History of false doctrines of Christendom

Departure from the Truth

dates are as accurate as possible




THIS PROCESS, WHICH BEGAN SOON AFTER THE ECCLESIAS WERE FORMED IN THE FIRST CENTURY AD, WAS PROPHESIED IN THE WORD OF GOD

Some of these prophecies are set out in full below…their fulfilment is illustrated by the facts following… the dates are as accurate as possible by the records - the facts are indisputable, and are readily accepted by believers who are the modern-day equivalents of those to whom Jesus spoke these wonderful words- "But blessed are your eyes, for they see: and your ears, for they hear"- Matthew 13v16.

As shown elsewhere we must be able to clearly identify & witness against the apostacy which the word of God has told us must arise...and any way in which this apostacy can turn attention away from itself has been used -

We can clearly identify the modern-day equivalent of ancient Babylon, as the apostacy is termed, in Revelation 17v5-'MYSTERY, BABYLON THE GREAT, THE MOTHER OF HARLOTS AND ABOMINATIONS OF THE EARTH'.

The comment of the then head of the 'Roman Catholic church',when in 1962 he welcomed sympathetic 'Protestant' observers to the 21st 'Ecumenical Council', is a damning identification of both parties when he stated the following- "ROME WELCOMES YOU AS A MOTHER" this harmonises with "The Roman Church is the Mother and Mistress of all the churches" ( 'Council of Trent' 1545-1563)

If Rome is the "mother" who then are her "daughters"?

The family likeness is obvious, by the sharing of false teachings, which came from paganism ("Babylon") via Rome- being dressed up in a 'Christian' garb to deceive the unenlightened-which teachings include– "the trinity", "immortal souls", "a fallen-angel devil", etc. etc. "Babylon" signifies'confusion'. Such confusion is evident in these self-contradictory doctrines which are totally opposed to the Scriptures.

"Mystery'' identifies the modern-day apostacy with the"mystery" religion of Babylon, so well known to historians and Bible scholars. It is a means which any hierarchy utilizes to retain power by the use of fear of the unknown, which only "the initiated leaders" can interpret. And "the great" demonstrates the world-wide expansion of this pagan-derived apostacy.

In 'The Two Babylons' Hislop clearly identifies the links between the ancient pagan days of worship & the modern Catholic equi- valents. Refer particularly to chapter iii-'Festivals', including the

9 month period between the feasts of 25 March&25 December.

See the gestative period of the harlot– below*

In the course of his comments Hislop states:

"To conciliate the Pagans to nominal Christianity,Rome, pursuing its usual policy, took measures to get the Christian and Pagan fes-tivals amalgamated, and, by a complicated but skilful adjustment of the calendar, it was found no difficult matter, in general, to get Paganism and Christianity– now sunk far in idolatry - in this, as in so many other things, to shake hands"-page 105, 1969 edition.



prophecies of the apostacy

Matthew 24v4-13- "..And many false prophets shall rise, and shall deceive many.. the love of many ("the many"-RV, Diag-lott, John Thomas- i.e. 'the majority') shall wax cold. But he that shall endure unto the end shall be saved".




Acts 20v26-32-"For I know this,that after my departing shall grievous wolves enter in among you, not sparing the flock.

Also of your own selves shall men arise, speaking perverse things, to draw away disciples after them".

(Jesus prophesied of this- Matthew 7v15-20; John 10v12,13).

(Jude 4 testifies this process had then begun- "For there are certain men crept in unawares..before of old ordained").




2nd Thessalonians 2v1-10- " ..the day of Christ..shall not

come, except there come a falling away first, and that man of

sin be revealed,the son of perdition; Who opposeth and exalt-

eth himself above all that is called God, or that is worshipped;

so that he as God sitteth in the temple of God, shewing him-

self that he is God..And now ye know what withholdeth that

he might be revealed in his time. For the mystery of iniquity

doth already work; only he who now letteth will let ("only

there is one that restraineth now"- RV) until he be taken out

of the way. And then shall that wicked be revealed..whom the

Lord..shall destroy with the brightness of his coming: Even

him, whose coming is after the working of satan (original =

'the satan'- )..because they received not the love

of the truth, that they might be saved".

(Note the prophecy of "the mystery of iniquity", later to be

fulfilled as "MYSTERY, BABYLON THE GREAT".

Also, the "man of sin", later to be fulfilled as the "man

child" and the "man"- Revelation 12v5; 13v18-see below-

the "one that restraineth", i.e. Pagan Rome was "taken out

of the way" in AD312-324, allowing "that wicked..man of

sin..(to) be revealed" at the head of the apostacy).



1st Timothy 4v1-3- "..in the latter times some shall depart

from the faith, giving heed to seducing spirits, and doctrines

of devils (orig. 'demons', supposed demi-gods); Speaking

lies in hypocrisy; having their conscience seared with a hot

iron; Forbidding to marry, and commanding to abstain from

meats, which God hath created to be received with thanks-

giving of them which believe and know the truth".

(Note the pagan 'demons' (demi-gods) have been replaced by

"patron saints"; priests are "forbidd(en) to marry"; meat is

not to be eaten on Fridays;all of which is absolute apostacy.

Daniel 11v39 (Hebrew)speaks of "the bazaars of the protect-

ors (guardians)"- prophesying of the apostate "churches" &

their"patron saints"- & the sale of "indulgences / penances"-

"with a strange god"- identified below as the Roman bishop).

The Roman bishop is "the god of protectors" Dan.11v38.



AD 1190,1473 re "indulgences" etc.



2nd Timothy 4v2-4- "Preach the word..For the time will

come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but after

their own lusts shall they heap to themselves teachers, having

itching ears; And they shall turn away their ears from the

truth, and shall be turned unto fables (Grk.'the fables').

THE FABLES AS PROPHESIED ARE SET OUT BELOW.




DEPARTURE FROM THE TRUTH– AS IT HAPPENED

Note-dates are as accurate as possible



AD33 The death and resurrection of Jesus. Then - the

outpouring of the spirit on the Day of Pentecost - the

early ecclesias formed- the beginning of the apostacy-

"the mystery of iniquity doth already work" (original

has connotations of WORKING INWARDLY, as with

the formation of a child). No longer " a chaste virgin un-

to Christ"2nd Corinthians 11v2, this corrupted "whore"

Revelation 17v2, impregnated with the seeds of apostate

formalism and pagan philosophy, carefully nurtured the

child from her harlotry within. The gestation period of a

woman is 280 days. In the Scriptures, 1 day represents

1 year in prophetic terms- cp Numbers 14v33,34; Ezek-

iel 4v4-6.This gestative period* ended after 10 day-years

of birth-pangs (persecution) in AD313 by a decree, & the

harlot-woman of the apocalypse gave birth- Rev.12v1-5.



Her "man child" Constantine began to set up in power

those who had left the Truth . These apostates were no

longer, as commanded, "strangers and pilgrims" (1st

Peter 2v11). They became power-brokers of the world!

In fact many of them took up arms in the service of Con-

stantine– defying Christ (Matt.5v38-48)- now "friend(s)

of the world..(and thus)..enem(ies) of God"- James 4v4.

From AD 312-324, Constantine consolidated his power

over the Roman Empire, and set up apostate Catholic

bishops over his subjects. Though nominally "Christian"

it was now in reality pagan- because it was founded

upon PAGAN TEACHINGS, and not scriptural truths.

Edward Gibbon, the noted historian, wrote that though

"Christianity" emerged triumphant, it was at the cost

of the adoption of many pagan teachings. Scripture corr-

oborates his independent testimony, as we have shown.




Remarkably, the "man child" (Constantine) was fully

revealed in AD324, when he became the sole ruler over

the Roman Empire, now to become 'Pagan-Christian'.

In AD330 he laid the foundations for his Eastern capi-

tal upon the soil of the Greek colony Byzantium, and

named it Constantinople. In this year also the Basilican

church of 'St. Peters' in Rome was erected. It was later

pulled down and replaced by the present edifice.




Another gestative period began, which was to end in

AD604-610, when the decrees of Phocas, then emperor,

finally established the bishop of Rome as the supreme

head over all Catholics. The "man of sin" was now fi-

nally revealed, as Paul had prophesied, that "he as God

sitteth in the temple of God, shewing himself that he is

God"-2nd Thess. 2v4;cp Dan.7v8,11,20,25;Rev. 13v5,6..

see proofs below, which could be greatly multiplied..

(we hesitate to record such blasphemies; however they

must be provided for the information of the viewer).



'If to serve God truly is to reign, while thou servest Leo thou

reignest; for Leo is God on earth'- App. to Roscoe's Leo X.

'All the kings of the west held the pope to be a God upon earth'.

- Gregory II, AD727.

'The Pope is God because the Vicar of God'

- Innocent, from his Decretals.

'It is certain that the Pontiff was called a God by the pious

prince Constantine: and it is manifest that God cannot be judged

by men..Our Lord God the Pope'- Canon Law, Gratian,12thC.AD

'The pope..the supreme judge of heaven and earth, the judge of

all..God himself on earth'- The 'New York Catechism'.

'We hold upon this earth the place of God Almighty'-

the Great Encyclical Letters of Pope Leo XIII.

'For thou art the shepherd..thou art another God on earth'-

Mansi (ed.) in Sacrorum Conciliorum.

As noted elsewhere,we deny any legitimacy to such titles as "pope"

applied to mere mortal fallible men. "And call no man your father

upon the earth: for one is your Father, which is in heaven"- Matt.23

v9. And to assume the title of "God" is the height of blasphemy.




The Roman bishop promotes the above claims. And the "church"

admits her decrees would be "terrible presumption and blasphemy"

without the authority of Christ (Australian 'pastoral letter' 1962 ).





Revelation 13v18** tells us that the "number" of the

"man" i.e. the "man of sin" prophesied by Paul, is 666#.

One of many titles used of or by the Roman bishop =

'Vicarius Filii Dei'-i.e. 'The Vicar of the Son of God'.

The total numerical value of these Roman letters = 666.

In addition, 'Lateinos' and 'The Latin Kingdom' when

given the Greek numerical equivalents add up to 666.

Latin clearly identifies the "man of sin" with Rome..

(..a pagan custom was to designate their "gods" by the

numerical equivalents of their names- the above iden-

tification therefore reveals Rome's pagan associations)




**note the connection between the "mark" and the "num-

ber" of the apostacy– Revelation 13v15-18– see page 2.

