Church History, Volume 2 (of 3)Kurtz, J. H. (Johann Heinrich)
History
Church History, Volume 2 (of 3)
Kurtz, J. H. (Johann Heinrich)
Church history
brethren, the frequent use by both of the Lord’s Prayer, the
rejection of purgatory and everything connected therewith,
also the prohibition of swearing and of military service,
the refusal of the magisterial _jus gladii_, etc. On the
other hand, however, it is more than probable that at last
the remnants of the Cathari which escaped the Inquisition
in great part had found refuge among the Waldensians in the
valleys of the Cottian Alps, and there became assimilated
and amalgamated with them (§ 119, 9A).--Further, the
assumption that the Lombard Waldensians had first reached
the principle by which they are distinguished from their
French brethren, about the incapacity of unworthy priests
for dispensing the sacraments, from outside influences,
perhaps from the Arnoldists, is raised almost to a certainty
by the statement made by their deputies at Bergamo in
A.D. 1218, that they had even themselves in earlier times
held the opposite view.--Even the pantheistic tendency of
an Amalrich and the Brethren of the New Spirit may have
found entrance among the German Waldensians, and have there
given origin to the sect of the Ortlibarians.
§ 109. THE CHURCH AGAINST THE PROTESTERS.
The church was by no means indifferent to the spread of those
heresies of the 11th and 12th centuries, which called in question
its own very existence. Even in the 11th century she called in the
aid of the stake as a type of the fire of hell that would consume
the heretics, and against this only one voice, that of Bishop Wazo
of Liège († A.D. 1048), was raised. In the 12th century protesting
voices were more numerous: Peter the Venerable (§ 98, 1), Rupert of
Deutz, St. Hildegard, St. Bernard, declared sword and fire no fit
weapons for conversion. St. Bernard showed by his own example how by
loving entreaty and friendly instruction more might be done than by
awakening a fanatical enthusiasm for martyrdom. But hangmen and stakes
were more easily produced than St. Bernards, of whom the 12th and
13th centuries had by no means a superabundance. By-and-by Dominic
sent out his disciples to teach and convert heretics by preaching and
disputation; as long as they confined themselves to these methods they
were not without success. But even they soon found it more congenial
or more effective to fight the heretics with tortures and the stake
rather than with discussion and discourse. The Albigensian crusade
and the tribunal of the Inquisition erected in connection therewith
at last overpowered the protesters and drove the remnants of their
sects into hiding. In the administration of punishment the church
made no distinction between the various sects; all were alike who
were at war with the church.
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