Cathar "heresy"
The Cathars themselves did not call themselves Cathars. “For a long time it was believed,” says the historian of Catharism M. Roquebert, “that the term “Cathars” comes from the Greek “Katharos”, which means “pure”. Today there is no doubt that the Cathars themselves never called themselves that. This term was used in relation to them only by their enemies, and, as we can judge, was used in an offensive sense by the German monk Ecbert of Schonau, who first mentioned it in his sermons in 1163. Thirty-five years later, the Catholic critic Alan of Lille writes that they were given this nickname from the Latin word "catus" - cat, because, "as they say about them, when Lucifer appears to them in the form of a cat, they kiss his ass ..." This is an insult was explained by the fact that the Cathars attributed the creation of the visible world to the principle of Evil, and in many medieval traditions, especially in Germany, the cat was a symbolic animal of the Devil. Rumors spread that if the Cathars believed that the world was created by the Devil, then they worshiped him in the form of a cat, although in fact the Cathars were far from worshiping the Devil like anyone else. It should be noted that the medieval German word Ketter, meaning "heretic", comes from the word Katte - "Cat" (in modern German Ketzer and Katze). The dualists were also given other nicknames: if in Germany they were called “Cathars”, then in Flanders “poplicans” and “pifls”, in Italy and Bosnia “patarens”, in the North of France - “hillocks” or “bulgrs” - a particularly offensive expression , which meant not only “Bulgarians”, but was often synonymous with the word “sodomites”. But they were also given harmless nicknames. For example, in the Oc region they were often called "weavers" because this was their preferred profession. Regional designations were also used: “heretics from Agen, Toulouse, Albi...” The last word, together with the word “Cathars”, gained enormous popularity, and over time the word “Albigensians” became the equivalent of the word “Cathars” and they began to call people living far from the Albigeois region... However, the Cathars called themselves “Christians” and “good Christians.” Ordinary believers sometimes called them “perfect”, “good people”, but the word “friends of God” was especially often used, of which there is a lot of evidence in Languedoc of the 13th century. This was a literal translation of the Slavic word “god-mil”. So it is absolutely fair and in accordance with the vocabulary of the time to call this dualistic Church, known as the “Bogomils” in the Balkans and the “Cathars” in the West, the “Church of the Friends of God.”
In general, the teaching of the Cathars and Albigenses is very simple. They believed that earthly life serves only to prepare for entry into the Kingdom of God and the human soul, enclosed in a bodily shell, must achieve purification in order for God to allow it to return to heaven. The way to achieve this goal is a simple life, solitude, purity of thoughts and actions, and, if possible, renunciation of carnal joys. Of course, the simple life was strict and ascetic, and solitude was more like a hermitage, often with a vow of silence, but if you consider how corrupt and unattractive the official church was at that time, it is quite understandable why the inhabitants of the French South preferred the teachings of the Cathars - sincere and spiritual. The God that the Cathars believed in was not the strange triune deity that the Christian Church invented during the long debates of the early Middle Ages. This was the god of Light who did not send his son to die on the cross. For the Cathars, the cross itself was not a sacred symbol, since it was used as an instrument of torture. The God of the Cathars was a good god, and the god who would allow his son to die on the cross is Satan. The enlightenment that the Cathars sought was not achieved by prayers to the cross and the crucified son; it could only be achieved through one’s own efforts, opening one’s soul to meet the One God (and not the Trinity), through individual communication with this God-Absolute. In this regard, the faith of the Cathars is reminiscent of the faith of the Essenes, who also spoke about the individual path to God and believed that a “pure” life contributed to the enlightenment of the soul. Both of them presented their teachings in an allegorical form, which is why it can be assumed that some ancient Jewish texts served as the source for such a worldview. And here it is important to remember that the south of France for a long time was the place where Jewish emigrants fled, and especially members of the Qumran community of Essenes, which was known in the 1st century as the community of Damascus (that was the name of the place where the Essenes lived). If you believe even the canonical Gospels, purged by the church to the utmost, then they mention Christ’s brother James. It is believed that Jacob was the leader of the Essene community. And then it was not by chance that one of the first orders of knighthood received the name of the Order of St. James. This name meant a lot to Middle Easterners and unorthodox Christians. Many Essenes were forced to move to the south of France due to persecution - here are the roots of the Cathars... and the first knight-monks. It is likely that the Order of Zion grew from the followers of the Essenes, which raised the Knights Templar, Jacobites and Knights
Holy Sepulcher. For a thousand years, the descendants of the Essenes maintained their true faith and remembered their true history.
