The Prophetic Faith of Our Fathers, vol. 1

CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR: Ancient Roots of the Waldenses of Italy

I. Waldenses a Stock With Many Branches

The name Waldenses belongs today to a relatively small group of evangelical Christians inhabiting a few Alpine valleys near Turin. But that name evokes memories of an ancient and honorable ancestry, whose devotion, perseverance, and suffering under persecution have filled some of the brightest pages of religious history, and have earned immortality in Whittier’s charming miniature and Milton’s moving sonnet. But the Waldensians of old were not confined to the Italian valleys where live their modern remnant; they were scattered over Europe among many peoples and in varied circumstances. Their boundaries are now hard to define, for the name has been applied to many groups more or less connected with one another. And the very name has been a center of bitter dispute as to whether it points to the origin of that movement in Peter Waldo and his group of lay preachers called Poor Men of Lyons. PFF1 829.1

1. VARIOUS EXPLANATIONS OF ORIGIN

The whole question of Waldensian origins has suffered from a scarcity of source materials and an excess of controversial bias. The older Protestant historians were led, in their zeal to find in the Waldenses a visible “apostolic succession” from the early church, to take unsound positions in support of Waldensian antiquity; the Catholics, on the other hand, zealous for the defense of their own apostolicity, made the most of Waldo as the founder in their efforts to brand the movement as innovation and heresy. PFF1 829.2

The Roman Catholic controversialist Bossuet contended that the Waldenses owed their origin to Peter Waldo and had no existence in any part of the world prior to his time, but Thomas Bray charged that “it was only the malice of their enemies, and the desire to blot out the memorial of their antiquity, which made their adversaries impute their origin to so lame a—period, and to Peter Waldo.” ¹ PFF1 830.1

The more critical historians, who cared nothing for proving apostolic succession, either Catholic or Protestant, surveyed the extant source material. They saw on the one hand the Waldensian traditions ascribing their origin to the time of Sylvester and to the apostasy of the church on the occasion of the apocryphal Donation of Constantine, and on the other the statements of the Catholic Inquisitors that the Waldenses had received their name from Peter Waldo, about 1170; consequently, they concluded that the Waldensian heresy was no older than the name of Waldo, and that the movement began entirely with his Poor Men of Lyons. PFF1 830.2

But further research in the field of medieval heresies has made it clear to many historians that the Waldensians in Italy are not to be traced back merely to Waldo but to earlier evangelical movements. ² The English historian Beard, cataloguing the Waldenses under the term “Biblical Christians,” expresses it thus: PFF1 830.3

“The more accurate research of recent years traces the origin of the Waldenses to a double fountain, the streams from which soon mingled, and were thenceforth hard to be distinguished. On the one hand, there were the Vaudois, the `men of the valleys,’ who still hold their ancient seats in the mountains of Dauphins and Piedmont; on the other, the so called `Poor Men of Lyons,’ the followers of Peter Waldo, a rich merchant of that city, who gave himself up to apostolic work and adopted an apostolic simplicity of living. But the Waldenses, whatever their origin, were from the first Biblical Christians. They translated the Scriptures into their own tongue, and expounded them in their natural sense only. They maintained the universal priesthood of the believer.” ³ PFF1 830.4

But it is not enough to find only two sources. It is clear that the contemporary documents divide the Waldenses into two principal branches, the Poor Men of Lyons and the Poor Men of Lombardy, but they also use other subordinate designations, some of the older party names. The Italian branch was complex in itself. Even those who trace the name Waldenses to Waldo recognize that his followers combined with older evangelicals in Italy, and that the movement known under the name of Waldenses was a fusion of elements from a number of older groups—such as the Humiliati, the Arnold the Petrobrusians, the Apostolicals—who accepted Waldo’s leadership. ⁴ PFF1 831.1

