Apparently the history classes in Catholic schools are lacking.
If you look you will find there have always been sects of Christianity that did not believe in the union of church and state. They did not practice infant baptism. They believed in church discipline, equality of believers and most importantly the primacy of Scripture
You might want to look at the history of these sects from a variety of sources if you're really interested.
The sects I'm referring to are:
Montanists
Novatians
Donatists
Paulicians
Albigenses
Paterines
Petrobrussians
Henricians
Arnoldists
Waldenses
Anabaptists
They all preexisted the Reformation.
Fascinating. I'd heard of the Donatists, Montantists and the Novatians, none of whom I would want to claim any spiritual descent from, and the names of some of the others were vaguely familiar but I never knew anything of their history. Interesting that they seemed pretty much to have caught on in France and that the later ones are phenomenna of the Western Church. By the way, I doubt the early Eastern provenance of these groups unless they arrived with the Roma which I suppose is possible.
Good morning, Wm. Ping to 4315.
I did not mean to give an exaustive list in 4136. (Anabaptists, for sure did not preexist the Reformation, at least not by much). The union of church and state is not a Catholic teaching either. How about the specifically Protestant teachings, such as the four solas -- who on that list, in your view, is a proto-Reformer?