by gumby 20 Replies latest watchtower bible
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Any sharpie ex-dubs see any thing strange?
1000 Years of Carnage & Barbarity in the name of Christ
10th Century Obscenities- | 11th Century Horror - | 12th Century Criminality- | 13th Century Wickedness- |
Born from an incestuous relationship between Pope Sergio III and his13-year-old daughter Marozie. John, in turn, took his mother as his own mistress. Pope at 18, he turned the Lateran into a brothel. He was accused by a synod of "sacrilege, simony, perjury, murder, adultery and incest" and was temporarily deposed. He took his revenge on opponents by hacking off limbs. He was murdered by an enraged husband who caught him having sex with his wife.
Well I understand the point you were making, but OH MY I found this interesting. So was his mother really his grandmother or his aunt?
He deserves a good spanking.
*** g82 7/22 pp. 18-19 Were Christendom’s Methods of Conversion Christian? ***
The
Conversion of Heretics in Southern FranceThere were two groups of heretics in Languedoc—the Cathars, or Albigenses, and the Waldensians. The former were the most numerous and their beliefs had elements of Christianity and Oriental ideas. The Waldensians were more orthodox and very zealous in preaching the Bible among the common people.
Peaceful methods of conversion were tried first. When this failed, Pope Alexander III declared at a Lateran Council: "The Church . . . must . . . invoke the aid of princes, that fear of temporal punishment may force men to seek a spiritual cure for their shortcomings."
However, Pope Innocent III tried another preaching campaign. Prominent in this was a Spanish priest, Domingo de Guzman. But in spite of his zeal conversions of heretics were few. A Dominican writer credits him with saying: "Where a blessing fails, a good thick stick will succeed." What was this "good thick stick"?
In July 1209, a powerful army of knights, men-at-arms and mercenaries set off from Lyons to Languedoc. They were soldiers of the Cross. They had mustered at the bidding of Pope Innocent III to conduct a Crusade against the heretics. Their leader was a papal legate. On July 21 this force camped near the city of Béziers in southeastern France. A suggestion that a group of heretics should be given up to the Crusaders was rejected by the citizens.
The next day the Crusaders attacked and soon overwhelmed the small body of defenders. The mercenaries, vicious desperados, and the knights, all eager for plunder, were ruthless. Many people fled to the churches for safety. Historian Oldenbourg, in the book The Massacre at Montségur, describes the outcome: "The doors of the churches were forced open . . . All inside were slaughtered wholesale—women, invalids, babies, and priests. . . . In a few short hours the wealthy city of Béziers was a city of bleeding mutilated corpses, and nothing else." And this shocking display of brutality was done by men led by the papal legate, who triumphantly wrote to the pope: "Nearly twenty thousand of the citizens were put to the sword, regardless of age and sex."
Did this "thick stick" get results? Hundreds of Cathars and Waldensians were burned at the stake, but by 1229, after twenty years of war and misery, the heretical groups were still well supported in Languedoc.
In 1233 two Dominicans were given special powers as Inquisitors. Their method was to announce a "period of grace" during which heretics or sympathizers could come and confess. But to prove their "conversion" they had to denounce others. This crafty scheme, backed by the fear of torture or the stake, caused many to collaborate. Denunciations snowballed and set off a reign of terror. In just one place, Moissac, 210 heretics were burned alive in a monstrous holocaust. The Holy Inquisition succeeded in suppressing the Cathars. The Waldensians still survive.
A few centuries later the fair country of France was convulsed with the struggle between the Church and the Reformation. In England, when King Henry VIII proclaimed himself head of the Church of England in 1534, those Catholics who refused to be converted to his new politico-religious system were in great danger. "The creed of the king" still had to be "the creed of the people."
Protestantism made progress during the reign of his son, Edward VI, but the pendulum swung the other way during the following reign of Catholic Queen Mary. Sir Winston Churchill commented, in his "History of the English Speaking Peoples": "Here were the . . . living beings who composed the nation, ordered in the name of King Edward VI to march along one path to salvation, and under Queen Mary to march back again in the opposite direction; and all who would not move on the first order or turn about on the second must prove their convictions, if necessary, at the gibbet or the stake."
