Menno Simons and martin luther’s interpretative approaches in the protestant hermeneutical horizon

H. Poettcker in his dissertation on the hermeneutics of M. Simons agrees: “Menno is intent on maintaining the unity of the Scriptures. In his contention with Martin Micron concerning the non-swearing of oaths he expresses the concern, that this matter must be weighed in such a manner that the unity of the Scriptures is maintained, and this will result in the correct meaning being achieved” [Poettcker 1961: 126].

Simons understands the unity of the biblical text not only in terms of the immediate and wider context. All the interpreters in all the times stressed the importance of the context. G. Osborne devotes to the context a whole chapter in his book: he calls it “the scaffolding on which we can build the in-depth meaning of a passage. Without a strong scaffolding, the edifice of interpretation is bound to collapse” [Osborne 2006: 37]. His book represents a classical approach to hermeneutics: the interpreter begins with considering the historical and logical context, and only after that the process of interpretation begins. The historical context is meant to introduce one to the historical situation, issues of dating and authorship, the audience and the purpose of the specific passage. The logical context, in turn, draws one into the immediate environment of the narrative and helps to place the biblical passage in the immediate and larger narrative of the text; eventually, it connects the meaning of a small fragment with a whole book or several books. Simons never uses this paradigm that became standard for the interpreters of the modern era. He sees the Bible as it is - as a whole, not in its original form and historical development. For Menno, the text exists in the form in which it was received by the church and passed into the hands of the researcher. He shows absolutely no interest in who wrote the text or where, and whether it had redactors or appeared at once. He does not look for the original audience of each book; he does not even divide the biblical text into separate books for hermeneutical needs. His conclusions are rarely based on single Scripture verses; but he works with a text composed of parts written by different authors in different historical periods as with a whole, single document. This feature can be called “canonical interpretation,” and we would like to lay particular emphasis on it since the scholars who studied Menno's works did not pay much attention to it.

Unlike Menno, Luther always had a “canon within the canon.” For him, the Apostle Paul and the Epistle to the Romans play a very special role, and all Luther's hermeneutics is developed on the foundation of saving faith. It is through the lens of this prior understanding that he viewed both the Old and the New Testaments. At the beginning of his sermon on First Peter, Luther says,

Therefore St. Paul's epistles are gospel to a greater degree than the writings of Matthew, Mark, and Luke. For the latter do little more than relate the history of the deeds and miracles of Christ. But no one stresses the grace we have through Christ so valiantly as St. Paul does, especially in his Epistle to the Romans [LW 30:4; Pelican 1967].

For Menno, a saying like that would be simply unthinkable. Although he gave the New Testament precedence over the Old, he always had a holistic view of Scripture and based his interpretation on the canon as a whole.

In the second half of the 20^th century, a similar hermeneutical paradigm became known as the canonical approach, associated with the name of B. Childs [Childs 1970; Childs 1984], who tried to turn the interpreters from the search for the circumstances behind the text to the text “as it is.” In interpreting the Bible, Menno almost without reservation held to this system, which is now gaining popularity in different confessional groups. Pope Benedict XVI in his apostolic exhortation Verbum Domini (2010) points out that “the text must be interpreted with attention to the unity of the whole of Scripture; nowadays this is called canonical exegesis” [Benedict XVI 2010; italics in the original]. An Orthodox researcher M. Kovshov believes that “the canonical approach suggested by Brevard Childs is of a special interest” for contemporary Orthodox Bible scholars [Kovshov 2011: 153].

What is the foundation of Menno's confidence in the reliability of the biblical text in the form he received? And what biblical text did he use? Poettcker argues that at the time Menno wrote his main work, Foundation, he used chiefly the East Frisian version based on Luther's German Translation prepared by Bugenhagen [Poettcker 1961: 74]. Menno's works indicate that he knew and used the Latin translation (Vulgate) and the Greek text of the New Testament published by Erasmus of Rotterdam. It means that by comparing different versions of the biblical text, Menno sought to eliminate possible textual inaccuracies. It shows that he had a mature understanding of the dual nature of Scripture and took into account the human factor present in the process of writing and transmission of the biblical text.

