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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" [Monastier, Hist. of the Vaudois, p. 138]. 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!"
[Monastier, Hist. of the Vaudois, p. 138]. 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.
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 [Gilles, p. 30. Monastier, p. 141].
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
Dauphine 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 Neuchatel, Morat, and Bern. They had also
interviews with Berthold Haller and William Farel. Going on to Basle they
presented to OEcolampadius, in October, 1530, a document in Latin, containing a
complete account of their ecclesiastical discipline, worship, doctrine, and
manners. They begged in return that EOcolampadius 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 OEcolampadius 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 OEcolampadius, 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 OEcolampadius, 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 OEcolampadius, 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 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
oecumenical 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 [Ruchat, tom.
iii., pp. 176,557.] 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
chalets, 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" [Hist. of the Vaud., p. 146.] It consists of
seventeen articles,** 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. [It is entitled, says Leger, "A Brief Confession of Faith made by the
Pastors and Heads of the Families of the Valleys of Piedmont." "It is
preserved," he adds, "with other documents in the Library of the University of
Cambridge." (Hist. des Vaud., livr. i., p. 95.)]
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 these 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 ofhe 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 recieved 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 Neuchatel, 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" [Gilles, p. 40. Monastier, p. 146].
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