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Updated: June 22, 2025
The Zwickau prophets, with their new revelations and revolts against civil authority; the Wittenberg iconoclasts, with their repudiation of study and learning and all proper church order; and the Sacramentarians, with their insidious rationalism against the plain Word, were not to be entrusted with the momentous interests with which the cause of the Reformation was freighted.
The coals here are very full of gas, which even percolates to the cellars of houses in the town. A bore hole which was sunk in 1852 to a depth of 150 feet, gave off a stream of gas, which ignited, and burnt for many years with a flame some feet long. The Zwickau coal-field in Saxony is one of the most important in Europe.
We had in reality no business near Zwickau, but were seduced out of our direct route by the offer of a cheap ride in an open waggon, and were thus led to a secluded village, where our couch of rest was among the beer puddles on the table of the village tap. On the morrow we found we were a day’s march out of our road.
It had shortly before been completed; that is to say, after Luther in 1525 had finished the portion for the winter half-year, his friend Roth, of Zwickau, brought out in 1527 a complete edition of sermons for the Sundays of the summer half-year, and all the feast-days and holidays, compiled from printed copies and manuscripts of detached sermons.
Melancthon, with all his refinement and purity of soul, had not sufficient energy and independence to bridle the passions and forces that had been aroused by Carlstadt. The Zwickau prophets, with their visions and revelations, haunted him; he seemed incapable of forming any settled or sober judgment on this strange and sudden phenomenon.
The elements of revolution now became absorbed by the Anabaptist movement, a continuation primarily in the religious sphere of the doctrines of the Zwickau enthusiasts and also in many respects of Thomas Münzer. At first Northern Switzerland, especially the towns of Basel and Zürich, were the headquarters of the new sect, which, however, spread rapidly on all sides.
He gave an account and estimate of them in the form of a letter to his friend Hausmann, the priest at Zwickau, 'conjuring' his readers 'from his very heart, for Christ's sake, that if anyone saw plainly a better way in these matters, he should make it known. No one, he declared, durst condemn or despise different forms practised by others.
At first, indeed, Carlstadt kept silent, and continued quietly, till Easter 1523, his lectures at the university. But inwardly he was inclined to a mysticism resembling that of the Zwickau fanatics, and imbibed, like theirs, from mediaval writings; and he too, soon turned, with these views, to new and practical projects of reform.
Meantime the spiritual wants of the community were neglected, and in the hospitals and prisons entirely overlooked. Such was the direction here taken by the reform for which Luther's preaching had prepared the way. And just at this time, at Christmas, three fanatics came to Wittenberg from Zwickau, with the object of taking part in the movement and furthering the work of God.
During the busy times of Lent and Easter, 1522, Luther had again undertaken duty among the Wittenberg congregation, and immediately after Easter he visited Borna, Altenburg, Zwickau, and Eilenburg, where the people were longing to hear his preaching, and where he exerted himself to have an evangelical preacher appointed.
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