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Zwickau Prophets

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Zwick, Johann

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a local sect of fanatic Lutherans (A.D. 1521), who believed themselves to be the subjects of immediate inspiration. The leaders of the party were Nicholas Storch (q.v.), a weaver of Zwickau, Mark Thomas, of the same trade and place, Mark Stubner, a former student at Wittenberg, and Thomas Miinzer, Lutheran pastor of Zwickau, subsequently the rebel chief of the Anabaptist rebellion. These fanatics rejected the Bible, considered human learning a hinderance to religion, and predicted the overthrow of the existing governments to make way for the millennial reign of the saints (themselves). Storch declared that the angel Gabriel had appeared to him in a vision, saying to him, "Thou shalt sit on my throne;" and in anticipation of the new kingdom the prophets chose from the number of their followers twelve apostles and seventy evangelists. They drew after them a great many of the laboring classes and tradespeople; but when open sedition broke out, the magistrates drove the leaders out of Zwickau. (See ABECEDARIANS); (See ANABAPTISTS).