God's Word was preserved and protected for over a thousand years by the primitive Christianity of the apostles.

With the uprooting of the Ostrogoths, the third primitive Christian nation in AD 538,
Rome’s war against the saints moved into a dark stage of history.
A common set of beliefs identified these Christians regarded by Rome as heretics.
They rejected the mysteries of the trinity, transubstantiation, infant baptism, relics,
icons, images, prayers to the saints. And they preserved the observance of the
commandments.

“The ancient Christians were very careful in the observation of Saturday, or the seventh day... It is plain that all the Oriental churches, and the greatest part of the world, observed the Sabbath festivals... not because they were infected with Judaism, but to worship Jesus, the Lord of the Sabbath” Antiquities of the Christian Church, 1852 Joseph Bringham (1668-1723) Vol. II, Bk. xx, Ch. 3, Sec 1, 66. pp. 1137,1136

The earliest Christians arose in Antioch and migrated ino Armenia within the first few centuries.
Edward Gibbon in his famous History said, “This was the primitive form of Christianity” that “spread in the Taurus mountains as far as Ararat.” (Rise and Fall of the Roman Empire, Bury edition, Vol. VI, p. 543). We know much more today of what the Paulicians believed from their manual of faith and practice called “The Key of Truth.” The 1782 copy is written in ancient Armenian script dated to around 800 AD.
These became known as the Paulicians.

F.C. Conybeare published an English translation of the Key in 1898. Their catechism states “We have believed and know that thou art Christ, the Son of God, who was to come into the world.” The Key frequently describes Christ as “the only-born Son.” Conybeare also noted, they…

“believe, serve, and worship God the Father, and the Son, mediator and intercessor, and the Holy Spirit, the dispenser of grace to us who believe.” (The Key of Truth: A Manual of the Paulician Church in Armenia, F.C. Conybeare: Claredon Press, Oxford, 1898).

     But because they rejected infant baptism they were accused of rejecting all forms of baptism!
     Because they opposed the Eucharist of the Mass they were accused of denying the true human nature and literal death of Christ on the cross!
     Because they rejected the trinity they were condemned for rejecting “the eternity and deity of Christ.”
     Because these original Protestants chose not to accept man-made tradition they were seen as “not even Christian at all.” Such mistaken logic prevails still today.

Like Arius, hardly anything remains of their writings, and nearly all that we know of their teaching and doctrine comes from their heavily biased critics.

But the Paulicians soon merged with the Bogomils in ancient Thrace. In the 800s the Slavic Bogomils (“Friends or Lovers of God”) emerged in what we know today as Bulgaria. Their doctrinal beliefs are also sketchy, but threads of Biblical truth can be found.

Like the Paulicians… “They also stressed on the Law of Moses with the exception of sacrifices and accordingly they practiced circumcision, abstained from the unclean meats and observed the Sabbath as a day of rest.
They disbelieved in Trinity but accepted Christ as divine.” Dojcin Zivadinovic, Sabbath in the Eastern Church, Andrews University, Dec 2007

     It is said they believed that God had two sons, Satan and Michael—one created, one begotten. Satan rebelled and became the god of this world (2Cor 4:4) bringing ruin and rebellion to earth.
     Satan thus became the evil spirit. Michael was sent to earth to become the man Jesus Christ. Satan engineered his crucifixion and Michael then became the Holy Spirit. Satan, they believed, then created the Orthodox system of churches, vestments, rites, sacraments, monks and priests to draw men away from God.
     Considerable evidence exists in the Bible for identifying Michael as the pre-existent Christ. And Satan as the pre-existent Lucifer. Both are princes.

Christ is the Prince of peace   Isa 9:6.
Prince of life   Acts 3:15
Prince of the kings of earth   Rev 1:5
Prince of the host   Dan 8:11
The Prince of princes   Dan 8:25
Messiah the Prince   Dan 9:25
And Prince of the covenant   Dan 11:22
Michael is the great prince   Dan 12:1
First of the chief princes   Dan 10:13

And Satan, too, is called a prince.
Satan is the prince of devils   Matt 9:34
The Prince of this world   John 14:30;16:11
And Prince of the power of the air   Eph 2:2

But Michael is the archangel   Jude 9
For Christ, the Lord, shall descend with the voice of the archangel at his coming to raise the dead.   1Thes 4:16.

