The author of
A Trail of Blood Carroll identifies many divergent groups throughout history, claiming them as baptistic. These groups are a montage of unrelated sects and heretics, including the Albigenses, Cathari, Paulicians, Arnoldists, Henricians and more. The Cathari and Albigenses taught that Christ was an angel with a phantom body whose death and resurrection were only allegorical and the Incarnation impossible since the body was evil, created by evil. They also rejected the resurrection of the body and the existence of hell
The Paulicians, similarly believed that there were two fundamental principles: a good God and an evil God; the first is the ruler of the world to come and the second the master of the present world. By their reasoning, then, Christ could not have been the Son of God because the good God could not take human form. They were basically dualists and Gnostics.
Edward T. Hiscox, author of the classic Baptist handbook,
Principles and Practices for Baptist Churches (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Kregel Publications, 1980) claims the Waldenses and the above mentioned groups held to the principle points “which Baptists have always emphasized”.
Hiscox, however, doesn’t inform his readers that the Waldenses for the most part believed in the perpetual virginity of Mary, the effectiveness of the sacraments, infant baptism, that “the Sacrifice [of the Mass], that is of the bread and wine, after the consecration are the body and blood of Jesus Christ”, that good deeds of the faithful may benefit the dead, to name just a few. That Baptist successionists can claim the Waldenses as their ancestors-sharing a common belief and practice-is quite untenable, if not disingenuous.