THE WALDENSES WERE
INDEPENDENT BAPTISTS
An Examination of the Doctrines of this
Medieval Sect
By Thomas Williamson
3131
TABLE OF CONTENTS
CHAPTER
ONE . . . . . . . . Mode of Baptism - Did the Waldenses Immerse?
CHAPTER
TWO . . . . . . . Infant Baptism - Were the Waldenses Pedobaptists?
CHAPTER
THREE . . . . . Waldensian Views on Transubstantiation and Other
Roman Catholic Distinctives
CHAPTER
FOUR . . . . . . Waldensian Views on Soteriology
CHAPTER
FIVE . . . . . . . Waldensian Views on the Trinity
CHAPTER
SIX . . . . . . . . Waldensian Views on Calvinism
CHAPTER
SEVEN . . . . . Waldensian Views on Separation
CHAPTER
EIGHT . . . . .
CHAPTER
NINE . . . . . . Were the Waldenses Manichaeans?
CHAPTER
TEN . . . . . . . When and Why Did the Waldenses Cease to be
Baptists?
CHAPTER
ELEVEN . . . . Conclusion: Baptists Existed Prior to the
Reformation, and are Not Protestants
Of the
numerous pre-Reformation sects which dissented from the Roman Catholic Church
in Europe during the Middle Ages, the most famous, and the only sect to survive
until modern times, is that of the Waldenses, who were also known as Vaudois
and by various other names. Their homeland was in the valleys of the
It is
common for modern historians to trace the origin of the Waldenses to one
founder, Peter Waldo of
Such
authors and historians as Monastier, Jones, Robinson, Jarrel, Morland, Leger,
Christian, Faber, Allix, Gilly, Comba, Nolan, Wilkinson, Montgomery, Newman,
Waller, Ray, Wylie, Broadbent, Overbey, Nevins, Orchard and Jonathan Edwards
are on record as affirming the existence of the Waldenses prior to the time of
Peter Waldo, and many of these authorities regard the Waldenses as an important
link in the chain of transmission of apostolic truth from the time of Christ to
the era of the Reformation and the present day. Many Baptist authors, too
numerous to mention, who believe in a form of Baptist succession or perpetuity
over the last 2000 years, have claimed the Waldenses as Baptists, an assertion
which, if true, conveniently bridges a gap of 1200 years between the Baptists
of Constantine's time and the Anabaptists of the Reformation era.
This
writer fully accepts the view that the Waldenses predate Peter Waldo and that
they represent a strain of evangelical belief that can be traced back to the
time of
The
purpose of this dissertation is to conduct an objective examination of
Waldensian belief and practice, without any preconceived or predetermined
conclusions, to see if there is any scholarly basis for the statements commonly
made by Baptist historians that the Waldenses were Baptists. Unless otherwise
noted, all of our quotations, and conclusions based on those quotations, will
have reference to pre-Reformation or medieval Waldenses.
In order
to show that there were true Baptist churches in the Middle Ages, under the
banner of the Waldenses, it is not necessary to prove that all of the churches
of that name, in all places, were Baptistic at any given time, or that they
were Baptistic at all points in their history. If it can be shown that only
some of the Waldenses were truly Baptistic, this will prove our point.
Similarly, if we wished to prove the existence of Baptists in 20th-Century
America, we could freely admit that many in that era who called themselves
Baptist were not truly Baptist in faith and practice, and that many so-called
Baptists indulged in seriously heterodox beliefs, such as denial of Biblical
inerrancy, that would disqualify them as true Baptist believers. This admission
would in no way disprove the thesis that some true Baptist churches did exist
in 20th-Century
In our
references to Waldensian doctrine and practice, it will be understood that our
statements are generalizations which would not always be accurate as to all who
called themselves Waldenses, or were called that by their enemies, in all times
and places. In many cases evidence can be cited to show that some Waldenses
believed the opposite of what we will present, but this does not weaken our
case. The two statements, "Many 20th-Century American Baptists believed in
Biblical inerrancy," and "Many 20th-Century American Baptists
rejected Biblical inerrancy," are both accurate, and the fact that some
Baptists became apostate, whether in the 13th Century or the 20th, in no way
disproves the existence of other Baptists and Baptist churches that remained
true to the faith. Jarrel gives us a good key for understanding different
statements about the Waldenses that appear to be in hopeless conflict:
There is so much evidence that, in this period, there were
parties of different characters, known as Waldenses, that we must recognize
different beliefs and practices among them. This will readily harmonize the
different documents, showing some Waldenses of this period remained in the
church of Rome; some separated from it; some were never in it; some may have
had infant baptism and other Romish trumpery, while most of them were
Baptistic. [1]
With these
understandings in mind, we will examine various aspects of Waldensian doctrine
and practice which would be of interest to Baptists today, to determine whether
the medieval Waldenses can honestly be regarded as Baptists. Because a proper
understanding of the ordinance of baptism is crucial in determining whether a
church or sect can be called Baptist, we will explore that subject first.
[1]
W.A. Jarrel, Baptist Church Perpetuity, Dallas, published by the author,
1894, p. 161.
MODE OF BAPTISM - DID THE WALDENSES
IMMERSE?
It is
necessary to consider the question of the mode of baptism used by the
Waldenses, because if they did not baptize by immersion, then they were not
Baptists, regardless of the other evangelical characteristics they may have
had. One misconception we must avoid is the idea that since the Roman Catholic
Church employs sprinkling as the mode of baptism today, therefore the Catholic
Church ordinarily sprinkled during the Middle Ages. This idea is incorrect.
There can be no doubt that immersion was the mode of baptism commonly used in
the Catholic Church up to at least the 14th Century. Everts cites the teaching
of Aquinas, one of the most prominent Catholic theologians of the 13th Century,
on this subject:
Thomas Aquinas, the chief of the schoolmen, who flourished
about the year 1250, says, in his theology, that while immersion is not
essential to the validity of baptism, still, as the old and common usage, it is
more commendable and safer than pouring. [1]
Christian
affirms the same point:
It is equally clear that the form of baptism was immersion.
This was at the time, the practice of the whole Christian world. The great
Roman Catholic writers affirm that immersion was the proper form of baptism.
Peter the
Since the
predominant mode of baptism in the Roman Catholic Church was immersion, at least
until the 14th Century, the burden of proof would definitely rest on those who
would propose that the Waldenses innovated with different modes of baptism,
such as sprinkling, before sprinkling came into general practice in the Church
of Rome. All the evidence we have indicates that the Waldenses shared with
their Catholic contemporaries in the practice of immersion. Jarrel says:
The Waldenses were Baptists in that they practiced only
immersion. To all who are familiar with church history it is well known there
was no affusion till the middle of the third century, and that from that time
to the Reformation immersion was the rule and affusion allowed only in cases of
sickness - called "clinic baptism.". . . While "clinic
baptism" was practiced by the Romish Church it was never sanctioned by any
council until sanctioned by the Council of Ravenna, A.D. 1311. . . . Living in
an age in which immersion was the universal law and the custom . . . and
practicing only believer's baptism, rejecting, as we will see, water salvation,
that the Waldenses were Baptists as to the action of baptism is the inevitable
conclusion. . . . Mezeray says, "In the 12th Century they (Waldenses)
plunged the candidate in the sacred font." [3]
If the
early Waldensian literature lacks clear references as to their mode of baptism,
this is explained by the fact that that question was not a matter of
controversy between them and their Catholic enemies. Robinson says:
The first writers against the Vaudois never censured their
mode of baptizing, for in those times all parties administered baptism by
dipping, except in cases of danger. [4]
Concerning
Peter Waldo, the supposed founder of the Waldenses, Jarrel quotes another
authority:
Samuel Schmucker says of the Baptists: "As a sect they
never existed . . . until the rise of Peter Waldo in the twelfth century who
established the sect of the Waldenses among the mountains of
Although
many researchers would disagree with the notion that there were no Baptists or
Waldenses before the 12th Century, we can heartily agree with the conclusion
that the early Waldenses practiced immersion. Christian says:
The
contemporary writers, Eberhard and Ermengard, in their work "contra
Waldenses" written toward the close of the 12th Century, repeatedly refer
to immersion as the form of baptism among the Waldenses. [6]
Concerning
the 15th-Century Bohemian Waldenses, Broadbent says:
One of the
first things they (the Czech Brethren) did was to baptize those present, for
the baptism of believers by immersion was common to the Waldenses and to most
of the brethren in different parts, though it had been interrupted by pressure
of persecution. [7]
We can
conclude this subject with the words of Ray:
No
historian has ever charged the ancient Waldenses with the practice of
sprinkling and pouring for baptism. We may consider it a point generally
admitted that the ancient Waldenses possessed the Baptist peculiarity of
holding the burial in baptism of those who are dead to sin. [8]
[1]
Rev. W.W. Everts, Jr., The Church in the Wilderness, or The Baptists Before
the Reformation,
[2]
John T. Christian, A History of the Baptists,
[3]
Jarrel, op. cit., pp. 162-163.
[4]
Robert Robinson, Ecclesiastical Researches,
[5]
Jarrel, op. cit., p. 311.
[6]
Christian, op. cit., vol. 1, pp. 81-82.
[7]
E.H. Broadbent, The
[8]
David Burcham Ray, The Baptist Succession,
INFANT BAPTISM - WERE THE WALDENSES
PEDOBAPTISTS?
Having
established that the Waldenses baptized by immersion, that is not sufficient to
establish that they were Baptists, any more than the practice of immersion by
such heterodox modern sects as the Mormons would qualify them to be regarded as
Baptists. Perhaps the most obvious example of a non-Baptist yet immersionist
church body would be the Greek Orthodox Church, which practiced baptism by
immersion throughout the Middle Ages, and still does today, but also has
practiced and continues to practice infant baptism.
If we are
to regard the Waldenses as Baptists, we must firmly establish it as a fact that
the Waldensian movement, at least in part, rejected infant baptism and insisted
on baptism of believers only. This is especially necessary in light of the fact
that the modern Waldenses are Pedobaptists.
Fortunately,
we have the testimony of an eyewitness to the Waldensian movement of the 13th
Century, Reinerius Saccho, who was a Roman Catholic inquisitor and persecutor
of the Waldenses. Prior to becoming a Catholic, he was himself a Waldensian for
17 years. If anyone would know whether or not the Waldenses baptized infants,
surely Reinerius would know. This is his accusation against the Waldenses in
his book, "Of the Sects of Modern Heretics," published in 1254.
Secondly, they condemn all the Sacraments of the Church; in
the first place, as to baptism, they say that the Catechism is nothing - also,
that the ablution which is given to infants profits nothing. [1]
Everts
also refers to the testimony of Reinerius Saccho:
Reinerius, a renegade Waldensian preacher, turned inquisitor,
informs us of their practice in
There are
numerous references showing that the medieval Waldenses were accused of
rejecting infant baptism by their enemies. Concerning the followers of the
11th-Century French reformer Berenger, or Berengarius, we are told:
On his followers being examined, they said, "Baptism did
not profit children." Many Berengarians suffered death for their opinions,
and for opposing infant baptism. Bellarmine says, "the Berengarians
admitted only adults to baptism, which error the Anabaptists embraced. . . .
Berengarius and Vaudois were equivalent terms." [3]
In 1025,
the French Bishop Gerard made the same accusation, according to Allix:
When Bishop Gerard, of Arras and Cambray, charged the
Waldenses with abhorring (Catholic) baptism, they said baptism added nothing to
our justification, and a strange will, a strange faith, and a strange confession,
do not seem to belong to, or be of any advantage to a little child, who neither
wills, nor runs, who knows nothing of faith, and is altogether ignorant of his
own good and salvation, in whom there can be no desire of regeneration, and
from whom no confession of faith can be expected. [4]
Orchard
multiplies references from Roman Catholics who complained of the Waldensian
rejection of infant baptism:
The Lateran Council of 1139 did enforce infant baptism by
severe measures, and successive councils condemned the Waldenses for rejecting
it. (Wall) Evervinus of Stanfield complained to Bernard, Abbot of Clairval,
that
Armitage
says:
Almost all Roman Catholic writers agree with Cardinal Hosius,
who says: "The Waldenses rejected infant baptism." Addis and Arnold
declare of them: "As to baptism, They said that the washing of infants was
of no avail to them.". . . Ermengard, about A.D. 1192, says: "They
pretend that this sacrament cannot be conferred except upon those who demand it
with their own lips; hence they infer the other error, that baptism does not
profit infants who receive it.". . . Stephen of Borbone says, A.D. 1225:
"One argument of their error is, that baptism does not profit little
children to their salvation, who have neither the motive nor the act of faith,
as it is said in the latter part of Mark, he who will not believe will be
condemned." . . . Moneta, the Dominican, who wrote before A.D. 1240:
"They maintain the nullity of the baptism of infants, and affirm that no
one can be saved before attaining the age of reason." . . . One of the
Austrian Inquisitors, A.D. 1260: "Concerning baptism, some err in saying
that little children are not saved by baptism, for the Lord says, he that
believeth and is baptized shall be saved. Now, a child does not yet believe,
consequently is not saved." (By baptism, he must mean.) "Some of them
baptize over again, others lay on hands without baptism." David of
Augsburg, A.D. 1256-1272: "They say that a man is then truly, for the
first time, baptized, when he is brought into their heresy. But some say that
baptism does not profit little children, because they are never able actually
to believe." [6]
Waller
cites these authorities:
Bishop Usher, on the authority of Koveden’s Annals, states,
that in the year 1176, the “Boni homines of Toulouse,” (a name given to the
Waldenses), were summoned before a meeting of bishops, abbots, etc., and
required to recant their errors by subscribing to a creed drawn up for the
purpose. In the creed was the following article: "We believe also that no
person is saved but he that is baptized: and that infants are saved by
baptism." Being urged to subscribe and swear to this creed, they
positively and perseveringly refused. . . . The Book of Sentences of the
inquisition of
As late as
the 16th Century, Cardinal Hosius made the same accusation against the
Waldenses:
Cardinal Hosius, who presided at the Council of Trent, and
wrote a history of the heresy of his own times, says, the Waldenses rejected
infant baptism, and re-baptized all who embraced their sentiments. [8]
So far we
have heard only from the enemies of the Waldenses, who appear to have been
unanimous in declaring that they rejected infant baptism. But suppose this was
a false accusation, intended to blacken the reputation of the Waldenses and
make them odious as the deniers of salvation to babies? After all, the
Waldenses were also accused of being Manichaeans, a charge that we will see
later on was false.
