05 - Hans Denck: The Inner and the Outer Word

Hans Denck was born in Bavaria in 1495 and died of the bubonic plague in Basel in 1527. Although he himself was not happy to be known as an Anabaptist, it is almost certainly right to call him such. But it is equally certain that he was far from being a typical Anabaptist – if ever such a person existed. The truth is, if John Calvin was on the right of the Reformation, to the right of Martin Luther, with the Anabaptists on the left of Luther, then Denck found himself well and truly on their left wing. He was what we might call a Spiritual or Mystic Anabaptist. Indeed, it has been claimed that he was a proto-Quaker. No wonder, then, that he met with criticism – and worse!