Further, note the prophecy of Daniel 7v8,20 re "the eyes of

(a) man" and the shocking fulfilment as "the holy see".

..ask yourself, are these things "just co-incidences"?

Or are they, in actual fact

the demonstration of the truth of Bible prophecy?







The "mystery of iniquity" prophesied by Paul was later

revealed as "MYSTERY, BABYLON THE GREAT" in

Revelation 17v5. This identifies the modern-day

"church" apostacy with the well-known ancient "mys-

tery" religion of Babylon. It teaches "the trinity", which

is called "a mystery". Julius III is said to have removed

"mystery" from the tiara because of Protestant jibes..

(the tiara represented the three states seized & lost by

Rome, as prophesied- Daniel 7v8; Rev. 16v13;17v16).

Edward Gibbon, the noted historian, wrote-

"The creed of MYSTERY and superstition..in the

7th century disgraced the simplicity of the Gospel".
















Departure from the Truth-page 2




SIGNIFICANT DATES

Before we look more closely at the history of how the various unscriptural teachings & practices have been added over the centuries, let us note the main epoch-al dates fulfilling Biblical prophecies of the course of




the apostacy

AD33- the beginning of the "in-working" of the apostacy by heretic Jewish and pagan influences to be re-vealed after 280 gestative day-years.

AD303- the "birth-pangs" of the harlot woman of the Apocalypse, about to give birth to the "man child" Constantine, the champion of Catholics. Persecution by pagan emperors for 10 day-years.

AD312-324- the wars of Constantine against the pagan emperors, by which the rulership of the Roman Empire is changed to apostate "Christianity".

AD312- the beginning of prophecies of 1260 day-years of persecution of "the remnant of (the woman's) seed" and dissenters by the Catholics.

AD313- the "birth" of the "man child" marked by his decree of "toleration" of all religions; which was also marked by the elevation of the Catholics.

AD324-Constantine assumes total control- the beginning

of the 2nd "in-working" of 280 day-years.

AD330- Constantine in this year lays the foundations for

his Eastern capital upon the soil of the Greek

colony Byzantium. He names it Constantinople.

The old 'St. Peters' in Rome erected.

AD529-535- the laws of Justinian giving authority to the

bishop of Rome over his rivals for power.Beginn-

ing of 1st application of prophecy of 1260 day-

years of persecution by the established apostacy.

AD604-610- the laws of Phocas giving supreme ecclesias-

tical power to the bishop of Rome. The final rev-

elation of the "man of sin"after another 280 day-

years. Beginning of 2nd application of prophecy

of 1260day-years of persecution by the apostacy.

AD1572-the massacre of St.Bartholomew when the apos-

tacy murdered thousands of dissenters, and also

struck a medal in celebration- thus fulfilling the

1260 years of persecution which began in AD312.

AD1789-1795- the French Revolution which began to dis-

member, as prophesied, the temporal (political)

power of the apostate "church". This ended the

1st period of 1260 years from AD529-535.

AD1864-1870- the dissolution of the temporal (political)

power of the apostate Roman "church" by the

taking away of her 3 states by the new Italian

kingdom. This ended the 2ndperiod of 1260 years

beginning AD604-610. Having lost the power to

persecute, the Roman bishop proclaims his own

infallibility. The "man of sin" is now termed

"the false prophet"- i.e. one who can only falsely

claim to be a teacher, having no power to enforce

his dogmas on others. The above also fulfilled the

first period of 1335 years.

It likewise pre-figured future judgments.

Daniel 2v31-33,40;7v19-26;11v36-38;12v5-13;

2nd Thessalonians 2v1-12;

Revelation 11 &12;13v1-10;16v13,14;17v16.





AD37- "And certain men which came down from Judea"- Acts 15 records the first organized resistance to the purity of the Faith, which has been shown in its various forms to persist until the present time.

The first error involved the placing of redundant laws upon the Gospel, which in its practical effect nullified salvation by faith-

The Truth gradually became further corrupted by the entrance of pagan philosophies, such as:

"immortal souls" origin=Egypt

"the trinity" origin=Babylon

"a fallen-angel devil" origin=Persia




Holy spirit gifts ceased by the early 2nd century AD-  Corrupt evil men then began to usurp power to themselves, becoming "lords over God's heritage" -

Thus began the unscriptural "clergy"/"laity" divide, which persists to this day, to the ruin of the Truth. Contrast Matthew 23v8 -

"But be not ye called Rabbi: for one is your Master, even Christ; and all ye are brethren".



AD37-324-we reproduce comments taken from 'Eureka',

an incomparable exposition of The Apocalypse, by

John Thomas, which summarise this period..

"The invention of this lie (i.e. the teaching of the Judaizers

in Acts 15) was the beginning of troubles to the body of

Christ. Its inventors found their advantage in propagating

it in defiance of the apostles. They made proselytes to their

tradition both among the elders and private members of the

flock; and wherever they succeeded in establishing their in-

fluence, there, and to the same extent, the authority of the

apostles was set aside. They became the adversaries of these

holy and self-denying men, and are therefore styled in the

Apocalypse "the Satan", and their "church", "the syna-

gogue of the Satan"...But others arose after these, and added

new elements to "the lie". Truth is fixed, but lies never di-

minish in circulating, but always increase. Pious Jews began

the work of corrupting the faith; and pious Gentiles, who

had been subverted, added some of their "philosophy" and

"gnosis", or "science falsely so called", to the original stock,

and in their combination, produced what Paul styles, in 2

Thess. 2:7, musterion tes anomias, THE MYSTERY OF IN-

IQUITY. This, he says, was "already working"; and in its

working through Judaizing and philosophizing teachers,

gave him all the trouble and mortification he laments in the

several epistles". 'Eureka', 1861.

Compare Acts 20v17-38; 1st Corinthians 15v1-17; 2nd Cor-

inthians 11v12-28; Galatians 2-5; 2nd Timothy 2; 2nd Peter

2v1-3; 1st John 4v1-6; Jude - whole epistle - & also please





AD300 prayers for the dead

AD300 making the sign of the cross**

AD320 wax candles

AD325 teaching that Christ is equal to God

AD325 "Easter"- from 'Astarte' (pagan goddess )= =

AD325 priests to refuse marriage after "ordination"<<

AD337 sun-god birthday now "Christ-mass"- Julius I= =

AD375 image-worship, veneration of angels, "dead saints"^^

AD381 personality of holy spirit, its equality with God

AD385 married priests' celibacy after "ordination"<<

AD394 beginning of daily "mass"

AD5thC sun-god birthday fixed as "Christ-mass"= =

AD431 exaltation of Mary as "mother of God"^^

AD451 final form of "the trinity"

AD500 priests begin to dress differently to "laymen"

AD526 beginning of "extreme unction"

AD529 prohibition of work on sun-god birthday("Christ-mass")= =

AD593 teaching of purgatory - Gregory I

AD600 latin used in prayer and worship - Gregory I

AD600 prayers directed to Mary, angels and "dead saints"^^

AD607 universal power to Roman bishop - Boniface III

AD709 kissing the Roman bishop's foot

AD727 Roman bishop called "a God upon earth"

AD750 temporal power of Roman bishop

AD787 veneration of images of Christ, Mary, "dead saints"^^

AD850 "holy water" mixed with salt & blessed by a priest

AD890 worship of "St. Joseph"^^

AD927 beginning of "college of cardinals"

AD965 baptism of bells - John XIII

AD995 "canonization" of "dead saints"- John XV^^

AD998 fasting on Fridays and during "Lent"<<

AD11thC "mass" proclaimed "a sacrifice", & obligatory

AD1074 pledge of celibacy demanded of trainee-priests<<

AD1090 "the rosary" (= mechanical prayer via beads)

AD1122 concordat of Worms; Roman bishop & emperor

AD1123 nullification of all clerical marriages<<

AD1184 the first "inquisition"-council of Verona##

AD1190 beginning of sale of "indulgences"<<

AD1215 transubstantiation proclaimed - Innocent III

AD1215 auricular confession of sins to priests by "laity"

AD1220 adoration of the wafer ("host")

AD1229 Bible forbidden to "laymen"

AD1237 Spanish "inquisition" begins - Gregory IX##

AD1251 scapula invented by English monk

AD1252 torture for "heresy" - bull of Innocent IV##

AD1311 final decree substituting "sprinkling" for baptism

AD1416 cup at "communion" forbidden to laity

AD1414-1418 concurrent competing Roman bishops>>

AD1439 "purgatory" proclaimed as dogma

AD1439 doctrine of "seven sacraments"

AD1473 sale of "indulgences" extended to the dead<<

AD1508 the "ave Maria"^^

AD1534 Jesuit order founded by Loyola

AD1545 tradition declared as equal to Bible

AD1546 apocryphal books added to Roman Bible

AD1572 massacre of Huguenots

AD1560 Roman "church" creed against "protestants"

AD1854 "immaculate conception" of Mary proclaimed^^

AD1864 "syllabus of errors" condemning freedoms etc.

AD1870 Roman bishop proclaims own infallibility

AD1908 "inquisition" re-named "holy office"

AD1930 public schools denounced by Roman "church"

AD1941-45 Roman bishop does not condemn holocaust

AD1950 "assumption" (bodily ascent) of Mary^^

AD1962 Rome "welcomes (protestants) as a mother"00



The above is only a selection of the abominations which have been committed..more details may be obtained from 'Vicars of Christ' by Peter de Rosa, first published 1988.



Note – we refuse to refer to the Roman bishop by his more common title, see Matthew 23v9..we also will not allocate to any mortal the reverence due to God alone, Psalm 111v9.




WE HAVE THE CHOICE AS TO WHICH OF THE TWO

'WOMEN' WE SHALL BELONG – LET US CONSIDER: will it be "the great whore..having a golden cup in her hand full of abominations and filthiness of her fornication..drunk-en with the blood of the saints and the martyrs of Jesus"- or will it be "a chaste virgin to Christ…..a glorious ecclesia, not having spot,or wrinkle, or any such thing..holy and with- out blemish..the wife..of the Lamb (who) hath made herself ready"? Rev.17v1,4,6; 2nd Cor.11v2; Eph.5v27; Rev.19v7.

TODAY WE HAVE THAT CHOICE.

Tomorrow it may be too late.

