Petrobrusians
Petrobrusians were a 12th century proto-Protestant group that rejected infant baptism, Catholic mass, veneration of the cross and prayers for the dead.[1][2]
Teachings
The teachings of Peter of Bruys are known primarily through the writings of his opponent, Peter the Venerable. According to these accounts, the Petrobrusians held five principal tenets.
First, they advocated for the baptism of adult believers, asserting that personal faith was a necessary prerequisite for the sacrament's validity. Second, they rejected the veneration of the cross, viewing it as the instrument of Christ's suffering that should be held in horror, and were accused of burning crosses. Third, as iconoclasts, they repudiated the doctrine of the Real Presence in the Eucharist, denied that the Mass constituted a sacrifice, and rejected the use of church buildings and altars. Fourth, they rejected prayers, sacrifices, and alms for the dead.
Fifth, in their approach to scripture, the Petrobrusians accepted the authority of the four Gospels, which they interpreted literally.[3] They considered the New Testament epistles to have a subordinate authority, questioning their apostolic origin, and they rejected the authority of the Old Testament.[4]
Comparison to Catharism
Certain scholars, such as the 19th-century theologian Johann Joseph Ignaz von Döllinger, have identified the Petrobrusians as a forerunner to or a part of the Cathar movement.[5] This identification is based on several shared doctrines, including the rejection of infant baptism, the rejection of the veneration of the cross, and the rejection of the doctrine of transubstantiation. Additionally, the Petrobrusians repudiated the authority of the Old Testament and the Church Fathers, prioritizing a literal interpretation of the Gospels.
However, this classification is contested based on significant theological differences. Surviving sources do not describe the Petrobrusians as holding the dualist or Manichaean ascetic beliefs that were central to Catharism. Furthermore, the two groups held opposing views on marriage. The Petrobrusians permitted and even encouraged marriage, whereas the Cathars condemned marriage and procreation as inherently sinful, a belief rooted in their dualist theology.[4] Cathar elites, known as the Perfecti, were required to avoid all sexual contact.
From the 1913 Catholic Encyclopedia
Heretics of the twelfth century so named from their founder Peter of Bruys. Our information concerning him is derived from the treatise of Peter the Venerable against the Petrobrusians and from a passage in Abelard. Peter was born perhaps at Bruis in south-eastern France. The history of his early life is unknown, but it is certain that he was a priest who had been deprived of his charge. He began his propaganda in the Dioceses of Embrun, Die, and Gap probably between 1117 and 1120. Twenty years later the populace of St. Gilles near Nimes, exasperated by his burning of crosses, cast him into the flames. The bishops of the above-mentioned dioceses suppressed the heresy within their jurisdiction, but it gained adherents at Narbonne, Toulouse, and in Gascony. Henry of Lausanne, a former Cluniac monk, adopted the Petrobrusians' teaching about 1135 and spread it in a modified form after its author's death. Peter of Bruys admitted the doctrinal authority of the Gospels in their literal interpretation; the other New Testament writings he probably considered valueless, as of doubtful apostolic origin. To the New Testament epistles he assigned only a subordinate place as not coming from Jesus Christ Himself. He rejected the Old Testament as well as the authority of the Fathers and of the Church. His contempt for the Church extended to the clergy, and physical violence was preached and exercised against priests and monks. In his system baptism is indeed a necessary condition for salvation, but it is baptism preceded by personal faith, so that its administration to infants is worthless. The Mass and the Eucharist are rejected because Jesus Christ gave his flesh and blood but once to His disciples, and repetition is impossible. All external forms of worship, ceremonies and chant, are condemned. As the Church consists not in walls, but in the community of the faithful, church buildings should be destroyed, for we may pray to God in a barn as well as in a church, and be heard, if worthy, in a stable as well as before an altar. No good works of the living can profit the dead. Crosses, as the instrument of the death of Christ, cannot deserve veneration; hence they were for the Petrobrusians objects of desecration and were destroyed in bonfires.
PETER THE VENERABLE, Epistola sive tractatus adversus petrobrusianos hereticos in P.L., CLXXXIX, 719-850; ABELARD, Introductio ad theologiam, II, iv, in P.L., CLXXVIII, 1056, VERNET in Dict. theol.cath., II, 1151-56; FUNK, Manual of Church History, tr. CAPPADELTA, I (St. Louis, 1910), 354-5.
References
- Back to citation "Definition of PETROBRUSIAN". www.merriam-webster.com. Retrieved 2021-11-25.
- Back to citation Kim, Elijah Jong Fil (2012-04-06). The Rise of the Global South: The Decline of Western Christendom and the Rise of Majority World Christianity. Wipf and Stock Publishers. p. 201. ISBN 978-1-61097-970-2. “Peter bruys became one of the earliest leaders of the Reformation, rejecting images, infant baptism,”
- Back to citation "CATHOLIC ENCYCLOPEDIA: Petrobrusians". www.newadvent.org. Retrieved 2021-11-25.
- Back to citation occurrence 4.0 Back to citation occurrence 4.1 History, American Society of Church (1892). Papers of the American Society of Church History. American Society of Church History.
- Back to citation Reagan, Joseph Cowley (1927). "Did the Petrobrusians Teach Salvation by Faith Alone?". The Journal of Religion. 7 (1): 81–91. doi:10.1086/480637. ISSN 0022-4189. JSTOR 1195227. S2CID 170351805.