Can you imagine Jesus Christ or any true Christian condemning people to the gibbet or the stake for their beliefs?
*** g79 10/8 pp. 10-11 The Bible—Victim of Savage Attack ***
The
Waldensians of FranceIn the beautiful valleys of southern France lived a religious group called Waldensians. Shortly before 1180, an outstanding member of this group, Peter Waldo, reportedly paid two priests to translate portions of the Bible into the vernacular. Its readers made real changes in their lives. Even one of their fiercest enemies acknowledged a striking contrast between their conduct and that of the people in general. He said:
‘The heretics [Waldensians] are known by their manners and words; for they are orderly and modest in their manners and behaviour. They are free from falsehood and deceit. They are chaste, temperate, sober, and abstain from anger.’
Infused with zeal from personally reading the Scriptures, they went up and down the countryside of France in pairs reading and teaching others the Scriptures. So zealous were they that one reportedly "swam over a river in the night and in the winter, to come to [a certain person] and teach him." What was found in the Scriptures had become to them a "living power"!
Filled with enthusiasm, they traveled to Rome, Italy, to obtain official approval from Pope Alexander III to use their Bible to teach others. Permission denied! One of the religious dignitaries at this Third Lateran Council, Walter Map, exclaimed:
"Shall not therefore the Word given to the unlearned be as pearls before swine!"
Just think! To enable the common person to read the Bible in a language he could understand was considered to be ‘throwing pearls to pigs’!
A crusade was organized by Pope Innocent III to "exterminate" the heretics. Reports from those who led the crusade indicate that hundreds of men, women and children were cruelly butchered and copies of their Bibles were burned because, as one religious judge or Inquisitor at the time put it,
"They have translated the Old and New Testament into the vulgar [common] tongue, and thus they teach and learn it. I have heard and seen a certain ignorant rustic who recited Job, word for word; and many who knew perfectly the whole New Testament."
Bibles
Spread in the Common TongueFire and sword caused the Waldensians to flee to other countries. Shortly thereafter translations of the Bible that the common man could read appeared in Spain, Italy, Germany and other countries. Wherever they appeared, bans and harsh persecution usually followed. Several official prohibitions of the Bible are shown on the opposite page. To violate these religious and secular laws often meant death by burning!
In England around 1382, John Wycliffe and his associates finished the first complete Bible in English. But many of the common people could not read. So he organized a group of men called Lollards to go and read the Bible to the people.
*** w81 8/1 pp. 12-15 The Waldenses—Heretics or Truth-Seekers? ***
The
Waldenses—Heretics or Truth-Seekers?THE time? The 12th century C.E.—200 years before Wycliffe and Huss and 300 years before Luther. The place? Southern France and the Alpine valleys of that country and northern Italy. The situation? The common people live in poverty and are purposely kept in ignorance by a rich and often profligate clergy class. In all Europe, the Roman Catholic Church reigns supreme, being powerful, opulent and worldly.
Against this background we find a group of people that stand out in stark contrast. They believe the Bible to be the Word of God and endeavor to live according to its righteous principles. They go up hill and down dale, two by two, preaching and teaching whatever truths they have been able to discover by their reading of the parts of the Scriptures available to them in their language. For this, they are hounded as heretics, many paying with their life. Who are they?
They came to be known in France as the Vaudois. Their Catholic persecutors called them, in Latin, Valdenses, from which the English word Waldenses is derived.
FORERUNNERS
Catholic and Protestant historians disagree on the origins of the Waldenses. The former would have us believe that what they term the "heretical sect" of the Waldenses was an isolated phenomenon that suddenly sprang up at the end of the 12th century under the leadership of a Frenchman from Lyons named Valdès or Waldo. Many Protestants, on the other hand, claim that the Waldenses were a link in the unbroken chain of dissenters between the time of Emperor Constantine (fourth century C.E.) and the Protestant reformers of the 16th century. These Protestants are of the opinion that the name Waldenses was derived from the Latin word vallis, meaning "valley," and refers to the fact that these dissenters, hounded persistently as heretics, were obliged to take refuge in the Alpine valleys of both France and Italy.
