Roman Catholicism , cult or not? Part II

...with pleasure.

I'll just add to this bit on Tertullian: he did indeed believe in baptismal regeneration which caused him not just to insist on adult baptism but in fact insisted on delaying baptism until as close to death as possible - because he believed that sins committed after baptism could not be forgiven

 

So. No evidence then.

 

Hey you told me to look in the Catholic encyclopedia for proof of proto-baptists. So, don't blame me if you don't like what it says.

I am not basing this off of Creedal Statements. I have heard these people speak and they believe they are doing the work of God so no matter what horrible things they do they are justified by the end result.

Have I denied that the RCC committed horrible attrocities? No, I haven't. I unlike you have not turned a blind eye to the persecution various people have done towards the RCC in the name of religion.

 

That's easy.

Interpretted by ---

#1. NOT the people that gave us "infallible extermination" policies!

#2. NOT the people that gave us "Mary queen of heaven and sinless like Christ".

#3. NOT the people that gave us "burning Bibles for the weekend"

#4. NOT the people that gave us the eisegetical practice of INSERTING doctrine INTO the text rather than exegetically sound Bible study.

#5. NOT the people that claim to invent "The commandments of men" teaching for doctrines the commandments of men - in fact!

#6. NOT the people that claim to have records showing that they slaughtered 25 million and also claim that 2/3's of the actual records are missing.

#7. NOT the people that gave us their Pope torturing his cardinals and then tossing them overboard while on his Papal "war ship".

The Bible as interpretted by anyone honest enough to read ALL the details in the text instead of turning a blind eye to those that "Do not please".

IN Christ,

Bob

 

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

FE The Faith Explained (RC commentary on the Baltimore Catechism post Vatican ii).

difference whether a man be washed in a sea or a pool, a stream or a fount, a lake or a trough; nor is there any distinction between those whom John baptized in the Jordan and those whom Peter baptized in the Tiber, unless withal the eunuch whom Philip baptized in the midst of his journeys with chance water, derived (therefrom) more or less of salvation than others.

Tertullian
CHAP. IV.--THE PRIMEVAL HOVERING OF THE SPIRIT OF GOD OVER THE WATERS TYPICAL OFBAPTISM. – 671
TERTULLIAN “ON BAPTISM. “ [TRANSLATED BY THE REV. S. THELWALL.]
http://www.earlychristianwritings.com/text/tertullian21.html
</font>[/QUOTE]Tetullian – repentance comes before water Baptism – and before remission. So “believer’s Baptism”.

[/QB][/QUOTE]

Did I already post that?? hmm thought so.

 

That's easy.

Interpretted by ---

#1. NOT the people that gave us "infallible extermination" policies!

#2. NOT the people that gave us "Mary queen of heaven and sinless like Christ".

#3. NOT the people that gave us "burning Bibles for the weekend"

#4. NOT the people that gave us the eisegetical practice of INSERTING doctrine INTO the text rather than exegetically sound Bible study.

#5. NOT the people that claim to invent "The commandments of men" teaching for doctrines the commandments of men - in fact!

#6. NOT the people that claim to have records showing that they slaughtered 25 million and also claim that 2/3's of the actual records are missing.

#7. NOT the people that gave us their Pope torturing his cardinals and then tossing them overboard while on his Papal "war ship".

The Bible as interpretted by anyone honest enough to read ALL the details in the text instead of turning a blind eye to those that "Do not please".

IN Christ,

Bob </font>[/QUOTE]In other words,the Bible as interpreted by people who disagree as to what that interpretation is. And that progresses matters how, exactly?

 

That Bible as interpretted by the Holy Spirit - given to people not prone to "infallible extermination policies" and Bible burning.

Pretty "obvious" when you stop and think about it.

 

Ah, would this be the same 'Holy Spirit' then who seems to keep coming up with contradictory interpretations of Scripture?

 

THE VOICE OF THE
CHURCH
by D.T. Taylor


THE WALDENSES, A. D. 314, TILL NOW
THE WALDENSES, VALDENSES, VAUDOIS or “People of the Valleys.” “Who has not heard,” says Elliott, “of the Waldenses?” “this most ancient stock of religion,” to use the words of the great Milton. In the language of Dr. Cheever, “They are an unconquered community of Protestant Christians, who have always existed directly at the doors of the Romish court, and beneath the reverberating thunders of the Vatican.” Romish and Protestant writers of the best authority have demonstrated their existence since the time of Pope Sylvester, and perhaps even from the days of the Apostles, and it is well known that they acknowledge no founder. But we need not stop to eulogize them, for their praise is in every mouth. We come to notice their faith, and on this we remark that, “They have always regarded the Papal Church as the Antichrist: the Babylon of the Apocalypse.” ‘They condemned fine mystical or allegorical interpretations of Scripture.” fb8 If the latter be true, could they have been anything else than Literalists? Their “Treatise on Antichrist,” and “Noble Lesson,” written in the 12th century, are both pronounced by the best judges to be genuine and authentic. fb9 The latter (translated by Faber and quoted by Brooks, Elliott, etc.) is originally in the form of a Poem. Elliott pronounces it to have been written among the Cottian Alps, about A. D. 1150 or 1160, and thinks Peter Waldo was its author. The Poem is very beautiful, and in its style and sentiment resembles the Epistles of the early Chiliastic Fathers. We give extracts. ( page 108 )


CHRIST AND ANTICHRIST
by Samuel J. Cassels

The holy wars against the Waldenses will next claim our attention. Some writers suppose that the Waldenses took their name and origin from Peter Waldo, a wealthy merchant of Lyons. Others, however, place their origin in a much more remote antiquity. The opinion of Beza was, that Peter of Lyons derived his name Waldo, or Valdo, from the Waldenses. “According to other writers,” says Hallam, “the original Waldenses were a race of uncorrupted shepherds, who, in the valleys of the Alps, had shaken off, or perhaps never learned, the system of superstition on which the Catholic

200 church depended for its ascendency.”13 Shoberl traces their origin to Claude, Bishop of Turin, who, when image-worship was introduced, in the beginning of the eighth century, made a bold stand against both this and several other corruptions of the Romish church. Here, amid the valleys of Piedmont, had these truly primitive and Christian people lived for centuries, separated by their locality from the rest of the world, and unobserved by even the eye of popish jealousy. The character of the Waldenses and their doctrines may be learned from the following quotations. “All they aimed at,” says Mosheim, “was, to reduce the form of ecclesiastical government, and the lives and manners both of the clergy and people, to that amiable simplicity, and that primitive sanctity, which characterized the apostolic ages, and which appear so strongly recommended in the precepts and injunctions of the divine Author of our holy religion.”14 “These pious and innocent sectaries,” says Hallam,” of whom the very monkish historians speak well, appear to have nearly resembled the modern Moravians. They had ministers of their own appointment, and denied the lawfulness of oaths and of capital punishment. In other respects their opinions were not far removed from those usually called Protestant.”15Reinerus Sacco, an Italian Inquisitor, writes thus of them: “While all other sects disgust the public by their gross blasphemies against God, this, on the other hand, has a great appearance of piety. For those who belong to it, live justly among men, have a sound doctrine in all points respecting God, and believe in all the articles of the Apostles’ creed, but they blaspheme the Romish church.”16 Cassini, a Franciscan, thus speaks of them: “The errors of the Vaudois consist in their denial that the Romish is the holy mother church, and in their refusal to obey her traditions. In other points they recognize the church of Christ; and for my part, I cannot deny that they have always been members of his church.”17 When Pope Innocent VIII. had urged Louis XII., king of France, to extirpate this sect from his kingdom, the monarch sent two commissioners, one of them a Dominican, and the royal confessor, to inquire into their character and views. These commissioners deposed upon oath, that “having visited the parishes and churches of the Vaudois, we find no images, no trace of the service of the mass, nor any paraphernalia, used in the ceremonies observed by Catholics. But having also made a strict inquiry into their manner of living, we cannot discover

201 the least shadow of the crimes imputed to them. On the contrary, it appears that they piously observe the Sabbath, baptize their children after the manner of the primitive church, and are thoroughly instructed in the doctrine of the Apostles’ creed and in the law of God.”18 Notwithstanding, however, the purity of the doctrines and lives of the Waldenses, they erred in the vital point, they denied the supremacy of Rome, and rejected her numerous superstitions. This was enough, this alone, to render them obnoxious to papal wrath. Besides some previous oppressions and slaughters to which this people were subject, in 1487, Innocent VIII. published a bull against them, “denouncing them as heretics, calling upon all the authorities, spiritual and temporal, to join in their extermination, threatening with extreme vengeance such as should refuse to take part in the crusade, promising remission of sins to those who engaged in it, and dissolving all contracts made with the offenders. Even the inquisitors and monks were exhorted to take arms against them, to crush them like poisonous adders, and to make all possible efforts for their holy extermination. This bull also granted to each true believer a right to seize the property of the victims without form or process.”19 The result of this bull was, that the Vaudois were overrun and butchered for several months by a body of eighteen thousand troops, and a vast host of undisciplined attendants.
In 1540 an edict was published in France against a portion of the Waldenses to the following purport: “That every dissentient from the holy mother church should acknowledge his errors, and obtain reconciliation within a stated period, under the severest penalties in case of disobedience; and because Merindal was considered as the principal seat of the heresy, that devoted town was ordered to be razed to the ground; all the caverns, hiding-places, cellars, and vaults, in the vicinity of the town, were to be carefully examined and destroyed; the woods were to be cut down, the gardens and orchards laid waste, and none who had ever possessed a house or property in the town, should ever occupy it again, either in his own person or in that of any of his name or family, in order that the memory of the excommunicated sect, might be utterly wiped away from the province, and the place be made a desert.”20

202 In what manner this decree was executed, is related by Anquetil, a Catholic writer: — “Twenty-two towns or villages were burned or pillaged with an inhumanity of which the history of the most barbarous nations scarcely affords an example. The wretched inhabitants, surprised in the night, and hunted from rock to rock by the light of the flames which consumed their habitations, frequently escaped one snare only to fall into another. The pitiful cries of the aged, the women, and the children, instead of softening the hearts of the soldiers, maddened with rage like their leaders, only served to guide them in pursuit of the fugitives. Voluntary surrender did not exempt the men from slaughter, nor the women from brutal outrages at which nature revolts. It was forbidden under pain of death to afford them harbor or succor. At Cabrieres, more than seven hundred men were butchered in cold blood; and the women, who had remained in their houses, were shut up in a barn containing a great quantity of straw, which was set on fire, and those who endeavored to escape by the windows were driven back with swords and pikes.”
In 1655, Charles Emanuel, Duke of Savoy, issued what is called “the bloody ordinance of Gastaldo.” This ordinance decreed, “that such of the Vaudois as would not embrace the Catholic faith, or sell their possessions to those who professed it, must within a few days quit their native valleys.” To enforce this decree, the Marquis of Pianezza entered the valleys with an army of fifteen thousand men. One of the commanders in that expedition gives the following as a specimen of its general character:
— “I was witness,” says he, “to many great violences and cruelties exercised by the banditti and soldiers of Piedmont, upon all of every age, sex and condition, whom I myself saw massacred, dismembered, and ravished, with many horrid circumstances of barbarity.” Such was the cruelty of this holy war, that all Protestant Europe was excited by it. The following are extracts of a letter written by the immortal Milton, then secretary to Cromwell, to the Duke of Savoy, remonstrating with him for such barbarities. “His serene Highness, the Protector, has been informed that part of these most miserable people have been cruelly massacred by your forces, part driven out by violence, and so without house or shelter, poor and destitute of all relief, to wander up and down with their wives and children, in craggy and uninhabitable places, and mountains covered with snow. Oh the fired houses which are yet smoking, the torn limbs and 203 ground defiled with blood! Some men decrepit with age and bedridden, have been burned in their beds. Some infants have been dashed against the rocks; others have had their throats cut, whose brains have, with more than Cyclopean cruelty, been boiled and eaten by the murderers. If all the tyrants of all times and ages were alive again, certainly they would be ashamed, when they should find that they had contrived nothing in comparison with these things, that might be reputed barbarous and inhuman.” Such has been the character of this unnatural war, which Popery has been waging for centuries upon these inoffensive and feeble disciples of the Savior. But for the interference of Protestant states, the very name of the Waldenses had been long since blotted out from the face of the earth. And even to the present time are they persecuted and oppressed by the same unrelenting foe; their privileges being curtailed, and their territory rendered smaller and smaller by the constant aggressions of their enemies. ( pages 199-203 )


