5. Protestants and Catholics (continued)

0:006. Totalitarian Communism in Münster Northwestern Germany in that era was dotted by a number of small ecclesiastical states, each run by a prince-bishop. The state was run by aristocratic clerics who elected one of their own as bishop. Generally these bishops were secular lords who were not ordained. By bargaining over taxes, the capital city of each of these states had usually wrested for itself a degree of autonomy. The clergy, which constituted the ruling elite of the state, exempted themselves from taxation while imposing very heavy taxes on the rest of the populace.

0:48Generally, the capital cities came to be run by their own power elite, an oligarchy of of Guilds, which used government power to cartelize their various professions and occupations. The largest of these ecclesiastical states in northwest Germany was the Bishopric of Münster and its capital city of Münster, a town of some 10,000 people, was run by the town guilds. The Münster guilds were particularly exercised by the economic competition of the monks who who were not forced to obey guild restrictions and regulations. During the Peasants' War, the capital cities of several of these states, including Münster, took the opportunity to rise in revolt, and the Bishop of Münster was forced to make numerous concessions.

1:42With the crushing of the rebellion, however, the bishop took back the concessions and reestablished the old regime. By 1532, however, the guilds, supported by the people, were able to fight back and take over the town, soon forcing the bishop to recognize Münster officially as a Lutheran city. It was not destined to remain so for long, however. From all over the northwest, hordes of Anabaptist enthusiasts flooded into Münster, seeking the onset of the New Jerusalem. From the Northern Netherlands came hundreds of Melchiorites, followers of the itinerant visionary Melchior Hoffman. Hoffman, an uneducated furriers apprentice from Swabia in southern Germany, had for years wandered through Europe preaching the eminence of the Second Coming, which he had concluded from his researches would occur in 1533, the 15th centenary of the death of Jesus.

2:47Melchiorism had flourished in the northern Netherlands, and many adepts now poured into Münster, rapidly converting the poorer classes of the town. Meanwhile, the Anabaptist cause in Münster received a shot in the arm when the eloquent and popular young minister, Bernt Rothman, a highly educated son of a town blacksmith, converted to Anabaptism. Originally a Catholic priest, Rothman had become a friend of Luther and the head of the Lutheran movement in Minster. Converted to Anabaptism, Rothman lent his eloquent preaching to the cause of Communism as it had supposedly existed in the primitive Christian Church, holding everything in common with no mine and thine, and giving to each according to his need.

3:42In response to Rothman's reputation, thousands flocked to Münster, hundreds of the poor, the rootless, those hopelessly in debt, and people who, having run through the fortunes of their parents, were earning nothing by their own industry. People in general who were attracted by the idea of plundering and robbing the clergy and the richer burghers. The horrified burghers tried to drive out Rothman and the Anabaptist preachers, but to no avail. In 1533, Melchior Hoffman, sure that the Second Coming would happen any day, returned to Strasbourg, where he had had great success, calling himself the Prophet Elias.

4:30Hoffman, for all the similarities with the others, was a peaceful man who counseled nonviolence to his followers. After all, if Jesus were imminently due to return, why commit against unbelievers? Hoffman's imprisonment, and, of course, the fact that 1533 came and went without a second coming, discredited Melchior, and so his Munster followers turned to far more violent post-millennialist prophets, who believed that they would have to establish the kingdom by fire and sword.

5:15The new leader of the coercive Anabaptists was a Dutch baker from Harlem, one Jan Mathis. Reviving the spirit of Thomas Münzer, Mathis sent out missionaries or apostles from Harlem to re-baptize everyone they could, and to appoint bishops with the power to baptize. When the new apostles reached Münster in early 1534, they were greeted, as we might expect, Another apostle soon arrived, a young man of twenty-five who had been converted and baptized by Mathis only a couple of months earlier.

6:12This was Jan Bockelsen, who was soon to become known in song and story as Johann of Leiden. Though handsome and eloquent, Bockelsen was a troubled soul, having been born the illegitimate son of the mayor of a Dutch village by a woman serf from Westphalia. Bockelsen began life as an apprentice tailor, married a rich widow, but then went bankrupt when he set himself up as a self-employed merchant. In February 1534, Bockelsen won the support of the wealthy cloth merchant Bernt Knipperdahlink, the powerful leader of the Münster guilds, and shrewdly married Knipperdahlink's daughter. On 8 February, son-in-law and father-in-law ran wildly through the streets together, calling upon everyone to repent.

