Paul Daniel Alphandéry

“ The order of the Apostles was founded about 1260 by a young workman from the environs of Parma, Gerard Segarelli, who had sought admission unsuccessfully to the Franciscan order. To make his life conform to that of Christ, his contemporaries say that he had himself circumcised, wrapped in swaddling clothes and laid in a cradle, and that he then, clad in a white robe and bare-footed, walked through the streets of Parma crying “Penitenz agite!” (“Poenitentiam agite!”) . He was soon followed by a throng of men and women, peasants and mechanics. ”

“ It seems certain that Arnold professed moral theology in Paris, and several times reprimanded St Bernard, whom he accused of pride and jealousy. St Bernard, as a last resort, begged King Louis VII. to take severe measures against Arnold, who had to leave France and take refuge at Zürich. There he soon became popular, especially with the lay nobility; but, denounced anew by St Bernard to the ecclesiastical authorities, he returned to Italy, and turned his steps towards Rome (1145) . ”

“ The urban nobles had set up a republic, which, under forms ostensibly modelled on antiquity (e.g. patriciate, senatus populusque romanus, &c.) , concealed but clumsily a purely oligarchical government. ”

“ They preserved an absolute chastity and abstained from wine and meat. They refused to admit into their sect those Christians whom the fear of martyrdom had once restored to paganism. As late as the 4th century St Basil (Can. 1 and 47) knew some Apostolici. After that period they disappeared, either becoming completely extinct, or being confounded with other sects (see St Augustine, Haer. 40; John of Damascus, Haer. 61) .
Failing a more exact designation, the name of Apostolici has been given to certain groups of Latin heretics of the 12th century. ”

“ On their refusal, the pope condemned them to banishment and Opizo imprisoned Segarelli. The councils of Würzburg (1287) and Chichester (1289) took measures against the Apostles of Germany and England. But in 1291 the sect reappeared, sensibly increased, and Pope Nicholas IV. published anew the bull of Honorius IV. From that day the Apostles, regarded as rebels, were persecuted pitilessly. Four were burned in 1294, and Segarelli, as a relapsed heretic, went to the stake at Parma in 1300. ”

“ In the Mennonite church they represent the rigid, conservative party, as opposed to the Galenists, who inclined towards the Arminian latitudinarianism and admitted into their community all those who led a virtuous life, whatever their doctrinal tendencies. ”