HISTORY OF THE
ANCIENT CHRISTIANS
by Jean Paul Perrin

Among these Witnesses, the first that we distinctly read of were the Pauliclans. They rose about A.D. 660. A very interesting account of these pious people is given in Milner’s Ecclesiastical History of the seventh century; and a still more extended and distinct account, in the Revelation Adam Blair’s History of the Waldenses, Book I. chapter I.
While the Paulicians were still maintaining their faithful testimony, the Waldenses arose; or, rather more probably, these two denominations had a common origin, and a common faith. The name Waldenses, the most common and popular one of these humble and devoted people, was evidently derived — not from Peter Waldo, but from the place of their abode. The following statement of the learned and ingenious Robert Robinson, a divine of Cambridge, in England, who died more than half a century ago, places the origin of this name in what I suppose to be the true light.
“From the Latin, Vallis, came the English, valley; the French and Spanish, valle; the Italian, valdesi; the Low Dutch, valleye; the Provencal, vaux, vaudais; the ecclesiastical Vallenses, Valdenses, Ualdenses, and Waldenses. The words simply signify vallies, — the inhabitants of vallies, and no more. It happened that the inhabitants of the Pyrenees did not profess the Catholic faith. It fell out also that the inhabitants of the rallies about the Alps did not embrace that faith. It happened, moreover, in the ninth century, that one Valdo, a friend and counselor of Berengarius, and a man of eminence, who had many followers, did not approve of the Papal discipline and doctrine. And it came to pass, about an hundred and thirty years after, that a rich merchant of Lyons, who was called Valdus, because he received his religious opinions from the inhabitants of the vallies, openly disavowed the Roman religion, supported many to teach the doctrines believed in the vallies, and became the instrument of the conversion of great numbers. All these people were called WALDENSES.”1
6
The same people, that is, a people who substantially agreed in faith and practice, were called by different names derived from their places of residence; from the names of distinguished leaders; and from a variety of minor peculiarities: — as Albigenses, from their principal seat being in the neighborhood of Alby, in Francs; Bohemian Brethren, from their being found in large numbers, in Bohemia; Catbari, or Puritans, from their opposition to the corruptions of the Papacy; Leonisis, or Poor men of Lyons, from their chief residence in the city of Lyons; Petrobrussians, Arnoldists, and Henricians, from the names of distinguished ministers and leaders; and a variety of other appellations, familiar to the students of ecclesiastical history. These names, however, will be found so fully enumerated and explained in the History itself, which I here recommend, that further remark upon them here is altogether unnecessary.
It would not be strictly accurate to say, that among the large body of churches bearing the general name of Waldenses, there were no diversities of opinion in regard to any points; still it may be said, with entire confidence and safety, that, on all leading points, there was a great uniformity of practice. Their own Confessions of Faith, drawn up and published at different times, nay the very accusations and calumnies of their enemies leave us at no loss in regard to this matter.
The following statement may be considered as a fair and impartial Synopsis of their religious principles and practices. These, indeed, may all be gathered from the pages of the ensuing history; but it is judged best to exhibit a summary of them in this place, for the purpose of exciting the attention, and directing the inquiries of those who shall undertake to examine for themselves the numerous and diversified documents which are embraced in this volume. They zealously contended for the doctrine of the Trinity — the Divinity of Christ — the fall of our race in and by the first sin of Adam — the entire depravity of human nature — the vicarious nature of the atonement — the sovereign, unconditional election of all who are saved, before the foundation of the world —
7
justification by the imputed righteousness of Christ — the necessity of regeneration and continued sanctification by the power of the Holy Spirit — the perseverance of the saints — and the endless punishment of the finally impenitent. In regard to all these points they adopted what we are accustomed, in later times, to denominate Calvinism, with scarcely a single deviation. But that which attracted most attention in their day, and created most enmity against them in the dominant Church, was their adoption and publication of the following opinions and practices bearing on the system of Romanism.
They renounced the Church of Rome as mystical Babylon, abhorred the Pope as the “Man of Sin,” and rejected all the traditions of the Papacy as of no authority among Christians. They held that there were only two sacraments, Baptism and the Lord’s Supper; that the other five, so named by the Romanists, have no just title to be called sacraments; and that of the five, three, viz. confirmation, penance, and extreme unction, have no foundation whatever in the word of God. That all God-fathers, and Godmothers, in the baptism of infants, are to be rejected, excepting the parents, who alone ought to present their children, if they are living, and of a suitable character. But that if the parents are dead, or destitute of Christian character, then the children ought to be presented by any who are willing to become responsible for their Christian education. That fasts and festival days, and saints’ days, have no authority in Scripture, and ought not to be observed. That no day ought to be kept holy but the Lord’s day. That the true Church consists of all those who have knowledge of the Gospel, and walk according to its principles and rules. That purgatory, transubstantiation, prayers for the dead, and to saints, auricular confession, and all image worship, were all departures from primitive purity and simplicity, and ought all to be rejected with abhorrence. They pronounced the consecration of churches, churchyards, church bells, and all things of a similar nature, to be superstitious, and the invention of covetous priests to increase their gains, by extorting from the people, fees and oblations. They maintained the doctrine of Presbyterian parity among their clergy;
8
rejecting all diversity of rank and order in the priesthood. They had also Ruling Elders in their churches, and conducted their ecclesiastical affairs by a Synod, — in which pastors and elders came together to deliberate and decide on all their affairs. In regard to dress, their ministers were content with a simple black coat, instead of the pompous vestments of the Romish clergy. Contrary to the assertions of some,2 it is perfectly plain, from their Confession of Faith, that they practiced infant baptism, and that they baptized by sprinkling or affusion. They taught that the clergy were allowed to marry, and that the doctrine of the celibacy of the clergy was a doctrine of devils, leading to enormous moral mischief. They were charged by their enemies with denying the lawfulness of defensive war, of capital punishments; of taking oaths, even in judicial process; and of exercising the office of the civil magistrate. All these charges, however, they solemnly denied, and declared that they were mere slanders. They taught that the sacraments, though appointed by Christ, and though binding on all Christians, were yet not necessary to salvation; that is, that all sincere believers in Christ, who had no opportunity of attending on those ordinances, or who were prevented by any mistake from attending on them, would still certainly be saved.
Most of these statements are confirmed by the adversaries of the Waldenses, who, with no view to do them honor, represent them as holding the opinions just mentioned, as evidences of enormous and even damnable heresies. A few specimens of this testimony will appear to the impartial reader perfectly conclusive.

Lindanus, a Roman Catholic bishop of the see of Ghent, who wrote in defense of the tenets of the Church of Rome, about the year 1560, represents John Calvin as the inheritor of the doctrine of the Waldenses.3

Mezeray, the learned historiographer of France, in his Abridgment of Chronology, speaking of the Waldensos, says, “They held nearly the same opinions as those who are now called Calvinists.”4

Gualter, a Jesuitical monk, in his chronological tables, drew up a catalogue, consisting of seven and twenty particulars, in which he
9
shows that the principles of the Waldensos, and those of the Calvinists, coincided with each other.5

Eckius reproached Luther, that he had only renewed the heresies of the Waldenses and Albigenses, of Wickliff and of John Huss, which had been long ago condemned.

Bellarmine asserts, that the identical belief which was publicly taught and professed in the vallies of Piedmont, in the year 890, and onwards, was the very same which is at this day professed and owned by the Reformed Churches.6

Genebrard, a Benedictine monk, born in 1537, in the third book of his Chronicles, calls the doctrine of Claude and his followers, in rejecting the traditions of Rome, Calvinistic doctrines; and denominates the Waldenses, Calvinists. ( pages 5-9 )


MILLER’S CHURCH HISTORY
by Andrew Miller


VAUDOIS, ALBIGENSES, WALDENSES
4. The origin of the Western sectaries, so-called, under the common name of Waldenses, has been the subject of much controversy. One class of writers, favorable to Romanism, with the view of involving them in the common charge of Manicheism, have endeavored to prove that their opinions were of Eastern, or Paulician origin; while the opposite party affirm that they were free from the Manicheart error, and that they have been the inheritors and maintainers, from father to son, of a pure and scriptural Christianity, from the time of Constantine, if not from the days of the apostles.2 But as it is not so much our object at present to trace the history of these ancient, simple, and devoted christian people, as to bring out another feature of the papacy under Innocent, in its most fully expressed blasphemy and cruelty; we will merely satisfy the reader as to who these people were, and as to the scene of their slaughter. “The terms,” says Dr. Gilly, “Vaudois in French, Vallenses in Latin, Valdisi in Italian, and
608
Waldenses in English ecclesiastical history, signifying nothing more or less than ‘men of the valleys;’ and as the valleys of Piedmont have had the honor of producing a race of people who have remained true to the faith introduced by the first missionaries who preached Christianity in those regions, the synonyms have been adopted as the distinguishing names of a religious community, faithful to the primitive creed, and free from the corruptions of the church of Rome.”


The Albigenses, though essentially one with the Waldenses in matters of faith, were so called because the greater part of Narbonnese-Gaul which they inhabited was called Albigesium, or from Albi, a town in Languedoc. The Alps separated the two communities. God found an asylum for the Waldenses in the valleys on the eastern side, and for the Albigenses in the valleys on the western side, of that great mountain range, where they were preserved and fortified for many centuries.


PETER WALDO
From a similarity of names, Peter Valdo, or Waldo, the reformer of Lyons, has frequently been spoken of as the first founder of the Waldensian sect. This we think a mistake, but one easily made, and one which the Romanists eagerly improved as an argument against their antiquity, and one which has been adopted by most of the general histories. But Mr. Elliot, in his “Horae Apocalypticae,” and those mentioned in the note above, have examined the question with great patience and research, and, we believe, clearly established the conclusion of the orthodoxy and the antiquity of the “men of the valleys.”3 ( Chap. 25 page 607 )


A GENERAL HISTORY OF THE
BAPTIST DENOMINATION
VOLUME 1
by David Benedict

Sylvester was bishop of Rome in the reign of Constantine, and Catholics pretend that he was the thirty-fourth in succession. In the days of Sylvester, it is believed, that the people, who were afterwards called Waldenses, began to separate from the church, which had become a tool of state, and was fast plunging into error and superstition. (chap.1 page 17)

The Euchites among the Greeks were similar to the Waldenses or Waldensians among the Romans. The terms, Waldenses, Valenses or Vadois (all of the same import) signify the people of the valleys, and were applied in early times to those, who, tired of tyranny, pomp, and oppression, retired to obscure retreats where they might enjoy gospel purity and religious freedom. And in the end, all of their sentiments, and many who were not, were called Waldenses, whether they dwelt in rallies or on mountains, in cities or in caves: Just as a sect of christians are called Moravians, whether they dwell in Moravia, in England, in Greenland, or the West-India Islands. And the terms Euchites and Waldenses answered to that of Non-conformist in England, which every reader will understand. Among the English non-conformists, are comprehended Presbyterians, Independents, Baptists, Methodists, Quakers, and so on. And so among the Greek Euchites and the Roman Waldenses, were a great variety of sects, who maintained a great diversity of opinions and practices, and among them were many who would be called Baptists, as we shall attempt to show in the next chapter but one. (page 33)


THE HISTORY OF THE
CHRISTIAN CHURCH
VOL. 1
by William Jones


Eminent among these witnesses for the truth in times of general apostacy, stand the Waldenses. They first appear prominent in history in the twelfth century. Long before that, no doubt, in the valleys of the Alps, they had maintained the true religion, having retreated from the corruptions and persecutions of the Romish church. They had remained there in comparative quietude, perhaps esteemed too insignificant for molestation, until in the century named the papal hierarchy was startled at the wide prevalence and popularity of their doctrine, and hence felt it necessary to employ all the infernal machinery of persecution for their destruction. Their missionaries had gone into all the world, and then, in almost all the countries of Europe, as if by one consent, there started up simultaneously, great numbers of individuals who denounced the supremacy of the Pope, condemned the corruptions and venality of the priesthood, and boldly proclaimed that the church of Rome was the “whore of Babylon” predicted in the Apocalypse—they declared that Christ was the only head of the church, and that the Bible was the only
4
infallible rule of faith and practice. These confessors obtained different names—from their localities, from their principal men, from some circumstances in their manner or some peculiarity in their doctrine, and from the wit and malice of their enemies. The most common names, however, by which they were called, were those of Waldenses and Albigenses—the former derived from the valleys of the Alps, and the other from the town of Albi, two places where for a long time their doctrine most flourished.

