Henry James Warner

“ When we have stretched our historical data to their utmost capacity, when we have made full allowance for the devastation wrought by friend and foe—by friend in the destruction of the records against themselves of the Inquisition, by foe in the destruction of heretical literature—we are convinced that the imports from the East fail in quantity and quality to account for the Albigensian heresies as we find them in full vigour and variety. ”

“ The Credents had first of all to make their confession in these words: "We confess our sins before God and you, and before the ordinances of Holy Church, that we may receive pardon and penance for all sins in thought and word and deed, and for all offences in the sight of the Father, the Son and the honoured Holy Spirit and of the honoured holy Apostles, by prayer and faith and by the salvation of all the loyal glorious Christians and blessed ancestors asleep and the brethren here present, and before you, holy Lord, that you may pardon all that in which we have sinned. ”

“ Christ did not take a real human body, but only the likeness of one—the Virgin Mary is not and was not a real woman; the Virgin Mary is true penitence whereby people are born into their Church; (4) there is a kind of spiritual body or inner man whereby persons rise from the dead; (5) the Cross is the sign of the Devil, and should not be adored, since no man adores the gallows on which his father was hanged; (6) souls are spirits banished from heaven on account of their sins; (7) they deny purgatory altogether. ”

“ Baptism by water is of no benefit to children, since they are so far from consenting to it that they weep—the Order of St. James, or Extreme Unction, made by material oil, signifies nothing; they prefer imposition of hands—repudiate the constitution of the whole Roman Church, and deny to all the Prelates of it the power of binding and loosing, on the ground that they are greater sinners than those whom they claim to bind and loose; but they (the Albigenses) can give the Holy Spirit—matrimony is always sinful, except spiritual matrimony ”

“ Christians must visit sick Christians, and inquire into their life. Christians must pay their debts, and shall not be received into membership until they have done so, but if they cannot pay, they are not to be repelled on that account. They must promise to hold their heart and their goods, both present and future, at the disposal of God and the Church. If an applicant for membership agrees to all this, the Good Men answer: "We impose on you this Abstinence that you may receive it of God and of us and of the Church, and may you keep it all your life. ”

“ At one in their hatred of the Roman Church and all its works, there is a marked difference in their deism. The Waldensian, according to Saccho's classification, knows nothing of Dualism, is sound on the doctrine of the Trinity, and believes both Old and New Testaments to be the Word of God. The Catharist, on the other hand, believes in a good and an evil God, the latter being the Creator of the world of matter, which therefore is itself evil. Hence, whatever perpetuates matter, e.g. marriage, is also evil; but the world being the work of a God must also, like its maker, {56} be endless. ”

“ The Holy Ghost did not function in the world until after the Ascension of Christ. He does not Himself enter into man at the imposition of hands. The perfect man as made in the image of God has a tripartite nature of body, soul (anima) and spirit. Owing to sin man's spirit went back to heaven, and hence the present imperfect man consists of corpus and anima. But the spiritus of each man is guardian and guide (custos, rector) of the anima, and is restored to him by the Paraclete or Principal (i.e. the Holy) Spirit by the imposition of hands. [73]
The Nature of their Church. ”

“ It was an age when men everywhere, and especially in France, were devoting themselves to a reconsideration of the Church, in its essence, its doctrines and its activities; but while the Church forced facts to suit philosophic theories, the Catharists adopted and devised Dualistic theories to suit the facts. The Church claimed that its doctrines, such as that of the Holy Roman Empire or of Transubstantiation, were not new, but inherent in and developed from the authority and teaching of its Divine Head. ”

“ Une bravoure personnelle que rien n'egale chez les peuples anciens un esprit franc, impetueux, ouvert a toutes les impressions, eminemment intelligent mais, a cote de cela, une mobilite extreme, point de Constance, une repugnance marquee aux idees de discipline et d'ordre." To these traits may be added vivid imagination, a fondness for song and poetry, a love of nature so intimate that allegory became reality.
Gaul had become one of the perpetual conquests of Rome and had submitted to its governmental system, but nothing could eradicate its racial peculiarities. ”

“ The insistence upon the right of every nation to have the word of God in its own language was a principle common to Paulicians and Catharists, while the Papacy, holding that such a practice contributed to schism as well as heresy, endeavoured to thrust one version, the Latin, upon the whole Church, and refused permission to any but the clergy to read the Scriptures. ”

