NOTE: What follows is taken from an article in Spectrum magazine by the late Dr. Jean Zurcher (1918-2003), titled, “The Vindication of Ellen White as historian” [1]. A very recent article in the same magazine claims that “during the period of so-called papal supremacy, the pope did not . . . persecute Sabbath-keepers in the persons of the Waldenses, or anyone else for that matter” [2]. The author of this latter article uses this claim, among numerous others, as proof that Ellen White—who writes concerning the Waldenses that “some of whom were observers of the Sabbath” [3]—cannot be trusted as a reliable historical witness.
The following excerpt from Dr. Zurcher’s article produces documented evidence that Ellen White was correct in speaking of certain of the Waldenses being persecuted for keeping the Bible Sabbath in place of the papal Sunday.
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Through ages of darkness and apostasy there were Waldenses who denied the supremacy of Rome, who rejected image worship as idolatry, and who kept the true Sabbath. . . . Behind the lofty bulwarks of the mountains—in all ages the refuge of the persecuted and oppressed—the Waldenses found a hiding place. Here the light of truth was kept burning amid the darkness of the Middle Ages. Here, for a thousand years, witnesses for the truth maintained the ancient faith [4].
Ellen White has been criticized for saying that a thousand years before the Reformation, there were Waldenses, and that these Waldenses kept the Sabbath. But Ellen White was justified in not tracing the origin of the Waldenses to Pierre Waldo who lived in the 12th century. There existed in Northern Italy, well before Pierre Waldo, various evangelical groups opposing the church of Rome [5]. “It was only the malice of their enemies and the desire to blot out the memorial of their antiquity, which made their adversaries impute their origin to so late a period, and to Pierre Waldo” [6].
The real importance of Pierre Waldo consisted in rallying to his cause these various groups, thus founding a religious movement worthy of the attention of the Papacy. The fact that the name of the Waldenses should be mentioned for the first time at the Third Lateran Council in 1179 in connection with Pierre Waldo is not proof that the people took their name from him [7]. The opposite conclusion can also be sustained. According to ancient usage and the etymology of the name, it seems more logical to affirm with certain historians that Waldo received his name from the “people of the valleys” [8]. Ellen White is perfectly correct to speak of the Waldenses giving their witness for “a thousand years” from the beginning of the Middle Ages [9].
As for Waldenses observing the Sabbath, we must first point out that Ellen White nowhere says that all the Waldenses were faithful observers of the Sabbath. To the contrary, in the first two pages where she discusses the churches of Piedmont, Ellen White speaks on the one hand of the defection of the leaders, and on the other hand of the steadfastness of some, of the compromise of many, and the faithfulness of certain ones [10].
She then says that “the churches [of Piedmont] that were under the rule of the papacy were early compelled to honor the Sunday as a holy day. Amid the prevailing error and superstition, many, even of the true people of God, became so bewildered that while they observed the Sabbath, they refrained from labor also on the Sunday” [11]. So, “while, under the pressure of long-continued persecution, some compromised their faith, little by little yielding its distinctive principles, others held fast the truth.” It is in this context, and following this general observation, that the so-called erroneous statement of Ellen White is placed. “Through ages of darkness and apostasy there were Waldenses who denied the supremacy of Rome, who rejected image worship as idolatry, and who kept the true Sabbath” (emphasis added) [12].
In none of these extracts does Ellen White state that the Waldensian church, with a capital W, observed “the true Sabbath.” Elsewhere Ellen White clearly states that “a striking illustration of Rome’s policy toward those who disagree with her was given in the long and bloody persecution of the Waldenses, some of whom were observers of the Sabbath” (emphasis added) [13].
Secondly, although examples of Sabbath observance in the Middle Ages are rare, we know of some Waldenses who observed the true Sabbath in the north of France. The first of them arrived from Italy in the 11th century. Pierre Waldo himself, according to certain sources, visited the north of France on his way to Germany [14]. By the 15th century there were so many Waldenses in the north of France that the inquisitor of Artois complained, “The third of the world is Waldensian” [15].
Paul Beuzart discovered in the archives of the Pas-de-Calais at Arras an account of the martyrdom in 1420 of Ghuillebert Thuling, pastor of several Waldensian congregations:
On March 25, 1420, when Thulin had come from Valenciennes to visit a group of interested people, at Douai, he was arrested with fifteen other persons. Transferred to Arras, these persons were tried before a tribunal of the Inquisition. Two were imprisoned for life. Nine of the tortured ones recanted and were merely punished. Six weeks later, before a crowd of ten to twelve thousand people, the remaining seven Waldenses, including their pastor, were burned at the stake. The bishop’s charges of heresy worthy of death have been preserved: “rejection of the worship of the Virgin and the saints who were not in Paradise, disbelief in the Eucharist and the masses on behalf of the dead, refusal to make the sign of the cross, rejection of confessional.” Also, the charge says, “they observed Saturday instead of Sunday” [16]. Records of the event state specifically that the pastor, Ghuillebert Thulin, “kept the Sabbath on Saturday” [17].
REFERENCES
1. Jean Zurcher, “The Vindication of Ellen White as Historian,” Spectrum, vol. 16, no. 3, pp. 21-31.
2. Donald E. Casebolt, “Case by Casebolt: The 1,260 Year Prophecy Problem,” Spectrum, Feb. 26, 2025 https://spectrummagazine.org/views/case-by-casebolt-the-1260-year-prophecy-problem/
3. Ellen G. White, The Great Controversy, p. 577.
4. Ibid, pp. 65-66.
5. Leroy Edwin Froom, The Prophetic Faith of Our Fathers, vol. 1, pp. 807-839.
6. Jacques-Benigne Bosuet, The History of the Variations of Protestant Churches, vol. 2, pp. 110,120, in Froom, op. cit, p. 830.
7. Walter Map, De Nugis Curalium, pp. 56,66, in Froom, op. cit. pp. 832,833.
8. Cf. Froom, vol. 1, Appendix D, pp. 937-952.
9. Ellen White places the origins of the Waldenses in The Great Controversy at “centuries before the birth of Luther” (p. 78), or “hundreds of years before the Reformation” (p. 65), or even “a thousand years” (p. 65).
10. “For centuries,” she writes, “the churches of Piedmont maintained their independence, but the time came at last when Rome insisted upon their submission. After ineffectual struggles against her tyranny, the leaders of these churches reluctantly acknowledged the supremacy of the power to which the whole world seemed to pay homage. There were some, however, who refused to yield to the authority of the pope or prelate” (Ellen White, The Great Controversy, p. 64).
11. Ibid, p. 65.
12. Ibid, p. 577.
13. Paul Beuzart, Les Heresies pendant le Moyen Age et la Reformedans la region de Douai, d’Arras et ay pays de l’Alleu, Le Puy, 1912, Chapter III, pp. 3,4,20.
14. Ibid, p. 67.
15. Ibid, p. 47.
16. Roger Guenin, articles in Revue Adventiste, April 1960, and Servir, first quarter, 1960, p. 6.
17. Manuscript 1169, Bibliotheque de Douai, cited by Paul Beuzart, op. cit, p. 47.
Jean Zurcher (1918-2003) served the Seventh-day Adventist Church as pastor, teacher and educator, theologian, missionary, and administrator. As an educator in the mission field, Zurcher was instrumental in the establishment of Adventist education, especially in Madagascar. Zurcher taught at Atlantic Union College in Massachusetts, United States, and led the seminary at Collonges-sous-Salève (now Adventist University of France). Zurcher served as secretary of the Euro-Africa Division and director of the Biblical Research Committee of the Euro-Africa Division.