A Sketch of the Waldenses.
[We present the reader with the following sketch of the Waldenses from the Encyclopedia of Religious Knowledge. It is intrinsically interesting in itself as the record of a Christian people who stood out against all the corruptions of false religion, during the great apostasy, maintaining the piety and purity of the primitive church. But the article will be chiefly interesting to S. D. Adventists as it is through this noble line of confessors that the observance of the true Sabbath can be traced through the dark ages. Mark how they speak of the church of Rome in the time of Constantine, when Sylvester was bishop or pope. There they made their protest, from that time they consider the Romish church Antichrist, and there is the very point where the Sunday observance was set up in the church as a Christian institution, enforced by legal enactments.]
WALDENSES, VALDENNES, VAUDOIS, or people of the valleys; the most celebrated body of Protestant Dissenters during the middle ages. The history of these churches of persecuted saints, these "meek confessors," this "noble army of martyrs," this "most ancient stock of religion," to use the words of Milton, is a topic which of late has been rising in popularity and interest every year. No writer appears to have laid before the public an account so thoroughly digested, accurate, and comprehensive, as Mr. Jones, whose History of the Christian Church, the second volume of which is almost wholly devoted to this subject, has already gone through eight or ten editions. We have endeavored, however, to collect every ray of light from other quarters in making out the following summary view of their history. It seems to be a serious mistake into which some popular writers have fallen, who represent the Waldenses as originating in France about the year 1170, and deriving their name from the celebrated Peter Waldo. The evidence is now ample, that so far from being a new sect at that period, they had existed under various names as a distinct class of dissenters from the established churches of Greece and Rome in the earliest ages. It is an egregious error to suppose that when Christianity was taken into alliance with the state, by the emperor Constantine, in the beginning of the fourth century, all the orthodox churches were so ignorant of the genius of their religion as to consent to the corruption of a worldly establishment. Crantz (in his History of the United Brethren) says, "These ancient Christians, who, besides the several names of reproach given them, were at length denominated Waldenses, from one of their most eminent teachers, Peter Waldns, date their origin from the beginning of the fourth century; when one Leo, at the great revolution in religion under Constantine the Great, opposed the innovations of Sylvester, bishop of Rome." The Catharii, or Puritan churches of the Novatians, also, had at that very period (about A. D. 325) been flourishing as a distinct communion for more than seventy years all over the empire; maintaining, by the acknowledgment even of their enemies, the self-styled Catholics, the integrity of the true faith; together with the purity of discipline and the power of godliness, which had generally disappeared from the Catholic churches. These Puritans, being exposed to severe and sanguinary persecutions for dissent, from age to age were compelled to shelter themselves from the desolating storm in retirement; and when at intervals they reappear on the page of contemporary history, and their principles are propagated with new boldness and success, they are styled a new sect, and receive a new name, though in reality they are the same people. The same great principles of attachment to the word of God and determined adherence to the simplicity of its doctrine, discipline, institution, and worship, in opposition to the innovations of a secular spirit and policy on the one hand, and of false philosophy or of pretended apostolic traditions on the other, may be traced under the name of Novatians, Donatists, Luciferans, and Erians, from the third to the seventh centuries. They reappear in the Paulicians, who have been falsely accused of Manichæism, but who, from the middle of the seventh to the end of the ninth century, worthily sustained by their preaching, their lives, and their martyrdoms, their claim of being the genuine descendants of the primitive churches. From Asia Minor they spread themselves over Europe, through Thrace, Macedonia, Epirus, Bulgaria, Sclavonia, Sicily, Lombardy, Liguria, and Milan; whence, about the beginning of the eleventh century, they entered into France. The first discovery of a congregation of this kind in that country was at Orleans, A. D. 1017. A Catholic council was immediately convened, and the Paulician missionaries, with their converts, among whom were many respectable citizens and several of the regular clergy, were all burnt alive. Other advocates of the doctrine were discovered in Languedoc, others in Picardy, and Suabia. They were called in France Bougres or Bulgarians, Tisserands or Weavers, Bos Homos or Good Men. They soon spread through Germany, where they were called by the old name of Cathari, or, by corruption, Gazzari, i. e. Puritans. In Italy the same people were called Paterines, Josephists, Arnoldists, and Fratricelli. As early as