§ 84. THE WALDENSES. 505
and some of them purgatory and prayers for the dead.1 There are but two ways after death, the Waldenses declared, the way to heaven and the way to hell.2
The Waldenses regarded themselves, as Professor Comba has said, as a church within the Church, a select circle. They probably went no further, though they were charged with pronouncing the Roman Church the Babylonian harlot, and calling it a house of lies.3 As early as the thirteenth century, the Waldenses were said, as by de Bourbon, to be divided like the Cathari into the Perfect and Believers, but this may be a mistake. In the beginning of the fourteenth century, in Southern France they elected a superintendent, called Majoralis omnium, whom, according to Bernard Guy, they obeyed as the Catholics did the pope, and they also had presbyters and deacons. In other parts they had a threefold ministry, under the name of priests, teachers, and rectors.4
From the first, the Lyonnese branch had a literature of its own and in this again a marked contrast is presented to the Cathari. Of the early Waldensian translation of the Bible in Romaunt, there are extant the New Testament
1 The abbot Bernard, Migne, 204, 828, 833; De Bourbon, p. 295; Dollinger, II. 93, 107, 143, etc. The story of creation ascribed to the ne"gro, accord ing to which God, in making man, made an image of clay and set it up against the fence to dry, is as old as Etienne de Bourbon (d. 1261) and the earliest Waldenses. Bourbon says, p. 294, that he had heard of a Walden sian who, in his testimony, had stated that God made a form of soft clay as boys do in their play, and set it up under the sun to dry, and that the cracks made by the sun were veins through which the blood began to run, and then God breathed His spirit upon the face of the image.
2 The Waldensian teaching of the two ways has been regarded by Harnack and Keller as a reminiscence of the Teaching of the Twelve Apostles. Comba, p. 341, with more probability refers it to the Sermon on the Mount. The reference was, not so much to the two ways in this life, but to the denial of purgatory, Dollinger, II. 252, 287, 300, etc.
8 Rainerius, p. 1776 ; Guy, p. 247. Also, the abbot Bernard, Migne, 204, 795 sqq., and Alanus, Migne, 210, 379 sqq.
4 Dollinger, II. 92. At a later date the minister among the Italian Walden ses was called barba, uncle. Comba, p. 147. Morel, in his letter to CEcolampadius, declared that these distinctions were not maintained by the Walden ses. See Dieckhoff, p. 259 sq.
506 THE MIDDLE AGES. A.D. 1049-1294.
complete and the Psalms, Proverbs, Song of Solomon, and Ecclesiastes. A translation in French had preceded this Waldensian version.1 The German translation of the Bible found at Tepl, Bohemia, may have been of Waldensian origin.2
The Nolla Leyczon? dating from the early part of the thir teenth century and the oldest extant piece of Waldensian lit erature next to the version of the Bible, is a religious poem of four hundred and seventy-nine lines. It has a strictly practical purpose. The end of the world is near, man fell, Noah was spared, Abraham left his own country, Israel went down to Egypt and was delivered by Moses. Christ preached a better law, he trod the path of poverty, was crucified, and rose again. The first line ran "O brothers, listen to a noble teaching." The poem closes with the scene of the Last Judg ment and an exhortation to repent.
Through one channel the Waldenses exercised an influence over the Catholic Church. It was through the Waldensian choice of poverty. They made the "profession of poverty," as Etienne de Bourbon calls it, or " the false profession of poverty," as Bernard Guy pronounced it. By preaching and by poverty they strove after evangelical perfection, as was distinctly charged by these and other writers. Francis d'Assisi took up with this ideal and was perhaps more immediately the disciple of the obscure Waldensians of Northern Italy than can be proved in so many words. The ideal of Apos tolic poverty and practice was in the air and it would not de tract from the services of St. Francis, if his followers would recognize that these dissenters of Lyons and Italy were actu-
1 Berger, La Bible franqalse an moyen ftge, Paris, 1884. There are marked differences in the MSS. of the Komaimt version, in language, etc. Comba, pp. 182-185, gives paragraphs from different MSS.
2 So Haupt and Keller, Die Reform, und die dlteren Reformparteien, Leip zig, 1886, pp. 257-260. Jostes ascribed the Version to Catholic sources, an opinion Dr. Philip Schaff was inclined to adopt. Independent, Oct. 8, 1885. Nestle, art. " German Versions," in Herzog, III. 66, pronounces the question an open one.
8 The title is from lectio, reading. The text is given by Herzog, pp. 445-457, and an English translation by Perrin, pp. 263-271.