familiarly known the character and history of the pious merchant of Lyons, could never have ignorantly ascribed Peter Valdo, who notoriously flourished during the latter half of the twelfth century, to so remote a period as the very beginning of the seventh century: or, if they had made such an extraordinary mistake, it is plain, that, to the malignant Pilichdorf, it would have afforded a topic of immeasurable exultation and triumph.

But no such misapprehension, and consequently no such triumph, appears. In his Work against the Valdenses, Pilichdorf gives us his account of Peter the rich merchant of Lyons: and, in the extant fragment of his other Work written against the Poor Men of Lyons, he notices, without any imputation of a confused blunder, the standing tradition of the Valdenses, that another Peter of much higher antiquity had previously risen up in the region named Valdis; a region, which, by its very name evidently identifies itself with the country of the Valdenses in Piedmont.

Therefore, no confusion can reasonably be ascribed to the Valdenses collectively: and, therefore, we may safely conclude, that the Valdensic Peter of this tradition was not the Valdensic Peter of Lyons, but, as the tradition purports, an individual who flourished in the seventh century.

X

CHAPTER IV.

THE ANTIQUITY OF THE VALLENSES SHEWN FROM THE HISTORY OF CLAUDE OF TURIN.

DESCENDING with the stream of time, while corruption went on rapidly increasing through the provinces and in the rich towns of the now dislocated though partly restored Western Empire, we shall again, early in the ninth century, meet with the Piedmontese Vallenses in direct connection with their eminent Pastor, Claude, Bishop or Metropolitan of Turin.

I. Bossuet seems not quite to have made up his mind, as to whether Claude was an Arian or a Nestorian. One of the two, he confidently pronounces him to have been: and, so far as I can understand the ingenious Prelate, he rather inclines to the charge of Arianism. His authority is Jonas, Bishop of Orleans: who, prudently waiting for the death of Claude, when he could offer no contradiction, brought the charge against him in the Preface to his work concerning the

worship of images, addressed to Charles the Bald. *

* Claude de Turin étoit Arien et disciple de Félix d'Urgel, c'est-à-dire, Nestorien de plus. Boss. Hist. des Variat. livr. xi. § 1.

I subjoin the precise words of Jonas: for Bossuet, according to his established custom, never gives the originals.

Ut relatione veridica didici, non modo error (de quo agitur) in discipulorum suorum mentibus reviviscit, quin potius (eo dicente) hæresis Arriana pullulare deprehenditur, de qua fertur quædam monumenta librorum congessisse, et ad simplicitatem et puritatem fidei catholicæ et apostolicæ oppugnandam in armario episcopii sui clandestina calliditate reliquisse.-Sufficere namque Claudio poterat, ad cumulum miseriarum suarum, error quem secutus est duorum scilicet hæreticorum, Eustathii et Vigilantii. Sed, his geminis pestibus minimè contentus, altiori perditionis suæ baratro sese præcipitem dedit, dum infestissimi hostis sanctæ Dei Ecclesiæ, Arrii se sectatorem discipulumque, et in vita, et in morte, extitisse monstravit : in vita quidem, docendo et prædicando; in morte quoque, in nefandis codicibus suis eundem errorem a se scriptum relinquendo. Secta quippe ejusdem Arrii, olim a sanctis patribus damnata, catholicoque mucrone sub perpetuo anathemate confossa, quæ sub eodem Claudio dicitur resuscitata, necesse est, ut, sagacissimo quæsitu et diligentissimo scrutamine, extat inventa, et in lucem perferenda, et cum resuscitatore suo ab ecclesiasticis viris rursus sanctarum scripturarum telis ferienda atque frustranda. Jon. Aurelian. de cult. imag. præfat. in Biblioth. Patr. vol. ix. par. prior. p. 91.

It may be observed, that, as Jonas waited for the death of Claude ere he brought his charge of Arianism, so, even then, he adduces it purely as a matter of hearsay: fertur; dicitur..

In justice to Jonas it ought to be stated: that, although, in the ninth century, he composed a work against Claude and in

The very vagueness of the allegation, which hovers between the asserted Nestorianism of his early friend Felix of Urgel and a pretended Arianism of which even his bitter enemy Dungal could discover no traces during his life, may well, even on the first blush, induce a full presumption that Claude was a favourer of neither heresy *.

favour of images; he has merited and received the censure of more advanced Romanists, at a later period, because he laboured under the grievous error of his age, in denying to them all religious adoration. Hence this pillar of the Church, as Bellarmine remarks, must be read cautiously by all good Catholics.

Jonas Episcopus Aurelianensis, imperante Ludovico Pio, scripsit libros tres, qui extant, adversus Claudium Episcopum Taurinensem pro defensione sacrarum imaginum et signi sanctæ crucis et peregrinationum ad loca sancta. Sed hic tamen auctor cautè legendus est, quoniam laborat eodem errore, quo Agobardus et reliqui ejus ætatis Galli, qui negabant sacris imaginibus ullum debere cultum religiosum. Bellarm. de Scriptor. Eccles. in Biblioth. Patr. vol. ix. par. prior. p. 91. The editors of the Bibliotheca piously follow in the track of the Cardinal.

Etsi Jonas laude dignus extiterit, quod, adversus iconomachos sacras imagines demolientes, strenuè veritatem catholicam, de retinendis et conservandis imaginibus, propugnaverit: et in eo merito rejiciendus, quod nullam sacris imaginibus adorationem aut venerationem deferendam existimaverit, qui fuit error nonnullorum gallicanorum magni nominis theologorum, uti prædiximus. Ob id, scripta ista Ionæ magno cum judicio et cautè legenda. Ibid. p. 90.

Dungal has written a long and angry answer to what he calls the perverse sentiments of Claude of Turin: and, though

he manifestly wished to speak all the evil of him that he could

Accordingly, in the Works of that remarkable man which have hitherto been brought to light,

do, he never once, the object of his wrath being then alive, has ventured to charge him with either Nestorianism or Arianism. He refers, in a single place, to Felix, as the author of the error, which Claude maintained, and which he (not very wisely for a man of such limited powers and such a rambling illogical head) had undertaken by the aid of mere verbose declamation to confute: but this error, against which he directs the whole of his small strength, is the rejection of image-worship, and saintworship, and relic-worship, and cross-worship, and foolish pilgrimages to Rome, and perhaps still more foolish acknowledgments of papal supremacy in the chair of the Apostle; not the heresy either of Arius or of Nestorius. He simply says: in magistro hujus erroris Felice. Dungal. Respons. cont. pervers. Claud. Taurin. sentent. in Bibl. Patr. vol. ix. par. poster. p. 878. The hic error, is the subject of the entire Treatise, which extends through twenty two very closely printed folio pages. On this same Hic error, Dungal is very full and very angry but not a syllable has he to say upon either the Nestorianism or the Arianism of the mad blasphemer and the hissing serpent, whose head, for the good of the Church and the preservation of the faith, he had undertaken to crush. Possibly some allowance ought to be made for the exuberance of his indignation for the zealous Claude, disgusted, like Vigilantius, with the unscriptural folly of the cinder-men and bone-worshippers, certainly did not mince the matter. Dungal, at the close of his Treatise, reminds him, how he refused to attend a Convention of Bishops on the not very complimentary ground of their being a Congregation of Asses. Propter istam autem insanissimam perversitatem, renuit ad Conventum occurrere Episcoporum; vocans illorum Synodum Congregationem Asinorum. Dungal. cont. Claud. Taurin. in Bibl. Patr. par. post. vol. ix. p. 895.