We continue with our series on Revelation 12, an Exodus narrative in which the Woman—representing the people of God—flees from the error that proceeds from the mouth of the Devil, and seeks her place of safety in the wilderness. Her only food is the Word of God,  her only loyalty, to her Savior. The Woman is depicted not only as National Israel in labor bringing forth the Messiah—”for salvation is of the Jews” (John 4:22)—but also as the post-Jerusalem gentile Church established by Christ—for the Kingdom of God had been “given to a nation bringing forth the fruits thereof” (Matthew 21:43). The Woman, having received Jesus’ words and instructions from the Apostles is like unto the “man which built an house, and digged deep, and laid the foundation on a rock” (Luke 6:48a). Persecution would shortly follow—first from the Jews (Matthew 10:17 ), then from the Gentiles (Matthew 10:18), followed by the most brutal persecution ever experienced by the people of God when the Devil was cast down to earth (303 – 313 A.D.), and the devil imprisoned the faithful (Revelation 2:10) and put them to death “with sword, and with hunger, and with death, and with the beasts of the earth” (Revelation 6:8) when they refused to offer sacrifices to false gods. But “they overcame him by the blood of the Lamb, and by the word of their testimony; and they loved not their lives unto the death” (Revelation 12:11-13).

Having spent his wrath on the Woman to no avail (Christ’s people ran gleefully into the arms of their murderers to receive the martyr’s crown), he was forced to change his tactics. Civil persecution had yielded more martyrs and converts than apostates. The civil persecution of the Woman was thus handed over to the next empire (Revelation 13:2) and the Devil turned his attention instead to false doctrines, casting “out of his mouth water as a flood” that he might cause the woman to be carried away by it (Revelation 12:15).

That flood came upon the world in the latter part of the 4th century, and manifested in the form of the doctrinal errors of what we now know as Roman Catholicism—veneration of relics, icon, images and the cross, the Roman sacrifice of the Mass, the veneration of Mary, the primacy of Rome, baptismal regeneration, clerical celibacy, incense, candles and the like. But “when the flood arose, the stream beat vehemently upon that house, and could not shake it: for it was founded upon a rock” (Luke 6:48b), and the noble Protestant resistance was born. As the centuries wore on, Protestants withstood the flood. Jovinianus, Vigilantius, Sarmatio, Barbatianus, Ærius, the Christianocategori, the Aposchistæ, the Autoproscoptæ, the Paulicians and the Bogomils had resisted the flood by standing on the Word. But the 1,260 years were far from over.

Claudius, Bishop of Turin (fl. 810-827 AD)

We turn our attention now to Bishop Claudius of Turin in the 9th century, a figure so remarkably enigmatic that Rome has long since disowned him, and in so doing has inadvertently laid at our feet the rather serious charge of apostolic continuity. We have many times been accused of maintaining Luther’s and Calvin’s novelties, but the Protestant Reformers themselves were accused of resurrecting the “heresies” of Claudius. Given Claudius’ teachings on Mary, the saints, relics, baptism, justification, the Eucharist and a married clergy, it is no wonder that Jesuit Louis Maimbourg in 1686 complained that Claudius was “the leader & oldest minister of the Protestants” (“le chef & le plus ancien Ministre des Protestans” (L. Maimbourg, Histoire de l’hérésie des iconoclastes (Paris, 1686), V, p. 428)). But Claudius himself was accused of teaching something still more ancient, for he was called by his critics — Jonas of Orleans and Dungalus of Paris — another Vigilantius (Migne PL v 105, c 527). But as David Hunter, Professor of Catholic Theology at Boston College, has several times reminded us, Vigilantius’ harshest and severest critics in the late 4th century “represented the survival of the ancient encratite” heresy, while men of Vigilantius’ ilk “stood much closer to the centre of the Christian tradition” than their critics (Hunter, David G., Marriage, Celibacy and Heresy in Ancient Christianity (Oxford University Press (2007) 285). Indeed, Protestants still teach the “errors” of Luther and Calvin, who themselves propagated the “errors” of Claudius, who himself carried on the “errors” of Vigilantius, who, as it turns out, “stood much closer to the centre of [apostolic] tradition” than the late 4th century critics who had stumbled into the apostasy Paul had foretold (2 Thessalonians 2:3). Thus, in their disparagement of Claudius, his critics have inadvertently accused Protesants of apostolic continuity.

