Albigensians and Waldensians

[Laudate_Dominum]

[b]Were the Albigensians and early Waldensians Underground Protestants?[/b]

Foxe's [i]Book of Martyrs [/i]claims that several heretical sects and many heretical individuals in history who were "persecuted" by the Church were in fact "Bible Christians"; among these are included the Waldensians and the Albigensians. Here is a wee quote:
"[i]The Albigenses were a people of the reformed religion, who inhabited the country of Albi[/i]." - Book of Martyrs, Chapter 4

It is an unfathomably ludicrous claim to say that the Albigensians were of the "reformed religion". What do we actually know of the Albigensians?

The Albigensians were neo-manichaeans, they were not even Christian. They were a branch of the ridiculous Cathari movement who are also claimed to be "reformed christians".

We actually know a great deal about the belief and practice of the Cathari/Albigensians. Here are some of their more unusual beliefs:
- Denial of the resurrection of the body
- Gnostic dualism (matter is evil, two "gods": good god and evil god, etc.)
- Denial of eternal damnation
- Endorsed suicide (especially commendable if done by starvation & ritual suicide)
- Forbade marriage, considered fornication superior.
- "Converts" were encouraged to abandon their spouse.
- Child bearing was considered evil.
- Eating meat was considered immoral.
- Belief in reincarnation.
- Christ was merely an angelic being with a phantom body
- Christ did not suffer and die for our sins, or rise from the dead
- Total denial of the redemption, Christ merely came to teach.
- Satan, the evil "god", created the physical world
- Naturally they rejected things such as the Trinity and the Virgin Birth.

Some held the following:
- The Old Testament patriarchs were all damned.
- John the Baptist was a minister of satan sent to thwart Christ's work.

Some even went so far as the reject the Old Testament entirely. This is why the old rule of the Franciscan order states that brothers who refuse the pray the psalms could be expelled from the order. A refusal to pray the psalms would indicate an Albigensian view that the Old Testament is evil. If you don't believe me I would suggest going to a library and getting some books on Christian history by secular historians and respected protestant historians and look up the Albigensians.

Foxe also claims that the Waldensians were a sort of persecuted underground group of "Bible" Christians. One of the problems I have with this is that their heresy does not even vaguely resemble protestantism (or "reformed" christianity, or the baptist religion, etc.)
For one thing Waldensians highly encouraged making a vow of poverty and renouncing marriage. And while I admit that the Waldensians were heretics who denied certain teachings of the Church, they were actually much more Catholic doctrinally then you might think. Waldensians were encouraged to embrace a life of itinerant preaching, and the primary theme of their preaching was that of sacramental confession and the Eucharist. In fact they typically did not see a problem with going to the Catholic Mass and receiving Holy Communion. And as I mentioned they went to confession.

Foxe says this:
[i]The principal among these was Berengarius, who, about the year 1000, boldly preached Gospel truths, according to their primitive purity.[/i] - Book of Martyrs, Chapter 4

Berengarius was not a Waldensian, he was a Catholic clergyman and a Catholic scholar of the famous school of Chartres. He was a practicing Catholic and the only serious controversy in his life that I know of is his involvement in some controversy regarding the Eucharist. In his writings he never denies the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist, he just had a heretical explanation of it (his theory of the symbolic dimension of the Eucharist was at odds with transubstantiation, but he didn't deny that Christ's Body and Blood was truly present in the Eucharist), which isn't surprising since he was a philosophical nominalist. And it must be noted that he died in full communion with the Catholic Church; hardly an ancient protestant.

You also mentioned Savonarola. While Savonarola was certainly a sharp critic of the Church hierarchy and was actively rousing schism in the Church, he was Catholic. As far as I know he was never condemned as a heretic. The man was a monk and actually a pretty decent Thomist.
The Catholic Encyclopedia says:
[i]In the beginning Savonarola was filled with zeal, piety, and self-sacrifice for the regeneration of religious life. He was led to offend against these virtues by his fanaticism, obstinacy, and disobedience. He was not a heretic in matters of faith.[/i]

Anyway, these are just a couple of the many fictions contained in Foxe's book (and repeated in many other books of this class, as well as the famous Jack Chick tracts). It's too bad that so many protestants get their education in history from comic books.


According to [i]A History of Christianity[/i], by Baptist historian Kenneth Scott Latourette:

[i]The Cathari [of which the Albigensians were a variant] were dualists, believing that there are two eternal powers, the one good and the other evil, that the visible world is the creation of the evil power, and that the spiritual world is the work of the good power . . .
They held that since flesh is evil, Christ could not have had a real body or have died a real death[/i]

And according to [i]The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church[/i]:

[i]Their doctrine in its purest form was strongly dualist, akin to the Manichaean beliefs, and they rejected the flesh and material creation as evil ... [they taught that] Christ was an angel with a phantom body who, consequently, did not suffer or rise again, and whose redemptive work consisted only in teaching man the true (i.e., Albigensian) doctrine.
Rejecting the sacraments, the doctrines of hell, purgatory, and the resurrection of the body, and believing that all matter was bad, their moral doctrine was of extreme rigorism, condemning marriage, the use of meat, milk, eggs, and other animal produce.[/i]


The authentic testimony of history (as opposed to fictitious hate literature) reveals that the chain of heretics that some claim establishes protestantism as the "ancient" faith is sheer fantasy and absurdity. This is why credible mainstream protestant historians don't even attempt to go that route. They realize that its idiotic.