committed to historic Baptist & Reformed beliefs

 

history

documents

library

biography

 

 

NOTES.

1(C. II.). The denial of their practice of water-baptism, etc.—Harmenopoulos, a Byzantine monk of the tenth century, more candid than most of his fellows, says, as quoted by Mr. Evans, "that the Bogomils practised the rite (and if they did they must have received it from the Paulicians)," but did not attribute to it any perfecting (teleioun) virtue. This last expression is significant in this connection as showing that this rite was administered to all the believers (Credentes), in distinction from the spiritual baptism or consolamentum (which we have elsewhere described), which was only administered to those who were admitted to the ranks of the Perfecti or perfect ones, upon whom this spiritual baptism was supposed to exert a perfecting virtue. It is, we believe, generally admitted that the early Armenian Church, of which the Paulicians were an offshoot, did not practise trine immersion, like the Greek Church, though they immersed their converts once and applied the unction three times. At a later period and at the present day they immerse the subject, generally an infant, once in the font, and then pour water from the hand upon its head three times, adding also the anointing and other ceremonies. I have not been able to find a copy of Harmenopoulos' history in any of our libraries.

See further, on this point, the testimony of Alanus de Insulis, about A. D. 1200, quoted in Note 3, C. viii.

2(C. II.). Jirecek, Geschichte der Bulgaren, pp. 180, 181 Presbyter Cosmas (a Greek priest of the tenth century), in his Slovo na Eretiki, cited by Hilferding; Serben und Bulgaren (German translation, vol. i. p. 120).

3(C. II.). Hilferding, in his work named above, quotes from the presbyter Cosmas a description of two sects of Paulicians, of which the first held to doctrines more distinctly dualistic than the second. The latter, whose doctrines we have summarized in this section, was, he acknowledges, much the most numerous. Hilferding identifies the first with a Bulgarian sect known as "The Church of Dregovisce," which eventually became extinct, and the second with "The Church of Bulgaria," which were the spiritual ancestors of the Albigenses. He says further that the Italian inquisitor and renegade Reinero Sacconi, of the thirteenth century, mentions both in his list of the thirteen Churches or nations of the Cathari. Hilferding, Serben und Bulgaren (German translation, vol. i. pp. 122-128 and ff.).

4(C. III.). For this act of Constantine V. see Gibbon's Rome (Bohn's ed., Vol. vi. p. 245).

5(C. IV.). See Gibbon's Rome (Bohn's ed., vol. vi. p. 242). Gibbon quotes in this and the following note from Petrus Siculus (pp. 579-764) and Cedrenus (pp. 541-545).

6(C. IV.). Gibbon's Rome (Bohn's ed., vol. vi. p. 243); Arthur J. Evans, Historical View of Bosnia (p. 30); Petrus Siculus, Historia Manichaeorum. Petrus Siculus was for nine months in A. D. 870 a legate from the Byzantine emperor at Tephrice, negotiating for exchange of prisoners, and wrote his History there, which was addressed to the new arch bishop of the Bulgarians. See the account of Petrus Siculus and this history in the Maxima Bibliotheca Patrum (vol. xvi.). Petrus Siculus, Historia Manichaeorum (pp. 754-764, edition of the Jesuit Raderus, Ingoldstadt, 1604, in 4to).

7(C. IV.). Tephrice (Gr. Tefrich), now Divrigni, is in Asia Minor, about one hundred and forty miles southwest of Trebizond and one hundred and. seventy south by west of Erzeroum. It is situated on a plain 3116 feet above the sea. Its present inhabitants are wild and ferocious Koords.

8(C. V.). This derivation of the word Bogomil, or Bogomile was first given by Epiphanius, a Byzantine writer, quoted in Sam. Andreae's Disquisitio de Bogomilis.

9(C. V.). Recent Sclavonic writers, quoted by A. J. Evans in Historical Review of Bosnia (p. 31, note).

10VII.). The authorities for this picture of the Bogomil worship and manners are mostly drawn from Hilferding's German translation of his Serben und Bulgaren (vol. i. pp. 118 and ff.). He cites, in regard to these subjects, The Sunodic of the Czar Boris, written in the year 1210; the Armenian Chronicle of Acogh'ig; the Slovo na Eretiki of the presbyter Cosmas, about 990; the Panoplia of Euthymius Zygabenus the scribe or secretary of the emperor Alexius Comnenus, about 1097 (Gieseler's edition, Gottingen, 1852), and Harmenopoulos, the Greek monk already referred to, of the tenth century.