Our interest in Claudius is manifold. He was not what could be considered an ecclesial Roman Catholic in that his elevation to the episcopate was royal rather than magisterial, for he was a courtier of King Louis who appointed him. So widely distributed were his teachings that his commentaries on Colossians, Titus and Hebrews were found among the works of (and initially attributed to) bishop Atto of Verceill (midway between Turin and Milan), and his commentary on Galatians was initially published under the name of Claudius of Auxerre in Paris (Michael Gorman (Speculum 72 (1997)). He flourished in Piedmont Italy where Ambrose had complained of married clergy in his own episcopate in Milan (Ambrose, On the Duties of the Clergy, Chapter 50, paragraph 258), and the last we hear of his whereabouts is in the charter of the Novalesa Abbey, deep in the Cottian Alps, the last known location of the Vigilantius of Jerome’s unhinged late 4th century ire (Jerome, Letter 109.2). It is in that same region that we hear later of a teaching so vile that clergy avoided traveling through it lest they become tainted by “an inveterate heresy concerning the body and blood of the Lord,” and the Marchess of the Cottian Alps likewise receives complaints that she has too long tolerated the married clergy in her realm. We are not surprised to hear that the Waldensians, too, flourished in that same region where his teachings prospered.

Aside from the geographic and doctrinal peculiarities of Claudius, perhaps the most obscure epithet attached to his name was “Saracen”. This is notable to us not least because the survival of a Protestant Alpine remnant through the medieval era has lately been dismissed on account of the scattered epigraphic evidence of an occupying Saracen army in the Alps at the time (The Alpine Journal, Vol IX (1882). Such evidence is said to rule out entirely the possibility of a Protestant Church thriving in the same region. And yet here we find in a vitriolic condemnation of Claudius’ iconoclasm an accusation that he was at heart a Saracen, and from that period onward, the name Saracen was used as an Alpine religious slur to denote, of all people, Protestants of Claudius’ ilk.

Elevation to the Episcopate

A Biblical scholar in the court of King Louis in Aquitaine, Claudius was appointed Bishop of Turin (816 AD) by (then) Emperor Louis when the episcopal see fell vacant. Claudius is a remarkable and ironic figure because he was a reclusive scholar by vocation but became a cleric only by civil appointment. He was therefore not steeped or trained in the doctrines of Rome as a condition of his ordination. His new pastoral duties interfered with his preferred scholarly activities, and he struggled to continue to produce his cherished Scriptural commentaries in his new role (McCracken & Cabaniss, Early Medieval Theology (EMT), vol IX (1957), 213-14). That inner conflict manifested in dramatic public fashion once his teachings became widely known.

Ostensibly Roman Catholic, he was clearly a man out of place and out of time, for he concluded from his Scriptural studies—and indeed devoted his life to—the negation of Roman Catholicism’s late 4th century novelties, apparently unaware that his teachings were “heretical.” His intractable ignorance of that fact rather suggests that the ancient legends were quite true: long after the late 4th century apostasy, Protestant congregations continued making raids on their neighboring churches and converting both lay and clergy. Jerome complained (406 A.D.) that Vigilantius “makes his raids upon the churches of Gaul” (Jerome, Against Vigilantius, 4) and Pope Zachary (r. 741-752 A.D.) observed that there were wandering clergy “who deceive the people, [and] perplex and trouble the ministers of the church” (Pope Zachary, Epistle X to Boniface; for original, see Sacrosancta Concilia, Tomus Sextus (Lutetiæ Parisiorum, 1671) cols 1518-1522). Still a century after Claudius’ day we find Bishop Atto of Verceill (Epistle III) complaining not only of local “Prophets” stealing the sheep and misleading the clergy (Veterum aliquot scriptorum, Spicilegium vol. 8, p. 111) but also having to remind his clergy in excruciating detail of the rationale for the church’s prohibition of a married clergy (Epistle V, pp. 113-120), including a reminder from Nicæa (canon 3) that they were not allowed to cohabit with a woman under the pretenses of maintaining a “virginal” marriage of spiritual companionship (Epistle IX, p. 130). Clearly in the 500 years since the great apostasy, the evangelical pressure from the Protestant religion had not abated, and Claudius was one of its victims.