It is
quite evident, though, that the charge that the medieval Waldenses rejected infant
baptism must have been true, because they suffered great persecutions as a
result of that belief, and there is no record that they ever denied their
opposition to infant baptism. The Waldenses could have spared themselves many
severe tribulations at the hands of the Inquisition over the centuries, had
they merely spoken up and said, "Yes, we do believe in infant
baptism." But there is no evidence that they ever did. Waller says:
If the charge of infant baptism was a calumny, it was one
constantly and universally persisted in by their enemies for centuries; and one
which the Waldenses, nor any portion of them, until after the Reformation and
after their own acknowledged deflection from the doctrine of their fathers,
ever denied. [9]
Concerning
this point, Ray tells us:
It is conceded as a fact, by all candid historians, that the
Roman Catholics not only accused the Waldenses of neglecting infant baptism,
but they waged constant persecution against them in order to force them to
baptize their infants. This would not have been the case had the Waldenses been
Pedo-baptists. [10]
Orchard
concurs that the charge of anti-pedobaptistic convictions made against the
Waldenses was correct:
In those bulls of popes and decrees of councils, year after
year for centuries, we see the charge maintained against them, of neglecting
infant baptism, without the shadow of evidence that this charge was improperly
made against any portion of this people. Nor is there any document or
testimony, quoted by Pedobaptists of this period, showing that the Waldenses as
a body were wrongly charged in this affair. [11]
Those who
survey the available literature on the medieval Waldenses will find that the
only references to infant baptism among them describe the practice of some
compromisers who, under the pressure of intense persecution, took their infant
children to the Catholic priests for baptism, in order that they might appear
to conform to the Catholic system. Not all Waldenses fell into this
dissimulation, and there are no clear references showing that the Waldenses
baptized their infants themselves. Even if some of them did, this would in no
way detract from the fact that many Waldenses rejected infant baptism.
Now that
we have heard from the enemies of the Waldenses, let us hear from the Waldenses
themselves concerning their views on infant baptism. Infant baptism is denounced
in a treatise on Antichrist, dating from the 12th Century, which was preserved
among the Waldenses of the
The third work of Antichrist consists in this, that he
attributed the regeneration of the Holy Spirit unto the dead outward work,
baptizing children in that faith, and teaching that thereby baptism and
regeneration must be had. [12]
Further on
in the treatise, the ancient author goes into greater detail as to what he is
opposed to:
That which is of no necessity in the administration of
baptism, is the exorcism, the breathing on, the sign of the cross, upon the
infant's breast and forehead, the salt which they put into his mouth, the
spittle put to his ears, and nose, the anointing of his breast, the capuchin,
the unction on the crown of the head, and all the rest of those things
consecrated by the bishop, putting wax in their hands, arraying them in white,
blessing the water, plunging the infant three times, seeking for godfathers:
all these things commonly practiced about the administration of this sacrament
are needless, as being not at all of the substance of, nor requisite in the
sacrament of baptism; these things giving but occasion to many that they rather
fall into error and superstition, than that they should be edified by them to
salvation; which made some doctors profess, that there was no virtue, nor
benefit to be had by them. [13]
These
statements appear to constitute an unmistakably clear condemnation of the
practice of infant baptism. But it may be objected that modern-day
Presbyterians might condemn the Roman Catholic practice of infant baptism in
the same harsh terms, while practicing a different, Reformed version of infant
baptism.
There is
every reason to believe, however, based on the original documents presented by
Morland, that the Waldenses insisted on faith as a prior condition for baptism.
Consider, for instance, this article from an ancient Waldensian confession of
faith:
We believe, that in the sacrament of baptism, water is the
visible and external sign, which represents unto us that which (by the
invisible virtue of God operating) is within us; namely, the renovation of the
Spirit, and the mortification of our members in Jesus Christ; by which also we
are received into the holy congregation of the people of God, there protesting
and declaring openly our faith and amendment of life. [14]
Language
of this kind is used by Baptists, not by Pedo-baptists. Do infants mortify
their members? Do they exercise faith, or openly declare their faith in the
assembly of God's people? Do they show evidence of amendment of life after they
have been baptized? To apply a confessional statement of this kind to the
baptism of infants would be absurd.
Then there
is this question and answer preserved from an ancient Waldensian catechism:
Minister:
By what marks is the undue administration of the sacrament known?
Answer: When the priests not knowing the intention of Christ
in the sacraments, say, that the grace and the truth is included in the
external ceremonies, and persuade men to the participation of the sacrament
without the truth, and without faith. [15]
This
language definitely excludes infants from participation in the ordinance of
baptism, since they cannot exercise faith. Also, the Nobla Leycon, or Noble
Lesson, dating from about 1100, speaks in terms of believer's baptism, which
would certainly exclude baptism of infants:
They spoke without fear, of the doctrine of Christ, They
preached to Jews and Greeks, working many miracles, And baptized those who
believed in the name of Jesus Christ, Then was there a people new converted;
they were called Christians, for they believed in Christ. [16]
The
pre-Reformation confessions of faith presented by Morland, who would have had
every reason and desire to present all available evidences that the Waldenses
were Pedobaptists, contain no such evidences or references. In contrast,
consider the clear, unequivocal language of the Westminster Confession of
Faith, promulgated in 1648 (ten years before Morland wrote his book on the
Waldenses) as a classic expression of Reformed convictions. These statements
from Chapter 28 leave no doubt as to whether infants were to be baptized:
Not only those that do actually profess faith in and
obedience unto Christ, but also the infants of one, or both, believing parents,
are to be baptized. . . . The efficacy of baptism is not tied to that moment of
time wherein it is administered; yet, notwithstanding, by the right use of this
ordinance, the grace promised is not only offered, but really exhibited, and
conferred, by the Holy Ghost, to such (whether of age or infants) as that grace
belongeth unto, according to the counsel of God's own will, in His own time. [17]
If such a
clear affirmation of infant baptism among the ancient Waldenses existed, it
would have been brought forth by Pedobaptist scholars, but no such evidence has
yet surfaced. According to Ray,
Even the learned Dr. Wall after all his efforts to find infant
baptism among the Waldenses admits that in their older confessions the
Waldenses say nothing about infant baptism. [18]
Not only
is there a lack of affirmation of a belief in infant baptism among the early
Waldenses, but there is evidence that they openly rejected that doctrine.
Everts says:
The creed of the Bohemian Waldenses published in 1532 (quoted
by Sterck) is equally explicit on this point of dispute: "It is clear as
day that infant baptism does no good, and is not ordered by Christ, but
invented by man. Christ wants His baptism based upon His word for the
forgiveness of sins, and then He promises, he that believeth and is baptized
shall be saved.” [19]
Says
Orchard:
Jacob Merning says that he had, in the German tongue, a
confession of faith of the Baptists, called Waldenses, which declared the
absence of infant baptism in the early churches of these people, that their
forefathers practised no such thing. . . . [20]
A survey
of church historians leads us to the conclusion that among the Waldenses there
were many who boldly rejected infant baptism. Robinson makes these remarks:
They held some articles peculiar to the Dutch Baptists; as,
that it was unlawful for a Christian to take oaths, to bear arms, to shed human
blood, to baptize children, and so on. [21]
They are also distinguished from the later Vaudois, and the
reformed churches . . . by not practicing infant baptism. . . . This was the
account given of them after their union with the Waldenses. [22]
In regard to baptism, nothing can be determined by any
writings of their own, for they published nothing. The most probable opinion
is, that they baptized minors, after they had been instructed, which was the
general practice in the time of Claude, and there is no positive proof, and
there can be none, that they baptized babes. If, as was just now observed,
their modern paper describes their ancient customs, they baptized no babes. [23]
Says
Orchard:
The old, or primitive Waldenses, were distinguished by the
doctrine and practice of Christian liberty. . . . They believed in the doctrine
of the Trinity, and baptized believers. They refused baptism to infants, when
it came into use in other churches. [24]
Says
Vedder:
The balance of evidence is therefore clearly in favor of the
conclusion that the early followers of Waldo taught and practiced the baptism
of believers only. [25]
Says
Christian:
It is possible that some of the Italian Waldenses (so-called)
practiced infant baptism. . . . There is no account that the French Waldenses,
or the Waldenses proper, ever practiced infant baptism. [26]
The Waldenses scattered in the
Says
Armitage:
Some of the early members of the sect may have earnestly
rejected infant baptism, while it is certain that many of the Dispersed did and
practiced only the baptism of believers. [28]
Says
Newman:
Many of them rejected infant baptism, as did Peter de Bruys
and most of the evangelicals whom we meet in the twelfth century before Waldo. [29]
Says
Cramp:
There was no uniformity among them. A number of them,
particularly in the early part of their history, judged that baptism should be
administered to believers only, and acted accordingly; others entirely rejected
that ordinance, as well as the Lord's Supper; a third class held to
Paedobaptism. If the question relate to the Waldenses in the strict and modern
sense of the term, that is, to the inhabitants of the valleys of
With these
scholarly opinions before us, there can be no doubt that among those called
Waldenses there were many who held to the Baptist position of rejection of
infant baptism. This should not surprise us. The Waldenses were part of the
same honorable tradition of evangelical dissent which produced the great French
reformers, Peter of Bruys and Henry of Lausanne, in the 12th Century, and there
is every reason to believe that they and their followers opposed infant
baptism. Monastier says:
Peter the
Venerable, abbot of Clugny, attributes to Pierre de Bruis the five following
points of doctrine, which he states in his ninth letter, entitled,
"Against the Petrobrussians,” and addressed to the archbishop of Arles and
Embrun, as well as to the bishops of Gap and Die.
1. He (Pierre de Bruis) denies that children, before they
arrive at years of intelligence, can be saved by baptism, or that the faith of
another person can be useful to them, since, according to those of his opinion,
it is not the faith of another which saves, but the faith of the individual
with baptism, according to our Lord's words: "He that believeth and is
baptized shall be saved, but he that believeth not shall be damned.” [31]
Monastier
also quotes from the Magdeburgh Centuriators concerning the followers of Henry
of Lausanne:
The same centuriators have also extracted from the writings
of Bernard the errors which he noticed in the Apostolic heretics. We translate
the passage: “The Apostolicals or Henricians; their doctrines, according to St.
Bernard, as far as they can be ascertained, are: 1. that infants ought not to
be baptized. . . ." [32]
The
cautious historian Armitage does not hesitate to embrace Peter of Bruys, Henry
of Lausanne, and their followers, as Baptists, saying:
In the Petrobrussians we find a sect of Baptists for which no
apology is needed. Peter of Bruis seized the entire Biblical presentation of
baptism, and forced its teaching home upon the conscience and the life, by
rejecting the immersion of babes and insisting on the immersion of all
believers in Christ, without any admixture of Catharistic nonsense. . . . Such
a bold soul had Christ been preparing in Henry, the next brave Baptist of the
Swiss valleys. [33]
The
ministry of Peter and Henry created a sensation in
Armitage
points out that evidences of opposition to infant baptism can be found
throughout the early Middle Ages. One of the hotbeds of such sentiment was
northwestern
Infant baptism was opposed at every step. Dr. Allix speaks of
a people in
The burden
of proof definitely rests on those who would deny that any of the Waldenses
opposed infant baptism. There is irrefutable evidence to show that many
Waldenses held the modern Baptist position with regard to infant baptism.
[1]
Brian Tierney, The Middle Ages, Volume 1: Sources of Medieval History,
[2]
Everts, op. cit., p. 46.
[3]
G.H. Orchard, A Concise History of Baptists,
[4]
Ibid., p. 299. Quoted from Allix, Churches of
[5]
Ibid., pp. 299-301.
[6]
Thomas Armitage, A History of the Baptists,
[7]
John L. Waller, "Were the Waldenses Baptists or Pedo-Baptists?," Western
Baptist Review, January, 1849, pp. 30, 32.
[8]
Orchard, op. cit., p. 304.
[9]
Waller, op. cit., pp. 19-20.
[10]
Ray, op. cit., p. 171.
[11]
Orchard, op. cit., p. 303.
[12]
Samuel Morland, The History of the Evangelical Churches of the Valleys of
Piemont, Gallatin, Tennessee, Church History Research and Archives, 1982,
pp. 148-149.
[13]
Ibid., p. 173.
[14]
Ibid., p. 38.
[15]
Ibid., p. 81.
[16]
Ibid., pp. 112-113.
[17]
[18]
Ray, op. cit., p. 167.
[19]
Everts, op. cit., pp. 45-46.
[20]
Orchard, op. cit., p. 328.
[21]
Robinson, op. cit., pp. 311-312.
[22]
Ibid., pp. 461-462.
[23]
Ibid., pp. 470-471.
[24]
Orchard, op. cit., p. 257.
[25]
H.C. Vedder, A Short History of the Baptists,
[26]
Christian, op. cit., p. 77.
[27]
Ibid., p. 138.
[28]
Armitage, op. cit., pp. 303-304.
[29]
Alfred Henry Newman, A Manual of Church History,
[30]
.J.M. Cramp, Baptist History,
[31]
Antoine Monastier, A History of the
[32]
Ibid., p. 54.