11Racki, cited by Jirecek, Geschichte der Bulgaren (pp. , 177 and ff.); other SouthSclavonic and Byzantine writers, also cited by Jirecek; the Panoplia of Euthymius Zyaabenus, translated by Gieseler (Gottingen, 1852), Neander, Church History (Marsh's ed. vol. iv. pp 552 and ff.); Gieseler, De Bogomilis Commentatio, etc., etc, Sir Henry Spelman (Conciliae vol. ii. p. 59) and Nubrigiensis (book ii. c. 13), both cited by Jeremy Collier in his Ecclesiastical History of Great Britain (Lathbury's ed., London, 1852, vol. ii. pp. 247, 248), both say of the Publicans, whose origin they trace through the Waldenses and Albigenses to Croatia and Dalmatia, that they refused to be called by any other name than Christians, and that their views were the same with those attributed to the Bogomils.

12(C. VIII.). These two classes, the Perfecti and Credentes, are in mentioned by all writers on the Bogomils and the sects with which they were affiliated; and it was one of' the many evidences of their substantial identify with the Albigenses Patarenes, Vaudois, Catharists, Ketzers, Publicans, Waldenses etc., etc., that the same classes, under equivalent names, existed in all these sects of' alleged heretics. Both Jirecek and Hilferding give minute accounts of' this division of' the Bogomils and of the initiatory rites of' the Perfecti, quoting largely from the Sclavonic and Byzantine writers already referred to, and their statements are corroborated by Regnier or Reinero, Petrus Monachus, a Cistercian monk who wrote a history of the. crusade against the Albigenses, by Alanus de Insulis, whose treatise against the heretics, written about A. D. 1200, was published by Masson at Lyons, in 1612, and by Beausobre, Histore du Manichaeisme (vol. ii. pp. 762-877). In Provence the Perfecti were called Bons Hommes, and in Bosnia and Bulgaria, in the Sclavonic. Krstjani dobri Bosniani, or sometimes in both countries tries Sursiteli, or the elect.

Regnier, or Reinero, about A. D. 1250, is the best possible authority in regard to the number of the Perfecti, for he had been one of the Credentes, or believers, among the Patarenes, as the Bogomils of ltaly were, called, and there is also a tradition that he was a Dalmatian by birth.

13(C.viii., foot-note).To the authorities here named for the proposition that the Credentes, or believers, were baptized must be added Alanus de Insulis, a French writer of about A. D. 1200, whose treatise against heretics was published by Masson of Lyons in 1612 Ile is cited by Hallam, Middle Ages (vol. iii. pp. 359, 360, note. Am. edition, 1864). Alanus, speaking of the Albigenses, who are fully identified with the Bogomils, says, "They rejected infant baptism, but were divided as to the reason, some saying that infants could not sin and did not need baptism; others that they could not be saved without faith, and consequently that it was useless. They held sin after baptism to be irremissible. It does not appear that they rejected either of the sacraments. They laid great stress upon the imposition of hands which seems to have been their distinctive rite." Jeremy Collier, in his Ecclesiastical History of Great Britain (vol. ii. pp. 338, 339, ed. of 1852), speaking of the Albigenses of Toulouse, A. D. 1178, gives first the account of their doctrines found in a letter of the Earl of Toulouse to the Cistercian chapter, as recorded by Gervase of Canterbury. This letter is full of passion and violence. He declares that "the sacraments of baptism and the holy eucharist were renounced and detested by them; . . . in short, all the sacraments of the church are vilified and disused." "Roger de Hoveden," a somewhat more dispassionate writer, gives, Collier says, a somewhat different account. His statement is " that they refused to own infant baptism, declared against swearing upon any account, expressed themselves with a great deal of satire and invective against the hierarchy, and refused to be concluded by any other authority excepting that of the New Testament."

Nothing is said by Hoveden of their rejection of the sacraments of baptism and the eucharist, which would certainly have been mentioned by so careful a writer as Hoveden if it had existed. Indeed, his strongest objection to them was their wilful persistence in refusing to take all oath.

The noticeable point in all this testimony is that infants should not be baptized because they had not faith; that a personal profession of faith was a necessary prerequisite for baptism; that the spiritual baptism symbolized by the consolamentum was in their view the baptism of the Holy Ghost, which was only conferred on those who were already believers, but who wished to become perfect.

The fact that all the Oriental churches practised immersion only, and that this is still their only mode of baptism, is so well established by the testimony of all ecclesiastical writers that it seems hardly to need any additional verification; yet perhaps the following references may not be out of place: Neander, Apostelgeschichte (History of Apostolic Church), (i. p. 276); Knapp, Vorlesungen uber die Christliche Glaubenslehre (ii. p. 453); Hofling, I.c. (i. pp. 46 and ff.); Schaff, History of Apostolic Church (pp. 568-570); Conybeare and Howson, Life of St. Paul (i. p. 471); G. A. Jacob, D. D., Ecclesiastical Polity of New Testament (Am. ed. pp. 258-279); F. A. Farrar, Life of Christ (vol. i. pp. 114 and ff.); A. Geikie, Life and Words of Christ (vol. i. p. 577, note); Dean Stanley, Eastern, Church (Eng. ed., p. 34); Philip Smith, Student's Ecclesiastical History (p. 172).