Teaching Ministry

Claudius contributed to this state of affairs in his day by his preaching and his commentaries in which he defended his objections to papal primacy, Roman primacy, pilgrimages, liturgical prostrations, and veneration of relics, images and the cross. He denied the sinlessness of Mary, transubstantiation, the liturgical sacrifice of the body and blood of Christ, intercession of saints, and affirmed penal substitutionary atonement and justification by faith alone. Some few of his original writings survive, but enough for us to say he was truly the beneficiary of Vigilantius’ earnest labors in the region, and watered the seeds that future Protestants would harvest.

Penal Substitutionary Atonement

In his Commentary on Galatians, he describes Jesus’ death in terms of penal substitution:

… that believers might be in themselves entirely free from fear of such penalty, to which applies what he now added as follows: “Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law, having been made a curse for us, since it is written, ‘Cursed is everyone who hangs on a tree.'” [Galatians 3:13] A man’s death belongs to the nature of penalty for sin … .  Wherefore by such “sin” of Christ our sin was condemned that we might be set free, that we might remain no longer condemned by the rule of sin. … Christ bore our punishment, yet apart from guilt, in order to free us from our guilt and to bring to an end our punishment. (EMT vol IX,  229-30 (emphasis added))

Justification by Faith Alone

In the same Commentary, Claudius defends the justification of those who lived “before faith came” (Galatians 3:23), and concludes from Galatians 3:16 that justification must be “by faith alone,” apart from works, whether legal and carnal:

Because faith is one, those who live carnally by works [i.e., “before faith came”] cannot be justified with those who live spiritually by faith. But that statement is easily overcome: the law had not been received, nor after so many years could it have been so given as to make the ancient promises to Abraham of no effect. If the law justifies, then Abraham who lived long before the law was not justified. Since that cannot be admitted, one is compelled to acknowledge that man is not justified by works of the law but by faith. At the same time we are compelled also to realize that all the ancient fathers who were justified were justified by faith alone (ex ipsa fide justificatos [lit. “justified by faith itself”]). (EMT, vol IX, 233 [Migne P.L. v. 104, c. 872)

The Sinfulness of Mary

In the same Commentary, he explains that it was by receiving His mother’s “mortal” (and therefore sinful) flesh, that Jesus came “in the likeness of sinful flesh”:

Yet because of man’s sin it was inflicted upon Christ, because he assumed a body from Adam, since from Adam descended the Virgin Mary who gave birth to Christ .  … “God sent his own Son,” he says , “in the likeness of sinful flesh,” [Romans 8:3] not because He came of the stock of mortal kind in Mary through a man, but because death occurs as a result of sin. That flesh, although of a Virgin , was nonetheless mortal; thus , in so far as He was mortal, He had the likeness of sinful flesh. (EMT vol IX, 230 (emphasis added))

Baptism Attests to Faith But Does not Effect Regeneration

In the same commentary, he expounds Galatians 3:27, “For all of you who have been baptized in Christ have put on Christ.” There is no better verse in Galatians from which to derive Rome’s doctrine of baptismal regeneration, and yet Claudius remarkably avoids it and concludes the opposite—that “they who have believed in Christ have put him on” through faith, making no mention of righteousness received through water:

The fact that he says that they are all sons of God through the faith by which they who have been baptized have put on Christ has this significance : … by putting on Christ through faith all become sons. … They become sons by participation in Wisdom, that is, by the provision and superiority of faith in the Mediator, which grace of faith is now called clothing, since they who have believed in Christ have put him on, and have thereby become sons of God and brethren of the Mediator. (EMT vol IX, 238)

