A ROMAN CATHOLIC VIEW OF THE WALDEN SES.* TILE handsome

volume now before us is an elaborate critical examination by a learned Roman Catholic of the alleged early origin and sufferings from persecution of the Waldenses, and is the result of extensive and minute researches, undertaken, as the author tells us, in consequence of reading an article in the Daily Telegraph of the 30th of April, 1868. The view taken of the Waldenses by the writer of this article " not being in accord- ance," our author tells us, " with my former knowledge of Waldensian history, I imposed upon myself the task of collecting as many books bearing on the subject as I could find, in order to ascertain whether my old impressions were wrong, or the greatest part of the above assertions unfounded." Then follows a page filled with the names of books on the subject which he has consulted, ranging from Jean Paul Perrin's publication at Geneva in 1619, to the Ismael of the Alps published in London in 1863. Next comes half a page of names of encyclopmdias, dictionaries, and biographies which the indefatigable inquirer after truth has also plunged into, from the Grand Dktionnaire Ifistorique of Moroni, published at Amsterdam in 1780, to the latest edition of the Popular Encyclopedia in 1862. Not satisfied with this amount of labour, "before coming to any decision on the statements of the above writers," our author undertook the work of reading the writers' authorities ; and not being able to obtain all of them in England, he went to Italy, and there found what he wanted in the Roman libraries and in the King's library at Turin. To the pub- lication of the most precious of the materials thus collected he was mainly incited by the appearance in 1865 of Professor Todd's work on "The Book of the Vaudois, the 1Valdensian Manuscripts." It almost takes away one's breath to think what great good to the world may result from an article in the Daily Telegraph. Here is a learned doctor of theology, and a devoted son of the Roman Church, who had previously made up his mind on a well-known subject of controversy, and who had withstood the incentives to further inquiry offered by the statements and arguments of all the learned Protestant writers whose books have appeared, but who was induced to read or re-read them all, and • The Origin, Persecutions, and Doctrines of the Walderws, from Documents, many now for the first time collected and edited. By Pills Mel* U.L. Leethai: James Touvey. 1570.

j There is, we believe. no life of Sir Charles Ball. Jlany casual memorials of him are to be found in the memoirs of Lord Jeffrey, Lord Cockburn, Sc., and In the 72nd number of the Quarterly Review is an article devoted to him. There Is also respectable article on Charles Bell iu the .Supplement to the Penny Cychtesedies. ills journals and multiplied drawings all, we believe, remain in MS. 'I he original sketches given ire tie Letters are utpital, but the portrait will hardly be liked either by strangers or friends. their professed authorities, to call to his aid half the cyclopmdias in Europe, and to rush abroad to consult the best libraries of Italy, by the forcible statement of the case in an article in the Daily Telegraph! After this, who shall set bounds to the power of the Press, and the Daily Telegraph in particular ? Setting aside, however, the somewhat absurd parade of his reading achievements contained in the preface from which we have just quoted, Dr. Melia has given us here a really useful and well-arranged exposition of the actual authorities in the Waldensian controversy, both on the question of their early origin and of their alleged persecutions, and without professing to give a decided opinion on these disputed points, like our contemporary, to whom we are indebted for all these good things (for the justification of which our limits would be quite inadequate) we may be permitted to make one or two remarks which suggested themselves from the evidence thus laid before us.

Dr. Melia, strange to say, has not been converted by all his researches to the view set forth in the Daily Telegraph, so that the hopes held out to Protestants by his seeming misgivings on read- ing the article, are doomed to disappointment, and he himself has been reassured in his previous conclusions. He arrives at the firm belief that the Waldenses had their origin about the year 1180, with one Peter, surnamed 1Valdensis or Valde- sius, of Vaux, or Valdrum, in the Margravate of Lyons, who, a rich citizen of Lyons, embraced and inculcated a life of poverty, and became the founder of the sect of the Poor Men of Lyons, afterwards called Waldenses, from his name ; that this con- clusion is supported by the oldest Waldensian MSS., " when read in their genuine originals, and when sifted from some unwarranted accounts, which are mere legends ;" that " the reason of their [the Waldensians in Piedmont] having been punished was not precisely their religion, it was their breaking the laws of the country ;" and that the old Waldenses differed in many respects in doctrine from those who lived after the Reformation, when many of the doctrines of the Reformers were introduced among them.

We have no prejudice ourselves in favour of the antiquity of the Waldensian Church. The earnest desire on the part of many Protestants to establish its apostolic origin seems to us to have very often proceeded from a morbid craving for a visible organized church (in the narrowest sense of the term), with a continuous chronology from the Apostles, as a practical answer to the "quod semper, quod ubique, quod ab omnibus" put forth by the Roman Church. Had the present Waldensian Church been a little less Evangelical in its doctrines and discipline, it might have become nearly as great a favourite with the High-Anglican party as the Greek Church is just at present, and for much the same reason. As it is, the defence of its antiquity has chiefly fallen into the hands of those whose theory of divine grace least requires this "outward visible sign," and in whom this excessive zeal is misplaced. The Romanists, on the other hand, seem to us nearly as unnecessarily zealous in disputing the antiquity, consider- ing that there has confessedly never been a time when the Roman Catholic Church was free from so-called heretical seceders or protesters against her doctrines and authority, and the compara- tive purity and apostolicity of these antagonistic creeds and churches is (as far as testimony is concerned) a matter of argu- ment quite independent of the fact of contemporary existence. Any remarks of ours on the evidence adduced by Dr. Melia will be of a purely critical character, and without any theological bearing.