7:06After much frenzy, mass writhing on the ground and the seeing of apocalyptic visions, the Anabaptists rose up and seized the town hall, winning legal recognition for their movement. In response to this successful uprising, many wealthy Lutherans left town, and the Anabaptists, feeling exuberant, sent messengers to surrounding areas, summoning everyone to come to Munster. The rest of the world, they proclaimed, would be destroyed in a month or two. Only Munster would be saved to become the new Jerusalem. Thousands poured in from as far away as Flanders and Freesia in the northern Netherlands. As a result, the Anabaptists soon won a majority on the town council, and this success was was followed three days later on 24 February by an orgy of looting of books, statues and paintings from the churches and throughout the town. Soon, Ion Mathis himself arrived, a tall gaunt man with a long black beard. Mathis, aided by Bockelson, quickly became the virtual dictator of the town. The coercive Anabaptists had at last seized a city. The

8:27The Great Communist Experiment could now begin. The first mighty program of this rigid theocracy was, of course, to purge the New Jerusalem of the unclean and the ungodly as a prelude to their ultimate extermination throughout the world. Mathis called, therefore, for the execution of all remaining Catholics and Lutherans, But Kniper Dahlink's cooler head prevailed, since he warned Mathis that slaughtering all other Christians than themselves might cause the rest of the world to become edgy, and they might all come and crush the new Jerusalem in its cradle. It was therefore decided to do the next best thing, and on 27 February the Catholics and Lutherans were driven out of the city in the midst of a horrendous snowstorm.

9:21In a deed-prefiguring communist Cambodia, all non-anabaptists, including old people, invalids, babies and pregnant women, were driven into the snowstorm, and all were forced to leave behind all their money, property, food and clothing. The remaining Lutherans and Catholics were compulsorily re-baptized, and all refusing this ministration were put to death. The expulsion of all Lutherans and Catholics was enough for the bishop, who began a long military siege of the town the next day on 28 February. With every person drafted for siege work, John Mathis launched his totalitarian communist social revolution.

10:11The first step was to confiscate the property of the expelled. All their worldly goods were placed in central depots, and the poor were encouraged to take according to their needs, the needs to be interpreted by seven appointed deacons chosen by Mathis. When a blacksmith protested at these measures imposed by Dutch foreigners, Mathis arrested the courageous Smithy. Summoning the entire population of the town, Mathis personally stabbed, shot and killed the Godless Blacksmith, as well as throwing into prison several eminent citizens who had protested against his treatment. The crowd was warned to profit by this public execution, and they obediently sang a hymn in honor of the killing.

11:04A key part of the Anabaptist reign of terror in Munster was now unveiled. Unairingly, just as in the case of the Cambodian Communists four and a half centuries later, the new ruling elite realized that the abolition of the private ownership of money would reduce the population to total slavish dependence on the men of power. And so Mathis, Rothman and others launched a propaganda campaign that it was unchristian to own money privately, that all money should be held in common, which in practice meant that all money whatsoever must be handed over to Mathis and his ruling clique. Several Anabaptists who kept or hid their money were arrested and then terrorized into crawling to Mathis on their knees, begging forgiveness and beseeching him to intercede with God on their behalf.

12:04This then graciously forgave the sinners. After two months of severe and unrelenting pressure, a combination of propaganda about the Christianity of abolishing private money, and threats and terror against those who failed to surrender, the private ownership of money was effectively abolished in Münster. The government seized all the money and used it to buy or hire goods from the outside world. Wages were doled out in kind by the only remaining employer, the theocratic Anabaptist state. Food was confiscated from private homes and rationed according to the will of the government deacons.

12:50Also, to accommodate the immigrants, all private homes were effectively communized, with everyone permitted to quarter themselves anywhere. It was now illegal to close, let alone lock, doors. Communal dining halls were established where people ate together to readings from the Old Testament. This compulsory communism and reign of terror was carried out in the name of community and Christian love. All this communization was considered the first giant steps toward total egalitarian communism, where, as Rothman put it, all things were to be in common, there was to be no private property and nobody was to do any more work but simply trust in God.