[33]
Armitage, op. cit., pp. 284, 288.
[34]
Ibid., p. 247.
WALDENSIAN VIEWS ON TRANSUBSTANTIATION AND
OTHER ROMAN CATHOLIC DISTINCTIVES
Before we
can accept the Waldenses as Baptists, we must be assured that they held to a
Baptistic position concerning the ordinance of the Lord's Supper as a memorial
of the death of Christ. Fortunately, there is abundant evidence to show that
the Waldenses held a correct view of the Lord's Supper, and rejected the
sacrifice of the mass, in an age when those who held such a position were often
punished with death.
Orchard
assures us that the Waldenses rejected any sacerdotal interpretation of the
ordinances of baptism and the Lord's Supper:
These people contended that . . . the only ordinances Christ
hath appointed for the churches, are baptism and the Lord's Supper; that they
are both symbolical ordinances, or signs of holy things. [1]
The
ancient confessions preserved by Morland confirm for us that the Waldenses
regarded the Lord's Supper as a memorial and not a sacrifice. In one confession
we find this clear statement:
Article 8: We hold, that the Holy Sacrament of the table or
Supper of our Lord Jesus Christ is an holy commemoration, and giving of thanks
for the benefits which we have received by His death and passion. . . . [2]
In the
treatise on Antichrist we are told that the eating of Christ's body was not to
be regarded literally:
The manducation or eating of the Sacramental Bread is the
eating of Christ's body figuratively, Christ having said, Whensoever ye do
this, do it in remembrance of me. . . . [3]
Ray states
that the Waldenses were close communionists, not recognizing the ordinance of
the Lord's Supper as valid when conducted by other churches:
The fact that the Waldenses maintained that the only true
church was among themselves, furnished evidence that they did not commune with
others; for they regarded communion as a church ordinance in the kingdom of
Christ; they could not, therefore, give or receive the Lord's Supper beyond the
limits of the church. . . . No historian, known to me, has ever dared to assert
that the ancient witnessing Waldenses were open communionists. [4]
Not only
did the Waldenses positively affirm a scriptural doctrine of the Lord's Supper,
but they took a strong stand against the false Roman Catholic doctrine of
transubstantiation, in which the priests supposedly created God, transmuting
the elements of bread and wine into the body, blood, soul and divinity of Jesus
Christ. Jones assures us that Peter Waldo himself opposed and rejected that
doctrine:
Men fell down before the consecrated wafer and worshipped it
as God; an abomination, the absurdity and impiety of which forcibly struck the
mind of Waldo, who opposed it in a most courageous manner. [5]
The 13th-Century
inquisitor Reinerius Saccho accused the Waldenses of denying
transubstantiation:
They do not believe the body and blood of Christ to be the
true sacrament, but only blessed bread, which by a figure only is called the
body of Christ, even as it is said, "and the rock was Christ." [6]
An ancient
confession dated at about
Article 10: We have always accounted as an unspeakable
abomination before God, all those inventions of men, namely, the feasts and the
vigils of saints, the water which they call holy, as likewise to abstain from
flesh upon certain days, and the like, but especially their masses.[7]
The
Bohemian Picards or Waldenses were also accused by their enemies of rejecting
transubstantiation. Robinson ascribes to them this teaching:
Christ is not in the sacrament of the altar, but in heaven at
the right hand of the Father to be adored. [8]
Modern
historians appear to be in agreement that the denial of transubstantiation was
a central doctrine of the Waldenses. Says Wylie:
They were accused, moreover, of having scoffed at the doctrine
of transubstantiation. [9]
Says
Bainton:
The Waldenses were widespread in southern
There is
abundant reason to believe that the Waldenses regarded all Roman Catholic
priests as unworthy to administer the Lord's Supper, not so much because of
their evil manner of life, which the Waldenses exposed, but mainly because they
were not part of a true church. They were accused by Reinerius Saccho, no doubt
correctly, of believing that the Roman Catholic Church was not a true church:
First, they say that the Romish Church is not the Church of
Jesus Christ, but a church of malignants and that it apostatized under
Sylvester, when the poison of temporalities was infused into the church. And
they say, that they are the
So there
can be no question that the Waldenses rejected the idea that any Catholic
priest could worthily administer the Lord's Supper, let alone perform the feat
of transubstantiation. Newman tells us: "They rejected the Roman Catholic
doctrine of transubstantiation and insisted that Christ is present in the bread
and wine only spiritually." [12]
The
Waldensian rejection of the mass was one of the reasons for the fierce
persecution of the Waldenses in
15. That Jesus Christ having fully expiated our sins by His
most perfect sacrifice once offered on the Cross, it neither can, nor ought to
be reiterated upon any account whatsoever, as they pretend to do in the Mass. [13]
It was at
this time that Waldensian denial of the efficacy of the sacrifice of the mass
became an item of bitter complaint against them by the Roman Catholic Church:
The Romish clergy . . . complained to the Archbishop of
Turin, that the Waldenses of the valleys of
One of the
most severe persecutions ever unleashed against the Waldenses took place in
1655. We are specifically told that individual Waldenses suffered and died for
their refusal to attend mass. The contemporary chronicler Morland gives this
account:
Jacopo di Rone, a schoolmaster of Roras, being stripped stark
naked, after that they had torn off his nails with pincers, and made a thousand
holes in his hands with a dagger's point, was dragged by a cord that was
fastened about his middle, through the burg of Lucerna, and every step as he
marched along, one of the soldiers on one side cut off a piece of his flesh
with a fauchion, and another on the other side gave him a great blow with a staff,
crying in the following words . . . "Well! what sayest thou now Barbet,
will thou yet go to Mass?" To which the poor creature with incredible
constancy, as long as he was able to speak, made answer, . . . "Much
rather death, than the Mass! Dispatch me quickly for the love of God!" [15]
This brave
believer was finally beheaded by his persecutors.
Another
victim of this persecution was Daniel Rambaut of Villaro, who was slowly
tortured to death over a period of days, after giving to the priests this
account of his convictions concerning the mass:
To believe the real presence in the host is blasphemy and
idolatry. To fancy the words of consecration perform what the papists call
transubstantiation, by converting the wafer and wine into the identical body
and blood of Christ, which was crucified, and which afterwards ascended into
heaven, is too gross an absurdity for even a child to believe, and nothing but
the most blind superstition could make the Roman Catholics put confidence in
anything so ridiculous. [16]
As late as
1685 we read of a congregation of Austrian Waldenses who rejected the mass,
claiming to have come to that conviction without any influence from the
Protestant Reformation:
In April, 1685 about 500 persons, of different sexes and
ages, passed through Coire (a town in
There is
abundant evidence that the Waldenses, like the later Lutherans, recognized only
two of the seven Roman Catholic sacraments, baptism and the Lord's Supper,
while disagreeing with the Catholics as to the significance of those two. The
other sacraments were totally rejected. The Bohemian Waldenses were accused by
their enemies of holding these Catholic sacraments in contempt, believing
That the confirmation which is celebrated with anointing and
extreme unction, is none of the sacraments of the church of Christ - That
auricular confession is a piece of foppery - That everyone ought, in his
closet, to confess his sins to God. . . . [18]
The
confession of Angrogne in 1532 made this declaration concerning auricular
confession:
Auricular confession is not commanded of God, and it hath
been determined according to Holy Scriptures, that the true confession is, to
confess to God alone . . . [19]
A
12th-Century article of faith from a Waldensian confession makes clear their
attitude toward the Catholic "Seven Sacraments":
Article 13: We acknowledge no other sacrament but Baptism and
the Lord's Supper. [20]
The
Waldensian rejection of the existence of purgatory is well-documented. Morland
has preserved for us a treatise from the 12th Century entitled "Of the
Purgatory Dream," in which purgatory is scoffed at as a device for feeding
the avarice of the priests, which was first promulgated by the popes five
centuries after the time of Christ. The ancient author says:
There is not one place in all the Holy Scriptures, to show
it, neither can there be any evidence produced that ever there entered any one
soul in such a Purgatory, and came out again from thence. And therefore it is a
thing not to be credited, nor believed. . . . It follows, there being no one
express proof for it in the Law of God, that it is needless to believe the said
Purgatory as an article of faith, and that there should be such a thing after
this life. [21]
The French
inquisitor Bernard Gui, writing in 1320, sweepingly describes the Waldenses as
having rejected all of the traditions of the Roman Catholic Church:
Gui emphasized that the Waldensians rejected ecclesiastical authority,
especially by their conviction that they were not subject to the pope or his
decrees of excommunication. . . . All Catholic feast-days, festivals and
prayers were rejected as man-made and not based upon the New Testament. . . .
The Waldensians denied purgatory, for which they could find no basis in the New
Testament. This led them to reject the Catholic belief in the value of alms and
prayers for the dead. For the Waldensians, if the dead were in hell they were
beyond hope and, if in heaven, they had no need of prayer. Similar reasoning
led them to reject as well prayers to images of the saints. [22]
Armitage
quotes a number of ancient authorities who complained of the total rejection by
the Waldenses of all Roman Catholic traditions and observances:
A Romish Inquisitor, in speaking of them, tells us:
"They . . . affirm that the traditions of the Church are no better than
the traditions of the Pharisees, insisting, moreover, that greater stress is
laid on the observance of human tradition than on the keeping of the law of
God." Seisselius, Archbishop of Turin, also states: "They receive
only what is written in the Old and New Testaments." Last of all,
Reinerius reports that "whatever is preached that is not substantiated by
the text of the Bible they esteem fables;" for which reason Pope Pius II
complains of their holding that "baptism ought to be administered without
the addition of holy oil," a fact which explains the further remark of
Reinerius: "They hold that none of the ordinances of the Church which have
been introduced since Christ's ascension ought to be observed, as being of no
value." [23]
It is
admitted, of course, that over the centuries there were numerous Waldenses who
sometimes submitted to the various false ordinances of the Catholic Church,
including the mass, in order to avoid persecution. By the time of the
Reformation this had become a common practice which was freely confessed to by
the Waldensian leaders. Reinerius and many others refer to this practice, but
in all references to it, it is clear that those who compromised in this manner
did so with mental reservations, not believing in the efficacy of the Roman
sacraments, and often muttering maledictions under their breath against the
Roman Church as they presented themselves at the masses. Before we condemn
these hypocrites too harshly, we should ask ourselves whether we would be
willing to suffer death by slow torture, as many Waldenses did, for refusing to
attend the mass.
History
records that after receiving a gentle rebuke and exhortation from the Lutheran
pastor Oecolampadius in 1530, urging the Waldenses against compromise, they
took courage and ceased to attend the Catholic mass. Even when they did attend
the mass, they did so only under duress, while continuing to firmly reject the
dogma of transubstantiation.
[1]
Orchard, op. cit., p. 261.
[2]
Morland, op. cit., p. 38.
[3]
Ibid., pp. 173-174.
[4]
Ray, op. cit., pp. 334-335.
[5]
William Jones, The History of the Christian Church, Gallatin, Tennessee,
Church History Research and Archives, 1983, vol. 2, p. 9.
[6]
Ibid., pp. 22-23.
[7]
Morland, op. cit., pp. 33-34.
[8]
Robinson, op. cit., p. 517.
[9]
J.A. Wylie, History of the Waldenses,
[10]
Roland Bainton, Christendom,
[11]
Tierney, op. cit., p. 222.
[12]
Newman, op. cit., p. 580.
[13]
Morland, op. cit., p. 65.
[14]
Marie Gentert King, Foxe's Book of Martyrs, Old Tappan, New Jersey,
Fleming H. Revell, 1968, p. 114.
[15]
Morland, op. cit., p. 354.
[16]
King, op. cit., p. 125.
[17]
Jones, op. cit., pp. 452-453.
[18]
Ibid., p. 37.
[19]
Morland, op. cit., p. 40.
[20]
Ibid., p. 34.
[21]
Ibid., pp. 164, 166.
[22]
Ronald Finucane, "The Waldensians," article in Eerdman's Handbook
to the History of Christianity, Tim Dowley, editor,
[23]
Armitage, op. cit., p. 308.
WALDENSIAN VIEWS ON SOTERIOLOGY
In earlier
chapters we have established that the Waldenses baptized by immersion, and that
they did not practice infant baptism. We may be persuaded of these facts, and
yet this would not be sufficient to establish that the Waldenses were Baptists.
In our century the Churches of Christ and
Fortunately,
an ancient confession of the Waldenses, dated about
We do
believe that the Sacraments are signs of the holy thing, or visible forms of
the invisible grace, accounting it good that the faithful sometimes use the
said signs or visible forms, if it may be done. However, we believe and hold,
that the abovesaid faithful may be saved without receiving the signs aforesaid,
in case they have no place nor any means to use them. [1]
Ancient
Waldensian literature abounds with evidence that the Waldenses had a sound
doctrine of soteriology or salvation, insisting on justification by faith
alone, hundreds of years before Luther. For instance, the author of the
12th-Century treatise "On the Purgatory Dream" makes these
statements:
But St.
Peter shows, Acts 15, that the hearts are purged by faith, and that faith is
sufficient to cleanse evil, without any other outward means. . . . Where the
apostle shows, that Christ so loved His Church, that He would not cleanse it by
any other washing, but by His own blood. [2]
The 1655
Confession of the Reformed Churches of Piedmont contains this ringing
affirmation of justification by faith:
16. That
the Lord having fully and absolutely reconciled us unto God, through the Blood
of His Cross, by virtue of His merit only, and not of our works, we are thereby
absolved and justified in His sight, neither is there any other Purgatory
besides His Blood, which cleanses us from all sin. . . .
