Written for scattered believers living beneath the cross, the Schleitheim Confession gathered the emerging Swiss Brethren around seven practical convictions: a church of professing disciples, disciplined holiness, the breaking of bread, separation from evil, faithful shepherds, nonviolence, and truthful speech.

The document’s original title is more revealing than the name by which history remembers it: Brotherly Union of a Number of Children of God Concerning Seven Articles. It was not conceived as a complete system of doctrine. It was a pastoral agreement, framed in the language of a family, for congregations that urgently needed unity, order, and courage. Its authors were not enjoying the protection of princes or universities. They were meeting as a vulnerable fellowship whose convictions could bring imprisonment, exile, or death.

The Radical Reformation Takes Shape

The Swiss Brethren had emerged from the circle around Ulrich Zwingli in Zurich. Conrad Grebel, Felix Manz, George Blaurock, and others shared Zwingli’s desire to reform the church by the Word of God, but they came to believe that reform had stopped short. In January 1525 they began baptizing those who personally confessed faith, thereby rejecting infant baptism and the assumption that citizenship and church membership belonged together. The Zurich council answered with banishment and imprisonment; on January 5, 1527, Manz was drowned in the Limmat.

Only weeks later, on February 24, representatives of the Brethren assembled at Schleitheim, a village near Schaffhausen on the northern edge of Switzerland. The meeting took place in a movement already scattered by persecution and divided by competing voices. Some who claimed spiritual liberty had turned it into moral license; other radicals had joined apocalyptic or revolutionary causes. Schleitheim rejected both paths. It sought a visible, disciplined church whose members would follow Christ together in repentance, peace, and holiness.

Michael and Margaretha Sattler

Michael Sattler gave the gathering its strongest leadership and is generally regarded as the principal author of its letter. Formerly a prior at the Benedictine monastery of St. Peter in the Black Forest, he had left the monastery, married Margaretha, and joined the Anabaptist movement. His learning supplied theological depth, but his writing here is not academic. It is the warm, urgent speech of a shepherd trying to steady a little flock.

The confession’s fifth article reveals how near persecution stood. If a pastor should be driven away or “led to the Lord through the cross,” another was to be appointed immediately, lest God’s little flock be destroyed. Within weeks, the sentence became personal. Michael and Margaretha were arrested with other believers near Horb. After a trial at Rottenburg am Neckar, Michael was tortured and burned on May 20, 1527. Margaretha refused to recant and was drowned two days later. Their deaths do not make every conclusion at Schleitheim correct, but they show that its language of discipleship and suffering was neither abstract nor ornamental.

Seven Articles for a Scattered People

The seven subjects move from the church’s entrance to its public witness. Baptism follows repentance and faith. The ban restores discipline among baptized members. The Supper expresses the unity of a gathered body. Separation marks a break with worship and conduct judged contrary to Christ. Shepherds teach, admonish, pray, preside at the breaking of bread, and care for the congregation. The sword belongs to worldly government rather than the church’s life of discipleship. The oath gives way to the transparent truthfulness of a simple yes or no.

These are articles of church order as much as propositions of belief. They assume that doctrine must become a shared manner of life. Schleitheim therefore helped a young and unstable movement recognize what a congregation should look like when its members had no building, legal standing, or civil protection to hold them together.

The Pattern and Shepherd Is Christ

Schleitheim is not a full confession of Christ’s person and work, and it should not be asked to do what it never attempted. Yet Christ pervades its pastoral argument. Sins are taken away through Him; believers are buried and raised with Him in baptism; His broken body and shed blood are remembered at the table; He is the head of the church and the true Shepherd of souls. His meekness governs discipline, His suffering supplies the pattern for nonresistance, His commands shape truthful speech, and His self-giving redemption creates a people zealous for good works.

The confession’s Christ-centeredness is therefore intensely imitative and ecclesial. Its repeated question is not only, “What has Christ said?” but also, “What manner of people must the members of Christ’s body become?” For the Brethren, fidelity meant that the visible church should take the form of its crucified, gentle, and truthful Lord.

