Where were all the faith-alone, Bible-only Christians before Luther's reformation in 1517?

Question

Since the original Catholic and Orthodox Christians were "unsaved," according to puritanical fundamentalists, did Christianity disappear from the planet for 1500 years? If not, please point out any evidence of the writings or leadership of faith-alone, Bible-only Christians during the first 1500 years Anno Domini.

Montanism was the sect of Montanus, who claimed not only to have received a series of direct revelations from the Holy Ghost, but personally to be the incarnation of the paraclete mentioned in the Gospel of John 14:16. Hmmm.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Montanism

Paulicians were a dualistic sect of the Orient. They held Gnostic and Manichaean beliefs.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paulicianism

The primary disagreement between Donatists and the Church was over the treatment of those who renounced their faith during the persecution of Roman emperor Diocletian (303–305). The rest of the Church was far more forgiving of these people.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donatism

The earliest Waldensians believed in poverty and austerity, promoting true poverty, public preaching and the personal study of the scriptures, unchecked by the Church. But this was about 1200, leaving a huge gap after Bible times.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waldensians

The Anabaptists appeared AFTER Luther.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anabaptists

Catharism was a name given to a religious sect with gnostic elements that appeared in the Languedoc region of France in the 11th Century in the 12th and 13th Centuries. They also became influenced by dualist and Manichaean beliefs.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cathars

Some have identified heretical groups, but were any of them faith-alone, Bible-only Christians?

Annsan_In_Him, if the puritanical fundamentalist shoe doesn't fit, don't wear it. Catholics regularly get tagged as unsaved.

A few posters have made the point that some groups were teaching heresies (i.e., false versions of Christianity) and rejected the correction of the Church Jesus founded. That might mean Bible-only. But no one has given any evidence of a faith-alone doctrine before 1517.

Renata, good answer; you searched out historical sources for faith alone. Unfortunately, the writer took them out of context. For a discussion, see
http://www.bringyou.to/apologetics/a98.htm

Answer 1

As you have realized, no one has been able to produce such a sect. Of course, not all Protestant sects rely on the two doctrines "sola scriptura" and "sola fide" (as does Lutheranism). The bible itself mentions the power of faith alone (Abraham, the good thief on the cross), but as we know faith alone is only sufficient for the dying Christian, not one who continues to live in this world. Similarly "sola scriptura", as the early (biblical) Christians clearly made use of the gospel without any scripture to which they could refer.

Clearly, after reading the bible, one must come to the logical conclusion that there is more to salvation than faith ("even the devils believe"), and there is more to doctrine than what can be found in scripture at any particular moment in time.

Jim, fundamentalist Christian

Answer 2

It looks like you'll keep revising your question until it's impossible to answer.

By definition, Heretics believed contrary to the teachings of the Church. If the Church believed in Works AND faith, then it’s entirely possible, the Faith-alone idea you’re looking for was eradicated from the face of the earth by the Catholic Church because it was heretical.

By the way, it wasn’t "Luther’s reformation." A lot of different people in several different places all came to the same conclusion at roughly the same time.
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The Gnostics, the Coptics, were very early Christians outside the mainstream. Also, keep in mind, for the first couple of hundred years, Christians considered themselves paroikoi – strangers, sojourners, or displaced people without a home. They were outsiders, and they didn't do much writing when they were busy being fed to the lions by the Romans.

Perhaps the answer lies in the dusty jars of Nag Hammadi, where the Gospel of Thomas was hidden by Gnostic Christians.

Also, perhaps the faith-alone groups as you call them WERE the heretics, so the chances of their writings surviving are rather slim.

The 12 and 13th Centuries saw an incredible surge of spirituality in the west, despite the threat of being excommunicated by the Church.

The church amassed a huge fortune selling indulgences, and if some individual came along and said that salvation was available for anyone, rather than something the church controlled, it was a massive threat to the church’s economic bottom line. So, the church usually excommunicated or refused to recognize those who failed to follow church rules.

After years of being rejected by the church, two new orders of monks were recognized in around 1215 - the Franciscans and Dominicans. They were both dedicated to lives of poverty while developing spirituality.

Another example is the Waldensians – followers of a Frenchman named Waldo. They had an unauthorized, French translation of the New Testament, and were also dedicated to a life of poverty, as well as preaching the New Testament. Despite being excommunicated, the group grew beyond Waldo, and had communities in France, Austria, and northern Italy, where Waldensians can be found today.

The Cathars, a group that may have its roots in the ancient Gnostics, were celibate, vegetarian, and pacifist. They saw themselves as an alternative to the Catholic Church – and as a result were excommunicated and violently persecuted for heresy. Thousands of people died.

The persecution of the Cathars and the Waldensians, in France and Italy grew into what’s called the Medieval Inquisition. That influenced the growth of the Spanish Inquisition, and other Church-sponsored or Church-supported persecutions and executions. The twelfth and thirteenth centuries were bad times to try to grow spiritually in ways not formally approved by the Catholic Church. After being rejected by the church for many years, eventually, the Dominicans became the major enforces during the Inquisitions.

Godspeed.

