Publicani
Publicani English Waldenses (q.v.), of whom Rapin, in relating the transactions of the councils of Henry II, gives the following account, on the authority of archbishop Usher: "Henry ordered a council to meet at Oxford in 1166, to examine the tenets of certain heretics, called Publicani. Very probably they were disciples of the Waldenses, who began then to appear. When they were asked in the council who they were, they answered they were Christians and followers of the apostles. After that, being questioned upon the Creed, their replies were very orthodox as to the Trinity and incarnation. But (says Rapin) if the historian is to be depended on, they rejected baptism, the Eucharist, marriage, and the communion of saints. They showed much modesty and meekness in their whole behavior. When they were threatened with death, in order to oblige them to renounce their tenets, they only said, "Blessed are they that suffer for righteousness' sake." There is no difficulty in understanding what were their sentiments on these heretical points. When a monk says they rejected the Eucharist, it is to be understood they rejected the doctrine of transubstantiation; when he says they rejected marriage, he means that they denied it to be a sacrament, and mailntained it to be a civil institution; when he says they rejected the communion of saints, nothing more is to be understood than that they refused to hold communion with the corrupt Church of Rome; and when he says that they rejected baptism, we Imnderstalund by it that them rejected the baptism of inlfints. These were the errors for which they were branded with a hot iron in their foreheads. See Ivimey, History of the Baptists, i, 56 sq.
