These innovations, and particularly the adoration of images,** were loudly condemned by the churches of England, France, Germany, and the east.
* St. Augustine relates, that Constantine sent a band of
troops, after his victory over Maxentius, to destroy the
statue of Jupiter Peninus, in the temple of Mont S. Bernard,
(now the site of the modern convent,) and gave them his
golden thunderbolt as a reward.—T.
** Established by Pope Adrian I.; vide Storia dei Pontefeci.
Which condemnation was confirmed by the council convoked by Charlemagne,* at Frankfurt-on-the-Main, in 794. The Bishops of Italy also proclaimed their discontent in a letter which they addressed, by means of Photius, to the patriarchs of the Greek churches. Baronius, who gives this letter, subjoins the following answer of the Patriarchs.** "We have received a synodal epistle from Italy, in which the inhabitants lay to the charge of their bishop an infinity of crimes and perverseness; among other things, the tyranny he wishes to exercise over them, and they call us, with tears, to the defence of the church." Here again let it be remarked, that as long as the superior church retained its purity, the Vaudois did not secede from it. It was the court of Rome that began with innovations, not they. Of this so many proofs press upon me, that I scarcely know which to choose. At the end of the eighth, or beginning of the ninth century, flourished Claude, bishop of Turin, whose diocese embraced not only our valleys, but Dauphiné and Provence.***
* Vide Histoire de Charlemagne, by
** It should here be remarked, that the Vaudois recognize
for orthodox the decisions of the four first great councils
of the Church, Nice, Constantinople, Ephesus, and Chalce-
done, the last of which was held in 451; and that they
recommended the reading of the fathers of the first five
centuries.
*** Piémont making then part of France, it did not pass
under the sway of the house of Savoy till the twelfth
century.
He opposed himself so strenuously to the innovations of the court of Rome, that his doctrine has been since called calvinistic by his enemies.* Illyricus makes the following mention of him in his Catalogue Test. Veritatis, lib. 9. "Claude, Bishop of Turin, lived in the time of Charlemagne and Louis the Pious, of whom he was the intimate friend, even before he became Bishop; he strenuously opposed, (both by preaching and writing,) the adoration of images, of relicts, and the cross, invocations to the saints, pilgrimages, the precedence of the Pope, &c. He treated the Pope himself with great severity, loudly condemning the profit which he made by the poor superstitious people, whom he drew to Rome on pilgrimages."
In the fragments that remain of this courageous Bishop, which are cited by Leger, Part I. p. 137, he combats with great vigour, the abuses above mentioned, and proves that it was not his wish to establish any new sect, but to preserve the doctrines of the apostles in their original purity.** We cannot, therefore, doubt his having used his utmost exertions in his own diocese, of which our valleys formed a part.
* Genebrand Chronic, Liv. 3.
** The title of the Bishop's work, of which fragments are
cited by Leger, is Apologeticum rescriptum Claudii Episcopi
adversus Theodemirum Abbatem. And after a careful
examination of these fragments, and some of the Vaudois MSS.
I am inclined to think that the latter are no more than a
development of the former; for there is the same connection
of ideas, and the arguments are placed in the same order; so
that the writings of Claude seem to have been the text on
which the Vaudois amplified, which is natural, as the Bishop
addressed men of education and learning, and had not
occasion to use so many arguments and explanations as the
Vaudois writers had, who wrote for the illiterate and the
multitude.—Note by Peyran.
Indeed we have the fullest evidence that the Vaudois preserved the purity of their faith during the ninth and tenth centuries. To prove this fact, it will be sufficient to give a single quotation from the missionary Marco Aurelio Rorenco, Grand Prior of St. Roch, at Turin, whose work is entitled Narratione delle Intro-duzione delle heresie nelle valli de Piemonte, Turin, 1632.* Speaking of the doctrine of Claude, which this author is pleased to call heresy, he says—"This doctrine continued in the valleys all the ninth and tenth centuries;" and again, "that during the tenth century no change took place, but the old heresies were continued." In order to feel the full force of the above citation, we must call to mind that Rorenco** had been for ten years a missionary, directly sent out to the Vaudois, with orders to search into the origin of their doctrine; and that writing with the approbation of the clergy of Turin, he was little likely to favour the Vaudois.
* He also wrote Memorie Historiche, Turin, 1645.
** Rorenco says in another place, that it is impossible to
say with certainty at what period this sect took root in the
valleys.—p. 60 of Nar. del Introd.
In the eleventh century, Lambertus, a Catholic and friend of Gregory VII. writes thus: "The court of Rome has so completely stifled all charity and Christian simplicity, that almost all good and just men believe that the reign of Antichrist, of which St. John speaks, is already commenced." John the Fifth, who reigned before this period, has been called by cotemporary writers, the most wicked of men. In these unhappy times the Vaudois did not venture to preach any where but in the woods and highest mountains, except in their most remote villages, such as Macel and Pral, &c. In the eleventh century, Berenger, so celebrated for his knowledge and virtues, was condemned by two councils, convoked by Pope Leo IX., and was forced to retract what he had written against transubstantiation, &c. by Pope Nicholas. He lost no time, however, in protesting against this forced recantation, and persevered in his doctrine till his death, in 1091. Now the belief of Berenger, (says an ancient author,) the same as that of the Vaudois, was so well preserved in the valleys, that to call a man a Berengerian was the same as calling him a Vaudois. Peter de Bruys,* a priest of Toulon, whose doctrine was precisely similar, succeeded Berenger, and preached in Languedoc, Provence, and Dauphiné, particularly at Gap and Embrun, a few hours distance only from the Vaudois valleys; his disciples were called Petrobrusians, and he was martyred at S. Gilles, 1124.