CENTURY XIII.

THE

CHA P. I.

PETER WALDO.

XIII.

HE reader will recollect the account, which CENT. has been given of the Cathari*, who were evidently a people of God in the former part of the last century. In the latter part of the same century, they received a great accession of members from the learned labours and godly zeal of Peter Waldo. In the century before us, they were gloriously distinguished by a dreadful series of persecutions, and exhibited a spectacle to the world, both of the power of divine grace, and of the malice and enmity of the world against the real Gospel of Jesus Christ, I purpose to represent in one connected view, the history of this people to the time of the Reformation, and a little after. The spirit, doctrine, and progress of the Waldenses, will be more clearly understood by this method, than by broken and interrupted details; and the thirteenth century seems the most proper place in which their story should be introduced.

The Cathari, whom Bernard so unhappily misrepresented, were peculiarly numerous in the vallies of Piedmont. Hence the name Vaudois or Vallenses was given to them, particularly to those who

See pp. 378, &c.

CHAP. inhabited the vallies of Lucerne and Angrogne. A mistake arose from similarity of names, that Peter Valdo or Waldo, was the first founder of these Churches. For the name Vallenses being easily changed into Waldenses, the Romanists improved this very easy and natural mistake into an argument against the antiquity of these Churches, and denied that they had any existence till the appearance of Waldo. During the altercations of the Papists and Protestants, it was of some consequence that this matter should be rightly stated; because the former denied that the doctrines of the latter had any existence till the days of Luther. But from a just account of the subject, it appeared that the real Protestant doctrines existed during the dark ages of the Church, even long before Waldo's time; the proper founder of them being Claudius of Turin, the Christian hero of the ninth century

The Court of Rome

About the year 1160, the doctrine of transubstanrequired tiation, which, some time afterwards, Innocent III. the doctrine confirmed in a very solemn manner, was required stantiation by the court of Rome to be acknowledged by all

of Transub

to be universally acknowledged,

A. D.

1160.

men. A very pernicious practice of idolatry was connected with the reception of this doctrine. Men fell down before the consecrated host, and worshipped it as God: and the novelty, absurdity, and

* Dr. Allix, in his history of the ancient Church of Piedmont, has done justice to this subject. I have already made use of his learned labours, and shall again avail myself of them; though my chief source of information concerning this people will be their history, written by John Paul Perrin of Lyons, who wrote in 1618. I could have wished, that his accounts of internal religion had been more full, even though those of the persecutions had been more scanty. But there arose no writers of eminence among the Waldenses; and Perrin's history is in a great measure collected from the records of the process and proceedings against the Waldensian Churches, which were in the offices of the archbishops of Ambrun, and which were very providentially preserved. I shall not quote him in any particular passage, because I make such large use of his history in general.

impiety of this abomination very much struck the minds of all men, who were not dead to a sense of true religion. At this time Peter Waldo, a citizen of Lyons, appeared very courageous in opposing the invention; though it is evident from the very imperfect account which we have of him, that it was not one single circumstance alone which influenced him in his views of reformation. It was the fear of God, in general, as a ruling principle in his own soul, and an alarming sense of the wickedness of the times, which, under the divine influence, moved him to oppose with courage the dangerous corruptions of the Hierarchy...

A providential event had given the first occasion. to this reformer's concern for religion. Being assembled with some of his friends, and after supper conversing and refreshing himself among them, one of the company fell down dead on the ground, to the amazement of all that were present. From that moment it pleased God that Waldo should commence a serious inquirer after divine truth. This person was an opulent merchant of Lyons, and as his concern of mind increased, and a door of usefulness to the souls of men was more and more set open before him, he abandoned his mercantile occupation, distributed his wealth to the poor, and exhorted his neighbours to seek the bread of life. The poor, who flocked to him, that they might partake of his alms, received from him the best instructions, which he was capable of communicating; and they reverenced the man, to whose liberality they were so much obliged, while the great and the rich both hated and despised him.

Waldo himself, however, that he might teach others effectually, needed himself to be taught; and where was instruction to be found? Men at that day might run here and there for meat, and not be satisfied. In some convents, among the many who substituted formality for power, there were particular

CENT.

XIII.

СНАР.

I.

persons, who "held the HEAD," and drew holy nourishment from him. But a secular man, like Waldo, would not easily find them out, and were he to have met with some of them, their prejudiced attachments to the See of Rome would either have prevented them from imparting to him the food which was necessary for his soul, or have led him into a course of life, by which he would, after their example, have buried his talent in a napkin. The conduct of Bernard, one of the most eminent and best of them, too plainly shows that one of these two things would have been the case. But Bernard was gone to his rest not long before this time, and seems not to have left any monastic brother behind him at all to be compared with himself. Divine Providence reserved better things for Waldo: darkened and distressed in mind and conscience, he knew that the Scriptures were given as infallible guides, and he thirsted for those sources of instruction, which at that time were in a great measure a sealed book in the Christian world. To men who understood the Latin tongue, they were accessible. But how few were these, compared with the bulk of mankind! The Latin Vulgate Bible was the only edition of the sacred book at that time in Europe; and the languages then in common use, the French and others, however mixed with the Latin, were, properly speaking, by this time separate and distinct from it. It is a certain mark of the general negligence of the clergy in those ages, that no provision was made for the ignorant in this respect, though I do not find that there existed any penal law to forbid the reading of the Scriptures in the vulgar tongue. It is certain that Waldo found means to diffuse the precious gift of the Scriptures among the people. But different accounts are given us of his manner of doing it *. His enemies assert, that some books

Usher de Christ. Eccl. success. & statu.

66

of Scripture, having been translated from Latin into CENT. French, he assumed the office of an apostle to himself. In particular, Reinerius says, Being somewhat learned, he taught the people the text of the New Testament." This looks so like a reluctant confession of his learning and knowledge, that I am tempted to believe the words of Matthias Illyricus, who observes: "His kindness to the poor being diffused, his love of teaching, and their love of learning growing stronger and stronger, greater crowds came to him, and he explained the Scriptures. He was himself a man of learning, so I understand from some old parchments, nor was he obliged to employ others to translate for him, as his enemies affirm." Another anonymous author tells us, likewise, that Waldo made a collection in the vulgar tongue of the passages of the ancient fathers, that he might satisfy his disciples by the testimony of the doctors against their adversaries.

But whether Waldo himself entirely performed the work, or encouraged others to do it, or what is most probable, executed it himself with the assistance of others, it is certain, that the Christian world in the west was indebted to him for the first translation of the Bible into a modern tongue, since the time that the Latin had ceased to be a living language. A most valuable gift! True reformers have ever been remarkable for a desire and endeavour to communicate knowledge among the ignorant: and it is a standing reproach to the whole popish system, that however pious and scripturally judicious some individuals of that Church have been, no pains at all were taken by it to diffuse Biblical knowledge among the vulgar., The praise of this work, if we except the single instance of the Sclavonian version of the Scriptures, which, however, was executed by two Greek monks, and not by papists, is purely and exclusively of protestant origin in Europe, during all the ages preceding the Reformation.