14(C. IX.). This testimony is scattered through all the centuries from the sixth to the fifteenth, and applies alike to the, Patarenes, Catharists, Paulicians, Bogomils, Albigenses, and Waldenses. Even Petrus Siculus acknowledges their holy and pure life, and admits that, in 660, Simeon, a Greek priest sent to put their leader to death, was converted by their heroic and unselfish devotion to their faith, and became, like the apostle Paul, a missionary and martyr to their doctrines. The same writer acknowledges that they were not believers in the doctrines of Manes, and hence were wrongly called Manichaeans: and after recapitulating six heresies which they held—of which only a modified dualism, and a belief that Christ brought his body from heaven would now be reckoned heresies—he confesses that they were endowed with sincere and zealous piety and were studious of the Scriptures. Gibbon (certainly an impartial witness) says of the Paulicians, after a very thorough and protracted study of the early writers on the subject, "A confession of' simple worship and blameless manners 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 of those who aspired." (Gibbon's Rome, Bohn's ed., vol. vi. p. 249.) The presbyter Cosmas and the secretary of the emperor Alexius Comnenus, in the works already quoted, and in the words cited elsewhere in this work, are compelled, though with evident disgust, to testify to the purity, not only of their lives, but of their conversation.

 

La Nobla Leyczon, a Provencal poem of Waldensian origin, and of a date not later than A. D. 1200, contains the following stanza, which illustrates the purity of the lives of the Waldenses as well as the malignant hostility of their enemies.

Que sel Re troba alcun bon que vollia amar Dio e temer Jeshu Xrist,

Que non vollia mandire, ni jura, ni mentir,

Ni avoutrar, ni aucire, ni penre de l’autruy,

Ni venjar se de li sio ennemie

Illi dison quel es Vaudes e degne do murir."

A free translation of these lines would be:

"Whoso finds any good man who wishes to love God and bear witness for Jesus Christ, who will not curse nor swear nor lie, who will not be an adulterer nor steal nor do wrong to another, nor avenge himself upon his enemy, people will tell him that that man is one of' the Vaudois, and ought to be put to death."—Hallam's Middle Ages (vol. iii. p. 363, note); Am. ed, do.; Literature of Europe (vol. i. p. 50, note, Am. ed.).

15(C. XI.). The Alexiadus of the Princess Anna Comnena is a diffuse, voluminous, and gossipy work after the fashion of the writers of those days. It abounds in the most fulsome praises of her father, herself, and all connected with the imperial household. As her father's reign continued for thirty-seven years, she expands her wearisome details over many books, that relating to the entrapping and martyrdom of Basil being the fifteenth. The Alexiad was translated into French and largely annotated by the learned Ducange, and his edition is the only one now generally accessible. This account of Basil is from liber xv. 486-494 of' Ducange's edition of' the Alexiad. Gibbon, Decline and Fall (vol. vi. p. 247, and note, Bohn's ed.), affirms that Basil was the only victim burned at the stake at this time, and there is some reason to think that the statement is correct; but Alexius within a short time thereafter persecuted the Bogomils to the death, and the Princess Anna boasts that he entirely exterminated them.

16 (C. XI.). This colony of Armenian Paulicians is said by Zonaras, (vol. ii. liber 17, p. 209), cited by Gibbon, to have been more numerous and powerful than any that had gone before from the Chalybian hills to the valleys (of' Mount Haemus. The date of their migration is said to have been A. D. 970. Anna Commena also mentions this colony in the Alexiad (liber xiv. p. 450 et ff.).

These Armenian Paulicians were probably dualists, and possibly held to the phantastic theory of the advent of Christ—viz., that he was clothed with an impassive celestial body and that his death and resurrection were only apparent, and not real. We say "possibly," because, though there were undoubtedly sects more or less intimately connected with the Gnostics and Manichaeans in Armenia and Asia Minor who held these views, yet the evidence that the Paulicians did entertain them is solely furnished by their bitter enemies, who we know for the next five or six centuries did not hesitate to propagate the most unblushing falsehoods concerning them.

The statement that they were Manichaeans was industriously propagated for more than six centuries, and was fastened upon them in the fifteenth century by King Stephen Thomas of Bosnia, notwithstanding their earnest and indignant protests through all their history, and even the fair and impartial Hallam, whose investigations in regard to these sects were more thorough and exhaustive than those of' any other writer except Mr. Evans, is so far deceived by this constant reiteration that he admits its probability in regard to all of' them except the Waldenses, and perhaps a part of the Catharists. With the proofs, now at our command however, of the identity of the Catharists and the Waldenses with the Bogomils, this admission proves fatal to the Manichaean doctrines of the whole. It is probable, nevertheless, that these Armenian Paulicians formed "The Church of Dregovisce," which Hilferding says, in chapter i. part i. of his Serben und Bulgaren, was much more dualistic and field to many errors which were not held by the Christian church of Bulgaria. The Albigenses of' the earlier dates were the spiritual children of this church of Dregovisce.

