The Schleitheim Confession

The Schleitheim Confession is the earliest surviving Anabaptist primary confessional text, traditionally attributed to Michael Sattler, and this record states that attribution as traditional rather than as independently verified. As a primary text it is authoritative for what this specific 1527 statement of articles itself sets out, including the refusal of the sword and the oath that became defining Anabaptist positions, checkable directly against the text, not for how every later Anabaptist descended body, the Mennonites, Hutterites and Amish among them, currently holds or has revised these specific articles. Use it to establish the earliest documented Anabaptist position on a named point; a claim about a specific modern Anabaptist body's current position needs that body's own current statement.