616 2 THE WALDENSES. A second beautiful monument of this Christian spirit is the sketch of Christian doctrine intituled the Noble Lesson.1 We have no just grounds for skepticism with regard to the date which this production attributes to itself, and this date places it in the early days of the Waldenses; for it is observed that but eleven centuries had elapsed since it was said, that we live in the last times;-whether the pas sages in the epistle of St. Paul, of which mention is made in the immediate context, or in the Apocalypse are intended. The chronological determination agrees with the times, in either case, unless we suppose a calculation exact to the letter. In the Noble Lesson, the following contrast is drawn between the old law and the new. The old, curses the body that brings forth no fruit; the new, recommends the life of virginity. The old, forbids perjury alone; the new, swearing in general;3 it bids us say simply yea and nay. The prohibition of all shedding of blood is also cited. The apostles are represented as patterns of spiritual, voluntary poverty; they were contented with food and raiment. They find, however, but very few followers after them. After the times of the apostles, there were some teachers, it is said, who showed the way of Christ our Saviour. But at present, also, there are a few who earnestly desire to show the way of Christ; but they are so persecuted, that it is hardly in their power to do so. They were especially persecuted by the false shepherds. If an individual is still to be found who neither curses, swears, lies, commits adultery, murders, possesses himself of another's goods, nor revenges himself on his enemies, they say he is a Waldensian, and deserves to be punished.5 Against the priestly power of the keys, it is said, the popes since the times of Silvester, the cardinals, bishops, and abbots, all put together, have not even power to forgive single mortal sin. God alone can forgive sins. It belongs to the shepherds, simply, to preach to the people, to pray for them, to exhort the people to repentance and a sincere confession of their sins; to fast, give alms, and pray with fervent hearts; for by these means the souls of bad Christians who have sinned may attain to salvation. The doctrines of the Waldenses thus expressed perfectly harmonize with what we have said concerning the origin of this sect, as one which is to be traced to the idea of the evangelical poverty; and we perceive how the evangelical spirit in it gradually attained to a freer development.7 La nobla Leyczon, noble leçon, first published by Léger, in his Histoire des Vaudois;-a more complete reprint in the Choix des poésies originales des Troubadours, par Raynouard. T. ii, p. 76. La ley velha maudi lo ventre, que fruc non a porta, Ma la novella conselha, gardan verge neta. La ley velha deffent solament perjurar, Ma la novella di al pos tot non jurar. Poverta spiritual. Que volhan esser paure per propria volunta. Qu'es Vaudes e degne de punir. Car per aquestas cosas troba l'arma salvament, De nos caytio Crestians, lical haven ресса. 7 Maitland, in his work entitled Facts and Documents illustrative of the history, doctrine, and rites of the ancient Albigenses and Waldenses, London, 1832, p. 115, has very properly directed attention to the criticism necessary to be employed in the use of the ancient confessions of the Waldenses; but he has certainly carried his doubts too far. One mark of spuriousness cited by him, the divisions of the Bible into chap IDEAS OF JOACHIM AMONG THE FRANCISCANS. 617 It was in the order of the Franciscans we saw the idea of evangelical poverty first introduced into the hierarchy; but we also saw how the popes, by their participation in the disputes within this order, in which they sided with the milder party among the Franciscans, became involved in a contest with the zelantes and spirituales, and how it thus came about that the idea of evangelical poverty raised to importance by this party took another direction, was set up against the worldliness of a church corrupted by the superfluity of earthly goods, and by means of this antagonism many others might be called forth, which from the point of view occupied by this party could not fail to appear heretical. Added to this was the influence of those prophetical ideas, of which we spoke in the first section, and which, propagated ever since the middle of the twelfth century, had been continually shaping themselves out into greater distinctness; particularly those ideas in the peculiar form in which they are presented by the abbot Joachim, whose profound thoughts and intuitions operated in various ways to stimulate and fructify inquiry. The exposition of the Apocalypse opened a wide field of imaginative conjecture to minds deeply conscious of the corruption of the church in their times, and piercing with a spirit of divination into the future. As the signs of the times, which are presented in that production of Joachim as tokens of the last great conflict, were, in the important epochs of new evolutions of the kingdom of God repeated in manifold forms, and exalted to a still higher significance, so the opinion, which indeed contained something of truth, that this final judgment was hinted at by signs corresponding to the predictions of the Apocalypse, might the more easily obtain credence. The abbot Joachim had given the impulse to that kind of speculation by which men were led to trace in certain correspondences, in which one step prefigured that which was to follow, the progressive fulfilment of the prophetic element in the unfolding thread of historical facts. The ideas of the evangelical poverty and of the age of the Holy Spirit