Both Jirecek and Evans notice also one source of the dualistic doctrines of these early Bulgarian believers. The Armenian Paulicians were planted in Epirus and Thrace, while the Bulgarians—Bulgares—a mixed race, half Tartar and half Aryan, were yet pagans, and the Paulicians found them already imbued with dualistic ideas: they divided their worship between the Black God, the spirit of evil, and the White God, or spirit of good. Jirecek's words are: "Es war fur Bogomil keine schwere aufgabe, das unlangst erst dem Heidenthume entruckte volk fur eine Glaubenslehre zu gewinnen, welche, gleich dem alten slawischen Mythus von den Bosi und Besi, lehrtdass es zweierlei hohere Wesen gebe, namlich einen guten und einen losen Gott." (Geschichte der Bulgaren, p.175. See also Evans' Historical Review of Bosnia, pp. 41, 42.) Every one who is familiar with the operations of' foreign missions among the heathen must have noticed how ready the native converts are to accommodate anything in their new views to their old beliefs and prejudices. A most notable instance of this is the well-known known fact that, in all Buddhist countries, Roman Catholic missionaries have met with great success, from the similarity of their doctrines of merit, of the priesthood, of monastic orders, and of instruction, to those already held by the Buddhists.

But that a closer study of the Scriptures, when they were translated into the Sclavonic, Italian, Provencal, German, and English tongues, had led them to abandon the dualistic doctrines or hold them in a mitigated and not unscriptural form is evident even from the testimony of' their adversaries. Thus Petrus (or Robertus) Monachus, a Cistercian monk, who wrote an account of* the crusades against the Albigenses in the thirteenth century (Cited ill Hallam's Middle Ages, Am. ed., vol. iii. pp. 359, 360), says that "many of them" (observe, not all) "assert two principles or creative beings—a good one for things invisble, an evil one, for things visible; the things the former author of the New Testament, the latter of the Old; and they wholly repudiate, except as possessing a certain authority all those passages of the Old Testament which are quoted in the New, and even these they only deem worthy to be received on account of' their reverence for the New Testament." This assertion that they rejected the entire Old Testament. because they believed it the work of the evil spirit is reiterated by all the Greek and the Roman Catholic writers from Petrus Siculus in the ninth century, Monachus and Alanus in the thirteenth, down to Matthew Paris, Roger do Hoveden, Ralph of Coggeshale, and. Gervase of Canterbury; yet we have the most conclusive evidence that it was not true. Euthymius Zygabenus, the secretary of' the emperor Alexius Comnenus when Basil was examined by the emperor, and a most bitter enemy of the Bogomils, states in his Panoplia (as cited by Evans, Historical Review, ete., 1). 36) that the Bogomils accepted seven holy books, which he enumerates as follows: 1. The Psalms; 2. The Sixteen Prophets, 3, 4, 5, and 6; The Gospels ; 7. The Acts of the Apostles, the Epistles, and the Apocalypse. Some writers have charged them with rejecting the Epistles of Peter and the Apocalypse, but there is no evidence of this. The Bogomil New Testament was word for word that of the early Sclavic apostle Methodius. Of this Jirecek furnishes on 1). 177 the most conclusive proofs. If, then, this statement of their enemies like so many others, is proved to be false, what assurance is there that their alleged dualistic doctrines were anything more than an old falsehood revamped for the occasion?

17(C. XII.). This summary of the worship and mode of life of the. Bogomils is substantiated in every point, though with evident reluctance, by the presbyter Cosmas in his Slovo na Eretiki, Euthymius Zygabenus in his Panoplia, Anna Comnena in lib xv. of the Alexiad, and Sclavonic authorities collected by Jirecek and Hilferding.

18 (C. XIII.). Jirecek, Geschichte der Bulgaren, p. 180.

19(C. XIII.). The Bosnian chief djed, or elder, seems to have been at this time (about A. D. 1220) the presiding officer of' the affiliated sects or denominations, somewhat like the former presidents of' our triennial conventions. He was primus inter pares, but possessed no judicial or ecclesiastical authority (See Jirecek, Gesehichte der Bulgaren, p. 180).

20(C. XIV.). This is Hilferding's statement.

21(C. XIV.). Schimek, Politike Geschichte Konigreiche Bosnian und Roma p. 36), cited by Evans, Hist. Rev. of Bosnia p. 43).

22(C. XV.). Schimek, Pol. Gesefichte des Konigreiche Bosnien, etc. p. 46).

23(C. XV., foot-note)/ Schimek, as above; Mackenzie and Irwin’s Serbia.

24(C. XV.). Farlati, "Episcopi Bosnenses" (in his Illyricum Sacrum, vol. iv. p. 45), cited by Evans, Hist. Rev. of Bosnia p. 44).