18. That
that faith is the gracious and efficacious work of the Holy Spirit which
enlightens our souls, and persuades them to lean and rest upon the mercy of God,
and so thereby to apply unto themselves the merits of Jesus Christ. [3]
While
modern-day evangelicals attempt to sidle away from the doctrine of salvation by
Christ's blood, it is clear that the Waldenses affirmed that scriptural
doctrine, in the 12th Century and in the 17th.
Numerous
historians have paid tribute to the testimony of the Waldenses for the doctrine
of justification by faith alone. D'Aubigne says:
From their
mountain heights the Waldenses protested during a long series of ages against
the superstitions of
Tierney
and Painter say:
They
declared that Christ had taught the way of life that led to salvation and that
His teachings could be read in the New Testament. . . . The Church and its
sacraments were completely useless. [5]
Edman
says:
As to
their doctrinal views there is little dispute: they held to . . . justification
by faith, and a life of good works together with stout denial of the value of
priestly absolution or intercession of saints and angels, or the existence of
purgatory, or the authority of the Roman Church. [6]
Broadbent
says:
In
Strassburg in 1212 the Dominicans had already arrested 500 persons who belonged
to churches of the Waldenses. . . . Their leader and elder, named John,
declared as he was about to die, "We are all sinners, but it is not our
faith that makes us so, nor are we guilty of the blasphemy of which we are
accused without reason; but we expect the forgiveness of our sins, and that
without the help of men, and not through the merit of our own works. . .
." They did not admit the claim of the great professing Church to open or
close the way of salvation, nor did they believe that salvation was through any
sacraments or by anything but faith in Christ, which showed itself in the
activities of love. [7]
Monastier
relates this account of how the Waldenses, under the name of Ultramontanes or
dwellers beyond the mountains, were condemned by a Catholic monk:
Gilles
relates that a barbe of his name having gone into a church at
We may
rest assured that the Waldenses were not falsely accused by their enemies of
teaching justification by faith, and that they held to the modern Baptist
position on that subject.
[1]
Morland, op. cit., p. 34.
[2]
Ibid., pp. 162-163.
[3]
Ibid., p. 65.
[4]
J.H. Merle D'Aubigne, History of the Reformation of the Sixteenth Century,
[5]
Brian Tierney and Sidney Painter,
[6]
V. Raymond Edman, The Light in Dark Ages, Wheaton, Illinois, Van Kampen
Press, 1949, p. 301.
[7]
Broadbent, op. cit., pp. 96-97.
[8]
Monastier, op. cit., p. 116.
WALDENSIAN VIEWS ON THE TRINITY
The
question of whether the Waldenses held orthodox views on the subject of the
Trinity and the deity of Christ is worthy of examination. After all, the study
of dissenting sects in the Middle Ages yields many disturbing hints of belief
in Adoptionism, the notion that Christ was a mere man who was endowed with
Divine attributes at His baptism by God the Father. Through the centuries there
have been churches with a Baptist name and testimony which yet have held Arian
and Socinian views; such churches are prominent in the church history of
One early
and prominent figure in the ecclesiastical history of northern
Claude of
Turin . . . was a Spaniard by birth, and a disciple of Felix, of Urgel, the
Arian, who, in 794, published a work on the adoption of Jesus by the Father. .
. . Claude lived and died a Catholic, and most probably an Arian. . . . His
association with the Bishop of Urgel leaves his orthodoxy doubtful. [1]
It may not
be possible to determine with certainty all of the religious views of this
shadowy figure, but it is beyond doubt that the early Waldenses must have been
exposed to Arian influences, which were numerous in the early Middle Ages. We
are justified in stopping to ask whether the Waldenses preserved their
orthodoxy, untainted by the Arian and Adoptionist heresies, through the misty
gloom of the Dark Ages. The 18th-Century English historian Robinson claimed
that most of the ancient Waldenses were Arians:
In regard
to the great leading point, the most were Unitarians, but many held the same
opinions as the church of Rome did, and consequently the doctrine of the
Trinity. [2]
Of the
later Bohemian Waldenses he says:
They were
all indiscriminately called Waldenses and Picards, and they all rebaptized: but
they were of very different sentiments; some held the divinity of Christ, others
denied it. [3]
If
Robinson, a Baptist of militant Unitarian views, was willing to admit that some
of the Waldenses were Trinitarians, we can be sure that some of them were.
Morland, who denies that Claudius of Turin was an Arian, also defends the
Waldenses against that charge:
And this
is all likewise that Rainerius Saccon has to object against the Waldenses, who
succeeded this Archbishop and his disciples, for saith he, "All other
sects render themselves horrible, by reason of their blasphemies against God
Himself, but on the contrary, this hath great appearance of piety, forasmuch as
they live justly in the sight of men; they believe well, as concerning God, in
all things, and hold all the articles of the Creed; there is only one thing
against them, that is, they hate and blaspheme the Church of Rome." [4]
Morland
goes on to explain why the Waldenses were calumniated as Arians:
And
because they denied the Host which the priest holds up at mass, to be God, they
were called Arians, as those who denied the divinity of the eternal Son of God.
[5]
The
ancient confessions published by Morland contain no hint of Arianism or
Adoptionism, but repeatedly affirm orthodox belief in the Trinity. A confession
dating from 1120 contains these articles:
Article 1:
We believe and firmly hold all that which is contained in the twelve articles
of the symbol, which is called the Apostles Creed, accounting for heresy
whatsoever is disagreeing, and not consonant to the said 12 Articles.
Article 2:
We do believe that there is one God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit. [6]
Another
confession makes this affirmation:
Article 2:
We believe that Jesus Christ is the Son and image of the Father. That in Him
dwells all the fulness of the Godhead, by whom we have knowledge of the Father.
. . .
Article 3:
We believe that the Holy Spirit is our Comforter, proceeding from the Father
and the Son. [7]
An ancient
catechism contains this dialogue concerning the Trinity:
Minister:
Dost thou believe in the Holy Spirit?
Answer:
Yes, I do believe. For the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son,
and is one Person of the Trinity, and according to the Divinity, is equal to
the Father and the Son.
Minister:
Thou believest God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit, thou hast
therefore three Gods.
Answer: I
have not three.
Minister:
Yea, but thou hast named three.
Answer:
That is by reason of the difference of the Persons, not by reason of the
essence of the Divinity. For, although there are three Persons, yet
notwithstanding there is but one essence. [8]
The Nobla
Leycon, dated from the 12th Century, contains this passage:
Wherefore
every one that will do good works, the honor of God the Father ought to be his
first moving principle. He ought likewise to implore the aid of His glorious
Son, the dear Son of the Virgin Mary, and the Holy Ghost which lightens us in
the true way. These three (the Holy Trinity) as being but one God, ought to be
called upon. [9]
This would
be a good time to examine the question of when the Nobla Leycon was written.
Many historians have dismissed the claim that the Nobla Leycon was written in
the early 12th Century, saying that it must have been composed at a later date.
However, the Nobla Leycon dates itself from the 12th Century, opening with
these words:
O
brethren, give ear to a noble lesson, we ought always to watch and pray, for we
see the world nigh to a conclusion. We ought to strive to do good works, seeing
that the end of this world approacheth. There are already a thousand and one
hundred years fully accomplished, since it was written thus, "For we are
in the last time." [10]
Monastier
argues persuasively in favor of the 12th-Century date for the Nobla Leycon,
saying:
This
circumstance, that five or six Vaudois manuscripts only have dates, is
particularly favorable to their authenticity. If they had been affixed after
the appearance of the writings, and without foundation, we do not see why the
author of such a fraud should not have made use of it in reference to a greater
number, or even to all.
We
moreover appeal to the testimony of Raynouard, in favor of the correctness of
these dates. It is known that this modern writer has applied himself specially
to the study of the Romance language, of which the Vaudois is a particular
dialect,. . .
He goes on
to say, "The poem of the 'Nobla Leyczon' bears the date of the year 1100.
The sect of the Vaudois is, then, much more ancient than has been generally
believed." And a little after; "The date of the year 1100, which we
find given in this poem, merits all confidence. Persons who read it with
attention will perceive that the manuscript has not been interpolated, etc.
Lastly, the very style of the work, the form of the versification, the
agreement of the two manuscripts, (that of
Thus we
see that this distinguished writer, without prejudice or any interested motive,
and having only in view the Romance language, after a long and profound study
of the ancient religious documents of the Vaudois, pronounces them authentic,
and confirms the correctness of their dates. Such a decision appears to us to
be of very great weight. [11]
Some of
the other ancient manuscripts of the Waldenses, such as the catechism we have
just quoted from, contain references to chapter divisions in the Bible, which
were not introduced until the mid-13th Century, and occasionally even verse
divisions, not introduced until the mid-16th Century. However, this circumstance
does not in any way prove that those manuscripts were not originally composed
in the 12th Century. Monastier explains the references to chapters as
interpolations by later copyists:
We may
readily understand, that, for the instruction of their readers, the copyists
who without doubt, were the barbes, or Vaudois pastors, availing themselves of
their acquaintance with this useful division, added the notation of the
chapters and verses, without thereby subjecting the text to any falsification
or deterioration. We have a stronger warrant for admitting this explanation,
because all the quotations are not accompanied with the notation of chapters
and verses, which would probably have been the case, had this useful addition
been made by the author himself. [12]
Thus we
have every reason for confidence in believing that many of the source materials
for Waldensian faith and practice were written in the 12th Century, and thus
are an accurate reflection of the doctrines of the Waldenses at that early
epoch. If those documents are allowed to speak for themselves, they show that
the Waldenses were Trinitarians, and reveal no trace of Arian or Adoptionist
sentiment. Even if we admit the possibility that some of the Waldenses at some
periods were Arian in belief, this would in no way detract from the conclusion
that a true church was preserved through the Middle Ages by Waldenses who
worshipped the Triune God and recognized the full deity of Father, Son and Holy
Spirit.
[1]
Orchard, op. cit., pp. 262-263.
[2]
Robinson, op. cit., p. 316.
[3]
Ibid., p. 517.
[4]
Morland, op. cit., p. 11.
[5]
Ibid., p. 13.
[6]
Ibid., p. 30.
[7]
Ibid., p. 37.
[8]
Ibid., p. 77-78.
[9]
Ibid., p. 100.
[10]
Ibid., p. 99.
[11]
Monastier, op. cit., pp. 79-81.
[12].Ibid.,
p. 83.
WALDENSIAN VIEWS ON CALVINISM
The
question of whether or not the Waldenses were Calvinistic in their beliefs, in
the sense of adherence to the so-called Five Points of Calvinism (total
depravity, unconditional election, limited atonement, irresistible grace,
perseverance of the saints) is one that is of great interest to Baptists today,
many of whom identify themselves strongly as either Calvinistic Baptists, or as
Free Will or General Baptists, while there are also other Baptists who prefer
not to take sides in this controversy. This division in opinion among Baptists
goes back at least as far as the 17th Century, when English Baptists were
divided into two groups, the General Baptists and the Particular Baptists. It
would be of great historical interest if we could find traces of Calvinistic
theology prior to the time of Calvin and the Reformation, indicating that the
Waldenses held to such convictions.
There can
be no question that the Waldenses were Calvinists from the time of their
earliest contacts with the great theologians of the Protestant Reformation. The
1532 confession of faith at Angrogne, which resulted from those contacts,
contains these clear statements of belief:
2. All
those that have been, and shall be saved, have been elected of God, before the
foundation of the world. 3. It is impossible that those that are appointed to
salvation, should not be saved. 4. Whosoever upholds free-will denieth
absolutely predestination, and the grace of God. [1]
The 1655
confession contains these articles:
25. That
that Church is the company of the faithful, who having been elected before the
foundation of the world, and called with an holy calling, come to unite
themselves to follow the Word of God, believing whatsoever He teaches them, and
living in His fear.
26. That
that Church cannot err, nor be annihilated, but must endure forever, and that
all the elect are upheld and preserved by the power of God in such sort, that they
all persevere in the faith unto the end, and remain united in the holy Church,
as so many living members thereof. [2]
The
question that needs to be answered is this: Was the Calvinist faith that the
Waldenses held to in 1532 something new, imparted to them by the Reformers, or
was it a reflection of their convictions on that subject throughout the Middle
Ages? It is difficult to answer this question with any degree of certainty. The
early confessions of the Waldenses are lacking in such clear expositions of
Calvinist sentiment as are found in the Reformation-era confessions. However,
the Nobla Leycon does contain some references to the elect, closing with these
words:
May it
please the Lord which formed the world, that we may be of the number of His
elect, to dwell in His court forever. [3]
Also, the
catechism presented by Morland and dated by him as being "written in their
own language several hundreds of years before either Calvin or Luther" [4]
contains this statement which appears to teach Calvinism before Calvin:
By the
Holy Catholic Church is meant all the elect of God, from the beginning of the
world to the end, by the grace of God through the merit of Christ, gathered
together by the Holy Spirit, and fore-ordained to eternal life; the number and
names of whom are known to Him alone who has elected them; and in this Church
remains none who is reprobate. [5]
The
historian Jones cites these authorities who believed that the Waldenses were
Calvinists:
Lindanus,
a Catholic bishop of the see of
Mezeray,
the celebrated historiographer of
Gualtier,
a Jesuitical monk, in his chronological tables, drew up a catalogue consisting
of seven and twenty particulars, in which he shows that the principles of the
Waldenses, and those of the Calvinists coincided with each other. . . .
Aeneas
Sylvius (afterwards Pope Pius II) declares the doctrine taught by Calvin to be
the same as that of the Waldenses. . . . [6]
Orchard
also cites the historian Mezeray:
"However
various their names, they may be," says Mezeray, "reduced to two,
that is, the Albigenses (a term now about introduced), and the Vaudois, and
these two held almost the same opinions as those we call Calvinists." [7]
These
references are too vague to give us any definite information as to whether the
pre-Reformation Waldenses held to the same strict interpretations of the
sovereignty of God as are found in the Reformation-era confessions of the
Waldenses. It is quite possible to appear to agree with many of the religious
beliefs of the Calvinists, especially from the standpoint of a Roman Catholic
writer, without agreeing with the Calvinists on all points, including the five
points of Calvinism.