The obvious and the true sense. Like all the reformers of that time, Menno had a tacit understanding of the concept of the “true sense” and its distortions. Unlike the leaders of the Magisterial Reformation, Menno connects the true sense with the existential understanding of the category of the obvious, not with the scholarly analysis leading to the obvious. In other words, Menno is convinced that the Bible is the absolute revelation of God and that it clearly communicates what God wants to say to people of all ages. He is very far from postmodern relativism; he believes in absolute truth and thinks that this truth has been revealed to him in a sufficient way. The full title of his main work, Ein Fundament unde klare awisinge van de heylsame unde Godtfellyghe leere Jesu Christi uth Godes woort mit gueder corte vervatet under wederumme mit grooter vlyte averghelesen unde ghebetert translated from Dutch is: A Foundation and Plain Instruction of the Saving and God-Pleasing Teaching of Jesus Christ, Briefly Compiled from the Word of God and Again with Great Diligence Read Over and Improved. At the end of the Preface, he writes: “And... [we] testify before you in Christ Jesus that we neither have, nor know any other positions, faith, or doctrine than that which may be plainly read, heard, and understood in the following from the Word of God” [Simons 1956: 108]. The expressions “plain teaching,” “plain understanding of the Scripture,” etc. are used throughout his works. Menno never questions the authenticity of the biblical text and has not the slightest doubt about its inspired authority. Perhaps he never reflected on why he had a firm conviction that objective truth exists and why the Bible is true. To him, it comes as the result of the self-evident premonition of the Truth and its appropriation without critical analysis.

Menno's apodictic understanding of the highest authority of the Bible was prepared, in our opinion, not so much by reading theological works, as by his upbringing, the general mindset of his time, and by personal revelation at the time of his conversion. Recounting his conversion experience, he describes his previous state: his colleagues, other priests, were already familiar with the Scriptures, but he was afraid to read them: “I feared if I should read them” [Simons 1956: 668]. In the “Catholic” period of his life, Menno believed that the biblical text is too difficult for direct comprehension and requires an intermediary - an interpreter. But when he had doubts about the transubstantiation of the Eucharistic bread and wine, he turned not to

Thomas Aquinas or to any other official theologian of the church to which he belonged, but to the text of the New Testament.

Finally, I got the idea to examine the New Testament diligently. I had not gone very far when I discovered that we were deceived, and my conscience, troubled on account of the aforementioned bread, was quickly relieved, even without any instructions. I was in so far helped by Luther, however: that human injunctions cannot bind unto eternal death [Simons 1956: 668].

This testimony indicates that Menno did not only put his trust in the biblical text, but also accepted it without a priori assumptions of commentators, and only later confirmed his revolutionary understanding by referring to Luther's intrepid example. Thus, based on trusting the Bible, and not on trusting experience, Simons' holistic canonical system of understanding the Scripture was formed.

Relevant and applicable hermeneutics. One of the most characteristic features of the entire Anabaptist movement and, above all, its herald - Menno Simons - was the idea of practical Christianity: the life of Christ is to be manifested in his faithful followers. Menno came to the concept of applicable hermeneutics, i.e., a system of understanding the text that discovers in it new meanings relevant to the changing cultural or social circumstances of the reader and sees ways of applying those meanings to daily life.

This principle was the main reason why Menno did not accept the interpretation of the Bible developed by the classical reformers. Those reformers, especially Luther, were mostly concerned with theology, not ethics. Luther was conducting the Reformation primarily in theology and for the sake of correct theology. He criticized his predecessors - J. Wycliffe, J. Hus, and others - for paying close attention to the moral condition of the church. Luther's theological discovery constituted the realization that God justifies the sinner without deeds, by his mercy through faith. That is why he was suspicious of emphasizing highly moral behavior; it could be viewed as an attempt to earn salvation by holy living. Luther's teaching about saving faith versus deeds and about God's grace versus man's merits was so radical that in practice it led to almost completely neglecting the ethics of Christian behavior and godly living, although Luther himself never wanted that outcome. Luther's paradoxical and even provocative statement, Pecca fortiter (“sin boldly”), is often quoted when one wishes to justify some immoral behavior. This well-known phrase comes from Luther's private correspondence - a letter to Melanchthon, written in Latin, on 1 August 1521. We will quote this phrase in a broader context to show not only Luther's true intention, but also his rather tolerant attitude to individual sin. John Alfred Faulkner, a famous American historian, translated this letter into English. The passage in question is rendered the following way,

If you are a preacher of grace, preach a real grace, not a fictitious one. God does not make saved sinners fictitiously. Be a sinner and sin boldly [hold yourself for a great sinner], but believe more boldly and rejoice in Christ, who is victor over sin, death, and the world. There is to be sin as long as we are thus [that is, in this life there is bound to be sin, even in Christians, as both the Roman church and the Reformers held]; for this life is not the habitation of righteousness, but we look for, and godly, but his fascination with theology at the expense of ethics resulted in tragic developments in the practical life of Lutheran communities.