Vaudois or Waldo

THE time? The 12th century C.E.—200 years before Wycliffe and Huss and 300 years before Luther. The place? Southern France and the Alpine valleys of that country and northern Italy. The situation? The common people live in poverty and are purposely kept in ignorance by a rich and often profligate clergy class. In all Europe, the Roman Catholic Church reigns supreme, being powerful, opulent and worldly.

The Catholic Church would like us to forget that seeds of discontent were present within her midst many years before Waldo. For example, Bishop Agobard of Lyons, France (779-840 C.E.), came out strongly against image worship, churches dedicated to saints and church liturgy that was not in line with the Holy Scriptures.

Across the Alps, in Turin, Italy, a contemporary of Agobard, Bishop Claudius, took a similar stand. He condemned prayers to saints, the veneration of relics and the cross and, in general, rejected church tradition as being opposed to the Scriptures. Claudius of Turin has been called “the first Protestant reformer.” He died sometime between 827 and 839 C.E.

In the 11th century archdeacon Bérenger, or Berengarius, of Tours, France, said to be one of the most influential theologians of his time, opposed the dogma of transubstantiation, maintaining that the bread and wine used to commemorate Christ’s death are emblematic and not miraculously changed into the body and blood of Christ. He also upheld the superiority of the Bible over tradition. Bérenger was excommunicated as a heretic in 1050.

Very early in the 12th century two men stand out as prominent dissenters in France. They were Peter of Bruys and Henry of Lausanne. The former began his adult life as a priest in the Alps of southeast France. He soon gave up the priesthood because he disagreed with the church on such important doctrines as infant baptism, transubstantiation, prayers for the dead, worship of the cross and the need for church buildings. Banished from the dioceses of the southern Alps, he preached directly to the people throughout southern France, making many disciples. He was finally burned at the stake at St. Gilles, near Arles, in 1140.

The work of Peter of Bruys was continued by Henry of Lausanne, also called Henry of Cluny. He was a monk who, as early as 1101, had begun speaking out boldly against church liturgy, the corrupt clergy of his day and the religious hierarchy system. He maintained that the Bible is the sole rule of faith and worship. Henry of Lausanne started his preaching at Le Mans, in western France. Expelled from there, he continued his missionary work throughout southern France, eventually meeting up with Peter of Bruys. In 1148 he was arrested and thrown into prison for life. But the ideas of these men spread like wildfire from the southern Alps to the Mediterranean and right across southern France to the Bay of Biscay.

"He that will not swear, or speak evil, or lie, or commit injustice or theft, or give himself up to dissoluteness, or take vengeance on his enemies, is called Vaudois and the cry is 'Death to him'."

IN this poem, "La Nobla Leyczon", of 1100 A.D." we are introduced to the controversial and puzzling religious fraternity of the Vaudois or Waldenses. Traditionally the Waldenses have been considered as originating in the work of Peter Waldo, the merchant of Lyons who gave up a prosperous business career to become a "poor preacher". Yet the "Nobla Leyczon" precedes the birth of Waldo by thirty or forty years, and in libraries of Geneva and Cambridge are documents far earlier than Waldo, dating from early in the twelfth century, mentioning the Vaudois, and giving details from their sermons.

The origins of this interesting movement are uncertain, and scholarly discussion concerning them plagued by bias and controversy. Evidence is confusing and contradictory. Yet some definitive points seem to emerge, the first of which is that while in the 14th century they were found only in a number of remote mountain valleys in the Alps, originally they had been spread more widely in southern Europe. In keeping with the opening quotation, it may be as likely that Peter of Lyons was known as Vaudois or Waldo because of his views as that the church derived its name from him. Many medieval "heresies" were named after their founders but some -- the Albigenses, for example - were derived from particular localities or their manner of life.

It became the custom of later writers on the Vaudois, like Newman and Froom, to develop the theory of a continuous "succession" of evangelical and Biblical Christianity, unperverted by Romish "antichrist", from the apostolic age through them to the sixtcenth-century Reformation. Though in the form presented by these apologists sound evidence is often lacking, and there are important missing links, yet the theory has been, in the writer's opinion, too radically dismissed by some modern scholars. These have sought to connect all medieval "heresies", including that of the Vaudois, with Catharism and Manicheeism and similar "initiation" religions from Bulgaria and the Orient which undoubtedly had a hold on parts of southern Europe in the Middle Ages.(1) Yet, despite the paucity and dubious reliability of much of the evidence, since it derives from bitter enemies, it seems clear that the Vaudois' attitude to Christianity was not mystical and libertine, as with the Cathari for instance, but based on an essentially pious yet commonsense approach to the Bible.


For centuries troops harried the Alpine valleys in their hunt for the outlawed Vaudois. In 1393, Val-Louise was depopulated completely and hundreds of infants suffocated in their cradles. At this date there were adherents scattered over a wide area from Geneva on the north to Arles on the south and from Avignon on the west as far as Venice on the east., But by the fifteenth century the greater number who remained were cooped up in the most inaccessible Alpine fastnesses. There were, however, in the lowlands many cells which persisted stubbornly.

No doubt in an endeavour to obtain protection from the incessant pressure of persecution two of the Vaudois leaders sought alliance with the Swiss national reformers and sections of the community merged into the general reformation movement. The "Valdensian" church which the author found in 1963 in Turin, Italy, appeared indistinguishable from the generality of evangelical Protestant sects. There were many others, however, who found a more amenable spiritual home within the community of Brethren, presently to be considered.

The Vaudois, handicapped by their unacceptable views on the nature of man, God, the church and the future, saw only in the instruction of their families any opportunity for perpetuation. To this end they prepared a "Catechism for the Instruction of Youth". Most significantly it began


Q. If one should demand of you, who you are, what would you answer?

A. A creature of God, reasonable and mortal.



Both words were highly significant. The first was by implication an assertion that their understanding of Christianity was based on common sense exegesis, on the exercise of a person's reasoning faculties, not on blind conformity to authoritarian ecclesiastical decrees. The second speaks for itseIf, its consequence will unfold in due course.

John Milton's Paradise Lost

John Milton's Paradise Lost, with its graphic depictions of a rebellious satan being hurled from Heaven to earth, greatly popularized the image of a personal satan. The visual images conjured up by Milton's poem remain significant in the minds of many to this day, even if they themselves haven't read his epic poem. But its influence has been such over the last few hundred years that many have come to assume that this actually is a reflection of Bible teaching. Let's face it- people adopt their religious ideas more from popular culture, what they see in art, what they hear on the street, how others talk... rather than by reading books by theologians and Bible students. There's no doubt that art played a highly significant role in fixing the idea of a personal satan in peoples' minds- and Paradise Lost played a huge part in this (1). Milton himself admitted that he wrote the poem [among other reasons] in order to "justifie the wayes of God to men" (1.26). And this is a repeated theme we find throughout the whole history of the personal satan idea. It's as if men feel they have to apologize for God, as well as seeking to somehow avoid the difficult fact that the Bible teaches that it is God alone who ultimately allows evil in human life.

But there's another take on Milton. It needs to be remembered that Milton rejected very many standard 'Christian' doctrines- e.g. the trinity, infant baptism, and the immortality of the soul- and despised paid clergy (2). As we note in section 1-5, Isaac Newton came to identical conclusions- and his rejection of those very same mainstream dogmas led him to likewise reject the popular idea of a personal devil, and rediscover the Biblical definition of satan as simply an 'adversary', with especial reference to the adversary of human temptation and sin. We can therefore reasonably speculate that Milton did the same. John Rumrich has developed this possibility at great length, leading to the suggestion that in fact the whole of Paradise Lost is Milton poking fun at the bizarre requirements of the personal Devil myth, taking the whole idea to its logical conclusions. Hence Rumrich calls for a radical reinterpretation of what Paradise Lost is really all about (3). After all, there is a huge contrast between the enormous power and intelligence of the supposed Devil- and his very dumb behaviour, in [supposedly] committing the sins of envy and pride, thus leading to his downfall. Surely such a highly intelligent creature wouldn't have fallen into such a simple sin?

Milton's theological treatise De Doctrina Christiana cites Isaiah 45:6,7 ("I am the Lord and there is no other; I make the light, I create darkness...") as evidence against both a trinity of gods, and a personal devil. Milton concluded: "These words preclude the possibility, not only of there being any other God, but also of there being any person, of any kind, equal to him... it is intolerable and incredible that an evil power should be stronger than good and should prove the supreme power" (4). In that treatise, Milton also commends George Herbert's statement that "devils are our sins in perspective", and throughout his whole attempt at a systematic theology in the book, Milton never actually says that he agrees with the popular view of satan. We have shown elsewhere in this book that the common Christian view of Satan derived from a mistaken Jewish view of Satan, which in turn had been influenced by the surrounding cultures with which they mixed. One wonders whether Milton recognized that by the way in which he names Satan's cabinet after the titles of the gods believed in by the nations which so influenced Israel- Moloch, Chemosh, Baalim, Astaroth, Asorteth, Astarte, Thammuz, Dagon, Rimmon, Osiris, Isis, Horus, Belial etc. As a Bible student, Milton was surely fully aware that the Bible mentions these gods and defines them as 'no-gods', as non existent.

All these points pale into into insignificance before the simple fact that in his De Doctrina Christiana, and as commented in by the scholars in footnote (2) below, Milton rejects the idea of immortal souls and understands hell as the grave, as we do in section 2-5. Yet the first two books of Paradise Lost are all about the popular concept of hell as a place of torment. Milton gives us a guided tour as it were through nine supposed circles of hell. How are we to square this difference between his poetry and his personal theological beliefs? The obvious conclusion would surely be that he is over painting the popular conception of hell in a sarcastic way, as if to say: "If this place really exists, well, is this what it's supposed to be like?". He's thus cocking a snook at the popular idea by taking it to its logical conclusions- and it's likely that he does the same with the related issue of Satan.

