Preservings $20 No. 25, December, 2005 - Home at Plett Foundation

Feature Articles:
Seventeenth-Century Dutch Mennonite Prayer Books
Piet Visser, Professor of Mennonite history at the Vrije Universiteit of Amsterdam
and instructor at the Mennonite Seminary in Amsterdam
A quotation from Carel van Mander may
help to indicate the complexity of this topic.
Mander was one of Holland’s most renowned
representatives of the so-called early Dutch
Renaissance, both as a poet and a painter. The
quotation is a simple four-liner from one of the
several hundreds of spiritual songs (geestelyke
liedekens) he composed as a Mennonite hymn
writer:
Niet al die roepen, Heere, Heere,
En comen in Gods rijcke soet,
Maer al die doen nae Christi leere
Zijns Hemels Vaders wille vroet. 1
Not all who call and pray: Lord, Lord
will enter the sweet Kingdom of God,
But only those who truly imitate Christ’s
teachings
who obey the commands of the Heavenly
Father.
Dealing with Mennonites and art in this
period, whether it concerns the literary or the
pictorial arts, is a tricky matter for many reasons.
This can best be demonstrated
by a short introduction of the main
characteristics.
The Dutch Mennonite movement,
a peaceful offspring from
radical spiritualism and Münsterite
Anabaptism which had shaken the
Western world during the early
thirties of the sixteenth century, developed
into a separatist movement
under its leader Menno Simons, a
former priest and the only reformer
of the Low Countries. 2 Anabaptism
and subsequently Mennonitism
marked the beginning of the Dutch
Reformation rather than Lutheranism,
or Geneva Protestantism. The
latter movement entered the Low
Countries during the early 1560’s.
Mennonites promoted adult baptism,
non-violence, non-swearing of oaths
and martyrdom. Like the first Apostolic
Church, they were severely
persecuted. By the 1570s, when the
northern provinces separated from
the south during the Dutch Revolt,
Charles V and his Spanish successors
had caused at least 2000 casualties.
Mennonites strongly promoted
ethical views for social behaviour
- the so-called “church without spot
or wrinkle” - and tried to avoid, and
even abandon, the world. The focus
of social life was the imitation of Christ and
His commandments according to the Gospel,
articulated as soberness, strictness, honesty
and hard labour. The Mennonite faith primarily
appealed to individual responsibility.
The priesthood of believers was cherished
to the extreme - each individual was supposed
to have equal access to the Gospel and to God.
However, those principles combined with an
almost total lack of central authority. Dogmatically
and organizationally local congregations
were autonomous in all respects, and this soon
to lead to discord with schisms and several
divisions. 3 The result was that at the beginning
of the seventeenth century there were at least
ten different Mennonite denominations ranging
from the liberal Mennonites who embraced
individualism, spiritualism and mysticism, to
the very orthodox Mennonites who promoted
Biblical literalism and ethical legalism. The
most important denomination of liberal Mennonites
were the so-called Waterlanders who
were the first to welcome the social, economic,
and cultural, benefits of the Dutch Golden
Age. Joost van den Vondel, the most important
Hans de Ries (1553-1638), photo of a painting in the University Library, Amsterdam
(S. Zijlstra, Om de ware gemeente en de oude gronden, p. 279).
Dutch poet of the seventeenth century, grew
up in this environment and started his career
as a Mennonite poet. Despite the tolerant atmosphere
in Waterlander circles, there were
too many limitations for Vondel’s literary and
social ambitions, and so in the end he turned
to the Roman Catholic Church. The so-called
Old Flemish Mennonites were the most
striking examples of orthodoxy. They can be
compared to the Amish of North America, who
are of Swiss Mennonite background. Carel van
Mander, a prolific author who was intellectually
and artistically a modern Renaissance
man, remained throughout his life a member
of this right-wing branch. Thus dealing with
Mennonites and their history involves a great
variety of facts, paradoxes and gaps. 4
Mennonite prayer in church service
Before dealing with the subject in more
detail it will be necessary to describe the status
and function of prayer among Mennonites.
Since the priesthood of all believers is one of
the main principles of Anabaptism and Mennonitism,
the religious practice strongly emphasizes
individual consciousness
and personal responsibility, both
towards God and the congregation.
In such a context, prayer is considered
a means of communication with
God that is of primarily personal
concern and priority. Of course,
prayer is also a structural element
of liturgical practice. In contrast to
the Roman Catholic liturgical tradition
of formalized prayers, which
the Anabaptists had abandoned,
Mennonites promoted silent prayer
(stil gebed), which was done before
and after the sermon. The preacher
admonished the congregation to
pray and thereupon all knelt down
and offered their individual silent
prayers. Most orthodox branches
maintained this practice until the
end of the eighteenth century -
some even deep into the nineteenth
century. 5 Silent prayer was also in
contrast to the liturgical practice
of the dominant Dutch Reformed
Church, who severely criticized
such an “aberration”:
Want om de waerheyt te zeggen,
twas my ende den onsen zeer
vremt om zien, dat Iacob Iansz als
Bisschop in volle Vergaderinghe
biddende, voor ende na syne ver-
Preservings No. 25, December 2005 - 21