A Reformed Assessment

Schleitheim belongs to the Radical Reformation, not to the Reformed confessional tradition, and the differences should not be softened into vagueness. Reformed churches confess the baptism of believers and their children as a sign of the one covenant of grace; Schleitheim restricts baptism to those who first profess repentance and faith. Reformed confessions ordinarily teach that Christians may serve as magistrates, bear the sword lawfully, and swear solemn oaths when truth and justice require them; Schleitheim excludes the disciple of Christ from all three. Its memorial language concerning the Supper also lacks the fuller Reformed confession that believers truly feed upon Christ by faith through the Holy Spirit.

Important agreements remain. Schleitheim appeals insistently to Scripture, insists that faith bears fruit in holiness, takes church discipline seriously, protects the congregation from coercive violence, calls pastors to accountable service, and refuses to identify the church’s power with the state’s. A Reformed reader may honor these biblical concerns, repent of the shameful violence inflicted upon Anabaptists by both Roman Catholic and Protestant authorities, and still judge several of Schleitheim’s conclusions to be mistaken.

Legacy: A Church That Could Survive Without the Sword

The confession spread rapidly. Zwingli answered it in print during 1527, and Calvin later engaged it through a French translation. More importantly, it gave Swiss and South German Anabaptists a durable grammar for congregational life. Its teaching on baptism, discipline, nonresistance, and oaths became especially influential in later Mennonite, Hutterite, Amish, and related traditions, though historians caution against drawing a simple line of textual dependence from Schleitheim to every later Anabaptist confession.

Its enduring force lies partly in the union of tenderness and resolve. The letter addresses “brothers and sisters,” seeks the comfort of troubled consciences, asks prayer even for those who have wandered, and closes with the peace of God. Yet it also calls the church to costly obedience. The persecuted did not merely leave a record of what they opposed. They passed down a positive vision of a people gathered by Christ, nourished at His table, guarded by loving discipline, served by faithful shepherds, and armed with truth, righteousness, peace, faith, salvation, and the Word of God.

Brotherly Union of a Number of Children of God Concerning Seven Articles

Opening Letter

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Joy, peace, and mercy from our Father, through the reconciliation accomplished by the blood of Christ Jesus, together with the gifts of the Spirit, whom the Father sends to all believers for strength, comfort, and steadfastness in every tribulation until the end. Amen.

May these be with all who love God and all children of light who are scattered everywhere, wherever God our Father has appointed them, and wherever they are gathered with one mind in the one God and Father of us all. Grace and peace in your hearts be with you all. Amen.

Beloved brothers and sisters in the Lord: Our first and chief concern has always been your comfort and the assurance of your consciences, which were once confused. We desire that you should no longer remain strangers separated from us, and almost rightly excluded, but that you should return to the true, implanted members of Christ, who are prepared through patience and self-knowledge, and so be united with us again in the power of a godly Christian spirit and in zeal for God.

It is also evident by how many cunning devices the devil has drawn us aside, intending to destroy and overthrow the work of God that has mercifully and graciously begun among us. But Christ, the faithful Shepherd of our souls, who began this work in us, will direct and teach it to the end, for His honor and our salvation. Amen.

Beloved brothers and sisters, we who were assembled together in the Lord at Schleitheim on the Randen make known, in the following points and articles, to all who love God that we have been brought to agreement. As far as we are concerned, we intend to stand firm in the Lord as God’s obedient children, sons and daughters who are and shall be separated from the world in all that they do and leave undone. To God alone be praise and glory. Without contradiction among the brothers, all have come fully to peace in this matter.

In this we have perceived that the unity of the Father and of our common Christ, through His Spirit, has been with us. For the Lord is a Lord of peace and not of strife, as Paul teaches. So that you may understand the articles in which this agreement has been reached, you should mark and consider what follows.

Certain false brothers have introduced a great offense among us, so that some have turned aside from the faith while imagining that they were practicing and enjoying the freedom of the Spirit and of Christ. They have missed the truth and, to their condemnation, have surrendered themselves to the wanton freedom of the flesh. They have supposed that faith and love permit everything and that nothing can harm or condemn them because they are believers.

Take heed, you who are members of God in Christ Jesus: faith in the heavenly Father through Jesus Christ is not of this kind. It neither produces nor practices the things that these false brothers and sisters practice and teach. Guard yourselves and receive warning concerning them, for they do not serve our Father, but their father, the devil.

