CHAPTER IV. ANTIQUITY AND PURITY OF THE VAUDOIS DOCTRINE, PROVED BY

THEIR OWN WRITINGS

As the Vaudois have been accused of being Manicheans, Arians, and Cathares,* we shall be but doing our ancestors justice to appeal to their own writings. In the preface to the French Bible, which they printed at Neuchatel, in 1535, the Vaudois render thanks to God that having received the treasure of the gospel from the apostles or their immediate successors, they had always preserved to themselves the enjoyment of this blessing. In proof of which it appears by the noble Leiçon, dated 1100, that they had rejected and continued to reject all traditions, nor had ever received other doctrines than those contained in the Holy Scriptures.

* From Cathari, white, pure.

The treatise on Antichrist, dated 1120, proves the same point; as does that against the invocation of saints, which must have been written in the sixth century, since it calls this error a doctrine then in the bud, and we know that it took its rise at that period. So in all the confessions of faith given at divers times, the Vaudois profess to have received their tenets from father to son, from the time of the apostles. Rorenco himself has preserved one of their petitions to the Duke of Savoy, dated 1599, in which they say, that it is not within a few hundred years only that they have had knowledge of the truth, and that no one could be ignorant of their having taught the same tenets for 500 or 600 years, that is, when they openly declared against the abuses of Rome, under their Bishop, Claude. The Vaudois of the valleys Mathias and Meane* made the same declaration, (nearly in the same words,) when they were forced in 1603 to quit their country, for refusing to obey the order of Charles Emanuel, to abandon their faith. Finally in all their memorials, petitions, and letters, they have never failed to repeat the same thing, praying to be left in the enjoyment of that religion, which they had professed time immemorial even before the Dukes of Savoy were princes of Piémont. The authenticity of these petitions, &c. is unquestionable, since they have been printed, together with the answers to them, by order of the court of Turin, and are more than 100 in number.

** The Vaudois of these valleys formed one body with those of Luzerne, Perouse, and St. Martin.

Section II. Evidence of Protestant Writers

To the internal evidence of the writings of the Vaudois themselves, we must now add that which is to be found in the works of Protestant authors, and first in those of the celebrated Theodore Bèze, who thus speaks of them* "These are the people who have always preserved the true religion, without allowing any temptation to pervert them. The Vaudois," says he, in another place, "are so called from their residence among the valleys and fastnesses of the Alps, and may well be considered as the remains of the purest primitive Christian church. Nor has it been possible to draw them within the pale of the Roman communion, notwithstanding the horrible persecutions exercised against them. At this time they have churches flourishing, as well in doctrine as in examples of a truly innocent life. I speak particularly of those of the Alpine valleys, of whom some are subjects of the king of France, and others of the Duke of Savoy."

* The expressions are sempre, al solito, da equi tempo, immemoriale, conforme all* antico soli to, conforme a loro antiché franchizie. The collection is printed at Turin, 1678.

** Portraits des hommes illustres.

Ileidanus* asserts, "that from the most remote antiquity they have opposed the Roman Pontiff, and have always held the purest doctrine."

* Historia Caroli Quinti Imp. lib. xvi. p. 534.

Esron Rudiger affirms that the Vaudois existed at least 240 years before John Huss, which agrees nearly with Bishop Claude. L'Histoire ecclesiastique des Eglises'réformées de France, printed in 1558, confirms the above assertions. Amyraut, Drelincourt, Basnage, Ruchat, Jurieu, Werenfels, and many other writers of the reformed church, give the same opinion.

Section III. Testimony of Roman Catholic Authors.

Among the principal evidences in favour of the Vaudois, I must here refer to the large collection of edicts respecting them, published by the court of Turin. It is deemed unnecessary to recapitulate their dates. The Monk Belvedere, chief of a mission, sent to convert the Vaudois in 1630, in his answer to the College of Propaganda fide,* excuses himself for not having converted a single person, because "the valleys of Angrogna have always, and at every period, been inhabited by heretics."--Again, Reynerus Sacco, expressly appointed by the court of Rome, Inquisitor against the Vaudois, goes still farther than Belvedere; and in a book he published against them, calls them Leonists, from one of their ministers named Leon, who lived in the third century; he affirms that no sect was so pernicious to the church as the Leonists; and this for three reasons: 1st. Because it was the most ancient of all; some deriving its origin from the time of Pope Sylvester (the fourth century), and others from the Apostles themselves. 2ndly, Because it was the most extensive, there being scarcely any country into which it had not penetrated; and, 3dly, That instead of inspiring horror as other sects did, by their frightful blasphemies against the Divinity, it had a great appearance of piety; since its members "lived justly before men, believed rightly on God, and received the Apostles' Creed; but they blasphemed against the Roman church and clergy."**

* Relatione al consiglio de Prop. Fid. Turin, 1636.

** Bibliothèque des Pères, de Gretserus Traité contra les Vaud.

The most obstinate opponents of the antiquity of the Vaudois must give way before the authority of Claude de Seyssel, Archbishop of Turin, who has this passage in his book against us, printed by privilege of Francis the First of France: "The sect of Vaudois," says he, "took its origin from one Leon, a truly religious man, who, in the time of Constantine the Great, detesting the extreme avarice of Pope Sylvester, and the lavish expenditure of Constantine, preferred living in poverty, with simplicity of faith, to the reproach of accepting a rich benefice with Sylvester. To this Leon all attached themselves who thought rightly of their Creed." The same author, after having made useless researches after the commencement of the Vaudois sect, concludes with these remarkable words: "That there must be some important and efficacious reason why this Vaudois sect had endured during so many ages. Again; all kind of different attempts to extirpate them have been made at different times, but they always remained victorious, and absolutely invincible, contrary to the expectation of all."

The reader will observe that this expression, "during so many ages," was written by Seyssel in 1500.

I have already quoted Rorenco, one of the most zealous of the missionaries sent against the Vaudois; his family still remains in the valleys. One of his descendants bearing the title of Count of La Tour, in his Memorie Historiche, addressed to the Duke Victor Amadeus, allows that the Vaudois doctrine was not new, in the time of Claude, many persons having opposed the Roman See before him; he also asserts that their doctrine remained the same in the 11th and 12th centuries. Rorenco will not, however, allow that the doctrine was derived from the Apostles, but avows (which nearly amounts to the same thing) that there is no ascertaining when it was first received in the valleys.

In fine, Samuel Casini, a Franciscan monk, says positively, in his work entitled Victoria Triomphale, printed at Coni, 1510, that "the errors of the Vaudois consisted in not admitting the Roman to be the sacred mother church, or obeying her traditions; although he could not, for his own part, deny that they acknowledged the Christian church, and had always been and still continued to be members of it."

Now it seems to me hardly possible, after these proofs, that anyone should venture to deny the truly Apostolic succession of the Vaudois church; but as some people have supposed that the Vaudois, after receiving the opinions of the court of Rome, have subsequently been reformed, like all those who are called Protestants; let them say when and where the Vaudois reformation took place; and let them also account for the silence of all historians on such an event! But as long as the testimony above quoted, of Catholics, Protestants, Vaudois; nay, of the very edicts of their princes, and their own petitions and replies, exists, I shall consider it as proved that the Vaudois church, having received the Gospel in the earliest days of Christianity, is the parent of all the reformed churches, and has _never herself been reformed_.

These truths having been established by such incontestable proofs, it remains only to give a sketch of the manners of the Vaudois, and the discipline of their churches, before we come to the historical part of my labours.