13:42The workless part, of course, somehow never arrived. A pamphlet sent in October 1534 to other Anabaptist communities hailed the new order of Christian love through terror. For not only have we put all our belongings into a common pool under the care of deacons, and live from it according to our need. We praise God through Christ with one heart and mind, and are eager to help one another with every kind of service. And accordingly, everything which has served the purposes of self-seeking and private property such as buying and selling, working for money, taking interest and practicing usury, or eating and drinking the sweat of the poor, and indeed everything which offends against love, all such things are abolished amongst us by the power of love and community.

14:44With high consistency, the Anabaptists of Münster made no pretense about preserving Communizing Intellectual Freedom While Communizing All Material Property. For the Anabaptists boasted of their lack of education and claimed that it was the unlearned and the unwashed who would be the elect of the world. The Anabaptist mob took particular delight in burning all the books and manuscripts in in the Cathedral Library, and, finally, in mid-March 1534, Mathis outlawed all books except the Good Book, the Bible. To symbolize a total break with the sinful past, all privately and publicly owned books were thrown upon a great communal bonfire.

15:35All this ensured, of course, that the only theology or interpretation of the Scriptures Open to the Munsterites was that of Mathis and the other Anabaptist preachers. At the end of March, however, Mathis' swollen hubris laid him low. Convinced at Easter time that God had ordered him and a few of the faithful to lift the bishop's siege and liberate the town, Mathis and a few others rushed out of the gates at the besieging army and were were literally hacked to pieces. In an age when the idea of full religious liberty was virtually unknown, one can imagine that any Anabaptists whom the more orthodox Christians might get hold of would not earn a very kindly reward.

16:26The death of Mathis left Münster in the hands of young Bockelsen. And if Mathis had chastised the people of Münster with whips, Bockelsen would chastise Bockelsson wasted little time in mourning his mentor. He preached to the faithful, God will give you another prophet who will be more powerful. How could this young enthusiast top his master? Early in May, Bockelsson caught the attention of the town by running naked through the streets in a frenzy, falling then into a silent three-day ecstasy. When he rose again, he announced to the entire populace a new dispensation that God had revealed to him.

17:13With God at his elbow, Bockelsen abolished the old functioning town offices of council and burgomasters, and installed a new ruling council of twelve elders, with himself, of course, as the eldest of the elders. The elders were now given total authority over the life and death, the property and the spirit of every inhabitant of Münster. A strict system of forced labor was imposed, with all artisans not drafted into the military, now public employees, working for the community for no monetary reward. This meant, of course, that the guilds were now abolished.

17:58The totalitarianism in Munster was now complete. Death was now the punishment for virtually every independent act, good or bad. Capital punishment was decreed for the high crimes of murder, theft, lying, avarice and quarreling. Also death was decreed for every conceivable kind of insubordination, the young against against their parents, wives against their husbands, and, of course, anyone at all against the chosen representatives of God on earth, the totalitarian government of Münster. Berndt Knipperdahlink was appointed High Executioner to enforce the decrees.

18:45The only aspect of life previously left untouched was sex, and this now came under the hammer of Bockelsen's Total Despotism. The only sexual relation permitted was marriage between two Anabaptists. Sex in any other form, including marriage with one of the godless, was a capital crime. But soon Bockelsen went beyond this rather old-fashioned credo and decided to establish compulsory polygamy in Münster. Since many of the expellees had left their Compulsory polygamy was a bit too much for many of the Münsterites, who launched a rebellion in Protest. The rebellion, however, was quickly crushed, and most of the rebels put to death.

19:57Execution was also the fate of any further dissenters. And so, by August 1534, polygamy was coercively established in Münster. As one might expect, young Bockelsen took an instant liking to the new regime, and before For long he had a harem of fifteen wives, including Devara, the beautiful young widow of Jan Mathis. The rest of the male population also began to take to the new decree as ducks to water. Many of the women did not take as kindly to the new dispensation, and so the elders passed a law ordering compulsory marriage for every woman under, and presumably also over, a certain in Age, which usually meant being a compulsory third or fourth wife.

