Hans Denck

c.1495-1527. Anabaptist leader. Born in Heybach, Bavaria, he studied in Ingolstadt. His training was along humanistic lines, and he became acquainted with humanists in Augsburg. He went to Basle, where he became the friend and student of Oecolampadius.* In 1523 he went to Nuremberg to teach at St. Sebald's. There he became involved in the judicial trial of the “three impious painters,” Sebald, Barthel Behaim, and George Peng. Here Spiritualism together with the ideas of Thomas Münzer and Andreas Karlstadt influenced him greatly. About October 1525 he was forced to leave Nuremberg, and he became a wanderer throughout S Germany. He spent about a year in Augsburg, where he was rebaptized by Hubmaier; there he also attended the “martyr synod,” and there established himself as a leader of the Anabaptists.* In his writings he opposed the doctrines of predestination, the bound will, justification by faith, the sufficiency of Christ's atonement, the authority of the Scriptures, the necessity of baptism and the Lord's Supper, and the ministry. He returned to Basle in 1527, where he succumbed to the plague.