But these names are used with great latitude by historians. The papal writers from the twelfth to the sixteenth century — to the Reformation— often include under these names, and sometimes under one of them, all the dissenters from the church of Rome, however different and distinct in sentiment and practice; as they now call all denominations Protestants who do not admit the infallibility of their church. This fact must be kept prominently in view by all who would draw the proper distinctions among those who, in that age, in divers countries and for different causes, were marshaled in battle array against the papal dominion. Some were opposed merely to the supremacy of the Pope, others sought simply to reform the manners of the clergy. Here was a party that rejected the mummeries of the mass, or laughed at the folly of transubstantiation; and there was a party that abhorred the adoration of images, repudiated the intercession of saints and angels, refused homage to dead men’s bones, contemned penances and pilgrimages, and despised and ridiculed all the absurd superstitions and absurd practices under which the duped and deluded millions were crushed by a designing priesthood. Such persons were Reformers. They esteemed the church of Rome to be the church of Christ in a state of apostacy. They wished to purge her of pollution, and restore her to primitive purity and excellence. But Popery will not be reformed. The constituents of its being are impurity and sin. Hence its Reformers were denounced as heretics, fit only for chains and death; and hence, to call down upon them general odium, and to excuse and justify their persecution, they were denominated Waldenses and Albigenses—a peple who, it was notorious, declared the Pope to be the “son of perdition,” and his church “the whore of Babylon.” The true Waldenses and Albigenses were no Reformers of the Papism. They disclaimed all connection and kindredship with the church of Rome—denounced her ministers and
5
ordinances as those of darkness; and roundly asserted that the church of Christ was never included within her precincts or befouled with her abominations.

Nor must these names be taken in too contracted a sense. The title of the edition of Perrin’s History before us is calculated to mislead—
“History of the Ancient Christians inhabiting the Valleys of Alps.” This would seem to imply that the true Waldenses and Albigenses were confined to the Valleys of the Alps—that their doctrines were held and taught by a people of a particular district. But Perrin had no such contracted view of the matter. It will be quite apparent to every critical reader of his work, that he supposed these names belonged to a religious persuasion, and not to a carnal lineage of men—to those who were born not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God. He quotes Reinerius as saying “That sect is universal, for there is scarcely any country where it hath not taken footting.”1 Outside of the Alpine Valleys, the most illustrious champions of Waldensian doctrine flourished. Beyond these borders, the bloody crusades against the Albigenses were chiefly waged. There most of their martyrs fell. In almost every country of Europe, Perrin shows the existence of the Waldenses, and records their devotion to the truth. Hence, while we should be careful, on the one hand, to guard against giving a too general application to this name; we should also be careful, on the other, not to limit it too much. The people justly entitled to this name are to be ascertained by the advocacy of certain sentiments, during a certain period of time; and no matter in what country you find them or what language they speak, if during that time, you discover them maintaining these sentiments, you have a right to call them the Waldenses. Such is the course of Perrin, and such is the course of all who have written any tolerable history of these witnesses of the truth during the dark ages.


TRUTH TRIUMPHANT
by Benjamin George Wilkinson
CHAPTER 6

VIGILANTIUS, LEADER OF THE WALDENSES
The paganism which so soon began to avenge itself by creeping into the doctrines and practices of the early church has never been altogether eradicated, and has always been ready to become the nucleus of heresy or corruption when faith declined or ardor cooled.1 THE earliest leader of prominence among the noble Waldenses in northern Italy and southern France is Vigilantius (A.D. 364-408). By some he has been accounted the first supreme director of the church of the Waldenses.2 In his time the protests against the introduction of pagan practices into primitive Christianity swelled into a revolution. Then it was that the throngs who desired to maintain the faith once delivered to the saints in northern Italy and southwestern France were welded into an organized system. Desiring truth based on the Bible only, those who refused to follow the superstitious novelties being brought into the church were greatly influenced by the clear-cut scriptural teachings of Vigilantius. Undoubtedly Patrick of Ireland, who was at that same time enlarging the Irish Church, was stirred by the reforms taking place in south central Europe.


CHAPTER 15
EARLY WALDENSIAN HEROES

Whenever, therefore, in the following sketches, the terms Berengarians, Petrobrusians, Henricians, Arnoldists, Waldenses, Albigenses, Leonists, or the poor men of Lyons, Lollards, Cathari, etc, occur, it must be understood that they intend a people, who agreed in certain leading principles, however they might differ in some smaller matters, and that all of them were by the Catholics comprehended under the general name of Waldenses.
1 Of them Sir James Mackintosh writes:

With the dawn of history, we discover some simple Christians in the valleys of the Alps, where they still exist under the ancient name of Vaudois, who by the light of the New Testament saw the extraordinary contrast between the purity of primitive times and the vices of the gorgeous and imperial hierarchy which surrounded them.”2


After Emperor Constantine had declared (A.D. 325) which of the Christian churches he recognized, and had decreed that the Roman world must conform to his decision, there came a straggle between the Christians who refused to compromise the teachings of the New Testament and those who were ready to accept the traditions of men. Mosheim declares:

The ancient Britons and Scots could not be moved, for a long time, either by the threats or the promises of the papal legates, to subject themselves to the Roman decrees and laws; as is abundantly testified by Beda. The Gauls and the Spaniards, as no one can deny, attributed only so much authority to the pontiff, as they supposed would be for their own advantage. Nor in Italy itself, could he make the bishop of Ravenna and others bow obsequiously to his will. And of private individuals, there were many who expressed openly their detestation of his vices and his greediness of power. Nor are those destitute of arguments who assert, that the Waldenses, even in this age [seventh century], had
208
fixed their residence in the valleys of Piedmont, and inveighed freely against Roman domination.”4

Robert Oliveton, a native of the Waldensian valleys, who translated the Vaudois Bible into French in 1535 wrote thus of the Scriptures in the
Preface:

It is Thee alone [the French Reformation Church] to whom I present this precious Treasure...in the name of a certain poor People thy Friends and Brethren in Jesus Christ, who ever since they were blessed and enriched therewith by the Apostles and Ambassadors of Christ, have still enjoyed and possessed the same.5


WALDENSES DATE BACK TO THE APOSTLES

The connection between the Waldenses, the Albigenses, and other believers in the New Testament and the primitive Christians of Western Europe is explained by Voltaire thus:

Auricular confession was not received so late as the eighth and ninth centuries in the countries beyond the Loire, in Languedoc and the Alps — Alcuin complains of this in his letters. The inhabitants of those countries appear to have always had an inclination to abide by the customs of the primitive church, and to reject the tenets and customs which the church in its more flourishing state judged convenient to adopt.

Those who were called Manichaeans, and those who were afterward named Albigenses, Vaudois, Lollards, and who appeared so often under different names, were remnants of the first Gaulish Christians, who were attached to several ancient customs, which the Church of Rome thought proper to alter afterward.”6

For nearly two hundred years following the death of the apostles, the process of separation went on between these two classes of church members until the open rupture came. In the year 325 the first world council of the church was held at Nicaea, and at that time Sylvester was given great recognition as bishop of Rome. It is from the time of this
209
Roman bishop that the Waldenses date their exclusion of the papal party from their communion. As the church historian Neander says:

But it was not without some foundation of truth that the Waldenses of this period asserted the high antiquity of their sect, and maintained that from the time of the secularization of the church — that is, as they believed, from the time of Constantine’s gift to the Roman bishop Silvester [A.D. 314 — 336] — such an opposition as finally broke forth in them, had been existing all along.”7


These Christians of the Alps and Pyrenees have been called Waldenses from the Italian word for “valleys,” and where they spread over into France, they have been called Vaudois, a French word meaning “inhabitants of the valleys” in a certain province. Many writers constantly
call them Vaudois. The enemies of this branch of the Church in the Wilderness have endeavored to confuse their history by tracing to a wrong source the origin of the name, Waldenses. They seek to connect its beginnings with Peter Waldo, an opulent merchant of Lyons, France, who came into notice about 1175. The story of this remarkable man commands a worthy niche in the temple of events. However, there is nothing in the original or the earliest documents of the Waldenses — their histories, poems, and confessions of faith — which can be traced to him or which make any mention of him.

Waldo, being converted in middle life to truths similar to those held by the Vaudois, distributed his fortune to the poor and labored extensively to spread evangelical teachings. He and his followers soon met with cruel opposition. Finally, in desperation they fled for refuge to those Waldenses who had crossed the Alps and had formed a considerable body in eastern France. The great antiquity of the Waldensian vernacular preserved through the centuries witnesses to their line of descent independent of Rome, and to the purity of their original Latin. Alexis Muston says:

The patois of the Vaudois valleys has a radical structure far more regular than the Piedmontese idiom. The origin of this patois was anterior to the growth of Italian and French — antecedent even to
210
the Romance language, whose earliest documents exhibit still more analogy with the present language of the Vaudois mountaineers, than with that of the troubadours of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. The existence of this patois is of itself a proof of the high antiquity of these mountaineers, and of their constant preservation from foreign intermixture and changes. Their popular idiom is a precious monument.”8

Turning back the pages of history six hundred years before Peter Waldo, there is even a more famous name connected with the Waldenses. This leader was Vigilantius (or, Vigilantius Leo). He could be looked upon as a Spaniard, since the people of his regions were one in practically all points with those of northern Spain. Vigilantius took his stand against the new relapses into paganism. From these apostatizing tendencies the Christians of northern Italy, northern Spain, and southern France held aloof. The story of Vigilantius and how he came to identify himself with this region is told in another chapter.9 From connections with him, this people were for centuries called Leonists, as well as Waldenses and Vaudois.
Reinerius Saccho, an officer of the Inquisition (c. A.D. 1250), wrote a treatise against the Waldenses which explains their early origin. He had formerly been a pastor among them, but had apostatized and afterward had become a papal persecutor. He must have known as much about them as any enemy could. After declaring on his own personal testimony that all the ancient heretical sects, of which there were more than seventy, had been destroyed except four — the Arians, Manichaeans, Runearians, and Leonists — he wrote, “Among all these sects, which still are or have been, there is not any more pernicious to the church than that of the Leonists.”
He gave three reasons why they were dangerous to the Papacy:
First, because it is of longer duration; for some say that it hath endured from the time of Pope Sylvester; others from the time of the apostles; second, because it is more general. For there is scarcely any country wherein this sect is not. Third, because when all other sects beget horror in the hearers by the outrageousness of their blasphemies against God, this of the Leonists hath a great appearance of piety: because they live justly before men and believe all things rightly concerning God and all the articles which
211
are contained in the creed; only they blaspheme the Church of Rome and the clergy.10 Thus Saccho showed that the Leonists, or Waldenses, were older than the Arians; yes, even older than the Manichaeans.


