Page:Life in the Old World - Vol. I.djvu/390

406 of images and relics, with other abuses of the Romish church, was obliged to flee from Rome, and who found a place of refuge and friends, in a district between the Cottian Alps and the Adriatic sea. In the eighth century, the congregation of the valleys advanced into a clearer light, when Claudius, bishop of Turin, was said to blow upon the smouldering coals of Vigilanti's heresies, and he came forward in a written treatise against the abuses and usurpations of Rome, encouraging, at the same time, the congregations of Piedmont in their protest against them. He supports himself by the words of Origen, in his Commentary on the Gospel of St. Matthew: “If we even say, with Peter, ‘Thou art Christ, the son of the living God!’ not through our own flesh and blood, but through the light of God in our heart, then will each one of us become a rock. Every one of Christ's disciples, who drinks the water which flows from that spiritual rock, may bear its name. These words, ‘the gates of hell shall not prevail against this rock,’ are applicable to the whole of the Apostles. All the followers of Christ derive their name from that spiritual rock,” &c.

In the twelfth century, the people of the valleys are spoken of, in many Roman Catholic writings, as a disbelieving people, who deny the right of Popes and Cardinals, translate and circulate the Holy Scriptures, and send out apostles to preach the gospel in opposition to the doctrine of the Roman Church. The Waldenses were said to be a people of shepherds and husbandmen; but against their morals no charges whatever were made. The most highly esteemed writers