Jan Beukelsz

The successor of Matthijsz was Jan Beukelsz of Leiden. He called himself David and crowned himself as ‘king of Zion’. By ‘divine inspiration’, he introduced polygamy. He married seventeen wives. But he beheaded one, when she criticized him. The city was taken by the troops of the bishop of Münster on 21 June 1535. Another massacre followed. Jan Beukelsz and two of his close fellow-workers were imprisoned. For seven months, the bishop carried them, bound them in chains, through all Germany. After that, he had publicly tortured them to death. The mangled bodies of the three men were placed in three cages on the top of a church in Münster. The Anabaptists were persecuted through whole Europe. Their actions caused great distress. In February 1535 in Amsterdam an infamous event happened. One Anabaptists received a vision about the Day of Judgement. He took off his clothes and said to other Anabaptists that they had to do the same. When Christ returns and Paradise is restored, His children must not be wearing any clothes. Just like Adam and Eva before the Fall. They walked naked through the streets of Amsterdam and shouted: ‘Woe, woe to the world and to the wicked.’ The government wicked them up and sentenced them to death. Most of the people in those times saw Anabaptists as a threat to society. Many of them were putted to death by the government and by the Inquisition.