But let's return to the Cathars and Albigensians.
The Cathars believed that the church deliberately perverted Christianity and likened it to the synagogue of Satan. In their opinion, there should be no mediator between God and man, and all church sacraments are only a way to confuse a person’s mind and control his soul, turning it away from the true path of the enlightened. They did not believe that the souls of the dead go to purgatory; they considered the existence of icons and crosses unnecessary and harmful, because there is nothing sacred in them and they will not help a person become better and purer. And there was no talk about the tithe collected by the church, since this is clear evidence that the church is the power of Satan. Holy water cannot protect from evil and sin, because it is just water and there is no holy power in it. Indulgences cannot absolve a person of his sins, because he is trying to buy purity with money, but it cannot be bought, it can only be achieved. They opposed baptism with water, believing that this was clearly not enough, and they completely denied the baptism of children, since the acceptance of faith is a conscious act: “the evil Church of Rome, spreading deception and fiction, says that Christ taught to baptize with material water, as this John the Baptist did before Christ began to preach. But this can be refuted on many points; for if the baptism practiced by the Roman Church is the baptism which Christ taught their Church, then all those who have not received their baptism will be condemned. After all, they baptize small children who cannot yet believe or see the difference between good and evil, but even without baptism, according to them, they will be condemned. Moreover, if baptism with transient water brings salvation, then Christ came and died in vain, for even before Him baptism with water was performed…. As for the two baptisms, St. Paul clearly indicates that only one brings salvation, saying (Eph. 4:5): “one Lord, one faith, one baptism.” St. Luke in the Acts of the Apostles describes what kind of baptism is practiced by the Church of God, and well shows what price the apostles had to pay in agreeing to baptism by water, saying (Acts 19:1-6): “When Paul arrived at Ephesus, he found some disciples, said to them: Have you received the Holy Spirit when you believed? They said to him: we have not even heard whether there is a Holy Spirit. And Paul said to them, “What then were you baptized into?” They answered: in John's baptism. Paul said: John baptized with a baptism of repentance, telling the people that they should believe in him who would come after him, that is, in Jesus. When they heard this, they were baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus, and when Paul laid his hands on them, the Holy Spirit came upon them.” They believed that baptism performed by an unworthy person does not provide any goodness (and given the moral corruption of the contemporary church fathers, we had to admit that they were right - it does not provide). They denied the church sacrament of marriage, since marriage is a completely earthly event and has nothing to do with the life of the soul. But the main disagreement was in the recognition and non-recognition of the Eucharist. The Roman Church claimed that repeating the rite of the Last Supper gave each communicant the “transubstantiation” of the soul. The Cathars did not believe in such stupidity. Yes, they blessed the bread before eating and broke it into pieces so that everyone could get it, but at the same time they did not call the bread the flesh of Christ, they generally avoided eating any flesh, even symbolic. Instead of all the abundance of church sacraments, they practiced only the baptism of Fire and the Holy Spirit; various types of such baptisms were carried out by a simple laying on of hands. The Cathars saw in the power of the church what it really was - a huge machine that sought to subjugate all people who had the misfortune of being baptized. They perceived the power of the church as violence. In the 12th–13th centuries, the Cathar faith was the first powerful resistance to the power of the church, when the population of a vast territory suddenly turned out to be heretics, and people of various classes - peasants, townspeople, knights and even large feudal lords. Since the official church branded the Cathars as heretics, they created a system of managing their supporters and a system of secret temples.
