In their earliest period the Waldenses were not heretics, although the charge was made against them that they claimed to be "the only imitators of Christ." Closely as they and the Cathari were associated geographically and by the acts of councils, papal decrees, and in literary refutations of heresy, the Waldenses differ radically from the Cathari. They never adopted Manichaean elements. Nor did they repudiate the sacramental system of the established Church and invent strange rites of their own. They were also far removed from mysticism and have no connection with the German mystics as some of the other sectaries had. They were likewise not Protestants, for we seek in vain among them for a statement of the doctrine of justification by faith. It is possible, they held to the universal priesthood of believers. According to de Bourbon and others, they declared all good men to be priests. They placed the stress upon following the practice of the Apostles and obeying the teachings of the Sermon on the Mount, and they did not know the definition which Luther put on the word "justification." They approached more closely to an opinion now current among Protestants when they said, righteousness is found only in good men and good women.[1]
The first distinguishing principle of the Waldenses bore on daily conduct and was summed up in the words of the Apostles, "we ought to obey God rather than men." This the Catholics interpreted to mean a refusal to submit to the authority of the pope and prelates. All the early attacks against them contain this charge.[1] Alanus sought to refute the principle by adducing Christ’s submission to the authority of Pilate, John 19:11, and by arguing that the powers that be are ordained of God. This was, perhaps, the first positive affirmation of a Scriptural ground for religious independence made by the dissenting sects of the Middle Ages. It contains in it, as in a germ, the principle of full liberty of conscience as it was avowed by Luther at Worms.
The second distinguishing principle was the authority and popular use of the Scriptures. Here again the Waldenses anticipated the Protestant Reformation without realizing, as is probable, the full meaning of their demand. The reading of the Bible, it is true, had not yet been forbidden, but Waldo made it a living book and the vernacular translation was diligently taught. The Anonymous writer of Passau said he had seen laymen who knew almost the entire Gospels of Matthew and Luke by heart, so that it was hardly possible to quote a word without their being able to continue the text from memory.
The third principle was the importance of preaching and the right of laymen to exercise that function. Peter Waldo and his associates were lay evangelists. All the early documents refer to their practice of preaching as one of the worst heresies of the Waldenses and an evident proof of their arrogance and insubordination. Alanus calls them false preachers, pseudo-praedicatores. Innocent III., writing, in 1199, of the heretics of Metz, declared their desire to understand the Scriptures a laudable one but their meeting in secret and usurping the function of the priesthood in preaching as only evil. Alanus, in a long passage, brought against the Waldenses that Christ was sent by the Father and that Jonah, Jeremiah, and others received authority from above before they undertook to preach, for "how shall they preach unless they be sent." The Waldenses were without commission. To this charge, the Waldenses, as at the disputation of Narbonne, answered that all Christians are in duty bound to spread the Gospel in obedience to Christ’s last command and to James 4:17, "to him that knoweth to do good and doeth it not, to him it is sin."[1] The denial of their request by Alexander III., 1179, did not discourage them from continuing to preach in the highway and house and, as they had opportunity, in the churches.[1]
The Waldenses went still further in shocking old-time custom and claimed the right to preach for women as well as for men, and when Paul’s words enjoining silence upon the women were quoted, they replied that it was with them more a question of teaching than of formal preaching and quoted back Titus 2:3, "the aged women should be teachers of good things." The abbot Bernard of Fontis Calidi, in contesting the right of laics of both sexes to preach, quoted the Lord’s words commanding the evil spirit to hold his peace who had said, "Thou art the Holy One of God," Mark 1:25. If Christ did not allow the devil to use his mouth, how could he intend to preach through a Waldensian?[1] In one of the lists of errors, ascribed to the Waldenses, is their rejection of the universities of Paris, Prague, and Vienna and of all university study as a waste of time.[1]
It was an equally far-reaching principle when the Waldenses declared that it was spiritual endowment, or merit, and not the Church’s ordination which gave the right to bind and loose, to consecrate and bless.[1] This was recognized by their opponents as striking at the very root of the sacerdotal system. They charged against them the definite affirmation of the right of laymen to baptize and to administer the Lord’s Supper. No priest, continuing in sin, could administer the eucharist, but any good layman might.[1] The charge was likewise made that women were allowed the function also, and Rainerius says that no one rose up to deny the charge. It was also charged that the Waldenses allowed laymen to receive confessions and absolve.[1] Differences on this point among the Waldenses were brought out at the conference at Bergamo.