The north Italian Waldenses, with whom those in Austria, Germany, and Bohemia were more closely connected, were more independent of the Catholic Church, and ‘differed in other respects from those in France, doubtless on account of their earlier sources of dissent. This multiple source evidently accounts for the fact that they denied that they originated in Waldo’s Poor Men of Lyons. That is the crux of the whole problem. PFF1 831.2

Peter Waldo was obviously not the founder of the churches of the Piedmont valleys, which were in existence long before him. We have seen how north Italy had a long tradition of independence and of evangelical principles which broke forth into antisacerdotal reactions from time to time. It is in this sense that the Italian Waldenses were the spiritual descendants of the earlier evangelicals, of Claudius, of Vigilantius, and of Jovinian. ⁵ Yet they were stirred into action and organized for aggressive propaganda by Waldo. PFF1 831.3

2. WALDO BECOMES SOURCE Of NEW MISSIONARY IMPETUS

The rich converted merchant of Lyons, PETER WALDO (Valdes, Valdesius, Waldensis), is credited with founding the Poor Men of Lyons, whom the Passau Inquisitor specifies as being called Leonists. ⁶ He began his evangelical labors about 1173. Peter’s experience was similar to that of Luther, who, having finished his course of philosophy at Erfurt, found his whole life attitude profoundly affected when a stroke of lightning, in a violent thunderstorm, induced him to withdraw from the world and enter the Erfurt monastery. The story of Waldo’s conversion is that on some public occasion at Lyons, when the citizens were gathered together, one of their number suddenly dropped dead. This made a profound impression upon his mind, and his contact with a ballad singer who sang of the piety and voluntary poverty of St. Alexis brought him to a decision to devote his life to following Christ literally. PFF1 832.1

Waldo distributed his substance among the poor, and devoted himself to the profession of the gospel. Having employed part of his wealth on the translation of the Scriptures into the vernacular, he distributed them among his countrymen. He also enlisted reciters and expounders of these translations, sending them forth as traveling preachers. These Poor Men of Lyons, when reprimanded for their lay preaching, warned that Clod must be obeyed rather than the prelates, and eventually they came to denounce the Roman church as the Babylon of the Apocalypse. ⁷ The obtaining of the Scriptures gave boldness and confidence. They could show that they were not advancing new doctrines but simply adhering to the ancient faith of the Bible. Forbidden to preach by the archbishop of Lyons, Waldo appealed to the pope, Alexander III, who sanctioned the vow of poverty, but not the unauthorized preaching. Walter Map (Mapes), a Welsh delegate at the Third Lateran Council, tells of seeing several deputies of Waldo, who presented portions of the Scriptures in the “Gallic” tongue to the pope. Unable to obtain papal authorization to preach, they went forward without it. ⁸ PFF1 832.2

Finally Waldo and his followers were scattered after they had been excommunicated and exiled by the archbishop of Lyons in 1184. Leaving Lyons, Waldo took refuge in Dauphine. Persecution forced his retreat to Belgium and Picardy, and from thence to Germany. Finally he settled in Bohemia, where he died. ⁹ PFF1 833.1

His followers spread over southern France, Piedmont, and Lombardy, where they “mingled with other heretics, imbibing and spreading” the teachings of older sects. ¹⁰ Thus the name Waldenses came to embrace various groups, some more evangelical than the Poor Men of Lyons. Peter’s followers became supporters of the principles of the valleys, and boldly resisted the corrupt innovations of Rome. So in time Peter’s new French society joined hands with the ancient valley dwellers of Italy. PFF1 833.2

Until the days of Peter Waldo the valley dwellers of north Italy seem not to have moved much from their secluded homes, save into the lowlands of Turin or Vercelli. Now a new impulse was given. With the appearance of the Poor Men of Lyons, a new order of preacher—missionaries was instituted, who instead of remaining at home from generation to generation, went forth into the world at large, carrying the gospel aggressively into every quarter of Europe. Of this powerful missionary characteristic, there is abundant historical testimony from their enemies alone—the Passau Inquisitor, Pilichdorf, Map, Burchard of Ursperg (formerly confused with Conrad of Lichteneu), Thuanus, and so forth. ¹¹ Large numbers of French Waldenses, harassed by incessant persecution, migrated into the valleys of Dauphins and on beyond to dwell with their brethren, but they also continued to go forth into others countries. PFF1 833.3