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 the Constantine the Great. When those severe measures emanated from the Emperor Honorious against re-baptizers, the Baptist 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."14
(Gilfillan's Sabbath pp. 32, 33)


THE HISTORY OF WALDENSES AND BIBLICAL TEXTS
by Robert Webb


But let us see what the Waldenses believed, according to their own historian, Jean Leger. Wilkinson, page 32, says:
This noble scholar of Waldensian blood was the apostle of his people in the terrible massacres of 1655, and labored intelligently to preserve their ancient records. His book, the General History of the Evangelical Churches of the Piedmontese Valleys, published in French in 1669, and called "scarce" in 1825, is the prized object of scholarly searchers. It is my good fortune to have that very book before me. Leger, when he calls (Robert) Olivetan's French Bible of 1535 "entire and pure," says: "I say 'pure' because all the ancient exemplars, which formerly were found among the Papists, were full of falsifications, which caused Beza to say in his book on Illustrious Men, in the chapter on the Vaudois, that one must confess it was by means of the Vaudois of the Valleys that France today has the Bible in her own language. This godly man, Olivetan, in the preface of his Bible, recognizes with thanks to God, that since the time of the apostles, or their immediate successors, the torch of the gospel has been lit among the Vaudois (or the dwellers in the Valleys of the Alps, two terms which mean the same), and has never since been extinguished." --Leger, General History of the Vaudois Churches, p. 165.


The method which Allix has pursued, in his History of the Churches of Piedmont, is to show that in the ecclesiastical history of every century, from the fourth century, which he considers a period early enough for the enquirer after apostolical purity of doctrine, there are clear proofs that doctrines, unlike those which the Romish Church holds, and conformable to the belief of the Waldensian and Reformed Churches, were maintained by theologians of the north of Italy down to the period, when the Waldenses first came into notice. Consequently the opinions of the Waldenses were not new to Europe in the eleventh or twelfth centuries, and there is nothing improbable in the tradition, that the Subalpine Church persevered in its integrity in an uninterrupted course from the first preaching of the gospel in the valleys. - Gilly, Waldensian Researches, pp. 118, 119.There are many earlier historians who agree with this view. (Allix, Leger, Gilly, Comba, Nolan). It is held that the pre-Waldensian Christians of northern Italy could not have had doctrines purer than Rome unless their Bible was purer than Rome's; that is, was not of Rome's falsified manuscripts. (Comba, p. 188.)


The Waldenses of northern Italy were foremost among the primitive Christians of Europe in their resistance to the Papacy. They not only sustained the weight of Rome's oppression but they were successful in retaining the torch of truth until the Reformation took it from their hands and held it aloft to the world. Veritably they fulfilled the prophecy of Revelation concerning the church which fled into the wilderness where she hath a place prepared of God. Revelations 12: 6, 14. They rejected the mysterious doctrines, the hierarchal priesthood and the worldly titles of Rome, while they clung to the simplicity of the Bible.

The agents of the Papacy have done their utmost to calumniate their character, to destroy the records of their noble past, and to leave no trace of the cruel persecution they underwent. They went even farther - they made use of words written against ancient heresies to strike out the name of the heretics and fill the blank space by inserting the name of the Waldenses. Just as if, in a book written to record the lawless deeds of some bandit, like Jesse James, his name should be stricken out and the name of Abraham Lincoln substituted. The Jesuit Gretser in a book written against the heretics of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, put the name Waldenses at the point where he struck out the name of these heretics. (Gilly, p. 8.) Nevertheless, we greet with joy the history of their great scholars who were ever a match for Rome.

In the fourth century, Helvidius, a great scholar of northern Italy, accused Jerome, whom the Pope had empowered to form a Bible in Latin for Catholicism, with using corrupt Greek manuscripts. (Post-Nicene Fathers, Vol. 6, p. 338.) How could Helvidius have accused Jerome of employing corrupt Greek MSS. if Helvidius had not had the pure Greek manuscripts? And so learned and so powerful in writing and teaching was Jovinian, the pupil of Helvidius, that it demanded three of Rome's most famous fathers - Augustine, Jerome, and Ambrose - to unite in opposing Jovinian's influence. Even then, it needed the condemnation of the Pope and the banishment of the Emperor to prevail. But Jovinian's followers lived on and made the way easier for Luther.

History does not afford a record of cruelty greater than that manifested by Rome toward the Waldenses. It is impossible to write fully the inspiring history of this persecuted people, whose origin goes back to apostolic days and whose history is ornamented with stories of gripping interest. Rome has obliterated the records. Dr. DeSanctis, many years a Catholic official at Rome, some time official Censor of the Inquisition and later a convert to Protestantism, thus reports the conversation of a Waldensian scholar as he points out to others the ruins of Palatine Hill, Rome:"See," said the Waldensian, "a beautiful monument of ecclesiastical antiquity. These rough materials are the ruins of the two great Palatine libraries, one Greek and the other Latin, where the precious manuscripts of our ancestors were collected, and which Pope Gregory I, called the Great, caused to be burned." (DeSanctis, Popery, Puseyism, Jesuitism, p. 53.) The destruction of Waldensian records beginning about 600 A. D. by Gregory I, was carried through with thoroughness by the secret agents of the Papacy.
"It is a singular thing," says Gilly, "that the destruction or rapine, which has been so fatal to Waldensian documents, should have pursued them even to the place of security, to which all, that remained, were consigned by Morland, in 1658, the library of the University of Cambridge. The most ancient of these relics were ticketed in seven packets, distinguished by letters of the alphabet, from A to G. The whole of these were missing when I made inquiry for them in 1823." (Gilly, Waldensian Researches, p. 80.)

There are modern writers who attempt to fix the beginning of the Waldenses from Peter Waldo, who began his work about 1175. This is a mistake. The historical name of this people, as properly derived from the valleys where they lived, is Vaudois. Their enemies, however, ever sought to date their origin from Waldo. Waldo was an agent, evidently raised up of God to combat the errors of Rome. Gilly, who made extensive research concerning the Waldenses, pictures Waldo in his study at Lyon, France, with associates, a committee, "like the translators of our own Authorized Version." (Comba, Waldenses of Italy, p. 169, note 596.) Nevertheless the history of the Waldenses, or Vaudois, begins centuries before the days of Waldo.

The Reformers held that the Waldensian Church was formed about 120 A. D., from which date on, they passed down from father to son the teachings they received from the apostles. The Latin Bible, the Italic, was translated from the Greek not later than 157 A. D. (Scrivener's Introduction, Vol. 2, p. 43.) We are indebted to Beza, the renowned associate of Calvin, for the statement that the Italic Church dates from 120 A. D. From the illustrious group of scholars which gathered around Beza, 1590 A. D., we may understand how the Received Text was the bond of union between great historic churches. As the sixteenth century is closing, we see in the beautiful Swiss city of Geneva, Beza, an outstanding champion of Protestantism, the scholar Cyril Lucar, later to become the head of the Greek Catholic Church, and Diodati, also a foremost scholar. As Beza astonishes and confounds the world by restoring manuscripts of that Greek New Testament from which the King James is translated, Diodati takes the same and translates into Italian a new and famous edition, adopted and circulated by the Waldenses. (McClintock & Strong Encycl., Art. "Waldenses.") Leger, the Waldensian historian of his people, studied under Diodati at Geneva. He returned as pastor to the Waldenses and led them in their flight from the terrible massacre of 1655. (Gilly, Researches, pp. 79, 80.) He prized as his choicest treasure the Diodati Bible, the only worldly possession he was able to preserve. Cyril Lucar hastened to Alexandria where Codex A, the Alexandrian Manuscript, is lying, and laid down his life to introduce the Reformation and the Reformers' pure light regarding the books of the Bible.


Excerpts from Anabaptist Historical Sources
on the Waldensians and related movements

I. From The Swiss Anabaptists: A brief summary of their History and Beliefs, [Main author, Clair R. Weaver] , Eastern Mennonite Publications, 1990.

From Chap. 1, part II:
The Rise of Dissenting Voices
". . . The need for a true church became evident to the faithful in these dark days. . . There was a rise of dissenting voices which resulted in numerous dissenting groups. . . Some eventually abandoned their teachings because of bitter persecution and because of dispersion into different countries. However, their teachings were similar on four important points of doctrine: (1) Wars of all kinds are to be abolished among Christians. (2) Baptism was to be administered upon adults [by conscious choice only, and not for infants,] on confession of faith. (3) Oaths of all kinds are prohibited. . . . (4) Nonconformity to the world and its vain and fleeting fashions is a characteristic of the true Christian.
. . . These ancient confessions of faith show us that the beliefs of the Anabaptists in Reformation times were not a new doctrine, but were rather a continuing link in the chain of faithful, peasant believers, whose light was never extinguished, during the 'Dark Ages.'"[My emphasis]

The Waldensian church -- A Beacon in the Dark Ages
". . . Peter Waldo . . . is sometimes thought to have founded the Waldensian church. . . In 1180, he helped to form a church . . . He abandoned his merchant vocation, dispersed all his material goods to the poor, and assumed the role of a public teacher. . . He was bitterly opposed by the authorities of his day, but this only served to multiply the number of his followers. The first established churches were in France. Later churches were established in Lombardy [Northern Italy, on the south side of the Alps], and from there, they spread to every province of Europe."
[ A list follows of their beliefs and doctrines. An excerpt: ]
". . . They adopted, as the code of their moral discipline, the Sermon of Christ on the Mount, which they interpreted and explained in the most rigorous and literal manner, and of consequence prohibiting and condemning in their society all wars, and suits of law, all attempts to the acquisition of wealth, the infliction of capital punishments, self-defense against unjust violence, and oaths of all kinds."
* * * * * *
"It seems evident that the Waldensian church was a continuation of the 'peasant' religions of previous times and was not founded by Peter Waldo. Rather, he and his immediate followers joined them and became revitalizing leaders." [My emphasis]


WALDENSIAN BIBLE-BELIEVERS
AND THEIR UNFORESEEN IMPACT
ON THE PROTESTANT REFORMATION AND BEYOND
BY
JESSE M. BOYD
31 OCTOBER 2002


“As for the Waldenses, I may be permitted to call them the very seed of the primitive and purer Christian Church, since they are those that have been upheld, as is abundantly manifest, by the wonderful providence of God, so that neither those endless storms and tempests by which the whole Christian world has been shaken for so many succeeding ages, and the western parts at length, so miserably oppressed by the Bishop of Rome falsely so called, nor those horrible persecutions which have been expressly raised against them, were ever able so far to prevail as to make them bend, or yield a voluntary subjection to the Roman tyranny and idolatry.”
--Theodore Beza (Successor of John Calvin), 16th Century


“Since the time of the Apostles, or their closest successors, the torch of the Gospel was lit among the Vaudois . . . It was never completely extinguished.”
--Jean Leger (A Waldensian Pastor), 1669

