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the Gospel of the Holy Spirit was to succeed it , being as much superior to the existing one as the sun is to the moon , and by this the church was to be changed . The tenets of this man being condemned , another friar of Parma , Gerard Secarelli , began to spread the opinions of the Apostolics , and being
taken and condemned as a heretic , he was burnt on the 18 th of July ,-1300 ; His sect was not , however , extinguished with him , for he was succeeded in the direction of it by Fra . Dolcino , whose capture and death are made by Dante matter of prophecy to him by Mahomet , in the 28 th canto of his Inferno . Dolcino was burned after the most cruel torture , which he bore with the greatest fortitude , and without renouncing his opinions , in July 1305 .
Secarelli and Dolcino taught that they were sent to reform the church , which was perishing , on account of the pride , avarice , luxury , and many other vices of the clergy . Dolcino said that Secarelli had already begun this reformation , and that he ( Dolcino ) was to finish it : that the church of Rome was not the church of God , but a reprobated one , and that she was that bad woman who renounced the faith of Christ , of whom John speaks in the Apocalypse : that no pope has the power of absolving from sins , if lie be not " as poor , holy , and humble as St . Peter , not exciting
war , not persecuting any one , and permitting every one to live in perfect liberty : " that Frederic of Aragon should be made Emperor , and should make nine or ten kings in Italy , who would destroy the pope and priests and friars , more especially the Dominicans and Franciscans , " and take from them their riches and temporal dominions , and bring all the world under the law of the New Testament . ' ^ These sectarians called themselves apostolics , because they professed to live according to the manner of the apostles , and their opinions on many points were very heterodox .
This sect was certainly m many particulars the same as the othere which appeared at different times . It is recorded at least that they agreed in their praises of celibacy , in their opinions respecting the inutility of churches , in disapproving of oaths , &c . It was said by the Albigeuses , " that it was not permitted to shave ; " so also the Apostolics , who affected the same ignorance and simplicity of manners as the apostles , were " intonsi et barbati , " as St . Bernard says . Long after this monk , some of the followers of Dolcino being burnt at radua , one who saw them burn says they were rustics . * Dolcino had many followers in Dalmatia and the Alps of Trent , as well as in Tuscany and the neighbourhood .- )* The name was well known in the twelfth century , and was even familiar in Germany , as we find from St . Bernard . Evervin , a parish priest of Steinfeld , near Cologne , wrote to St . Bernard to acquaint him that some of the Apostolics had been discovered to have arrived there , and the discovery originated in a quarrel these newcomers had with some heretics of that place . Two of them , quoting always
the words of Christ and of the Apostles , had a dispute in public before the Archbishop of Cologne and many of the nobility , and then asked time to gend for some of their learned elders . The people , against the will of the clergy , ( if we must believe Evervin , ) seeing that these heretics would not be converted , seized them , submitted them to the watery ordeal , ( which St . Bernard approves of as an excellent mode of discovering truth , ) and , as they were found obstinate , they were burned . They died so cheerfully , that poor Evervin could not understand how those sons of Belial appeared to have a
* Foscolo ' s Dante , sect . lxxx . f Additamenta ad Hist . Dolcini Hajres . apud Muratori . —Her . Hal , script . Vol . IX . col . 45 O .- ~ Sassi not , in Dolcini Hist . $ ol . 42 iJ .
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104 Review . —M'Crie ' s Italian Reformation .
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Feb. 2, 1828, page 104, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2557/page/32/
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