MENNO SIMONS (1492-1559), religious leader, was born in 1492 at Witmarsum, Friesland. He was ordained priest, and was curate at Pingjum, near his native place when he began to read Luther's tracts, to study the New Testament and to question infant baptism. The execution, in 1531, at Leeuwarden, of the tailor Sicke Freerks, who had been rebaptized at Emden, intro duced further questions. Menno was not satisfied with the in consistent answers which he got from Luther, Bucer and Bullinger. In 1532 he exchanged his curacy for a living at Witmarsum. Anabaptism of the Miinster type repelled him. A brother of Menno joined the insurgent followers of John Matthyszoon, and was killed at Bolsward (April 1535), and on Jan. 12, 1536, Menno left the Roman communion. There were now among the Ana baptists four parties, the favourers of the Munster faction, the Batenburgers, extremists, the Melchiorites and the Obbenites.
For a time Menno remained aloof from both Melchior Hofman and Obbe Philipsz. Before the year was out, yielding to the prayer of a few who had left the Munster faction, he became their minister, and was set apart (Jan. 1537) to the eldership at Groningen, with imposition of hands by Obbe Philipsz, who is regarded as the actual founder of the Mennonite body. In fact, Obbe left the body and is stigmatized as its Demas. Menno re pudiated the formation of a sect ; those who had experienced the "new birth" were to him the true Christian church. His Christology was in the main orthodox, though he rejected terms (such as Trinity) which he could not find in Scripture, and held a Valentinian doctrine of the celestial origin of the flesh of Christ. His church discipline was drawn from the Swiss Baptists. Neither baptism (by pouring on the head) nor the Lord's Supper (with the accompaniment of feet-washing) conferred grace ; they were divine ordinances which reflected the believer's inward state.
Marriage with outsiders was prohibited. Oaths and the taking of life were absolutely forbidden ; hence the magistracy and the army were for the Mennonite unlawful callings ; but magistrates were to be obeyed in all things not prohibited by Scripture.
Menno was an active missioner ; his changes of place, often compulsory, are difficult to trace. He was apparently much in East Friesland till 1541; in North Holland, with Amsterdam as centre, from 1541 to 1543 ; again till 1545 in East Friesland (where he held a disputation at Emden with John a Lasco in 1544) ; till 1547 in South Holland; next, about Liibeck; at Wis mar in 1553-54 (holding disputations with Martin Micronius at Norden) ; lastly at Wiistenfelde, a village between Hamburg and Liibeck, where he died on Jan. 13, 1559.
The collection of Menno's Opera Omnia Theologica (Amsterdam, 1680, folio, in a Dutch version, comprises 23 tractates, with reference to nine unprinted. A selection (Gedenkbltitter) from his writings, in a German version, was edited by J. Mannhardt (Danzig, 1860 with an appendix from the writings of Dirk Philipsz (1504-70), brother of Obbe, and Menno's henchman. His writings are published in English at Elkhart, Indiana. See R. Barclay, Inner Life of Religious Societies of the Commonwealth (1876) for a good account of Mennonite antici pations of Quaker views and practices ; F. C. Fleischer, Menno Simons, eene Levensschets (1892) ; V. M. Reimann, Mennonis Simonis quails fuerit vita (1894) ; S. Cramer, in Hauck's Realencyklopddie (19o3) ; a separate article in the same, Mennonites, by S. Cramer, gives a survey of the origin and ramifications of the movement in Europe and America.