II). HISTORICAL BACKGROUND
Before specifically discussing the Waldensian impact on the Reformation and beyond, it is only appropriate to provide a concise historical background of these enigmatic peoples.This will be done by focusing upon their origins, the persecutions directed against them, and their status at the time of the Reformation.[11] The Question of Origins The typical mantra concerning the origin of the Waldenses follows that of Justo Gonzalez, a present-day “anti-Church” (see Introductory Overture) historian.He argues that the Waldenses originated with Peter Waldo (1140-1218), “a merchant from Lyons who heard the story of a monk who practiced extreme poverty and was moved by it to devote himself to a life of poverty and preaching.”[12]Waldo supposedly gathered to himself a handful of followers who became known as Waldenses.These appealed to Rome for the right to preach publicly and were denied.Nevertheless, their preaching continued, and persecution followed.Supposedly, the Waldenses were forced to flee into “remote valleys in the Alps, where they continued existing until the Protestant Reformation.At that time they were approached by Reformed theologians whose teachings they accepted, and thus became Protestant.”[13] Such oversimplification of events is typical, misleading, and highly suspect.Assigning origins to the twelfth century preaching of Peter Waldo is, for all practical purposes, based on the work of two German critics—Diekhoff (Die Waldenser im Mittelalter,1851) and Herzog (Die Romanischen Waldenser, 1853).Their research, which is largely based upon the questionable testimony of Catholic witnesses who assign the origin of the Waldenses to Waldo (i.e. witnesses who would naturally attempt to slander the origins of“heretics” so as to maintain the claim of “Holy Mother Church” to apostolic succession—see footnote #6), has been swallowed, feathers and all, by modern church historians who languish “in servility to the spirit by which some American scholars ape ‘higher critics’ of Germany on their criticisms on the Bible.”[14]An example of this can be seen in Armitage’s massive work on Baptist History.He writes, “Some Waldensian writers think that they can trace their origin back to the days of Constantine and even to the Apostles, but Dieckhoff and Herzog have shown that this claim will not bear critical investigation.”[15]The problem with such unquestioned “critical investigation” is three-fold.First of all, Diekhoff and Herzog disagree in more points than they agree.[16]Secondly, in appealing to popish testimony to advance their claims, they ignore a larger number of popish witnesses which “testify in favor of the antiquity of the Waldenses.”[17]It has often been said that the supporting testimony of one’s enemies constitutes the most valuable form of evidence.This being the case, “the Romish writers in favor of Waldensian antiquity are entitled to much greater credit than are those against it.”[18]Finally, the claims made by Diekhoff and Herzog cast aside the external and internal evidence of Waldensian manuscripts.An example of this is the Noble Lesson, a Waldensian poem which claims itself to have been written sometime in the first half of the twelfth century, at least thirty years before Waldo petitioned the Roman Church for the right to preach publicly.It reads, “O brethren , hear a noble lesson.We ought often to watch and pray, for we see this world approaching its end.Eleven hundred years are fully completed since it was written: ‘The end of all things is at hand.”[19]Even the critics acknowledge that the beginning of the time period reckoned here is the beginning of the Christian era, so a lapse of 1100 years would put the poem before the time of Waldo.The problem, as magnified by Diekhoff and Herzog, involves one manuscript of this poem which appears to have a partially erased “4” so as to supposedlyread “1400 years.”Just as “God” is cast out for a nonsensical preposition in modern English version renderings of I Timothy 3:16 (based on partially erased horizontal lines in the “Original Greek”—i.e. QS vs. OS), over and against a preponderance of external evidence, the critics accept the testimony of one copy of the Noble Lesson with a “four, partially erased, being still visible”[20] over and against numerous other copies of the same poem which clearly read “1100” instead of “1400.”And this is supposed to be scholarship?[21]In addition to this, the Noble Lesson mentions the name Vaudes.This term, in conjunction with the internally claimed early date of the poem, “has seemed to furnish the strongest support for the modern Waldensian claim that the Waldenses existed from primitive times, and that before Peter Waldo began to teach [ca. 1170] they already bore the name ‘Vaudes’.”[22] Other literary examples include a Waldensian exposition of the Apostles Creed (ca. 1120)[23]; two French translations of the Bible “made by the Waldenses” (ca. 1170)[24];and another manuscript, dated around 1100, which “speaks of the Waldenses as having continued the same doctrines from time immemorial, in continued descent form father to son, even from the times of the Apostles.”[25]All of these, of course, appear before Waldo comes to prominence.Much more could be said to support the ancient origin of the Waldenses prior to Peter Waldo. In fact, the Baptist historian W.A. Jarrel makes a superb case for their apostolic origin in conjunction with a sound refutation of Deikhoff, Herzog, and the like.His argument remains unanswered to this day.[26]Perhaps Jarrel states things best when he evaluates such “higher scholarship” as proclaiming “much learning; very little common sense and judgment.”

Thus, Waldenses originally referred to those groups of peoples in the remote Alpine valleys and Piedmont regions of northern Italy and southeastern France who had existed since apostolic times[31] and were “foremost among the primitive Christians of Europe in their resistance of the Papacy.”[32]Later, the term became a general designation applied to “that class of Christians, everywhere, who embraced the same views with the inhabitants of the valleys,” Peter Waldo included.[33] Though the name may not have come into use until much later, it was applied to a valley-dwelling group of “heretics” (i.e. Bible-believing Christians) who considered themselves the lineal and/or spiritual descendants of a long line of Bible-believing New Testament churches operating outside the iron fist of Rome. In a similar fashion the name Christian did not appear until Acts 11:26.However, it eventually applied to all followers of Jesus Christ before and after the establishment of the church in Antioch.


They were called Vaudois or Waldenses (men of the valleys); and as the preaching of Peter may probably have confirmed their opinions and cemented their discipline, he acquired and deserved his sirname [sic.] by his residence among them.At the same time, their connection with Peter and his real Lyonese disciples established a notion of their identity; and the Vaudois, in return for the title which they had bestowed, received the reciprocal appellation of Lyonese.[38] Here, Peter Waldo and his street preaching comrades initiated a great revival amongst the Waldenses and were absorbed into their ranks.These, along with others, made preaching tours, maintained voluntary poverty, encouraged the free use of the Bible, upheld the right of laymen to publicly preach the Gospel of Jesus Christ, and were the instruments for the conversions of great numbers.In many ways, these characteristics were “prophetic of the whole Waldensian career.”[39]Over the next three centuries, traveling Vaudois evangelists, who carried small Bibles in their cloaks, spread out across Europe.


A HISTORY OF THE BAPTISTS
CHAPTER VI
THE WALDENSIAN CHURCHES

The Alps as a Hiding Place—Peter Waldo—The Preaching Tour—Origin of the Waldenses—The Name—Roman Catholic Historians on Their Origin—Rainerio Sacchoni—Preger—The Statement of the Waldenses—The Noble Lessons—The Reformers—Beza—Later Writers—The Special Historians of the Waldenses—Faber—Moreland—Claudius Seisselius on Their Character—Their Manners and Customs—Their Principles—Infant Baptism—Their Change of Views in Regard to the Practice—Adult Baptism—Immersion.

O lady fair, I have yet a gem which a purer lustre flings Than the Diamond flash of the jewelled crown on the lofty brow of kings; A wonderful pearl of exceeding price, whose virtues shall not decay, whom light shall be a spell to thee and a blessing on thy way. —Whittier

is a beautiful peculiarity of this little people that it should it occupy so prominent a place in the history of Europe. There had long been witnesses for the truth in the A1ps. Italy, as far as Rome, all Southern France, and even the far-off Netherlands contained many Christians who counted not their lives dear unto themselves. Especially was this true in the region of the Alps. These valleys and mountains were strongly fortified by nature on account of their difficult passes and bulwarks of rocks and mountains; and they impress one as if the all-wise Creator had, from the beginning, designed that place as a cabinet, wherein to put some inestimable jewel, or in which to preserve many thousands of souls, who should not bow the knee to Baal (Moreland, History of the Evangelical Churches of the Valley of Piedmont, 5. London, 1658).
Here a new movement, or rather an old one under different conditions, received an impetus. Peter Waldo, or Valdesius, or Waldensis, as he was variously called, was a rich and distinguished citizen of Lyons, France, in the closing decades of the twelfth century. Waldo was at first led to study the Bible and he made a translation of it which he circulated among the people. The reading of the Gospels led to an imitation of Christ. Waldo took the manner of his life from the Scriptures, and he soon had a multitude of disciples. They gave their property to the poor and began to preach in the city. When they refused to cease preaching they were expelled from Lyons. Taking their wives and children with them, they set out on a preaching mission. The ground was well prepared by the Albigenses and the Cathari, as well as by the insufficiency and immorality of the Roman Catholic clergy. They traveled two by two, clad in woolen garments, with wooden shoes or barefoot They penetrated Switzerland and Northern Italy. Everywhere they met with a hearty response. The principal seat of the Waldenses became the slopes of the Cottian Alps and East Piedmont, West Provence and Dauphiny. Their numbers multiplied into thousands. It is certain that in the beginning of his career Waldo was a Roman Catholic, and that his followers separated from their former superstitions.
There has been much discussion in regard to the origin of the Waldenses. It is asserted on the one hand that they originated with Waldo, and had no connection with former movements. This view is held absolutely, probably by very few, for even Comba admits that "in a limited sense their antiquity must he admitted" (Comba, History of the Waldenses in Italy, 12); and he also states that the Waldenses themselves believed in their own antiquity. Those who hold this view now generally state that the Waldenses were influenced by the Petrobrusians. the Arnoldists and others. Others affirm that the Waldenses were only a part of the general movement of the dissent against Rome. They were of "the same general movement" which produced the Albigenses (Fisher, History of the Christian Church, 272. New York, 1887). The contention is that the name Waldenses is from the Italian Valdese, or Waldesi, signifying a valley, and, therefore, the word means that they lived in valleys. Eberhard de Bethune, A. D. 1160, says: "Some of them call themselves Vallenses because they live in the vale of sorrows or tears" (Monastier, A History of the Vaudois Church, 58. London, 1848). Bernard, an Abbot of a Monastery of the Remonstrants, in the Diocese of Narbonne, about 1209, says that they were called "Waldenses, that is, from a dark valley, because they are involved in its deep thick darkness or errors" (Migne, CCIV. 793). Waldo was so called because he was a valley man, and was only a noted leader of a people who had long existed. This view is ardently supported by most of the Waldensian historians (Leger, Histoire Generale des Vaudois. Leyden, 1669). It is certain that they were called by the names of every one of the ancient parties (Jones, History of the Christian Church, 308). Jacob Gretseher, of the Society of Jesus, Professor of Dogmatics in the University of Ingolstadt, A. D. 1577, fully examined the subject and wrote against the Waldenses. He affirmed their great antiquity and declared that it was his belief "that the Toulousians and Albigenses condemned in the year 1177 and 1178 were no other than the Waldenses. In fact, their doctrines, discipline, government, manners, and even the errors with which they had been charged show the Albigenses and the Waldenses were distinct branches of the same sect, or the former was sprung from the latter" (Rankin, History of France, III. 198-202).


The most remote origin has been claimed for the Waldenses, admitted by their enemies, and confirmed by historians. "Our witnesses are all Roman Catholics," says Vedder, "men of learning and ability, but deeply prejudiced against heretics as men could possibly be. This establishes at the outset a presumption against the trustworthiness of their testimony, and is a warning to us that we must weigh it most carefully and scrutinize every detail before receiving it. But, on the other hand, our witnesses are men who had extraordinary opportunities for discovering the facts; some were inquisitors for years, and give us the results of interrogating a large number of persons" (Vedder, The Origin and Teaching of the Waldenses. In The American Journal of Theology, IV. 466). This is a very interesting source of information.
Rainerio Saechoni was for seventeen years one of the most active preachers of the Cathari or Waldenses of Lombardy; at length he joined the Dominican order and became an adversary of the Waldenses. The pope made him Inquisitor of Lombardy. The following opinion in regard to the antiquity of the Waldenses was rendered through one of the Austrian inquisitors in the Diocese of Passau, about the year 1260 (Preger, Beitrage zur Geschichte der Waldesier, 6-8). He says:

A statement of the Waldenses themselves is at hand. In a Waldensian document, which some have dated as early as the year 1100, in a manuscript copy which dates from 1404, may he found their opinion on the subject of their antiquity. The Noble Lessons, as it is called, says:
We do not find anywhere in the writings of the Old Testament that the light of truth and holiness was at any time completely extinguished. There have always been men who walked faithfully in the paths of righteousness. Their number has been at times reduced to few; but has never been altogether lost. We believe that the same has been the case from the time of Jesus Christ until now; and that it will be so until the end. For if the cause of God was founded, it was in order that it might remain until the end of time. She preserved for a long time the virtue of holy religion, and, according to ancient history, her directors lived in poverty and humility for about three centuries; that is to say, down to the time of Constantine. Under the reign of this Emperor, who was a leper, there was a man in the church named Sylvester, a Roman. Constantine went to him, was baptized in the name of Jesus Christ, and cured of his leprosy. The Emperor finding himself healed of a loathsome disease, In the name of Christ, thought he would honor him who had wrought the cure by bestowing upon him the crown of the Empire. Sylvester accepted it, but his companion, it is said, refused to consent, separated from him, and continued to follow the path of poverty. Then, Constantine, went away to regions beyond the sea, followed by a multitude of Romans, and built up the city to which he gave his name—Constantinople so that from that time the Heresiarch rose to honor and dignity, and evil was multiplied upon the earth. We do not believe that the church of God, absolutely departed from the truth; but one portion yielded, and, as is commonly seen, the majority was led away to evil; and the other portion remained long faithful to the truth it had received. Thus, little by little, the sanctity of the church declined. Eight centuries after Constantine, there arose a man by the name of Peter, a native, they say. of a country called Vaud (Schmidt, Aktenstrucke, ap. Hist. Zeitschrift, 1852 a. 239. MSS. Cambridge University, vol. A, f. 236-238 and Noble Leizon, V. 403. For the genuineness of the Noble Lessons see Brez, Histoire des Vaudois, 1.42. Paris, 1793).