3. ANCIENT ITALIAN SECT REVIVED UNDER PETER

The comparatively late Poor Men of Lyons were clearly the disciples of Peter Waldo. But Burchard, provost of Ursperg (d. 1230), tells, in a chronicle entry for the year 1212 formerly attributed to Conrad of Lichtenau, that these Poor’ Men ‘(or Leonists or Waldenses) had long since sprung up in Italy. ¹² This, concludes Faber, was previous to ‘their becoming celebrated in France under the impulse of Peter—the Gallican branch springing out of the parent stock, which had long flourished in the Valdis (Valden, Vaudra) of the bordering Cottian Alps of northern Italy. ¹³ PFF1 834.1

This accounts for the Passau Inquisitor’s language as he states that the Leonists are of the ancient heretics, older than either the Arians or the Manichaeans, but that the Poor Men of Lyons, as well as the members of the older sect, are also denominated Leonists, and are modern heretics, having been founded by the opulent merchant of Lyons. ¹⁴ Thus in France the followers of Waldo were no older than he, but the stock of which they were a continuation reaches back to earlier times. Walter Map in 1182 first mentioned their name, Valdesians, as connected with their leader Valdes.’ He had met some Waldensians at ‘the Third Lateran Council’` at Rome in 1179. ¹⁵ PFF1 834.2

4. WALDENSES—ONE STOCK WITH MANY BRANCHES

As noted, the followers of Waldo mingled with various other groups, and the name Waldenses, covered many local variations and fusions of evangelical parties. Doubtless some of the older local names persisted, and that is why their contemporaries used different names in describing them. Nevertheless,, the name Waldensians has been rather broadly used by some writers to designate widely separated groups. Historians of a century or so ago were inclined to extend the coverage—sometimes correctly, sometimes not-much farther than more modern writers. ¹⁶ Often it is difficult to know whether an apparently farfetched identification is the result of an error, a linguistic corruption of names, a local popular usage, a term of ridicule applied by enemies, or even an isolated case of genuine contact between minor groups of which source evidence is, now lost. PFF1 834.3

We cannot say, for example, that in a given place there were not cases of Waldenses and Albigenses mingling or worshiping together, and that sometimes Cathari were not absorbed into the Waldensian movement. Undoubtedly the two groups were sometimes confused in the` minds of their earlier opponents, but it must be noted that the Waldenses were distinctly separated from the dualistic Albigenses or Cathari in the records of the Inquisition and, according to one chronicle, even opposed them “most sharply.” ¹⁷ There was, on the other hind, a definite connection between the older Waldenses and such late groups as the “Waldensian Brethren,” or “Picards“—Bohemian Brethren who had procured ordination from a Waldensian bishop, and who undoubtedly absorbed Waldensian elements. These were called Waldensians by their enemies and by Luther, who admired them, and they even used the popular designation in some of their own writings, as minority groups often do. ¹⁸ PFF1 835.1

The ramifications of the Waldenses as they spread over Europe cannot be fully traced. There were many branches springing from a common protest—the reaction against the corruptions of the dominant church—and the absorption by the Waldenses of members from other groups in various localities probably causes considerable confusion of designations. PFF1 836.1

In France, because of their voluntary poverty, they were called Poor Men of Lyons, and in north Italy there were the Poor Men of Lombardy. In some cases they were nicknamed in the vernacular, as, for example, siccars, or pickpockets. Because they did not observe the holy days of the church, it is said, they were sometimes called Insabbatati. ¹⁹ PFF1 836.2