Seeing the results of Luther's hermeneutics and actively criticizing it in his discussions with Lutheran and Reformed theologiansSee Menno Simons' “Reply to a Publication of Gellius Faber” and his polemics with M. Micron and John a Lasco. Menno chose another system that was based rather on ethics than on theology. For him, the Lutheran idea that “this life is not the habitation of righteousness” was completely unacceptable.

Simons fully agrees with Luther that salvation is given according to faith, not according to human deeds or merits, but he always and everywhere insists that faith has to show itself in good deeds. He writes:

For true faith which is acceptable before God cannot be barren; it must bring forth fruit and manifest its nature. It works ceaselessly in love, enters willingly into righteousness, mortifies flesh and blood, crucifies the lusts and desires, rejoices in the cross of Christ, renews and regenerates.... A fruitless, impotent faith, the kind the whole world has, and which does not work by love, be it ever so learned, wise, eloquent, fine-appearing, and miraculous, is in the sight of God unclean, dead, and accursed [Simons 1956: 116].

Simons and the other Anabaptists, unlike Lutherans and Reformed preachers, emphasized the deeds of faith so much that they were often accused of preaching salvation by deeds. But Simons' soteriological sequence is perfectly biblical: faith comes first, followed by the deeds confirming it; regeneration comes first, followed by sanctification.

This principle that many later researchers called “Christianity as discipleship” logically leads to what Murray characterized as the hermeneutics of obedience. Emphasizing the importance of Christian practice for the Anabaptists, Murray argues that some of their leaders (for example, P. Marpeck) rejected the difference between interpretation and application altogether. According to the Anabaptists, the interpreter cannot explain the Scripture without accepting the responsibility for its application [Murray 2009: 423]. For a long time, the Anabaptist communities kept H. Denck's motto: “No man may truly know Christ, except he follow him in life” [Dyck 1978: 58].

Menno writes to his accusers: “You say, we are inexpert, unlearned, and know not the Scriptures. I reply: The Word is plain and needs no interpretation: namely, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy strength, and thy neighbor as thyself. Matt. 22:37, 39” [Simons 1956: 214]. Simons' argument is the following: the Word of God requires no interpretation because it is based on the commandment of loving God and one's neighbor. To him it is clear that only one who loves, and not one who is educated, acquires an understanding of the biblical text. C. Dyck writes about the Anabaptists:

When this kind of approach is pejoratively identified as biblical literalism it is usually assumed that the interpretation is simplistic, taken out from its historical and grammatical context, and applied legalistically. The Anabaptists, especially Menno, identified this kind of response as an easy attempt to get out from under the hard sayings of Jesus [Dyck 1978: 63].

The biblical Anabaptists insisted on applying the biblical text not only in the ecclesiastical or specifically religious life but above all in personal behavior. Simons demanded that the ethical authority of Scripture be applied to all the members of the group, not just to certain classes, as was the case in the Catholic tradition. Also, it is important to remember that Menno insisted on existential, rather than intellectual, knowledge and understanding of the Bible.

This applicable understanding is closely linked with the relevance of Scripture to Simons. To use a modern expression, Menno reads the Bible “here and now,” and he is not very interested in what it said “there and then.” In this, he also follows the example of Christ who used the Scripture, not in a historical way - as a message to the original addressee, but in a relevant way - as a message addressed to his contemporaries. For example, Jesus says, “You hypocrites! Well did Isaiah prophesy of you, when he said: `This people honors me with their lips, but their heart is far from me'” (Mt. 15:7-8, ESV). Christ quotes the Book of Isaiah (Is. 29:13) and explains that the prophet speaks about the first-century Pharisees, although the historical-grammatical context does not give reasons to think so. Menno does the same. As he writes about the preachers of his time, he puts all of them (except for Anabaptists) in one group and says,... they shamefully deprive Christ of His honor and gain, and scatter His sheep; with the sword of their deceiving doctrines they destroy the poor souls who are so greatly loved by the Lord, so earnestly sought, and so dearly purchased. They so war against the Word and ordinances of the Lord that we say and teach with Christ: Let them alone; they be blind leaders of the blind [Simons 1956: 169].

