But this whole time, this whole time, there had been believers, there had been a line
of believers outside of the Roman Catholic Church, outside of the Protestant line that
believed, that came forth, that had their heritage from the book of Acts, from the Lord
Jesus Christ, from the apostles.
As far as the Baptist is concerned, we see that our lineage coming from an apostolic
lineage versus, say, the Reformation or any of those things.
Now these individuals, these individuals went by different names, different groups went
by different names at different times.
Some of them were called Waldensians, some of them were called Paulicians, some of them
were called Albigensians.
They went by different names at different times, but these individuals were individuals
that believed certain things.
They had certain distinct belief systems that did not allow them to join up with the great
whore, the Roman Catholic Church, and did not allow them to join up with the Protestant
Reformation movement that basically just came out of the Roman Catholic Church.
The Paulicians were an interesting group that found their way and kind of found a home
in Armenia.
They were a fascinating group, and I use the word fascinating because I can't find a better
word for them.
They were Christians, but I would call them fundamental Christians.
So when you talk about them, they were intellectuals, they were intelligent, they weren't in any
way, shape, or form ignorant.
They were just fascinated by the New Testament.
Now in some circles, they've been called anti-Semitic.
I do not believe that that was their case, I just don't think they followed or wanted
to follow some of the Old Testament teaching and some of the, let's call it, Israel-like
ways of doing things.
They are a group that's very early in the medieval period who are reputed to have been
practicing believer's baptism.
This is one of the groups that people who will say that there's a continuous thread
of Baptist practice all through Christian history, they'll cite groups like this of
saying that the idea of believer's baptism kept going in the church after that kind of
fourth and fifth century turning away from believer's baptism.
From what I've read, is that they did undergo a lot of persecution from other denominations
from the Catholic Church, from areas like that, and they seem to have a pretty strong
hold on biblical concepts real similar to what I was just explaining as far as what
a Baptist is.
So when we reference groups like the Paulicians, the Albigensians, the Waldensians, we're
obviously not endorsing everything that these groups believed.
Just like today you can find Baptists who believe heresy, you could find heresy in those
groups.
The purpose of citing those groups is to show that there have been groups, and not just
these groups, but also unnamed groups that have been lost to history.
But there have been groups that have stood outside of mainstream Christianity, outside
of the lineage of the Roman Catholic Church and the Protestant movement.