First edition of one of the most important and influential anti-Anabaptist works of the Swiss Reformation. Written and completed at Bremgarten in late 1530 and published in Zurich in 1531, this work marks Heinrich Bullingers (1504-1575) first major intervention in what would become a lifelong campaign against the Anabaptist movement. Cast deliberately in the popular dialogue form, the text stages a disputation between Simon, representing the Anabaptist position, and Jojada, the orthodox Reformed interlocutor, allowing Bullinger to present and systematically refute what he regarded as the movements most dangerous errors.
Bullingers attack is not merely theological but profoundly social and political, reflecting contemporary fears that Anabaptist teachings undermined civil authority, ecclesiastical order, and social cohesion. Published in the same year as the death of Huldrych Zwingli (1484-1531) at the Battle of Kappel, this book effectively announced Bullingers emergence as Zwinglis intellectual and ecclesiastical successor. While Bullinger would later adopt a more pragmatic and comparatively tolerant stance toward Anabaptists in Zurich, this early polemic reveals the intensity with which the movement was perceived as a genuine and destabilising threat during the formative years of the Reformation.
The 1531 Zurich first edition is of particular importance. Printed in the vernacular and intended for wide circulation, it represents Bullingers original and unmediated formulation of his anti-Anabaptist arguments, prior to the later Latin translation and expansion by Leo Jud in 1535.
With a bookplate on the front pastedown from the Bucknell Library of the Crozer Theological Seminary, a Baptist seminary located in Upland, Pennsylvania. Some occasional staining and browning throughout. Otherwise in very good condition. Shirky, "Determining the Impact of the Anabaptists", West Virginia University Historical Review, vol. 1, 1, (2020), pp. 36-52; USTC 703147 (9 copies); VD 16 B 9758.