As for the administration of baptism, there were also differences of view between the Waldenses of Italy and those of France. There was a disposition, in some quarters at least, to deny infant baptism and to some extent the opinion seems to have prevailed that infants were saved without baptism.[1] Whatever the views of the early Waldenses were at the time of the Reformation, according to the statement of Morel, they left the administration of the sacraments to the priests. The early documents speak of the secrecy observed by the Waldenses, and it is possible more was charged against them than they would have openly acknowledged.
To the affirmation of these fundamental principles the Waldenses, on the basis of the Sermon on the Mount, added the rejection of oaths,[1] the condemnation of the death penalty,[1] and some of them purgatory and prayers for the dead.[1] There are but two ways after death, the Waldenses declared, the way to heaven and the way to hell.[1]
The Waldenses regarded themselves, as Professor Comba has said, as a church within the Church, a select circle. They probably went no further, though they were charged with pronouncing the Roman Church the Babylonian harlot, and calling it a house of lies.[1] As early as the thirteenth century, the Waldenses were said, as by de Bourbon, to be divided like the Cathari into the Perfect and Believers, but this may be a mistake. In the beginning of the fourteenth century, in Southern France they elected a superintendent, called Majoralis omnium, whom, according to Bernard Guy, they obeyed as the Catholics did the pope, and they also had presbyters and deacons. In other parts they had a threefold ministry, under the name of priests, teachers, and rectors.[1]
From the first, the Lyonnese branch had a literature of its own and in this again a marked contrast is presented to the Cathari. Of the early Waldensian translation of the Bible in Romaunt, there are extant the New Testament complete and the Psalms, Proverbs, Song of Solomon, and Ecclesiastes. A translation in French had preceded this Waldensian version.[1] The German translation of the Bible found at Tepl, Bohemia, may have been of Waldensian origin.[1]
The Nobla Leyczon,[1] dating from the early part of the thirteenth century and the oldest extant piece of Waldensian literature next to the version of the Bible, is a religious poem of four hundred and seventy-nine lines. It has a strictly practical purpose. The end of the world is near, man fell, Noah was spared, Abraham left his own country, Israel went down to Egypt and was delivered by Moses. Christ preached a better law, he trod the path of poverty, was crucified, and rose again. The first line ran "10 brothers, listen to a noble teaching." The poem closes with the scene of the Last Judgment and an exhortation to repent.
Through one channel the Waldenses exercised an influence over the Catholic Church. It was through the Waldensian choice of poverty. They made the, "profession of poverty," as Etienne de Bourbon calls it, or "the false profession of poverty," as Bernard Guy pronounced it. By preaching and by poverty they strove after evangelical perfection, as was distinctly charged by these and other writers. Francis d’Assisi took up with this ideal and was perhaps more immediately the disciple of the obscure Waldensians of Northern Italy than can be proved in so many words. The ideal of Apostolic poverty and practice was in the air and it would not detract from the services of St. Francis, if his followers would recognize that these dissenters of Lyons and Italy were actuated by his spirit, and thus antedated his propaganda by nearly half a century.[1]
Note: Lit. bearing on the early Waldenses. For the titles, see § 79.—A new era in the study of the history and tenets of the Waldenses was opened by Dieckhoff, 1851, who was followed by Herzog, 1853. More recently, Preger, Karl Müller, Haupt, and Keller have added much to our knowledge in details, and in clearing up disputed points. Comba, professor in the Waldensian college at Florence, accepts the conclusions of modern research and gives up the claim of ancient origin, even Apostolic origin being claimed by the older Waldensian writers. The chief sources for the early history of the sect are the abbot Bernard of Fontis Calidi, d. 1193; the theologian Alanus de Insulis, d. about 1200; Salve Burce (whose work is given by Döllinger), 1235; Etienne de Bourbon, d. 1261,