The Sacrifice of the Eucharist is the Tithe Offering

In his Commentary on Hebrews 13:15-16, “let us offer the sacrifice of praise to God continually, …for  with such sacrifices God is well pleased,” Claudius insisted that the the only thing we offer is the Eucharist (solam gratiarum actionem (Migne P.L. v135, c 829)). By this he refers to the bread by which the poor are fed from the tithe. “The bread which you gave is consumed; the bread which He will give, He will restore and not fail.” Applying the passage to the liturgy, he writes “do not forget to give alms from what you have, as the Prophet says: ‘Blessed is he who understands the needy and the poor.’ [Psalms 41:1].”

The Bread and Wine of the Supper are Figures

In his  Commentaries on I and II Samuel, I and II Kings,  (2 Sam 16:10) Claudius said the bread and wine of the Lord’s Supper are but “figures” of Christ’s body and blood:

…when He went to the feast in which He commended to the disciples the figure of his body and blood…

… cum adhibuit ad convivium, in quo corporis et sanguinis sui figuram discipulis commendavit et adidit… (Migne, P.L. v. 104, c. 709).

Veneration of the Cross Forbidden

Mocking those who venerate the cross on account of Jesus’ crucifixion, in his Apologia, Claudius wielded this additional facetious rhetorical blade:

He hung on the cross scarcely six hours, but he was in the Virgin’s womb nine lunar months … . Let virgin girls therefore be adored, because a Virgin gave birth to Christ. Let mangers be adored, because as soon as he was born he was laid in a manger. (EMT vol IX, 244)

He continues in this vein, proposing that boats, swaddling clothes and “asses” too should be adored since Christ also used them. But most poignantly, he considers it unthinkable that virgins be adored on account of Christ’s birth from one. Such statements as these fly in the face of Roman dogma which insists that Mary had to be sinless in order to give birth to a sinless Man, and ought to be venerated because she gave birth to Him. To Claudius, it was all perfectly ridiculous.

Clerical Celibacy Unbiblical

In his commentary on Titus 1:6, he said the bishop by nature needs to have his carnal urges satisfied lawfully through marriage and is obligated to raise his own children in godliness as a defense against the gainsayer:

As food is for the health of the body, this intercourse is for the health of the race. And both are not without carnal pleasure. … Just as it was necessary that even the non-carnal prophets should carnally marry, so it was necessary that the non-carnal apostles should also be fed carnally.

Having sons, the faithful are not subject to the accusation of slander, nor subject them, for we are to ward off incontinence in this way. For with what freedom can we rebuke other children, and teach them what is right, when whoever has been rebuked can immediately answer us;  teachest thou your own children first? [Commentary on Titus 1:6] (Migne, P.L. v 134, c 704-05)

Sufficiency of the Scriptures

Claudius’ burden was not merely that the laity have access to the Word but that they should abound in it:

The word of Christ is the evangelical commandments, which not only priests, but also the lay faithful must have not only sufficiently, but also abundantly. And they must admonish and teach one another. [Migne P.L. v 134 c 635]

Intercession of the Saints Unnecessary

Noting that Jesus had not said “whatever you bind in heaven shall be bound on earth,” Claudius concluded that intercession by the saints takes place only “so long as they are pilgrims here in this mortal body,” not in heaven, and therefore there is no cause to pray to the dead or to expect that we should hear from them. Indeed, in his Commentary on Ezekiel 14, he writes:

He therefore says these things that no one may rely on the merit or intercession of the saints, for one cannot be saved unless he possess the same faith, righteousness, and truth which they possessed and by which they were pleasing to God. (EMT vol IX, 247)

Veneration of Images Prohibited

In his Apologia, he complained of the rampant idolatries he discovered in his new episcopal domain, and described his immediate redress:

[I]t came to pass that as soon as I was constrained to assume the burden of pastoral duty and to come to Italy to the city of Turin, sent thither by our pious prince Louis, the son of the Lord’s holy catholic church, I found all the churches filled, in defiance of the precept of Truth, with those sluttish abominations — images. Since everyone was worshiping them , I under took singlehanded to destroy them. Everyone thereupon opened his mouth to curse me, and had not God come to my aid, they would no doubt have swallowed me alive. (EMT vol IX,  243)

