The Second Letter of Jelis Strings

Grace, mercy and peace from God the heavenly Father and the Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of the Father, in truth and in love. May He establish, strengthen and settle you who have to suffer for a little while for Christ's sake; and may He grant you, according to the riches of His glory and power, to be strengthened with might in the inner man, and that Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith, and that you be rooted and grounded in love, so that you may all be bound together with the bond of love, and so, through the uniting of the Holy Spirit and obedience to the Lord according to the Gospel, be built up together harmoniously into a holy temple and city of God. This I wish to all of you who love the Lord, as a heartfelt greeting, dear brothers and sisters in the Lord.

Further, after all greeting, I hope to write a little again about the disputation we had with our adversaries, though it is not very much; for when we were arrested, we agreed among ourselves not to dispute unless we could all come together, and this was kept, so that they should have nothing to lie about behind our backs, and so that if they heard one word more from one of us than from another, they could not confuse the simple. Because of this they were greatly incensed, and said that they all depended on me. They often came to dispute, but we would not, unless we could all come together, and in the marketplace. This angered them much, and they said: "Where was it ever seen that a disputation was held in the marketplace? You people want to introduce new doctrines." Finally we consented that we would dispute in prison, provided we could all come together; but they would have it no other way than each of us separately, and this we would not do. So they came two or three times, and we had some conversation with them each time, so that they could not say that we refused to hear them. Our conversation was about the three persons and the incarnation. The first question he put to me was whether I did not believe that if people believed in Christ Jesus, and from then on forsook all evil, they would be saved. I said: "Yes; all who believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God, who died for us, and through this faith show obedience to the Gospel, shall be saved." "Well then," they said, "if they believe that children may be baptized, they will be saved, according to your own words." I said: "My lord, it seems to me that you are like the scribes. They sought to censure Christ by subtlety, and it appears to me that you do the same." Matthew 22, verse 15. "Yes," he said; "Christ knew how to answer the scribes, and so will you, if you have the Spirit of Christ." I said: "If they show obedience to the Gospel, they will not baptize children, nor have them baptized; for it is not instituted or commanded by God to baptize children. But you people have planted it, and whatever men have planted God will root up, and so it will go with your infant baptism." Matthew 15, verse 13. He said at once that the Anabaptists believed that Christ brought His flesh from heaven. I said that it was a lie; "are you not ashamed (I said) to sit here and lie like this in my presence?" He said: "I do not know what you believe, but others believe this way." I said that it was a lie; "I have never heard," I said, "of any that held such a faith; yet I have had more dealings with them than you have. Are you not ashamed to sit here and lie like this in my presence?" Then he became very boastful; three or four other priests and the bailiff were also sitting there, and they said: "Jelis, talk decently." I said: "Then do not lie like that." I spoke loudly, so that my comrades would hear it.

He then asked: "What is your faith, then?" "I believe with all the apostles that He is the Son of God, as Peter confessed" (Matthew 16, verse 16; John 20; John 6, verse 69), "visible and invisible; that the Word by which all things were made became flesh in Mary, through the power of the Most High." He asked whether the Word became flesh the way Lot's wife became a pillar of salt, or the water, wine. I said

"No." He asked: "How then?" I said: "It became man, and it continued to be the Word; that is, the Word which was invisible became visible; that which could not be touched became able to be touched; that which was impossible became possible." He said

"Was the Word not God?" I replied: "It is God and man." "Did God die?" he said. I replied: "He died according to His humanity, as Peter says

'put to death according to the flesh, but made alive according to the spirit.'" First Peter 3, verse 18.

