HISTORY OF THE SABBATH by John Nevins Andrews

The Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · May 6, 1862

HISTORY OF THE SABBATH.

By John Nevins Andrews

(Continued.)

TRACES OF THE SABBATH DURING THE DARK AGES.

With the accession of the Roman bishop to supremacy began the dark ages; and as he increased in strength, the gloom of darkness settled with increasing intensity upon the world. The highest elevation of the papal power marks the midnight of the dark ages. That power was providentially weakened preparatory to the reformation of the sixteenth century, when the light of advancing day began to manifestly dissipate the gross darkness which covered the earth. The difficulty of tracing the true people of God through this period is well set forth in the following language of Benedict: "As scarcely any fragment of their history remains, all we know of them is from accounts of their enemies, which were always uttered in a style of censure and complaint; and without which we should not have known that millions of them ever existed. It was the settled policy of Rome to obliterate every vestige of opposition to her doctrines and decrees; everything heretical, whether persons or writings, by which the faithful would be liable to be contaminated and led astray. In conformity to their fixed determination all books and records of their opposers were hunted up and committed to the flames. Before the art of printing was discovered in the fifteenth century, all books were made with the pen; the copies, of course, were so few that their concealment was much more difficult than it would be now; and if a few of them escaped the vigilance of the inquisitors, they would soon be worn out and gone. None of them could be admitted and preserved in the public libraries of the Catholics, from the ravages of time and of the hordes of barbarians with which all parts of Europe were at different periods overwhelmed."

Among the dissenters from the Romish church, in the period of the dark ages, the first place perhaps is due to the Waldenses, both for their antiquity and the wide extent of their influence and doctrine. Benedict quotes from their enemies respecting the antiquity of their origin:

"We have already observed from Claudius Seyssel, the popish archbishop, that one Leo was charged with originating the Waldensian heresy in the valleys, in the days of Constantine the great. When these severe measures emanated from the emperor Honorius, against re-baptizers, the Baptists left the seat of opulence and power, and sought retreats in the country, and in the valleys of Piedmont; which last place in particular became their retreat from imperial oppression."

Dean Waddington quotes the following from a popish writer who had the best means of information respecting them: "Rainer Sacho, a Dominican, says of the Waldenses: 'There is no sect so dangerous as the Leonists, for three reasons: first, it is the most ancient—some say it is as old as Sylvester [pope in Constantine's time], others as the apostles themselves. Secondly, it is very generally disseminated: there is no country where it has not gained some footing. Thirdly, while other sects are profane and blasphemous, this retains the utmost show of piety; they live justly before men, and believe nothing respecting God which is not good."

Benedict gives Saccho's own opinion as follows: "Their enemies confirm their great antiquity. Reinerius Saccho, an inquisitor, and one of their most implacable enemies, who lived only eighty years after Waldo [A. D. 1160], admits that the Waldenses flourished five hundred years before that preacher. Gretzer, the Jesuit, who also wrote against the Waldenses, and had examined the subject fully, not only admits their great antiquity, but declares his firm belief that the Toulousians and Albigenses condemned in the years 1177, 1178, were no other than the Waldenses."

Jortin places their withdrawal into the wilderness of the Alps about the same time: "A. D. 601. In the seventh century Christianity was propagated in China by the Nestorians; and the Valdenses, who abhorred the papal usurpations, are supposed to have settled themselves in the valleys of Piedmont. Monkery flourished prodigiously, and the monks and popes were in the firmest union."

Benedict quotes president Edwards as follows: "Some of the popish writers themselves own that that people never submitted to the church of Rome. One of the popish writers, speaking of the Waldenses, says the heresy of the Waldenses is the oldest heresy in the world. It is supposed that this people first betook themselves to this desert, secret place among the mountains, to hide themselves from the severity of the heathen persecutions which were before Constantine the great, and thus the woman fled into the wilderness from the face of the serpent. Rev. xii, 6, 14. And the people being settled there, their posterity continued there from age to age afterward; and being, as it were, by natural walls as well as God's grace, separated from the rest of the world, never partook of the overflowing corruption."