On the one hand, such an approach is quite productive if the reader correctly evaluates the context and follows the intentions of the applied text. On the other hand, it is not without its weaknesses, and the main weakness is seen in either deliberate or unintentional application of the prophetic text to a wrong addressee or using it in the way defined by one's theological preferences and biases. In this case, it is not the biblical text that defines the content and purpose of the interpretation; it is rather the interpreter who “forces” the biblical text to conform to his or her intentions. Besides, such use of the text may lead (and has led on some occasions) to its distorted understanding resulting from ignorance of the basic historical circumstances in which it was written; or it may lead to illegitimate allegorical fantasies. Still, such a relevant reading of the Bible turned out to be highly practical because it taught the reader to develop a theological understanding of various situations in his or her life and to view personal behavior from the biblical perspective.

With the magisterial reformers, it was different. Their emphasis on the historical context often prevented readers from forming a personal hermeneutical system. Practically all the reformers in their hermeneutical work stressed the importance of “application.” Performing the historical analysis of the text they often sought to offer moral lessons and show the practical application of what was read. But very often they bypassed the stage of theological reflection and created a direct connection between biblical exegesis and moral teaching. That was a good move, but exhortations to the holy and devout life often sounded just like slogans and truisms and did not take root in the practical life of the listeners. The addressees of such a message knew examples of right behavior offered by biblical characters, but in real life, they behaved quite differently - largely because they had no idea how to apply the biblical norms and values to their daily situations.

Right now the popularity of applicable hermeneutics is rising. According to A. Thiselton, “To appreciate and to appropriate what we seek to understand with sensitivity have priority over the traditional method of scrutinizing `objects' of perception, thought, and knowledge.... Ernst Fuchs... insists, `The texts must translate us before we can translate them.' The interpreter of the text is not a neutral observer, on the analogy of the supposed stance of the natural scientist or empiricist. Understanding in the fullest sense demands engagement and self-involvement" [Thiselton 2009: 7-8; italics in the original]. That is what Menno demonstrated in his works.

Community hermeneutics

Another remarkable feature of Menno's approach was his community hermeneutics. It was completely different from the methodology used in the classical Reformation. Luther, Calvin, and other fathers of the Reformation proclaimed that the Bible could be read by everyone, but in practice they allowed only that understanding of the text that they considered correct. It was enforced through their followers' obedience to the confessions of faith, catechisms, and other confessional documents. The radicals did not have unified written documents and, as many researchers point out, they were not bound by their confessions of faith since those confessions tended to be ethical and practical rather than doctrinal. A good example of that is the earliest Schleitheim Confession of 1527 that deals almost exclusively with the questions of church polity and the relationship with the outside world.

The mystical and rationalist groups of early Anabaptists most often held to the interpretation defined by the charismatic leader of the group, whereas the biblical Anabaptists came to the idea of community hermeneutics. S. Murray notes: Anabaptist congregational hermeneutics represented a refusal to endorse the Spiritualists' autonomous individualism, a rejection of the Catholics' drastic curtailing of private interpretation by the authority of ecclesiastical traditions, and a qualification of the Reformers' application of Sola Scriptura, which disenfranchised most Christians and replaced priestly tyranny with a tyranny of the preacher [Murray 2009: 418].

Community hermeneutics was based on the characteristic Anabaptist ecclesiology: holiness and unity were seen as the defining features of the church. The Anabaptists believed that the church is the community of saints separated from the world and joined with Christ in baptism. In his works Menno offered the following definition of the church: ... a gathering or congregation of saints, as the Holy Scriptures and the Nicene Creed clearly teach and present, namely, those who through true faith are regenerated by God unto Christ Jesus and are of a divine nature, who would gladly regulate their lives according to the Spirit, Word, and example of the Lord, men who are actuated by His Spirit, and are willing and ready patiently to bear the cross of their Lord Jesus Christ [Simons 1956: 667].

