their orders are involved in obscurity. They survived the fierce persecutions in France and the valleys of Piedmont, and extended their influence through emigrants to other countries, kindling a zeal for the study of the Scriptures in the vernacular, and strengthening the opposition to the papal Church. When they heard the glad tidings of the Reformation, they sent a deputation-Morel and Masson-to Ecolampadius, Bucer, and other reformers, in 1530, and derived from them clearer views of the distinction between canonical and apocryphal books, justification by faith, election and free-will, the marriage of the clergy, and the nature and number of sacraments. At a synod in the valley of Angrogne, Sept. 12-18, 1532, which was attended also by Farel and two other Reformed preachers of French Switzerland, the Reformation was adopted by a large majority, and subsequently carried out. Since that time the Waldenses became and remained a regular branch of the Reformed Church.'

2

In the course of time the consciousness of this change was obscured, and in their polemic zeal against Romanism they traced the Reformed doctrines to their fathers, who certainly prepared the way for them. Their manuscripts were interpolated and assigned to a much earlier date. Some of their historians even constructed an imaginary Waldensian succession of pure evangelical catholicity up to the apostolic age, in opposition to the papal succession of an apostate pseudo-catholicity, which they dated from the fictitious donation of Constantine to Pope Sylvester and the consequent secularization of the Church. This is the Protestant counterpart of the Romish caricatures of the Reformation, and deserves equal condemnation in the name of common honesty and historical truth.

A critical examination and comparison of the Waldensian manuscripts and the reports of the conferences with the Reformers have exposed these literary frauds, and produced at first a reaction against the Waldenses and in favor of the Bohemian Brethren, from whom some of their books were supposed to be derived. But on still further examination it appears that there was a mutual exchange of views and writings between the two, and that the assertions of some later Bo

1 Herzog, pp. 378 sqq.

* Leger dates, without any proof, the Nobla Leyczon and the Waldensian Catechism from the year 1100; the Confession of Faith, the tracts on Purgatory and the Invocation of Saints, from 1120; the book on Antichrist from 1126.

hemian Brethren concerning their independence are as little to be trusted and as clearly unfounded as the claims of the Waldenses. Their oldest writings, from the twelfth to the fourteenth century, were popular translations of the Scriptures and extracts from the fathers, followed by more extended works, such as La Nobla Leyczon1 (i. e., lectio, a didactic poem on Bible history and an exhortation to repentance), the Cantica, an allegorical exposition, or application rather, of the Song of Songs, and several poems and ascetic tracts. The second class embraces the writings of the fifteenth century (on Purgatory, the Invocation of Saints, and the Sacraments), which are more or less dependent on the Confessio Taboritarum (1433), and other Hussite documents.2 The third class was not composed or put into its present shape till after the adoption of the Reformation in 1532. Their chief confession is based upon the Gallican (1559), and was issued during the fearful massacre of 1655.3

The indebtedness of the Waldenses to the Reformation for a purer creed does not deprive them of a claim to the deep sympathy of all Protestant Christians, which in the period of their fiercest persecution in Piedmont (1655) provoked the threat of Cromwell to make the thunder of English cannon resound in the castle of St. Angelo, and inspired the sublime sonnet of Milton

'Avenge, O Lord, thy slaughtered saints, whose bones

Lie scattered on the Alpine mountains cold;
Even them who kept thy truth so pure of old,
When all our fathers worshiped stocks and stones.
Forget not in thy book record their groans,

Who were thy sheep, and in their ancient fold
Slain by the bloody Piedmontese, that rolled
Mother with infant down the rocks. Their moans
The vales redoubled to the hills, and they
To heaven. Their martyred blood and ashes sow
O'er all the Italian fields, where still doth sway
The triple tyrant; that from these may grow
A hundredfold, who having learnt thy way
Early may fly the Babylonian woe.'

1 Given in the original by Herzog, pp. 444-457, from the Geneva MS., with the variations of the Dublin text. Herzog assigns it to the year 1400. Ebrard, Ueber das Alter der Nobla Leyczon, in the Zeitschrift für histor. Theologie, 1864, and in his Kirchengesch. Vol. II. p. 193, traces it to the beginning of the thirteenth century, and defends the date of the Geneva MS., that the work was written fully eleven hundred years after St. John wrote, 'It is the last time' (1 John ii. 18), i. e., about 1200.

See the comparison in Dieckhoff, pp. 377 sqq.

See Vol. III. pp. 757 sqq.

The last lines sound like a prophecy; for since the day of liberty dawned on Italy (in 1848), that venerable martyr church has, from its mountain retreats in Piedmont, with youthful vigor established missions in nearly all the cities of the peninsula.

THE WALDENSIAN CATECHISM (1489) AND THE BOHEMIAN CATECHISM (1521).

