“In the report of the Council of the Archbishop of Cologne[66] about the “Anabaptist movement”, to the Emperor Charles V, it is said that the Anabaptists call themselves “true Christians”, that they desire community of goods, “which has been the way of Anabaptists for more than a thousand years, as the old histories and imperial laws testify.” At the dissolution of the Parliament at Speyer it was stated that the “new sect of the Anabaptists” had already been condemned many hundred years ago and “by common law forbidden.” It is a fact that for more than twelve centuries baptism in the way taught and described in the New Testament had been made an offence against the law, punishable by death.”