     Piecing together a story that began in heaven, Scripture describes a conflict between Michael and Satan, Rev 12:9, the two anointed covering angels who stood in the presence of God (Ex 25:18-20).

The Bogomils preserved this truth buried within Scripture. From the Balkans their faith lived on among the Waldenses in the Piedmont valleys of the vaudes,

in Italy and northern Spain as the Cathars,

and the Albigenses
in southern France.

Bernard Gui, recorded in his 1143 treatise “On the Albegenses,” that they claimed to hold the faith of Jesus “and his gospel as the apostles taught” but they were “despicable heretics” because they denied that the Eucharist contained the actual body of Christ, they denied that holy water was really holy and that confession made to priests was useless. Furthermore, they dismissed relics as merely superstitious ploys of Rome, that they should not be adored or venerated. But worst of all they believed the Bible should be read in the common language of the people! They were ridiculed for being vegetarians, and accused of being modalistic Monarchianists, Unitarian adoptionists, angelic-Christ Docetists and, of course, like all heretics, labeled as Arians.

     In 1185, Bonacursus, in his “Against the Heretics who are called Pasagii,” claimed…
     “First, they teach that we should obey the Law of Mwww.trsc.today/t/wer—the Sabbath, and circumcision, and the legal precepts still being in force. They also teach that Christ, the Son of God, is not equal with God, and that the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit—these three persons are not one God and one being.”
     Bonacursus, like many others, did not understand the difference between the Son having an equal nature with God and sharing the same being as God.

The Waldenses, named after the valleys in which they settled in the Italian alps, are thought to have originated from the disciples of Polycarp. He sent them out in 120 AD (Peter Allix, Churches of Piedmont, 1690 edition, p. 177). They called themselves Vaudois after the valleys in which they lived.

Their desire for the word of God, led Peter Waldo to commission the translation of the Scriptures into Gallic, the common language of these people. From their reading of the Bible they discarded the practice of indulgences, prayers for the dead, Mary worship and intercession of the saints.

They were called Sabbatati because they, too, kept the seventh day Sabbath as taught in the Bible.
But the church was not pleased with this development nor the study of the Scriptures without authorization by the local clergy. Their “contempt for ecclesiastical power” resulted in their excommunication and banishment from Lyon, France. From there they retreated to the mountains where they preserved the Bible for generations with their handwritten copies.

Anabaptists, Baptists, Mennonites...

all identify the Waldenses as their spiritual ancestors.

Menno Simon, a German reformer produced his confession of faith in 1659. The introduction tells of Peter Waldus and his experience in translating the Bible from Latin into French and discovering the “glaring contradictions” between what the scriptures taught and the Roman Church’s doctrine. The reading of God’s Word always brings revival and reformation. “When the Papists ask us where our religion was before Luther, we generally answer, In the Bible, and we answer well. But, to gratify their taste for tradition and human authority, we may add to this answer, and in the valleys of Piedmont.” The Mennonite Confession of Faith lists 33 articles,
which begin with the unity of God and the Sonship of Jesus Christ.
The second Article deals with “The Eternal Birth and Godhead of the Son of God,
and His Divine Attributes” “Of the eternal birth and Godhead of the only begotten Son of God, we believe, That the Son of God, from all eternity, came forth (John 16:27), was born, and in an ineffable manner proceeded forth from the true God, his Father; (John 8:42) of the same nature, essence and substance with the Almighty God. A light from the true light. Truly God from the true God. Who being in the form of God (Phil 2:6), the brightness of his glory, and the express image of his person. (Heb 1:3)”

“For in truth it must follow, that he that is begotten, is essentially the same with him whom he was begotten. For, As the stone which was cut out of the mountain without hands, (Daniel 2:45) and became a great mountain that filled the whole earth, is of the same substance with the mountain from which it was taken; so also is the elect precious cornerstone, Jesus Christ, the only begotten Son of God, the same in his being and substance; co-equal, co-eternal with the Almighty Father, who is the mountain and rock of ages. Therefore, Jesus Christ, the eternal Son of God, is to be received and acknowledged, by every true believer, to be equally worthy with God his Father to receive our highest worship, honour, adoration and praise. (John 5:23)”

One God One Lord

One God One Lord

Theos 7

One God One Lord