the year 1100, it appears they began to be called Wallenses: sixty years before Peter Waldo. Their principles were powerfully advocated, and extended among the most intelligent classes in Languedoc and Provence, from 1110 to 1165, by the celebrated Peter de Bruys, and Henry, his successor; from whom they received the name of Petrobrusians and Henricians. From the places where they flourished they were called Toulonsians, Albigenses, and afterward Poor Men of Lyons, and Leonists. They were condemned by a council at Toulouse in 1119, and again by the great Lateran council at Rome, in 1139. In 1160, some of them crossed from Gascony to England, where they were called Poplicians and Publicans, corruption of the original name, Paulicians. About this time arose the celebrated Peter Waldo, of Lyons, whose labors, learning, zeal, and liberality, greatly extended their principles: in consequence of which many writers, both Catholic and Protestant, have most erroneously regarded him as the parent and founder of the proper Waldenses. Mr. Robinson, however, has shown that this name had a much earlier origin, that it signifies "inhabitants of the valleys," and that it was applied to the persecuted people of whom we have spoken, simply for the reason that great multitudes of them made their residence in the valleys of the Alps and of the Pyrenees, where, age after age, they found an asylum from the tyranny of the church of Rome. This view of the matter, also, is supported by the testimony of their own historians, Pierre Gilles, Perrin, Leger, Sir Samuel Morland, and Dr. Allix. The names imposed on them by their adversaries, they say, have been intended to vilify and ridicule them, or to represent them as new and different sects. Their enemies confirm their great antiquity. Reinarius Saccho, the inquisitor, admits that the Waldenses flourished five hundred years before Peter Waldo. This carries us back to the year 660, the time of the appearance of the Paulicians, or rather of their great revival and increase under the labors of Constantine Sylvanus. Indeed, there is not wanting evidence to show that churches of the Puritan faith existed at that time in the West as well as in the East. In the year 553, nine Bishops of Italy and Switzerland openly refused communion with the pope of Rome, and the churches under their care persisted in their dissent. To say nothing of the labors of those noble reformers in the bosom of the Catholic church, Paulinus of Aquileia, in the eighth century, Claude of Turin in the ninth, the council of Rheims in the tenth, and Berengarius, archdeacon of Angers, in the eleventh, which yet exerted a powerful influence in opening the eyes of men to the corruptions of Rome; if we will believe the testimony of the suffering Waldenses themselves, their doctrine and discipline had been preserved in all its purity and efficacy from the days of the primitive martyrs, in Spain, France, Germany, Italy, and especially in the valleys of Piedmont. The learned Dr. Allix, in his "History of the Churches of Piedmont," gives this account: "That for three hundred years or more, the bishop of Rome attempted to subjugate the church of Milan under his jurisdiction; and at last, the interest of Rome grew too202potent for the church of Milan, planted by one of the disciples; insomuch that the bishop and the people, rather than own their jurisdiction, retired to the valleys of Lucerna and Angrogne, and thence were called Valdenses, Wallenses, or The People in the Valleys." M. Sismondi, in his late History of the Crusades against the Albigenses, says, "Those very persons who punished the sectaries with frightful torments, have alone taken it upon themselves to make us acquainted with their opinions; allowing at the same time that they had been transmitted to Gaul from generation to generation, almost from the origin of Christianity. We cannot be astonished, he adds, if they have represented them to us with all those characters which might render them the most monstrous, mingled with all the fables which would serve to irritate the minds of the people against those who professed them. Nevertheless, amidst many puerile and calumnious tales, it is still easy to recognize the principles of the Reformation of the sixteenth century among the heretics who are designated by the name of Vandois or Albigensis." Dr. Allix, speaking of the Paterines, some of whom, disciples of Gundulf, one of their teachers, went from Italy to the Netherlands, where they were thrown into prison, says, "Here, then, we have found a body of men in Italy before the year 1026, five hundred years before the Reformation, who believed contrary to the opinions of the church of Rome, and who highly condemned their errors." Mr. Jones adds, "Atto, bishop of Vercelli, had complained of such people eighty years before, and so had others before him, and there is the greatest reason to believe they had always existed in Italy. It is observable that those alluded to by Dr. Allix were brought to light by mere accident." About the year 1040, the Paterines had become very numerous at Milan, which was their principal residence; and in 1259, some of their churches in other Italian cities, we are informed by Reinerius the inquisitor, contained from five to fifteen hundred members. Their churches were organized into sixteen compartments, or associations. They had no connexion with the Church, which they regarded as Antichrist from the time of pope Sylvester. Now, when we reflect that the Paterines, as well as the Paulicians, both in principles and practice, were the same people as the Waldenses, or Poor Men of Lyons, we shall not wonder at the following remarkable words of Reinerius concerning the latter. "Of all the sects which have been, or now exist, none is more injurious to the church, i. e., of Rome, for three reasons: 1. Because it is more ancient. Some aver their existence from the time of Sylvester; others, from the very time of the apostles. 