20:50Moreover, since marriage among the godless was not only invalid, but also illegal, the wives of the expelees now became fair game and were forced to marry good Anabaptists. Refusal to comply with the new law was punishable, of course, by death, and a number of women Women were actually executed as a result. Those old wives who resented the new wives coming into their household were also suppressed, and their quarreling was made a capital crime. Many women were executed for quarreling. But the long arm of the State could reach only just so far, and in their first internal setback, Bockelson and his men had to relent and permit Divorce.

21:41Indeed, the ceremony of marriage was now outlawed totally, and divorce made very easy. As a result, Münster now fell under a regime of what amounted to compulsory free love. And so, within the space of only a few months, a rigid puritanism had been transmuted into a regime of compulsory promiscuity. Meanwhile, Bockelson proved to be an excellent organizer of a besieged city. Compulsory labor, military and civilian, was strictly enforced. The bishop's army consisted of poorly and irregularly paid mercenaries, and Bockelson was able to induce many of them to desert by offering them regular pay.

22:28Pay for money, that is, in contrast to Bockelson's rigid internal moneyless communism. Drunken ex-mercenaries were, however, shot immediately. When the bishop fired pamphlets into the town offering a general amnesty in return for surrender, Bockelson made reading such pamphlets a crime punishable by, of course, death. At the end of August 1534, the bishop's armies were in disarray and the siege temporarily lifted. Jan Bockelsen seized this opportunity to carry his egalitarian communist revolution one step further. He had himself named King and Messiah of the Last Days.

23:19Proclaiming himself King might have appeared tacky and perhaps even illegitimate. And so, Bockelsen had one Duesentschur, a goldsmith from a nearby town and a self-proclaimed prophet, do the job for him. At the beginning of September, Duesentschur announced to one and all a new revelation. Jan Bockelsen was to be king of the whole world, the heir of King David, to keep that throne until God himself reclaimed his kingdom. Unsurprisingly, Bockelsen confirmed that he himself had had the very same revelation. Duesentschur then presented a sword of justice to Bockelsen, anointed him, and proclaimed him king of the world.

24:10Bockelsen, of course, was momentarily modest. He prostrated himself and asked guidance from God. But he made sure to get that guidance swiftly. And it turned out, mirabile dictu, that ducenture was right. Bockelson proclaimed to the crowd that God had now given him power over all nations of the earth. Anyone who might dare to resist the will of God shall without delay be put to death with the sword. And so, despite a few mumbled protests, Jan Bockelson was declared king of the world and and Messiah, and the Anabaptist preachers of Münster explained to their bemused flock that Bockelsen was indeed the Messiah as foretold in the Old Testament.

25:02Bockelsen was rightfully ruler of the entire world, both temporal and spiritual. It often happens with egalitarians that a whole, a special escape hatch from the drab Uniformity of Life is created for themselves. And so it was with King Bockelson. It was, after all, important to emphasize in every way the importance of the Messiah's advent. And so Bockelson wore the finest robes, metals and jewelry. He appointed courtiers and gentlemen at arms, who also appeared in splendid finery. King Bockelson's chief wife, DeVara, was proclaimed Queen of the World, and she too was dressed in great finery and had a suite of courtiers and followers.

25:54This luxurious court of some two hundred people was housed in fine mansions requisitioned for the occasion. A throne draped with a cloth of gold was established in the public square, and King Bockelson would hold court there, wearing a crown and carrying a scepter. A royal bodyguard protected the entire procession. All Bockelsen's loyal aides were suitably rewarded with high status and finery. Knipperdahlink was the chief minister and Rothman royal orator. If communism is the perfect society, somebody must be able to enjoy its fruits, and who do better but the messiah and his courtiers.

26:42Though private property and money was abolished, the confiscated gold and silver was now minted into ornamental coins for the glory of the new king. All horses were confiscated to build up the king's armed squadron. Also names in Minster were transformed, all the streets were renamed, Sundays and feast Days were abolished, and all newborn children were named personally by the king in accordance with a special pattern. In a starving slave society such as Communist Minster, not all citizens could live in the luxury enjoyed by the king and his court. Indeed, the new ruling class was now imposing a rigid class oligarchy seldom seen before.

