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THE MIRROR OF
THE MARTYRS
Daniel Botkin This spring I viewed an unusual art exhibition
called The Mirror of the Martyrs, billed as “a traveling
exhibit which recalls the drama of people, obedient to crown and
church, torturing and killing people who claim a higher obedience.”
The artwork which serves as a basis for the exhibit is a series
of 17th-century prints by Dutch printmaker Jan Luyken. Luyken
created 104 etchings for the 1685 edition of Tielman van Braght’s
Martyrs Mirror, a 1290-page book which documented in great detail
the martyrdom of hundreds of Anabaptists. In 16th-century Europe,
several thousand Anabaptists were tortured and killed by the state,
with the blessing of the church. Because Anabaptists were hated
by both Catholics and Protestants, more martyrs came from Anabaptist
ranks than from any other Christian group in the 16th century.
The exhibit asks hard questions. Why did “good people”
torture and kill? Why do the powerful fear the weak? Does anyone
have the right to abuse the body of another of God’s creatures?
Why do modern governments continue to torture and kill? What beliefs
are worth dying for? Who are martyrs today?
The exhibit is powerful, but not pleasant. Because of Luyken’s
eye for detail and historical accuracy, we are given a vivid picture
of the savagery and cruelty of those times. We see state-sponsored
and church-sanctioned whipping, stretching, piercing, chopping,
mutilating, branding, and burning of men, women, and children
as young as fourteen. We learn that the execution of Anabaptists
was experienced by the public as high drama. The liturgy of death,
called by van Braght “Bloody Theatre,” included all
the elements of drama: a rehearsal dinner, a stage, a script,
a director, the cast, stage hands, props, spectators, and reporters.
Inept executioners were often jeered when they bungled executions.
The exhibit also includes some artifacts, the most interesting
being some of the actual copper plates that Jan Luyken produced.
The history of the 104 copper plates is a mystery that has been
only partly solved. The plates were first used in the 1685 edition
of the Martyrs Mirror, and in a few subsequent printings in the
following century. In 1880 a Rotterdam newspaper reported the
discovery of the plates in a chest in the home of a railroad official.
In 1925 Mennonite historians learned that Hans Weber, Sr., a Munich
citizen, had ninety of the 104 plates. The fate of the other fourteen
plates is unknown. Two Mennonite historians saw the ninety plates
in 1930, but could not afford to buy them. In 1944 Allied bombing
of Germany intensified, and Hans Weber, Jr., the heir to the plates,
moved his family to a safer area and left the ninety plates stored
in three boxes. Efforts by Mennonites to locate the plates in
1969 were unsuccessful. Then in 1975, descendants of the late
Hans Weber, Jr., found one box of thirty plates and offered to
sell them. Mennonites were able to purchase seven of them in 1977,
but the other 23 were purchased by a private art collector. After
he died, Mennonites purchased the 23 plates in 1989, and added
them to the seven they had purchased in 1977. The fate of the
other 74 plates remains an unsolved mystery.
More mysterious than the story of the plates, though, are
the questions raised by the powerful images that are preserved
on the plates. The images force us to confront the mystery of
evil. How could civilized people have been so sadistic? How could
educated religious authorities, both Catholic and Protestant,
think that torture was a Divinely-sanctioned way to force people
to renounce their personal beliefs? Luyken’s prints depict
events that took place in the 16th century, but the questions
they raise are relevant to all times, including ours.
Not all of the images depict torture and killing. Some
of them chronicle events which led up to the arrest of Anabaptists.
The most touching of these is the image of Anabaptist Dirk Willems
rescuing his persecutor from an icy pond. Willems had escaped
from the prison where he was being held captive, and the guard
pursued him. Willems, with his weight greatly reduced by prison
food, was able to cross the thin ice safely. Willems’ pursuer
followed him, but the ice broke under his weight. Willems believed
the Biblical teaching in the Sermon on the Mount that says, “Love
your enemies; do good to them that hate you.” So Willems
turned back and rescued his persecutor. After the rescue, the
ungrateful guard dragged his rescuer back to the prison, and Willems
was burned at the stake.
Mennonite historians John S. Oyer and Robert S. Kreider
write this about the power of imagery in the Martyrs Mirror:
“We who pride ourselves on our tenacious fidelity
to the printed word must be led by the Martyrs Mirror to reflect
on this question: what has influenced us more profoundly, the
1290 pages of van Braght text or the 104 images of Luyken? Both
are essential and complimentary. Here, unmistakably, image has
particular persuasive power and communicative eloquence.
“In a starkly simple etching of Dirk Willems rescuing
his pursuer -- hands of the enemy reaching out to the hands of
the heretic -- the word becomes flesh. More loaded with moral
wisdom and conviction than a scholarly dissertation, this image
captures the ethics of the cross.” 
The exhibit will be in Nashville July 2-6 at Opryland Conference
Center.
For more information: ph. (316) 283-1612
www.bethelks.edu/kauffman/martyrs
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