Catharism

“ That they did their duty is visible in the fact that heresy makes so little figure in France, and that the slow but remorseless extermination of Catharism in Languedoc was not accompanied by its perpetuation in the North. We hear constantly of refugees from Toulouse and Carcassonne flying for safety to Lombardy and even to Sicily, but never to Touraine or Champagne, nor do we ever meet with cases in which the earnest missionaries of Catharism sought converts beyond the Cevennes. This may fairly be ascribed to the vigilance of the inquisitors, who were ever on the watch. ”

“ Some Cathari held that the Virgin was only symbolical—of the Catharan church.27 Some, too, held that John the Baptist was one of the demons of the evil god, who acted as an obstacle to the beneficent God, by preaching the material baptism of water instead of the true baptism which is purely spiritual.28
Such were some of the main doctrinal features of Catharism. Its ethical teaching was intimately connected with its theology. Refusing to credit that the good God could predestine any to perdition, they held that salvation ultimately awaited all. ”

“ Heresy was everywhere and all-pervading. An unknown but certainly large portion of the population was addicted to Catharism or Waldensianism, while even the orthodox could not, for the most part, be relied upon for sympathy or aid. Practical toleration had existed for so many generations, and so many families had heretic members, that the population at large was yet to be educated in the holy horror of doctrinal aberrations. ”

“ In the lands of the Count of Toulouse, Catharism was as rampant as were clerical abuses. The pleasure-loving, prosperous inhabitants of Provence, of Narbonne, of Albi felt the authority of the Church to be an obnoxious incubus upon their worldliness, their careless independence. The clergy were hated and despised. The troubadour made pleasant ridicule of the sacraments and every doctrine of the Church, however sacred. The death-bed repentance scheme of the Catharan system, its denial of a purgatory and a hell, were popular. ”

“ Catharism was little known in Germany, and the heretics were mainly Waldenses. A body allied to them, known as the Ortlibenses, or Brethren of the Free Spirit, founded by one Ortlieb, of Strassburg, held that God was the essence of all creatures, and invisible except through them. From this it followed, or was believed to follow, that man, being an embodiment of the spirit of God, was incapable of sin. This doctrine swept away, not merely the entire apparatus of theology, but the whole system of observances which constituted the religion of the Church and the source of its wealth. ”

“ This zeal might have lasted for a generation, to be followed by a period of comparative inaction, until a fresh onslaught would have been excited by the recrudescence of heresy. Under a succession of such spasmodic attacks Catharism might perhaps have never been completely rooted out. By confiscation the heretics were forced to furnish the means for their own destruction. ”

“ The author or authors of ‘The Everlasting Gospel’ illustrated this very conception by elaborating a thesis really more destructive of the Catholic faith than Catharism itself. The ending of the second era was to be accompanied by great tribulations, but these grievous troubles would usher in the millennium, days of perfect justice, peace and happiness, in which God would be worshipped everywhere and in which the Eucharist and indeed all other sacraments would be needless, mankind being liberated from such burdens, so complete would be the knowledge of God in the heart of the individual man. ”

“ Such are the outlines of Paulicianism as they have reached us, and their identity with the belief of the Cathari is too marked for us to accept the theory of Schmidt, which assigns to the latter an origin among the dreamers of the Bulgarian convents. A further irrefragable evidence of the derivation of Catharism from Manichaeism is furnished by the sacred thread and garment which Avere worn by all the Perfect among the Cathari. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Yet, even in the distant city of Leon, Catharism had obtained a foothold. Bishop Rodrigo, who died in 1232, expelled a number of Cathari, on his attention being called to them by their circulating a story to excite hatred of the priesthood, relating how a poor woman placed a candle on the altar in honor of the Virgin, and on her leaving it a priest took it for his own use. The following night the Virgin appeared to her votary and cast burning wax into her eyes, saying, “Take the wages of your service. As soon as you went away a priest carried off the candle ”

“ Catharism, which means Puritanism, was a constant and conspicuous protest to an age and people characterized by a joie de vivre. The asceticism of the ' Perfect ' in particular went beyond that of the severest monasticism, for they eschewed meat always, and not merely at certain times of the year, as well as all food produced by generation Their relationship of the sexes was ultra-strict. ”

“ To hold fast to an immutable faith is easy, but what if the immutable faith does as a matter of fact change! The bull Cum inter nonnullos made it possible that a man might be condemned as a heretic because he held a certain view [Pg 46] as to Christ’s poverty, although perfectly able and willing to subscribe to every article in the Christian creed as defined in the great councils of the early Church. Catharism may have been a real peril to the Church; but to maintain that men who had no other wish but to preserve the strict Rule of St. ”

“ Powerful as he was, he felt himself unequal to the task. The burgesses of his cities, independent and intractable, were for the most part Cathari. A large portion of his knights and gentlemen were secretly or avowedly protectors of heresy; the common people throughout his dominions despised the clergy and honored the heretics. When a heretic preached they crowded to listen and applaud ; when a Catholic assumed the rare function of religious instruction they jeered at him and asked him what he had to do with proclaiming the Word of God. ”

“ The swarthy Padre laughed, and threw off the big cat which had mounted to his shoulder. “It will keep you busy, Bishop. Nature has got the start of you here. But for all that, our native priests are more devout than your French Jesuits. We have a living Church here, not a dead arm of the European Church. Our religion grew out of the soil, and has its own roots. We pay a filial respect to the person of the Holy Father, but Rome has no authority here. We do not require aid from the Propaganda, and we resent its interference. ”

