Catholic and Protestant reformers in the 16th century
occasionally spoke scornfully of Anabaptists as "new monks,"
referring to Anabaptist insistence on holy living and intense
spiritual life (e.g., TA Elsaß 1, 110-13). Anabaptists
occasionally accepted the comparison (Klassen, William and
Walter Klaassen, eds. and trans. The Writings of Pilgram
Marpeck, Classics of the Radical Reformation, vol. 2. Scottdale,
PA: Herald Press, 1978: 217) but more frequently rejected it
(Klassen & Klaassen: 215-16; Menno, Writings, 369, 401), in part
because monks often came from the socially privileged classes.
Several scholars have used monastic history as an aid to
interpret Anabaptism (Troeltsch, Ritschl, Davis, Snyder,
Martin). Many Anabaptists and Mennonites, beginning with the
Hutterite chronicle, pointed to quasi-monastic sectarian
medieval movements, especially Waldenses, as forerunners of
Anabaptism (these theories are promulgated or discussed by
Keller, Gratz, Verduin, Durnbaugh). One of the most extensive
efforts t