Jonathan Edwards, the great President of Princeton University, in his "History of Redemption," says of the Waldenses:

In every age of this dark time, there appeared particular persons in all parts of Christendom, who bore a testimony against the corruptions and tyranny of the church of Rome. There is no one age of antichrist, even in the darkest time of all, but eccleastica1 historians mention a great many by name, who manifested an abhorrence of the Pope and his idolatrous worship. God was pleased to maintain an uninterrupted succession of witnesses through the whole time, in Germany, France, Britain, and other countries, as historians demonstrate, and mention them by name, and give an account of the testimony which they held. Many of them were private persons, and many of them ministers, and some magistrates and persons of great distinction. And there were numbers in every age, who were persecuted and put to death for this testimony.

Then speaking especially of the Waldenses, he says:

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.


Bye for now. Y. b. in C. Keith

 

Just a little something for everyone's edification:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waldensians

While acknowledging that some claim ancient origins for the Waldensians, here's a telling comment:

"The mainstream academic view, shared officially by the Waldense Church and the Waldense Scholarship, is that the Waldensians started with Peter Waldo, who began to preach on the streets of Lyon in 1173."

 

Kamoroso,

You made a prety good research!
I wish we could recover the true history of De Vois, Albigenes as they are unjustly judged for what they didn't believe.
I think Waldense was originated from Wald ( forest in German)

 

[/QUOTE]That's easy.

Interpretted by ---

#1. NOT the people that gave us "infallible extermination" policies!

#2. NOT the people that gave us "Mary queen of heaven and sinless like Christ".

#3. NOT the people that gave us "burning Bibles for the weekend"

#4. NOT the people that gave us the eisegetical practice of INSERTING doctrine INTO the text rather than exegetically sound Bible study.

#5. NOT the people that claim to invent "The commandments of men" teaching for doctrines the commandments of men - in fact!

#6. NOT the people that claim to have records showing that they slaughtered 25 million and also claim that 2/3's of the actual records are missing.

#7. NOT the people that gave us their Pope torturing his cardinals and then tossing them overboard while on his Papal "war ship".

The Bible as interpretted by anyone honest enough to read ALL the details in the text instead of turning a blind eye to those that "Do not please".

IN Christ,

Bob [/QB][/QUOTE]
This is hilarious I never thought of responding in this fashion to all the Catholic apologist claiming they gave us the bible.

 

The "mainstream academic view' also was instrumental in having Jesus crucified.

Pontius Pilate asked them what to do with Jesus. They said "crucify him". "We have no king but Caesar. Let his blood be on our heads".

Curious: a group of "right reverend doctors" said to crucify the Creator. "Beware, the leaven of the Pharisees.

We have had a multitude of RRD's who have written a lot of religious stuff in the past 1900's. How do we know what to believe? The Word of God is the only infallible standard.

Now what?

Bro. James

 

I think pigeon holing catholocism into a cult is a dangerous judgemental thing to do, there are Catholics who know the way to salvation. They are not worshipping Mary, they venerate her for prayer to Christ, I realize their traditions can leave us feeling uncomfortable but they clearly realize or understand in their heart that they aren't praying to Mary. Christ atonement is for all believers.

 

Convienent excuse for not providing your so called evidence.
Why don't you just admit you don't have any evidence and call it a day.

Medieval Waldenes wouldn't count as proto-baptist as the did not deny the doctrine of Real Presence for they did deny it I am quite sure the RCC would have listed in their list of theological errors.

 

Since you are basically saying that the references which I gave are all written by liars, I will give a response which will be of the same effect. The Church of Rome is filled with lies. She is built upon lies. In her battle against the truth she has promulgated lies, and done everything that lies within her power to obliterate the truth. This she has done especially regarding negative history pertaining to herself, or which contradicts her lying claims. She will destroy historical records, re-write history, and falsify history to her own ends.

There is a book entitled The Lies and Fallacies of the Encyclopedia Britannica written by Joseph McCabe. This book is about how the Catholic Church has basically rewritten much of the history in regard to itself, found in the Encyclopedia Britannica. The author gives many examples from the various additions of the Encyclopedia. He also gives the following warning to his readers.

" But I give here a mass of evidence of the corrupt use of the great power which the Catholic Church now has: a warning of what the public may expect now that that Church has, through its wealth and numbers, secured this pernicious influence on publications, the press, the radio, and to an increasing extent on education and even the cinema. "

Here is a bit more that he had to say on the subject.

History, The falsification of.

It will be gathered from a large number of articles in this Encyclopedia that the great gain of the adoption of scientific methods in modern history and of extensive discoveries in archaeology is offset by a lamentable falsification owing to concessions to religious writers or sectarian influence. It has gravely increased the difficulty of the Rationalist education of the public that, just when science has generally succeeded in silencing "the drum ecclesiastic" (in Huxley's phrase), history is increasingly listening to it. Recent issues of the leading encyclopedias have permitted very serious alterations of historical articles or invited clerical writers to contribute articles on subjects on which they could not be expected to be impartial or accurately informed. Serious attempts have been made even to impose the new spirit of accommodation upon teachers of history in universities, colleges, and the national schools. Poynter tells of an amazing plot of this nature in his Roman Catholics and School History Books (1930). However one may analyse the motives or the influences, conscious or subconscious, the evil begins with a number of professors or writers of history of some distinction, especially in the United States. [See, for example, the articles Arabs; Christianity; Dark Age; Democracy; Middle Age; Monasticism; Papacy; Philanthropy; Reformation; Rome; Thirteenth Century; and subsidiary articles mentioned in them.] The intellectual and moral status of pre-Christian civilizations is vindicated against ancient calumnies by virtually all modern authorities; yet in the case of Rome, while Protestant writers like Dr. E. Reich and Sir S. Dill have been generous in stating the truth, a number of recent historical writers, men who show no command of classical literature and the inscriptions, have used language in conformity with the old prejudices. This encourages theological writers to repeat their discredited claims that the Gospels brought a new and higher type of religion and ethic into the contemporary Roman world; that the Christians generally exhibited a superior type of character which attracted thoughtful Greeks and Romans; and that the acceptance - in reality enforcement - of the Christian religion was followed by a social and moral improvement. But greater evil is done by a falsification of the social history of the Christian, or at least the Catholic, era. In this respect Catholics have had a remarkable success in adulterating history. On the plea that the Protestant and Rationalist historians of the last century were moved by a prejudice against Catholicism, or that the development of psychology and of economic and social science gives the historian a new equipment for the study of earlier peoples, some historians - this does not apply to the Cambridge Mediaeval History - profess to give a new and sounder estimate of the period of solid Church influence. The title given to the first half, the Dark Age, is, largely on the quite false ground that it means the whole of the Middle Ages, declared to be unjust, and the second part, the Renaissance in the broader sense, is described more or less in harmony with the claims of Catholic writers. The historians in question betray that they have no command, as the historians of the last century had, of medieval literature. They ignore completely the immense literature which tells the licence and coarseness of life of the clergy, monks - all that they say of monasticism is to give a description of the ideal of a Benedictine abbey or describe Francis of Assisi - and people of all classes; and they profess that it is a mark of liberality to follow Catholic writers on the work of Gregory VII or Innocent III, the Massacre of the Albigensians and the Hussites, the Inquisition and the Reformation (See Coulter's Sectarian History, 1937). Admirable as it is to trace neglected social, political, and economic factors in this stretch of history, the deliberate suppression of its many evil features falsifies history and the sociological valuation of institutions. The same tendency is seen in the deliberate depreciation of the Arab-Persian civilization, which conceals the real source of the European Renaissance and confirms the preposterous claim that the Roman Church inspired it. Even in the modern period we find the same grave departure from the canons of history in the undiscriminating condemnation of the French Revolution, the suppression of the terrible injustices of French life which led to it, and especially the concealment of what Lord Acton called the savagery of the Roman Church in its fight against progress from the fall of Napoleon to 1870 (in Spain and Russia until recently). This falsification of history, at least by the suppression of facts and of relevant but distasteful contemporary documents, is one of the most unfortunate features of modern culture. The scores of articles in this Encyclopaedia in which it is exposed show that a new and thorough history of the Christian era is urgently needed. (J. McCabe, Rationalists Encyclopedia)


The following is quite a bit more of the same from the book Facts Of Faith.


FACTS OF FAITH
by Christian Edwardson


MAKING AMERICA CATHOLIC


THE Roman hierarchy knew that the older Protestants, who had read about the persecutions of the Dark Ages, and who knew some of the inside workings of the papal church, would never become Catholics. Rome’s hope lay in capturing the younger generation. If the Papacy could cover up those dark pages of its history, when it waded in the blood of martyrs, and could appear in the beautiful modern dress of a real champion for liberty, as a lover of science, art, and education, it would appeal to the American youth, and the battle would be won.

The Jesuits, who through years of experience in Europe, have become experts in molding young minds, are now establishing schools everywhere, that are patronized by thousands of Protestant youth. They have also undertaken the delicate task of Romanizing the textbooks of our public schools, and books of reference, in order to cover up their past, and to whitewash the Dark Ages. That Romanists desire to cover up their past record of bloody persecution is acknowledged by that honorable Roman Catholic author, Alfred Baudrillart, Rector of the Catholic Institute of Paris. After giving a frank statement of the many persecutions of which his church is guilty, he says in the words of Mgr. d’Hulst:

“Indeed, even among our friends and our brothers we find those who dare not look this problem in the face. They ask permission from the Church to ignore or even to deny all those facts and institutions in the past which have made orthodoxy compulsory.’’’-’’ The Catholic Church; the Renaissance and Protestantism,’’ Alfred Archeveque Cardinal BaudrilIart, pp. I83, 184.

ROMANIZING TEXTBOOKS

In the first place, all general histories used in our public schools and high schools had to be revised to eliminate every bishops as before. The priest’s education is to be thoroughly revised and modernized-with special attention to modern propaganda methods. In addition there will be established in each country a central bureau, responsible only to Rome, to combat red agitation with every political weapon available .... The church must fight, and at once.

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“Coughlin has shown us the way of getting at the modern man. He has embarrassed us by showing and using the political power of the church so openly .... We know how to tackle America today, and that is our most important problem at the moment.

“Pacelli is contacting the American cardinals and leading Catholic personalities,... to explain the Vatican’s plan for the new crusade .... The Catholic political organizations in the large cities, like Tammany Hall, will give the church a good lever. Those contacts are also being carefully inspected by the pope’s minister. “The Vatican itself resembles a general staff headquarters preparing plans and arms for a big offensive. Since the time of the Counter- Reformation, churchmen say, no such extensive reorganization of personnel and propaganda methods has been undertaken. The whole world-wide net of Catholic organizations and suborganizations is being contacted directly from Rome and cleared for action. The church is to be adjusted to modern political, social, and cultural conditions”-P. 10, col. 3, 4, used by permission. This article speaks of Eugenio Cardinal Pacelli, then papal secretary of state, coming from the Vatican to effect the above. mentioned reorganization. He toured the United States “in a chartered airplane.” Christian Science Monitor says: “The visit of a high Roman prelate to the United States on the eve of an election is as unprecedented as it is delicate”-Oct. 2, 1926.