Benedict makes other quotations relative to their origin: "Theodore Belvedre, a popish monk, says that the heresy had always been in the valleys. In the preface to the French Bible the translators say that they [the Valdenses] have always had the full enjoyment of the heavenly truth contained in the holy Scriptures, ever since they were enriched with the same by the apostles; having in fair MSS. preserved the entire Bible in their native tongue from generation to generation."

Of the extent to which they spread in the countries of Europe, Benedict thus speaks: "In the thirteenth century, from the accounts of Catholic historians, all of whom speak of the Waldenses in terms of complaint and reproach, they had founded individual churches, or were spread out in colonies in Italy, Spain, Germany, the Netherlands, Bohemia, Poland, Lithuania, Albania, Lombardy, Milan, Romagna, Vicenza, Florence, Velepenetius, Constantinople, Philadelphia, Sclavonia, Bulgaria, Diognitia, Livonia, Sarmatia, Croatia, Dalmatia, Briton, and Piedmont."

And Dr. Edgar says: "The Waldensians, says Popliner, spread, not only through France, but also through nearly all the European coasts, and appeared in Gaul, Spain, England, Scotland, Italy, Germany, Bohemia, Saxony, Poland, and Lithuania."

According to the testimony of their enemies, they were to some extent divided among themselves. Dr. Allix quotes an old Romish writer who says: "They are also divided among themselves: so what some of them say is again denied by others."

And Crosby makes a similar statement: "There were several sects of Waldenses or Albigenses, like as there are of Dissenters in England. Some of these did deny all baptism, others only the baptism of infants. That many of them were of this latter opinion, is affirmed in several histories of this people, as well ancient as modern."

Some of their enemies affirm that they reject the Old Testament; but others with much greater truthfulness bear a very different testimony. Thus a Romish inquisitor, as quoted by Allix, bears testimony concerning those in Bohemia: "They can say a great part of the Old and New Testament by heart. They despise the decretals, and the sayings and expositions of holy men, and only cleave to the text of Scripture. . . . . [They say] that the doctrine of Christ and the apostles is sufficient to salvation, without any church statutes and ordinances. That the traditions of the church are no better than the traditions of the Pharisees; and that greater stress is laid on the observation of human traditions than on the keeping of the law of God. Why do you transgress the law of God by your traditions? They condemn all approved ecclesiastical custom which they do not read of in the gospel, as the observation of candlemas, palm Sunday, and the reconciliation of penitents, the adoration of the cross on good Friday. They despise the feast of Easter, and all other festivals of Christ and the saints, because of their being multiplied to that vast number, and say that one day is as good as another, and work upon

holy days, where they can do it without being taken notice of."

Dr. Allix quotes a Waldensian document of A. D. 1100, entitled the "Noble Lesson," and remarks: "The author upon supposal that the world was drawing to an end, exhorts his brethren to prayer, to watchfulness, to a renouncing of all worldly goods. . . . . He sets down all the judgments of God in the Old Testament as the effects of a just and good God; and in particular the decalogue as a law given by the Lord of the whole world. He repeats the several articles of the law, not forgetting that which respects idols."

Their religious views are further stated by Allix: "They declare themselves to be the apostles' successors, to have apostolical authority, and the keys of binding and loosing. They hold the church of Rome to be the whore of Babylon, and that all that obey her are damned, especially the clergy that are subject to her since the time of pope Sylvester. . . . . They hold that none of the ordinances of the church that have been introduced since Christ's ascension ought to be observed, being of no worth; the feasts, fasts, orders, blessings, offices of the church, and the like, they utterly reject."

