Balthasar Hubmaier

Balthasar Hubmaier

Balthasar Hubmaier
1480-1528
German Anabaptist. Hubmaier was born of poor parents in Augsburg, Germany. Although little is known of his early life, he became an unusual student, receiving a master’s degree in 1511 from the University of Freiburg, and a doctor of theology degree from the University of Ingolstadt two years later, where he became professor of theology. Soon his fame as a pulpit orator grew, and he was called to Regensburg as chief pastor in the cathedral.

During these years, a great change in his religious convictions was taking place as a result of his study of the Scriptures. There is no record of the date of his conversion. However, in the year 1522, he began to openly preach that the Roman Catholic Church had departed from the doctrines and practices of the Scriptures. He made a trip to Switzerland, where he visited Erasmus and Zwingli, and, soon after, embraced Protestant theology. In the spring of 1525, he began baptizing by immersion the converts that resulted from his preaching and traveling over central and western Europe.

He was continually in danger, and various authorities, religious and political, were constantly after him. In 1526, he fled to Moravia, where, as the result of his ministry, 6,000 converts were baptized in one year. He was the author of many articles and pamphlets condemning and criticizing Rome. In 1528 Catholic authorities arrested him in Vienna and soon condemned him as a heretic and burned him at the stake. His faithful wife, who encouraged him to remain true to the Word of God, was drowned in the Danube River eight days later.

Ruckman ’67