This Catholic plan of conquest was well understood years ago. An illustration in Harper’s Weekly of October 1, 1870, pictured the pope pointing to America as “The Promised Land,” also “The Jesuits and the British Press,” by Michael J. F. McCarthy).

Now the “Catholic Action” is focused on America, not in an antagonistic way, but quietly, in wisely planned, systematically organized, and well directed efforts along numerous lines, so as to gain favor among Protestants, and not to be suspected as propaganda. And, remarkable as it may sound, Protestant leaders and people are totally asleep on the Catholic question, even more so than the Huguenots were in France before the St. Bartholomew’s Massacre.

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Dr. E. Boyd Barrett, for many years a Jesuit, and still a Roman Catholic, as far as the author knows, has the following to say about the plans of his church:

“In theory, Catholic Action is the work and service of lay Catholics in the cause of religion, under the guidance of the bishops. In practice it is the Catholic group fighting their way to control America”-”Rome Stoops to Conquer,” p. 15. New York: 1935. “The effort, the fight, may be drawn out. It may last for five or ten years. Even if it last for twenty-what is twenty years in the life of Rome? The fight must be fought to a finish-opposition must be worn down if it cannot be swept away. Rome’s immortal destiny hangs on the outcome. That destiny overshadows the land. “And in the fight, as she has ever fought when battles were most desperate in the past, Rome will use steel, and gold, and silvery lies. Rome will stoop to conquer.”-Id., pp. 266, 267.

In a communication from Vatican City, published in the Saint Paul Pioneer Press, November 4, 1936, we read: “Pope Pius feels that the United States is the ideal base for Catholicism’s great drive .... “The Catholic Movement, Rome’s militant organization numbering millions all over the world, will be marshaled direct from Rome by Monsignor Pizzardo-next to Pacelli the Holy See’s shrewdest diplomat and politician-instead of by the localtrace of the objectionable features from their pages. Plain historical facts of the Middle Ages,-such as the popes’ interference with public government (as in the case of Henry IV, Emperor of Germany, A. D. 1077, and King John of England, A. D. 1213); the persecution of Waldenses, Albigenses, and Huguenots; the Inquisition; the sale of indulgences; and the Reformation,-all had to be eliminated or rewritten so as to exonerate the Papacy, and brand its opponents simply as political offenders and revolutionists, who suffered at the hand of the civil government, instead of being persecuted by the Church for their religion.

Such radical changes could never have been accomplished so quietly if Protestantism had not been asleep. At times it became necessary to create

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public sentiment against a certain textbook through newspaper articles written by some learned Catholic professor, and then pressure was brought to bear on school boards to eliminate it, substituting for it a Romanized book. Thus Swinton’s “Outlines of History” was thrown out of the schools, and “Anderson’s History” was blacklisted, but later revised according to Catholic wishes, and brought back to take the place of Swinton’s. Myers’s “Medieval and Modern History” was also censored. At first the author refused to change it, claiming “history is history,” but later it was revised and came into quite general use for a time. Not all of this was done in the dark. As one example of protest we refer the reader to Senate Document on Public Hearing before the United States Committee on Education and Labor, Friday, February 15, 1889, and Friday, February 22, 1889, on “Senate Resolution No. 86: Proposing an Amendment to the Constitution of the United States Respecting Establishment of Religion and Free Public Schools,” which unmasks some of this work. We shall now point out two of the vital changes made in our textbooks:

(1) The Catholic Church will never acknowledge the Reformation of the sixteenth century as a reform, but brands it as a “revolt” against the authority of the pope, and as a “revolution.” A sure earmark, therefore, of all Romanized textbooks is the fact that they never speak of the Reformation as a work of reform but as “the Protestant Revolt,” “the Protestant Revolution,” “the so-called Reformation,” or “what is called the Reformation.” Let any one look it up in the schoolbooks used by his children, and see for himself.

To give the readers who may not have seen the textbooks used in our schools today an idea of what the Protestant children are taught, we shall take the “History of Western Europe,” by Professor J. II. Robinson, as an example. It has the following chapters on the Reformation of the sixteenth century: chapter 24, “Germany Before the Protestant Revolt”; chapter 25, “Martin Luther and His Revolt Against the Church”; chapter 26, “Course of the Protestant Revolt in Germany”; chapter 27, “The Protestant Revolt in Switzerland and England.” Chapter 25 says: “As Luther became a confessed revolutionist, he began to find friends among other revolutionists and reformers.”-P. 393. Chapter 28 takes up the effort of the Catholics to destroy the Reformation by a counterreform, by the work of the Jesuits, and the bloody persecution of Protestants in Spain, in the Netherlands, and France. This chapter is entitled: “The Catholic Reformation,” and yet it comes the farthest from deserving the title of reformation of all the above225 mentioned chapters. In these Romanized textbooks the historical facts of the Middle Ages are entirely reversed. The way the last-mentioned chapter extols the Jesuits shows who has put their stamp on the book. Senator Thomas E. Watson truthfully says:

“In the public schools the Catholics have stealthily introduced textbooks written by Jesuits; and your children are being taught that the Roman church was misunderstood in the past; that its doctrines are not fatal to humanity and gospel religion; that its record is not saturated with the blood of innocent millions, murdered by papal persecutors, and that there never was such a monstrosity as the alleged sale of papal pardons of sins. “Educate youth in this Catholic way, and the consequences are logical.”-”Roman Catholics in America Falsifying History and Poisoning the Minds of Protestant School Children,” p. 5. Thompson, Ga.: 1928.

SALE OF INDULGENCES

Histories used in the public schools in the United States up to the year 1900 were opposed by the Roman Catholic Church on the ground that they were not stating the truth about “indulgences.’’ These histories simply stated that Martin Luther began the Reformation by opposing Tetzel’s sale of indulgences, which is a historical fact.
“An Introduction to the History of Western Europe,” by Professor J. H. Robinson, says:

“It is a common mistake of Protestants to suppose that the indulgence was forgiveness granted beforehand for sins to be committed in the future. There is absolutely no foundation for this idea”-P. 391. Ginn and Co.: 1903.

This statement is copied on page 311 in “A General History of Europe,” by Robinson, Breasted, and Smith, a textbook quite generally used of late. We shall leave it with the reader to judge whether such statements actually represent the Protestant conception of “indulgences,” or whether they are part of a program to cover up historical facts; and we would respectfully ask: Are not American youth entitled to know the unvarnished facts of history?

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The historical facts about “indulgences,” gathered from unquestionable sources, are found on pages 162-172 of this book. It is here shown that the idea of “indulgences” had so degenerated between the eleventh and the sixteenth centuries, that they were actually sold for money. Tetzel’s “Indulgences” read: I “absolve thee... from all thy sins, transgressions and excesses.., and I restore thee.., to that innocence and purity which thou possessedst at baptism; so that, when thou diest, the gates of punishment shall be shut, and the gates of the paradise of delight shall be open.”- Coxe’s “House of Austria,” Vol. I, p. 385. London: George Bell and Sons, 1906.

REVISING BOOKS OF REFERENCE

The next step in the papal plan was to revise all books of reference, such as encyclopedias, dictionaries, and larger historical works, so as to mold the minds not only of pupils but also of teachers and of preachers. An example of this is seen in the revision of the New International Encyclopedia. The editor of the Catholic Mirror (at that time the official organ of Cardinal Gibbons), in a lengthy editorial, dated October 28, 1905, tells of how the publishers of that Encyclopedia cooperated with the Jesuits in revising it. He quoted the following letter from the Rev. Thomas J. Campbell, S. J., which he had just received:

“Dodd, Mead and Co. sent their representatives to us, and not only expressed a desire to avoid misstatements in their encyclopedia, but asked for some one to excise whatever might be offensive .... Mr. Conde B. Pallen took the matter in hand, and was afforded full liberty to revise and correct not only the topics which dealt professedly with Catholic subjects but those also which might have even an indirect bearing on them .... The firm has done all in its power to make it acceptable to Catholics.”- Quoted in “Liberty,” Vol. V, No. 3, pp. 34, 35. Washington, D. C., I910.

After this was done, every effort was made to get this New International Encyclopedia into the hands of all Protestant ministers in this country, who were unaware of its Romanlzed features. Its molding influence was soon seen in the striking similarity in viewpoint (on many subjects) between the Roman theology and that of the Protestant pulpit and press, and this is becoming more so now after practically all encyclopedias have been

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Romanized. Even Webster’s Dictionary has not been allowed to speak its old familiar truths any more. We read:

“Time was when complaint was common that injustice was done to the Catholics in ‘Webster’s Dictionary.’ There is no room for such a thing in the new ‘Webster’s International Dictionary,’ issued by G. and C. Merriam Co., Springfield, Mass., because Vicar-General Callaghan, of the diocese of Little Rock, has revised and edited everything appertaining to the church.” -” Freeman’s Journal” of New York, May 28, 1892. Since then a Catholic official has been regularly connected with the editorial staff, whenever a new revision was made, as can be seen in the preface of later editions. Suppose, in the next encyclopedia, we ask brewery officials to edit everything pertaining to temperance and the liquor question, and ask the officials of Wall Street to edit all that pertains to capital and labor, would we then get a more correct and unbiased representation of these subjects? We ask why, then, should Roman Catholic officials edit everything pertaining to the Protestant controversy with Rome?

At the First American Catholic Missionary Congress, held at Chicago, November 17, 1908, Dr. William McGinnis outlined the program of the International Catholic Truth Society for making America Catholic:

(1) by Romanizing our schoolbooks,

(2) by revising our books of reference,

(3) by controlling the daily press,

(4) by capturing the libraries. He said in part:

“A few years ago the publishers of an encyclopedia in twelve volumes entered the office of the Truth Society and said: ‘We realize there are many misstatements and errors regarding things Catholic in this work, but we put the whole edition in your hands and will accept every correction you make and every addition which you wish to insert.’... So, likewise, one of the largest publishing houses of the United States, a house that supplies perhaps one third of the textbooks used in the public schools of America, asked that certain books might be examined and erroneous statements and unjust charges against the Church be

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corrected .... And we are happy to say that in practically every case these misrepresentations of the Church that otherwise would have gone into the minds of millions of children were courteously corrected by gentlemanly authors.”-” The Two Great American Catholic Missionary Congresses,” pp. 427, 428. Chicago: J. S. Hyland and Co., 1914.

Many Protestant parents would not send their children to Catholic parochial schools, but they will allow them to be taught the same thing from Romanized textbooks, without any protest!

We ask, What made the More-mentioned publishers so anxious to have the Catholics revise the public schoolbooks and encyclopedias, which they intended to publish? Why did they not go to some Protestant organization to have the books revised? Was it because Protestants are not educated? Certainly not! But these publishers knew from experience, that, unless the books were Romanized, Catholic societies would stir up such opposition against their use, that it would result in financial loss to the publishers. Dr. McGinnis tells the secret when he relates how he had urged the Knights of Columbus to “wake up” and “form a committee,” to examine the “histories of education in use in high schools and normal schools.” He says: “The spirit of Knighthood was not dead in that Council, the subject was investigated, the book I had quoted from was the textbook of the class, and, after much discussion, it was removed from the curriculum of the school.”-Id., pp. 423, 424.

Any one who will take the trouble to examine the textbooks used in our public schools before 1900, and compare them with those used after this Romanizing propaganda began, wi1l discover the fact that the Romanizing features have been introduced gradually into a series of textbooks, the one taking the place of the other as fast as the public could assimilate the Catholic sentiments and phraseology, and the same is true regarding books of reference.

