Some Pious Christians, Called Manicheans and Heretics by the Papists, in the Year 1052

It grieves us to our very soul that, for the testimonies of the holy martyrs, we have to go to the writings of papists, their most inveterate enemies, and to other writers who did not hold the same faith we hold, and who therefore bent the faithful records of the pious witnesses of Jesus our Savior toward their own opinion, and explained them according to their own views. We have met this trouble before, and now it falls to our lot again; still, we hope that the intelligent and attentive reader will tell light from darkness, and judge impartially, and as a Christian.

Herman Contractus, Count of Veringen, writes at the close of his life, hardly one or two years before his death, of certain people at Goslar who were accused by their adversaries, the Romanists, of being Manicheans; for at that time no other or better name was known for the true Christians who stood against the Roman church, although they had nothing at all in common with the Manicheans; and so this Herman Contractus, a strong upholder of the papal religion, also called these people, after the Roman fashion, Manicheans, saying: “The Emperor Henry the Third (some say the Second), in the year 1052, kept the Lord’s birthday at Goslar, and there had some heretics (so he calls the true Christians), who, among other perverse opinions after the sect of the Manicheans, abhor the eating of all kinds of meat (which he unjustly charges upon these people, as will be shown), and who were condemned, by common consent (of the bishops or lords of the realm), as heretics, hanged on the gallows, so that the contagion should not spread further and contaminate many others. Herm. Contr. Chron., in the year 1052. [n373-1]

But they did not care so much (A. Mellinus writes) about the eating of flesh as about many other points of doctrine, which Herman Contractus passes over in silence; namely, such as Radulph Ardens mentions, relating that at the close of that century there were some (so called) Manicheans at Aix la Chapelle in France. He says there (Homily, Dominical 8, after Trinity): “Such are the Manichean heretics of the present day, who have polluted our country of Aix la Chapelle with their heresy; who claim to lead a true apostolic life, saying that they do not lie; that they do not swear, and, under the cloak of abstinence, they reject the eating of flesh. They also hold that the sacrament of the altar is nothing but mere bread; they deny baptism (namely, infant baptism, for this was the point in question) and say that none can be saved except those who are baptized by their hands.”

It is true that this papistic writer charges them with several other things as belonging to their doctrines, of which we think it unnecessary to speak here, since Mellinus, to whom we referred above, answers all these for us, saying (2nd book, folio 437): “All these errors, except that of baptism and of the mass or transubstantiation (that is, against the mass and transubstantiation), are unjustly charged upon them by these papistic authors, as Thuan, writing of the Waldenses, himself confesses (Hist. sui temp. in the year 1550). He then quotes from Thuan the confession of these people, in which no errors at all, much less Manichean heresies, are found; but which contains chiefly such things as are publicly taught by us at the present day, and maintained with the power and authority of the holy and divine Scriptures against the superstitions of popery.

Having quoted the confession of these people from Thuan, Mellinus says: “This is certainly a straightforward and sincere confession of Thuan, which alone is enough to refute all the preceding slanders (namely, those that had been flung against the holy martyrs).”

So, even by the testimony of the papist Thuan, and the statement of the Calvinistic Mellinus, the above-mentioned martyrs were not guilty of Manichean errors; they only spoke against the Roman church, chiefly in the matter of baptism (that is, infant baptism) and in regard to the mass or transubstantiation; hence they may be counted among the true witnesses of Jesus Christ, who testified to their living faith not only with the mouth, but also with their blood, indeed, with their death; and whom the Lord will hereafter, in the resurrection of the just, reward and crown, according to His promise. Revelation 2, verse 10.

NOTE. We here set one papist against another; Thuan against Radulph. In the meantime, we are led to take the best testimony concerning these martyrs from these two differing writers, since both of them had no other purpose than to speak to the harm of these people. Thuan says: “Their points of doctrine are said to be these: That the Roman church has forsaken the true Christian faith; that she is the Babylonian whore, and the dead tree which Christ cursed and commanded to be cut down; that therefore no obedience is to be rendered to the pope and the bishops who consent to his errors; that Monachism is a true sink of all the corruption of the church, and an infernal pool; that all monastic vows are vain and useless, and tend only to lasciviousness; that the orders of the priesthood are marks of the great beast which is mentioned in the Apocalypse; that purgatory, the mass, church consecration, the worship of saints, masses for the dead, and so on, are genuine inventions and institutions of Satan. These, says the writer, are the chief and certain articles of their doctrine. The others, concerning marriage (that they held it to be evil), the resurrection (that they denied it), the state of the soul after death (that they spoke improperly of it), and concerning meats (that they rejected all eating of flesh), are unjustly charged upon them. Thuan. in Hist. de Waldens. Temp., in the year 1550, compared with A. Mell., 2nd book, folio 437, column 3. [n373-2]

We have set this out in more detail in order to show the innocence of these martyrs, and that their points of doctrine were not Manichean heresies, but criticisms of the Roman church, which stirred up the animosity of the papists, so that, as it seems, they vented the spleen of their many accusations against these people.