Naturally, Catholic historians reject this Protestant explanation as unhistorical. However, by claiming that the Waldenses exploded onto the scene of medieval history with Valdès or Waldo, the Catholic Church is playing down the patent historical fact that there were many other dissenters before Waldo began his preaching in the late 1170’s. The truth seems to be that Waldo and his associates became a rallying point for similar groups of dissenters, some of which had long been in existence.
The Catholic Church would like us to forget that seeds of discontent were present within her midst many years before Waldo. For example, Bishop Agobard of Lyons, France (779-840 C.E.), came out strongly against image worship, churches dedicated to saints and church liturgy that was not in line with the Holy Scriptures.
Across the Alps, in Turin, Italy, a contemporary of Agobard, Bishop Claudius, took a similar stand. He condemned prayers to saints, the veneration of relics and the cross and, in general, rejected church tradition as being opposed to the Scriptures. Claudius of Turin has been called "the first Protestant reformer." He died sometime between 827 and 839 C.E.
In the 11th century archdeacon Bérenger, or Berengarius, of Tours, France, said to be one of the most influential theologians of his time, opposed the dogma of transubstantiation, maintaining that the bread and wine used to commemorate Christ’s death are emblematic and not miraculously changed into the body and blood of Christ. He also upheld the superiority of the Bible over tradition. Bérenger was excommunicated as a heretic in 1050.
Very early in the 12th century two men stand out as prominent dissenters in France. They were Peter of Bruys and Henry of Lausanne. The former began his adult life as a priest in the Alps of southeast France. He soon gave up the priesthood because he disagreed with the church on such important doctrines as infant baptism, transubstantiation, prayers for the dead, worship of the cross and the need for church buildings. Banished from the dioceses of the southern Alps, he preached directly to the people throughout southern France, making many disciples. He was finally burned at the stake at St. Gilles, near Arles, in 1140.
The work of Peter of Bruys was continued by Henry of Lausanne, also called Henry of Cluny. He was a monk who, as early as 1101, had begun speaking out boldly against church liturgy, the corrupt clergy of his day and the religious hierarchy system. He maintained that the Bible is the sole rule of faith and worship. Henry of Lausanne started his preaching at Le Mans, in western France. Expelled from there, he continued his missionary work throughout southern France, eventually meeting up with Peter of Bruys. In 1148 he was arrested and thrown into prison for life. But the ideas of these men spread like wildfire from the southern Alps to the Mediterranean and right across southern France to the Bay of Biscay.
WALDO
AND THE "POOR MEN OF LYONS"It was in this historical setting that a layman came onto the scene in Lyons, France. Nothing is known of this man’s birth, said to have occurred around 1140 C.E. Even his name is something of a mystery, being variously spelled Valdès, Valdo or Waldo. The forename Pierre, or Peter, does not appear in any manuscript dated earlier than 1368. The name is thought to have been attributed to him by his later followers, to indicate that he was a more worthy imitator of the apostle Peter than were the popes of Rome, who claim to be Peter’s successors.
Waldo was a wealthy merchant of Lyons. He was married and had two daughters. Being a devout man and a practicing Catholic, he asked a theologian friend for Scriptural advice on what he should do to please God. In reply, his friend quoted Matthew 19:21, where Jesus told the rich young man: "If you want to be perfect, go sell your belongings and give to the poor and you will have treasure in heaven, and come be my follower."
Waldo took this counsel to heart. After making provision for his wife and putting his two daughters in a convent, he commissioned two priests, Etienne d’Anse and Bernard Ydros, to translate the Gospels and other Bible books into the vernacular language spoken in the Provence and Dauphiné provinces of southeastern France. He then distributed the remainder of his worldly possessions among the poor and set about studying the Word of God. Moreover, he preached in the streets of Lyons, inviting the inhabitants to awake spiritually and to return to simple, Biblical Christianity.
Having been well known as a prosperous businessman, Waldo gained many hearing ears and soon had a group of followers. They rejoiced at hearing the Bible’s comforting message in their own tongue, for up to that time the church had prevented the translating of the Bible into any language other than Latin. Many agreed to give up their belongings and to devote themselves to teaching the Bible in the language of the common people. They became known as the "Poor Men of Lyons."