27:34So that the king and his nobles might live in high luxury, rigorous austerity was imposed on everyone else in Münster. The subject population had already been robbed of their houses and much of their food. Now all superfluous luxury among the masses was outlawed. Clothing and bedding were severely rationed, and all surplus turned over to King Bockelsen under pain of death. Every house was searched thoroughly and eighty-three wagonloads of surplus clothing collected. It is not surprising that the deluded masses of Münster began to grumble at being forced to live in abject poverty while the king and his courtiers lived in extreme luxury on the proceeds of their confiscated belongings.

28:28And so Bockelson had to beam them some propaganda to explain the new system. The explanation was this. It was all right for Bockelson to live in pomp and luxury because he was already completely dead to the world and the flesh. Since he was dead to the world, in a deep sense his luxury didn't count. In the style of every guru who has ever lived in luxury among his credulous followers, he He explained that for him material objects had no value. How such logic can ever fool anyone passes understanding. More important, Bockelsen assured his subjects that he and his court were only the advance guard of the new order.

29:17Soon, they too would be living in the same millennial luxury. Under their new order, the people of Münster would forge outward, armed with God's will, and conquer the entire world, exterminating the unrighteous, after which Jesus would return and they would all live in luxury and perfection. Equal communism with great luxury for all would then be achieved. Their descent meant, of course, greater terror, and King Bockelson's reign of love intensified its intimidation and slaughter. As soon as he proclaimed the monarchy, the prophet Duesenshur announced a new divine revelation.

30:04All who persisted in disagreeing with or disobeying King Bockelson would be put to death and their very memory blotted out. They would be extirpated forever. Some of the main victims to be executed were women. Women who were killed for denying their husbands their marital rights, for insulting a preacher, or for daring to practice bigamy, polygamy, of course, being solely a male privilege. Despite his continual preaching about marching forth to conquer the world, King Bockelson Men was not crazy enough to attempt that feat, especially since the bishop's army was again besieging the town. Instead, he shrewdly used much of the expropriated gold and silver to send out apostles and pamphlets to surrounding areas of Europe, attempting to rouse the masses for Anabaptist revolution. The propaganda had considerable effect, and serious mass Serious risings occurred throughout Holland and northwestern Germany during January 1535.

31:15A thousand armed Anabaptists gathered under the leadership of someone who called himself Christ, Son of God. And serious Anabaptist rebellions took place in West Frisia, in the town of Minden, and even in the great city of Amsterdam, where the rebels managed to capture the town hall. All these risings were eventually suppressed with the considerable help of betrayal to the various authorities of the names of the rebels and of the location of their munition dumps. The princes of northwestern Europe by this time had had enough, and all the states of the Holy Roman Empire agreed to supply troops to crush the monstrous and hellish regime at Münster.

32:04For the first time in January 1535, Münster was totally and successfully blockaded and cut off from the outside world. The establishment then proceeded to starve the population of Münster into submission. Food shortages appeared immediately and the crisis was met with characteristic vigor. All remaining food was confiscated, and all horses killed, for the benefit of feeding the king, his royal court, and his armed guards. At all times the king and his court ate and drank well, while famine and devastation raged throughout the town of Münster, and the masses ate literally everything, even inedible, they could lay their hands on.

32:54King Bockelsen kept his rule by beaming continual propaganda and promises to the starving masses. God would definitely save them by Easter or else he would have himself burnt in the public square. When Easter came and went, Bockelsen craftily explained that he had meant only spiritual salvation. He promised that God would change cobblestones to bread, and, of course, that did not come The poor hapless people of Minster were now doomed totally. The bishop kept firing leaflets Bockelsons into the town, promising a general amnesty if the people would only revolt and depose King Bockelsons and his court and hand them over.

34:04To guard against such a threat, Bockelsons stepped up his reign of terror still further. In early May, he divided the town into twelve sections and placed a duke over each one with an armed force of twenty-four men. The Dukes were foreigners like himself. As Dutch immigrants, they were likely to be loyal to Bockelsen. Each duke was strictly forbidden to leave his section, and the dukes in turn prohibited any meetings whatsoever of even a few people. No one was allowed to leave town, and any caught plotting to leave, helping anyone else Boeckles to leave, or criticizing the king, was instantly beheaded, usually by King Boeckleson himself.

