Page:Mennonite Handbook of Information 1925.djvu/11



The believers in Jesus Christ during the first century suffered many persecutions, and because of this severe test, heretics in the Church were few. Later, the Church became an institution of the state, persecution ceased, and religious degeneration resulted. Some, however, never adhered to the State Church, and others left it and sought the purity of primitive Christianity. These were known by various names—Novations, Albigenses, Paulicians, Waldenses, Anabaptists, etc.

The first congregation of the Church now known as Mennonites was organized in 1525 at Zurich, Switzerland, by Conrad Grebel, Felix Mantz, George Blaurock, and others. They called themselves Brethren (Swiss Brethren) but were commonly known as Taeufer. Not recognizing infant baptism as scriptural, they were classed as Anabaptists. They were, however, the first and oldest of the so-called Anabaptist sects. It is therefore incorrect to say that the Mennonites descended from the Anabaptists, or from Anabaptist sects.

The founder of the Mennonite Church in Holland, Obbe Philips, had formerly been an Anabaptist of the Hoffmanite persuasion. Menno Simons was born at Witmarsum, Friesland, a province in the