Dressed in white robes, with luminous eyes and spiritual faces, the “perfects” were so reminiscent of the monks of the first century of Christianity that the Cistercians and Benedictines succumbed to their charm. It was not for nothing that they - few of the monks - wore a white cassock with a hood under a black robe. White color is the color of purity. The Templars chose the same color for themselves, although they crowned their chest or left shoulder with a scarlet cross - something no Cathar would ever do. The Templar striving for perfection reminds many of the similar striving of the Cathars. Only, unlike the knights in white cloaks, the Cathars would never take up arms, preferring to be with the killed, but not with those who kill. The text, code-named “Apology,” written in the Occitan language, says the following about the murder: “This Church (Catari - Author) is wary of murder and does not accept murder in any form. Our Lord Jesus Christ truly said (cf. Mt. 5:20): “If you want to enter eternal life, keep the commandments.” And He also said (Mt. 5:21-22): “You have heard that it was said to the ancients: Do not kill; whoever kills will be subject to judgment, but I tell you that everyone who is angry with his brother without a cause will be subject to judgment.” And St. Paul said, “Thou shalt not kill.” And Saint John wrote to the apostles (1 John 3:15): “You know that no murderer has eternal life.” And in the Apocalypse it is said (Rev. 22:15): “The murderers are outside the gates of the holy city.” And it is also said (Rev. 21:8): The fate of murderers is in the lake that burns with fire and brimstone.” And St. Paul wrote to the Romans about those who are obsessed with the lust for murder, who are contradictory, deceiving and evil (Rom. 1:32): “They know that those who do such things are worthy of death, but not only do they do them, but they also approve of those who do them.” Therefore, you should not see in the Templars disguised as Cathars. However, the Templars could, and most likely did, share some of the Cathar views on religion. The point is different - with a sword in their hand, they simply could not be “perfect”!
“The number of ‘perfecti’ heretics,” wrote Otto Rahn in The Grail Crusade, “was probably small. By the time of the First Crusade (during the heyday of Catharism), there were no more than seven to eight hundred of them. This should not come as a surprise, since their doctrine required the renunciation of everything earthly and long-term ascetic activities, leading to the erosion of the physical health of even the most physically strong people. The number of “believers” (sgedentes) was much larger. Together with the Waldenses (followers of the 12th-century Lyon merchant Peter Waldo, who wanted to revive the primitive purity of Christian morals), there were more of them than devout Catholics, who belonged almost exclusively to the Roman Catholic Church. Of course, all of the above applies only to Southern France. The Cathar believers were also called simply “Christians.” Like the Druids, the Cathars lived in forests and caves, spending almost all their time in worship. A table covered with a white cloth served as an altar. On it lay the New Testament in Provençal, opened at the first chapter of the Gospel of John: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” The service was equally simple. It began with reading passages from the New Testament. Then came the “blessing.” The “believers” present at the service folded their hands, knelt down, bowed three times and said to the “perfect”: - Bless us. The third time they added: “Pray to God for us sinners, to make us good Christians and lead us to a good end.” “The Perfect Ones” each time extended their hands for blessing and answered:
Diaus Vos benesiga (“May God bless you! May he make you good Christians and lead you to a good end”). After the blessing, everyone read aloud the “Our Father” - the only prayer recognized in the Church of Love. Instead of “You will give us our daily bread this day,” they said “Our spiritual bread...”, because they considered asking for earthly bread in prayer unacceptable.”
/…/ “There is not one god,” the Cathars believed, “there are two who dispute dominance over the world. God of Love and Prince of This World. In terms of spirit, which constitutes his greatness, man belongs to the first; in terms of his mortal body, he submits to the second...”