were in these intuitions combined together; there were, however, different spiritual tendencies, agreeing only in their opposition to the existing church form, which seized and appropriated these ideas after different ways; ters, first introduced after the middle of the thirteenth century (yet it is already to be met with in William of Paris), may no doubt excite suspicions against the statement that the above-cited tract concerning antichrist originated in the 12th century, if this division was to be found in the original form of that document. But the whole character of the document, as well as of the last named Noble Leçon, harmonizes with this period of time. As it regards the style and language, respecting which I am not qualified to judge, I must rely here on the judgment of that competent critic, Raynouard. Maitland supposes, it is true, the antique form of the language is no proof of its genuineness. Whoever was interested, he thinks, to forge such documents, might also take pains to imitate sometimes, as we saw in the sect of Almaric of Bena, a mystical pantheism, which would exchange Christian theism, and the dependence of the religious consciousness on a Saviour of the world for the selfdeification of mind, representing Christianity as being only a subordinate form of religion which the mind, when arrived at the age of manhood, should slough off; sometimes a tendency, which, conscious that Christianity is itself the absolute religion, strove after a freer and more perfect development of the same, whereby it was to break through all human ordinances. As the strict Franciscans entertained a special reverence for the abbot Joachim, who had foretold their order and the regeneration of the church, of which they were to be the instrument, and occupied themselves a good deal with the explanation of his writings, the interpretation and application of the current ideas in the same, so a great deal was said among them about a new everlasting gospel. The idea of such a gospel belonged really among the characteristic and peculiar notions of Joachim; and we have seen how by this expression, borrowed from the 14th chapter of the Apocalypse (v. 6), he had understood, following the view of Origen, a new spiritual apprehension of Christianity, as opposed to the sensuous Catholic point of view, and answering to the age of the Holy Spirit. A great sensation was now created by a commentary on the eternal gospel, which after the middle of the thirteenth century, the Franciscan Gerhard, who, by his zeal for Joachim's doctrines, involved himself in many persecutions and incurred an eighteen years' imprisonment, published under the title of "Introductorius in evangelium aeternum." Many vague notions were entertained about the eternal gospel of the Franciscans, arising from superficial views, or a superficial understanding of Joachim's writings, and the offspring of mere rumor or the heresy-hunting spirit. Men spoke of the eternal gospel as of a book composed under this title and circulated among the Franciscans.3 Occasionally, also, this eternal gospel was confounded perhaps with the above-mentioned Introductorius. In reality, there was no book existing under this title of the 'Assuredly this person was not, as he was afterwards said to be (see the Directorium inquisitionis of the Dominican Nicholas Eymericus, f. 272). a friend and kindred spirit to that same John of Parma, who, on account of his severity as a reformer, and his zeal for the doctrines of Joachim, suffered much persecution, was deposed from his office as general of his order, had Bonaventura for his successor; the author of this book, as may be gathered from a statement of the acts of that process preserved in the library of the Sorbonne at Paris, by a member of the papal commission, composed of three cardinals appointed to examine that work, was Hugo of St. Chers (see above, p. 426). See the work already cited relative to the writers of the Dominican order, by Quetif and Echard, t. i, f. 202: Processus in librum evangelii aeternii. See, respecting him, Wadding. Annals of the Franciscan order, t. iv, at the year 1256. 3 So said that violent enemy of the mendicant monks, of whom we have spoken in the second section, p. 283, William of St. Amour. In his sermon, preached on St. James' and St. Philip's days in the abovecited edition of his works, p. 500, where he is describing the dangers which belonged to the signs of the last times, and without doubt had the Franciscans in his mind, he says: De istis periculis jam habemus quaedam Parisiis, scilicet librum illum, qui vocatur evangelium aeternum. Et nos vidimus non modicam partem illius libri et audivi, quod ubicunque est, tantum vel plus contineat ille liber quam tota oiblia, which might certainly be said with propriety of the compass and extent of Joachim's writings. Eternal Gospel; but all that is said about it relates simply to the writings of Joachim. The opponents of the Franciscan order objected to the preachers of the eternal gospel, that, according to their opinion, Christianity was but a transient thing, and a new, more perfect religion, the absolute form, destined to endure forever, would succeed it. William of St. Amour says:2 "For the past fifty-five years some have been striving to substitute in place of the gospel of Christ another gospel, which is said to be a more perfect one, which they called the gospel of the Holy Spirit, or the eternal gospel.3 These doctrines, concerning a new eternal gospel, which was to be preached in the times of the antichrist, had already, in the year 1254,-where perhaps he refers to the appearance of the above-mentioned Introductorius,-been set forth at the very seat of theological studies in Paris. Whence it is manifest, that the antichristian doctrine would even now be preached from the pulpits, if there were not still something that withholdeth (2 Thessal. 