LOVE IS LIKE FIRE
The Confession of an Anabaptist Prisoner
PETER RIEDEMANN
Written at Gmunden, Upper Austria between 1529 and 1532
EDITED BY
EMMY BARTH MAENDEL
PLOUGH PUBLISHING HOUSE
Published by Plough Publishing House
Walden, New York
Robertsbridge, England
Elsmore, Australia
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Copyright © 1993, 2016 Plough Publishing House
All rights reserved.
2016 edition: PRINT ISBN 978-0-87486-735-0
EPUB ISBN 978-0-87486-736-7
MOBI ISBN 978-0-87486-737-4
PDF ISBN 978-0-87486-738-1
1993 edition: ISBN 0-87486-058-x
Text translated by Kathleen Hasenberg from Robert Friedmann, ed., Glaubenszeugnisse oberdeutscher Taufgesinnter II (Gütersloh: Verlag Gerd Mohn, 1967), 1–47, a diplomatic reproduction of the original German manuscript in the Brünn (Brno) Staatsarchiv, Codex 599, fol. 348–477. Scripture references are from Friedmann’s edition. Cover image: Saint John the Baptist preaching in the Wilderness, c.1633–50 (oil on canvas), Pieter Brueghel the Younger / Private Collection / Photo © Christie’s Images / Bridgeman Images.
LOVE IS LIKE FIRE –
when it is first kindled in a person,
small troubles and temptations smother
and hinder it; but when it really burns,
having kindled an eagerness for God,
the more temptations and tribulations meet it,
the more it flares, until it overcomes and consumes
all injustice and wickedness.
Peter Riedemann
CONTENTS
What Eating Christ’s Flesh Means
What We Believe about the Lord’s Supper
Christ’s Practice versus That of the Antichrist
What We Believe about Marriage
How We Should Build Up the House of God and What the House of God Is
The Seven Pillars of This House
Riedemann’s Ode to Love Werner O. Packull
INTRODUCTION
Stuart Murray
UNLIKE EARLIER radical movements, whose writings were suppressed and eradicated, the sixteenth-century Anabaptists have bequeathed a rich legacy to future generations. The Hutterites in particular have preserved hundreds of hymns, letters written from prison, encouraging responses by church elders, and confessions of faith.
Peter Riedemann’s Love Is Like Fire falls into this last category. Some years later he would write a much longer and more detailed confession, which would be adopted by the Hutterian Brethren as their community’s statement of faith and practice, but this earlier confession by a courageous young prisoner reveals very clearly his passions and priorities.
Unlike many sixteenth-century texts, this confession is concise and eminently readable. This is deliberate. Riedemann writes, “I do not want to make my message too long-winded and thus too tedious to pay attention to.” Much of the confession consists