ts, because the most ancient;
"for some say," adds he, "that it has continued to flourish since the
time of Sylvester; others, from the time of the apostles." This last is
a singular corroboration of the authenticity of the Nobla Leycon, which
refers to the corruptions which began under Sylvester as the cause of
their separation from the communion of the Church of Rome. Rorenco, the
grand prior of St Roch, who was commissioned to make enquiries
concerning them, after hinting that possibly they were detached from the
Church by Claude, the good Bishop of Turin, in the eighth century, says
"that they were not a new sect in the ninth and tenth centuries."
Campian the Jesuit says of them, that they were reputed to be "more
ancient than the Roman Church." Nor is it without great weight, as the
historian Leger observes, that not one of the Dukes of Savoy or their
ministers ever offered the slightest contradiction to the oft-reiterated
assertions of the Vaudois, when petitioning for liberty of conscience,
"We are descendants," said they, "of those who, from father to son, have
preserved entire the apostolical faith in the valleys which we now
occupy."[1] We have no doubt that, were the ecclesiastical archives of
Lombardy, especially those of Turin and Milan, carefully searched,
documents would be found which would place beyond all doubt what the
scattered proofs we have referred to render all but a certainty.

The historical evidence for the antiquity of the Vaudois Church is
greatly strengthened by a consideration of the geographical position of
"the Valleys." They lie on what anciently was the great high-road
between Italy and France. There existed a frequent intercourse betwixt
the Churches of the two countries; pastors and private members were
continually going and returning; and what so likely to follow this
intercourse as the evangelization of these valleys? There is a tradition
extant, that the Apostle Paul visited them, in his journey from Rome to
Spain. Be this as it may, one can scarce doubt that the feet of Irenaeus,
and of other early fathers, trod the territory of the Vaudois, and
preached the gospel by the waters of the Pelice, and under the rocks and
chestnut trees of Bobbio. Indeed, we can scarce err in fixing the first
rise of the Vaudois Churches at even an earlier period,--that of
apostolic times. So soon as the Church began to be wasted by
persecution, the remote corners of Italy were sought as an asylum; and