_A. D. 315._--It is stated that already in the time of Sylvester, there was taught and maintained the same doctrine which was afterwards maintained by countless numbers of the baptistic Waldenses, yea, that those churches which in the 11th, 12th, 13th, and in subsequent centuries were styled Waldenses Albigenses, and lastly, Mennonites, or Anabaptists, had existed already at that time, and indeed, long before. Of this a certain celebrated author among the Romanists bitterly complains, in a very old book, saying: “These heretics (the people mentioned above) have always had many sects among them; but of all that ever existed, none was more pernicious to the church of God (understand the Roman church) than the _Poor of Lyons_ (the Waldenses or Anabaptists), and this for three reasons: In the first place, because of their antiquity; some asserting that they existed already in the days of Sylvester, others referring them even to the time of the apostles.” _Jac. Mehrn., page 615._ In another place Jacob Mehrning writes thus about the abovementioned people: “This is not a new sect that originated only at that time (that is, in the time of Waldus); for the papistic writers themselves confess that they existed already in the time of Pope Sylvester, nay, long before him, even in the time of the apostles.” _B. H., page 670._ In another place he writes that Flaccius has also recorded the same, from an ancient papistic book, namely, that they existed from the time of Sylvester, yea, from the time of the apostles; and that Thuanus, though he compares them to another people, states that their doctrine has continued through many centuries.” _Page 682._ The time of the reign of Sylvester, who was the first pope of this name, and on the register of the Roman bishops the 34th, is fixed in the year 315. See _P. J. Twisck, Chron., 4th book, p. 93, col. 1, from Platina, fol. 63_. _Fasc. Temp., fol. 99, Hist. Georg., lib. 1, Fr. Ala., fol. 22, Chron. Seb. Fr., fol. 13._ _A. D. 317._--Donatus, an over-learned bishop at Carthage,[101] who had many adherents in Africa, taught among other things: “That the preaching of the divine word and the administration of the sacraments by an ungodly minister, were of no avail. They (his followers) held that the church of Christ existed only among them, and hence, they rebaptized all who wished to adopt their religion, saying that the heretics, or the Pope, had no Christian church, and consequently, no baptism, inasmuch as there was only one God, one faith, one Gospel, one church, and one baptism. ‘They, like the Anabaptists, also held,’ says Franck, ‘that no children, even in the extremity of death, should be baptized, but only believing adults who desired it.’”