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efore Waldo, let them prove it,” which, he adds: “they can by no means do.”
f619
If they originated with Waldo, as Moneta lived near Waldo’s time, their origin
must have been so clearly recent as to have excluded all controversy as to its
time.
Reynerus, who is called Reineri, Reinerius Saccho, Reiner Saccho, was a
native of Plascenza, a Waldensian during the first seventeen years of his life,
then, under Pope Alexander VI., A.D. 1261, turned preaching friar and became
one of the ablest Romish advocates of his day, who is as much entitled to be
heard as any one and whose testimony, considering so little is to the contrary,
should be conclusive, wrote of the Waldensians:
“Inter omnes has sectas, quae nunc aunt, vel fuerunt, non eat perniciosior
Ecclesiae quam Leonistarum. Et hoc tribus de causis. Prima eat quia eat
diuturnior. Aliqui enim dicunt quod duraverit a tempore Sylvestri; aliqua a
tem-pore apostolorum. Secunda quia est generalior. Pere enim nulla est terra
in qua haec secta non sit.”
Translated: Among all the sects which are now or have been, no sect is more
pernicious than the church of Leonists. And this for three causes — first,
because it is of longer endurance, some, indeed, saying it has endured from the
time of Sylvester; others, from the time of the Apostles. Second, because it is
more general. There being certainly — enim — almost no country — nulla
terra — in which this sect does not exist. On this Dr. Montgomery with
Wadington, f620 well remarks:
“Reynerus remains a witness that in his day their claim to antiquity was well
known, which popish writers will now fain represent as a novelty of modern
times. And, moreover, it may be fairly taken for granted that if Reynerus, who
wrote a little more than a century after the days of Waldo, had regarded the
claim to antiquity as utterly unfounded, he would not have failed to exclaim
loudly against those who had the audacity to advance it. The writers of his
time do not err on the side of excessive gentleness. Nor does M. Charvaz
himself, notwithstanding his pretensions in that way, when he calls Leger a
liar for asserting as on the authority of Polichdorf, the prevalence of an
opinion among the Vaudois of his time that they had existed, at least, from the
sixth century.” f621
Reinerus farther says of them:
“Unlike all other sects, which infuse horror by the enormity of their
blasphemies against God, these Lyonese retain a great appearance of piety, all
the more as they live uprightly before the eyes of men, and believe only that
which is good about God, they also believe the entire articles of the