But you are not so. Those who belong to Christ have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. You understand well whom and what brothers we mean. Separate yourselves from them, for they have turned aside. Pray to the Lord that they may receive knowledge leading to repentance, and pray for us, that we may have constancy to continue in the path we have taken, to the honor of God and of Christ His Son. Amen.

The articles that we considered and upon which we reached agreement are these: baptism; the ban; the breaking of bread; separation from the abomination; shepherds in the church; the sword; and the oath.

Article 1Baptism

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First, take note concerning baptism. Baptism shall be given to all who have been taught repentance and amendment of life and who truly believe that their sins have been taken away through Christ; to all who desire to walk in the resurrection of Jesus Christ and to be buried with Him in death so that they may also rise with Him; and to all who, with this understanding, ask baptism of us and request it for themselves.

By this, every baptism of infants is excluded—the highest and chief abomination of the pope. For this you have the foundation and testimony of Scripture and the practice of the apostles: Matthew 28; Mark 16; Acts 2, 8, 16, and 19. To this we intend to hold simply, yet firmly and with assurance.

Article 2The Ban

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Second, we have been united concerning the ban as follows. The ban shall be used with all who have given themselves to the Lord to walk after Him in His commandments, and with all who have been baptized into the one body of Christ and call themselves brothers or sisters, yet who sometimes slip and fall into fault and sin, being overtaken unawares.

Such persons shall be admonished privately a first and second time; the third time they shall be corrected publicly before the entire congregation, or put under the ban, according to Christ’s command in Matthew 18. This shall take place, in accordance with the ordering of God’s Spirit, before the breaking of bread, so that in one mind and one love we may break and eat from one bread and drink from one cup.

Article 3The Breaking of Bread

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Third, concerning the breaking of bread, we have become one and reached this agreement. All who desire to break the one bread in remembrance of Christ’s broken body, and all who desire to drink from the one drink in remembrance of Christ’s shed blood, must first have been united by baptism into the one body of Christ—that is, into the church of God, whose head is Christ.

For, as Paul teaches, we cannot at the same time share in the Lord’s table and the table of devils. Neither can we at the same time share in and drink from the Lord’s cup and the devil’s cup. That is, all who have fellowship with the dead works of darkness have no part in the light. All who follow the devil and the world have no part with those whom God has called out of the world. All who lie in wickedness have no part in the good.

Therefore it is and must be thus: Whoever does not share, with all the children of God’s church, the calling of the one God to one faith, one baptism, one Spirit, and one body cannot be made one bread with them. Yet this unity is necessary if the bread is truly to be broken according to Christ’s command.

Article 4Separation from the Abomination

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Fourth, we have been united concerning separation. Separation shall be made from the evil and wickedness that the devil has planted in the world. In this manner alone: that we shall have no fellowship with them and shall not run with them in the multitude of their abominations.

This is the matter: all who have not entered into the obedience of faith, and who have not united themselves with God in the desire to do His will, are a great abomination before God. Therefore nothing other than abominable things can grow or spring from them.

For in all creation there are only these two kinds: good and evil; believing and unbelieving; darkness and light; the world and those who have come out of the world; the temple of God and idols; Christ and Belial. Neither can have fellowship with the other. The Lord’s command is also plain to us: He commands us to be separated from evil, and then He will be our God and we shall be His sons and daughters.

He further admonishes us to depart from Babylon and from earthly Egypt, lest we also become partakers of the torment and suffering that the Lord will bring upon them.

From all this we should learn that whatever is not united with our God and Christ can be nothing other than an abomination, which we should shun and flee. By this are meant all papal and anti-papal works and worship, assemblies, churchgoing, drinking houses, civic associations, pledges made in unbelief, and other things of that kind. The world regards them highly, yet they are carried on in direct contradiction to God’s command, in keeping with all the unrighteousness that is in the world.

From all these things we shall be separated and have no part in them. They are nothing but abominations, which make us hateful before our Christ Jesus. He has freed us from the bondage of the flesh and made us fit for the service of God through the Spirit whom He has given us.

