- Some believe that the Cathars and Waldensians were similar because they were both considered “heretics” by the church, but this is not the case. The Cathar’s thrived mostly in northern Italy and southern France. Originally, its’ ascetic priests set very few guidelines but one of the main characteristics of this movement were that they believed human spirits were angels that did not identify as male or female. This caused the Catholic Church to turn against them and eventually name them “The Church of Satan.” Back then, the Catholic Church was very gender oriented and to find a group that sees human spirits as neither male or female was considered a major form of heresy. As for the Waldensians, they began from Peter Waldo who was a devout Christian of his time. The problems that arose regarding this group were because at that time you had to get permission to preach, which Peter did not secure from the Bishop of Lyon. He continued to preach anyways, so the church excommunicated him and his followers from Lyon. Waldensians tended to read the Bible very literally in ways that contradicted the church’s teachings.
Cathars (Eberwin, Letter to Bernard)
- What flows from the fifth waterpot is, “against the heretics who shall appear at the end of the world.” From the sixth waterpot, “shall the faithful be filled with satiety” which basically means to stay strong in one’s faith against the ones who will try and break you from that. It is then important to eradicate heresy because in the context of the waterpots, the distractions of those who are trying to go against the Catholic Church are the roots of all evil. Eberwin is simply asking Bernard to aid him in the fight against heresy, because from all the evidence in the letter the heretics have gotten out of hand and the church needs to control them more effectively.
- The confrontation was that a man who was called their bishop and his assistant, held their ground in front of a lot of officials of the church. They defended their heresy with words of Christ and the Apostle (Paul). They then realized they could not prove their points and asked to be able to do so on another day. The heretics define themselves very boldly and put their lives on the line just to get across their points of belief. Their diets are very different and they choose not to drink milk. The institutional church, they say, does not hold truth in the sacraments, they only follow the tradition of man. They defend themselves against opponents by saying that they would rather die than stray from their beliefs, which gives their opponents limited power against them. The people of Cologne might have felt helpless against their approach to death because it’s not like they can use death as a threat against them anymore. They are striving to live an apostolic life because they stand by their beliefs despite the hate they receive from the church, and although they often face death they truly strive to live a life of faith.
Waldensians (the Chronicle of Laon; Etienne de Bourbon; David of Augsburg)
- Before his spiritual transition he was very rich, but was initially intrigued by the readings of the gospel. After he made that transition to live a spiritual life he sold all of his worldly possessions and gave all of his money to the poor. Once he learned the ways of the gospel he then started to recruit people to follow his own interpretations and the religion he wanted. His attitudes towards the scriptures were that the men and women should memorize them, so that even the illiterate men and women could travel house to house to preach the word of the gospel. His story aligns with apostolic life in the ways that he is extremely devout in his teachings and follows the teachings of Jesus in terms of wealth. He gave away all of his possessions and money, and lived a simple and spiritual life.
- David of Augsburg interprets that the Waldensians follow the Bible in their own sense and says in a negative tone that they even teach “little girls” the word of the Gospel in the way they interpret it. The character of the Waldensians movement was special because it threatened the power of the Catholic Church in such a way that they killed them over it.
They were also called Insabbatati, Sabati, Inzabbatati Sabotiers—designations arising from the unusual type of sabot they used as footwear.[12][13][14] Some historians feel their beliefs came from missionaries from the early church and their history is founded perhaps in the apostolic age.[15] The Roman Inquisitor Reinerus Sacho writing c. 1230 held the sect of the Vaudois to be of great antiquity, thus long preceding Waldo by centuries. In the Waldensians, Sabbatati or Insabbatati, there was a more or less continuous tradition of Sabbath-keeping from the early church of the Apostles, throughout southern Europe. There are also account of Paulicians, Petrobusians, Pasaginians along with the Waldenses of the Alps, who kept the Saturday for the Lord’s day[16] which was in conflict with the change to Sunday held by the Roman Catholic Church. The Sabbatati were known also by the name Pasigini. In reference to the Sabbath-keeping Pasigini, one scholar wrote: “The spread of heresy at this time is almost incredible. From Bulgaria to the Ebro, from Northern France to the Tiber, everywhere we meet them. Whole countries are infested, like Hungary and southern France; they abound in many other countries; in Germany, in Italy, in the Netherlands and even in England they put their efforts.” [17]
“among all sects, none is more pernicious to the church than that of the Leonists (Waldensians); some say it has endured from the time of Sylvester, others, from the time of the apostles.”- Reinerus Sacche