Mandell Creighton and others

“ Pope Alexander III., who had approved of the poverty of the Waldensians, prohibited them from preaching without the permission of the bishops (1179) . Waldo answered that he must obey God rather than man. The result of this disobedience was excommunication by Lucius III. in 1184. Thus a reforming movement became heresy through disobedience to authority, and after being condemned embarked on a course of polemical investigation how to justify its own position. ”

“ After this Charles II., duke of Piedmont, interfered to save his territories from further confusion, and promised the Vaudois peace. They were, however, sorely reduced by the onslaught which had been made upon them, and lost their ancient spirit of independence. When the Lutheran movement began they were ready to sympathize with it, and ultimately to adapt their old beliefs to those of the rising Protestantism. Already there were scattered bodies of Waldenses in Germany who had influenced, and afterwards joined, the Hussites and the Bohemian Brethren. ”

“ On the restoration of the house of Savoy in 1816 English influence was used on behalf of the Vaudois, who received a limited toleration. From that time onwards the Vaudois became the objects of much interest in Protestant countries. Large sums of money were collected to build hospitals and churches among their valleys, and they were looked upon as the possible centre of a Protestant church in Italy. ”

“ Fanaticism took advantage of this order; and an army, composed partly of French troops of Louis XIV., partly of Irish soldiers who had fled before Cromwell, entered the Vaudois valleys and spread destruction on every side. They treated the people with horrible barbarity, so that the conscience of Europe was aroused, and England under Cromwell called on the Protestant powers to join in remonstrance to the duke of Savoy and the French king. ”

“ The greatest blow struck against heresy was the transference of the duty of inquiry into heresy from the bishops to Dominican inquisitors. The secular power, which shared in the proceeds of the confiscation of those who were found guilty of heresy, was ready to help in carrying out the judgments of the spiritual courts. Everywhere, and especially in the district round Toulouse, heretics were keenly prosecuted, and before the continued zeal of persecution the Waldenses slowly disappeared from the chief centres of population and tcok refuge in the retired valleys of the Alps. ”

“ The Vaudois, who had undergone all these vicissitudes, were naturally reduced to poverty, and their ministers were partially maintained by a subsidy from England, which was granted by Queen Anne. The 18th century, however, was a time of religious decadence even among the Alpine valleys, and the outbreak of the French Revolution saw the Vaudois made subjects of France. ”

“ The medieval church set forth Christ as present in the orderly community of the faithful; Protestantism aimed at setting the individual in immediate communion with Christ, without the mechanical intervention of the officers of the community; the Waldenses merely set forward a new criterion of the orderly arrangement of the church, according to which each member was to sit in judgment on the works of the ministers, and consequently on the validity of their ministerial acts. ”

“ WALDENSES. The Waldensian valleys lie to the south-west of Turin, in the direction of Monte Viso, but include no high or snowy mountains, while the glens themselves are (with one or two exceptions) fertile and well wooded. The principal town near the valleys is Pinerolo (Pignerol) . Just to its south-west there opens the chief Waldensian valley, the Val Pellice, watered by the stream of that name, but sometimes called inaccurately the Luserna valley, Luserna being simply a village opposite the capital, Torre Pellice ”

“ They were chosen from among labouring men, who at the age of twenty-five might ask the body of ministers to be admitted as candidates. If their character was approved they were taught during the winter months, when work was slack, for a space of three or four years; after that they were sent for two years to serve as menial assistants at a nunnery for women, which curiously enough existed in a recess of the valleys. Then they were admitted to office, after receiving the communion, by the imposition of hands of all ministers present. ”

“ After giving this account of themselves they ask for information about several points in a way which shows the exigencies of a rude and isolated society; and finally they say that they have been much disturbed by the Lutheran teaching about freewill and predestination, for they had held that men did good works through natural virtue stimulated by God's grace, and they thought of predestination in no other way than as a part of God's foreknowledge. ”

“ The Lombard sect went farther in (3) and (4) , holding that no one in mortal sin could consecrate the sacrament, and that the Roman Church was the scarlet woman of the Apocalypse, whose precepts ought not to be obeyed, especially those appointing fast-days. This account sufficiently shows the difference of the Waldenses from the Cathari: they were opposed to asceticism, and had no official priesthood; at the same time their objection to oaths and to capital punishment are closely related to the principles of the Cathari. ”

“ They went out to preach two by two, and the junior was bound absolutely to obey the senior. Clerical celibacy was their rule, but they admit that it created grave disorders. The ministers received food and clothing from the contributions of the people, but also worked with their hands ”