2. Because it is so universal. There is scarcely any country into which this sect has not crept. And, 3. Because all other heretics excite horror by the greatness of their blasphemies against God; but these have a great appearance of piety, as they live justly before men, believe rightly all things concerning God, and confess all the articles which are contained in the creed; only they hate and revile the church of Rome, and in their accusations are easily believed by the people."
Such a concession, from such a source, speaks volumes. Here, then, is a succession of faithful men, whose apostolic origin, perpetuity, universal though often hidden diffusion, general orthodoxy, evangelical simplicity, and sanctity of character, is admitted by the church of Rome herself; a succession of faithful men, organized too into Christian churches, claiming to be the true successors of the apostles, protecting against all the corruptions of the patriarchate and the papacy, and for this reason subject to continual persecution from both, through the hands of the secular powers to which they are allied; a church built not on St. Peter alone, but on the entire foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ himself being the chief corner stone, and against which the gates of hell have not been able to prevail. May we not say then, in the language of Revelation, "Here is the patience of the saints? These are they that keep the commandments of God, and the faith of Jesus? Rev. xiv, 12. It also appears that the recesses of the Alps and Pyrenees were distinguished retreats of these persecuted Christians in the darkest ages of the church. Or, as Mr. Robinson observes, in his Ecclesiastical Researches, "Greece was the parent, Spain and Navarre the nurses, France the step mother, and Savoy, i. e. Piedmont, the jailer, of this class of Christians called Waldenses." Hence it is hardly to be wondered at, that the Waldenses, like the Scriptures, have been resorted to by all parties of Protestants, in defense of their peculiar sentiments. The papists accused the Protestants of being a new sect, whose principles had no existence till the days of Luther. This charge they all denied, and each party sought to find predecessors, and to trace a line of succession up to the apostles. The perversions of heresy on the one hand, and the corruption of popery on the other, left no alternative but to find that succession among the Waldenses. The researches of many learned men of different communities, induced by this circumstance, have furnished much important evidence that might otherwise have been lost in oblivion; but the natural consequence has been, that all have been tempted to mould the character of the Waldenses to the support of their own particular views, instead of collecting into one point all the light of history, and calmly abiding the issue. For, after all, an uninterrupted succession, however gratifying it may be to be able to trace it, is necessary only to a church which regulates its practice by tradition, and not by the pure word of God. But such certainly was not the doctrine of the Waldenses, in the time of their purity. It is necessary here that we distinguish between the ancient and modern Waldenses. It appears from all the accounts we gather of them before the Reformation, that their principles and practice were more pure and scriptural than since that period. From the united attestation of their enemies and their own confessions of faith, we learn that the ancient Waldenses were distinguished chiefly by the following points: 1. Their attachment to the Scriptures.—They held that the Holy Scriptures are the only source of faith and religion, without regard to the authority of the fathers, and tradition. Although they principally used the New Testament, yet, as Usher proves, they regarded the Old also as canonical Scripture. "They translated the Old and New Testament," says Reinerius, "into the vulgar tongues, and spake and taught according to them." From their greater use of the New Testament, however, as Venema observes, their adversaries took occasion to charge them with disputing the Old. "Hence whatever a doctor of the church teaches," says Reinerius, "which he does not prove from the New Testament, they consider it as entirely fabulous—contrary to the doctrine of the (Romish) church." He adds, "I have heard and seen a certain unlearned rustic, who recited the book of Job, word by word, and many who perfectly knew the New Testament." This is high praise. 2. Their scriptural simplicity, and soundness of belief.