A considerable part of the people called Waldenses bore the significant designation of Sabbati, or Sabbatati, or Insabbatati. Mr. Jones alludes to this fact in the following words: "Because they would not observe saints' days, they were falsely supposed to neglect the Sabbath also, and called Insabbatati or Insabbathists."

Mr. Benedict makes the following statement: "We find that the Waldenses were sometimes called Insabbathos, that is, regardless of the Sabbaths. Mr. Milner supposes this name was given to them because they observed not the Romish festivals, and rested from their ordinary occupations only on Sundays. A Sabbatarian would suppose that it was because they met for worship on the seventh day, and did not regard the first-day Sabbath."

Mr. Robinson states the views of previous writers—though himself of a different opinion, in the following language: "Some of these Christians were called Sabbati, Sabbatati Insabbatati, and more frequently Inzabbatati. . . . . . . . One says they were so named from the Hebrew word Sabbath, because they kept the Saturday for the Lord's day. Another says they were so called because they rejected all the festivals or Sabbaths in the low Latin sense of the word, which the Catholic church religiously observed. A third says, and many with various alterations and additions have said after him, they were so called from sabot, or zabot, a shoe, because they distinguished themselves from other people by wearing shoes marked on the upper part with some peculiarity. Is it likely that people who could not descend from their mountains without hamstringing their lives through the furious zeal of the inquisitors, should tempt danger by affixing a visible mark on their shoes? Besides, the shoe of the peasants in that country was called abarca."

Mr. Robinson, by a process of reasoning, endeavors to show that the Waldenses who bore the name of Sabbatati, were so called because they dwelt in the mountains. Mr. Jones and Mr. Benedict agree with Mr. Robinson in rejecting the idea that the Waldenses were called Sabbatati from their shoes, yet do not adopt his opinion that it was derived from their residence in the mountains, but from the Hebrew word Sabbath.

Robinson quotes the Jesuit Gretzer, who states that Goldastus testifies that the Waldenses were called Sabbatati, because they observed the Jewish Sabbath. To which Gretzer replies that this cannot be true, because that the Waldenses exterminated every festival, and repudiated the whole Old Testament. That they rejected the Catholic festivals is undoubtedly true; that they did not reject the Old Testament, as some of their Romish enemies have maliciously affirmed, is abundantly proved by other writers of that same church. The Jesuit understood the term Sabbatati, as applied to the Waldenses, to be derived from their shoes, yet he frankly acknowledges that MANY others understood it to be applied to them, because they worshiped upon the ancient Sabbath.

Mr. Jones gives the following account of a portion of the Waldenses in the fifteenth century: "Louis XII, king of France, being informed by the enemies of the Waldenses inhabiting a part of the province of Provence, that several heinous crimes were laid to their account, sent the Master of Requests, and a certain doctor of the Sorbonne, who was confessor to his majesty, to make inquiry into this matter. On their return they reported that they had visited all the parishes where they dwelt, and had inspected their places of worship, but that they had found there no images, nor signs of the ornaments belonging to the mass, nor any of the ceremonies of the Romish church; much less could they discover any traces of those crimes with which they were charged. On the contrary, they kept the Sabbath-day, observed the ordinance of baptism according to the primitive church, instructed their children in the articles of the Christian faith and the commandments of God. The king having heard the report of his commissioners, said with an oath that they were better men than himself or his people."

We further read concerning the Vaudois or Waldenses as follows: "The respectable French historian, De Thou, says that the Vaudois keep the commandments of the decalogue, and allow among them of no wickedness, detesting perjuries, imprecations, quarrels, seditions, &c."

It may be proper to add, that in 1686 the Waldenses were all driven out of the valleys of Piedmont, and that those who returned and settled in those valleys three years afterward, and from whom the present race of Waldenses is descended, fought their way back, sword in hand, and were guilty of acts of outrage and revolting barbarity, pursuing in all respects a course entirely different from the ancient Waldenses.

J. N. A.

(To be Continued.)