It must be understood that departure from the doctrinal position of the popular church in those times was a risky business- it had to be done discreetly, especially by people of any standing in society like Milton and Newton. This fact, to me at least, makes it more likely that Milton was exaggerating and developing the bizarre implications of God as it were getting into a fight with an Angel, in order to reveal to the thoughtful reader how wrong the idea was. Stanley Fish argues that it was a feature of Milton to write in a highly deceptive way, using his skill as an author to show how the meaning he has set up for some phrases is actually the very opposite (5). An example is the way Milton promotes one of the 'hard questions' about the devil myth: If Adam sinned but could repent, why could not satan and the supposed fallen angels also repent? Thus Milton observes: "Man therefore shall find grace / The other [i.e. satan] none" (3.131). This is one of the many contradictions I've listed in section 3-2 as examples of the mass of logical and Biblical problems created by the personal satan idea. At times, Milton appears almost sarcastic about the existence of Satan as the "Leviathan" sea monster of the book of Job- Book 1.192-212 presents this beast as a myth believed in by sailors, who at times bumped into him, assuming he was an island, and cast their anchor "in his scaly rind"- "in bulk as huge as whom the fables name of monstrous size" (1.196,197). But this may be beyond sarcasm- Milton posits here that Satan is "as huge" as the fables paint him to be. Milton could be saying: "Is this, then, the creature your fables lead you to believe in?". In line with this, consider the connections between Milton and Dante which have been traced and analyzed by many scholars. The similarities between Milton's Paradise Lost and Dante's The Divine Comedy are apparent. Perhaps research waits to be done on whether Dante too wasn't using an element of sarcasm in his presentation of Satan- he does, after all, title his work "The Divine Comedy", as if he didn't intend the images he painted to be taken literally.

In more recent times, Soviet writers who wished to criticize the system, or those living in any repressive regime, always wrote in such a way that it appeared on the surface that they were towing the party line- only the reflective would grasp that actually the subtext of their work was a violent denial of it all. It seems likely that Milton was doing the same. And yet, the fact is that most people read literature and indeed receive any art form on a surface level; they so often 'don't get' what the artist is really trying to convey. And so images of satan being hurled over the battlements of Heaven remain in the popular consciousness as a result of Milton's epic and graphic story about 'satan'. As Neil Forsyth concludes: "So compelling is the character of Satan in Paradise Lostthat generations of English speakers, knowing their Milton better than their Bible, have assumed that Christianity teaches an elaborate story about the fall of the angels after a war in heaven, and have been surprised to find no mention of Satan in the Book of Genesis" (6). G.B. Caird concludes likewise: "The Bible knows nothing of the fall of Satan familiar to readers of Paradise Lost" (7). Whether these authorities agree or not isn't of course the point; but I reference them to show that the thesis developed throughout this book is not original, and that many respected scholars and thinkers have come to similar conclusions.

Milton, Goethe And Mary Shelley

I see a similarity between Milton's approach and that of J.W. von Goethe in his Faust. Goethe's Devil, Mephistopheles, has become a highly influential image in the minds of many who believe in a personal Satan. But Goethe "always vehemently denied the literal existence of the Christian Devil" (8). He brings out the tension between the ideas of God's will always being done, and the supposed existence of Satan- "he is an invitation to the reader to face the multiplicity of reality" (9). But as with Milton, I submit, Goethe's presentation of a personal Devil is too convincing for the surface reader and those who never read the book but are influenced by the associated images associated with it.

The same goes for Mary Shelley's Frankenstein. Her husband Percy Shelley had openly mocked the idea of a supernatural Devil, as we commented upon in section 3-2 and section 1-4. And Mary Shelley clearly has an ironic intention in her novel- the source of evil is presented as being in the humans who created the Frankenstein monster, rather than in the monster himself. Significantly, she pictures her Frankenstein as teaching himself to read from Paradise Lost- as if she recognized the extent to which Milton's epic had influenced the perception of the Devil as a grotesque monster; Paradise Lost , according to Mary Shelley, had even influenced Satan's own self-perception.

Milton, T.S. Elliot And The Christadelphians

The Christadelphians, along with their adjunct Carelinks Ministries, are the only significant sized denomination to formally reject the existence of a superhuman Satan as an article of faith. Their beliefs are summarized in their booklet, The Declaration. The following personal anecdote from Ted Russell, former lecturer in English at the University of Western Sydney, Australia, is interesting confirmation of what we have suggested above: "There is something interesting about John Milton which concerns Christadelphians. When we were in Birmingham in 1956 we asked John Carter [late editor of The Christadelphian magazine] a question. We had been to visit John Milton’s cottage in Buckinghamshire: “Why does the mantle shelf over the fireplace in John Milton’s cottage have a brass plate on it, on which are the words “John Milton... A kind of Christadelphian”, attributed to T. S. Elliot? There were no Christadelphians around at the time he was writing”. “Ah, we know about that,” John Carter said, “We are aware that John Milton had the same ideas as we have about Satan and many other things. Milton was a kind of Christadelphian, for he believed as we believe, and in fact there is mention of him and that fact on the inside back cover of The Declaration”. The point is not so much that we recognize Milton, or not, but that T.S. Elliot recognized the connection between Milton and the Christadelphians... This is why T.S. Eliot in studying and understanding Milton‘s poetry as being figure, and not literal, became aware of Milton’s real religious beliefs on the subject in “Paradise Lost” and realized that he was “a kind of Christadelphian” although Milton lived 200 years before Christadelphians were formed" (10).

Notes

(1) See Luther Link, The Devil: The Archfiend In Art (London: Reaktion Books, 1995).

(2) As documented in Stephen Dobranski and John Rumrich, Milton And Heresy (Cambridge: C.U.P., 1998). For Milton's non-trinitarian views, see Michael Bauman, Milton's Arianism (Bern: Lang, 1987) and W.B. Hunter, C.A. Patrides and J.H. Adamson, Bright Essence: Studies In Milton's Theology (Salt Lake City: University Of Utah Press, 1971).

(3) John Rumrich, Milton Unbound: Controversy And Reinterpretation (Cambridge: C.U.P., 1996).

(4) From The Complete Prose Works of John Milton edited by Maurice Kelley (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1982) Vol. 6 pp. 300, 131.

(5) Stanley Fish, Surprised By Sin (London: Macmillan, 1997) p. 215.

(6) Neil Forsyth, The Satanic Epic (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2003) p. 66.

(7) G.B. Caird, The Revelation (London: A. & C. Black, 1984) p. 153.

(8) J.B Russell, The Devil (Ithaca: Cornell University Press 1977) p. 158.

(9) See J.K. Brown, Goethe's Faust: The German Tragedy (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1986).

(10) Email received from Ted Russell, 1/1/2007.

John Milton On Theology

Milton embraced many heterodox Christian theological views. He has been accused of rejecting the Trinity, believing instead that the Son was subordinate to the Father, a position known as Arianism; and his sympathy or curiosity was probably engaged by Socinianism: in August 1650 he licensed for publication by William Dugard the Racovian Catechism, based on a non-trinitarian creed.[71][72] Milton's alleged Arianism, like much of his theology, is still subject of debate and controversy. Rufus Wilmot Griswold argued that "In none of his great works is there a passage from which it can be inferred that he was an Arian; and in the very last of his writings he declares that "the doctrine of the Trinity is a plain doctrine in Scripture."[73] In Areopagitica, Milton classified Arians and Socinians as "errorists" and "schismatics" alongside Arminians and Anabaptists.[74] A source has interpreted him as broadly Protestant, if not always easy to locate in a more precise religious category.


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Milton#Theology



On the soul[edit]


Milton believed in the idea of soul sleeping or mortalism, which determines that the soul, upon death, is in a sleep like state until the Last Judgment.[8] Similarly, he believed that Christ, when incarnated, merged his divine and human identities, and that both of these identities died during his Crucifixion.[9] With such views on the nature of the human body and the soul, there is no possibility of a state of existence between death and the resurrection, and concepts such as Purgatory are outright denied. However, these views are not standard Calvinistic interpretations, but his views on what happens after the resurrection are orthodox Calvinistic doctrine: Christ, during the resurrection, would raise man up higher than the state he was in before the fall.[10]






https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religious_views_of_John_Milton#Views

Protestant Reformer Martin Luther conditional immortality

Church Father Martin Luther's belief in conditional immortality and soul sleep

In contrast to the views of John Calvin  throughout his life Luther maintained that it was not false doctrine to believe that a Christian's soul sleeps after it is separated from the body in death; and, accordingly, he disputed traditional interpretations of some Bible passages, such as the parable of the rich man and Lazarus.

 This also led Luther to reject the idea of torments for the saints: "It is enough for us to know that souls do not leave their bodies to be threatened by the torments and punishments of hell, but enter a prepared bedchamber in which they sleep in peace." 

He also rejected the existence of Purgatory, which involved Christian souls undergoing penitential suffering after death.

And that is exactly what the Bible teaches. It states that in the beginning “man came to be a living soul,” not that he received a soul. Just as there is a great difference between having a wife and being a wife so there is a great difference between having a soul and being a soul.

Also, the Bible tells us that “the soul that is sinning—it itself will die.” So it could not be immortal. Further, God’s Word shows that the dead “are conscious of nothing at all.” That is why the Bible speaks of death as ‘sleep.’

Interestingly, Martin Luther taught that believers who died were unconscious until the resurrection.—Gen. 2:7; Ezek. 18:4, 20; Eccl. 9:5; 1 Cor. 15:20; 1 Thess. 4:13.

Martin Luther wrote concerning the word for soul in Biblical Hebrew: “It refers not only to a part of man, as we Germans speak of the soul, but it refers to the whole man as he exists with his five senses and as he maintains himself with meat and drink.”

Luther placed the doctrine of immortality of the soul among the “endless monstrous fictions in the Roman [Catholic] rubbish heap of decretals.”

From Paulicians to Albigensian

Now, the Puritan Woman, styled by her enemies and persecutors "the Donatists;" but by the children of her body, Cathari, or the Pure Ones; for the first 1260 years of her existence was Providentially settled in the wings of the Roman Eagle. Her remnants were not to be found in Persia, India, China, or America: but after the discovery and settlement of America, the persecutions and massacre of her seed by the Serpent-Powers of Europe caused her to seek refuge in the American wilderness, whereby the help of "the earth," which styles itself "the unterrified democracy," she is fed and nourished to the full.

"The most furious and desperate of rebels," says Gibbon, "are the sectaries of a religion long persecuted, and at length provoked. In a holy cause they are no longer susceptible of fear or remorse; the justice of their arms hardens them against the feelings of humanity; and they revenge their father's wrongs on the children of their tyrants." Such were the Circumcellions of Africa, the peasants of Paphlagonia, and such in the ninth century were the popular sympathizers with the Paulicians of Armenia and the adjacent provinces.