25(C. XV.). Evans, Hist. Rev. of Bosnia (1). 44).

26(C. XV1.). Regnier or Reinero, about A. D. 1250, is a well-known authority. Maitland, Facts and Documents on the History of the Albiqenses and Waldenses (London, 1832) criticizes his statements. He is quoted by Mosheim, Beausobre, Gibbon, and Jirecek, but I have not been able to find in our libraries a copy of his work, and so cannot verify in person the above statement, though all the authorities I have cited agree in regard to it.

27(C. XVI.). The substantial identity of these sects, which under so many different names were spread over all Western Europe, and their origin from the Protestants of Bulgaria and Bosnia, was strongly suspected by others than Regnier even in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. Perhaps the earliest of the writers who gives positive testimony on this point is William Little of Newbury (A. D. 1136-1220), more generally known as Neubrigiensis or Nubrigiensis from his residence. He was the author of a history of England from the Norman conquest to A. D. 1197, in five books, and he was an eye-witness of much that be describes. His history is found in full in Hearne's collection of early English histories.

In book ii. chap. 13 of his history be speaks of the coming of foreign heretics called Publicans into England in 1160. He says: "The heresy first appeared in Gascoigne, though from what person is uncertain. From thence the erroneous doctrine spread through a great many provinces of France, Spain, Italy, and Germany; they gained ground by the remissness of the church discipline. They were," he says "a company of ignorant rustics, and, though their understandings were very gross and unimproved, yet their obstinacy and self-opinion was such that the convincing them by argument and retrieving them from their mistake was well-nigh an impossibility." Their leader was one Gerhard, who, he admits, had some little learning, but the rest, about thirty in number, were altogether unlettered. Their language was High Dutch. Their doctrines, as Gerhard stated them, were identical with those of the Waldenses and Ketzers. They were orthodox enough, Neubrigiensis says, concerning the Trinity and the incarnation (no dualism there), but then, as to many other material points, they were dangerously mistaken; for they rejected infant baptism and the holy eucharist—i. e., the doctrine of the real presence—declared against marriage (qu., as one of the sacraments?) and catholic communion. They were more familiar with the Scriptures than the bishops of the Council which examined and persecuted them; and, finding themselves worsted in argument the bishops lost their temper, admonished them to repent and return to the communion of the church, and on their declining to do so turned them over to the secular arm, with the result stated in the text. A later historian, Sir Henry Spelman (1561-1641), in relating this incident, declares his belief that they were Waldenses, although this was the very year that Peter Waldo is said to have formed his congregation at Lyons. Sir Henry Hallam—whose careful researches in regard to the whole subject we have already noticed, and who, while admitting the Bulgarian or Bosnian origin of all the other sects, the Albigenses, Catharists, Ketzers, Publicans, etc., pleads earnestly for a different paternity for the Waldenses, mainly on the ground that be does not think they were Manichaeans, as be believes the others to have been—has yet, with his accustomed fairness, brought forward some very important proofs that they existed as a sect long before Waldo's time, and that some of their original leaders came from Hungary or countries adjacent to Hungary.

The Waldensian poem La Nobla Leyczon, already referred to in Note 1 (Ch. IX.), is unquestionably genuine. and the highest authorities agree could not have been written later than the close or the twelfth century, some thirty or thirty-five years after Peter Waldo commenced his labors at Lyons. This time is altogether too short for the development of the condition of persecution which then existed if the Waldenses had originated from Waldo's labors. But a still stronger argument for their existence before the time of Waldo and for their Eastern origin is furnished by Sir Henry Hallam (Middle Ages, vol. iii. p. 361, note; American edition). "I have found, however, a passage in a late work which remarkably illustrates the antiquity of Alpine Protestantism, if we may depend on the date it assigns to the quotation." Mr. Planta's History of Switzerland (p. 93, 4to ed.) contains the following note: "A curious passage singularly descriptive of the character of the Swiss has lately been discovered in a manuscript chronicle of the abbey of Corvey, which appears to have been written about the beginning of the twelfth century. ‘Religionem nostram et omnium Latinae ecclesiae Christianorum fidem, fidem, laici ex Suavia, Sucia. et Bavaria humiliare voluerunt: homines seducti ab antiqua progenie simplicium hominum, qui Alpes et viciniam habitant, et semper amant antiqua. In Suaviam, Bavariam, et Italiam borealem saepe intrant illorum (ex Sucia) mercatores, qui biblia edisunt memoriter, et ritus ecclesiae aversantur, quos credunt esse novos. Nolunt imagines venerari, reliquias sanctorum aversantur, olera comedunt, raro masticantes carnem, alii nunquam. Appelamus eos idcirco Manichaeos. Horum quidam ab Hungaria ad eos convenerunt,' etc."