As with the early Church which insisted on an upright position for prayer (Nicæa, Canon 20), Claudius criticized those who prostrated themselves before images when God had lifted us up from servitude and made us His brethren:

Why do you humiliate yourselves and bow down to false images? Why do you bend your body like a captive before foolish likenesses and earthly structures? God made you up right, and although other animals face downward toward the earth, there is for you an upward posture and a countenance erect to heaven and to God. (EMT vol IX, 243)

Heir of Polycrates & Vigilantius

When his critics pointed out that his teachings had displeased the pope at Rome, he retorted as Polycrates of Ephesus had to Victor of Rome, namely that the pope’s opinion carried no weight with him, for he was no successor to the apostles: “Surely that one should not be called an apostolic man who merely sits on an apostle’s throne but the one who fulfills the apostolic function” (EMT vol IX, 247-48).

Given his conviction that the bread and wine were figures of Jesus’ body and blood, and that we ought not worship created things, and that God made us to worship Him standing up, it would never have entered Claudius’ mind either to offer the body and blood of Christ in the Eucharist, or to worship the consecrated elements. Given his teaching on Mary, the saints, relics, baptism and justification, it is no wonder that Jesuit Louis Maimbourg in 1686 complained that Claudius was “the leader & oldest minister of the Protestants.” Small wonder, too, that when his contemporaries condemned him and demanded that he answer for his teachings at a council, he refused to appear before their “synod of asses” (EMT vol IX, 215). Instead he admonished them:

Return , O you blind , to the true light that enlightens every man who comes into this world because the light shines in darkness, and the darkness does not envelop it. (EMT vol IX, 246)

His Response to His Critics

One of his critics from the following century, Dungalus of Paris, unable to counter his arguments from the Scripture, accused him of being a Jew “[b]ecause he differs from their religion at no point” and he not only exalts the Jews, but “even more, his [or their] kinsmen the Saracens, with excessive eulogies” (EMT vol. IX, 215, 215n). Like the Paulicians of previous centuries, Dungalus accused Claudius of Adoptionism, but—unable to produce a single word of evidence—instead charged him with teaching “that we ought not to have images, or to render worship to the cross, or to honour the relics of the saints” (Stokes, Six Months in the Apennines, (1892) 211). To these charges Claudius was only too eager to confess! In his Apologia, Claudius therefore unwittingly declared a truth that was inconceivable to his critics but intuitively obvious to him — that it was not he, but they, who had advanced a novel sect in opposition to the truth of Scripture, and had separated from the Church of Christ:

You declare that you have been troubled because a rumor about me has spread from Italy throughout all the regions of Gaul even to the frontiers of Spain, as though I were announcing a new sect in opposition to the standard of catholic faith — an intolerable lie! It is not I who teach a sect, I who really hold the unity and preach the truth. On the contrary, as much as I have been able, I have suppressed , crushed, fought, and assaulted sects, schisms, superstitions , and heresies…” (EMT vol IX, 241).

Those “sects, schisms, superstitions, and heresies” against which Claudius labored so valiantly were and still are the very heart and soul of Roman Catholicism, and comprise the flood of error foreseen in Revelation 12 which had by then manifested for four centuries as the great apostasy of 2 Thessalonians 2. Claudius had not introduced a new “sect” at all, but had discovered in the Scriptures — quite independently of and contrary to Rome — the truths of the ancient apostolic Church, unwittingly and unwillingly finding himself behind enemy lines, yet nourished by the word and protected from the flood.