Viewing the church as a gathering of the members who are equal in their relationship to Christ, the radicals concluded that every member of the church is competent as an interpreter since everyone is guided by the Spirit and is directly connected with the head of the church, Jesus. That is why the Anabaptist communities rejected spiritual hierarchy; all members were truly equal in their understanding of the Holy Scripture. That understanding depended on the measure of their faith and on the revelations that each one received from the Lord individually. As a practical result of that, every member of the community could participate in the service, because all understood each other as priests of the Most High God. Such egalitarianism did not encourage the emergence of outstanding commentators but gave to the members an opportunity to correct each other's behavior and interpretation of the Holy Scripture. Thus, if an unusual interpretation or a new understanding of some passage from Scripture appeared, it inevitably was judged by the community or a group of communities.

The collective opinion examined, corrected, supplemented, and enhanced individual interpretations. This led to the enrichment of the content and to reaching a consensus - or, as the Anabaptists were fond of saying, unity and agreement.

The idea of consensus is illustrated by the Schleitheim Confession of 1527. Even the title of this document says, “Brotherly union of a number of Children of God concerning seven articles,” The full text of the Schleitheim confession in English is given in William Lumpkin's book Baptist Confession of Faith [Lumpkin 1969: 23-31]. In Russian it is given in the book “Menno Simons i anabaptisy” (Menno Simons and Anabaptists) published in Germany (ed. S. Sannikov) [Menno Simons... 2012: 441-448]. and all the articles (except the first) begin with the phrase “We are agreed,” where the passive voice is used. It hints that the members were not gathered by themselves, but they were united from Above, and thus they came to agreement in their understanding of the Scripture. This reveals a deep spiritual reason why Menno and other biblical Anabaptists believed in the efficiency of the community hermeneutics. They insisted that the Scripture can be better interpreted in a hermeneutical community because the Spirit acts freely there, and only the Spirit can reveal the true meaning of the text. He does it when Christians gather to listen to him and to obey him. From their point of view, outside of the community only intellectual knowledge about the Truth is possible, but knowing the Truth per se is possible only after joining the community of faithful followers of Christ.

Conclusion

As the comparison between the Anabaptist and classical Protestant approaches to the interpretation of the sacred text shows, Martin Luther's hermeneutics was quite different from that of Menno Simons and other early biblical Anabaptists. Due to several factors, especially the rejection of the radical Reformation by all the religious groups in the 16^th century, that interpretative model and its founding principles were forgotten, although they do deserve some scholarly attention. In this hermeneutical system, one can clearly see such ideas as the failure of the quest for the original meaning, emphasis on the applied understanding of the text, its self-interpreting nature, etc. These principles, intuitively understood in the radicals' philosophical hermeneutics, bear similarities to the philosophical hermeneutics that was evaluated and developed by Gadamer and his followers in much later periods. The radicals anticipated what the founders of the philosophical hermeneutics would formulate. For them, the interpreter's task was not about perceiving the meaning, but about the ontological development of understanding as a moment in a person's life in the community. Therefore, their hermeneutics turns into a teaching about human existence and thus transcends exclusively biblical and theological horizons. According to the radicals, it is impossible to understand the truth without practical submission to it.

Menno interprets the text of the Scripture not in the historical aspect (as a message to the original addressee), but through the prism of its relevance - as a message to the contemporary reader. This is remarkably different from the historical-critical method so popular in Lutheranism.

The community hermeneutics, practically discovered by the Anabaptist tradition, is gaining prominence in contemporary theological/philosophical analysis, although this area remains insufficiently researched. Many of its questions seem to be quite relevant for contemporary scholarship. For example: how did a local church function as a hermeneutical community (and how can it function this way)? How is a consensus reached? What is the role of the leaders in the process of collective interpretation? All these questions invite further study.

This comparative study of Menno's and Luther's hermeneutics leads one to challenge the widespread view of the Anabaptist approach to the Bible as primitive and unscholarly. Although the principles of radical hermeneutics are indeed based on pre-critical methods of interpretation, studying this little-known movement may have both theoretical and practical importance for the history of philosophy and theology.

According to Wilhelm Dilthey, “The science of hermeneutics actually begins with Protestantism, although the art of exegesis and reflection on it are, of course, much older” [Dilthey 1996: 33]. Of course, Protestant hermeneutics can be understood, in a broader sense, as a forerunner of philosophical hermeneutics. The hermeneutics of the classical Reformation should also be supplemented by that of the radicals; that would allow one to see the richness and the pluralistic nature of the intellectual life of the Reformation period.

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