Jarrell
goes into a little more detail on just what the Waldenses believed, saying:
From the
foregoing they agreed with Baptists on depravity. The new creation inevitably
implies "total depravity;" otherwise no need of the mighty power of
the Spirit and the new creation in saving a soul. . . .
The
Waldenses were Baptists as to the doctrine of election. Prof. A.A. Hodge, D.D.,
of Princeton Theological Seminary, says: . . . "The Lollards, another name
for the Waldenses, the followers of
But in
Jarrell's statements on depravity, he appears to be speaking of the
16th-Century Waldenses. As for the statement by Hodge, an ardent Calvinist, it
is too vague. It is possible to be "of the general
In
general, the historians who claim that the pre-Reformation Waldenses were
Calvinists before Calvin are Calvinists themselves, who may tend to assume more
with regard to Waldensian convictions on that subject than they can document
specifically, or they are Roman Catholics who perhaps failed to discern the
different shades of belief among the Protestant and dissenting sects. For every
historian who claims the pre-Reformation Waldenses as Calvinists, another
historian can be found to say that they were not. Robinson says:
No writer
hath chastised them (the Calvinists) more severely or more justly for claiming
apostolical succession throughout the Vaudois than bishop Bossuet. Said he: . .
. they never heard of predestination and justification till the Calvinists
preached to them. [9]
Monastier,
himself a Waldensian pastor, has this to say about Waldensian doctrine in 1530,
just before the confession of Angrogne was issued:
It would
appear that in what regards the acceptance of salvation and the internal life
of the Christian, the barbes at that time allowed an immense share to the human
will. . . . They did not admit predestination, excepting with certain
explanations, which reduced it to be nothing more than an anticipated view of
human intentions and actions by the omniscience of God. [10]
The
Angrogne confession was a direct result of the contact that the Waldenses had
with the Reformers in the year 1530. The story is in many ways a thrilling one;
the beleaguered, dispirited Waldenses of Savoy, fearing themselves to be the
only true Christians left in the world and facing the possibility of total
extermination at the hands of their Catholic enemies, suddenly began to hear
accounts of a great religious movement sweeping the lands to the north of them,
in which men and women were rejecting Catholic falsehoods and turning back to
the truths of the Bible as the Waldenses understood them. Two representatives
were sent from
Fox says,
that Morel "declared to his brethren all the points of his commission; and
opened unto them, how many and great errors they were in, into which their old
ministers, whom they called barbes, that is to say, uncles, had brought them,
leading them from the right way of the true religion." Thus it is evident
that Morel had learned something new of the Reformers, differing from the
doctrine of the Waldensian fathers, and which he proposed to introduce into the
creed of the brethren in his region.
And so Dr.
Murdock, the translator of Mosheim, in a note upon that author, represents the
case. He says: "In their council in Angrogne, A.D. 1532, they adopted a
short confession of faith, professedly embracing the doctrine they had firmly
believed for four hundred years, yet manifestly a departure in some particulars
from the principles stated by their deputies to Ecolampadius, and conformed to
the new views he had communicated to them, especially in relation to free-will,
grace, predestination, and several points of practical religion." [11]
Broadbent
concurs that the Waldenses, under the influence of their newfound Reformer
brethren, made a major shift toward Calvinist doctrine at the synod of Angrogne
in 1532:
Many
matters of practice were considered, but the question which excited the greatest
discussion was one of doctrine. Farel taught that "God has elected before
the foundation of the world all those who have been or will be saved. It is
impossible for those who have been ordained to salvation not to be saved.
Whosoever upholds free-will, absolutely denies the grace of God." Jean of
Molines and Daniel of Valence laid stress both on the capacity of man and also
his responsibility to receive the grace of God. In this they were supported by
the nobles present and by many others, who urged that the changes advocated
were not necessary and also that they would imply a condemnation of those who
had so long and faithfully guided these churches. Farel's eloquence and
sympathetic earnestness strongly commended his arguments to his hearers and the
majority accepted his teaching. A confession of faith was drawn up in
accordance with this, which was signed by most present, though declined by
some. [12]
How may
these conflicting statements of the various historians be reconciled? Some say
that the Waldenses first became Calvinists in 1532 as a result of their
contacts with the Reformers, and others affirm that they were Calvinists prior
to that time. We must take into account the possible influence on the
historians of their own biases. Those who are Calvinists will tend to conclude
easily that the pre-Reformation Waldenses were Calvinists. As for Robinson, who
says they were not Calvinists, his anti-Calvinist bias is evident; he held a
grudge against John Calvin for plotting the execution of Michael Servetus, who,
like Robinson, was a Socinian. Another possibility is that different Waldenses
in different times and places held divergent views on the questions of
predestination and free-will. The Waldenses of Savoy just prior to 1532 clearly
did not hold to Calvinist positions on these issues, but that does not mean
that all Waldenses in all times believed just as those of
[1]
Morland, op. cit., p. 40.
[2]
Ibid., p. 67.
[3]
Ibid., p. 120.
[4]
Ibid., p. 72.
[5]
Ibid., p. 79.
[6]
Jones, op. cit., pp. 90-91.
[7]
Orchard, op. cit., p. 192.
[8]
Jarrel, op. cit., pp. 165-166.
[9]
Robinson, op. cit., p. 476.
[10]
Monastier, op. cit., p. 137.
[11]
Waller, op. cit., pp. 14-15.
[12]
Broadbent, op. cit., pp. 219-220.
WALDENSIAN VIEWS ON SEPARATION
It is easy
to declare that the medieval Waldenses were Baptists, but just how much does
this tell us? There are many Baptist churches and denominations that
independent Baptists will have no affiliation or ecclesiastical fellowship
with, because they are ecumenical, and are included in the membership of the
World Council of Churches and National Council of Churches. In the United
States today, the American Baptist Churches USA, National Baptist Convention of
America, National Baptist Convention USA, and the Progressive National Baptist
Convention are all listed as member denominations of the World Council of
Churches as of June, 1988, an affiliation which detracts sadly from the Baptist
testimony of these churches. More to the point, the same list of WCC member
churches includes the 22,000-member Chiesa Evangelica Valdese, [1]
the 20th-Century remnant of the Waldenses in
The
Waldenses of today are clearly ecumenical in spirit. It is admitted that they
are no longer Baptists. Their doctrinal orthodoxy began to wane in the late
18th Century, which Monastier complained of:
The end of
the eighteenth century was marked in the valleys by a decline in the tone of
religion, which was weakened everywhere. There, as in other countries, it might
be remarked that the Christian spirit, so vigorous and so fruitful in the
sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, fed itself less abundantly from the pure
source of the gospel. A proud rationalism, mere human opinion, began to claim a
place in theology, and, attempting to make religion more accessible and less
repulsive in its doctrines, tarnished and disfigured it. The candidates for the
sacred ministry acquired for the most part in the foreign academies, where they
prepared for entering upon it, nothing but a cold orthodoxy, or the germs of
Socinian laxity. The first years of the nineteenth century brought no
amelioration. Virtue was often preached and exalted more than the work of
Christ, or than faith, or than the love of the Lord. The title of philosopher
was placed at least on a level with that of Christian. The Vaudois
representative of this tendency was M. Mondon, the late pastor of San Giovanni,
a man of talent, well versed in classical literature and profane history, of a
singular, capricious character, but courageous and full of frankness. His
belief was attacked, and on good grounds, for it was far from being
evangelical. . . . [2]
Thus we
see that the Waldensian movement in recent centuries has suffered from the
weakening influences of rationalism and ecumenism, which both are elements
which modern independent Baptists would completely fail to identify with. Yet
there is abundant evidence that the medieval Waldenses were of a far different
spirit, not only thoroughly evangelical, but also partaking of the same bold
separationist position as is taken by independent Baptists today. From the
beginning the Waldenses were separationists, withdrawing from the Roman
Catholic Church, both physically and ecclesiastically, taking refuge in the
remote valleys of the
The
Novatians were persecuted by
Orchard
agrees, and states that the withdrawal of the Novatians to the mountains was
hastened by the passage of an imperial edict against rebaptizing in 413:
The edict
was probably obtained by the influence of Augustine, who could endure no rival,
nor would he bear with any who questioned the virtue of his rites, or the
sanctity of his brethren, or the soundness of the Catholic creed; and these
points being disputed by the Novationists and Donatists, two powerful and
extensive bodies of dissidents in Italy and Africa, they were consequently made
to feel the weight of his influence. These combined modes of oppression led the
faithful to abandon the cities, and seek retreats in the country, which they
did, particularly in the valleys of
Morland
describes the separationism of the early Waldenses in these terms:
But when
the Church of Rome began to corrupt itself, and would by no means be persuaded
to retain the purity of that apostolical doctrine and divine worship, then
those of the valleys began to separate themselves from them, and to "come
out from amongst them, that so they might not be partakers of their sins, nor
receive of their plagues." [5]
The
ancient documents preserved by Morland show that the medieval Waldenses
retained in full the uncompromising separationist spirit which characterized
the Novatian movement from the beginning. The ancient catechism of the
Waldenses quotes Matthew 16:6; Psalm 26:5; Numbers 16:26; 2 Corinthians
6:14-18; 2 Thessalonians 3:6; and Revelation 18:4 in defense of the position of
separation, and then includes this question and answer:
Minister:
By what marks are those people known who are not in truth with the Church?
Answer: By
public sins, and an erroneous faith. For, we ought to fly from such persons,
lest we be defiled by them. [6]
The author
of the 12th-Century treatise on Antichrist defends at great length the doctrine
of ecclesiastical separation, quoting from Matthew 10:35-37; Matthew 7:15;
Matthew 16:6; Matthew 24:4-5, 23; Revelation 18:4; 2 Corinthians 6:14-18;
Ephesians 5:7-8; 2 Thessalonians 3:6-7; Ephesians 5:11; and 2 Timothy 3:1-5,
and then makes this appeal:
By what
has been said hitherto it appears clearly, what is the wickedness of Antichrist,
and his perverseness. Also our Lord commands our separating from him, and
joining ourselves with the holy city of
In
previous chapters we have seen how vigorously the Waldenses rejected the
traditions and sacraments of the Catholics, especially their masses. It is
clear that they did not accept the claim of the Roman Catholic Church to be a
Christian communion. Nevins says:
As to
their doctrine and practice, they held the Catholic community not to be a
As we keep
these facts in mind, and consider the words of ancient Waldensian writers on
separation, sounding much like 20th-Century independent Baptist preachers, and
quoting the same verses that have often been quoted by independent Baptists in
defense of separation, then it is obvious that the Waldenses were originally
separationists in the same mold as modern-day independent Baptists. Says Ray:
The
Waldenses regarded all the Catholic worship as the grossest idolatry; they did
not, therefore, commune with Antichrist. They boldly affirmed that the Church
of Rome is the "whore of
The small
remnant of Waldensians remaining in
It may be
objected that we cannot claim the Waldenses as separationists since they often
attended the masses and other ordinances of the Roman Catholic Church, as we
have seen that they sometimes did, to avoid persecution. The answer is that
this kind of compromising conduct was not characteristic of all Waldenses in
all times and places, but was an error that certain Waldenses, especially those
of Savoy just prior to the Reformation, fell into, against their better
judgment, under the weight of the greatest pressure and persecution. Mosheim
tells us that the Waldenses of France were of a far more stalwart and
separationist spirit than those of
It is,
however, to be observed, that the Waldenses were not without their intestine
divisions. Such as resided in
D'Aubigne
tells us more of the spirit of the French Waldenses in 1484, who shortly
afterwards paid a great price in persecution for their separationist stance:
There was
at that time on all the slopes of the Dauphinese Alps, and along the banks of
the Durance, a new growth of the old Waldensian opinions. . . . Bold men called
the Roman Church the church of devils, and maintained that it was as profitable
to pray in a stable as in a church. [12]
Concerning
the compromising Waldenses of Savoy, it is recorded that as a direct result of
their contacts with Oecolampadius and other Reformation leaders in 1530, who
urged them to forsake all fellowship with the Church of Rome, the Waldenses
quickly returned to a separationist position. Wylie says:
The
ancient spirit of the Waldenses revived. They no longer practiced those
dissimulations and cowardly concealments to which they had had recourse to
avoid persecution. They no longer feared to confess their faith. Henceforward
they were never seen at mass, or in the Popish churches. They refused to
recognize the priests of
The
conclusion is clear; the Waldenses were separationists, in an age when to be a
separationist was punishable by being burned to death or otherwise hideously
tortured, often over a period of days, before the sufferer was released by death.
Their consistency as separationists was not perfect, but Baptists of
20th-Century
Unlike the
Waldenses, we are privileged to live in an age in which separation costs us
almost nothing, and yet many Baptists are letting down their walls of
separation, rushing to recognize the Church of Rome as a Christian communion
and seeking ecumenical fellowship with it. David Beale has cited these
examples: a Roman Catholic priest filling the pulpit of the First Baptist
Church of Tallahassee, Florida in 1966; a Baptist-Catholic dialogue at Wake
Forest College in 1969, which declared that "we are brothers in
Christ"; an ecumenical gathering, including Roman Catholics, at the First
Baptist Church of Oklahoma City, Oklahoma in 1970; a Roman Catholic priest
leading a revival meeting at the Vestavia Hills Baptist Church in Birmingham,
Alabama in 1970; a Roman Catholic priest serving as a chaplain at Furman
University (Baptist) in Greenville, South Carolina in 1970; and the visit by
Dr. W.A. Criswell and 400 members of his First Baptist Church of Dallas, Texas
to Rome in 1971, at which time they participated in a papal audience with Pope
Paul VI. [14]
Instead of
asking whether the Waldenses were separationists in the mold of modern
Baptists, perhaps we should ask if modern Baptists have one-tenth of the
courage and separationist conviction that the Waldenses had. By our friendly
ecumenical cooperation with the Roman Catholic Church, we betray the blood of
the Waldensian martyrs who died rather than compromise with the Church of Rome
in any way. We need to remind ourselves of the noble example of the Waldenses,
and emulate that example.
