The Vaudois of Piedmont: A Visit to Their ValleysWorsfold, J. N. (John Napper)
History
The Vaudois of Piedmont: A Visit to Their Valleys
Worsfold, J. N. (John Napper)
Waldenses
In answer to the next question, How long have the Waldenses lived in the
locality from which they derive their name? _Da ogni tempo, da tempo
immemoriale_--from all time, from time immemorial--is the claim set up by
them in their earliest documents, and repeated over and over again in their
petitions to the House of Savoy for liberty of conscience.[A] Nor is there
any attempt to refute this claim of antiquity on the part of their princes
or their persecutors.
To this statement of the Waldenses themselves we will add corroborative
testimony from others.
Their enemies. We begin with Reinerius the Inquisitor, A.D. 1250. He refers
to the Waldenses under the term of Leonists, and says that this sect has
been of longer continuance (than the others to which he refers), having
lasted, some say, from the time of Pope Sylvester (314), and others from
the time of the apostles.
Pilichdorf, a writer of the same date, expressly asserts that the Waldenses
claimed to have existed from the time of Pope Sylvester, and Claude
Seyssel, Archbishop of Turin from the close of the fifteenth century to the
beginning of the sixteenth, and whose diocese extended to the valleys of
Piedmont, says that the Waldenses took their origin from Leo, a person in
the time of ye Emperor Constantine, who, hating the avarice of Pope
Sylvester and the immoderate endowment of the Church of Rome, seceded from
her communion, and "_drew after him all who entertained right sentiments
about the Christian religion_."
Next in order we may take the testimony of Rorenco, Grand Prior of St. Roch
in Turin, and one of the lords of the valley of Luserne. He was
commissioned to investigate the history of the "men of the valleys," and
published the result of his labours in the year 1632. He says "that the
Waldenses were no new sect, but had been in those valleys for more than
five or six centuries," and in proof of this remarks further, that "no
edict of any prince who gave permission for the introduction of this
religion into these parts can be found. Princes only give permission to
their subjects to continue in the religion of their ancestors." Cassini, an
Italian priest, declares that the tradition handed down was, that "the
Waldenses were as ancient as the Christian Church."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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