* His disciples after his death, published a book,
declarative of his reasons for opposing the Roman Catholic
Church; a copy of which, in ancient Gothic characters, is
extant in the library of Cambridge.
Henry de Bruys, and Arnaud de Bresse now took up the cause, and extended the Vaudois doctrines in Lombardy. Of the disciples of the former, St. Bernard, who wrote in 1120, bears this testimony, "that they prided themselves in being the true successors of the apostles, and conservators of their doctrine."
Arnaud de Bresse fell a victim to the cruelty of the Roman clergy in 1155, being first crucified and then burnt. He was succeeded by his zealous disciple Esperon. Rorenco in the work above cited, says, that we must by the names of Vaudois, Esperonites, Henricians, Petrobrusians, Arnaudites, and Apostolicals, understand one and the same sect, which is a sufficient proof of the identity of the doctrine of the Vaudois, and that of these zealous preachers. The celebrated Peter Valdo, a rich inhabitant of Lyons, openly professed the Vaudois doctrine in 1175. He abandoned all his possessions, gave himself up entirely to the promulgation of the gospel, had the bible translated into the vulgar tongue, and instructed the people publicly in the streets, commencing with the thesis, that we must obey God rather than man. He refused submission to the Pope and his bishops; exposed the scandalous lives of the monks; and refuted the doctrine of the mass, purgatory, adoration of images, and prayers for the dead. At the instance of Pope Alexander III., Valdo was driven from Lyons, with most of his disciples. A great part of them retired either to Lombardy, or (as an ancient writer observes,) into Cisalpine Gaul, and among the Alps, where they found a perfectly secure retreat, (tutissimum refugium.) That is among the valleys of Pragela, Meane, Saluces, &c., and we must pay great attention to this expression, since it appears natural that these valleys should be their surest place of refuge, being already peopled with Vaudois, who professed the same doctrines. Other disciples of Valdo withdrew to Picardy, Germany, Bohemia, and the Low Countries. I must here remark, that even those who in contradiction to the above chain of evidence, assert that the Vaudois derive their name and doctrine from Peter Valdo, must allow them to have been established in the valleys at least fifty years before the ancient counts of Savoy obtained the sovereignty of their country; for it appears in the history of the house of Savoy, that the first who began to make conquests in our country, was Thomas, son of Humbert, who had previously accompanied Louis, son of Philip Augustus, king of France, in his expedition against the Vaudois and the Albigenses of Provence. Hence we have every possible right to the possession of our country, in which we were established before our sovereigns.
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.