Facts and Documents Illustrative of the History, Doctrine and Rites of the Ancient Vallenses and Albigenses

The purpose of this work is to refute the opinion put forward by Faber?, who asserted that the Albigenses and Waldenses are the witnesses predicted in the Apocalypse. The point Maitland works hardest to establish is the Paulician—and consequently the Manichaean—origin of the Albigenses.

Faber has replied to this work in his Inquiry into the History and Theology of the Ancient Vallenses and Albigenses (8vo, 1838), in which he admits the identity of the Paulicians and Albigenses but denies that the former were in any way Manichaeans.

Because Faber was unable to produce a single contemporary testimony in that work to support his strange theory, but instead contented himself with sneering at the evidence as "the productions of their enemies," the argument advanced by Maitland in this book remains in full force. I believe he has proven that the Albigenses and Waldenses were radically different and that the former held the Manichaean doctrine of two principles The belief that the universe is governed by two opposing, equal forces of good and evil.. At the very least, he has proven that these were the concurrent opinions of contemporary writers.