This lay preaching aroused the ire of the clergy. In 1179 Pope Alexander III forbade Waldo and his followers to preach without permission of the local bishop. As was to be expected, Bishop Bellesmains of Lyons refused to consent to this. Historical records indicate that, faced with this ban, Waldo replied to the hierarchy in the words of Acts 5:29: "We must obey God as ruler rather than men."
Waldo and his associates kept on preaching. So in 1184 Pope Lucius III excommunicated them, and the bishop of Lyons banished them from his diocese. The result was similar to what occurred when the early Christians were hounded out of Jerusalem. Of them, the Bible states: "Those who had been scattered went through the land declaring the good news of the word."—Acts 8:1-4.
These 12th-century dissenters took refuge in the Alps and throughout southern France, teaching the Bible as they went from place to place. Undoubtedly they met up with other dissident groups, such as the followers of Peter of Bruys and Henry of Lausanne. Across the Alpine passes leading into northern Italy, they met up with dissident groups that already existed in the valleys of Piedmont and Lombardy. These Bible-oriented dissident groups, who later became known all over Europe as the Waldenses, are to be distinguished from contemporary "heretical" groups, such as the Cathars and the Albigenses, whose doctrines were based more on Persian philosophy than on the Bible. Historical records show that by the beginning of the 13th century Waldenses were to be found not only in southern France and northern Italy but also in eastern and northern France, Flanders, Germany, Austria and even Bohemia, where Waldo is said to have died in 1217.
THE
SEARCH FOR BIBLE TRUTHWhether Waldo was the actual founder of the Waldenses or not, to him must go the credit for taking the initiative of having the Bible translated from Latin into the vernacular languages then spoken by the common people to whom he and his associates preached. And remember, this was some 200 years before Wycliffe translated the Bible for English-speaking dissidents.
The basic position of the early Waldenses was that the Bible is the one source of religious truth. In a world that was just emerging from what has been termed the "Dark Ages," they groped in search of Christian truth. They apparently did the best they could with the few books of the Hebrew and Greek Scriptures they possessed in a language they could read and understand. It would seem, from certain records, that they did not get straightened out on such doctrines as the Trinity, immortality of the soul and hellfire.
Nonetheless, these early Waldenses understood the Bible well enough to reject image worship, transubstantiation, infant baptism, purgatory, the worship of Mary, prayers to saints, veneration of the cross and relics, deathbed repentance, confession to priests, Masses for the dead, papal pardons and indulgences, priestly celibacy and the use of carnal weapons. They also rejected imposing, elaborate church buildings and considered "Babylon the Great, the mother of the harlots" to be the Church of Rome, from which they invited their listeners to flee. (Rev. 17:5; 18:4) All of this in the late 12th and early 13th centuries!
In their preaching work the early Waldenses taught the Bible, laying much emphasis on the Sermon on the Mount and the Model Prayer, both of which set forth God’s kingdom as the thing to pray for and to seek first. (Matt. 6:10, 33) They maintained that any Christian man or woman who possessed a sufficient knowledge of the Bible was authorized to preach the "good news." Additionally, they believed Jesus to be the only intermediary between God and man. Inasmuch as Jesus had died once for all time, they held that his sacrifice could not be renewed by a priest celebrating Mass. The early Waldenses celebrated the Memorial of Christ’s death once a year, using bread and wine as symbols.
PREACHING BRINGS PERSECUTIONThe primitive Waldenses contended that it is not necessary to go to a church building to worship God. They held underground meetings in barns, private homes or wherever they could do so. There they studied the Bible and trained new preachers, who were sent out with more experienced ones. They traveled two by two from farm to farm and, in the towns and villages, from house to house. The authoritative Dictionnaire de Théologie Catholique (Vol. 15, column 2591) states in an article that is otherwise unfavorable to the Waldenses: "From their very earliest years, their children began to learn the Gospels and the Epistles. The preaching of their deacons, priests and bishops consisted mainly of quotations from the Bible."
