Great Article Book

Peter Walpot (1521–1578) was a Hutterian bishop and is the most likely compiler and editor of The Great Article Book, a 1570s work that outlined the basis of biblical theology for the Hutterites. Emmy Barth Maendel is a member of the Bruderhof communities and a senior archivist for the Bruderhof’s historical archives. She is the author of An Embassy Besieged: The Story of a Christian Community in Nazi Germany, No Lasting Home: A Year in the Paraguayan Wilderness, and editor of Jakob Hutter: His Life and Letters, the previous title in this series.

Few documents provide a clearer window into the heart of Hutterian faith. Here the scattered testimonies, confessions, and beliefs of the early brotherhood are woven together into a coherent and compelling statement of faith. The result is a Hutterian synthesis: five great articles that express the essential vision of Christian discipleship, community, and witness that sustained the movement through persecution and growth alike. Emmy Barth Maendel's translation is both accurate and readable, and her introduction is superb – learned, insightful, and deeply attentive to the historical world from which this text emerged.—Leonard Gross, author, The Golden Years of the HutteritesDrawing on extensive research into sources and manuscripts, this is a very welcome and highly readable new translation of a remarkable Hutterite document, which includes insights from other Anabaptist streams but presents their distinctive and radical approach to discipleship and community.—Stuart Murray Williams, director, Centre for Anabaptist Studies, Bristol Baptist CollegeI am delighted that through Emmy Barth Maendel's excellent work in translating and editing, Peter Walpot’s The Great Article Book is now published in the Classics of the Radical Reformation series. Peter Walpot was a significant leader in the sixteenth-century Hutterite movement, which was an influential part of wider Anabaptism. His powerful writing, on such issues as baptism, the Lord’s Supper, community of goods and non-violence, remains of considerable relevance and challenge today.—Ian Randall, CambridgeDoctrinal writings among the German and Swiss Anabaptists of the sixteenth century are comparatively rare. For this reason the . . . writings of this type produced by the Hutterian Brethren and carefully preserved through the centuries are especially welcome. In fact, they are a major element in the foundations of this brotherhood which have enabled it to survive in almost its original form to the present day.—Robert Friedemann, Mennonite Quarterly ReviewIn this writing we see both Walpot’s spiritual vision of yielding the individual will to that of the community and his defense of the Hutterian communal ethic against its detractors … Considering the terrible persecution which the Hutterians had suffered and the witness of nearly five hundred years of communal existence they have given the world, the integrity of their spiritual vision, emphasizing internal surrender and the conquest of selfishness, which Walpot’s writing capsulizes, speaks for itself.—Daniel Liechty, Early Anabaptist Spirituality

• Introduction by Emmy Barth MaendelBaptismThe Lord’s SupperCommunityParticipation in Government or ViolenceMarriageAppendix 1: Hutterite Baptism FormularyAppendix 2: Hutterite Marriage VowsScripture IndexBibliographyList of codices