I then asked him how he confessed the unity. He confessed three persons and one God. I asked whether the Holy Ghost was a person. He said

"Yes." I said: "When Mary was greeted by the angel, that she should conceive, and she did not know how this should come about, since she had never known a man, the angel said: 'The Holy Ghost will come upon you.' Luke 1, verse 26. Now, if the Holy Ghost is a person, then one person conceived another. And in the Acts of the Apostles it is written that when the apostles received the Holy Ghost, He sat upon each of them. Acts 2, verse 3. But a person can sit only upon one man. And in the first chapter (verse 7) of the Book of Wisdom it is written that the Spirit of the Lord fills the world. To what person would you compare Him?" He did not know what to say. He then said: "I do not consider them persons such as Pieter, Klaes, and Jan." I said: "To whom then do you compare them?" They then exchanged a few words in Latin, and said: "We only call them persons: did you think that we considered them three human beings?" I said: "Yes." He said: "If you have taught people so, you must confess that you have slandered us, and that you are a false teacher." I said: "I am no teacher; I have enough to do to teach myself." I added: "You call them persons; are they not such? Why then do you call them three persons?" He said: "It amounts to the same thing." I said: "It does not; a person is a human being, and you certainly cannot compare them to human beings." Then he said: "God the Father is not the Son; the Son is not the Father; the Holy Ghost is neither the Father nor the Son. And these are three; the one is what the other is not, and though they are three, yet they are but one God." I said: "This is also my faith, and in accordance with it I know but one person, that is Jesus Christ, who was visible and could be touched; but the others I do not know what to compare them to." On this point we agreed, and he let go his persons. He then asked again whether God had died. I said: "You have sat here and acknowledged to me that you do not consider the Word to be the Father, nor the Father to be the Word, though they, according to the Godhead, are one God; but you regard them as three witnesses; and two of these witnesses did not become man, but the Word, by which all things were made, became flesh, as John says in the first chapter [of his Gospel]. Although this Word became man, it does not therefore cease to be one God with the Father; otherwise it could not be God and man."

Then he said: "Jelis, you err." And they brought forward Romans 1, verse 3 in their Testament, where it read "Who became of the seed of David according to the flesh, is declared to be the Son of God with power, according to the Spirit." I said that in rendering it became they had mistranslated the word; that it ought to read: born of the seed of David. "Go," I said, "and examine the Testaments which you had printed thirty or thirty-six years ago, and see whether in them it reads this way. I have read it there: born, as it ought to be; but you have now had it altered like this, to deceive the simple hearts." This made them very angry. I then said "Say it as it ought to be: born; for a woman certainly cannot make a child." Then he said: "Became or assumed is the same thing; as it is written, 'He did not take on him (the nature of) angels, but he took on him the seed of Abraham.'" Hebrews 2, verse 16. I said: "This also is changed; it ought to read: 'He does not receive angels; but he receives the seed of Abraham as his children; and believers are counted for the seed' (Romans 9, verse 8); for Paul says (First Corinthians 11, verse 8) that the man is not of the woman, but the woman of the man." They said: "This is spoken of Adam and Eve." I said: "Here God has plainly shown that the man is not of the woman, but the woman of the man, which is in direct opposition to your belief. Paul speaks still more fully on generation; for he says: 'As the woman is of the man, even so is the man also by the woman; but all things of God.' Verse 12. This certainly has reference to generation, for Adam was not by Eve." He said that it had to be understood so. I said: "I do not understand it so." We had many more words yet about the promises; but I do not have the space to write it.

All these words I had with the parish priest of Saint Martins, a very crafty customer, craftier than anyone I ever heard; all the others are as nothing compared to him. Written in haste, in the dark, with ink made of coals; bear patiently with it. The day before we were delivered to the secular lords, we were brought before the Dean of Ronse. He asked us whether we had come to a decision. I said: "I am always determined to avoid evil, and to do that which is good, as far as I know." There were three or four judges present, and the under-bailiff. He said it was great arrogance that I pretended to be wiser than all the world; there were Ambrose and Augustine, and other holy men, and they understood it so. I said: "I do not pretend to know anything; but I know the faith to be the truth, and in this I want to abide." Farewell; I commend you to God.

Your weak brother in the Lord,

JELIS STRINGS.