34:52By mid-June such deeds were occurring daily, with the body often quartered and nailed up as a warning to the masses. Boeckleson would undoubtedly have let the entire population starve to death rather than surrender, but two escapees betrayed weak spots in the town's defense, and on the night On the night of June 24, 1535, the nightmare New Jerusalem at last came to a bloody end. The last several hundred Anabaptist fighters surrendered under an amnesty and were promptly massacred, and Queen DeVara was beheaded. As for ex-King Bockelsen, he was led about on a chain, and the following January, along and with Knipperdahlink was publicly tortured to death and their bodies suspended in cages from a church tower.

35:47The old establishment of Münster was duly restored and the city became Catholic once more. The stars were once again in their courses and the events of 1534 and 1535 understandably led to an abiding distrust of mysticism and enthusiast movements throughout Protestant Europe. 7. The Roots of Messianic Communism Anabaptist Communism did not spring out of thin air at the advent of the Reformation. Its roots can be traced back to an extraordinarily influential late 12th century Italian mystic, Joachim of Fior, 1145-1202.

36:37Joachim was an abbot and hermit in Calabria, in southern Italy. It was Joachim who launched the idea that hidden in the Bible, for those who had the wit to see, were prophecies foretelling world history. Concentrating on the murky book of Revelation, Joachim decreed that history was destined to move through three successive ages, each of them ruled by one of the members of the Holy Trinity. The first age, the age of the Old Testament, was the era of the Father, or the Law, the age of fear and servitude. The second age, the era of the Son, was the age of the New Testament, the era of faith Faith and Submission.

37:24Mystics generally think in threes, and Joachim was moved to herald the coming of the third and final age, the age of the Holy Spirit, the era of perfect joy, love and freedom, and the end of human history. It would be the age of the end of property, because everyone would live in voluntary poverty, and everyone could easily do so because there would be no work, since people would be too be totally liberated from their physical bodies. Possessing only spiritual bodies, there would be no need to eat food or do much else, either. The world would be, in the paraphrase of Norman Cone, one vast monastery in which all men would be contemplative monks, wrapped continuously in mystical ecstasy until the day of the Last Judgment.

38:17Joachim's vision already resonates with the later Marxian dialectic of the three allegedly inevitable stages of history, primitive communism, class society and then finally the realm of perfect freedom, total communism and the withering away of the division of labor and the end of human history. As with so many chileasts, Joachim was sure of the date of the advent of the final age and, typically, it was coming soon, in his view sometime in the first half of the next, the thirteenth century. The Joachite bizarreries quickly exerted enormous influence, particularly in Italy, in Germany and in the rigorous wing of the new Franciscan order.

39:10A new ingredient to this witch's brew was added a little later by a learned professor of theology at the great University of Paris at the end of the 12th century. Once a great favorite of the French royal court, Amalric's odd doctrines were condemned by the pope, and after a forced public recantation, Amalric died shortly thereafter in 1206 or 1207. His His doctrines were then picked up by a small secret group of erudite clerical disciples, the Amarians, most of whom had been students in theology at Paris. Centered at the important commercial cloth-making town of Troyes in Champagne, the Amarian missionaries influenced many people and distributed popular works of theology in the vernacular.

40:03Their leader was the priest William Arifax, who was either a goldsmith or an alchemist attempting to transform base metals into gold. Subjected to espionage by the Bishop of Paris, the 14 Amaurians were all rounded up and either imprisoned for life or burnt at the stake, depending on whether they recanted their heresies. Most of them refused to recant. The Amaurians, like Joachim, propounded the three ages of human history, but they added some spice to it. Each age apparently enjoyed its own incarnation. For the Old Testament, it was Abraham, and perhaps some other patriarchs.

40:49For the New Testament, the incarnation was, of course, Jesus. And now, for the dawning age of the Holy Spirit, the incarnation would now emerge in human and Human Beings Themselves. As might be expected, the Amarians considered themselves the new incarnation. In other words, they proclaimed themselves as living gods, the embodiment of the Holy Spirit. Not that they would always remain a divine elite among men. On the contrary, they were destined to lead mankind to its universal incarnation. The conjuries of groups throughout Northern Europe in the 14th century known as the Brethren of the Free Spirit added another important ingredient to the stew.