MUZZLING THE PUBLIC PRESS

Dr. McGinnis also spoke of their plans regarding the daily papers. He said: “We may consider briefly the program of the International Catholic Truth Society in reference to two great agencies in the formation of the minds and hearts of the great American people, — the press and the public libraries.

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“Our daily press... mold the thought and influence the will of the country .... We do demand that the great Catholic Church, in her saving doctrines and in her marvelous activities, should be brought more prominently before the American public.”-Id., p. 419.

Dr. McGinnis further stated that arrangements had been made with the Vatican for Catholic reporters all over the world to furnish material for the “Truth Society” to be used in the daily press, and then he says: “With a membership of two or three thousand scholarly, zealous priests and laymen, and the headquarters of the Society acting as a clearing house, calumnies would not remain unanswered, misstatements of doctrines would be corrected.”-Id., pp. 420, 421.

“We realize, moreover, that refutations and corrections, valuable though they be, are not sufficient. We want to carry the campaign a little farther. We want to make of the press of this country a positive agency in the dissemination of Catholic ideas .... We are now furnishing on the first and third Sundays of each month one column or a column and a half of positive Catholic matter to daily papers .... But the ‘Notes and Comments’... deal with such topics as the conversion of some distinguished scholar, the life work of a recently deceased Catholic who was eminent in the domain of physical science, archeological discoveries bearing upon Christian doctrine, important congresses abroad .... If the demands of our people prove that the new feature is appreciated, the ‘service’ will become weekly, and it will bring light and sympathy for things Catholic to many millions of readers.”-Id., pp. 421,422.

“The demands” must have proved successful, for instead of this “new feature” appearing weekly, articles and notes seem to appear almost daily. Though it is legitimate for religious denominations to make use of the public press, for them to muzzle the freedom of the press is not legitimate! When large religious organizations parade their great number of adherents and bring pressure to bear on the press, threatening nonsupport if the other side appears in its columns, while they monopolize them with their own propaganda, such organizations lose the respect of thinking people.

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CAPTURING THE PUBLIC LIBRARIES

At the before-mentioned Catholic Congress plans were also laid for making the public libraries agencies in their propaganda. Dr. McGinnis says: “Another force, second only to the school and the press in shaping the thoughts of the nation, is the public library system of the United States .... I ask why, in the name of the God of truth, is the great Catholic Church excluded from the shelves of the public libraries of the United States?... Create a strong, legitimate demand for Catholic literature, and the public libraries will meet the demand.”- Id., pp.422,423.

But how did that Congress propose to “create” this strong “demand” for Catholic books? Here is their scheme: They will supply their people with lists of books to be asked for at the libraries, and when several hundred or thousand people have called for the same books, it will create a demand. “The demand for such literature must be brought to the public libraries. We wish to emphasize the fact that the demand must be made in good faith-the books are called for at the library because the man wants to read them. The International Catholic Truth Society will supply general and special lists of books, and the Spiritual Director... will... designate appropriate works for individual members. From this widespread bona fide demand for Catholic works at public libraries three results will follow. [It will help the members.] Their work will be instrumental in placing these books within the reach of the great non-Catholic American public, who will thus have some opportunity to find out what the Church’s doctrines and practices really are, and finally the increased circulation of such literature will be a well-deserved and muchneeded stimulus to Catholic writers.”-Id., p. 424. See also “Catholic Digest,” March, 1937, pp. 126, 127, and “America,” September 13, 1913, pp. 547, 548.

Mr. Michael J. F. McCarty, of England, gives us some interesting facts regarding a similar work done by Jesuits in England. He says that they suppress books of Protestant authors, and bring to the front those of Catholics, and as a result of this systematic work, he says: “Many Protestant authors are forced to speak favorably and kindly of Romanism .... The publication of books containing friendly

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allusibn to Protestant Christianity has almost ceased in England, [while the other kind of books] floods the country.”-”The Jesuits and the British Press,” p. 52. Edinburgh and London: 1910.

But, in addition to this, the Jesuits always have a man, either a priest or a layman, on the committee of almost every public library in Great Britain. “The Jesuits’ man comes provided with two lists, a black list, which includes every well-known book, ancient and modern, adverse to Romanism; and a white list of new books especially [avorable to Romanism which he submits beforehand to the librarian, and eventually succeeds in getting placed in the library.”-Pp. 50, 51.

It is quite evident from our investigation of the facts that the Jesuits are the same in America as in England. Besides this, the few remaining books from the days when it was not so unpopular to state the unvarnished facts about medieval history have been diminishing in number by being worn out or purposely destroyed.

CENSORSHIP OF BOOKS

Those who write histories today have more source matter on ancient history, but less on medieval, than historians had four hundred years ago; for after the Reformation had fully aroused the papal church to action, her emissaries, especially the vigilant Jesuits, searched out and destroyed every evidence that was damaging to her. When Bishop Gilbert Burnet, D. D., prepared to write his “History of the English Reformation,” he became surprised, while searching among court records and public registers, to find so much missing, till he finally discovered the cause. He says: “In the search I made of the Rolls and other offices, I wondered much to miss several commissions, patents, and other writings, which by clear evidence I knew were granted, and yet none of them appeared on record.

“But as I continued down my search to the fourth year of Queen Mary, I found in the twelfth roll of that year, a commission which cleared all my former doubts, and by which I saw what was become of the things I had so anxiously searched after. We have heard of the expurgation of books practiced in the Church of Rome; but it might have been imagined that public registers and records would have been safe; yet lest these should have been afterwards

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confessors, it was resolved they should then be martyrs; for on the 29th of December, in the fourth year of her reign, a commission was issued out under the great seal to Bonner, Bishop of London, Cole, Dean of St. Paul’s, and Martine, a doctor of the civil law, [which commanded the destruction of] divers compts, books, scrolls, instruments .... “When I saw this, I soon knew which way so many writings had gone”-”History of the Reformation of the Church of England,’’ 2- vol. ed., Vol. I, Preface, p. xiii. London: 1880.

Let no one, therefore, say that statements in older histories are not true because we cannot now find sources to prove them.
The reader may not know that back of all this activity stands the Roman Curia, one department of which is the Sacred Congregation of the Index, which meets at Rome on stated days to decide what books are forbidden, and to make lists of them, called “The Index of Prohibited Books.”* The writer has examined two editions of this “Index,” one early edition, and
their latest one of 1930 by Pope Plus XI. Some books are permanently forbidden, while others are forbidden until certain corrections are made in them, which explains the revisions of our schoolbooks, for the “Index”
says:

“Can. 1396. Books condemned by the Holy See are prohibited all over the world and in whatever language into which they may have been translated. “Can. 1397, Sec. 1. It is the duty of all the faithful, particularly of clerics, or those holding high positions and noted for their learning, to denounce any book, they may consider dangerous, to the local Ordinaries, or to the Holy See ....
“Sec. 3. Those to whom such denunciations are made are bound in conscience not to reveal the names of the accusers. “Sec. 4. Local Ordinaries, either directly themselves, or through the agency of capable priests, are in duty bound to keep a close watch on the books that are published, or sold, within their territory ....

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“Can. 1398, Sec. 1. The condemnation of a book entails the prohibition, without especial permission, either to publish, to read, to keep, to sell, to translate it, or in any way to pass it on to others. “Sec. 2. A book which has been prohibited in any way may not be republished, unless, after the necessary corrections have been made.”-”Index,” of 1930, pp. xvi, xvii. Vatican Polyglot Press. The Catholic Encyclopedia has this to say about the “Censorship of Books”: “In general, censorship of books is a supervision of the press in order to prevent any abuse of it. “The reverse of censorship is freedom of the press.”- Vol. III, p.
519.

This “supervision of the press” extends also to articles written in magazines and newspapers, and among the special organizations working in this field is the International Catholic Truth Society, and the Catholic International Associated Press. Reporting the Louisville federation convention of thelatter, Michael Kenny, S. J., in America (a Jesuit weekly) for August 31, 1912, says of their Catholic Press Bureau:

“We have it in our power to compel our papers, the thinking machines of the people, to tell the truth and refrain from transmitting slanders on Catholic matters. We can prevent the wells at which the people drink from being poisoned. We can, follow-lng the lead of the Austrian Catholic Congress, establish a Catholic International Associated Press, and to accomplish this object every Catholic of the right spirit, reading in the daily papers calumnies of our religion and the most brazen justification of the robber bands who drive our religious from their homes and confiscate their property, should be willing to contribute a tithe of his possessions. All this and more can be accomplished by federated action .... Marching shoulder-to shoulder with the spirit of soldiers on the battlefield at the call of the Church, we can successfully combat the organizations of her enemies and make this an era of Catholic manhood.”-”America,” August 31, 19I2, p. 486, article by M.
Kenny, S. J.


God only knows what the Church of Rome has accomplished since the publication of the above books. It would be no surprise to me if all modern Encyclopedias claim that the Waldenses originated from Peter Waldo.

Bye for now. Y. b. in C. Keith

 

Since you are basically saying that the references which I gave are all written by liars..</font>[/QUOTE]Yeah, pretty much. I would have said "historical revisionists", but 'okay'.

Of course you will.

Of course, I am not a Roman Catholic and do have some profound disagreements with Rome (esp regarding the papacy, superogatory merit, idulgences etc), but do go on.

Conspiracy theorists of the world unite!
Seriously though, Rome must not have done a very good job of eliminating all historical documents that would call into question its claims and current practices, because there is still much documentation from written history (and not from some hypothetical existence of an imaginary suppressed proto-baptist group) which calls into question and indeed contradicts its present day papal pretensions and certain aspects of its doctrines.

Again, you give the Catholic Church too much credit. But I guess the RCC makes for a convenient bogeyman.
(And of course I don't give much credence to the conspiratorial nonsense in the rest of the post, as I used to believe such silliness but found the facts of history to be rather inconvenient to affirming such yarns.)

 

My wife has a great saying when dealing with conspiracy theories, never attribute to maliciousness that which can be explained by ineptitude.

 

Do you want to read the greatest conspiracy theory ever written? Then read your Bibles. The scriptures in their entirety are about the deception brought into this world through the father of lies, Satan himself. He intends to deceive every living being on this planet. If you do not think that he is presently using every human organization possible to deceive, then you are living in absolute ignorance of what God’s word clearly teaches. If you do not realize either, that the Church of Rome is his church, then you are already deceived , and you do well to mock those who point out this truth. You serve your master by protecting his own. I’ll serve mine by warning everyone I can of the coming judgment and destruction of all those who would believe a lie, that they might take pleasure in unrighteousness.


II Th 2:1-12 1 Now we beseech you, brethren, by the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, and by our gathering together unto him,
2 That ye be not soon shaken in mind, or be troubled, neither by spirit, nor by word, nor by letter as from us, as that the day of Christ is at hand.
3 Let no man deceive you by any means: for that day shall not come, except there come a falling away first, and that man of sin be revealed, the son of perdition;
4 Who opposeth and exalteth himself above all that is called God, or that is worshipped; so that he as God sitteth in the temple of God, shewing himself that he is God.
5 Remember ye not, that, when I was yet with you, I told you these things?
6 And now ye know what withholdeth that he might be revealed in his time.
7 For the mystery of iniquity doth already work: only he who now letteth will let, until he be taken out of the way.
8 And then shall that Wicked be revealed, whom the Lord shall consume with the spirit of his mouth, and shall destroy with the brightness of his coming:
9 Even him, whose coming is after the working of Satan with all power and signs and lying wonders,
10 And with all deceivableness of unrighteousness in them that perish; because they received not the love of the truth, that they might be saved.
11 And for this cause God shall send them strong delusion, that they should believe a lie:
12 That hey all might be damned who believed not the truth, but had pleasure in unrighteousness.


Bye for now. Y. b. in C. Keith

 

it seems that everyone here who is trying to beat Catholics over the head with a nice big KJV Bible are imploding in the face of irrefutible facts.

---Justin