The Zwickau Prophets

In the early winter of 1521, the Protestant Reformation faced a danger far more unsettling than popes or emperors. Its greatest threat came from men who claimed to speak for God directly. With Martin Luther in hiding and Wittenberg without its anchor, three radical preachers arrived from Zwickau insisting that Scripture was no longer enough. The Spirit, they said, spoke straight to them, in visions, certainty, and fire. This episode is the story of the Zwickau Prophets and the first internal crisis of the Reformation. It is not a tale of heroes and villains, but of urgency colliding with restraint, faith colliding with certainty, and reform nearly tearing itself apart from the inside. It is also the moment that forced Luther to define what sola scriptura really meant, not as a slogan, but as a safeguard against chaos.