41:40The dialectic of reabsorption into God derived from the 3rd century Platonist philosopher Plotinus. Plotinus had had his own three stages, the original unity with God, the human history and the final return or reabsorption as all human beings are submerged into the one and history is finished. The Brethren of the Free Spirit added a new elitist twist. While the reabsorption of every man must await the end of history and the crude in spirit must meanwhile meet their individual deaths, there was a glorious minority, the subtle in spirit, who could and did become reabsorbed and therefore living gods during their lifetime.

42:39This minority, of course, were the brethren themselves, who, by virtue of years of training, self-torture and visions, had become perfect gods, more perfect and more godlike than even in Christ Himself. Once this stage of mystical union was reached furthermore, it was permanent and eternal. These new gods often proclaimed themselves greater than God Himself. Thus a group of female free spirits at Schweidenitz claimed to be able to dominate the Holy Trinity such that they could ride it as in a saddle, and one of these women declared that when When God created all things, I created all things with him.

43:24I am more than God. Man himself, therefore, or at least a gifted minority of men, could lift themselves up to divine status by their own efforts, far earlier than their fellows. Being living gods on earth brought many good things in its wake. In the first place, it led directly to an extreme form of the antinomian heresy. If people are gods, then it is impossible for them to sin. Whatever they do is necessarily moral and perfect. That means that any act ordinarily considered as sin, from adultery to murder, becomes perfectly legitimate when performed by the living gods.

44:10Indeed, the free spirits, like other antinomians, were tempted to demonstrate and flaunt their freedom from sin by performing all manner of sins imaginable. But there was also a catch. Among the free spirit cultists, only a minority of leading adepts were living gods. For the rank-and-file cultists striving to become gods, there was one sin alone which which they must not commit, disobedience to their master. Each disciple was bound by an oath of absolute obedience to a particular living God. Take for example Nicholas of Basel, a leading free-spirit guru whose cult stretched most of the length of the Rhine.

45:01Claiming to be the new Christ, Nicholas held that everyone's sole path to salvation is is making an act of absolute and total submission to Nicholas himself. In return for this total fealty, Nicholas granted his followers freedom from all sin. As for the rest of mankind, outside the cults, they were simply unredeemed and unregenerate beings who existed only to be used and exploited by the elect. This attitude of total rule went hand-in-hand with the social doctrine many free-spirit cults adopted in the 14th century, a communistic assault on the institution of private property.

45:48In essence, however, that philosophic communism was a thinly camouflaged cover for their, the free spirits, self-proclaimed right to commit theft at will. The free-spirit adept, in short, regarded all property of the non-elect as rightfully his own. As the Bishop of Strasbourg summed it up in 1317, they believe that all things are common whence they conclude that theft is lawful for them. Or as the free-spirit adept from Erfurt, Johann Hartmann, put it, the truly free man is king King and Lord of all creatures, all things belong to him, and he has the right to use whatever pleases him.

46:38If anyone tries to prevent him, the free man may kill him and take his goods. As one of the favorite sayings of the Brethren of the Free Spirit put it, whatever the eye sees and covets, let the hand grasp it. The final ingredient for the revolutionary communist Münzermünster-Stu came with the extreme Taborites of the early 15th century. All Taborites constituted the radical wing of the Hussite movement, a pre-Protestant revolutionary movement that blended struggles of religion, anti-Catholic, nationality, Czech vs. Upper Class and Upper Clergy German, and CLASS, artisans cartellized in guilds trying to take political power from the patricians.

47:32The new ingredient added by the extreme wing of the Taborites was the duty to exterminate. For the last days are coming, and the elect must go out and stamp out sin by exterminating All Sinners, which means, at the very least, all non-Taborites. For all sinners are enemies of Christ, and accursed be the man who withholds his sword from shedding the blood of the enemies of Christ. Every believer must wash his hands in that blood. Having that mindset, the extreme Taborites were not going to stop at intellectual destruction. In sacking churches and monasteries, the Taborites took particular delight in destroying libraries and burning books.

