SYNOD IN THE WALDENSIAN VALLEYS.
The Old Vine seems Dying--New Life--The Reformation--Tidings
Reach the Waldenses--They Send Deputies into Germany and
Switzerland to Inquire--Joy of Œcolampadius--His Admonitory
Letter--Waldensian Deputies at Strasburg--The Two Churches a
Wonder to each other--Martyrdom of One of the Deputies,
Resolution to Call a Synod in the Valleys--Its Catholic
Character--Spot where it Met--Confession of Faith
framed--The Spirit of the Vaudois Revives--They Rebuild
their Churches, &c.--Journey of Farel and Saunier to the
Synod.
The Duke of Savoy was sincere in the promise that the Vaudois should
not be disturbed, but fully to make it good was not altogether in his
power. He could take care that such armies of crusaders as that which
mustered under the standard of Cataneo should not invade their Valleys,
but he could not guard them from the secret machinations of the
priesthood. In the absence of the armed crusader, the missionary and
the inquisitor assailed them. Some were seduced, others were kidnapped,
and carried off to the Holy Office. To these annoyances was added
the yet greater evil of a decaying piety. A desire for repose made
many conform outwardly to the Romish Church. “In order to be shielded
from all interruption in their journeys on business, they obtained
from the priests, who were settled in the Valleys, certificates or
testimonials of their being Papists.”[34] To obtain this credential it
was necessary to attend the Romish chapel, to confess, to go to mass,
and to have their children baptised by the priests. For this shameful
and criminal dissimulation they fancied they made amends by muttering
to themselves when they entered the Romish temples, “Cave of robbers,
may God confound thee!”[35] At the same time they continued to attend
the preaching of the Vaudois pastors, and to submit themselves to their
censures. But beyond all question the men who practised these deceits,
and the Church that tolerated them, had greatly declined. That old vine
seemed to be dying. A little while and it would disappear from off
those mountains which it had so long covered with the shadow of its
boughs.
[Illustration: VIEW IN TURIN.]
But He who had planted it “looked down from heaven and visited it.”
It was now that the Reformation broke out. The river of the Water of
Life was opened a second time, and began to flow through Christendom.
The old and dying stock in the Alps, drinking of the celestial stream,
lived anew; its boughs began to be covered with blossoms and fruit as
of old.
The Reformation had begun its career, and had already stirred most of
the countries of Europe to their depths before tidings of the mighty
change reached these secluded mountains. When at last the great news
was announced, the Vaudois “were as men who dreamed.” Eager to have
them confirmed, and to know to what extent the yoke of Rome had been
cast off by the nations of Europe, they sent forth Pastor Martin, of
the valley of Lucerna, on a mission of inquiry. In 1526 he returned
with the amazing intelligence that the light of the old Evangel had
broken on Germany, on Switzerland, on France, and that every day was
adding to the number of those who openly professed the same doctrines
to which the Vaudois had borne witness from ancient times. To attest
what he said, he produced the books he had received in Germany
containing the views of the Reformers.[36]
The remnant of the Vaudois on the north of the Alps also sent out
men to collect information respecting that great spiritual revolution
which had so surprised and gladdened them. In 1530 the Churches of
Provence and Dauphiné commissioned George Morel, of Merindol, and
Pierre Masson, of Bergundy, to visit the Reformers of Switzerland and
Germany, and bring them word touching their doctrine and manner of
life. The deputies met in conference with the members of the Protestant
Churches of Neuchâtel, Morat, and Bern. They had also interviews with
Berthold Haller and William Farel. Going on to Basle they presented
to Œcolampadius, in October, 1530, a document in Latin, containing a
complete account of their ecclesiastical discipline, worship, doctrine,
and manners. They begged in return that Œcolampadius would say whether
he approved of the order and doctrine of their Church, and if he held
it to be defective, to specify in what points, and to what extent. The
elder Church submitted itself to the younger.
The visit of these two pastors of this ancient Church gave unspeakable
joy to the Reformer of Basle. He heard in them the voice of the
primitive and apostolic Church speaking to the Christians of the
sixteenth century, and bidding them welcome within the gates of
the City of God. What a miracle was before him! For ages had this
Church been in the fires, yet she had not been consumed. Was not this
encouragement to those who were just entering into persecutions not
less terrific? “We render thanks,” said Œcolampadius in his letter,
October 13th, 1530, to the Churches of Provence, “to our most gracious
Father that he has called you into such marvellous light, during ages
in which such thick darkness has covered almost the whole world under
the empire of Antichrist. We love you as brethren.”
But his affection for them did not blind him to their declensions,
nor make him withhold those admonitions which he saw to be needed.
“As we approve of many things among you,” he wrote, “so there are
several which we wish to see amended. We are informed that the fear of
persecution has caused you to dissemble and to conceal your faith....
There is no concord between Christ and Belial. You commune with
unbelievers; you take part in their abominable masses, in which the
death and passion of Christ are blasphemed.... I know your weakness,
but it becomes those who have been redeemed by the blood of Christ to
be more courageous. It is better for us to die than to be overcome
by temptation.” It was thus that Œcolampadius, speaking in the name
of the Church of the Reformation, repaid the Church of the Alps for
the services she had rendered to the world in former ages. By sharp,
faithful, brotherly rebuke, he sought to restore to her the purity and
glory which she had lost.