History styles these sympathizers Paulicians; but history is written by men who are ignorant of the principles of the doctrine of Christ, and are the enemies of "the remnants of the woman's seed, who keep the commandments of the Deity, and hold the testimony of Jesus the anointed." These are neither fanatics, nor furious and desperate rebels; neither are they hardened against the feelings of humanity, nor do they seek to avenge themselves; for this they are strictly forbidden to do by Him who says, "vengeance is mine; I will repay". The furious and desperate fanatics, steeled against the Divine law and the feelings of humanity, are the serpents, the generation of vipers, in place or power, "the spirituals of the wickedness in the heavenlies," who counsel and execute the sanguinary ferocity of the Dragon and the Beast. Providence has graciously and mercifully arranged that these insatiable shedders of the blood of His saints shall be fiercely antagonized by the indignant hatred of tyranny, and the love of civil and religious liberty, common to the Scripturally enlightened of mankind; for men may have light enough to discern the folly, and hypocrisy, and diabolism, incorporated in Church and State, and yet be very far from an intelligent belief of "the truth as it is in Jesus" by which alone they can be saved.

Of this earthly class were the "Paulicians," so called, who revolted and warred against the Constantinopolitan Catholic Dragon, A.D. 845-880. They were the militant Paulicians of the pike and gun, stirred up to deeds of blood and valor by the cruel torments of the clergy, in defense of the spiritual and real disciples of the apostle Paul, whose only fight was "the good fight of faith." This thirty-five years of Paulician warfare with the Dragon was "the earth running with help to the woman, and opening her mouth to swallow up the flood cast out of the Dragon's Mouth." They were first awakened to inflict death upon a governor and a bishop, who lent themselves to execute the imperial mandate for the conversion and destruction of "heretics." A more dangerous and consuming flame was kindled by Theodora's persecution, and the revolt of Carbeas, a valiant sympathizer, who commanded the imperial guards of the General of the East. His father had been skinned alive by the Catholic Inquisitors. This horrible cruelty determined him to abandon the service of the Dragon. Five thousand sympathizers joined him in renouncing their allegiance to anti-christian Rome, and in forming an alliance against her with the Saracen "Commander of the Faithful." "During more than thirty years," says Gibbon, "Asia was afflicted by the calamities of foreign and domestic war; in their hostile inroads the disciples of St. Paul were joined with those of Mohammed; and the peaceful christians, the aged parent and tender virgin (the besotted catholics) who were delivered into barbarous servitude, might justly accuse the intolerant spirit of their sovereign. So urgent was the mischief, so intolerable the shame, that Michael was compelled to march in person against the Paulicians: he was defeated under the walls of Samosata: and the Roman emperor fled before the heretics whom his mother Theodora had condemned to the flames." The valor and ambition of Chrysocheir, successor to Carbeas, embraced a wider circle of rapine and revenge. In alliance with his faithful anti-catholic Moslems, he boldly penetrated into the heart of Asia Minor. These were the times of the Moslem Woe, in which the catholics were "tormented with the torment of a scorpion when he striketh a man." "The men who had the seal of Deity in their foreheads," the Paulicians, were "not hurt" by it; but, as we see, were defended by the Moslem Locusts, who, as the sword of Deity, avenged them upon "the shaven crowns" whose skulls they cleft without mercy. "In those days they sought death (or the political extinction of the State, which would relieve them of those tormenting inroads), but they found it not; and they desired to die, but the death fled from them" (Apoc. 9:4-6). The Dragon legions were repeatedly overthrown, and his edicts of persecution were responded to by the pillage of Nice and Nicomedia, of Ancyra, and Ephesus, whose cathedral was turned into a stable for mules and horses; and the Paulician sympathizers vied with the Saracens in evincing their contempt and abhorrence of the idols and relics of catholic superstition.

This was a righteous retribution encouraging to behold. Truly, as Gibbon remarks, "it is not unpleasing to observe the triumph of rebellion over the same despotism which has disdained the prayers of an in-jured people." The dragon was reduced to sue for peace, to offer ransom for catholic captives, and to request, in the language of moderation and charity, that Chrysocheir would spare his fellow-christians, and content himself with a royal donation of gold and silver and silk garments. "If the emperor," replied the Paulician defender, "be desirous of peace, let him abdicate the East, and reign without molestation in the West. If he refuse, the servants of the Lord will precipitate him from his throne." But the time for the fall of the Eastern Roman Empire had not yet arrived. The emperor Basil the Macedonian accepted Chrysocheir's' defiance, and led his army into "the land of heresy," which he wasted with fire and sword.

With the death of Chrysocheir the power of the Paulicians' defenders declined. About the middle of the eighth century, Constantine Copronymus had transplanted many of the Paulicians from the Euphrates to Constantinople and Thrace; and by this emigration their doctrine was introduced and diffused in Europe. The Paulicians of Thrace struck their roots deeply into this foreign soil, where they resisted the storms of persecution, maintained a secret correspondence with their Armenian brethren, and gave aid and comfort to their preachers, who labored, not without success, among the Bulgarians. They were restored and multiplied by a more powerful colony of Paulicians transpiated A. D. 970, by John Zimisces, from Armenia to Thrace. Their exile to this country was softened by a free toleration. They held the city of Philippopolis, and the keys of Thrace; the catholics were their subjects; they occupied a line of villages and castles in Macedonia and Epirus; "and many native Bulgarians," says Gibbon, "were associated to the communion of arms and heresy." As long as these Thraco-Bulgarian Circumcel lions "the Earth," were awed by power and treated with moderation, they were distinguished in the Dragon armies as volunteers; and the courage of these "dogs ever greedy of war and thirsty of human blood," is noticed with astonishment, and almost with, reproach, by the pusillanimous Greeks. The same spirit rendered them arrogant and contumacious; they were easily provoked by caprice or injury; and their privileges were often violated by the faithless bigotry of the Dragon- government and clergy. The emperor Alexius Comnenus undertook to proselyte them to the reigning superstition. Those of their leaders who were contumacious were secured in a dungeon, or banished; but their lives were spared by the prudence, rather than the mercy, of the emperor, at whose command a poor and solitary heretic was burnt alive before the cathedral of St. Sophia.

But the proud hope of eradicating the faith and testimony of the remnant was speedily overturned by "the invincible zeal of the Paulicians," who ceased to dissemble, or refused to obey. After the death of Alexius, they soon resumed their civil and religious laws. In the beginning of the thirteenth century their head-quarters were on the confines of Bulgaria, Croatia, and Dalmatia, with which filial relations were maintained by the Paulician congregations of France and Italy. In the eleventh and twelfth centuries they found great favor and success in these countries, which Gibbon says, "must be imputed to the strong, though secret, discontent which armed the most pious christians (catholics) against the Church of Rome," now in the seventh century of its legal supremacy over all the spiritual affairs of the Great Roman Eagle. "Her avarice," he continues, "was oppressive, her .despotism odious; less degenerate, perhaps, than the Greeks in the worship of saints and images, her innovations were more rapid and scandalous: she had rigorously defined and imposed the doctrine of transubstantiation; the lives of the Latin clergy were more corrupt, and the eastern bishops might pass for the successors of the apostles, if they were compared with the lordly prelates, who wielded by turns the crosier, the scripture, and the sword."

Under the Constantinopolitan standard, the Paulicians were often transported to the Greek provinces of Italy and Sicily: in peace and war they and their sympathizers of "the earth," who were confounded with them under the same name, freely conversed with strangers and natives, and their views were silently propagated in Rome, Milan, and the newly-arisen Ten-Horn kingdoms of the Beast beyond the Alps. It was soon discovered, that many thousand catholics of every rank, and of either sex, had embraced the "heresy" of Paul; and the flames that consumed twelve cathedral priests of Orleans was the first act and signal of persecution in the West. "They spared their branches," says Gibbon, "over the face of Europe." United in common hatred of idolatry and Rome; they were connected by an ecclesiastical organization of over-seers and presbyteries, usually styled elders and pastors. The French called them "Bulgarians" by way of reproach, meaning thereby "unnatural sinners". Their catholic enemies also falsely styled them Manichaeans, and charged them with contempt of the Old Testament, and the denial of the body of Christ, either on the cross or in the bread and wine. They repudiated the catholic dogmas connected with the cross and eucharist; but they took both bread and wine, discerning by "the testimony of the anointed Jesus which they held," the representation therein of his broken body and blood, shed for remission of the sins of the many (Matt. 26:28). "A confession of simple worship and blameless manners," says Gibbon, "is extorted from their enemies; and so high was their standard of perfection, that the increasing congregations were divided into two classes of disciples, of those, who practised, and those who aspired. It was in the country of the Albigeois, in the southern provinces of France, that the Paulicians were most deeply implanted; and the same vicissitudes of massacre and uprising of "the Earth" which had been displayed in the neighborhood of the Euphrates, were repeated in the thirteenth century on the banks of the Rhone. The laws of the Constantinopolitan Dragon and Serpent were revived by Frederick the Second, the reigning emperor of the Two-Horned Beast of the Earth, which "spake as a Dragon" (Apoc. 13:11). The barons and cities of Languedoc were "the earth that ran with help for the Woman: and Pope Innocent the Third surpassed the sanguinary and murderous renown of the ferocious Theodora. It was in cruelty alone that her soldiers could equal the Crusaders; and the cruelty of her priests was far excelled by the founders of the Inquisition. The visible assemblies of the Albigensian Paulicians were extirpated with fire and sword; and "the bleeding remnant" escaped by flight, concealment, or conformity to the hated superstition of the destroyer. But the invincible spirit which they had kindled still lived and breathed in the western world. A latent succession was preserved of "the disciples of St. Paul," who protested against the tyranny of Rome, and embraced the Bible as the rule of faith.

