Bruys, Peter De

, founder of the sect, if it may be so called, of the Petrobrussians, in the twelfth century, appears to have propagated his doctrines chiefly in Languedoc and Provence, and after a laborious ministry of twenty years, during which he had collected a great number of followers, was burnt at St. Gilles in 1130, by the populace instigated by the popish clergy. His chief tenets were, that no persons ought to be baptised unless adults; that it was an idle superstition to build churches, as God will accept sincere worship wherever it is offered, and that such churches as had been erected were to be destroyed; with all crucifixes or instruments of superstition; that the real body and blood of Christ were not exhibited in the eucharist, but were represented only by figures and symbols, and | that the oblations, prayers, &c. of the living were of, no use to the dead. ¹