On several occasions I have been asked to analyze this little book that circulates on the Internet and which is a translation of the original “The Trail of Blood” published in 1931 by J. W. Porter. I had not done so, because its arguments have always seemed rather weak to me, but since several people have insisted, here we go.
What is the book about?
The work is an attempt to refute one of the strongest arguments that the Catholic Church has against Protestantism, which we studied in previous posts. And it is that Christ founded ONE single Church (Matthew 16:18) against which the gates of hell shall not prevail (Matthew 16:19) because it is the pillar and ground of the truth (1 Timothy 3:15). To recognize this Church one must look for its characteristic marks in Revelation, which are: 1) Perpetual visibility throughout all ages, 2) Apostolicity or apostolic origin, 3) Catholicity or universality, 4) Unity and 5) Indefectibility.
It is evident, when one studies the history of the Protestant denominations seriously under these marks, that we must already discard them all as the true Church, simply by asking ourselves the simple question: Where were the Protestants before the 16th century?, for nowhere, because they did not exist. And if they did not exist back then and were not the true Church, then neither are they now. For if the Church was founded in the year 33 by Christ, it is not logical that it should have disappeared for so long only to reappear 1600 years later. This is a hypothesis that, although surprisingly so many Protestants have accepted it, is simply not sensible nor in accordance with Revelation.
“Ancestors of the Baptists”
It is here that, in the midst of the Landmarkist movement (which arose in 1851 in the southern United States), there appears a new position in which it is believed possible to trace a Baptist historical “lineage” back to the times of John the Baptist. What the book in question does is develop this ecclesiology which, although it is not new, may surprise many, because it makes it appear that, unlike other Protestants, the Baptists were indeed present throughout all of history as the true Church, only under various names, while they were persecuted by the Catholic Church—according to them, the corrupt institutional Church. Some excerpts where they maintain this:
“The conduct on the part of the loyal Churches soon incurred the furious displeasure of the devotees of the State religion, many of whom, if not most of them, were not genuine Christians. However, from that moment on, the name of “Christians” was denied to those who made up the loyal Churches that refused to accept the new errors. Moreover: not only were they stripped of that name, but they were given many other names, so that at times they were called by one, and at other times by another; and thus they were called “Montanists,” “Tertullianists,” “Novatians,” “Petrobrusians,” etc.; and some, at least, because of their practice of rebaptizing those who had been baptized in infancy, were called “Anabaptists.”
“During the period we have just covered, the persecuted were called by many and varied names, such as Donatists, Petrobrusians, Cathars, Paulicians, and Anabaptists. Somewhat later, they were called Arnoldists, Henricians, Albigensians, and Waldensians. At times one of these groups stood out above the others, and at other times another. But some of them almost always stood out because of the persistent and terrible nature of the persecution.
Yet let no one think, however, that all these persecuted people were always loyal in every sense to the teachings of the New Testament. In what is essential, they indeed were.”
In short, according to the author of the book, the Christians who were indeed essentially faithful to the teachings of the New Testament, who were essentially Baptists, are:
- Donatists
- Petrobrusians
- Cathars
- Albigensians
- Montanists
- Tertullianists
- Novatians
- Paulicians
- Arnoldists
- Henricians
- Waldensians
- Anabaptists
Let us briefly study the doctrine of these groups to determine whether they can truly be considered spiritual ancestors of the Baptists.
Montanists
They were heretics of the 2nd and 3rd centuries, followers of a certain Montanus, whom they considered the Paraclete promised by Jesus Christ, just as Montanus himself claimed to be. He maintained that Jesus Christ had not taught everything, but had promised His disciples a Paraclete with the task of completing His teaching, a task that was entrusted to him.
In their beginnings the Montanists did not deny Catholic doctrines, but later they affirmed that grave sins were unforgivable (apostasy, adultery, etc.), they rejected marriage and conjugal relations, and considered the childbirth of women as diabolical.
You may ask a modern Baptist whether he recognizes Montanus as the incarnation of the Holy Spirit, or whether they share his doctrine on the forgiveness of sins (we know they do not). In fact, recent Baptist authors already deny this filiation, as, for example, Justo Anderson does in volume I of his work titled History of the Baptists, published by the Casa Bautista de Publicaciones, who writes:
“A careful analysis of the Montanists shows that it is a mistake to regard them as a starting point of the Baptist denomination. As Troeltsch says, they were the first “sect-type” within Christianity. At first they did not stray from the faith, but they began a morbid striving for morality and practical discipline, that is, a Pentecostalist puritanism. For the Baptist, the most serious lapse was the substitution of continuous prophecy for the final revelation in Christ…Much of what has been said of the Montanists applies to the Novatians and Donatists”
Justo Anderson, History of the Baptist Church, Vol. I, Casa Bautista de Publicaciones, Colombia 2006, p. 130
Tertullianists
Founded by Tertullian, a notable Catholic ecclesiastical writer who ended up converting to Montanism and later abandoned them to found his own sect. His doctrine is known through the writings of Tertullian himself during his heretical period (De fuga in persecutione, De monogamia, De ieiunio adversus psychicos, De pudicitia, De virginibus velandis) in which he defends the rigorist positions, forbidding second marriages, denies the forgiveness of grave sins, and establishes the obligation of fasting (doctrines that the Baptists likewise do not share and which therefore cannot be considered their spiritual ancestors).