 The Alleged “Saracen” Occupation of the Alps

As we observed in the introduction, it is notable that Claudius was called a Jew and a Saracen by his critics for his resistance to the veneration of images. “Saracen” is a particularly interesting slur because the survival of a Protestant Alpine remnant through the medieval era has long been dismissed on account of the scattered epigraphic evidence of an occupying Saracen force in the Alps from 883 to 972 A.D.. According to a one research organization, the continual presence of a Protestant Alpine remnant is no longer a credible historical possibility, and has been entirely ruled out by the 1971 work of a French historian:

But the eminent French historian Jean-Pierre Poly has shown that from 883 until 972—nearly a century—Saracen pirates fully controlled southeastern France and the Alpine passes. There simply could not have been a continuous group there. Nor is there any evidence of a group from elsewhere who suddenly “rushed in” when the Saracens were defeated and left the area. (Ronald F. Malan, Waldensian History: A Brief Sketch (emphasis added))

Here Malan cites Jean-Pierre Poly’s 1976 work, La Provence et la société féodale (879–1166) (Paris: Bordas, 1976), as if to show that the brutal, Saracen pirates, would have quashed any indigenous religious population in the Alps. That allegation is intended to rule out the perseverance of a Christian people who both gave rise to Claudius and succeeded him. But the claim that “Saracen pirates fully controlled southeastern France and the Alpine passes” is outlandish, so far removed from actual evidence that it remains in the realm of myth, conjecture and lore. What is more, as we have shown, there is evidence that Protestant “heretics” bore that same appellation, “Saracen,” in the minds of their fiercest Roman Catholic critics, suggesting the very thing Malan would deny: a continuous presence of a Protestant population in the Alps during the centuries immediately preceding and following Claudius. As D. W. Freshfield observed,

…the mention of ‘Saracens’ in an old chronicle or on a map , is not in itself sufficient evidence of the visits of invaders of Arab race. … Mons. l’Abbé Cochet, [Director of the Museum of Antiquities of Rouen, Inspector of Historical Monuments in the Lower Seine] … cites … a dozen instances taken from ‘beyond the Loire and the Seine, and even Belgium,’ of caves, fountains, tombs, fields, buildings, attributed to ‘Saracens.’ He also quotes passages from old chronicles tending to the same conclusion, that in France, at any rate from the 11th century downwards, the term ‘Saracen’ was synonymous with unbeliever. (Alpine Journal, vol X, p. 274n (1882) (emphasis added))

In reality, absolute, hostile, Arab administrative control of southeastern France and all the Alpine passes is more in doubt than the existence of a continuous Alpine religious body of people hostile to Roman Catholic novelties. That fact is supported by a 1980 study in the International Journal of Middle East Studies indicating that there is a dearth of evidence to support the claim, and much evidence against it. On the one hand, it is alleged that by the 930s A.D., “the Saracens were well established both in some northern Italian towns in the foothills of the Alps (e.g., Vercelli, discussed below), and had control of at least” three of the major North-South routes, with likely control of others. But, on the other hand, “the lack of any accounts of Saracen activities in the neighborhood of some sizable towns through or near which the invaders would have had to pass casts some doubts” on the narrative. (Manfred E. Wenner, The Arab/Muslim Presence in Medieval Central Europe (1980), 61).

It is a truism of historiography, both ancient and modern, that history is written by the victors, and yet, “we do not possess a single contemporary Arab account” of the occupation, and what is more, “the geographical and sociopolitical knowledge of the area which would have been gained” by a 100-year occupation never appears to have made it into the collective knowledge of “later Muslim/Arab geographers” (Wenner, 64). “Although there are some accounts by Arab historians and chroniclers which cover this period in Muslim history, none specifically refers to … the administrative control which the Saracens had over the Alpine regions” (Wenner, 71). In fact, “the single piece of evidence [from Arab sources] which indicates an Arab presence [in the Alps] is the claim that for some time, the Arabic term for the Alpine regions was jabal monjaws, presumably derived from the Latin name of the time, mons jovis (the Mountain of Jupiter)” (Wenner, 71). That is extremely scant evidence from Arab sources of a standing occupation that won, and held, the entire region for nearly a century.

