After the death of Munzer and the destruction or dispersion of the peasants, another sect arose, usually called Anabaptists, because they immersed all their converts after they had been already christened. This sect greatly troubled and perplexed the Reformers. What the Gnostics were to the Fathers, what the Manicheans were to the Catholics, such were the Anabaptists to the Reformers. They were purely fanatical. "The leaders claimed the gift of immediate inspiration, the privilege of direct and frequent intercourse with the Deity; and their deluded followers believed them. They had their visions and revelations of the past and the future; their numbers increased with great rapidity, and they followed everywhere in the train of the Reformation." Everywhere it was the cry of these enthusiasts, "No tribute, no tithes, all things in common, no magistrates; the kingdom of Christ is at hand, the baptism of infants is an invention of the devil." They sorely tried the spirit of Luther, as they spoke of themselves as the true and thorough Reformers. He observes concerning them: "Satan rages; the new sectarians called Anabaptists increase in numbers, and display great external appearances of strictness of life, as also great boldness in death, whether they suffer by fire or by water."
In the course of two years these fanatics had spread in considerable numbers over Silesia, Bavaria, Swabia, and Switzerland. But as some of their principles tended to the overthrow of social order, political decrees were issued against them. Persecution began; and as both the Saxon and the Swiss Reformers were opposed to them, they were everywhere visited by the civil power with the greatest severities. But they bore their sufferings with unconquerable fortitude. Neither sword, nor fire, nor gibbet, moved them to retractation of the show of fear. With the capture and the execution of their leaders at Munster, in 1536, the sect seems to have been suppressed.