Donatists
The Donatists basically shared all Catholic doctrines, but they held that the Church was composed only of the good, and that the wicked were excluded, in such a way that those who during times of persecution shrank from the trial of martyrdom, and those who would not be willing to accept it should the case arise, no longer belonged to the Church; therefore the sacraments administered by Catholics were of no value to them. They were characterized by an exaggerated fanaticism that led them to persecute Catholics violently, killing them, burning their altars, throwing their consecrated hosts to the dogs, and they even resorted to collective suicide. The schism was quelled when Donatus was exiled and the Donatist bishops deposed, but during the reign of Julian the Apostate it regained strength, though the divisions among them caused them even to kill one another. At the Council of Carthage their doctrine was condemned, this sentence being later ratified by Pope Honorius in the year 411. They finally disappeared with the invasion of the Vandals, which persecuted Donatists and Catholics alike.
Now then, unlike the Baptists, the Donatists did believe in apostolic succession (in fact they had validly ordained bishops), a doctrine that the Baptists reject. They also believed in the validity of the sacraments administered by them, including the Eucharist and the baptism of infants (also rejected by the Baptists). Nor do the Baptists believe that the Church is composed only of the good; rather they recognize that there are sinners in her too, and that by sinning one is not irremediably separated from the Church. It is not understood, then, how they are considered by this work to be their spiritual ancestors or Christians faithful to the teaching of the New Testament.
Petrobrusians
Described in the book as “most pious Christians,” they were disciples of Peter of Bruys in the 12th century. They rejected the Old Testament, and of the New Testament they accepted only the Gospels. Peter the Venerable records that they denied the necessity of baptism for children, proclaimed that the churches ought to be burned and replaced by stables, preached the destruction of all crosses because of the horror that true Christians ought to feel when recalling the Passion of the Lord, and denied the presence of Christ in the Eucharist and the efficacy of prayer for the dead. They distinguished themselves by roaming the lands of the Dauphiné and southern France, plundering churches and burning crosses, insulting the clergy and sowing discord wherever they passed. Peter of Bruys was finally seized and condemned to the stake in the year 1130.
It is understandable that the author of the said book should feel tempted to consider the Petrobrusians as ancestors of the Baptists in the faith because of their rejection of infant baptism; but the fact that they did not even hold a common deposit of faith (in not recognizing the whole Bible as the Word of God) makes it impossible to consider them seriously as such. Nor is there any evidence that they positively shared the doctrines that the Baptists profess today.
Cathars
It was a religious movement of a Gnostic character that began in the 10th century and grew in the following centuries. They believed that there existed a creative duality (God and Satan), and it preached salvation through asceticism and the strict rejection of the material world, perceived by the Cathars as a demonic work. This doctrine posits the existence of the two Manichean principles of Good and Evil, which are likewise Light and Darkness, Spirit and Matter. However, the All and the Nothing are two aspects of one and the same principle which, owing to the tendency of the Nothing to become “something,” engender an unlimited number of eternal beings, sons of the principle God. At the head of that unlimited multitude of sons of God are the Holy Spirit and Jesus Christ. These were not considered properly God (the Trinity) except insofar as they proceeded effectively from Him, the Father being the only absolute God, while the Son and the Holy Spirit do not partake of omnipotence.
They rejected the Old Testament, which in their opinion recounted the deeds of Satan and prince of this world. They believed that the Tablets of the Law had been given to Moses by the Devil. Jesus was an “aeon,” the most prestigious of all the “sons of God,” chosen and adopted straightaway as His son so that he might go into the world with the mission of knowing and honoring His name. There was therefore for them the obligation to venerate Him as their elder brother in God.
They had a single sacrament called the “Consolamentum,” which was a kind of baptism, communion, and extreme unction combined, and which they considered the baptism of the Holy Spirit. It was administered to adults (those deemed more faithful, who became “Parfait” or “Perfects,” who kept themselves celibate and vegetarian) and to those who were dying. Those who received the “consolamentum” came to carry out another practice known as the “endura,” in which they fasted until death, considering this a mystical death.
It is impossible to consider them even as Christians, since they do not even share a Trinitarian faith with us or with the Baptists themselves; therefore it is much more difficult to consider them Baptist ancestors. The already-cited work of Baptist history by Justo Anderson admits in this regard:
“The other dissident groups, the Bogomils of the Balkans and the Cathars (Albigensians) of southern France, were a historical continuation of the Paulicians. Some say that the Baptists arose from their successors. However, as Vedder says: ‘The Paulicians, Cathars, Bogomils, and Albigensians were, more or less, Christians…although their dualist theories are essentially anti-Christian, and they sharply separate them from those who profess to be guided solely by the Word of God.’ Truly, it would be difficult to name in all the history of Christianity groups that had less in common with the Baptists than these”.