It is a pity that Mr. Planta should have broken off the quotation, as its continuation might have given us further information concerning these Bosnian Perfecti, for such they evidently were, not worshipping images or pictures, turning away from the relics of the saints and from the so called sacraments of the Romish Church, thoroughly familiar with the Scriptures, subsisting on vegetables, rarely or never eating meat, and while passing as merchants or hawkers of goods, really exercising their vocation as missionaries, and preachers of the word. They too were called Manichaeans, that old term of reproach which for so many centuries had been forced upon them by their enemies. Their disciples, Hallam admits, were the Waldenses of the Alpine valleys. If the teachers were regarded as Manichaeans, their disciples could hardly be called by any other name; and, though Robert Monachus, Alanus de Insulis, and, William du Puy, monkish historians of the early part, of the thirteenth century, as quoted by Sir Henry Hallam, speak of' the Waldenses as heretics, but less perverse than those they bad previously described, their testimony in regard to their actual doctrines is hardly to be considered of any great value.

The fact in the case seems to have been that Peter Waldo, if not himself one of the Bosnian Perfecti and "mercatores" (he is said to have been a merchant or trader), was a convert to the Bogomil doctrines, and, entering the ranks of the Perfecti—or, as they were called in France at a later date, "Bons Hommes"—became a magister or senior (terms answering to the strojnik, apostle, or djed, elder, of the Bosnians) to the church already existing in Lyons, and by his missionary zeal aided powerfully in propagating the Protestant doctrines in France and Germany. Hallam says that a translation of the Bible was made by Waldo's direction, and this was probably the first made into the Provencal tongue, those previously used having probably been either the Vulgate and Latin of Jerome or the Sclavonic version of Methodius.

Hallam also says that the missionary labors of the Waldenses were directed toward Bohemia. This seems to be only so far true as that there was a very free intercommunication among all the branches of these Protestant churches by means of the "mercatores," who in all their histories have so important a place. Regnier mentions the Church of Bobemia as one of the thirteen provinces of the Catharist affiliated churches.

Jirecek (Geschichte der Bulgaren, p. 214) refers to a diploma of Innocent IV. in A. D. 1244 which demonstrates that there was a frequent intercourse between the Waldenses and their co-religionists in Bosnia. He also cites Palacky and Brandl to show the intimacy of the Bosnian and Moravian churches.

Jirecek speaks of the constant tendency of' the Bogmils toward a purer orthodoxy, and states that one of the Italian Bogomil elders—Giovanni di Lugio—taught of the real humanity of Christ and accepted the entire Old Testament

28(Ch. XVII.). Matthew Paris, Historia Majora ad Annum 1223 (Rolls Series, vol. iii. p. 78 et ff.); Radulph de Coggeshale (Chronicon Anglicanum, Rolls Series, p. 121 et ff.; p. 195 et ff.); Roger of Hoveden's Chronicle, Prof. Stubbs' ed. (Rolls series, vol. ii., p. 153 et ff.). To these may be added William Little of Newbury (Neubrigiensis), History of England from the Norman Conquest to the Year 1197 (liber ii. chaps. 13, 15), Gervase of Canterbury, Chronicon (about 1210), and at a later date Sir Henry Spelman, a very careful writer, born in 1561. Of these historians, all, or nearly all, were monks and, while they were very much alike in their prejudices against all heretics, some of them took more pains than others to verify their statements. Of these William Little of Newbury (Neubrigiensis) seems to have been the most careful, except, perhaps, Sir Henry Spelman and Matthew Paris the least so.

29(Ch. XVII., foot-note). I have not thought it necessary to quote at length, beyond what I have done in the text, the statements of these writers in regard to the affiliation of the other sects, except the Waldenses, with the Bogomils of Bosnia; the point is conceded by all the ecclesiastical and historical writers. Collier (Ecclesiastical History of Great Britain, vol. ii. Lathbury's ed., 1852, pp. 250, 338, 339) speaks of the Albigenses in Toulouse in 1161 and 1178, and gives an account of' their doctrines from the early historians which shows them to be identical with those of the Publicani (11 pages 341 and 414 he gives an account of their spreading their doctrines throughout Flanders and England and of their persecution; and on page 431 he gives a full account of their spreading throughout (from Matthew Paris) Western Europe and their Bulgarian pope or chief elder.

The first great crusade against the Albigenses, Catharists, and other affiliated churches of Western Europe was that prompted by Pope Innocent III. against the heretics of Toulouse, the domain of Count Raymond VI. of Toulouse, and directed by the Roman Catholic legates Arnold, Abbot of Citeaux, and Milo, the infamous Count Simon de Montfort being in command of the papal troops. It lasted from A. D. 1209 to 1229, and hundreds of thousands of innocent Christian men, women, and children were massacred in cold blood by these inhuman butchers. De Montfort himself was killed in 1218, but his son was as base as the sire. These persecuted Christians fled in great numbers to Bosnia, where the "good Ban Culin" protected them against the fury of the pope, and in the society of their co-religionists they enjoyed peace and quiet.