The series of extracts from early authorities with which the volume commences is, it must be remembered, derived entirely from the writings of Roman Catholics bitterly opposed to the Waldenses ; their statements, therefore, cannot be received as abso- lutely conclusive against the claims of the latter ; and, on the con- trary, any admissions they may make are of proportionate value as evidence. The earliest of these in point of time is a document given in the chronicle of Richard, monk of Cluny, who certainly died after the year 1216, published by Muratori from the MSS. of Bishop Bernard Guidoni, who lived from about 1260 to 1331. The passage occurs in the monk's life of Alexander III., who became Pope in 1159, and died in 1181. " About the year of our Lord 1170," says the chronicler, " arose the sect and heresy of those who are called Valdenses, or Poor of Lyons, whose author and founder was a citizen of Lyons, by name Valdensis, from whom his followers were named in like manner. He, being a man possessing riches, abandoning everything, resolved to live a life of poverty and Evangelical perfection, as the Apostles did. And having caused the Gospels and some other books of the Bible, and several authorities of Saints, which he called Summa:, to be written for his own use in the vernacular tongue ; he reading them often by himself, and little understanding them; formed in his own conceit, and possessing a little learning ; assumed to himself and usurped the office of the Apostles; preaching the Gospel in the streets and in the squares. He caused many men and women to become his accomplices in a like presumption ; whom he sent to preach as his disciples. They being simple and illiterate people, traversing the villages and entering into the houses, spread everywhere many errors. Called to account by the Archbishop of Lyons, John Beles-Mayus, they were prohibited by him. But they would not obey, offering as a pretext for their folly that they ought to obey not men, but God, who commanded the Apostles to preach the Gospel to every creature ; arrogating to themselves what had been said to the Apostles, of whom by feigned appearance of poverty and sanctity they professed to be followers and successors, despising the clergy and priests. Thus, from the presumptuous usurpation of the office of preaching, they became first dis- obedient, afterwards contumacious, and therefore being excom- municated, were exiled from that country. At last, cited to the Council which was held in Rome before that of Lateran, they were adjudged contumacious and schismatics. And being dispersed through the provinces, and mingling on the borders of Lombardy with other heretics, and also imbibing and following their errors, were adjudged heretics." It will be observed that in this earliest account of the Waldenses, the person who gave them their name, though a citizen of Lyons, is surnamed simply " Valdensis," which leaves it quite open to argument that he was so called from having adopted doctrines and practices derived from the valleys in Pied- mont, where in later times we find the Waldenses. In this case it might be said that the " mingling with the other heretics on the borders of Lombardy, and imbibing and following their errors," spoken of, is either only inversion of the original relation of the two bodies of heretics, or is in itself a testimony to the previous existence of so-called heretics, with similar doctrines, in the valleys of Piedmont. The passage is therefore far from necessarily con- clusive. Dr. Melia's next authority is that of Father Moneta, professor of philosopy in Bologna in 1218, and Vicar of St. Dominic, in Milan, and who wrote the work quoted from in 1244. " Let us prove," he says, " that the community of the Poor Leonistanians is not the Church of God." In the former extract and in a decree of Gregory IX., in 1236, they are called the Poor of Lyons (de Lugduno). He says that they cannot be the successors of the primitive Church, because " it is clear that they had their beginning from Valdesius, a citizen of Lyons, who entered on this path not more than eighty years ago ; or, if they are more or less, the difference of more or less is little." He says they acknowledge three Orders, the Episco- pate, Presbyterate, and Deaconate, and mentions an heresiarch of the Poor Lombards, Thomas, who said that that ordination received by Valdesius [which may mean either a Waldensian or the man Peter Valdes] was conferred by the authority given by each member of the congregation over himself. He also denies their being the faithful branch of the Holy and Catholic Church, because they cannot prove that they existed between the time of Silvester and that of Valdesius. He adds, that the heretics say that the Church of God fell away (defecisse) in the time of Sil- vester, and was restored in those times through themselves, ofwhom the first (primes) was Valdesius. The other authorities quoted and examined by our author give little more real information re- specting the origin of the Waldenses than the early writers we have just referred to. Of course, we have the usual feature of an increase of seeming information just in pro- portion as we recede from the times when there was the oppor- tunity of learning the facts. We are told of a holy man, Leo, in the time of Constantine the Great, as alleged by the followers of the Waldenses to have been the founder of their separate Church, in conse- quence of the falling-away of the Roman Church near Silvester ; and Ws not easyto say whether the title Leonistaniansis derived from this alleged Leo, or from the town of Lyons. The Archbishop of Turin, at the close of the fifteenth and beginning of the sixteenth century, speaks of the heresy of the Waldenses or the Poor of Lyons as having been propagated in the diocese of Turin, and "mpecially in its extreme parts, and in the gorges of those Alps which divided France from Italy, for more than two hundred years ;" bat he speaks doubtfully as to whether it originated there, and his testimony has only a positive, and not a negative weight, as far as it goes. In fact, both parties in this controversy have, it seems to us, endea- voured to build far too much on the vague and indecisive evidence of these authorities. The Waldensian MSS. which remain seem to give us no further help in the matter, for they only repeat the assertion as to the falling - off of the Church from the time of Silvester and the preaching of Peter de Vaudois. The date of the earliest confession of faith of the Waldenses, set down by