Justo Anderson, History of the Baptist Church, Vol. I, Casa Bautista de Publicaciones, Colombia 2006, p.142
As can be seen, since the Baptists themselves already reject this spiritual kinship (for obvious reasons), there is not much more to say.
Paulicians
The Paulicians were a neo-Manichean movement that arose in the 7th century in Asia Minor but became more visible in the 13th century in Bulgaria. They rejected the Old Testament and admitted only a part of the New. They too were dualists and presented a profound opposition between spirit and matter. For them, Christ had had only an apparent body, and Mary had been merely the channel through which He had manifested Himself. Later they ceased to have priests and administered neither baptism nor the Eucharist.
Here again the same thing occurs, because the Baptists share none of these tenets. They do not reject the Old Testament or part of the New, they are not dualists, nor do they believe that Christ had only an apparent body. Unlike these, they do administer baptism to adults.
Novatians
Heretics of the 2nd century who, like the Donatists, shared essentially all Catholic doctrines and none of the Baptist ones. They separated from the faith of the Church by denying that she had the authority to administer the forgiveness of sins to those who during times of persecution had apostatized from the faith but were now repentant. They affirmed that the Church had become corrupt by being too indulgent with sinners, and demanded that those who had strayed from the faith be baptized again.
I doubt that any Baptist today would say he agrees with those tenets, so it is likewise absurd to consider them spiritual ancestors of the Baptists.
Waldensians
The Waldensians are heretics of the 12th century who, on the basis of their doctrines, likewise cannot be considered ancestors of the Baptists. They held that the sacred ministry could not be entrusted to any but the laity who lived piously; the official clergy had excluded itself by becoming a possessor of temporal goods from the times of Constantine onward. They took pleasure in administering the sacraments and refused to receive them from duly ordained priests. They said that transubstantiation is effected only in the mouth of one who worthily receives the Eucharist; they thought that the bread could be consecrated in the course of ordinary meals, on the basis of their interpretation of Malachi 1:1. They rejected the ceremonial of the Mass; they baptized, heard confession, and gave absolution, and they denied that only bishops could administer the sacrament of confirmation. They condemned marriage that did not have procreation as its sole purpose, and they rejected the possession of lands and the cult of the saints.
Although, as with the previous groups, they rejected some Catholic doctrines, their doctrine differs enormously from the doctrine of the Baptists. The same, more recent, work of Baptist history already cited acknowledges:
“The Waldensians had very little in common with the Baptists. The same can be said with respect to the Lollards and the Hussites. Although those groups rejected infant baptism and practiced rebaptism, they had much in their doctrine that modern Baptists would not accept
I agree with Doctor Vedder when he says: “It is unquestionable that for four whole centuries before the Reformation there were Christian groups under various names, defamed by the Roman Church as heretics, who professed approximately…the faith and practice of modern Baptists…This is quite different from proving the substantial identity of these sects with modern Baptists…One thing is to prove that the various sects gave testimony, now one, now another, to this or that truth held by a modern denomination, and quite another is to identify all or some of these sects with any modern body”
Justo Anderson, History of the Baptist Church, Vol. I, Casa Bautista de Publicaciones, Colombia 2006, p.147-148
Anabaptists
The only group that can indeed be recognized as the origin of the Baptists is the Anabaptists, a revolutionary religious group that arose already in the midst of the 16th century, which denied baptism to children and had converts rebaptized. In Germany it had so violent a character—which they manifested by plundering churches and beheading in the name of the Gospel—that the Protestant reformer Martin Luther himself had to order them executed in public or in private, in his work Against the Murderous, Thieving Hordes of Peasants, which culminated in the massacre of more than 100,000 Anabaptist peasants.
Conclusions
I believe it is clear that the matter is somewhat more complicated for modern Baptists than setting about choosing ancient heretical groups left and right and labeling them simplistically as “Baptists.” In their attempt to establish a spiritual chain going back to John the Baptist and to be able to connect themselves, as the Catholic Church does, with apostolic times, they have had no scruple in identifying themselves with Gnostic and Manichean groups of every stripe. “Tell me who you keep company with, and I will tell you who you are”. It must be acknowledged that other Protestants are more intelligent, for they do not make the mistake of identifying themselves with those ancient groups. It is impossible to know whether this error proceeded from the negligence of the authors of this hypothesis in investigating history, or whether it is really a dishonest attempt to rewrite it.
Whatever the case may be, that is not what is relevant now. The fact is that no Protestant denomination—Baptists included—can identify any religious group that professed its doctrines in the first 16 centuries of Christianity. And if its doctrines are not “ancient,” and if that is so it means that its doctrines are relatively “new,” and if “new,” then there applies to them that saying:
“…There shall come a time when men will not endure sound doctrine, but, according to their own desires, they will heap up for themselves teachers, having an itch to hear NOVELTIES” (2 Timothy 4:3).
Author: José Miguel Arráiz