2: 6), namely, the power of the pope and of the bishops. It is said in that accursed book, which they called the eternal gospel, which had already been made known in the church, that the eternal gospel is as much superior to the gospel of Christ, as the sun is to the moon in brightness, the kernel to the shell in value. The kingdom of the church, or the gospel of Christ, was to last only till the year 1260." In a sermon which we have already noticed, he points out the following as doctrines of the eternal gospel: that the sacrament of the church is nothing; that a new law of life was to be given, and a new constitution of the church introduced; and he labors to show that on the contrary the form of the hierarchy, under which the church then subsisted, was one resting on the divine order, and altogether necessary and immutable. These charges from the mouth of a passionate opponent cannot See the learned and profound essay on this subject by Dr. Engelhardt, in his Kirchengeschichtlichen Abhandlungen,Erlangen, 1832, p. 4, et f. This may be very distinctly gathered from the statement in the abovecited acts of the process on the Introductorius in evangelium aeternum, 1. c. Quetif et Echard, f. 202, for here it is expressly stated: Quod liber concordiarum vel concordia veritatis appellaretur primus liber evangelii aeterni et quod liber iste, qui dicitur Apocalypsis nova, appellaretur secundus liber ejusdem evangelii, similiter, quod liber, qui dicitur Psalterium decem chordarum, sit tertius liber ejusdem evangelii. Here we plainly recognize the titles of the three works of Joachim mentioned above, in a note on p. 221. With this agree also the following words of Thomas Aquinas: Hoc autem evangelium, de quo loquuntur (William of St. Amour and his party), est quoddam introductorium in libro [s] Joachim compositam, quod est ab ecclesia reprobatum, vel etiam ipsa doctrina Joachim, per quam, ut dicunt, evangelium Christi mutatur. See opusculum xvi, contra impugnantes religionem (the opponents of the mendicant orders). Opp. ed. Venet. t. xix, p. 415. De periculis novissimorum temporum, 38. p. 4 L. c. p. 500. certainly be regarded as evidence that a doctrine like that of Almaric, concerning a new religion of the perfect, close at hand, was even then taught among the strict Franciscans. It is easy to see, by referring back to the account given on a former page, of the doctrines of Joachim, how St. Amour might be led to suppose that he found all this in Joachim's writings, which surely he had read but superficially, and for the very reason that they were so highly esteemed among the Franciscans, with hostile feelings, as well as an entirely opposite bent of mind. And since the existing form of the church constitution seemed to him in exact accordance with the essence of Christianity, he could not fail, indeed, where Joachim predicted some new form of the manifestation of Christianity, in which it was to cast aside its present confined envelope, to see therein announced some new antichristian gospel. Taking everything together which the opponents cite from the "Introductory to the eternal gospel," it may well be doubted whether, even in this book, any such doctrine, implying the destruction of Christianity, was set forth. The whole matter of this work also seems to have consisted in an explication of the fundamental ideas of the abbot Joachim, and in the application of them to the genuine Franciscan order. The condemnation of the "Introductory," by pope Alexander the Fourth, could not put a stop, however, to the circulation of these ideas. They still continued to be cherished among the party of the more rigid Franciscans, and a remarkable individual, who sprung up in the midst of that body, gave them a new impulse. This was John Peter de Oliva of Provence, who from his twelfth year had been educated in the Franciscan order. He was governed from the first by that eccentric tendency of religious feeling and imagination which had gone forth from Francis; as was seen, for example, in his extravagant eulogiums of the Virgin Mary, which, indeed, were found to be offensive even in his own order ;2 but with this, he united a profound, speculative intellect. A mixture of profound ideas and fantastic, whimsical assertions might naturally be expected, therefore, in his writings.3 Zealous for the primitive severity of the Franciscan rule, he inveighed against all deviations from it; and the same spirit led him also to attack the worldly life, the luxury and pomp of the clergy. By so doing he created many enemies, who eagerly laid hold of every occasion presented by his many singular, bold remarks, to suggest suspicions with regard to his orthodoxy. Besides his doctrine of evangelical poverty, various metaphysical, dogmatic statements were hazarded by him, which gave offence. Among these was the opinion that Christ when struck by the spear in his side was not yet dead.5 After an assembly of the Franciscan order, convened in the year 1282, had ordered an investigation of his doctrines, and of their spread, he See Wadding. Annales, 1289, N. 29. 2 In Wadding. 1. c. N. 28. 3 We have to lament that nothing has as yet been published from the writings of this remarkable man. We know nothing of him except from the articles declared heretical, which had been extracted from his Commentary on the Apocalypse, by a papal commission under John the Twenty Second. In Baluz. Miscellan. i, f. 213. N. 2. Wadding. Annales, at the year 1282. 5 L. c. at the year 1297. N. 37, etc. |