“ A full report of the discussion, including the decision against the Cathari, has reached us from several orthodox sources, but the only interest which the affair has is its marked significance in showing that heresy had fairly outgrown all the means of repression at command of the local churches, that reason had to be appealed to in place of force, that heretics had no scruple in manifesting and declaring themselves, and that the Catholic disputants had to submit to their demands in citing only the New Testament as an authority. ”

“ Energetic only in evil, when its powers might have been used on the side of virtue, it held its hand and gave the people to understand that the only sins demanding repression were doubt as to the accuracy of the Church’s knowledge of the unknown, and attendance on the Sabbat. In its long career of blood and fire, the only credit which it can claim is the suppression of the pernicious dogmas of the Cathari, and in this its agency may be regarded as superfluous, for those dogmas carried in themselves the seeds of self-destruction, and higher wisdom might have trusted to their self-extinction. ”

“ Then the heir to your husband's estates will be a Catholic, and so the true faith get rooted in the soil."
"Alas!" said Catharine, "are we to look but to the worldly interests of the Church?"
"They are inseparable from her spiritual interests here on earth: our souls are not more bound to our bodies."
Catharine was deeply mortified.
"So the Church rejects me because I am poor," said she, with a sigh.
"The Church rejects you not, but only the Convent. No place is less fit for you. You have a high spirit, and high religious sentiments: both would be mortified and shocked in a nunnery. ”

“ CATHARISTS, OR PATARENES. "Among all the sects of the Middle Ages, very far the most important in numbers and in radical antagonism to the Church, were the Cathari, or the Pure, as with characteristic sectarian assumption they styled themselves. Albigenses they were called in Languedoc; Patarenes in North Italy; Good Men by themselves. Stretching through central Europe to Thrace and Bulgaria, they joined hands with the Paulicians of the East and shared their errors. ”

“ For three months they thus labored diligently, like real evangelists, finding thousands of heretics and few orthodox, but the harvest was scanty and conversions rarely rewarded their pains — in fact, the only practical result was to excite the heretics to renewed missionary zeal. It speaks well for the tolerant temper of the Cathari that men who had been invoking the most powerful sovereigns of Christendom to exterminate them with fire and sword, should have incurred no real danger in a task apparently so full of risk. ”

“ During this interval the Poor Men of Lyons arose, and were forced to make common cause with the Cathari ; the proselyting zeal which had been so successful in secrecy and tribulation had free scope for its development, and had no effective antagonism to dread from a negligent and disheartened clergy. The heretics preached and made converts, while the priests were glad if they could save a fraction of their tithes and revenues from rapacious nobles and rebellious or indifferent parishioners. Heresy throve accordingly. ”

“ Jesus (1 Cor. xv. 47) to earth in the appearance of man to teach men their heavenly origin and the means of restoration. The Cathari rejected the O.T., but accepted the N.T., which they read in the vernacular. Marriage they regarded as a hindrance to Christian perfection. They treated with contempt water baptism, the Supper, and ordination, as well as all veneration of saints and relics, and tolerated no images, crosses, or altars. Prayer, abstinence, and baptism of the Spirit were regarded as the only means of salvation. Preaching was next to prayer most prominent in their public services. ”

“ If your French priest had a discerning eye, now, and were sent to this Vicarate, he might keep my El Greco in mind.”
The Bishop shook his head. “No, I can’t promise you—I do not know. I have noticed that he is a man of severe and refined tastes, but he is very reserved. Down there the Indians do not dwell in wigwams, your Eminence,” he added gently.
“No matter, Father. I see your redskins through Fenimore Cooper, and I like them so. Now let us go to the terrace for our coffee and watch the evening come on.” ”

“ Most likely it came by way of Asia Minor, the Black Sea and the Danube. Then it crossed the Alps and soon enjoyed immense popularity in Germany and France. There the followers of the new creed called themselves by the Oriental name of the Cathari, or “the people who lead a pure life,” and so widespread was the affliction that all over western Europe the word “Ketzer” or “Ketter” came to mean the same as “heretic.”
But please don’t think of the Cathari as members of a definite religious denomination. No effort was made to establish a new sect. ”

“ Concerning those who call themselves Cathari, if they come over to the Catholic and Apostolic Church, the great and holy Synod decrees that they who are ordained shall continue as they are in the clergy. But it is before all things necessary that they should profess in writing that they will observe and follow the dogmas of the Catholic and Apostolic Church ”

“ Yet this will not account for the fact that the Manichæism of the Cathari, Patarins, or Albigenses, was not a mere speculative dogma of the schools, but a faith which aroused fanaticism so enthusiastic that its devotees shrank from no sacrifices in its propagation and mounted the blazing pyre with steadfast joy. A profound conviction of the emptiness of sacerdotal Christianity, of its failure and approaching extinction, and of the speedy triumph of their own faith may partially explain the unselfish fervor which it excited among the poor and illiterate. ”

“ The supreme holiness of poverty, however, had been so assiduously preached for a hundred years that a large portion of the population sympathized with the persecuted Spirituals; many laymen, married and unmarried, joined them as Tertiaries, and even priests embraced their doctrines. There speedily grew up a sect, by no means confined to Franciscans, to replace the fast-vanishing Cathari as an object for the energies of the Inquisition. ”