While building on a comprehensive reading of available archival sources in the Menzingen Religious Institute, this work provides a greater understanding of the possibilities and the difficulties of a return \textit{ad fontes} in the Church and in religious life. It discloses that a struggle for a founding inspiration is a struggle for the memory. The theoretical framework which has been constructed from scriptural sources in this study, is likely to be of use in a theological interpretation of any Christian founding event.