/…/ “The world exists forever,” the Cathars argued, “it has neither beginning nor end... The earth could not have been created by God, for this would mean that God created something vicious... Christ never died on the cross, the gospel story about Christ is an invention of the priests... Baptism is useless, because it is carried out on infants who do not have reason, and does not in any way protect a person from future sins... The cross is not a symbol of faith, but an instrument of torture; people were crucified on it..."
They had some kind of deeply personal relationship with Jesus. According to Anne Brannon, “The Father did not send His Son to earth to suffer and die on a cross, but as a messenger who took on the form of a man, but not in flesh laden with evil. With the word of the Gospel, “Good News,” Christ came to remind the fallen angels of the lost paradise and of the Father’s love. And the task of the apostles was to carry and spread this message of awakening, addressed to all people. In addition, before ascending, Christ taught the apostles the rules of the “law of life”, that is, the “path of justice and truth” of Good people who renounced violence, lies and oaths - as well as the sacrament that ensures salvation. The direct successors of the apostles, the Good Christians, in their turn, claimed to be the custodians of the gift of binding and loosing and remission of sins, which Christ gave to His Church. This is the main characteristic of the Christian Church, and they demonstrated this heritage by saying the Lord's Prayer, blessing and breaking the bread of the Word of God at their table in memory of Christ. Like the Protestants, they did not believe in his real transformation into the body of Christ.”
As Henry Lee writes in the book “History of the Inquisition in the Middle Ages,” “... there was nothing attractive in the teaching of the Cathars for sensual people, rather, it should have repelled them, and if Catharism could spread with amazing speed, then the explanation for this fact one must look for it in the dissatisfaction of the masses with the church for its moral insignificance and for its tyranny. Although the asceticism elevated to law by the Cathars was completely inapplicable in the real life of a huge mass of people, the moral side of this teaching was truly amazing; and in general, its main provisions were strictly observed in life, and those who remained faithful to the church admitted with a feeling of shame and regret that in this respect the heretics stood much higher than them. But, on the other hand, the condemnation of marriage, the teaching that intercourse between a man and a woman is tantamount to incest, and other similar exaggerations, gave rise to rumors that incest was common among heretics; Unprecedented stories were told about night orgies, in which all the lights were immediately extinguished, and people indulged in rampant sin; and if after this a child was born, then he was held over the fire until he gave up the ghost, and then from the body of this child they made hellish gifts that had such power that anyone who tasted them could no longer leave the sect.”
The Cathars, of course, did not organize any orgies and did not smoke babies over fire; they were rather ascetic, like the first Christians or the desert fathers - they refused meat, eggs, fish, milk, trying to eat only plant foods, or observed a very strict fast; if they received a laying on of hands similar to baptism (a rite of passage), they even tried to avoid touching a woman so as not to be defiled by sin. Young people in Qatari communities were allowed to conceive and give birth to a child only once (a sin, but a forced measure - otherwise the human race would die out), and then they did not touch each other. Death in this teaching was perceived as liberation from the shackles of the flesh and was welcomed, which is why, when the persecution of the Cathars began, their tormentors were horrified by the willingness of these people to endure suffering and die, but not to betray the faith.
“We can hardly imagine,” adds Lee, “what, in fact, in the teachings of the Cathars gave rise to enthusiasm and a zealous search for martyrdom; but no other creed can give us such a long list of people who would prefer a terrible death at the stake to apostasy. If it were true that from the blood of martyrs the seeds of the church would be born, then Manichaeism would at present be the dominant religion of Europe. During the first persecution of which news has been preserved, namely, during the persecution at Orleans in 1017, thirteen of the fifteen Cathars remained unshaken before the blazing fires - they refused to renounce their errors, despite the fact that they were promised forgiveness, and their the firmness surprised the audience. When in 1040 the heretics were discovered in Monforte and the Archbishop of Milan summoned their head, Gerardo, the latter did not hesitate to appear and voluntarily expounded his teaching, happy that he had the opportunity to seal his faith at the cost of his life.”