—Their adversaries frequently acknowledge this; see the testimony of the inquisitor above. It is amply confirmed by their own authentic monuments and confessions of faith, of which several are printed at length in Jones' History of the Church. This is high praise. From a confession of their faith, in 1120, we extract the following particulars:—(1.) That the Scriptures teach that there is one God, almighty, all-wise, and all-good, who made all things by his goodness; for he formed Adam in his own image and likeness: but that by the envy of the Devil sin entered into the world, and that we are sinners in and by Adam. (2.) That Christ was promised to our fathers, who received the law; that so, knowing by the law their unrighteousness and insufficiency, they might desire the coming of Christ, to satisfy for their sins, and accomplish the law by himself. (3.) That Christ was born at the time appointed by God the Father; that is to say, in the time when all iniquity abounded, that he might show us grace and mercy, as being faithful. (4.) That Christ is our life, truth, peace, and righteousness; as also our pastor, advocate, and priest, who died for the salvation of all who believe, and is risen for our justification. (5.) That there is no mediator with God the Father, save Jesus Christ. (6.) That after this life there are only two places, the one for the saved and the other for the damned. (7.) That we ought to honor the secular powers by subjection, ready obedience, and paying of tribute. 3. Their purity and excellence of life and manners.—Though often accused of the most abominable crimes, the whole evidence goes to show that these accusations were vile calumnies, invented for party purposes by their malignant enemies, the papal priests. Indeed, an ancient inquisitor confesses that "these heretics are known by their manner and conversation, for they are orderly and modest in their behaviour and deportment. They avoid all appearance of pride in their dress; they neither indulge in finery, nor are they mean and ragged. They avoid commerce, that they may be free from deceit and falsehood. They get their livelihood by manual industry. They are not anxious about amassing riches, but content themselves with the necessaries of life. They are chaste, temperate and sober. They abstain from anger. Even when they work, they either learn or teach, &c." Seisselius, archbishop of Turin, also admits, "Their heresy excepted, they generally live a purer life than other Christians." 4. Their enlightened fervor, courage and zeal.—Reinerius assigns as one cause of their great increase, their great zeal. "All of them, men and women, night and day, never cease from teaching and learning. The first lesson," he adds, "which the Waldenses teach those whom they bring over to their party, is to instruct them what manner of persons the disciples of Christ ought to be; and this they do by the doctrine of the evangelists and apostles, saying that those only are the followers of the apostles who imitate their manner of life." Hence, 5. Their steady opposition to all corruptions and anti-christian assumptions.—"The first error of the Waldenses," says an ancient inquisitor, "is, that they affirm that the church of Rome is not the church of Jesus Christ, but an assembly of ungodly men, and that she has ceased from being the true church from the time of pope Sylvester, at which time the poison of temporal advantages was cast into the church." They rejected images, crosses, relics, legends, traditions, auricular confessions, indulgences, absolutions, clerical celibacy, orders, titles, tithes, vestments, monkery, masses, and prayers for the dead, purgatory, invocation of saints, and of the virgin Mary, holy water, festivals, processions, pilgrimages, vigils, Lent, pretended miracles, exorcisms, consecrations, confirmations, extreme unction, canonization, and the like. They condemned the use of liturgies, especially in an unknown tongue. They condemned the mystical or allegorical interpretations of Scripture. They condemned, most of all, the wicked lives of both people and clergy in the worldly communion of Rome. 6. Their enlightened views of liberty of conscience.—"They affirm," says the inquisitor, "that no man ought to be forcibly compelled in matters of faith." On this point, as also on the next, they were far in advance of the reformers, Luther and Calvin. 7. Their just ideas of the nature and character of a church of Christ.—"That is the church of Christ which hears the pure doctrine of Christ, and observes the ordinances instituted by him, in whatever place it exists." "The sacraments of the church of Christ are two, baptism and the Lord's supper: and in the latter, Christ has instituted the receiving in both kinds, both for priests and people." "We consider the sacraments as signs of holy things, or as the visible emblems of invisible blessings. We regard it as proper, and even necessary, that believers use these symbols when it can be done. Notwithstanding which, we maintain that believers may be saved without these signs, when they had neither place nor opportunity of observing them." Hence Seisselius remarks, "They say that they alone observe the evangelic and apostolic doctrine, on which account, by an intolerable impudence, they usurp the name of the catholic church." Reinerius also observes, "They declare themselves to be the apostles' successors, to have apostolical authority, and the keys of binding and loosing.