JORIS, DAVID

Visionary Dutch religious leader who combined elements of pacifist, revolutionary, and spiritualist Anabaptist teachings and whose followers (Jorists) survived in Holland and North Germany into the 17th century; b. Bruges or Ghent, Flanders, 1501?; d. Basel, Switzerland, Aug. 25, 1556. A painter of stained-glass windows, he joined the Anabaptist movement early. While rejecting revolution, he nevertheless accepted the apocalyptic expectations of the revolutionaries. Mystic visions led him to claim to be the "third David," sent to complete the work of the second (Christ). After years of persecution, he and many of his followers found refuge in Basel (1543), where he used an assumed name (Jan van Brugge) and pretended adherence to the Reformed faith. He continued his prolific production of mystical writings, which were published in Holland (Wonder Book, 1542,1551). After his death, disputes among his adherents led to an investigation that resulted in the exhumation of his corpse, which was burned at the stake in 1559. This led to the saying, "If Basel would burn her heretics alive, she would not have the trouble of digging them up." His Basel adherents, who recanted, were not molested.

Bibliography: r. h. bainton, David Joris, Wiedertäufer und Kämpfer für Toleranz im 16. Jahrhundert (Leipzig 1937); The Travail of Religious Liberty (Philadelphia 1951). g. h. williams, The Radical Reformation (Philadelphia 1962). e. hammerschmidt, Lexikon für Theologie und Kirche, j. hofer and k. rahner, 10 v. (2d, new ed. Freiburg 1957–65) 5:1122.

[g. w. forell]