Very few Qatari texts have reached us from that remarkable era. The most famous document from Carcassonne is called The Secret Book of the Albigenses. This text dates back to the 10th–12th centuries; it was very popular at that time and, fortunately, has been preserved without distortion. What does it say? About the search for the Path. The text has a second title: Questions of John at the secret meal of the King of Heaven. This refers to John the Evangelist, beloved by the Cathars.
The heretical movement of the Cathars (Cathars means pure in Greek) swept Western and Central Europe in the 11th century. It came, apparently, from the East, directly from Bulgaria, where the predecessors of the Cathars were Bogomils, very common there in the 10th century. But the origin of these heresies is more ancient. There were many different opinions among the Cathars. Pope Innocent III numbered up to 40 Cathar sects. In addition, there were other sects that agreed with the Cathars in many of the basic tenets of their teaching: the Petrobrusians, the Henryians, the Albigensians. They are usually grouped gnostically-Manichaean heresies. Further, in order not to unnecessarily complicate the picture, we will describe the entire complex of ideas common to them, without indicating each time in which of these sects certain views played a major role.
The basic worldview of all branches of this movement was the recognition of the irreconcilable opposition between the material world, the source of evil, and the spiritual world, as the concentration of good. The so-called dualistic Cathars saw the reason in the existence of two gods - good and evil. It was the evil god who created the material world: the earth and everything that grows on it, the sky, the sun and stars, as well as human bodies. A good god is the creator of the spiritual world, in which there is another, spiritual sky, other stars and the sun. Other Cathars, called monarchical, believed in one good God, the creator of the world, but assumed that the material world was created by his eldest son, Satan or Lucifer, who had fallen away from God. All currents agreed that the hostility of the two principles - matter and spirit - does not allow any mixing of them. Therefore, they denied the bodily incarnation of Christ (believing that His body was spiritual, only having the appearance of materiality) and the resurrection of the dead in the flesh. The Cathar heretics saw a reflection of their dualism in the division of Holy Scripture into the Old and New Testaments. They identified the God of the Old Testament, the creator of the material world, with an evil god or with Lucifer. They recognized the New Testament as the commandments of the good God.
The Cathars believed that God did not create the world out of nothing, that matter is eternal and the world will have no end. As for people, they considered their bodies to be the creation of an evil principle. Souls, according to their ideas, did not have a single source. For most of humanity, souls, like bodies, were the product of evil - such people had no hope of salvation and were doomed to perish when the entire material world returned to a state of primordial chaos. But the souls of some people were created by a good god - these are angels who were once seduced by Lucifer and imprisoned in bodily prisons. As a result of changing a number of bodies (the Cathars believed in the transmigration of souls), they must end up in their sect and there receive liberation from the captivity of matter. For all humanity, the ideal and final goal in principle was universal suicide. It was thought either in the most direct way (we will meet with the implementation of this view later), or through the cessation of childbearing.
These views also determined the attitude of adherents of this heresy to sin and salvation. The Cathars denied free will. The children of evil, doomed to death, could not avoid their death by any means. Those who received initiation into the highest rank of the Cathar sect could no longer sin. A number of strict rules to which they had to obey were explained by the danger of being contaminated by sinful matter. Their failure to perform simply showed that the rite of initiation was invalid: either the initiate or the initiate did not possess an angelic soul. Before initiation, complete freedom of morals was not limited by anything at all, since the only real sin was the fall of the angels in heaven, and everything else was an inevitable consequence of this. After initiation, neither repentance for committed sins nor atonement for them was considered necessary.
The Cathars' attitude to life stemmed from their idea of evil in the material world. They considered procreation to be the work of Satan; they believed that a pregnant woman was under the influence of a demon, and every child born was also accompanied by a demon. This also explains their prohibition of meat food - everything that came from the union of the sexes.