Therefore the unchristian and even devilish weapons of force must also unquestionably fall away from us—such as sword, armor, and the like, and every use of them, whether for friends or against enemies—by the power of Christ’s word: “Do not resist the one who is evil” (Matthew 5:39).

Article 5Shepherds in the Church

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Fifth, we have been united concerning shepherds in the church of God as follows. The shepherd in the church of God shall be a person who, according to Paul’s rule, has in every respect a good testimony from those who are outside the faith.

His office shall be to read, exhort, and teach; to warn, correct, and exercise the ban in the congregation; to lead all the brothers and sisters in prayer for their improvement; to take up the bread when it is to be broken; and in all things to watch over the body of Christ, so that it may be built up and improved and the mouth of the slanderer may be stopped.

Moreover, where he has need, the shepherd shall be supported by the congregation that chose him, so that one who serves the gospel may also live from the gospel, as the Lord has ordained.

But if a shepherd should do something worthy of correction, no charge shall be received against him without two or three witnesses. Those who sin shall be corrected before all, so that the others may fear.

If, however, this shepherd should be driven away or be led to the Lord through the cross, another shall be appointed in his place immediately, so that God’s little people and little flock may not be destroyed.

Article 6The Sword

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Sixth, we have been united concerning the sword as follows. The sword is an ordering of God outside the perfection of Christ. It punishes and puts to death the wicked and protects and guards the good. In the law, the sword was ordained for the punishment and death of the wicked, and the worldly magistrates are ordained to use it.

But within the perfection of Christ, the ban alone is used for the warning and exclusion of the one who has sinned, without putting the flesh to death; there is only admonition and the command to sin no more.

Many who do not recognize this as Christ’s will for us will now ask whether a Christian may or should use the sword against the wicked for the protection and defense of the good, or for love’s sake. Our unanimous answer is revealed as follows.

Christ teaches and commands us to learn from Him, for He is gentle and humble in heart, and thus we shall find rest for our souls. Christ said to the woman caught in adultery, not that she should be stoned according to His Father’s law—although He also said, “I do as the Father has commanded Me”—but He treated her with mercy, forgiveness, and the warning to sin no more, saying, “Go, and sin no more.” We also ought to act entirely in this manner, according to the rule of the ban.

Second, concerning the sword, it is asked whether a Christian should pronounce judgment in the worldly quarrels and disputes that unbelievers have with one another. This is the united answer: Christ did not wish to decide or judge between brothers in the dispute over an inheritance, but declined to do so. We should do likewise.

Third, concerning the sword, it is asked whether a Christian should become a magistrate if chosen to that office. The answer is this: the people wished to make Christ a king, but He fled and did not regard it as His Father’s ordering. We should do as He did and follow after Him; then we shall not walk in darkness. For He Himself says, “If anyone would come after Me, let him deny himself, take up his cross, and follow Me.”

He also forbids the power of the sword when He says, “The rulers of the nations lord it over them . . . but it shall not be so among you.” Paul further says that those whom God foreknew He also predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son. Peter likewise says that Christ suffered, not ruled, leaving us an example so that we should follow in His footsteps.

Finally, it is evident that it cannot be fitting for a Christian to be a magistrate, for these reasons. The magistrate’s government is according to the flesh, but the Christian’s is according to the Spirit. Their houses and dwelling are in this world, but the Christian’s dwelling is in heaven. Their citizenship is in this world, but the Christian’s citizenship is in heaven. The weapons of their conflict and warfare are fleshly and directed only against the flesh, but the Christian’s weapons are spiritual and directed against the strongholds of the devil.

Worldly people are armed with steel and iron, but Christians are armed with the armor of God: with truth, righteousness, peace, faith, salvation, and the Word of God. In sum, the mind that Christ our head has toward us should also be the mind of every member of Christ’s body through Him, so that no division may arise in the body and destroy it. For every kingdom divided against itself will be destroyed.

Since Christ is as Scripture describes Him, His members must also be of that same character, so that His body may remain whole and united for its own strengthening and upbuilding.

Article 7The Oath

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Seventh, we have been united concerning the oath as follows. An oath is a confirmation between those who are quarreling or making promises. In the law it was commanded that an oath be made in the name of God, but only truthfully and not falsely.

