§ 84. THK WALDENSES. 503
the heretics of Metz, declared their desire to understand the Scriptures a laudable one but their meeting in secret and usurping the function of the priesthood in preaching as only evil. Alanus, in a long passage, brought against the Waldenses that Christ was sent by the Father and that Jonah, Jeremiah, and others received authority from above before they undertook to preach, for " how shall they preach unless they be sent." The Waldenses were without commission. To this charge, the Waldenses, as at the dis putation of Narbonne, answered that all Christians are in duty bound to spread the Gospel in obedience to Christ's last command and to James 4 : 17, "to him that knoweth to do good and doeth it not, to him it is sin."1 The denial of their request by Alexander III., 1179, did not discourage them from continuing to preach in the highway and house and, as they had opportunity, in the churches.2
The Waldenses went still further in shocking old-time custom and claimed the right to preach for women as well as for men, and when Paul's words enjoining silence upon the women were quoted, they replied that it was with them more a question of teaching than of formal preaching and quoted back Titus 2:3, " the aged women should be teachers of good things." The abbot Bernard of Fontis Calidi, in con testing the right of laics of both sexes to preach, quoted the Lord's words commanding the evil spirit to hold his peace who had said " Thou art the Holy One of God," Mark 1 : 25. If Christ did not allow the devil to use his mouth, how could he intend to preach through a Waldensian ? 3 In one of the lists of errors, ascribed to the Waldenses, is their rejec tion of the universities of Paris, Prague, and Vienna and of all university study as a waste of time.4
It was an equally far-reaching principle when the Wal denses declared that it was spiritual endowment, or merit,
1 Comba, pp. 47-52, gives a translation of the disputation at Narbonne. The abbot Bernard, Migne, 204. 805, also quotes James 4 as a passage upon which the Waldenses relied.
2De Bourbon, p. 291; Guy, p. 292, etc.
8 Migne, 204. 806 sq., 825; Pollinger, II. :JOO, etc. 4 Dollinger, II. 340.
504 THE MIDDLE AGES. A. IX 1049-1294.
and not the Church's ordination which gave the right to bind and loose, to consecrate and bless.1 This was recognized by their opponents as striking at the very root of the sacerdotal system. They charged against them the definite affirmation of the right of laymen to baptize and to administer the Lord's Supper. No priest, continuing in sin, could administer the eucharist, but any good layman might.2 The charge was likewise made that women were allowed the function also, and Rainerius says that no one rose up to deny the charge. It was also charged that the Waldenses allowed laymen to receive confessions and absolve.3 Differences on this point among the Waldenses were brought out at the conference at Bergamo.
As for the administration of baptism, there were also differ ences of view between the Waldenses of Italy and those of France. There was a disposition, in some quarters at least, to deny infant baptism and to some extent the opinion seems to have prevailed that infants were saved without baptism.4 Whatever the views of the early Waldenses were at the time of the Reformation, according to the statement of Morel, they left the administration of the sacraments to the priests. The early documents speak of the secrecy observed by the Waldenses, and it is possible more was charged against them than they would have openly acknowledged.
To the affirmation of these fundamental principles the Waldenses, on the basis of the Sermon on the Mount, added the rejection of oaths,5 the condemnation of the death penalty,6
lMagis operatur meritum ad consecrandum vel benedictionem, ligandum vel solvendum, quam ordo vel officium, Alanus, Migne, 204, 385. Alphande'ry, p. 129, justly lays stress upon this charge.
2 Consecratio corporis et sanguinis Christi potest fieri a quolibet justo, quamvis sit laycus, Guy, p. 246. Also Rainerius, p. 1775, David of Augsburg, and Dollinger, II. 7. « Alanus, Migne, 210, 386.
4 Rainerius declares without qualification that the Poor Men of Lombardy held to the salvation of infants not baptized, but the Rescriptum declares that baptism was regarded as necessary for all. So also David of Augsburg. See Dollinger, II. 45.
5 Alanus, 210, 392 ; de Bourbon, pp. 292, 296 ; Guy, p. 246 ; Dollinger, II. 85 (Salve Burce), 107, 126, etc.
6 Alanus, 210, 394 ; Guy, p. 246 ; Dollinger, II. 76, 107, 143, etc.