The same tendency led adherents of the Cathar heresy to a complete withdrawal from the life of society. Secular authorities were considered the creation of an evil god; they were not supposed to obey, go to their court, pronounce an oath, or take up arms. Anyone who used force—judges, warriors—was considered a murderer. Obviously, this made participation in many areas of life impossible. Moreover, many considered any communication with those outside the sect, with “worldly people”, to be forbidden, with the exception of attempts to convert them.
Heretics of all persuasions were united by a sharply hostile attitude towards the Catholic Church. They considered her not the church of Jesus Christ, but the church of sinners, the whore of Babylon. The Pope, according to the Cathars, is the source of all errors, the priests are scribes and Pharisees. The fall of the Catholic Church, in their opinion, occurred during the time of Constantine the Great and Pope Sylvester, when the church, violating the covenants of Christ, encroached on worldly power (according to the so-called “ Gift of Constantine"). The heretics denied the sacraments, especially the baptism of children, since children cannot yet believe, but also marriage and communion. Some branches of the Cathar movement - the Cotarelli, the Rotarians - systematically plundered and desecrated churches. In 1225, the Cathars burned the Catholic Church in Brescia, and in 1235 they killed the bishop in Mantua. Standing in 1143-1148 at the head Manichaean The Eon de l'Etoile sect declared himself the son of God, the Lord of all things and, by right of ownership, called on his followers to rob churches.
The Cathars especially hated the cross, which they considered a symbol of an evil god. Already around 1000, a certain Leutard, preaching near Chalons, broke crosses and icons. In the 12th century, Peter of Bruy made bonfires from broken crosses, for which he was eventually burned by an indignant crowd.
Burning of Cathar heretics. Medieval miniature
The Cathars considered churches to be heaps of stones, and worship services to be pagan rituals. They denied icons, the intercession of saints, and prayers for the dead. The book of the Dominican inquisitor Reiner Sacconi, the author of which was himself a heretic for 17 years, states that the Cathars were not prohibited from robbing churches.
The Cathars rejected the Catholic hierarchy and sacraments, but had their own hierarchy and their own sacraments. The basis of the organizational structure of this heretical sect was its division into two groups - the “perfect” (perfecti) and the “believers” (credenti). There were few of the first (Reiner counts only 4,000 of them), but they constituted a narrow group of sect leaders. The clergy of the Cathars were made up of the “perfect”: bishops, presbyters and deacons. All the teachings of the sect were communicated only to the “perfect” - many extreme views, especially those that sharply contradict Christianity, were not known to the “believers.” Only “perfect” Cathars were required to observe numerous prohibitions. They were, in particular, forbidden to renounce their teachings under any conditions. In case of persecution, they must accept martyrdom, while “believers” could attend churches for show and, in case of persecution, renounce their faith.
But the position occupied by the “perfect” in the Cathar sect was incomparably higher than the position of a priest in the Catholic Church. In some ways it was God himself, and so he was worshiped by the “believers.”
The “believers” were obliged to support the “perfect”. One of the important rituals of the sect was “worship,” when the “believers” prostrated themselves three times on the ground before the “perfect ones.”
“Perfect” Cathars had to dissolve the marriage; they had no right to touch (literally) a woman. They could not have any property and were obliged to devote their entire lives to serving the sect. They were forbidden to have permanent homes - they had to be on constant wanderings or stay in special secret shelters. Initiation into the “perfect” – “consolation” (consolamentum) was the central sacrament of the Cathar sect. It cannot be compared with any of the sacraments of the Catholic Church. It combined: baptism (or confirmation), ordination to the priesthood, repentance and remission of sins, and sometimes even the unction of the dying. Only those who accepted it could count on deliverance from bodily captivity: their souls returned to their heavenly home.
Most Cathars did not hope to fulfill the strict commandments obligatory for the “perfect”, and hoped to receive “consolation” on their deathbed, called a “good end.” The prayer for the sending of a “good end” in the hands of “good people” (“perfect”) was read along with the “Our Father.”