The doctrinal affinity of the Waldenses and the Bohemian Brethren appears especially in their Catechisms, which are the most important of all their writings before the Reformation, and which prove their zeal for Christian education on the basis of the Scriptures. They bear such a striking resemblance to each other that the one must be in part a copy from the other. The Waldensian Catechism has a better claim to originality, and, although not nearly as old as was formerly supposed,' must have been written before 1500; while the Bohemian, in the form in which it was presented to Luther, first appeared in print in 1521 or 1522, and was probably the work of Lucas of Prague (d. 1528), who had visited the Waldenses in Italy and France (1489). But both rest probably on older sources. Palacky brought to light (1869) a similar Catechism, which he derives from Hus before 1414.2 The Waldensian Catechism, called The Smaller Questions,' intended for children, is a remarkable production for an age of prevailing popular superstition and ignorance. It consists of fifty-seven ques

1 Leger, Monastier, and Hahn trace it to the beginning of the twelfth century.

3

2 Dieckhoff (pp. 98-115), from an imperfect knowledge of the Waldensian Catechism (as given by Perrin and Leger), maintained the priority of the Bohemian Catechism, and charged the Waldenses with gross plagiarism. Dr. Herzog (pp. 324 sq.) inclined to the same opinion, but with some qualification, and first edited the original text of the Waldensian Catechism from the Dublin MSS. in the Romance language (pp. 438-444). Since then Prof. Von Zezschwitz, of Erlangen, has published (1863) both Catechisms in their authentic form, with an elaborate argument for the priority of the Waldensian from internal evidence and from its affinity with other undoubted Waldensian documents. Ebrard (Vol. II. p. 491) assents to this view, and says: "The Waldensian Catechism is thoroughly and characteristically Waldensian.' But Palacky traces both to a Bohemian Catechism (of about 4 pages) which he found in the imperial library of Vienna, and published, with a Latin version, in his Documenta relating to Hus (pp. 703, 708). The authorship of Hus, however, is a mere conjecture ('cuius autor Hus esse videtur'). The resemblance extends only to a few questions, and does not settle the point of priority; for Palacky himself admits that the Waldenses were in Prague as early as 1408, and known to Hus. "The Hussites,' he says (Das Verhältniss der Waldenser, etc., p. 20), were both disciples and teachers of the Waldenses, but more the latter than the former.'

3 Las interrogacions menors. The more extensive work on Antichrist was likewise arranged in questions and answers.

tions by the teacher (lo barba, i. e., uncle), and as many answers by the pupil (l'enfant). It embodies the Apostles' Creed, the Lord's Prayer, and the Ten Commandments, and is divided into three divisionsFaith (Ques. 6), Hope (Ques. 32), and Love (Ques. 47). This division was suggested by St. Paul (1 Cor. xiii. 13) and Augustine (Enchiridion), and is followed also in the Greek Catechism of Mogila and the Russian Catechism of Philaret. Under the head of Faith we have a practical exposition of the Apostles' Creed and the Ten Commandments, showing their subjective bearing on a living faith. In the Second Part (Ques. 32), Love is defined to be a gift of the Holy Spirit and an intimate union of the human will with the divine will. In the Third Part (Ques. 48), Hope is defined to be a certain expectation of grace and future glory. The Catechism is directed against the idolatry and superstition of the anti-Christian Church, but the opposition is indirect and moderate. The characteristic Waldensian features are the distinction between a living and a dead faith (Ques. 8); the six evangelical commandments (Ques. 21); the seven gifts of the Holy Spirit (Ques. 23); the distinction between the true or essential (invisible) Church (la gleisa de la part de la substancia), which consists of all the elect of God in Christ, known only to him, and the outward or institutional (visible) church (de la part de li menisteri), i. e., the ministers and the people subject to them (Ques. 35); and the rigid exposition of the second commandment against all forms of idolatry (Ques. 29). Of the sacraments it is said (Ques. 46): Two are absolutely necessary for all; the rest are less necessary.' This clearly indicates that the Catechism was written before the Reformation period, when the Waldenses rejected all but two sacraments.

The Bohemian Catechism is longer, having seventy-five questions and answers. It follows the Waldensian in the general arrangement and first part, and introduces also (like the Greek catechisms) the Beatitudes from the Sermon on the Mount (Ques. 31); it has more to say of idolatry, the worship of Mary, the saints and martyrs, and especially on the Lord's Supper; but these additions lack perspicuity, and are too long for the use of children.

The following specimen will give an idea of these Catechisms, and the relation they sustain to each other and to the Catechism ascribed to Hus:

Di. L'apostol scriv. 1 Cor. xiii. aquestas cosas Cor. xiii., 'Now abideth undt bleyben vns disze drey permanon, fè, sperancza e faith, hope, love, these tugendt, der glaub, die lieb carità.

Hus begins with Ques. 7 (Quid est fides? Respondet S. Paulus in Ep. ad Hebr., etc.), and gives the substance of Ques. 6, but omits Ques. 1-5, and has no trace of a threefold division.