In
connection with the subject of separation, it should be noted that the
Waldenses not only observed ecclesiastical separation, but also held to some of
the same standards of personal separation as those observed by independent
Baptists today. Monastier says:
The
frequenting of taverns, "those fountains of sin and schools of the devil,
where he works miracles of his own kind," were prohibited, as well as
dancing. [15]
The
Waldenses took a stern stand against dancing, proclaiming that:
A ball is
the devil's procession, and whosoever entereth in there, entereth into his
procession. The devil is the leader, the middle, and the end of the dance. So
many paces as a man maketh in a ball, so many leaps he maketh toward hell. [16]
It is
commonly thought that the strict standards of personal and ecclesiastical
separation championed by 20th-Century fundamentalists are something new,
originated by them. But actually they are only following in a long and
honorable tradition of separationism of which the Waldenses were a part. The
Waldenses were not legalists; that is, they did not believe that the keeping of
rules was essential for salvation; but they did believe in standards for godly
living, consistent with the principles of Christian liberty. One recent author,
Virgil Bopp, has said:
These
Waldenses cherished the distinct doctrine and practice of Christian liberty and
generally agreed with what have come to be called the Baptist Distinctives.
They might well have been called the Baptists of an early day. [17]
[1]
Christian Beacon,
[2]
Monastier, op. cit., p. 374.
[3]
Ray, op. cit., p. 179.
[4]
Orchard, op. cit., p. 61.
[5]
Morland, op. cit., p. 9.
[6]
Ibid., pp. 81-82.
[7]
Ibid., pp. 153-155.
[8]
William Manlius Nevins, Alien Baptism and the Baptists,
[9]
Ray, op. cit., p. 335.
[10]
Ernest Pickering, Biblical Separation: The Struggle for a Pure Church,
[11]
Quoted by J.M. Holliday, The Baptist Heritage,
[12]
D'Aubigne, op. cit., p. 433.
[13]
Wylie, op. cit., p. 60.
[14]
David O. Beale, S.B.C.: House on the Sand?,
[15]
Monastier, op. cit., p. 97.
[16]
Morland, op. cit., p. 88.
[17]
Virgil Bopp, Confidently Committed: A Look at the Baptist Heritage,
WALDENSIAN CHURCH GOVERNMENT AND STANDARDS
FOR CHURCH MEMBERSHIP
There is
much evidence to show that the churches of the Waldenses were organized on the
same basis as independent Baptist churches today, with congregational rule, a
ministry called by the congregations, and church membership composed of
immersed believers only. When Erasmus came into contact with the remnants of
the Waldenses in the early 16th Century, he found them to be practicing Baptist
church polity:
A notable
proof of the antiquity of the Baptists of Moravia is here recorded. Johanna
Schlecta Costelacius wrote a letter from
Historians
appear to be in agreement that the Waldenses required baptism for membership.
Overbey says:
They also
believed that the ordinances were only baptism and the Lord's supper and they
were only symbolic, that only believers should be baptized, that baptism was by
immersion, and that salvation and baptism were the requirements for church
membership. [2]
Jarrell
says:
The
Waldenses admitted the catechumeni after an exact instruction, a long fast in
which the church united, to witness to them the concern they took in their
conversion, and a confession of sins in token of contrition. The newly baptized
were, the same day, admitted to the eucharist, with all the brethren and
sisters present. Thus they, like Baptists, first instructed; second, baptized;
third, being in the Church, admitted them to the supper. . . . [3]
Armitage
says:
On one
point more the Waldensians of the dispersion were one with the
Anti-pedobaptists. They insisted on a regenerate Church membership marked by
baptism upon their personal faith. . . . The Baptists of today and the original
Waldensians have much in common. They sought the restoration of
Meanwhile,
from an ancient confession of the Waldenses, we read these words, referring to
. . . the
sacrament of Baptism, . . . by which also we are received into the Holy
Congregation of the people of God, thus protesting and declaring openly our
faith and amendment of life. [5]
Thus the
Baptistic policy of the Waldenses, in requiring baptism as a prerequisite for
membership, appears to be well-documented. It is remarkable that the Waldenses
maintained such a policy, in an age when rebaptizing was often punished by
death. The steadfastness of the Waldenses in insisting on an immersed
membership should be a lesson and encouragement to Baptists today. Baptist
churches should continue that noble policy, and the free flow of members from
Baptist churches to interdenominational churches that do not require baptism
for membership should be discouraged. Such churches, with their easygoing
membership standards (if they have membership rolls at all,) are not of like
faith and practice with true Baptist churches, and thus Baptist churches should
not agree to grant letters of good and regular standing to churches with
"open membership." All born-again believers are part of the same
family of God, but this does not mean that the interdenominational religious
societies must be recognized as true churches in the New Testament sense of the
term.
Another
area of Christian practice where modern Baptists could learn a lesson from the
Waldenses is that of church discipline. Monastier assures us that they did
discipline unruly church members:
Firmness,
prudence, and charity were observed in the administration of reproof. If the
offender resisted brotherly exhortations, and his fault had been serious and
public, should he refuse to amend, ecclesiastical penalties were inflicted on
him. He might be deprived "of all assistance from the Church, of the
ministry, of the fellowship of the Church, and of union with it." [6]
The
administration of scriptural church discipline is a practice that has almost
disappeared from most modern Baptist churches, with ruinous results. It is
often in vain to expect the heathen outside the church to fall in line with
God's will for them, when the church membership is stacked with those whose
unruly lives show forth a bad testimony to the community.
Concerning
the pastors of the Waldenses, the ancient discipline of the churches of
All those
which are to be received as pastors among us, while they remain with their
brethren they are to intreat our people to receive them into the ministry, as
likewise that they would be pleased to pray to God for them, that they may be
made worthy of so great a charge; and this they are to do, to give a proof or
evidence of their humility. . . .
And
afterwards having good testimonials, and being well approved of, they are
received with imposition (or laying on) of hands and preaching. . . .
Our daily
food, and that raiment wherewith we are covered, we have ministered and given
to us freely and by way of alms, sufficient for us, by the good people whom we
teach and instruct.
Among
other privileges which God has given to His servants, He hath given them this,
to choose their leaders and those who are to govern the people, and to
constitute elders in their charges, according to the diversity of the work in
the unity of Christ, which is clear by that saying of the Apostle in the
epistle to Titus chapter 1, "For this cause left I thee in Crete, that
thou shouldest set in order the things that are wanting, and ordain elders in
every city, as I had appointed thee."
When any
one of us the foresaid pastors falls into any gross sin, he is both
excommunicated and prohibited to preach. [7]
From this
important passage we gather that the Waldensian clergy were selected by the
congregations they served, and that they received support from their
congregations. The pastors as well as other church members were subject to
church discipline, and pastors who fell into gross sin were deposed from the
ministry. No excuses were made for receiving adulterous pastors back into the
ministry on the basis of God's forgiveness or because those pastors were good
fund-raisers. Our churches and gullible Christians today, who are so willing to
receive adulterous preachers and covetous "televangelists," allowing
them to occupy pulpits although their lives are stained with sin, would do well
to observe the example of the Waldenses in rejecting such false servants of the
Lord. An ancient confession of the Waldenses contains this warning against
irresponsible clergy:
We hold
that the ministers of the church, as bishops and pastors, ought to be
irreprehensible, as well in their life as doctrine. And that otherwise they
ought to be deprived of their office, and others substituted in their places.
As likewise, that none ought to presume to take upon him this honor, but he who
is called by God as was Aaron, feeding the flock of God, not for the sake of
dishonest gain, nor as having any lordship over the clergy, but as being
sincerely an example to his flock, in word, in conversation, in charity, in
faith, and in chastity. [8]
It is evident
that Waldensian views concerning the ministry were in accord with the Baptist
conviction concerning the priesthood of all believers, not the Roman Catholic
view which exalted the priests high above the laity. Ray says:
The
Waldenses had pastors ordained by themselves. It is so generally admitted that
the ancient Waldenses recognized the equality of their membership, as regards
church privileges, that it is unnecessary to occupy much space on this point. .
. . It may be regarded as an established historic fact, that the ancient
Waldenses possessed the Baptist peculiarity of religious equality in church
membership. [9]
Concerning
the question of who among the Waldenses could administer ordinances, Robinson
quotes Bishop Bossuet as saying:
They all
without distinction, if they were reputed good people, preached and
administered ordinances. They made no provision for a clergy, but required all
to work for their bread. They formed their churches of only good men. [10]
It may be
questioned whether this Roman Catholic critic of the Waldenses had a perfect
understanding of the nature of the Waldensian clergy. Since the Catholics
believed that no man could administer ordinances without having received the
Catholic sacrament of ordination, they tended to regard the Waldensian pastors
as laymen, indistinguishable from the members of their congregations. A
contrary view is presented by Jones, who emphasizes that the Waldenses had a
distinct ministry, and that their laymen did not administer ordinances:
The
Catholic writers frequently reproach them with making little or no account of
the pastoral office - affirming that they made the duty of preaching the gospel
common to every member of the church, both male and female; and that they
allowed persons who had not the suffrages of the church, to administer the
ordinances of gospel worship. That this was an unfounded accusation has been
very satisfactorily shown by Dr. Allix, whose researches into the history of
those churches entitle him to the gratitude of posterity. I subjoin the
substance of his defence of them against this charge.
"1.
Bernard, abbot of Foncaud, in his treatise against the sect of the Waldenses,
ch. vi. accuses only some of them of having no pastors; which shows, as he very
properly remarks, that the body of that church had a fixed ministry before the
end of the twelfth century. . . .
"Reinerius
Saccho, who lived about the year 1250, acknowledges that in
The
evidence leans toward the conclusion that Waldensian views on the ministry were
quite similar to those of Baptists today. But before we can embrace the
Waldenses as Baptists in their church organization, we must examine what is
perhaps the most important issue of all, the question of whether the
congregations of the Waldenses were independent and under congregational rule,
or were under the rule of bishops (the episcopal form of church government).
Morland examines the claim that they had episcopal rule, and then dismisses it:
The monk
Rainerius in a treatise of his, does indeed give a strange description of the
office and customs of those barbes, namely, that they had a chief bishop among
them, who had always two attending him, the one whereof he called his eldest,
and the other his youngest son; and besides these two, he had also a third that
followed him in the quality of a deacon; he adds likewise, that this bishop
laid his hands on others, with a sovereign authority, and sent them about,
hither and thither, as he pleased, and that in as imperious a manner as the
Pope himself.
With these
and the like fictitious notions or chimeras Rainerius would fain possess the
minds of men, but all in vain, for, it is manifest by what has been already
inserted in the fifth chapter of this book, that both the calling of those
ministers, and the administration of their office, was quite of another nature
and strain; there we shall see, that those who were to be received as pastors
among them, were to intreat the people to receive them, and to pray to God for
them. . . . [12]
Morland
describes the synods of the Waldenses in these terms:
As to
their synodical constitutions, the above-specified manuscripts tell us, that
the barbes (or pastors) assembled once a year, to treat of their affairs in a
general council. And the Italian manuscript (the original thereof is to be seen
with the rest in the University library of Cambridge, bearing date 1587) tells
us that this council was constantly held in the month of September, and that
some hundreds of years ago, there were seen assembled together in one synod
held at Valone del Lauso in Val Clusone, no less than 140 barbes. The same
manuscript adds, that they had always their consistories, and a form of
discipline among themselves, except it were in the time of persecution, and
then the barbes had their consistories in secret, and did also preach to their
congregations, during the winter season, in their own private houses, and in
the summer time, upon the tops of mountains, as the people were there feeding
their flocks. [13]
There is
nothing stated here that would give any evidence of an episcopal hierarchy, or
that would show that the local congregations were not independent. Many
independent Baptist churches are affiliated with associations that meet once a
year for mutual fellowship and consultation, a practice which is not regarded
by them as infringing on the total autonomy of the local church. Jarrel's
remarks on Waldensian church government are worthy of consideration:
In church
government the Waldenses were essentially Baptists. Gieseler speaks of
"their anti-hierarchal system.". . . Dr. Lord: "They have had a
ministry of their own, consisting only of presbyters and deacons.". . .
Says Robert Baird: "There is nothing in the organization or action of
these churches that in the slightest degree savors of prelacy. And, in answer
to our inquiries on this subject, the pastors have, without exception, stated
that prelacy has never existed in these valleys; and that such has ever been
the uniform opinion of their ancestors, so far as it has been handed down to
them. As to their bishops, spoken of in some of their early writings, they
believe that they were nothing more than pastors. . . ."
Of them
Preger, than whom there is no higher authority, says that all
"ecclesiastical authority was vested in the congregation, so that there
was no room for bishops. . . ."
They had
(as are the general secretaries or superintendents of missions among Baptists
of today) general superintendents. But, as Dr. A.H. Newman observes: "The
early Waldenses . . . refused to employ the word bishop to designate their
general superintendents." Speaking of the Humiliati, Dr. Newman says:
"Like the Waldenses, they ascribed to the local body of believers, or to
the general assembly of the local bodies, the highest ecclesiastical powers."
[14]
The
Waldensian pastor Monastier states that there were no high-ranking prelates
among his ancient forebears, and that all the pastors held equal rank:
No
hierarchical distinction was established; the only difference that existed
between the pastors was that arising from age, or services performed, and
personal respect. [15]
Thus there
is every reason to conclude that the Waldenses observed the principle of the
autonomy of the local church, which is held to by independent Baptists today.