Often, when a sick heretic who accepted “consolation” then recovered, he was advised to commit suicide, which was called “endura.” In many cases, endura was set as a condition of “consolation”. Often the Cathars subjected it to old people or children who accepted “consolation” (of course, in this case suicide turned into murder). The forms of endura were varied: most often starvation (especially for children whose mothers stopped breastfeeding), but also bloodletting, hot baths followed by sudden cooling, a drink with crushed glass, and suffocation. I. Dollinger, who examined the surviving archives of the Inquisition in Toulouse and Carcassonne, writes:
“Whoever carefully studies the records of both of the above-mentioned courts will have no doubt that many more people died from endura - partly voluntarily, partly by force - than as a result of the sentences of the Inquisition.”
From these general ideas flowed the socialist teachings widespread among the Cathars. As an element of the material world, they denied property. The “perfects” were prohibited from individual property, but together they owned the property of the sect, often significant.
The Cathar heretics enjoyed influence in various strata of society, including the highest. (Thus, they wrote about Count Raymond VI of Toulouse that his retinue always included Cathars dressed in ordinary dress, so that in the event of sudden death he could receive their blessing). However, the Cathars' preaching was mainly addressed, apparently, to the urban lower classes. This is evidenced, in particular, by the names of various sects related to the Cathars: Populicani (“populists”) (some researchers see here, however, a corrupted name Paulician), Piphler (also from “plebs”), Texerantes (weavers), Poor People, Patarenes (from rag pickers, a symbol of beggars). In their sermon they said that a truly Christian life is possible only with community of property.
In 1023, the Cathars were put on trial in Montefort on charges of promoting celibacy and community of property, as well as attacks on church customs.
Apparently, the call for community of property was quite common among the Cathars, since it is mentioned in some Catholic works directed against them. Thus, in one of them, the Cathars are accused of demagogically proclaiming this principle, but not adhering to it themselves: “You do not have everything in common, some have more, others have less.”
Celibacy of the committed and general condemnation of marriage is found among all Cathars. But in a number of cases, heretics considered only marriage to be sinful, but not fornication outside of marriage. (We must remember that “thou shalt not commit adultery” was recognized as a commandment of the evil god). Thus, these prohibitions were intended not so much to curb the flesh as to destroy the family. In the writings of contemporaries one constantly encounters accusations against the Cathars of sharing wives and “free” or “holy” love.
At the beginning of the 14th century. , after a century of terrible repression and persecution, the last Cathar leaders were executed. Only after this the Roman Catholic Church, the French kings and princes were able to calm down and no longer remember the so-called “good people”.
Release of those “immured” in Carcassonne from the inquisitorial prison. Hood. J.-P. Laurent, 1879, Carcassonne Museum, France
In 1229, Carcassonne finally ceded to the French crown. Numerous dissenters were accused of heresy and kept in the city's inquisitorial prison, which was popularly nicknamed "The Wall", and the prisoners in it were walled up. The prison itself, located on the main square of Carcassonne, was discovered by archaeologists in 2013.
At the excavations of the Carcassonne Inquisitorial prison. Photo March 23, 2014 Dominique Baudreu
Pierre Authier - the last great heretic of Languedoc - died at the stake in front of the Cathedral of Saint-Etienne in Toulouse on April 10, 1310. The sentence was pronounced the day before by the famous Toulouse inquisitor Bernard Guy and his colleague from Carcassonne, who staged a whole show of the indictment process. According to the definition of the Roman Catholic Church, Pierre Authier was a “complete heretic” (and in Cathar terminology, to be “perfect” meant to belong to the class of clergy). In fact, the “perfect people” - the Cathar clergy - were supposed to lead a modest life, the same as the holy apostles did, give the last blessing to the dying and read sermons. “Katharos” is translated from Greek as “pure”; the representatives of the Cathar heresy themselves called themselves “good people” or “good Christians”. For Inquisitor Guy, Pierre Hauthier was a heresiarch, the recognized leader of all those who had turned away from the true faith.