Thus, I have briefly tracked "the remnants of the woman's seed," under the names of Novatians, Donatists, Aerians, Paulicians and Albigenses, through a long and sanguinary period of sack-cloth-witnessing of a thousand years, against the Apostasy as by law established in "the two Wings of the Great Eagle." In this weary and heart-rending journey, we have visited the Roman Africa, Armenia, Asia Minor, Thrace, Bulgaria, and working our way up the Danube, crossed the Alps into Italy and France. But how changed is the constitution of "the Great Eagle" at the close of this Millennium of Blood! When the remnants of the Woman's seed began their anti-catholic witnessing in the African Wing, the great eagle was subject only to "the Dragon the old Serpent," enthroned in Constantinople. Then there was no Pope of Rome; no Ten-Horned Beast of the Sea; no Two-Horned Beast of the Earth; nor any Image of the Beast. Then, the simple inquiry was, "Who is like the Dragon? who is able to make war with him?" for in those days they all "worshipped the Dragon," in all the length and breadth of the Roman world. But now, in the twelfth century, we stand in the Alpine regions of France and Italy as witnesses "before the god of the earth" (Apoc. 11:4); a god unknown to the Dragon in the epoch of the woman's flight, A.D. 315-345, and his pagan predecessors, in whose times he was but the simple OVERSEER of an ecclesia in Rome. But, ere this century, he had long become a god by the grace and power of the Dragon, who had bestowed upon him "his power, and his throne, and great authority" (Apoc. 13:2). And besides this, in surveying the subjacent landscape from the Alpine heights, we see the Beast of the Earth and the Beast of the Sea intensely catholic and hostile to "the commandments of the Deity and the testimony of the anointed Jesus". Whence came these dominions? They are the results of the outpouring of the Divine wrath upon the Dragon, in retribution of his catholic worship of daimonia and idols, and of the murders, sorceries, fornications and thefts of his clergy (Apoc. 9:20,21); in other words, they are the results of the sounding of the wind-trumpets in answer to the prayers of "the remnants of the woman's seed," which, as "much incense," ascended, through their Golden Intercessor, before the throne (Apoc. 8:3,4).

But, while we have been making this millennial tour through the Wings of the Great Eagle, has it been all peace and spiritual tranquillity in the interior regions? No; from time to time, reformers started up amidst the catholics themselves; and, as pioneers, prepared the ground for more advanced believers to cultivate and sow with the incorruptible seed. Of these pioneers was Claude, Catholic bishop of Turin, ap-pointed to that See by Charlemagne. He was in high repute for his knowledge of the Scriptures and his first-rate talents as a preacher; in consequence of which, says the Abbe Eleury, "the French monarch being apprised of the deplorable state of darkness in which a great part of Italy was involved in reference to the doctrines of the gospel, and anxious to provide the churches of Piedmont with a teacher who might counteract the growing rage for image-worship, appointed Claude to the See of Turin, about A.D. 817." Though he died the catholic bishop of Turin, he is regarded as the spiritual father of the "meek confessors of Piedmont," who seceded from the catholic church, and became for many centuries a remnant of the woman's seed. Claude continued his zealous anti-Romish labors until A.D. 839, by which time the valleys of Piedmont were filled with his disciples; and, says Jones, "While a night of awful darkness sat brooding on almost every other part of Europe, the inhabitants of Piedmont preserved the gospel among them in its native simplicity, and rejoiced in the healing beams of the Sun of righteousness".

In the tenth century, that is, from A.D. 900 to A.D. 1000, there were thirty occupants of "St. Peter's Chair." When describing this period Mosheim says: "The history of the Roman pontiffs who lived in this century, is the history of so many monsters and not of men, and exhibits a horrible series of the most flagitious, tremendous and complicated crimes, as all writers, even those of the Romish communion, unanimously confess". In this dismal period, the clergy was, for the most part, composed of a most worthless set of men, shamefully illiterate and stupid; ignorant, more especially in religious matters; equally enslaved to sensuality and superstition, and capable of the most abominable and flagitious deeds.



To stem this torrent of corruption, there appeared in the south of France, in the province of Languedoc and Provence, one Peter de Bruys, about A.D. 1110. He was the founder of the petrobrusians(*). His labors were successful. He taught that "the ordinance of baptism should be administered only to adults; that it was a piece of idle superstition to build and dedicate churches to the service of God, who, in worship, has peculiar respect to the state of the heart, and who cannot be worshipped with temples made with hands; that crucifixes are objects of superstition, and ought to be destroyed; that in the Lord's Supper the real body and blood of Christ were not partaken by the communicants, but only represented in the way of symbol or figure; and, lastly, that the oblatons, prayers and good works of the living, can in no way be beneficial to the dead".

A few years after the decease of Peter de Bruys, an Italian by birth, generally styled Henry of Toulouse, arose to bear witness against the corruptions of the time. He declaimed with fervid vehemence against the vices of the clergy and the superstitions they invented. He rejected the baptism of infants; treated the festivals and ceremonies of the catholic church with the utmost contempt, and held clandestine assemblies, in which he explained and inculcated the doctrine he set forth.

Contemporary with Henry, and eight years his survivor, was Arnold of Brescia, who from A.D. 1147 to 1155, bearded the papal lion in his den. He was inferior to Peter de Bruys and Henry, neither in fortitude nor zeal, while in learning and talent he excelled them both. The zeal of this daring reformer was first directed against the wealth and luxury of the Romish clergy. He charged upon them most of the corruptions that disgraced religion, and called upon them to renounce their usurped possessions, and to lead a frugal and abstemious life on the voluntary contributions of the people. The inhabitants of Brescia revered him as the apostle of religious liberty, and rose in rebellion against their accredited bishop. Driven by persecution from place to place, he determined on the desperate experiment of fixing the standard of revolt in the very heart of Rome.

He was the Garibaldi of the twelfth century. For a time he found protectors among the nobility and gentry. He harangued the populace with his usual fervor, and inspired them with such a regard for their civil and ecclesiastical rights, that a complete revolution was effected in the city. The papal Pontifex Maximus struggled in vain against this invasion of his power, and at last sunk under the pressure of calamity. His successors, Celestine and Lucius, were unable to check the popular frenzy. The leaders of the insurrection waited upon Licius, demanded the restitution of the civil rights which had been usurped from the people, and insisted that he and the clergy should trust only for their stipends to the pious offerings of the faithful, as at the beginning. The pope survived this astounding demand only a few days, when he was succeeded by Eugenius III., who, dreading the mutinous spirit of the inhabitants, withdrew from Rome, and was "consecrated" in a neighboring fortress.

Arnold, who had withdrawn from Rome during this extraordinary insurrection, hearing of the escape of the newly-elected pope, repaired once more to the city, and animated with fresh vigor the energies of the populace. He called to their remembrance the achievements of their ancestors, and painted in the strongest colors the sufferings which sprung from ecclesiastical tyranny. He charged them never to admit the pontiff within their walls till they had prescribed the limits of his spiritual jurisdiction, and fixed the civil government in their own hands. The passions of the populace were aroused by these harangues; and, headed by the disaffected nobles, they attacked the cardinals and other ecclesiastics, set fire to the palaces, and compelled the inhabitants to swear allegiance to the new constitution.

The excesses of this ungovernable mob, "the Earth," stirred up all the wrath of "the successor of St. Peter;" who, placing himself at the head of his troops, marched against the city, into which he was admitted after making some trifling concessions. The friends of Arnold were nevertheless still numerous, and for ten or a dozen years they "shut the heaven," or continued to agitate the city. It was not till A.D. 1154, that anything like a settled peace was established. The presence of Arnold and his witnessing brethren in the very face, as it were of "the god of the earth" was the cause of all this tumult. For it was their mission to agitate the waters, and "to shut the heaven, that it rain not in their days of the prophecy; and to turn the waters into blood, and to smite the earth with all plagues as often as they willed" (Apoc. 11:6). But at this date, a riot having ensued, Adrian IV. placed the city under an interdict, and from Christmas to Easter deprived it of all catholic worship. This gave a sudden turn to the public mind. Arnold and his friends were expelled from the city, and fled for protection to the Viscount of Campania. Thither the vengeance of the pope pursued them, and he instigated Frederick Barbarossa to force Arnold from his asylum in his territories. Immediately after this he was seized by Cardinal Gerard and burned at the stake, in the midst of the fickle populace, who gazed with stupid indifference on the bold and valiant champion who had fallen in defence of their dearest rights, and whom they had regarded with the highest veneration.

"We may truly say," says Dr. Allix, "that scarcely any man was ever so torn and defamed on account of his doctrine as was this Arnold of Brescia. It was because, with all his power, he opposed the tyranny and usurpation which the popes began to establish over the temporal jurisdiction of the kings of the earth. He was the man who by his counsel renewed the design of re-establishing the authority of the Senate of Rome, and of compelling the pope not to meddle with anything but what con-cerned the government of the church, without invading the temporal jurisdiction; this was his crime, and this, indeed, is such a one as is unpardonable with the pope, if there be any such".

Though Arnold, like Garibaldi, was a zealous anti-papist, there is no proof of his belonging to "the Holy City;" but much presumptive evidence that he did not. He was a strenuous advocate of civil and religious liberty, and heretical according to the catholic standard of orthodoxy. But he might be all this, and yet not a christian of the New Testament type. However, he was enlightened enough to impugn the dogma of transubstantiation, and to deny that baptism should be administered to infants. And this alone in catholic judgment was sufficient ground for his condemnation.

The memory of Arnold was long and fondly cherished by his countrymen, and his tragical end occasioned murmurs both loud and deep. His murder was regarded as the act of the Bishop of Rome and his clergy. Arnold's friends, who were numerous, separated themselves from communion with the pope's church, and by the name of Arnoldists long continued to bear their testimony against its numerous abominations, as another of "the remnants of the woman's seed".