48:22For all belongings must be taken away from God's enemies and burned or otherwise destroyed. Besides, the elect have no need for books. When the kingdom of God on earth arrived, there would no longer be need for anyone to teach another. There would be no need for books or scriptures, and all worldly wisdom will perish. And all people, too, one suspects. Moreover, elaborating anew the theme of a return to a lost golden age, the ultra-Taberites proposed to return to the allegedly early Czech condition of Communism, a society with no private property. In order to achieve this classless society, the cities in particular, those centers of luxury and avarice, and especially the merchants and the landlords, must be exterminated.

49:20After the elect have established their communist kingdom of God in Bohemia by revolutionary violence, their task would be to forge and impose such communism on the rest of the world. In addition to material property, the bodies of the faithful would have to be communized as well. The Taborite Ultras were nothing if not logical. Their preachers taught, everything will be common, including wives, there will be free sons and daughters of God and there will be no marriage as union of two, husband and wife. The Hussite Revolution broke out in 1419, and in that same year the Taborites gathered in the town of Eusty in northern Bohemia near the German border.

50:11They renamed Eusty Tabor, that is, the Mount of Olives, where Jesus had foretold his second coming, had ascended to heaven, and where he was expected to reappear. The Taborites engaged in a communist experiment at Tabor, owning everything in common, and dedicated to the proposition that whoever owns private property commits a mortal sin. True to their doctrines, all women were owned in common, while if husband and wife were ever seen together, they were beaten to death or otherwise executed. Unfortunately, but characteristically, the Taborites were so caught up in their unlimited right to consume from the common store that they felt themselves exempt from the need to work.

51:03The common store soon disappeared. And then what? Then, of course, the radical Taborites claimed that their need entitled them to claim the property of the non-elect, and they proceeded to rob others at will. As a synod of the moderate, Taborites complained, many communities never think of earning their own living by the work of their hands, but are only willing to live on other people's property and to undertake unjust campaigns for the sole purpose of robbing. And the Taborite peasantry, who did not join the communes, found the radical regime reimposing Discredited among themselves, their more moderate allies and their own peasantry, the Communist regime of the radicals at Eusty Tabor soon collapsed.

52:01The torch of frenetic mystical communism was soon picked up, however, by a sect known as Bohemian Adamites. Like the free spirits of the previous century, the Adamites held themselves to be living gods, superior to Christ, since Christ had died, whereas they still lived. Impeccable logic, if a bit short-sighted. Yet, in a curious contradiction, the founder of the Adamites, the former priest Peter Canish, had already been captured and burnt by the Hussite military by Commander John Sitzka. The Adamites dubbed the dead khanish Jesus, and then selected as their leader a peasant whom they called Adam Moses.

52:50For the Adamites not only were all goods strictly owned in common, but marriage was considered a heinous sin. In short, promiscuity was compulsory, since the chaste were unworthy to enter the of the Messianic Kingdom. Any man could choose any woman at will, and that will would have to be obeyed. The Adamites also went around naked most of the time, imitating the original state of Adam and Eve. On the other hand, promiscuity was at one and the same time compulsory and restricted, because sex could only take place with the permission of the leader, Adam from Moses. Like the other radical Taborites, the Adamites regarded it as their sacred mission to exterminate all the unbelievers in the world, wielding the sword until blood floods the world to the height of a horse's bridle.

53:50They were God's scythe, sent to cut down and eradicate the unrighteous. The Adamites took refuge from the Tzitzka forces on an island in the river Nezarka, from which they went forth in commando raids to try their best, despite their small number, to fulfill their twin pledge of compulsory communism and extermination of the non-elect. At night, they sallied forth in raids, which they called a holy war, to steal everything True to their creed, they murdered every man, woman and child they could discover. Finally Tzitzka sent a force of 400 trained soldiers who besieged the Adamites Island and finally, in October 1421, overwhelmed the commune and massacred every single person.

54:49One more hellish kingdom of God on earth had been put to the sword. The Taborite army was crushed by the moderate Hassites at the Battle of Lipan in 1434, and from then on Taborism declined and went underground. But it continued to emerge here and there, not only among the Czechs but in Bavaria and other German lands bordering Bohemia. The stage was set for the Mincer-Minster phenomenon of the following century.