CHAPTER II.

THE ANTIQUITY OF THE VALLENSES SHEWN FROM THE TESTIMONY OF JEROME.

THUS, during the persecutions of the second and third and fourth centuries, placed in the valleys of the Cottian Alps as in a citadel fashioned by the hand of nature herself, we find the Vallenses, in the self-same region, still holding the self-same primitive doctrine and practice at the beginning of the fifth century: while, by so doing, they characteristically bore witness against those growing superstitions, from which, by their secluded situation, they had been providentially exempted.

The account of this matter, which I place at the head of the chain of testimony that runs through the whole period of the Middle Ages, is both deeply interesting and specially important, inasmuch as it furnishes the precise link which has long been wanted, in order, on the strength of evidence, synchronical with the particulars detailed, to connect the Vaudois with the Primitive Church and it will not, I hope, argue an unreasonable degree of assumption, if I say,

that, so far as my own knowledge and reading are concerned, I have been privileged to be the first discoverer of the evidence in question *.

I. Vigilantius, a native (as we have seen) of Lugdunum Convenarum or of the Pyrenean Lyons in Aquitaine, and a Presbyter of the Church of Barcelona in Spain, had charged Jerome with too great a leaning to the objectionable opinions of Origen. This circumstance called forth the rage of the irascible Father: and, in the year 397, he addressed to him a very violent epistle on the subject t.

:

Subsequently to the propounding of that epistle. Vigilantius returned into his native country of Aquitaine and there he published a most uncompromising and decisive Treatise against the miserable growing superstitions of the age; Treatise, which is ascribed to the year 406.

In this Treatise, he attacked the notion, that Celibacy is the duty of the Clergy: censured, as idolatrous, the excessive veneration of the

* This evidence, however, in brief, has twice appeared in print. I communicated it to Dr. Gilly who introduced it into the second edition of his Memoir of Felix Neff and Dr. Gilly communicated it to Dr. Muston, who, on the strength of his authority, has similarly introduced it into his recently published History of the Vaudois. See that Work, book ii. note 15. vol. i. p. 178.

† Hieron. adv. Vigilant. c. ii. Oper. vol. ii. p. 159. Epist. Ixxv. vol. ii. p. 251, 252.

Martyrs and the idle unscriptural figment that they are potent intercessors at the throne of grace: ridiculed the blind reverence, which was paid to their senseless and useless relics: exposed the gross folly of burning tapers, like the Pagans, before their shrines in broad day-light: detected the spurious miracles, which were said to be wrought by their inanimate remains: vilified the boasted sanctity of vainly gratuitous monachism: and pointed out the useless absurdity of pilgrimages, either to Jerusalem or to any other reputed sanctuary *.

Such was the drift of his Treatise and, in the course of it, he naturally adverted to Jerome's former indecent attack upon him.

Matters being in this state, Jerome wrote a very intemperate and abusive epistle, addressed to Riparius: and, shortly afterward, receiving the Treatise itself, he composed an Answer to it; in which, it is hard to say, whether illogical absurdity or brutal scurrility is the most predominant t.

From those documents, we fully learn the drift and object of the now lost Treatise of Vigilantius the Leonist and the author, as will readily be

Hieron. adv. Vigilant. ad Ripar. Oper. vol. ii. p. 157. Hieron. adv. Vigilant. cap. i, ii, iii, iv, vi. Oper. vol. ii. p.

158-161.

+ Hieron. Epist. liii. Hieron. adv. Vigilant. Oper. vol. ii.

p. 157–161.

concluded, has had the honour of being, by the Papal Church, duly enrolled in the list of heretics.

II. To the ecclesiastical student, the sentiments of Vigilantius are familiar: and their complete identity with those of the Vallenses, in all ages, cannot have escaped his notice. But, when this remarkable individual quitted Barcelona, from what part of the world did he publish the very seasonable Treatise, which called forth such vulgar and offensive vituperation from the superstitious and exasperated Jerome?

His antagonist tells us that He wrote from a region, situated between the waves of the Adriatic and the Alps of King Cottius; from a region, that is to say, which formed a part of what was once styled Cisalpine Gaul*.

Now this district, on the eastern side of the Cottian Alps, is the precise country of the Vallenses. Hither their ancestors retired, during the persecutions of the second and third and fourth centuries here, providentially secluded from the world, they retained the precise doctrines and practices of the Primitive Church endeared to them by suffering and exile; while the wealthy inhabitants of cities and fertile plains, corrupted

Ego vidi hoc aliquando portentum et, testimoniis Scripturarum, quasi vinculis Hippocratis, volui ligare furiosum. Sed abiit; excessit; evasit; erupit: et, inter Hadriæ fluctus Hieron. Cottiique Regis Alpes, in nos declamando clamavit. Epist. liii. Oper. vol. ii. p. 158.

by a now opulent and gorgeous and powerful Clergy, were daily sinking deeper and deeper into that apostasy which has been so graphically foretold by the great Apostle: and, here, as we learn through the medium of an accidental statement of Jerome, Vigilantius took up his abode, at the beginning of the fifth century, among a people, who, Laics and Bishops alike, agreed with him in his religious sentiments, and joyfully received him as a brother *.

The wisdom of God works not miraculously, when the natural operation of second causes may serve as the substratum of his high purposes. Seclusion within a mountainous district has a physical tendency to preclude change and innovation. Opinions and practices are handed down from father to son: and, until an intercourse is opened with the lower world at their feet, one generation is but the faithful reflection of another. Hence, in the course of God's providence, the alpine mountains and valleys were selected as the retreat, where, unchanged from the first ages, pure Christianity was to be preserved.

When persons, immutatively nurtured in these solitudes, first emerge into an ever-fluctuating world, their feelings are not unlike those of the fabled sleepers of Ephesus. Retiring, like the ancestors of the Vaudois, from the persecution of Decius, they concealed themselves in a spacious cavern. Here they were overpowered by a sleep of one hundred and eighty-seven years. When they emerged, they themselves remained consciously the same, faithfully reflecting the feelings and habits and opinions of a period long since passed away: but, meanwhile, what a change in the world! Christianity, trampled upon and persecuted, was now triumphant. Every thing was new every thing was strange. Their tale of the Primitive Church was recited: their benediction was bestowed: and,