Christ, who teaches the perfection of the law, forbids His own to swear at all, whether truly or falsely: neither by heaven, nor by the earth, nor by Jerusalem, nor by our head. He gives the reason immediately afterward: “You cannot make one hair white or black.” Take heed: this is why every oath is forbidden. We are unable to fulfill what is promised in swearing, since we cannot change even the smallest thing about ourselves.

Now some do not give credence to God’s simple command, but speak and ask in this way: “Did not God swear to Abraham by Himself, since He was God, when He promised that He would show him favor and be his God if Abraham kept His commandments? Why, then, should I not also swear when I promise something to someone?”

Answer: Hear what Scripture says. When God desired to show the heirs of the promise more abundantly that His purpose does not change, He confirmed it with an oath, so that by two unchangeable things, in which it is impossible for God to lie, we might have strong comfort.

Mark the meaning of this Scripture. God has power to do what He forbids you to do, for all things are possible with Him. Scripture says that God swore an oath to Abraham in order to show that His purpose does not change. That is, no one could oppose or hinder His will, and therefore He could keep the oath. But we can do nothing, as Christ said above, to keep or fulfill an oath. Therefore we shall not swear at all.

Some say further: “Swearing is not forbidden by God in the New Testament, though it was commanded in the Old. Only swearing by heaven, earth, Jerusalem, and our head is forbidden.” Answer: Hear the Scripture: whoever swears by heaven swears by the throne of God and by Him who sits upon it.

Take heed: if it is forbidden to swear by heaven, which is only God’s throne, how much more is it forbidden to swear by God Himself? You fools and blind, which is greater, the throne or the One who sits upon it?

Still others say: “If it is wrong to call upon God to confirm the truth, then the apostles Peter and Paul also swore.” Answer: Peter and Paul only testify to what God promised Abraham by an oath; they themselves promise nothing, as the examples plainly show.

To testify and to swear are two different things. When a person swears, he promises something yet future, as Christ was promised to Abraham and was received by us long afterward. But when a person testifies, he declares something present, whether good or evil. Thus Simeon spoke to Mary concerning Christ and testified: “Behold, this child is appointed for the fall and rising of many in Israel, and for a sign that will be opposed.”

Christ taught us in the same manner when He said, “Let your speech be ‘Yes, yes’ and ‘No, no’; anything more than this comes from evil.” He says that our speech or word shall be yes and no. Whoever refuses to understand remains closed to His meaning. Christ is the simple Yes and No, and all who seek Him in simplicity will understand His Word. Amen.

Concluding Exhortation

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Beloved brothers and sisters in the Lord: These are the articles that certain brothers until now have understood mistakenly and differently from the true meaning. In this way they confused many weak consciences and caused the name of God to be greatly blasphemed. It therefore became necessary for us to be united in the Lord, and this has now taken place. To God be praise and glory!

Since you have now understood abundantly the will of God revealed to you through us, it is necessary that you steadfastly and without turning aside accomplish the will of God that you have recognized. For you know well what reward belongs to the servant who sins knowingly.

Everything you did in ignorance and have confessed to have been done wrongly is forgiven you through the prayer of faith offered in our assembly for all our faults and guilt, through God’s gracious forgiveness and through the blood of Jesus Christ. Amen.

Watch all who do not walk according to the simplicity of the divine truth contained in this letter from our assembly, so that everyone among us may be governed by the rule of the ban and so that entrance among us may henceforth be denied to false brothers and sisters. Put away from among you what is evil, and the Lord will be your God and you shall be His sons and daughters.

Beloved brothers, remember what Paul admonishes Titus:

For the grace of God that brings salvation has appeared to all, training us to deny ungodliness and worldly desires and to live self-controlled, righteous, and godly lives in this present world, while we wait for the blessed hope and the appearing of the glory of the great God and of our Savior Jesus Christ. He gave Himself for us so that He might redeem us from all unrighteousness and purify for Himself a people for His own possession, zealous for good works.

Consider this and practice it, and the Lord of peace will be with you. May the name of God be blessed forever and highly praised. Amen. May the Lord give you His peace. Amen.

Enacted at Schleitheim on the Randen, on St. Matthias’s Day, in the year 1527.

Creeds and Confessions