In this case, history appears rather to have been written by those most anxious to gain political or social advantage by casting the occupation as more expansive, more thorough and more brutal than it actually was:

Since the contemporary European accounts of the Saracen incursions are overwhelmingly concerned with presenting evidence of the inhuman, cruel, and destructive nature of these invaders, it is extremely difficult to assess accurately the impact of these incursions on the Alpine regions, much less their long-term significance. (Wenner, 70-71)

But on the other hand, “there is some evidence from contemporary sources which would indicate that the Saracens were not always as brutal or inhuman as they were made to appear (often for local political reasons). For example, there is one account which appears to be completely genuine, by a traveller in the northern Italian hilltown of Vercelli, who describes the Saracens as living within and among the local population in a manner which led him to assume they were well-established: The Saracens neither carried arms nor were they even molested by the local populace; indeed, they were apparently administering the town and the surrounding countryside with a ‘light hand.’ Similarly, there are some accounts of the administration of the major trans-Alpine passes during the mid-tenth century which indicate they were administered peacefully, carefully, and even impartially, that is, with a minimum disruption of trade and pilgrim traffic…” (Wenner, 71).

The historical record also appears to show that the “Saracens” who participated in the “occupation” were comprised partially of “some Christians and Jews” (Wenner, 62). Because some of the accounts indicate that the “pirates” were occasionally “light hand[ed],” cordial and civilized toward some of the indigenous populations (e.g., in Vercelli), but were indeed occasionally brutal toward the Roman Catholic pilgrims who needed regular access to those Alpine passes, we can understand why Dungalus accused Claudius of siding with the Jews and Saracens and even being their “relative.” It was an easy, throw-away line intended to disparage an opponent against whom he was unable to mount a compelling attack. “He is a Saracen” carries the same rhetorical weight as “He is a Philistine” or “He is a Manichee,” denoting neither true religious nor authentic genetic identification, but simply conveying opposition to the preferred narrative. It appears that the name “Saracen” indeed appeared to stick to the opponents of Roman Catholicism—Arab, Christian and Jew alike. As D. W. Freshfield reminded us, “the mention of ‘Saracens’ … is not in itself sufficient evidence of the visits of invaders of Arab race” because at that time “the term ‘Saracen’ was synonymous with unbeliever.” Claudius and others like him in the region were clearly “Saracens,” too.

From this analysis, we arrive at four meaningful conclusions:

1. The claim of absolute “full control” of the Alps by actual “Saracens” is inconsistent with history;
2. The fact that non-Roman Catholics were called “Saracens” suggests that some of the claims of “Saracens” in the Alps were based on the fact that non-Roman Catholics were present there, and were objecting to Roman Catholic doctrines;
3.  There is evidence that actual “Saracens” were known in some Alpine and sub-Alpine regions to coexist peaceably with populations of different religions; and therefore,
4. The reality of an Arab presence in southern Europe during the late 9th and early 10th centuries by no means proves the cessation of an essentially Protestant religious body of Christians in the Alps during that period.

Indeed, from the days of Vigilantius, Protestants had been evangelizing the Roman Catholic clergy and lay of southern France; and in the days of Pope Zachary a century prior to Claudius, Protestants were stealing both sheep and shepherds from the German Roman Catholic parishes, and a century after Claudius, Bishop Atto complained that the Prophets of Verceill were convincing both clergy and lay in northern Italy to leave “Holy Mother Church” and abandon her teachings. In all these periods there existed an indigenous population “more numerous than the Catholics” teaching things contrary to the religion of Rome. And those “contrary teachings” just happened to be the teachings that earned Claudius the accusation of being a “Saracen” and a “Jew” (Dungalus) and a Protestant (Maimbourg). Those “contrary teachings” apparently originated in the region long before Claudius, and continued in the region long after his death.

As we noted above, Ronald F. Malan claimed both that there “could not have been a continuous group” in the Alps due to the absolute control of the Saracens, and neither “is there any evidence of a group from elsewhere who suddenly ‘rushed in’ when the Saracens were defeated and left the area” (Malan, Waldensian History). To this we simply observe that if the former proposition is false (as it clearly is), then we need not produce evidence for the latter. Protestants do not need to “rush in” to occupy lands that they never abandoned. What is much harder to explain is how the beliefs continued to be believed in a region where the believers had allegedly been eliminated. They clearly had not.

We will continue this series in our next installment.