FACSIMILE of a Memorandum and Signature of Leger the Moderator and Hintonian of the Vaudois written in an Italian Bible now in the possession of the Very Thomas Rennell, D.D. formerly Fellow of Exeter College, Oxford, and Rector of Drewsteignton Devon, who deceased 1153. This Holy Bible is the only Treasure which, of all my goods, I was able rescue from the horrible massaires and unparalleled destructions, with the count of Turin put in execution in the Vallies of Piedmont in 1655. and for this reason (besides that there are many small remarks of my I recommend & command in it chiboven to preserve it a own hand-writing) mosh valuable Relick and to trang mitt it from hand to hand to their Posterity Lith IT. Lewis, Winchester John Legero Pastor Evangelical Churches of the Valleys of Piemont." P. 95-98. Under these circumstances, we must search among the works of authors, who did not write professedly of the Waldenses, for traces of their existence as an independent Church, at periods anterior to the twelfth century, the era which is fixed upon by their adversaries, or by illinformed Protestant historians, for their first appearance as impugners of the Romish faith. Happily the search will not be in vain, and in annals and treatises, sufficiently ancient for our purpose, there are found incidental or direct allusions to a body of Christians, dwelling in districts bordering upon the Alps, and protesting against the corruptions or usurpations of the Latin Church, which leave not a doubt that the ancestors of the Vaudois were the Non-conformists so described. Alcuin, in one of his epistles', which was written about the year 790, complains, that the doctrine of auricular confession was not then received in the Churches of Languedoc and of the Alps. This corresponds exactly with the representation of one of the main points of difference urged with so much force in the "Nobla Leyçon," of the Waldenses. "The priest asketh him if he 'I take this upon the authority of Voltaire's "Additions à l'Histoire Generale," Ed. of 1763, 12mo. I have not been able to find the passage to which Voltaire alludes. G has committed any sin. He answers in a few words, and buyeth of the priest absolution. Alas, they are but sadly confessed who are thus faulty, and will certainly be deceived in such absolution, and he that maketh him believe it, sinneth mortally." Jonas, Bishop of Orleans', in the epistle prefatory to his work, "De Cultu Imaginum," addressed to Charles the Bald, in 840, and in the body of this work, speaks of Italian Churches, which he accuses of heterodoxy, because they refused to worship images, and raves against Claude, Bishop of Turin, for encouraging the people of his diocese in their rejection of image worship, and their separation from that which he called Catholic unity. The valleys of Piemont were, at that period, under the episcopal jurisdiction of Claude 2. Dungalus, about the same time, 840 or 841, wrote a treatise, under the title of " An Answer to the perverse opinions of Claude, Bishop of Turin." In this, and in the fragments which are still extant of Claude's own works, may be found an ample account of this prelate's opposition to 4 1 Biblioth. Patr. Parisiis, 1624, tom. iv. P. 533-594. 2 In some accounts of Claude, he is called Bishop of Turin and Embrun. The valleys of Piemont lie between Turin and Embrun. 3 Ibid. p. 154. 198. 4 See Bib. Patr. tom. i. ii. Mabillon Analecta, and Bib. Mss. Labbei. the growing errors of the Latin Church, and of the religious sentiments of the people who looked up to him for instruction and sanction. Claude died between 838 and 841, and during a life of great activity, and more especially when he ruled over the see of Turin, protested against the authority of tradition when unsupported by Scripture, and pledged himself to promulgate nothing, but that which was consistent with the doctrines and discipline of the primitive Church'. He raised the laugh of scorn against superstitious articles of faith, which were of modern invention. He spurned with his feet the images of saints, and the pretended relics of holy men of old, and he had the sagacity and the boldness to ask his adversaries, Why do not the worshippers of the wood of the cross, in conformity with their newly adopted principles, adore chaplets of thorns, because Christ was crowned with thorns; or spears, because Christ was pierced with that weapon? Or why do they not fall down before the image of an ass, because Christ honoured that animal by riding upon it?" How little did Claude then imagine, and how far were the first promoters of such errors from suspecting, that the time would come, 66 1 While Claude was lifting up his voice in his diocese of Turin against image-worship, Agobardus was doing the same in his diocese of Lyons. See his Treatise against Pictures, Edit. à S. Baluzio. The primitive Churches east and west of the Alps must have been under one or other of these Bishops. |