Ma yo aus o dire, car se troba en ver,
Que tuit li papa que foron de Silvestre entro en aquest,
Et tuit li cardinal et tuit li vesque e tuit li aba,
Tuit aquisti ensemp non han tan de potesta,
Que ilh poissan perdonar un sol pecca mortal.
Solament Dio perdona, que autre non ho po far.[923]
Still, they did not even yet consider themselves as separated from the church, for they consented to submit their peculiar doctrines to the chances of a disputation, presided over by an orthodox priest. Of course, the decision went against them, and a portion of the “Poor Men of Lyons” submitted to the result. The remainder, however, maintained their faith as rigidly as ever. From Bernard de Font-Cauld, who records this disputation, and from Alain de l’Isle, another contemporary, who wrote in confutation of their errors, we have a minute account of their peculiarities of belief. Their principal heresy was a strict adherence to the Hildebrandine doctrine that neither reverence nor obedience was due to priests in mortal sin, whose ministrations to the living and whose prayers for the dead were equally to be despised. In the existing condition of sacerdotal morals, this necessarily destroyed all reverence for the church at large, and Bernard and Alain had no hesitation in proving it to be most dangerously heterodox. Their recurrence to Scripture, moreover, as the sole foundation of Christian belief, with the claim of private interpretation, was necessarily destructive to all the forms of sacerdotalism, and led them to entertain many other heretical tenets. They admitted no distinction between clergy and laity. Every member of the sect, male or female, was a priest, entitled to preach and to hear confessions. Purgatory was denied, and the power of absolution derided. Lying and swearing were mortal sins, and homicide was not excusable under any circumstances.[924] Yet naturally they did not repudiate the ascetic principles of the church, and they regarded continence as counselled, though not commanded, by the Christian dispensation—
La ley velha maudi lo ventre que fruc non a porta,
Ma la novella conselha gardar vergeneta.[925]
Though marriage is praised and its purity is to be preserved—
Gardes ferm lo matrimoni, aquel noble convent,[926]
thus showing their disapproval of the Manichæan doctrines of the Cathari and Paterins.
Independence such as this could only result in open revolt against sacerdotalism in general, and it shortly came. The Waldensian exaltation of poverty was grateful to the nobles, who were eager to grasp the possessions of the church; its condemnation of the pride and immorality of the clergy secured for its sectaries the goodwill of the people, who everywhere suffered from the oppression and vices of their pastors. Under such protection the sect multiplied with incredible rapidity, not only throughout France, but in Italy and Germany. Enveloped, with the Albigenses, in merciless persecution, they endured with fortitude the extremity of martyrdom. The Germans and Italians sought refuge in the recesses of the Alpine valleys, and in the Marches of Brandenburg and Bohemia, where they seem to have adopted the custom of sacerdotal marriage, and where in time they merged with the churches of the Orthodox Brethren.[927] Some feeble remnants also managed to maintain an obscure existence in Provence, but their tacit revolt could not be forgotten or forgiven, and at intervals they were exposed to pitiless attempts at extermination. These are well known, and the names of Cabrières and Merindol have acquired a sinister notoriety which renders further allusion to the Waldenses unnecessary, except to mention that in 1538 they formally merged themselves with the German reformers by an agreement of which the 8th and 9th articles declare that marriage is permissible, without exception of position, to all who have not received the gift of continence.[928]
The antisacerdotal spirit, however, did not develop itself altogether in opposition to the church. Devout and earnest men there were, who recognized the evil resulting from the overgrown power and wealth of the ecclesiastical establishment, without shaking off their reverence for its doctrine and its visible head, and the authorities at length saw in these men the effective means of combating the enemy. In thus availing themselves of one branch of the reformers to destroy the other and more radical portion, the chiefs of the hierarchy were adopting an expedient effective for the present, yet fraught with danger for the future. The Franciscans and Dominicans were useful beyond expectation. They restored to the church much of the popular veneration which had become almost hopelessly alienated from it, and their wonderfully rapid extension throughout Europe shows how universally the people had felt the want of a religion which should fitly represent the humility, the poverty, the charity of Christ. Yet when Innocent III. hesitated long to sanction the mendicant orders, he by no means showed the want of sagacity which has been so generally asserted by superficial historians; rather, like Lucius III. with the Waldenses, his far-seeing eye took in the possible dangers of that fierce ascetic enthusiasm which might at any moment break the bonds of earthly obedience, when its exalted convictions should declare that obedience to man was revolt against God.