Answer 3

See, you're talking about a time when there was no printing press, and there were no (or very few) Bibles in local languages. People NEEDED the Church to interpret the Bible, because many times there would be only one (sometimes not even that) Bible per village, and the only person who could read Latin (or Greek in the East) were the Priests.

Who could say "Sola scriptura" if they couldn't know what the scripture said without an interpreter?

Answer 4

It was impossible to be *alone* and have a *Bible*.

Bible only! There were no printed Bibles in the era you're talking about. Bibles had considerable variations and were all hand written at great expense so there was no such thing as a Bible outside of an organized Church. Not to mention the fact that only priests could read. Even the nobility coudn't read generally.
P.S. Luther's Reformation literally followed shortly after the first Gutenberg Bible was produced. The printing press turned the world upside down the same way that the Internet is turning it upside down today.

Answer 5

As the answers from Luther's heirs here demonstrate, the only people who adopted Luther's destructive views were heretics.

What some don't understand is that the Church is charged to refute heresies. Heretical views change Christ's teachings in ways that make Christianity less effective or meaningless.

Faith-alone is contrary to Christ's teaching in Matt 25 that we will be judged by our charitable works for the least of our brothers and sisters.

Bible-only is contradicted by Jesus' own example. He preached, healed, cast out demons, worked miracles, suffered for us, and rose from the dead, but he didn't write a book. Bookish people write books, but Jesus saved the world.

CDF

Answer 6

Pastor Billy says: I'm still waiting for one of our "bible alone" friends to present to me an example of a bible alone users bible. Wouldn't it have to be non-Catholic/Orthodox and yet all examples of bibles from the pre-reformation period that I've seen contain the deutro-cannonal books bible aloners now reject.

Dusty that is false the Waldenses were not bible alone, they had a herarchical structure to their leadership in the spiritual community after entering into heresy and they continued in a sacramental practice. You are merely throwing out a name at this question without a fair and historical representation.

Answer 7

The Roman Catholics at this time had total control of the Word of God in the Scriptures. Because the Scriptures were in Latin, Greek and Hebrew the majority of people just had to accept what the priests taught. That might have been okay if it hadn't been that what they taught was as much their own doctrines as those of God's word. They made harsh rules for people who sinned and payments were demanded to cover their sins and those of their dead relatives. The people were poor and this threw them into greater poverty. When men like William Tyndale (there are various spellings of his name) tried to translate the Scriptures so that as he said the ploughman would be able to read it as much as any priest he was persecuted and had to go abroad to continue his work and print Bibles. The Bibles had to be smuggled into England in bags of flour so as not to be detected. Eventually Tyndale was traced and killed and his body burnt at the stake by those would didn't want the common people to see what was actually in the Scriptures. As the Trinity, worship of Mary, praying to saints, heaven going, indulgences and the transformation of the bread and wine into the literal body and blood (known as transubstantiation) of Jesus weren't in the Scriptures the circulation of the Scriptures were not popular and Bibles were gathered together at the command of Catholics and burnt publicly. But nevertheless some escaped and later at the time of Henry VIII it was starting to be convenient for him, because the Pope didn't allow him to divorce his wives, to loosen the ties of Catholicism and the Bible eventually started to be in churches in English for people to read.

Answer 8

Were they living in the Bible belt in Texas since America was discovered in 1492 by Columbus, 25 years before Martin Luther started the Reformation?

Answer 9

A straight answer is given in the 400 page book 'The Pilgrim Church' by E H Broadbent (Pickering Classic). Thousands of hand-written copies of what came to be the New Testament canon were quickly produced and dispersed amongst Jewish and Gentile Christians in the hundreds of years before the papal system and Constantine's era. When Catholicism branded all who would not bend the knee to the Pope as heretics and began persecuting them, they succeeded in dispersing these believers further afield. Although their writings were burned and Rome tried (unsuccessfully) to maintain a monopoly of the scriptures, there have always been innumerable believers who loved Christ and died for their faith in him. They objected to infant baptism and giving the sacraments to unbelievers and forced 'conversions'. If you only read Catholic history you will never find anything truthful out about these martyrs. You must turn to non-Catholic sources.

Those whom you scathingly call 'puritanical fundamentalists' refer to the SYSTEMS of Catholicism as being unable to save anyone. Only faith in what Christ has done can save anyone, yet there have been, and continue to be, saved believers in the many branches of Catholicism - despite that system, not because of it. We are not as uncharitable as you appear to be. However, if you read the book I've mentioned we may yet see you post a better informed and less inflammatory question on the subject. (Miracles still do happen.)

Answer 10

After seeing the size of your question, and reading some lengthy replies, I decided against posting quotes from these early authors.
Also, I don't want anyone to think that I took them out of context.
So, if you wish, you can look at samples of the opinions of early Church Fathers like St. Clement of Rome, St. Basil and some Church Doctors like St. Jerome, St. Augustine, and St. Chrysostom on "faith alone".
"The Patriarch Abraham himself before receiving circumcision had been declared righteous on the score of faith alone.." (Chrysostom, from "Homilies in Genesis" in "Fathers of the Church", vol. 82