PETER of Bruys and the PETRO-BRUSIANS, Sylvester Hassell In the first years of the twelfth century Peter of Bruys (Petrobrusians) went forth like another John the Baptist, full of the Spirit and of power, and lived for twenty years as an evangelist in the south of France, which he seems to have filled completely with his doctrine, till he was overtaken by the wrath of the priesthood he had challenged, and was burned alive by a mob of monastics somewhere about 1120. Thus the seed was planted of what widened afterward into the famous and greatly dreaded “heresy of the Waldenses and Albigenses.” Peter of Bruys was a strong Bible Baptist. The Catholic monk, Peter the Venerable, arraigns him on five charges, for denying infant baptism, respect for churches, the worship of the cross, transubstan-tiation and prayers, alms and oblations for the dead. He baptized all who joined his communion, whether they had ever been immersed or not. On one occasion he made a great bonfire of all the crosses he could find, and cooked meat over the fire, and distributed it to the congregation. The followers of Peter de Bruys were called Petrobrusians. Toward the end of his career Peter was joined by an ardent and eloquent younger disciple or fellow-laborer, Henry the Deacon, or Henry of Lausanne, who labored in the same spirit and country for nearly thirty years after the death of Peter de Bruys, and was at last (in 1147) for heresy by the Catholic authorities, and died in prison. His followers were called Henricians. Arnold of Brescia fearlessly and powerfully preached the same anti-sacerdotalism in Italy, and, for nine years, maintained in Rome itself a republic in open defiance of emperor and pope. Frederick Barbarossa and Adrian VI were united in their common dread and hatred of republicanism. Their forces captured Arnold, who was, by an officer of the pope, first strangled as a rebel and then burned as a heretic, and his ashes cast into the Tiber (1155). This is said to have been the first time when the Catholic “Church” put a man to death with its own hand, instead of delivering him for execution to the secular power. For its own nominal exculpation, it has generally preferred to wield the temporal sword through the carnal hand of some civil magistrate; but the guilt is as much its own in the one case as in the other.” (Hassell’s History pg 438)