Leger, Morland, and others at 1100, is very doubtful, as there are erasures and blanks in the MSS., and magnifying-glasses have had to be used, with an alleged result of bringing out a 4 instead of a 1, and other internal evidence has been brought to show that that it could not have been composed (in its present state) in the twelfth century.

The general impression left on our mind by the perusal of this first part of Dr. Melia's work is that the Alpine districts

have naturally from the earliest period of the Christian Church been the asylum of many of the seceders or opponents of the existing ecclesiastical authorities, and may, from their

primitive character and isolation, have preserved the earlier

form of Christianity unaffected by the developments of faith set forth in successive Councils of the Church, but of this purity and

uniformity in doctrine or discipline among these inhabitants of

the Alpine valleys we have no reliable evidence. Whether Peter Valdensis derived his opinions from them, or was the founder of a movement which became amalgamated and confused with the earlier " heresies " of the Valleys, is quite as much a matter of uncertainty, though we hold the great antiquity of heresy from Rome (simple or multiform in its character) in these districts to be indisputable.

With respect to the remaining portions of Dr. Melia's book, it appears clear from his statements that considerable change has taken place in the doctrines held by the Waldenses since the

Reformation, their present Calvinistic character certainly being of later date than that epoch ; and probably also they approxi-

mated in the middle ages more closely to the Church of Rome on some points, such as Penance and the Real Presence, than Pro- testants suppose. Still on many other points their old doctrines are strikingly in harmony with modern Protestantism.

The question of their persecutions by the Church of Rome and the Piedmontese Government is one of evidence, where at the present time true evidence is least accessible. We have no doubt, as some of our best Protestant historians have admitted or hinted, that there was great exaggeration in the accounts of the great persecution in the seventeenth century which led to Cromwell's interference in their behalf and to Milton's fine lines on them ; and Leger was evidently a most uncritical and heated partizan, even if he were not (as Dr. Melia alleges) moat unscrupulous in act and statement. But it is of little use placing his assertions in one column and opposite to them the alleged depositions of Waldenses, taken by the Government with the express object of procuring evidence to adduce in answer to the representations of outraged European Protestantism ; for as we cannot now tell what was the value of the evidence on which Leger relied, so we cannot at all tell what credit is to be attached to an inquiry conducted by authorities so deeply interested in bringing out evidence of a particular colour. Though Dr. Melia says that the reason

of the persecution of the Waldenses was not precisely their religion, we gather that he admits this was one cause of the

action from time to time taken against them. Their being allowed to exist at all, indeed, is a remarkable fact, and speaks much for the difficulty experienced by the Piedmontese Govern- ment in administering such a district. Piedmont itself was in a precarious position at all times, and the proximity of France and the relations of the House of Savoy with that kingdom weakened very much the hold of the Piedmontese Government over those outlying valleys. That the Waldenses knew this to be the case, and availed themselves of it to propagate their views beyond the limits which custom and law had assigned to their residence, was natural, and as natural were the animosities which arose from the juxtaposition of conflicting creeds, and the anger excited in the minds of Roman ecclesiastics at the existence of such a heresy in the heart of Roman Catholic Europe. We are far from thinking that the Waldenses were the_ meek and passively suffering martyrs that some have portrayed them as being, and we have no doubt there was occasional aggression and unprovoked violence on their side as well as on the other ; but when we consider the enormous disproportion in the strength of the contending parties, and the sentiments as to heresy avowedly held by the Church of Rome and the Governments over which she had influence at that time, we cannot but think that the great balance of probability, in the conflicting evidence which we possess, is in favour of the weaker party having been in the main the undeserving sufferers ; and when a victorious soldiery (such as it was in those days), animated by bigoted zeal, was let loose on a country, we must hold the antecedent probabilities of the case to be rather in favour of the Waldensian version of their proceedings, than of the Govern- ment self-exculpatory account subsequently published. However, Dr. Melia has done good service by bringing the question thoroughly before the world, and it will be for historical students, whether Roman Catholic or Protestant, to re-examine the evidence on the subject, and to illustrate and test it by other authorities.