A multitude of converts in all the southern provinces of France, and the states of Italy, resulted from the able and faithful labors of these three men. When it became aware of it, the Court of Rome became alarmed, and resorted to torture and destruction for the suppression and extermination of them, as heretics that troubled the church, or "tormented them that dwelt upon the earth" (Apoc. 11:10). "It made war upon them," and ultimately "overcame them, and killed them" (v.7; 13:7); for what was deemed a good and sufficient reason, namely, their tormenting testimony, styled by the catholic destroyer, "HERESY." The following extract from Venema's Ecclesiastical History will serve to show in what their heresy consisted:

"The chief articles of their heresy," says he, "were the following:

That the Holy Scriptures were the only source of faith and religion, without regard to the authority of the fathers and tradition; and although they principally used the New Testament, yet, as Usher proves from Reinier and others, they regarded the Old also as canonical scripture. From their greater use of the New Testament, however, their adversaries took occasion to charge them with despising the Old.
They held the entire faith, according to all the articles of the apostles' creed.
They rejected all the external rites of the dominant church, except baptism and the Lord's Supper; such as temples, vestures, images, crosses, the religious worship of holy relics, and the remaining sacraments, confirmation, penance, holy orders, matrimony, and extreme unction; "these they considered as inventions of Satan and the flesh, and full of superstition.
They rejected purgatory, with masses and prayers for the dead, acknowledging only two terminations of the present state - heaven and hell; but in what sense of these terms, Venema says not.
They admitted no indulgences, nor confessions of sin, with any of their consequences, except mutual confessions of the faithful for instruction and consolation.
They held the sacraments of baptism and the eucharist only as signs, denying the corporeal presence of Christ in the eucharist, as we find in the book of this sect concerning Antichrist, and as Ebrard of Bethunia accuses them in his book against heresies.
They held only three ecclesiastical orders - bishops, priests or presbyters, and deacons - and that the remainder were human figments: that monasticism or monkery was a putrid carcass, and was the invention of men; and that the marriage of the clergy was lawful and necessary.
Finally, they asserted the Roman Church to be the Whore of Babylon; and denied obedience to the pope or bishops, and that the pope had any authority over other churches, or the power of either the civil or ecclesiastical sword".
Towards the end of the twelfth century heresy of this sort grew apace; for a new impulse was given to it by the labors of another enterprising witness against Rome, named PETER WALDO of Lyons. He was an opulent merchant, whose attention was drawn to the Holy Scriptures, which he was able to read for himself in the Latin Vulgate, the only edition of the Bible at that time in Europe. From the Scriptures alone he obtained the knowledge of the way of salvation; and being enlightened in this, he began to teach it to his neighbors. He felt the necessity of their having the word in their own tongue; he therefore, rendered the four testimonies for Jesus into French. This accomplished, he proceeded to expound their contents. Reinerius Saccho, a Romish Inquisitor, says of him, that "being somewhat learned, he taught the people the text of the New Testament in their mother tongue". "His kindness to the poor," says one of the Magdeburgh Centuriators, "being diffused, his love of teaching, and their love of learning, grew stronger and stronger, so that great crowds came to him, to whom he explained the scriptures. He was himself a man of learning; nor was he obliged to employ others to translate for him, as his enemies affirm." Be this as it may, the inhabitants of Europe were indebted to him for the first translation of the Bible into a modern tongue since the time that the Latin had ceased to be a living language - a gift of inestimable value to all who spoke French.

Animated with an enlightened zeal, he repudiated all the dogmas, rites, and ceremonies of human invention; and lifted up his voice like a trumpet against the arrogance of the pope arid the reigning vices of the clergy. In short, he seems to have taught the truth in its simplicity, while he exhibited in his own example its excellency, and labored most assiduously to demonstrate the difference between the teaching of the New Testament and that of the blasphemous clergy of the Latin church.

These proceedings of Waldo were reported to the Archbishop of Lyons, who became very indignant. He forbade Peter to teach any more on pain of excommunication, and of being proceeded against as a heretic. But Waldo belonging to a remnant of the woman's seed, was not to be silenced by archiepiscopal authority. He replied, that though a layman, he could not be silent in a matter which concerned his fellow-creatures. Attempts were presently made to apprehend him, but without success: so that he lived concealed in Lyons for a space of three whole years. At the end of these, pope Alexander III. hearing of his doings, anathematized both him and his adherents. The shepherd and his flock were therefore scattered abroad, and like the faithful in Jerusalem on the death of Stephen, "went everywhere preaching the word" (Acts 8:4). Waldo retired into Dauphine, where he preached with great success. Persecuted from place to place, he next retired into Picardy. Driven from thence, he proceeded into Germany, carrying along with him "the testimony of the anointed Jesus." He at length settled in Bohemia, about A.D. 1184, where he continued witnessing until death.

His followers were chiefly called "Leonists," after the city of Lyons, where he commenced his labors: they were also frequently designated "the Poor of Lyons". Numbers of his disciples fled for an asylum into the Valleys of Piedmont, taking with them the new translation of the Scriptures. In this country they mingled with the Paulicians and other witnesses against Romish superstition previously existing there, and were afterwards known by the name of "Waldenses," or Vaudois: they also diffused themselves over the South of France, where they became known as "Albigenses;" for it is the same class of witnesses styled by these different names, according to the different countries, or districts of the same country in which they appeared. In Alsace and along the Rhine, the doctrines of Waldo spread extensively. Persecution followed in their wake. Thirty-five citizens of Mentz were consumed to ashes by the papists in one fire in the city of Bingen, and eighteen in Mentz itself. The bishops of Mentz and Strasburgh breathed nothing but vengeance and slaughter against them; and at Strasburgh, where Waldo himself is said to have narrowly escaped, eight persons were committed to the flames. Multitudes died praising God, and in the confident hope of resurrection to eternal life. The blood of the witnesses became the seed of a new generation of faithful ones; and in Bulgaria, Croatia, Dalmatia, and Rungary, societies were established which flourished throughout the thirteenth century.

It is not surprising that the great and rapid increase of the witnesses should stimulate the Court of Rome to great activity against them. Their testimony was tormenting; and it is not in human nature to endure torment without seeking relief. Rome had but one remedy, and that was persecution to the ruin of body and estate. Councils were held in continual succession, and persecuting edicts issued to check the growing evil, though with little or no effect.

The following is an extract from the fourth canon of the council of Tours, held A.D. 1163. Evidently referring to the Albigensian Remnant, it thus proceeds:

"In the country about Toulouse, there sprang up long ago a damnable heresy, which, by little and little, like a cancer, spreading itself to the neighboring places of Gascony, hath already infected many other provinces; which whilst, like a serpent, it hid itself in its own windings and twistings, crept on more secretly, and threatened more danger to the simple and unwary; wherefore we do command all bishops and priests dwelling in these parts, to keep a watchful eye upon these heretics; and under the pain of excommunication, to forbid all persons, as soon as these heretics are discovered, from presuming to afford them any abode in their country, or to lend them any assistance, or to entertain any commerce with them in buying or selling; that so at least, by the loss of the advantages of human society, they may be compelled to repent of the error of their life. And if any prince, making himself partaker of their iniquity, shall endeavor to oppose these decrees, let him be struck with the same anathema. And if they shall be seized by any catholic princes, and cast into prison, let them be punished with confiscation of all their goods. And because they frequently come together from divers parts into one hiding place, and because they have no other ground for their dwelling together save only their agreement and consent  error - therefore we will that such their conventicles be both diligently searched after, and, when they are found, that they be examined according to canonical severity".

But, while power was on the side of the oppressor, the Deity had also given power to His witnesses (Apoc. 11:3). This made their sack-cloth witnessing singularly effective, as is very plain from the following extract of a letter from the Archbishop of Narbonne to Louis VII., king of France: "My Lord the King;" says he, "We are extremely pressed with many calamities; amongst which there is one that most of all affects us, which is, that the catholic faith is extremely shaken in this our diocese; and St. Peter's boat is so violently tossed by the waves that it is in great danger of sinking"!

The god of the Roman earth was exceedingly incensed at this stormy buffeting of his bark. In A.D .1181, Lucius,. the third pope of that name, fulminated his decree against them, in which he said, "We declare all Catharists, Paterines, and those who call themselves 'the Poor of Lyons,' etc., to lie under a perpetual anathema!" All who presume to buy and sell without authority from the Roman image (Apoc. 13:17) - all who held or taught opinions concerning baptism, the Lord's Supper, remission of sins, marriage, or any of the sacraments of the church, differing from what the holy church of Rome doth teach and observe - are to be judged heretics, and anathematized. The refusal to take an oath is to be deemed a proof of heresy, and treated accordingly; and all the afore-mentioned were to be delivered up to the secular power for punishment, and their goods confiscated to the use of the church. The clergy are enjoined to make vigilant search after all such heretics, and to call to their aid all earls, barons, governors, and consuls of cities, and other places, to execute the ecclesiastical and imperial statutes concerning these matters; and any city that refused to yield obedience to these "decretal constitutions" was to be excluded from all commerce with other cities, and deprived of the episcopal dignity.

These intolerant proceedings, directed chiefly against the witnessing remnants of the Woman's seed in the south of France, drove multitudes of them into and across the Pyrenees, into Spain; in consequence of which, Ildefonsus, king of Aragon, published an edict, A.D. 1194, charging and commanding all the "Waldenses, Insabbati, who are otherwise called 'the Poor of Lyons,' and all other heretics, who cannot be numbered, being excommunicated from the Holy Church, adversaries to the cross of Christ, violaters and corrupters of the Christian religion, to depart out of our kingdom, and all our dominions." Moreover, "whosoever from that day forward, should presume to receive the Waldenses, Insabbati, or any other heretics, of whatsoever profession, into their houses, or be present at their pernicious sermons, or afford them meat or any other favor, should incur the indignation of Almighty God, as well as that of his majesty - have his goods confiscated, without the remedy of an appeal; and be punished as if he were actually guilty of high treason!" Such was the state of matters at the end of the twelfth century; and it may serve to make the reader's mind more appreciative to the appalling scenes of slaughter and carnage inflicted upon the woman's seed in the war upon them by "the Beast that ascendeth out of the abyss" (Apoc. 11:7). See Vol.3, p.268-269; and ch. 13:21.

“SLAY them all; God will recognize His own.” On that summer day of 1209, the population of Béziers, in southern France, was massacred. The monk Arnold Amalric, appointed as papal legate at the head of the Catholic crusaders, showed no mercy. When his men asked how they were to distinguish between Catholics and heretics, he reportedly gave the infamous reply quoted above. Catholic historians water it down to: “Do not worry. I believe very few will be converted.” Whatever his exact answer, the result was the slaughter of at least 20,000 men, women, and children at the hands of some 300,000 crusaders, led by prelates of the Catholic Church.

What brought about this massacre? It was just the beginning of the Albigensian Crusade that Pope Innocent III had launched against so-called heretics in the province of Languedoc, south-central France. Before it ended some 20 years later, possibly one million people—Cathari, Waldenses, and even many Catholics—had lost their lives.