They also believed in an ordained clergy, in a regenerated and baptized church
membership, and in church discipline. Their assemblies were true New Testament
churches, worthy to be described as Baptist. In fact, we might devoutly wish
that all Baptist churches today might adhere as closely to the New Testament
pattern as the Waldensian churches did.
[1]
Christian, op. cit., pp. 93-94.
[2]
Edward Overbey, A Brief History of the Baptists,
[3]
Jarrel, op. cit., p. 168.
[4]
Armitage, op. cit., pp. 304-305.
[5]
Morland, op. cit., p. 38.
[6]
Monastier, op. cit., pp. 96-97.
[7]
Morland, op. cit., pp. 73-74.
[8]
Ibid., p. 38.
[9]
Ray, op. cit., pp. 332-333.
[10]
Robinson, op. cit., p. 476.
[11]
Jones, op. cit., pp. 67-68.
[12]
Morland, op. cit., pp. 178-179.
[13]
Ibid., p. 183.
[14]
Jarrel, op. cit., pp. 177-180.
[15]
Monastier, op. cit., p. 95.
WERE THE WALDENSES MANICHAEANS?
The
accusation of Manichaeanism is one that the Catholics appear to have used
universally to smear all dissenting and evangelical sects in the Middle Ages,
including the Waldenses. The charge of Manichaeanism made against the Waldenses
cannot be easily dismissed as a baseless fabrication of the Romanists, since it
was repeated by Robinson, who wrote:
The old
Waldenses had no notion of uniformity, and many of them were Manicheans and
Arians. . . . All these people were called Waldenses, and hence it came to
pass, that some contended they were Manicheans, and Arians, and others that
they were the direct opposite. Divide them into two classes, and both say the
truth. The Jesuit Gretser, abating the Catholicism of his language, gives a
just account of them, when he says, the Waldenses were collections of various
sects of Manicheans, Arians, and others. . . . The orthodox positively affirm,
"they were not guilty of manichaeism, and other abominable heresies."
"Yes," replies the learned Limborch, than whom no man knew their
history better, "they were, many of them Manichaeans: it is not
fair," adds he, "to deny a fact, which is as clear as
Robinson,
in his voluminous researches on the Waldenses, fails to make it clear as day
that the Waldenses were Manichaeans. In fact, he fails to present any evidence
for that conclusion at all, except for the few quotations from the
"experts" which we have already seen. Also, he admits that not all
the Waldenses were Manichaeans. Even if it is conceded that some, or many,
Waldenses in various times and places were Manichaeans, this would in no way
detract from the true orthodoxy and Baptistic nature of many other Waldensian
assemblies throughout the Middle Ages.
However,
an examination of the extant writings of the Waldenses yields no evidence or
taint of Manichaeanism, and provides strong reasons for believing that they
rejected the tenets of Manichaeanism and dualism. But before we go further, let
us define what those heretical tenets were. Tierney and Painter define them in
these terms:
The basic
feature of Catharan doctrine was belief in a dual supreme deity - God and
Satan, good and evil. God created and ruled the spiritual world, and Satan the
material. This doctrine was essentially Manichean and non-Christian. As all
material things were produced by Satan, the perfect life according to the
teachings of the Cathari was extremely ascetic. Its devotees had to be
absolutely celibate and could eat no animal food. [2]
Newman
says:
Manichaeism
is Oriental dualism under Christian names, the Christian names employed
retaining scarcely a trace of their proper meaning. . . . The "elect"
practised a Buddhist asceticism, possessing no property, abstaining from
marriage, from wine, from animal food, were extremely careful not to destroy
animal or vegetable life. . . . The Manichaeans rejected the Old Testament, and
treated the New Testament in the most arbitrary way, rejecting whatever seemed
unfavorable to their views, and maintaining that even the apostles did not
fully understand Christ. [3]
Broadbent
says:
Manichaeism
assails alike the teaching of Scripture and the testimony of Nature that God is
the Creator of all things. . . . Manichaeism, by attributing the visible and
corporeal to the work of a dark and evil power and only that which is spiritual
to the true God, struck at the roots of the Divine revelation, of which
Creation, the Fall, and Redemption are essential and indivisible parts. [4]
Manichaeanism
was a warmed-over version of the old Gnosticism of Marcion which taught that
the visible world was created by an evil Demiurge, not the true God. It is
obvious that if the Waldenses were Manichaeans, then they were not Baptists, or
in any sense orthodox Christian believers of any kind. However, we can easily
clear them from the charge of Manichaeanism by examining their statements of
faith, to determine their beliefs on two key elements of Manichaeanism: their
views as to who created the world, and their views on marriage as opposed to
celibacy.
If the
Waldenses were Manichaeans, then they would have rejected the concept of God as
creator, and they would have rejected those books of the Old Testament that
described God as the Creator, especially the Pentateuch. But we find no trace
of any such rejection of God as creator in the writings of the Waldenses. On
the contrary, their confessions specifically confirm that doctrine which was so
offensive to the Manichaeans. The confession of faith dated in 1120 by Morland
contains these affirmations:
Article 3:
We acknowledge for the holy canonical Scriptures, the Books of the Holy Bible,
viz. Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy. . . .
Article 4:
The Books abovesaid teach this, that there is one God, Almighty, all wise, and
all good, who has made all things by His goodness, for He formed Adam in His
own image and likeness, but that by the envy of the Devil, and the disobedience
of the said Adam, sin has entered into the world, and that we are sinners in
Adam and by Adam. [5]
Another
ancient confession from Morland contains these articles:
Article 1.
We believe, that there is but one God, that He is a Spirit, Creator of all
things, God of all, who is over all, and through all, and in us all, who ought
to be worshipped in spirit and in truth, whom alone we serve, and to whom we
give the glory of our life, food, raiment, health, sickness, prosperity, and
adversity; and we love Him as one who knoweth our hearts. . . .
Article
12. We hold for the rule of our faith, the Old and New Testament, and agree to
the general confession of faith, with the articles contained in the Apostles
Creed, namely, I believe in God the Father Almighty, etc. [6]
The
Waldenses were creationists, worshipping the God who created the material
world, the God that the Manichaeans would not worship. They accepted all 66
books of the Bible as canonical, not picking and choosing as the Gnostics and
Manichaeans did. There is no trace of Manichaean doctrine on the creation or
the evil nature of matter to be found in any extant Waldensian writings.
As we
examine the views of the Waldenses on marriage, we would expect them to reject
the Scriptural view of marriage as a divine institution (if they were
Manichaeans) and to emphasize celibacy. The Manichaeans allowed only their
second-class followers to marry, as a necessary evil, but those who would
attain spiritual perfection among them were expected to avoid all taint of the
material created world, including sexual activity within marriage. (Perhaps the
Manichaean spirit lingers on among some modern evangelicals who teach, or at least
imply, that young people will be more holy if they do not marry.)
How did
the Waldenses feel about marriage? One of their pre-Reformation confessions
commends that institution:
Article 9.
We confess, that marriage is good, honorable, holy and instituted by God
Himself; which ought not to be prohibited to any person, provided that there be
no hindrance specified by the Word of God. [7]
The Nobla
Leycon contains these verses:
It was a
noble law that was given us by God, and written in the heart of every man . . .
that he might likewise keep firm the marriage-tie, that noble accord or
contract. [8]
The 1532
confession of Angrogne contains these clauses:
12.
Marriage is not forbidden to any, of what quality and condition soever he be.
13.
Whosoever forbiddeth marriage teacheth a diabolical doctrine.
14.
Whosoever hath not the gift of chastity is bound to marry. [9]
The
Magdeburgh Centuriators found the Waldenses to hold these beliefs concerning
marriage:
Vows of
celibacy are the inventions of men, and productive of uncleanness. . . . The
marriage of priests is both lawful and necessary. [10]
Thus it
appears that the Waldenses not only did not forbid or discourage marriage among
their own adherents, but they also scorned the claims of the Roman Catholic
clergy around them to possession of a greater degree of holiness as a result of
their vows of celibacy. There is no hint of Manichaean doctrine to be found in
any pronouncements of the Waldenses on the subject of marriage.
It is true
that there are many references to Waldensian pastors who remained single, but
there is no evidence that they did so in the belief that celibacy would accord
them a greater degree of holiness, or that there was anything unclean or
defiling about the institution of marriage. Rather, these heroic pastors
voluntarily gave up the opportunity to marry in order that they might be more
effective in their ministry, which often involved daring missionary journeys to
the far corners of
It appears
that some pastors were married; while the greater part were not so, though not
on account of its being prohibited, but that they might be more free for the
service of the Lord. [11]
Newman
says:
Marriage
was thought to be inconsistent with unreserved devotion to evangelistic work
and was even dissolved in favor of such work. The ascetical principle was not
carried by them to the extreme reached in monasticism, asceticism being
regarded by them not as an end in itself but as a means to the great end of
evangelizing the world. [12]
The
Waldenses provide a splendid example for our young people today. On the one hand,
they rejoiced without hesitation to enter into the married state, accepting it
as a gift from God, without any squeamishness about it such as was felt by the
Manichaean dualists who regarded sexual activity as intrinsically evil. On the
other hand, many Waldenses, like the Apostle Paul, exhibited a spirit of
willing, ungrudging self-sacrifice, choosing to remain single in order that
they might more effectively reach the continent of
The
examination of Waldensian writings reveals no trace of Manichaean doctrine or
influence in any area of doctrine or practice; on the contrary, the Waldenses
strongly affirmed beliefs contrary to Manichaean doctrine. Jones refutes the
accusation by Robinson against the Waldenses (that many of them were Manichaeans)
in these words:
It is a
very questionable point, whether the sect of the Manichaeans had any existence
at the period of which Mr. R. is treating, and I am strongly inclined to think
they had not, at least in
The burden
of proof definitely rests with those who would maintain that any of the
Waldenses, at any time, were Manichaeans. The evidence is that most or all of
them were Bible-believing Baptists, not followers of a half-Gnostic,
half-Buddhist, half-baked dualist cult.
[1]
Robinson, op. cit., pp. 299, 303, 311.
[2]
Tierney and Painter, op. cit., p. 289.
[3]
Newman, op. cit., pp. 194, 196, 197.
[4]
Broadbent, op. cit., pp. 29-30.
[5]
Morland, op. cit., pp. 30, 32.
[6]
Ibid., pp. 37-39.
[7]
Ibid., p. 38.
[8]
Ibid., p. 102.
[9]
Ibid., pp. 40-41.
[10]
Jones, op. cit., pp. 48-49.
[11]
Monastier, op. cit., p. 96.
[12]
Newman, op. cit., p. 580.
[13]
Jones, op. cit., p. 29.
WHEN AND WHY DID THE WALDENSES CEASE TO BE
BAPTISTS?
The
previous chapters have shown that the pre-Reformation Waldenses were Baptists
in all major points of doctrine, and have failed to uncover any evidence of
unorthodox beliefs that would disqualify them as true Christians or as
Baptists. However, we cannot drop the subject at this point, since it is
admitted by all that the Waldenses of today are not Baptists, and have not been
for centuries; they are Pedobaptists who practice infant baptism. When did the
Waldenses change their doctrine on this subject, and why?
The
evidence points to the historic year of 1532 as the time when the Waldenses
ceased to be Baptists, as a result of their fellowship with the Reformers.
Wylie describes this contact in these rapturous words:
A manifold
interest belongs to the meeting of these two churches. Each is a miracle to the
other. The preservation of the
Wylie's
words must be taken with a grain of salt. While the Waldenses and Reformers
would have found a remarkable degree of agreement on most major doctrines,
there were clearly disagreements as well. We have already seen that some of the
Waldenses were upset by the Reformed emphasis on predestination and other
Calvinist doctrines. There is every reason to believe that there must have been
initial disagreement in the area of infant baptism as well, since the Lutherans
and Calvinists insisted upon it, but the Waldenses, as we have seen, were
throughout the Middle Ages declining to practice infant baptism. Jarrel cites a
statement of Waldensian opposition to infant baptism as late as 1521:
Montanus
is quoted as saying: "The Waldenses, in the public declaration of their
faith to the French king, in the year 1521, assert in the strongest terms the
baptizing of believers and denying that of infants." [2]
If the
Waldenses of Italy were still opposed to infant baptism by 1532, they would
have found themselves in a dilemma: they were in danger of extinction due to
the persecutions of their Catholic oppressors, and desirous of an alliance with
the newly arisen Reformers, but the Reformers were strong proponents of infant
baptism and persecutors of the Anabaptists who refused to baptize their
infants. The union of the Waldenses with the Reformers in 1532 could not have
occurred unless the Waldenses agreed to practice infant baptism, and numerous
historians have argued that the Waldenses did agree to become Pedobaptists at
this time. Concerning the events of 1532, Waller says:
The
Reformers were the bitter enemies and persecutors of the Baptists. They pursued
them with as unrelenting and as merciless severity as ever did the Papists.
They would not of course countenance these deputies from the Waldenses until
they gave up their opposition to infant baptism. The fact, then, that no creed
of the Waldenses, that no book or document of theirs, makes the slightest
commendatory allusion to infant baptism, until at this time, in this creed,
drawn up and adopted at the suggestion of the enemies and persecutors of the
Baptists, by an assembly who reproach their fathers and their old ministers
with "many and great errors" - these things, we say, furnish to our
mind strong presumptive proof that infant baptism was then first introduced
among any who could pretend at all to belong to the Waldenses proper. [3]
Vedder
says:
Great
ignorance came upon them, as is testified by the literature that has survived,
and in time they so far forgot the doctrines of their forefathers that many of
the writers saw but little difference between themselves and the Romanists.
