| A constellation of four major questions, unanswered until the present study, surrounds the career of Balthasar Hubmaier (1480--1528), a theological maverick who advanced a tripartite anthropology unlike anything known from other sixteenth-century reformers. First, where might Hubmaier have derived his anthropology? Second, might it be possible that Hubmaier's anthropology furnishes the basis for his sacramental theology? Third, what was Hubmaier's understanding of baptism and the Eucharist, and how does it relate to church discipline? Finally, in light of the answers to the preceding three questions, should Hubmaier be regarded as an Anabaptist? As a comparative analysis in the history of religious thought, this study will work directly from the original German texts of the entire Hubmaier corpus in the best critical editions, and it will utilize linguistic sources in the history of Latin and German theological terms.;This study illustrates that the primary concern of Hubmaier as a theologian was the construction of a novel sacramental theology built upon the foundational doctrine of Freiheit des Willens, or libertarian free will. I have found that Hubmaier was literarily dependent for his tripartite anthropology upon Bernard of Clairvaux. Upon arriving at the conviction that infant baptism was spurious, owing to Bernard and Luther's early sermons on the sacraments, Hubmaier began to rebaptize believers at Waldshut no later than 1523, two years before the famous rebaptisms at the home of Felix Manz on 21 January 1525. Hubmaier proceeded to formulate a highly "realist" sacramental theology wherein both rites served as vehicles of divine grace. In believers' baptism, Hubmaier argued, God not only regenerated the candidate, but also predestined him or her to final salvation. By partaking of the Eucharist, believers underwent consubstantiation with Christ's human nature. To forestall profanation of the real presence, Hubmaier refused the sacrament of the altar to the banned. Moreover, Hubmaier created "free state churches" in both Waldshut and Nikolsburg emphasizing a spirit of cooperation between church and government. For these reasons, Hubmaier should, according to the classification system of Heinold Fast, no longer be regarded as an Anabaptist, but rather as a distinctly Magisterial Radical reformer. |