Having finished with Œcolampadius, the deputies went on to Strasburg.
There they had interviews with Bucer and Capito. A similar statement
of their faith to the Reformers of that city drew forth similar
congratulations and counsels. In the clear light of her morning the
Reformation Church saw many things which had grown dim in the evening
of the Vaudois Church; and the Reformers willingly permitted their
elder sister the benefit of their own wider views. If the men of the
sixteenth century recognised the voice of primitive Christianity
speaking in the Vaudois, the latter heard the voice of the Bible,
or rather of God himself, speaking in the Reformers, and submitted
themselves with modesty and docility to their reproofs. The last had
become first.
A manifold interest belongs to the meeting of these two Churches. Each
is a miracle to the other. The preservation of the Vaudois Church for
so many ages, amid the fires of persecution, made her a wonder to the
Church of the sixteenth century. The bringing up of the latter from
the dead made her a yet greater wonder to the Church of the first
century. These two Churches compare their respective beliefs: they find
that their creeds are not twain, but one. They compare the sources of
their knowledge: they find that they have both of them drawn their
doctrine from the Word of God; they are not two Churches, they are one.
They are the elder and younger members of the same glorious family, the
children of the same Father. What a magnificent monument of the true
antiquity and genuine catholicity of Protestantism!
Only one of the two Provence deputies returned from their visit to the
Reformers of Switzerland. On their way back, at Dijon, suspicion, from
some cause or other, fell on Pierre Masson. He was thrown into prison,
and ultimately condemned and burned. His fellow-deputy was allowed to
go on his way. George Morel, bearing the answers of the Reformers, and
especially the letters of Œcolampadius, happily arrived in safety in
Provence.
The documents he brought with him were much canvassed. Their contents
caused these two ancient Churches mingled joy and sorrow; the former,
however, greatly predominating. The news touching the numerous body
of Christians, now appearing in many lands, so full of knowledge,
and faith, and courage, was literally astounding. The confessors of
the Alps thought that they were alone in the world; every successive
century saw their numbers thinning, and their spirit growing less
resolute; their ancient enemy, on the other hand, was steadfastly
widening her dominion and strengthening her sway. A little longer, they
imagined, and all public faithful profession of the Gospel would cease.
It was at that moment they were told that a new army of champions had
arisen to maintain the old battle. This announcement explained and
justified the past to them, for now they beheld the fruits of their
fathers’ blood. They who had fought the battle were not to have the
honour of the victory. That was reserved for combatants who had newly
come into the field. They had forfeited this reward, they painfully
felt, by their defections; hence the regret that mingled with their joy.
They proceeded to discuss the answers that should be made to the
Churches of the Protestant faith, considering especially whether they
should adopt the reforms urged upon them in the communications which
their deputies had brought back from the Swiss and German Reformers.
The great majority of the Vaudois barbes were of opinion that they
ought. A small minority, however, were opposed to this, because they
thought that it did not become the new disciples to dictate to the
old, or because they themselves were secretly inclined to the Roman
superstitions. They went back again to the Reformers for advice;
and, after repeated interchange of views, it was finally resolved to
convene a synod in the Valleys, at which all the questions between
the two Churches might be debated, and the relations which they were
to sustain towards each other in time to come, determined. If the
Church of the Alps was to continue apart, as before the Reformation,
she felt that she must justify her position by proving the existence
of great and substantial differences in doctrine between herself and
the newly-arisen Church. But if no such differences existed, she would
not, and dared not, remain separate and alone; she must unite with the
Church of the Reformation.
It was resolved that the coming synod should be a truly œcumenical
one--a general assembly of all the children of the Protestant faith. A
hearty invitation was sent forth, and it was cordially and generally
responded to. All the Waldensian Churches in the bosom of the Alps were
represented in this synod. The Albigensian communities on the north
of the chain, and the Vaudois Churches in Calabria, sent deputies to
it. The Churches of French Switzerland chose William Farel and Anthony
Saunier to attend it.[37] From even more distant lands, as Bohemia,
came men to deliberate and vote in this famous convention.
The representatives assembled on the 12th of October, 1532. Two years
earlier the Augsburg Confession had been given to the world, marking
the culmination of the German Reformation. A year before, Zwingle had
died on the field of Cappel. In France, the Reformation was beginning
to be illustrated by the heroic deaths of its children. Calvin had
not taken his prominent place at Geneva, but he was already enrolled
under the Protestant banner. The princes of the Schmalkald League were
standing at bay in the presence of Charles V. It was a critical yet
glorious era in the annals of Protestantism which saw this assembly
convened. It met at the town of Chamforans, in the heart of the Valley
of Angrogna. There are few grander or stronger positions in all that
valley than the site occupied by this little town. The approach to it
was defended by the heights of Rocomaneot and La Serre, and by defiles
which now contract, now widen, but are everywhere overhung by great
rocks and mighty chestnut trees, behind and above which rise the taller
peaks, some of them snow-clad. A little beyond La Serre is the plateau
on which the town stood, overlooking the grassy bosom of the valley,
which is watered by the crystal torrent, dotted by numerous châlets,
and runs on for about two miles, till shut in by the steep, naked
precipices of the Barricade, which, stretching from side to side of
Angrogna, leaves only the long, dark chasm we have already described,
as the pathway to the Pra del Tor, whose majestic mountains here rise
on the sight and suggest to the traveller the idea that he is drawing
nigh some city of celestial magnificence. The town of Chamforans does
not now exist; its only representative at this day is a solitary
farmhouse.