Some of the old spirit remained, however, so that when in
Christian
says:
On the eve
of the Reformation, everything was on the decline - faith, life, light. It was
so of the Waldenses. Persecution had wasted their numbers and had broken their
spirit and the few scattered leaders were dazed by the rising glories of the
Reformation. The larger portion had gone with the Anabaptist movement. Sick and
tired of heart in 1530, the remnant of the Waldenses opened negotiations with
the Reformers, but a union was not effected until 1532. Since then the
Waldenses have been Pedobaptists. [5]
Orchard
says:
It is
certain that the ancient Waldensian church subsisted at the Reformation, and
that they left off baptizing adults on their profession of faith. Whether all
these churches of the brethren ultimately fell into the Lutheran community, and
consequently were comprehended by imperial law, cannot be positively decided.
It is plain here that the patience of the saints was worn out. [6]
Jarrel
says:
Prof.
Whitsitt says that no doubt the Waldenses altered their opinions under Luther's
influence. [7]
Moser
states that the Waldenses began to accept alien immersion at this time:
In
Luther's war against the church, he sought the support of the Waldenses in
order to defeat
Though it
is likely that many Waldenses retained their Baptist convictions after 1532,
helping to give strength to the Anabaptist movement, the main body of Waldenses
in
The union
of the Waldenses of Calabria with the Calvinists in 1560 was the cause of the
severe persecution unleashed upon the Waldenses in that year by the pope, with
the result that they were completely exterminated in
. . . in
the year 1560, the Waldenses in
Meanwhile,
the Waldenses of Savoy were drawn more closely into the Reformed fellowship as
a result of the disastrous plague of 1630-1631 which wiped out the Waldensian
clergy:
The plague
subsided during the winter, but in spring (1631) it rose up again in renewed
force. Of the three surviving pastors, one other died, leaving thus only two. .
. . Of the Vaudois pastors only two now remained; and ministers hastened from
Concerning
the plague, Mosheim says:
They
retained not a few of their ancient rules of discipline, so late as the year
1630. But in this year, the greatest part of the Waldenses (in
Thus, the
Waldenses of modern times should be regarded as Presbyterians, not Baptists,
and according to Latourette some of the Waldenses have identified themselves
with the Presbyterians after emigrating to the
Here and
there, beginning about 1892, Waldenses, of the indigenous Italian
Protestantism, began coming in small bands. Groups of them settled in several
states and in at least one instance formed a congregation which affiliated
itself with the Presbyterians. [13]
The roots
of the distinctively Presbyterian doctrinal practices among the Waldenses,
especially infant baptism, cannot be traced further back than the early 16th
Century, when the Waldenses of Savoy, a dispirited, beleaguered, outnumbered
band who had already deeply compromised themselves with the Catholics to avoid
complete extinction, felt that they had no choice but to grasp the lifeline of
fellowship and assistance offered to them by the newly arisen Reformers. It
should come to us as no surprise that the Waldenses accepted the Pedobaptist
teaching of the Reformers at this time, since many of them had carried their
infants to the Catholic priests for baptism, doing so grudgingly in order to
avoid possible persecution and death. Fortunately, by this time many Waldenses
residing in other regions of
[1]
Wylie, op. cit., pp. 56-57.
[2]
Jarrel, op. cit., p. 168.
[3]
Waller, op. cit., p. 16.
[4]
Vedder, op. cit., p. 126.
[5]
Christian, op. cit., p. 82.
[6]
Orchard, op. cit., pp. 252-253.
[7]
Jarrel, op. cit., p. 159.
[8]
M.L. Moser, Jr., "Ecumenical Movement and History," Baptist
Challenge, January, 1988, p. 13
[9]
Kenneth Scott Latourette, Christianity in a Revolutionary Age, Volume 2: The
19th Century in
[10]
Jones, op. cit., p. 296.
[11]
Wylie, op. cit., pp. 130-131.
[12]
Quoted in Waller, op. cit., pp. 16-17.
[13]
Kenneth Scott Latourette, A History of the Expansion of Christianity, Volume
4: The Great Century in Europe and the United States of America, A.D. 1800 -
A.D. 1914, Grand Rapids, Zondervan, 1970, pp. 279-280.
CONCLUSION: BAPTISTS EXISTED PRIOR TO THE
REFORMATION, AND ARE NOT PROTESTANTS
There is
clear evidence from a variety of historical sources that the medieval Waldenses
were Baptists. It is true that they held to some doctrines or practices that
would be rejected by many Baptists today, including refusal to swear oaths,
pacifism, woman preachers, and belief in a so-called "
Admitting
that many of those in the line of Church Perpetuity could not be held in
"full fellowship" with our best churches now does not in the least
militate against their being regarded as real Baptist churches. . . . They were
Baptist churches; but, like Old Testament saints, the churches of the first
centuries, and those of the present, they were colored by their times. . . .
Likewise, isolated, occasional and brief aberrations, even in essential
matters, can not alter the nature of a church or prove it not a Baptist church.
. . . Much less can we, for a moment, consider incidental errors in the history
of our churches as entitled to any bearing on the succession question. [1]
If it is
true that the Waldenses were Baptists, this is bad news for the
interdenominational, ecumenical crowd who boldly claim that Baptists did not
exist at any time prior to the 16th Century, and that the Baptists are merely
Protestants who came out of the Church of Rome during the Reformation like
everyone else. The implication is that Baptists ought to work with other
Protestants rather than maintaining a policy of separation. A good example of
the modern party line on Baptist origins is the following:
W. Morgan
Patterson, professor of church history, Southern Baptist Theological Seminary,
Louisville, Ky, . . . has this to say, . . . "As far as a historical
written record is concerned, Baptists arose from the Separatists in England. .
. . Most scholars have concluded that Baptists have not been Donatists,
Paulicians, Waldenses, Albigenses, Anabaptists, or a half dozen other groups
often included in their genealogy. . . . It is only after 1610 that one finds
an unbroken succession of what came to be known as Baptist churches.
Furthermore, only from about 1641 have Baptist doctrine and practice been the
same in all essential features that they are today. It was in the latter year
that immersion as a scriptural mode of baptism was recognized among them."
[2]
The absurd
charge that the English Baptists did not practice immersion before 1641 has
been thoroughly refuted by Armitage, Goadby, Ray and other careful church
historians. But even if that falsehood was admitted as truth, it would not
prove that there were no other Bible-believing immersionists elsewhere before
1641. Many, if not most, of the 16th-Century Anabaptists practiced immersion;
their Reformed enemies executed many of them by drowning, as a cruel parody on
their Scriptural practice of immersion of believers. Modern historians would
have us believe that the Anabaptists, many of whom were true Baptists, suddenly
arose out of nowhere in various regions of
(The
Anabaptists) not only considered themselves descendants of the Waldenses, who
were so grievously oppressed and persecuted by the despotic heads of the Romish
church, but pretend, moreover, to be the purest offspring of the respectable
sufferers, being equally opposed to all principles of rebellion on the one
hand, and all suggestions of fanaticism on the other.
It may be
observed, continues Mosheim, that they are not entirely in an error when they
boast of their descent from the Waldenses, Petrobrussians, and other ancient
sects, who are usually considered as witnesses of the truth in times of general
darkness and superstition. Before the rise of Luther and Calvin, there lay
concealed in almost all the countries of
Christian
says:
Roman
Catholic historians and officials, in some instances eye-witnesses, testify that
the Waldenses and other ancient communions were the same as the Anabaptists. .
. . The Mandate of Speier, April, 1529, declares that the Anabaptists were
hundreds of years old and had been often condemned. . . . Father Gretscher, who
edited the works of Rainerius Sacchoni, after recounting the doctrines of the
Waldenses, says: "This is a true picture of the heretics of our age,
particularly of the Anabaptists;" Baronius, the most learned and laborious
historian of the Roman Catholic Church, says, "The Waldenses were
Anabaptists." [4]
The myth
that the original Baptists were believers within the Roman Catholic Church who
came out during the 16th Century, as the Protestants did, is one that is
dredged up repeatedly by modern historians. Supposedly the Baptists withdrew
when the Catholic Church showed its true colors during the Council of Trent
(1545-1563), as if the Catholic Church had not shown its true colors from the
13th Century onward when it established the Inquisition as a search-and-destroy
unit against all who had Baptist convictions. In contrast to the theory of
Catholic origins for Baptists is this statement by one of the most learned men
of the 18th Century:
Sir Isaac
Newton, one of the greatest men who ever lived, declared it was "his
conviction that the Baptists were the only Christians who had not symbolized
with
Lumpkin,
while emphasizing the Catholic origins of many 16th-Century Baptists,
grudgingly admits their connection to the Waldenses:
The
Baptist Movement appeared in
That many
Anabaptist preachers and laymen were converted from the Roman Catholic Church
does not prove that the entire movement came out of that church, any more than
the presence of many converted Catholics within 20th-Century Baptist churches
would prove that the entire movement came out of the Catholic Church at the
beginning of the 20th Century and had no separate existence prior to that time.
Logic, and the studied judgment of many church historians, support the view
that the Waldenses of the Middle Ages blended into, and helped give rise to,
the Anabaptists of the Reformation era.
Thus we
see that Baptists have been a distinct people from the time of Christ to the
present day. They did not come out from the Catholic Church in various,
imperfect degrees of reformation from Romanist error, as the Protestants did,
but preserved the apostolic truth from the beginning and did not need to be
reformed. Although born-again Protestants and Baptists are part of the same
family of God, they are not part of the same Church and never have been.
Baptists and Protestants have never been united in a "visible
church," and knowledgeable Baptists cannot accept the view of an
all-encompassing "invisible" or "universal church" which
has no New Testament support. There is no historical or theological basis for
any ecumenical union or cooperation between Protestants and Baptists.
A study of
the Waldenses thoroughly vindicates the traditional Landmark Baptist conviction
that there have always been Baptist churches on this planet in all centuries from
the time of Christ to the present day. Frank S. Mead described this belief in
these terms:
There is a
direct historic "succession" of Baptist churches from New Testament
times; that is, Baptist churches have existed in practice, though not by name,
in every century. [7]
J.R.
Graves, who based this doctrine of Baptist perpetuity on Matthew 16:18
("On this rock will I build my church, and the gates of hell shall not
prevail against it") wrote:
I have no
space to devote to the historical argument to prove the continuity of the
I am
sustained by standard names among Baptists. J. Newton Brown, editor of Encyclopedia
of Religious Knowledge, a scholar who had given twenty-five years to the
study of history, maintained that "the ancient Waldenses, Cathari,
Paterines, and Donatists were our historical ancestors, and that a succession
of whom continued up to the Reformation." [8]
Monastier
says:
The
We have
seen, from abundant evidences, that the medieval Waldenses were essentially
Baptists. Thus, modern Baptists are justified in citing the Waldenses as a link
in a chain of perpetuity of Baptist churches from apostolic times to the
present. The burden of proof is on those who would deny that there have been
Baptist churches in all centuries. The New Testament has been around for 1900
years, so it is reasonable to believe that at all times there have been those
who believed the teaching of the New Testament, and who put those beliefs into
practice by organizing independent Baptist churches. The Waldenses are among
that noble host of believers through the centuries who dared to read the Bible,
believe it, and put it into practice, in the face of fierce opposition. Let
their example be an inspiration to the Lord's people today, so that we may do
exploits as they did.
[1]
Jarrel, op. cit., pp. 44-47.
[2]
Quoted in I.K. Cross, The Truth About Conventionism,
[3]
Quoted in S.F. Ford, The Origin of the Baptists,
[4]
Christian, op. cit., p. 85.
[5]
Ibid., p. 84.
[6]
William L. Lumpkin, Baptist Confessions of Faith,
[7]
Frank S. Mead, Handbook of Denominations in the
[8]
J.R. Graves, Old Landmarkism: What Is It?,
[9]
Monastier, op. cit., p. 5.
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Thomas, A History of the Baptists,
Bainton,
Roland, Christendom,
Beale,
David O., S. B. C.: House on the Sand?,
Bopp,
Virgil, Confidently Committed: A Look at the Baptist Heritage,
Broadbent,
E. H., The
Carroll,
J. M., The Trail of Blood,
Christian,
John T., A History of the Baptists, Texarkana, Ark-Tex., Bogard Press,
1922.
Cramp, J.
M., Baptist History,
Cross,
D’Aubigne,
J. H. Merle, History of the reformation of the Sixteenth Century, Grand
Rapids, Michigan, Baker, 1982.
Dowley,
Tim, editor, Eerdmans’ Handbook to the History of Christianity,
Edman, V.
Raymond, The Light in Dark Ages, Wheaton, Illinois, Van Kampen Press,
1949.
Everts, W.
W., Jr., The Church in the Wilderness, or the Baptists Before the
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Great Century in Europe and the United States of America, A.D. 1800 - A.D.
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Tennessee, Abingdon Press, 1985.
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Antoine, A History of the
Morland,
Samuel, The History of the Evangelical Churches of the Valleys of Piemont, Gallatin,
Tennessee, Church History Research and Archives, 1982.
Moser, M.
L. Jr., “Ecumenical Movement and History,” Baptist Challenge, January,
1988.
Nevins,
William Manlius, Alien Baptism and the Baptists,
Newman,
Alfred Henry, A Manual of Church History,
Orchard,
G. H., A Concise History of Baptists, Texarkana, Ark-Tex., Bogard Press,
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Edward, A Brief History of the Baptists,
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Robinson,
Robert, Ecclesiastical Researches,
Stovall,
Charles B., Baptist History and Succession, Bowling Green, Kentucky,
published by the author, 1945.
Tierney,
Brian, The Middle Ages, Volume 1: Sources of Medieval History,
Tierney,
Brian and Sidney Painter, Western Europe in the Middle Ages 300 - 1475,
New York, Alfred Knoof, 1970.
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A., History of the Waldenses,
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