BIO: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 de-
gree 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, em-
braced 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 authori-
ties, religious and political, were constantly after him. In 
1526, he fled to Moravia, where, as the result of his minis-
try, 6,000 converts were baptized in one year. He was the au-
thor of many articles and pamphlets condemning and criticiz-
ing 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
