Introduction Home Page Pilgrim Church Index
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They were of all classes, nobles, priests, rich and poor, men and women. The prisoners said that there were many like them in Switzerland, Italy, Germany, Bohemia , etc.
Eighty of them, including 12 priests and 23 women were given over to the flames.
Their leader and elder. named John, declared as he was about to die, "We are all sinners, but it is not our faith that makes us so, nor are we guilty of the blasphemy of which we are accused without reason; but we expect the forgiveness of our sins, and that without the help of men, and not through the merit of our own works."
The goods of those executed were divided between the Church and the civil authority, which placed its power at the disposition of the Church. A decretal - see glossary of Pope Gregory IX, in 1263, declared- "We excommunicate and anathematise - see glossary all heretics, Cathars, Patarenes, Poor Men of Lyons, Passagini, Josepini, Arnaldistae, Speronistae, and others, by whatever names they may be known, having indeed different faces, but being united by their tails, and meeting in the same point through their vanity."
The inquisitor, David of Augsburg, admitted that formerly "the sects were one sect" and that now they hold together in the presence of their enemies. These scattered notices, taken from among many, are sufficient to show that primitive churches were widespread in Europe in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, that in some parts they were so numerous and influential as to have a large measure of liberty, though elsewhere they were subjected to the most cruel persecution, and that, although many names were given to them, and there must have been variety of view among so many, yet they were essentially one, and had constant communication and fellowship with one another.
The doctrines and practices of these brethren, known as Waldenses, and also by other names, were of such a character that it is evident they were not the fruits of an effort to reform the Roman and Greek churches and bring them back to more Scriptural ways. Bearing no traces of the influence of those churches, they indicate, on the contrary, the continuance of an old tradition, handed down from quite another source - the teaching of Scripture and the practice of the primitive - see glossary Church.
Introduction Home Page Pilgrim Church Index