§ 5. PETER DE BRUIS
A new heresiarch now comes upon the scene in the person of Peter de Bruis, of whom nothing previous is known, except that according to Alfonso à Castro he was a Gaul of Narbonne. We first hear of him from Maurice de Montboissier, better known as Petrus Venerabilis, Abbot of Cluny, who addressed an open letter "to the lords, fathers and masters of the Church of God, the Archbishops of Arles and Embrun" and certain Bishops. As the Abbot died in A.D. 1126(7), and the heresiarch laboured for twenty years in promulgating his teaching, he was contemporary with the Council of Toulouse of A.D. 1119,[30] and its condemnation may have been directed in part against his followers, who were called Petrobrusians. The letter of the Abbot has a preface which is not his, but which was written after his death. This preface sums up the tenets of the Petrobrusians under five heads:
(1) They deny that little children under years of discretion (intelligibilem aetatem) can be saved by the baptism of Christ, and another's faith cannot benefit those who cannot use their own ... for the Lord said, "Whosoever believed and was baptized was saved."
(2) Temples and Churches ought not to be built, and those already built ought to be pulled down, and sacred places for praying were not necessary to Christians, since equally in tavern or church, in market or temple, before altar or stall, God, when called upon, hears and hearkens to those who deserve.
(3) All holy crosses should be broken up and burnt, since that instrument by which Christ was so fearfully tortured and so cruelly put to death was not worthy of adoration, veneration or any other worship, but in revenge for His torments and death should be dishonoured with every kind of infamy, struck with swords and burnt.
(4) Not only do they deny the truth of the Body and Blood of the Lord in the Sacrament daily and continually offered up in the Church, but declare that it is absolutely nothing and ought not to be offered to God.
(5) They deride sacrifices, prayers, alms and other good things done by the faithful living for the faithful departed, and affirm that these things cannot help any of the dead in the smallest degree.[31] Also "they say God is mocked by Church hymns, because He delights in pious desires, and cannot be summoned by loud voices or appeased by musical notes."[32]
In the letter itself Peter Venerabilis points out to the prelates that in their parts the people were re-baptized, churches profaned, altars thrown down, crosses burnt. Meat was publicly eaten on the very day of the Lord's Passion, priests were scourged, monks imprisoned and compelled by terrors and tortures to marry. "The heads, indeed, of these pests by God's help as well as by the aid of Catholic princes you have driven out of your territories. But the slippery serpent, gliding out of your territories, or rather driven out by your prosecution, has betaken itself to the Province of Narbonne, and whereas with you it used to whisper in deserts and hamlets in fear, it now preaches boldly in great meetings and crowded cities. But let the most distant shores of the swift Rhone and the champaign adjacent to Toulouse, and the city itself, more populous than its neighbours, drive out this opinion; for the better informed the city is, the more cautious it ought to be against false dogma." Peter de Bruis was burnt by the faithful in revenge for the crosses which he had burnt.