—They say that a man is then first baptized when he is received into their community. Some of them hold that baptism is of no advantage to infants, because they cannot actually believe." On the whole it is evident that they were, and that too on principle, dissenters, not from the church of Rome only, but from all national established203churches. Their church officers, Reinerius says, were only bishops, elders, and deacons; but the distinction between their bishops and other elders seems to have been only that the former were the official pastors of the churches. That they understood and practiced immersion as baptism is evident, but whether they generally practice infant baptism has been long a matter of dispute. The words of Reinerius seem to imply that in his time (1250) they were of different opinions on this point. The modern Waldenses in the valleys of Piedmont do practice it; but they have so changed in many points, since their amalgamation with the Calvinists at the Reformation, having also received their pastors from them since 1603, that nothing decisive can be hence inferred. Dr. Murdock thinks that the followers of Peter Waldo universally practiced infant baptism; but he gives us no authority for this opinion. The only one of their ancient writings which sanctions it, is the Spiritual Calendar, but this, if genuine, is of doubtful date. On the contrary, all their other writings, from the Noble Lesson, in 1100, down to their Confession of Faith, in 1655, Dr. Gill affirms to be in favor of the baptism of believers only. It appears certain that the Cathari, the Paterines, the Berengarians, the Arnoldists, Petrobrusians, and Henricians, i. e., the earlier Waldenses as far as history testifies, vehemently opposed infant baptism. That there were, on the other hand, many among them in after years who adopted the practice, is, in view of all the facts, highly probable. Mr. Jones, in the preface to the fifth edition of his History, says, that the Waldenses were Anti-pedobaptists. Mr. Milner, after saying, "I cannot find any satisfactory proofs that the Waldenses were in judgment Anti-pedobaptists strictly," concludes thus; "I lay no great stress on the subject; for the Waldenses might have been a faithful, humble, and spiritual people, as I believe they were, if they had differed from the general body of Christians on this article." However this point may have been decided, it is now generally acknowledged that the Waldenses were the witnesses for the truth in the dark ages, and that they gave the first impulse to a reform of the Christian church, so called. For bearing this noble testimony before the church of Rome, these pious people were for many centuries the subjects of a most cruel persecution; and in the thirteenth century the pope instituted a crusade against them, and they were pursued with a fury perfectly diabolical. Their principles, however, continued unsubdued, and at the Reformation their descendants, in number eight hundred thousand, were reckoned among the Protestants, with whom they were in doctrine so congenial. Some united with the Lutherans, others with the Calvinists, and others still with the Anabaptists of the better sort, afterward called the Mennonites. "The modern Mennonites," says Mosheim, "not only consider themselves as the descendants of the Waldenses, who were so grievously oppressed and persecuted by the despotic head of the Romish church, but pretend, moreover, to be the purest offspring of those respectable sufferers." Mosheim partially concedes this claim, though Dr. Murdock contests it, by some bold and, we think, unwarrantable assertions. In the seventeenth century, the flames of persecution were again rekindled against them by the cruelty of Louis XIV., in 1655 and 1685. In the last, at the revocation of the edict of Nantes, about fifteen thousand perished in the prisons of Pignerol, besides great numbers who perished among the mountains. They received, however, the powerful protection and support of England under William III. But still the house of Saxony continued to treat them as heretics, and they were oppressed by a variety of cruel edicts. When Piedmont was subjected to France, in 1800, the French government (Bonaparte being first consul) placed them on the same footing of toleration with the rest of France; but on the return of the king of Sardinia to Genoa, notwithstanding the intercession of lord William Bentinck, the old persecuting edicts were revived in the end of 1814; and though they have not been subjected to fire and fagot as aforetime, their worship has been restrained, and they were not only stripped of all employments, but by a most providential circumstance only saved from a general massacre. Recently they have been visited by some pious and benevolent individuals; and the number of the Waldenses (or Vaudois) has been taken at nineteen thousand seven hundred and ten, besides about fifty families residing at Turin; in all twenty thousand. See Murdock's Mosheim; Milner's History of the Church of Christ; Jones, &c.; Sismondi's History of the Crusades against the Albigenses; Ivimey; Benedict; Ward's Farewell Letters; History of the United Brethren; Gilley's Narrative; Acland's Sketch, and History; Jackson's Narrative; Dwight's Travels in Germany; Ency. Am.; Hend.; Buck; Watson; Williams.