 

30(Ch. XVIII.). The authorities for these particulars of the crusades against the Bogomils of Bosnia are Rainaldi, an Italian cardinal of the sixteenth century, whose Ecclesiastical Annals (in ten vols. fol.) are a Continuation of those of Cardinal Baronius, and cover the period between 1197 and 1566, and Farlati, a writer of the eighteenth century, author of Episcopi Bosnenses in his Illyricum Sacrum. Both, were very bigoted and bitter Roman Catholics, and their hatred of the "heretics," as they called them, is manifest in almost every line.

Hilferding contributes some items to this history, and his spirit is much more generous and just.

31(Ch. xx.). This letter of Pope John XXII. may be found in Waddingus, Annales Minorum (Vol. vii. ed. seeae), under the year 1325. Waddingus—was a native of Ireland, but passed most of his life in Rome, where he attained eminence as a scholar 11 and author. He was successively procurator and vice-commissary of the order of' St. Francis, usually called the Minorite brethren, and wrote their history (in eight vols. folio) under the title of Annales Minorum (Lyons and Rome, 1647-1654), as well as several other works concerning the order. The Franciscans hall had a house of their order in Bosnia since about 1260, and their management there naturally came under Wadding's review.

32(Ch XXI.). This letter of Urban V. may he found in Rainaldi's Ecclesiastical Annals, under the year 1369, and the correspondence of' the. Franciscans with Urban V. and Gregory XI., as well as the substance of the letters of both pontiffs, in Wadding’s Annales Minorum, under the years 1369-1372.

33(Ch. XXI.). For the historical facts in relation to the reigns of Stephen Kotromanovic, the three Tvart-kos, Stephen Thomas, and the parricide Stephen Thomasevic, the authorities on whom most reliance is to be placed are Jirecek, Schimek (Politike Geschichte des Konigriechs Bonien und Roma), Spicilegium (De Bosnice Regno), The Book of Arms of the Bosnian Nobility (1340), examined and partly copied by Mr. Evans, and other works not accessible in this country or England, cited by Jirecek and Evans.

34(Ch. XXII). Wadding, in his Annales Minorum, under the year 1462, says: "In this year . . . the pope, Pius II., being much alarmed at the progres of heresy in Bosnia, and hearing that there was a great want there of men skilled in philosophy, the sacred canons, and theology, sent thither learned men from the neighboring provinces, and especially the brother Peter de Milo, a native of Bosnia, and four fellows. These five had studied in the best Cismontane and Transmontane universities, under the most learned doctors. The pope, moreover, gave orders that some of the largest convents should be converted into schools for literary studies."

This was not the first nor the last testimony unwillingly extorted from the papal authorities to the fact that among the Bogomil leaders and their co-religionists there were men of great learning and intellectual ability, although it was their constant habit to stigmatize these Protestant sects as ignorant rustics, too stupid and besotted to be able to understand the Scriptures or the arguments of the monks or bishops. The pope Honorius III., two hundred years before, had felt compelled to send the learned and eloquent subdeacon Aconcius to convince and convert these Bogomils, and even he had failed of success.

Hallam Middle Ages, vol. iii. p. 364) cites another instance of great interest. Pope Innocent III. (1198-1216) was much disturbed by the fact that the Scriptures had been translated into Provencal French and were largely circulated among the common people of the diocese of Metz and elsewhere. In a letter addressed to the clergy of that diocese, found in the Works of that pontiff (p. 468), he tells them that no small multitude of laymen and women, having procured a translation of the Gospels, Epistles of St. Paul, the Psalter (the Psalms), Job and other books of Scripture to be made for them into French, meet in secret conventicles to hear them read and preach to each other, avoiding the company of those who do not join in their devotion; and, having been reprimanded for this by some of their parish priests, have withstood them, alleging reasons from the Scriptures why they should not be so forbidden. After condemning them for these conventicles, the pope urges the bishop and chapter of Metz to discover the author of this translation, which, he says, could not have been made without a knowledge of letters, and to ascertain what were his intentions, and what degree of orthodoxy and respect for the Holy See those who used it possessed. This letter failed of its desired effect; for in another letter (p. 537 of his Works) he complains that some members of this little association continued refractory and refused to obey either the bishop or the pope. That Metz was at this time full of Vaudois, or Waldenses, we know from other authorities, and it is very probable that this was the translation of the Scriptures directed by Peter Waldo, a few years before.

