his friends interceded with the council, that this order should not be executed, since it would put Hübmaier in great peril, both from the other Swiss authorities and from the Emperor. Accordingly, he was suffered to remain for a time, under close surveillance, no doubt, until a favourable opportunity offered for sending him away so quietly that even the citizens of Zürich did not know of his departure. He made his way first to Constance, thence to Augsburg, and then, by what means we do not know,[1] to Nikolsburg, in Moravia, where he seems to have arrived not later than July, 1526. His brief visit by the way at Augsburg is chiefly noteworthy for his meeting there, for the first time, John Denck, whom he is supposed then and there to have won over to Anabaptism.


Excursus on the Act of Baptism among the Anabaptists

The baptism by Hübmaier of three hundred from a milkpail, according to the statement of a contemporary record, naturally suggests an inquiry as to the method


  1. From a letter of Œcolampadius it would appear that he stopped also for a time in the Austrian city of Steyer. A visit to Regensburg, as asserted by some, is possible; but Hoschek (i., 559) confounds with this visit (if it occurred) the circumstances, already narrated, of Hübmaier's first leaving that city.