Paulicians Paulicianism

The Novatian remnant was numerous in most parts of the Great Roman Eagle until towards the end of the sixth century. After this their name is not found in the history of the times. This arose from the fact of other leaders appearing to direct the witnessing of the woman's seed against traditions and superstitions more recently introduced by the Catholic Satan. Laxity of discipline, which was protested against by Novatianus, had caused the division of Anti-pagans into two distinct bodies, A.D. 251, or thereabouts. The majority styled themselves Catholics; the others, NOVATIANS, and Puritans. Some sixty or seventy years after, these received an accession of strength and numbers by the secession from the catholics of multitudes, who were opposed to professors being ordained bishops, who surrendered the Holy Scriptures to be burned as the condition of personal safety in the Diocletian persecution; and who were also opposed to the incorporation of the church with the Roman State. These at the end of the sixth century were no longer the leading questions of the day. All the Woman's witnessing seed, whether called Novatian or Donatists, were united in judgment concerning them; but there were other topics that now came to demand more especial attention, in the witnessing for which other names than Novatians and Donatus strongly attracted the notice of mankind.

The tyranny and arrogance of catholic bishops had become insufferable. Their oppressiveness created what might be styled the episcopal question; or the inquiry, Does the New Testament make any difference, in order or degree, between Presbyters and Bishops? The difference was generally admitted in the fourth century; but is without the least sanction in the apostolic writings. This was the earnest conviction of a presbyter named 'Erius, whom Mosheim depreciates by nicknaming him "a Semi-Arian." He says, that in the latter part of the fourth century, "He erected a new sect, and excited divisions throughout Armenia, Pontus, and Cappadocia, by propagating Opinions different from those that Were commonly received. One of his principal tenets was, that bishops were not distinguished from presbytersby any Divine right; and that according to the institution of the New Testament, their offices and authority were absolutely the same." Had this tenet been received and maintained by the catholic church, the world could never have been afflicted by the blasting presence of the Roman Pontiffs. "How far Aerius pursued this opinion, through its natural consequences, is not certainly known; but we know with the utmost certainty, that it was highly agreeable to many good christians, who were no longer able to bear the tyranny and arrogance of the bishops of this century."

"There were other things in which Aerius differed from the common notions of the time: he condemned prayers for the dead, stated fasts, the celebration of Easter, and other rites of that nature, in which the multitude erroneously imagine that the life and soul of religion consists. His great purpose seems to have been that of reducing Christianity to its primitive simplicity. This was a great and noble enterprise, and places the Aerians, as those who associated themselves with Aerius were styled, in the apocalyptic category of "the remnants of the woman's seed."
But the Novatian and Donatista remnants were not only reinforced by the Aerians; their strength and influence were augmented in the middle of the seventh century by the Paulicians. It was about A.D. 653, that a new sect arose in the Roman East, upon which this name was bestowed. There resided in the city of Mananalis, in Armema, a person of the class to whom the gospel is preached, the obscure, whose name was Constantine. One day a stranger called upon him, who had been a prisoner among the Saracens in Syria, and having obtained his release, was returning home through this city. He was kindly received by Constantine, and for some days entertained at his house. The stranger had been a deacon of a church. In return for the hospitality he had received, he presented Constantine with two manuscripts; one of the "four gospels;" the other, of Paul's epistles. Constantine studied them as they deserved to be; and when he came to understand them, he would touch no other books; and commenced to teach the doctrines of Christ and his apostle to the Gentiles. He threw away his Manichaean library, exploded and rejected many popular absurdities; and led his countrymen to abandon their former teachers whom they had most venerated; and opened an effective battery upon the superstitions of the catholic church and its hierarchy.

The history of the Paulictans is traceable only through the writings of their adversaries. The account given of their origin is derived from Peter the Sicilian, who was sent by Basil the Great to the Paulicians in Armenia, A.D. 870, to negotiate with them an exchange of prisoners. The following extract from Gibbon will show the special abominations against which they faithfully testified in their character of a remnant of the woman's seed. "Against the gradual innovations of discipline and doctrine," says he, "they were as strongly guarded by habit and aversion as by the silence of the Apostle Paul and the evangelists. The objects which had been transformed by the magic of superstition, appeared to the eyes of the Paulicians in their genuine and naked colors. They reasoned that an image made with hands was the common workmanship of a mortal artist, to whose skill alone the wood and canvas must be indebted for their merit and value; - that miraculous relics were a heap of bones and ashes, destitute of life or virtue, or of any relation, perhaps, with the person to whom they were ascribed; - that the true and vivifying cross was a piece of sound or rotten timber; - the body and blood of Christ, a loaf of bread and a cup of wine, the gifts of nature and the symbols of grace. The Mother of God, in the creed of the Paulicians, was degraded from her celestial honours and immaculate virginity; and the saints and angels were no longer solicited to exercise the laborious office of mediation in heaven and ministry upon earth."

"The Paulician teachers were distinguished only by their (assumed) Scriptural names, by the modest title of fellow-pilgrims, by the austerity of their lives, their zealous knowledge, and the credit of some extra-ordinary gifts of the Holy Spirit. But they were incapable of desiring, or at least obtaining, the wealth and honours of the catholic prelacy; such antichristian pride they bitterly censured; and even the rank of elders or presbyters was condemned as an institution of the Jewish Synagogue."

By the labors of Constantine, who added Sylvanus to his name, numerous disciples were made and collected into societies; and "the remnant," in a little time, was diffused over the provinces of Asia Minor and the region westward of the Euphrates. Ecclesias were constituted, as much upon the plan and model of the apostolic ecclesias as it was in their power to form them. Six of their principal congregations were designated by the names of those to which the Apostle Paul addressed his epistles; and their pastors adopted Scriptural names, as Titus, Timothy, Sylvanus, Tychicus, and so forth. "This innocent allegory," says Gibbon, "revived the memory and examples of the first ages." Their endeavor was to bring their contemporaries back to the original simplicity of Christian faith and practice. In this good and laudable enterprise Constantine Sylvanus spent twenty-seven years of his life with considerable success. The Catholic Dragon was greatly alarmed at the defections caused by his labors; and at the formidable proportions into which "the remnant" was being developed. After the ancient method of dealing with heretics, he proceeded to "cast out water like a flood" to sweep them away. He began to persecute the Paulicians with the most san-guinary severity; and the bloody scenes of the Great Fiery-Red Dragon ministered by Galerius and Maximin were repeated under catholic names and forms. "To their excellent deeds," says the bigoted Peter of Sicily, "the divine and orthodox emperors added this virtue, that they ordered the Montanists and Manichaeans (as he falsely styled the Paulicians) to be capitally punished, and their books, wherever found, to be committed to the flames; and further, that if any person was found to have secreted them, he was to be put to death, and his goods confiscated." "What more," asks Mr. Gibbon, "could bigotry and persecution desire?"

In the outpouring of the flood, a Greek official named Simeon, armed with legal and military powers, appeared at Colonia to strike the shepherd, and to reclaim, if possible, the lost sheep of Satan's flock. By a refinement of cruelty, this monster of vengeance planted Constantine Sylvanus before a line of his disciples, who were commanded, as the price of their pardon, and a proof of their repentance, to stone him to death. But they nobly refused to imbue their hands in his blood. Only one apostate named Justus, but styled by the wretched catholics, a new David, could be found boldly to overthrow the Goliath of heresy. This Judas again deceived and betrayed his unsuspecting brethren; and as many as were ascertained and could be collected, were massed together into an immense pile, and by order of Justinian the Second, whose native cruelty was stimulated by the piety of superstition, consumed to ashes.

But Simeon, the officer, who had breathed out threatenings and slaughters against them, struck with astonishment at their valor, in the face of such cruel torments, like another Paul, became a preacher of the faith he once destroyed. He renounced his honours and fortune, and three years afterwards became the successor of Constantine Sylvanus, and at last sealed his witnessing for the anointed Jesus against the apostasy with his blood.

But though they did not fear to die for the faith, "the Paulicians," says Gibbon, "were not ambitious of martyrdom; but in a calamitous period of one hundred and fifty years, their patience sustained whatever zeal could inflict. From the blood and ashes of the first victims, a succession of teachers and congregations arose." The great instrument of their multiplication was the New Testament, as illustrated in the following example related by Peter of Sicily. A young man named Sergius, conversing one day with an aged woman, of the Paulician Remnant, was thus addressed by her:  "I hear, Sir, that you excel in literature and erudition, and are besides, in every respect a good man: tell me, then, why do you not read the sacred gospels?" He answered, Nobis profanis ista legere non licet, sed sacerdotibus duntaxat  "it is not lawful for us the profane to read them, but for the priests only." "Not so," she replied; "there is no respect of persons with God; he wills that all men should be saved, and come to the knowledge of the truth; but your priests, because they adulterate the word of God, do not read all to you." She then repeated to him various portions of the holy Scriptures. After hearing them, he took the gospels, examined them for himself, and became a Paulician. Sergius was an important acquisition to the remnant. For thirty-four years he devoted himself to the ministry of the word; or to give it in his own words, "From the east to the west, and from the north to the south, have I been proclaiming the good news of salvation, and laboring on my knees." And this he did with such success that the catholic clergy of Rome and Constantinople considered him to be the forerunner of Antichrist; and declared that he was producing the great apostasy foretold by the Apostle Paul! Peter of Sicily pronounced him "the wolf in sheep's clothing, the Devil's chiefest champion, the crafty dissembler of virtue (that is, an accomplished hypocrite), the enemy of the cross of Christ, a blasphemer, the hater of Christ, the mother of harlots;" "all which epithets," says Turner, "have only one meaning, namely, that he taught with great effect."

The Paulician Remnant of the Woman's Seed were harassed by the ferocity of the Catholic Dragon for a long period. Michael the first, and Leo the Armenian, were foremost in the race of persecution; "but," says Gibbon, "the prize must doubtless be adjudged to the sanguinary devotion of Theodora, who restored the images to the oriental church. Her inquisitors explored the cities and mountains of the Lesser Asia, and the flatterers of the empress have affirmed that, in a short reign, one hundred thousand Paulicians were extirpated by the sword, the gibbet, or the flames!"


 

Then there were the Paulicians from the seventh century onward, whose teachings have been termed “genuine apostolic Bible-Christianity.” They stood solely by the “New Testament,” practiced adult baptism, believed that God in his love had sent an angel to earth who at his baptism became God’s Son. They rejected unscriptural tradition, had no clergy-laity distinction, refused to revere the cross.

Then there were the Waldenses from the twelfth century forward, who had much in common with the previous Paulicians in rejecting all false tradition such as purgatory, the mass, and so forth, and adhering closely to the Bible, although they did not limit themselves to the so-called “New Testament.”