WALDENSES

In Ecclesiastical History, a remarkable religious sect, said to have derived their name from Peter Waldo, a merchant of Lyons, who preached what he regarded as the pure doctrine of the Scriptures about 1180. Historians have confounded them, on the one hand, with the Vaudois (see that article), who appear, although their history is involved in much obscurity, to be an older and separate people; and on the other (especially those of the Catholic party), with the Albigenses; and thus it has been endeavoured to throw on them the discredit of the Manic he an tracts, which are commonly (but on very doubtful testimony) imputed to the latter. It seems clear, however, that the Waldenses were distinct from these, and probably from the Vaudois also. Their distinguishing character, it has been said, " seems to have consisted in a strict adherence to what they considered to be the doctrine originally delivered by Christ to his apostles." And out of their extremely literal interpretation of the Gospel appears to have arisen most of their peculiarities, whether good or evil. They seem to have rejected an established succe ion of the priesthood, and the distinguishing characteristics of the priestly office; the high Catholic doctrine of the sacraments, besides the common ecclesiastical abuses of their day; and are said in addition to have protested against oaths, warfare, lawsuits, and the accumulation of wealth. Their later history is obscure; and it may he said of them, as well as of other sects of the day, that they had little of the elements of permanence, the same opinions being continually promulgated afresh by new reformers, and then receiving new denominations. I^See Albigenses, Petrobrusians, Vaudois.) The reader may consult Milner's Ecclesiastical History for the most favourable view of these and similar sectaries; and, among many other authorities, Faber, On the Churches of the IValdehses and Albigenses. Mosheim, cent. 12. vol. iii. There is a curious notice of an establishment of j Waldenses in Kent in the Arch ceo logia, vol.ix. [s. 1328]