The synod sat for six consecutive days. All the points raised in the
communications received from the Protestant Churches were freely
discussed by the assembled barbes and elders. Their findings were
embodied in a “Short Confession of Faith,” which Monastier says “may be
considered as a supplement to the ancient Confession of Faith of the
year 1120, which it does not contradict in any point.”[38] It consists
of seventeen articles,[39] the chief of which are the _Moral inability
of man; election to eternal life; the will of God, as made known in the
Bible, the only rule of duty; and the doctrine of two Sacraments only,
Baptism and the Lord’s Supper_.
The lamp which had been on the point of expiring began, after this
synod, to burn with its former brightness. The ancient spirit of the
Waldenses revived. They no longer practised those dissimulations
and cowardly concealments to which they had had recourse to avoid
persecution. They no longer feared to confess their faith. Henceforward
they were never seen at mass, or in the Popish churches. They refused
to recognise the priests of Rome as ministers of Christ, and under no
circumstances would they receive any spiritual benefit or service at
their hands.
Another sign of the new life that now animated the Vaudois was their
setting about the work of rebuilding their churches. For fifty years
before, public worship may be said to have ceased in their Valleys.
Their churches had been razed by the persecutor, and the Vaudois feared
to rebuild them lest they should draw down upon themselves a new
storm of violence and blood. A cave would serve at times as a place
of meeting. In more peaceful years the house of their barbe, or of
some of their chief men, would be converted into a church; and when
the weather was fine, they would assemble on the mountain side, under
the great boughs of their ancestral trees. But their old sanctuaries
they dared not raise from the ruins into which the persecutor had cast
them. They might say with the ancient Jews, “The holy and beautiful
house in which our fathers praised Thee is burned with fire, and all
our pleasant things are laid waste.” But now, strengthened by the
fellowship and counsels of their Protestant brethren, churches arose,
and the worship of God was reinstituted. Hard by the place where the
synod met, at Lorenzo, namely, was the first of these post-Reformation
churches set up; others speedily followed in the other valleys; pastors
were multiplied; crowds flocked to their preaching, and not a few came
from the plains of Piedmont, and from remote parts of their valleys, to
drink of these living waters again flowing in their land.
Yet another token did this old Church give of the vigorous life
that was now flowing in her veins. This was a translation of the
Scriptures into the French tongue. At the synod, the resolution
was taken to translate and print both the Old and New Testaments,
and, as this was to be done at the sole charge of the Vaudois, it
was considered as their gift to the Churches of the Reformation. A
most appropriate and noble gift! That Book which the Waldenses had
received from the primitive Church--which their fathers had preserved
with their blood--which their barbes had laboriously transcribed and
circulated--they now put into the hands of the Reformers, constituting
them along with themselves the custodians of this, the ark of the
world’s hopes. Robert Olivetan, a near relative of Calvin, was asked
to undertake the translation, and he executed it with the help of
his great kinsman, it is believed. It was printed in folio, in black
letter, at Neuchâtel, in the year 1535, by Pierre de Wingle, commonly
called Picard. The entire expense was defrayed by the Waldenses, who
collected for this object 1,500 crowns of gold, a large sum for so poor
a people. Thus did the Waldensian Church emphatically proclaim, at the
commencement of this new era in her existence, that the Word of God was
her one sole foundation.
As has been already mentioned, a commission to attend the synod had
been given by the Churches of French Switzerland to Farel and Saunier.
Its fulfilment necessarily involved great toil and peril. One crosses
the Alps at this day so easily, that it is difficult to conceive the
toil and danger that attended the journey then. The deputies could not
take the ordinary tracks across the mountains for fear of pursuit; they
were compelled to travel by unfrequented paths. The way often led by
the edge of precipices and abysses, up steep and dangerous ascents, and
across fields of frozen snow. Nor were their pursuers the only dangers
they had to fear; they were exposed to death from the blinding drifts
and tempests of the hills. Nevertheless, they arrived in safety in the
Valleys, and added by their presence and their counsels to the dignity
of this the first great ecclesiastical assembly of modern times. Of
this we have a somewhat remarkable proof. Three years thereafter, a
Vaudois, Jean Peyrel, of Angrogna, being cast into prison, deposed on
his trial that “he had kept guard for the ministers who taught the
good law, who were assembled in the town of Chamforans, in the centre
of Angrogna; and that amongst others present there was one called
Farel, who had a red beard, and a beautiful white horse; and two others
accompanied him, one of whom had a horse, almost black, and the other
was very tall, and rather lame.”[40]