Other works inform us that the Waldenses had a fine reputation for hard work, high morality and honesty in paying their taxes. They disfellowshiped unrepentant sinners. Moreover, they have been called "the most ancient and the most evangelical of the medieval sects."
Such were these God-fearing people who were hunted down by their religious persecutors, many of them being burned at the stake. A great number of them were victims of the terrible crusade that Pope Innocent III ordered in 1209 against the Cathars and the Albigenses in the south of France. Others were tortured and killed by the dreaded Inquisition that began in southern France in 1229. Some of the Waldenses succeeded in fleeing to other countries, and many more took refuge in the high mountain valleys of the French and Italian Alps, where Waldensian communities survived for centuries.
However, as time passed by, many of the Biblical doctrines that Waldo and others had discovered by reading the Bible were abandoned. In the early 16th century, the Waldenses were absorbed by the Protestant Reformation. Toward the end of the 17th century they even took up arms.
But the early Waldenses, although accused of being "heretics," were in fact sincere truth-seekers and pioneers in Bible translation, Bible teaching and simple Christian living. To be sure, they did not break free from all the false doctrines of Babylonish false religion. But they apparently lived up to the knowledge they had of God’s Word. Many, it would appear, were willing to die rather than renounce their faith. Of course, only "Jehovah knows those who belong to him." We can, therefore, safely leave any reward of future life in his hands.—2 Tim. 2:19.
Thanks for the input UR.....but I'm not sure of your point.
My point was the waldesenes were really no different than MANY others who were religious zealots. They preached what they believed.......and so did others. They along with others, believed in doctrines that is totally contrary to Watchtower doctrine.......yet they are included along with other groups such as the lollards in watchtower literature as....."bold lovers of truth".
The fact is MANY died and were tortured and were every bit as zealous as were they.
The society uses them as a weak attempt to prove there has always been a slave class on the earth that Jehovah has used. At the same time they say the world was in spiritual darkness while "the master was away" until Jehovah "turned the light on" with C.T. Russell.
Gumby
They along with others, believed in doctrines that is totally contrary to Watchtower doctrine.......yet they are included along with other groups such as the lollards in watchtower literature as....."bold lovers of truth".
I find it odd that they do this. Apparently, the witnesses are unable to see another obvious and disturbing similarity between the history Catholic Church and the modern-day WTS, or they certainly wouldn't be writting articles that could get the "spiritually weak" of the flock to start drawing parallels. The Catholic Church had their "heretics", whom they eliminated because these people posed a threat to their power. Now, granted the WTS hasn't literally "killed" anyone, but look at the countless lives that have been utterly destroyed in order to silence those who would oppose them....something to think about. Catholic Church/heretics=WTS/apostates....??
Sadie
The Catholic Church had their "heretics", whom they eliminated because these people posed a threat to their power.
Those" heretics" were anybody and everbody who opposed them. The squashed out religious beliefs that had been around for centuries and destroyed them and it's followers.
Christianity was the ORDERED religion.
..................Back to the waldensenes,
The society made it appear as though these "approved groups" of earlier centuries had limited knowledge .......as the time for full knowledge hadn't come yet and this is why they still believed false doctrine. The parallel is never made that the society to this day continues to act in the same manner with it's own shifting doctrines that have amounted to MORE SHIFTING......than the Lollards or the Waldenses ever did!
Gumby
I wonder which exactly were the 'witchcraft' practices that the church accused them of?
UR
Funny how the wt can hold them up as shining lights at the time, yet reject them at the same time, in other words, accept and reject. Makes my brain squirm.
SS
SS,
I wonder which exactly were the 'witchcraft' practices that the church accused them of?
I wondered the same thing. The ONLY place I found this info. was on a anti-god/bible, site from which I created this thread from. I searched other sites and found nothing said about them and witchcraft. It did say they were not persecuted for being heritics. They were persecuted because they openly preached and evangelized........something that ONLY the clergy was to do. It was LATER that they adopted unorthodox beliefs, but that was NOT what they were persecuted for.
http://www2.kenyon.edu/projects/margin/walt1.htm
Gumby
John XII (955-964).
