Dean Waddington quotes the following from Rainer Saccho, a popish writer, who had the best means of information respecting them:—
“There is no sect so dangerous as the Leonists, for three reasons: first, it is the most ancient—some say as old as Sylvester [pope in Constantine’s time], others as the apostles themselves. Secondly, it is very generally disseminated: there is no country where it has not gained some footing. Thirdly, while other sects are profane and blasphemous, this retains the utmost show of piety; they live justly before men, and believe nothing respecting God which is not good.”[878]
Mr. Jones gives Saccho’s own opinion as follows:—
“Their enemies confirm their great antiquity. Reinerius Saccho, an inquisitor, and one of their most cruel persecutors, who lived only eighty years after Waldo [A. D. 1160], admits that the Waldenses flourished five hundred years before that preacher. Gretser, the Jesuit, who also wrote against the Waldenses, and had examined the subject fully, not only admits their great antiquity, but declares his firm belief that the Toulousians and Albigenses condemned in the years 1177 and 1178, were no other than the Waldenses.”[879]
Jortin dates their withdrawal into the wilderness of the Alps as follows:—
“A. D. 601. In the seventh century, Christianity was propagated in China by the Nestorians; and the Valdenses, who abhorred the papal usurptions, are supposed to have settled themselves in the valleys of Piedmont. Monkery flourished prodigiously, and the monks and popes were in the firmest union.”[880]
President Edwards says:—
“Some of the popish writers themselves own, that this people never submitted to the church of Rome. One of the popish writers, speaking of the Waldenses, says, The heresy of the Waldenses is the oldest heresy in the world. It is supposed that they first betook themselves to this place among the mountains, to hide themselves from the severity of the heathen persecutions which existed before Constantine the Great. And thus the woman fled into the wilderness from the face of the serpent. Rev. 12:6, 14. ‘And to the woman were given two wings of a great eagle, that she might fly into the wilderness, into her place, where she is nourished for a time, and times, and half a time, from the face of the serpent.’ The people being settled there, their posterity continued [there] from age to age; and being, as it were, by natural walls, as well as by God’s grace, separated from the rest of the world, they never partook of the overflowing corruption.”[881]
Benedict makes other quotations relative to their origin:—
“Theodore Belvedre, a popish monk, says that the heresy had always been in the valleys. In the preface to the French Bible the translators say that they [the Waldenses] have always had the full enjoyment of the heavenly truth contained in the Holy Scriptures ever since they were enriched with the same by the apostles; having in fair MSS. preserved the entire Bible in their native tongue from generation to generation.”[882]