35(Ch. XXIV.). Mr. Evans well says (pp. 56-58 of his able Historical Review of Bosnia): "Perhaps enough has been said to show the really important part played by Bosnia in European history. We have seen her aid in interpreting to the West the sublime puritanism which the more eastern Sclaves of Bulgaria had first received from the Armenian missionaries; we have seen her take the lead in the first religious revolt against Rome; we have seen a Bosnian religious teacher directing the movement in Provence; we have seen the Protestants of Bosnia successfully resisting all the efforts of Rome, supported by the arms of Hungary, to put them down; we have seen them offering an asylum to their persecuted brothers of the West—Albigenses, Patarenes, and Waldenses; we have seen them connected with the Reformation in Bohemia and affording shelter to the followers of Huss. From the twelfth century to the final conquest of the Turks in the sixteenth, when the fight of religious freedom had been won in North-western Europe, Bosnia presents the unique phenomenon of a Protestant state existing within the limits of the Holy Roman Empire, and in a province claimed by the Roman Church.

"Bosnia was the religious Switzerland of mediaeval Europe, and the signal service which she has rendered to the freedom of the human intellect by her successful stand against authority can hardly be exaggerated. Resistance, broken down in the gardens of Provence, buried beneath the charred rafters of the Roman cities of the Langue d’Oe, smothered in the dungeons of the Inquisitions, was prolonged from generation to generation amongst the primeval forests and mountain-fastnesses of Bosnia.

"There were not wanting, amongst those who sought to exterminate the Bogomils, churchmen as dead to human pity as the Abbot of Citeaux, and lay arms as bloodthirsty as De Montfort; but the stubborn genius of the Serbian people fought on with rare persistence and held out to the end. The history of these champions of a purer religion has been written by their enemies and ignored by those who owe most to their heroism. No martyrology of the Bogomils of Bosnia has come down to us. We have no Huss or Tyndale to arrest our pity. ‘Invidious silence’ has obscured their fame.

‘llachrymabilis

Urgentur, ignotique longa

Nocte, carent quia vate sacro.’

"Protestant historians, fearful of claiming relationship with heretics whose views on the origin of evil were more logical than their own, have almost or entirely ignored the existence of the Sclavonic Puritans." This sharp rebuke is especially deserved by Dean Milman in his Latin Christianity, and by Archbishop Trench in his recent Lectures on Ecclesiastical History. Others are not wholly guiltless. "Yet of all worn-out devices of ad captandum argument, this assuredly is the most threadbare—to ignore the transitions of intervening links, and pointing to the extremes of a long concatenation of cause and effects, to seize upon their differences as a proof of disconnection. In the course of ages the development of creeds and churches is not less striking than that of more secular institutions. Bogomilism obeyed an universal law; it paid the universal tribute of successful propgandism: it compromised, or, where it did not compromise, it was ruthlessly stamped out. The Manichaen elements, most distasteful to modern Protestants, were in fact the first to disappear." ("Yes, if indeed they ever really existed among the Bogomils."—AUTHOR of The Bogomils of Bulgaria and Bosnia.) "In its contact with the semi-pagan Christianity of the West the puritanism of the Gnostic East became, perforce, materialized; just as, ages before, Christianity itself, an earlier wave of the same Eastern puritanism, had materialized in its contact with the undiluted heathendom of the Western empire. To a certain extent, Bogomilism gained. It lost something of its anti-human vigor, and, by conforming to the exigences of Western society, became to a certain extent more practical. Thus by the sixteenth century the path had been cleared for a compromise with orthodoxy itself. The Reformation marks the confluence of the two main currents of religious thought that traverse the Middle Ages in their several sources, Romish and Armenian. No doubt, from the orthodox side—which refused to reject all that was beautiful in the older world, which consecrated Graeco-Roman civilization and linked art with religion—the West has gained much; but in days of gross materialism and degrading sacerdotalism it has gained perhaps even more from the purging and elevation influence of these early Puritans. The most devout Protestant need not be afraid to acknowledge the religious obligations which he owes to his spiritual forefathers, Manichaean though they were; while those who perceive in Protestantism itself nothing more than a stepping-stone to still greater freedom of the human mind, and who recognize the universal bearing of the doctrine of Evolution, will be slow to deny that England herself and the most enlightened countries of the modern world may owe a debt, which it is hard to estimate, to the Bogomils of Bulgaria and Bosnia."

It is to be remembered that these are the thoughtful and well-considered words of a traveller and scholar who has no affiliation with Puritan or Baptist, who while professedly a member of the Anglican Church, has strong leanings toward evolution, but who, from his English love of fair play, and the conviction derived from extended and careful research, and the pure and stainless lives of these Protestants of the East, has been compelled to take up arms in their defence.

We have shown elsewhere and from other sources that the movement of the Bogomils and their co-religionists of Western Europe was independent of, and had very little connection with, the Reformation. Never having belonged to Rome, they had no occasion to reform her doctrines or churches, and in fact had as little to do with the Reformation as the Protestant and independent churches of to-day have with the Old Catholic movement. They may have wished the Reformation well, as we do this Old Catholic movement; but as we have not, and cannot have, any affiliation with it, while it holds so many Romish errors, so they precluded from any direct affiliation with the Reformed churches, for the same reason.

 
 
The Reformed Reader Home Page 


Copyright 1999, The Reformed Reader, All Rights Reserved