“ However wickedly they have lived, yet they believe that if, "in supremo mortis articulo," they say a Pater noster and receive imposition of hands from their "masters," they will be saved; no credent about to die can be saved without this imposition of hands. They call their masters deacons and bishops. If any "perfect" sin a mortal sin, e.g. by eating the very smallest portion of meat, egg or cheese, all who have been "consoled" by him lose the Holy Spirit and ought to be "consoled" again. The Waldenses also are evil, but much less so than the other heretics. ”

“ Each taught both an absolute and a modified Dualism ; but a closer study shews us that whereas with Gnosticism (and particularly Manicheism) this dogma was fundamental, with Catharism it became more and more subordinate to discipline and conduct. It was offered as a solution to the mystery of evil, but in the catechizing of their candidates for membership, no question touching Dualism was put to them. Thus discipline of life was presented to them not as a struggle with an evil God, but as a following of Apostolic Christianity and a practical protest against a corrupt hierarchy. ”

“ The storm-centre was the great city of Toulouse, which Peter de Vaux-Sarnai describes as "Tolosa, tola dolosa," being, as he adds, seldom or never from its foundation free from heresy, fathers handing it on to their sons. The impact came at a time when the Church of Rome was putting forth all its power to extend its spiritual supremacy northward, and the Kingdom of France its territorial domains southward, and it suited their respective interests to unite their forces in a home-crusade against Southern France. ”

“ The early Christian Fathers, as against the Dualistic theology of the Gnostics—a good and evil god—and consequently a Dualistic anthropology—the good soul and the evil flesh—drew a distinction between the צֶלֶם and the דְּמוּת, or the εἰκών and the ὁμοίωσις of the one God in which that one God created man—the "image" being that which man essentially is, and the "likeness" that to which he arrives by a right use of his original capacities. ”

“ A "Perfect" must not be married, but if he burn, he could satisfy the lust of the flesh so long as he remained pure in heart. This concession they, however, kept secret from the Credents, lest they should fall in their esteem. In another Inquisition at Carcassonne, held in A.D. 1308 and 1309, "contra Albigenses," Peter and James Autéri, who with other members of their family, were the last leaders of the Albigenses, declared that true Matrimony is not between male and female, for that is two kinds of flesh, not one, whereas God said, "They two shall become one flesh." ”

“ The person to be "consoled" must, if in health, prepare himself by a three days' rigorous fast. At the service of initiation, a table or bench covered with white towels and a book, called the Text, upon it, were placed in the midst of the congregation arranged according to Church rank. Within their midst, but at some distance from the table, stood the candidate. The minister at the head of the table reminded him of the ascetic life he would have to lead, the dangers and persecutions he would have to endure, and that lapse meant eternal damnation, for there was no salvation in the Roman Church. ”

“ We have seen that the heretics believed in the absolute sanctity of human life, and declared that not even a judge had power to condemn any man to death. If the positions were reversed, and they were the stronger party, they would not put to death even the most obstinate Catholic. Yet this was only theory, and often yielded under a necessity which knows no law. Thus Raymond Valsiera of Ax, a " Manichee," declared that he had been taught by William Auteri that it was wrong to kill either man or animal ; nevertheless, he ought to kill a Catholic who persecuted them ”

“ The fact of transubstantiation depended upon valid ordination of the minister and upon God hearing his prayer. When these two essentials are present, then after benediction transubstantiation takes place. If the minister himself is reprobate, his prayer affects adversely himself only, and not the worthy communicant.
A religion which claims the faith and obedience of man is bound to offer to man some explanation of his nature, or in other words, of that dualism of good and evil of which every man is conscious. ”

“ These Spirit-filled persons composed the true Church. It is less true to say that the heretics were "praecisi ab ecclesia" [52] than that they deliberately repudiated and left the Church because it had forfeited its status by quenching the Holy Spirit, {66} as was shewn by its corruptions and persecutions. The loss of the Holy Spirit involved the loss of its power to excommunicate. Only those were successors of the Apostles who copied their life.
As life is in the whole body and in every member of the body, so the Holy Spirit was in their Church and in every member of the same. ”

“ That part of the Old Testament which describes its beginning and its development into kingdoms and hierarchies, together with all their chief representatives, be they patriarchs, princes or priests, has the evil God for its author. Only the poets and the prophets who took a more spiritual view of things earthly, are inspired by the good God. ”

“ The decrees of Councils throw a strong light upon the luxurious and worldly lives of Bishops and Clergy—their costly clothes, painted saddles and gold-mounted reins, joining in games of chance, their habit of swearing, and allowing others to swear at them without reproof, welcoming to their tables strolling players, hearing Mattins in bed, being frivolous when saying the Offices, excommunicating persons wrongfully, simony, tolerating clerical concubinage, dispensing with banns, celebrating secret marriages, quashing wills. ”