The inhabitants of Carcassonne are expelled from the city during the siege by the troops of Simon de Montfort. Miniature 1415
For almost a decade, Pierre Authier tried to bring back the former influence of the Cathars, which previously existed in Languedoc. In fact, he managed to attract under his banner only the south of the county of Foix, where a small underground community was formed, the lords became students of Authier. The community quickly disintegrated, even before the execution of Authier, which summed up the existence of the Albigensian (Cathar) heresy and confirmed the triumph of the Catholic Church. The triumph, however, was overshadowed by the heresiarch's refusal to publicly renounce the heresy and repent of his sins. Abdication was offered to him by the Inquisitor Bernard Guy in exchange for his life. Authier chose the death of a martyr and even at the stake denounced the Catholic Church as “the mother of fornication, the cathedral of the devil and the synagogue of Satan.”
Foix Castle. View from the prefecture. Photo: Jean-Louis Venet. Foix Castle in the X-XI centuries. was the residence of the count leaders of the Occitan resistance during the Albigensian Crusade
The Inquisition achieved its goal. The Qatari movement was decapitated, there were no new charismatic leaders capable of opposing the church, and the “heresy” was on the verge of extinction. The only “good man” who retained influence among the people was Guillaume Belibast, but he was also burned alive in the fall of 1321. In 1309, Belibast escaped from the Carcassonne Inquisitorial prison and took refuge in Spain. He could no longer lead his flock from there. Belibast returned to the north of the Pyrenees only 12 years later, the then bishop of Pamiers lured him into a trap.
Memorial plaque in honor of Guillaume Belibast (“the last Cathar”) in the Spanish city of San Mateo. Photo: Llapissera
“If you believed again and repented of the sin that you committed against me, I would forgive you and call you to me, and the two of us would throw ourselves down from this tower, and immediately our souls would appear before the Heavenly Father. [...] I do not care about my flesh, it is nothing to me, it is the lot of worms,” said Guillaume Belibast, addressing Arnaud Sicre, the man who in the spring of 1321 betrayed him and lured him into a trap in the village of Tirvia, where he was captured by the Inquisition.
To note the main milestones of the Qatari creed, let us turn to the definitions of the sentence passed by Pierre Authier. In particular, he is accused of preaching theological dualism, which recognizes the existence of two gods, “one good and the other bad.” The first - the essence of the divine Trinity - never took on an earthly (material) form, while the second - Satan - created “all visible and physical things.” According to the interrogation reports of other heretics interrogated in the second half of the 13th century, all the “good people” of Languedoc adhered to the same beliefs. Bernard Guy, by the way, called them “neo-Manichaeans”; other inquisitors also did not use the word “Cathars”. It was never uttered in the south of France, neither by the dissidents themselves nor by their executioners. The only real "Cathars" in the sense in which this word is used in Greek (see above) were representatives of a sect that arose in late Antiquity in northern Africa. This sect was condemned by St. Augustine in one of his epistles. In 1136, a certain German monk called oppositionists from Cologne “Cathars,” who denounced the corruption of the church and called on the people to refuse the mediation of priests in the performance of rituals. Now, appealing to the authority of St. Augustine, all those who disagreed could be accused of heretics and responded to their arguments with inquisitorial fires. Theologians, popes and inquisitors immediately realized the benefits of applying this term to dissenters and often used it in trials in the territories of the Holy Roman Empire and Italy. In Languedoc, oddly enough, the term “Cathars” was never used.
Saint Augustine teaches in Rome. Hood. Benozzo Gozzoli, 1464-1465 Painting of the Church of Sant'Agostino (scene six, south wall) in San Gimignano, Italy
Since the 12th century. Alternative religious movements began to emerge almost everywhere in Western Europe. In time, they coincided with the internal transformations taking place in the Roman Catholic Church. The leaders of these movements were sometimes the priests themselves, who rebelled against the authorities, but for the most part they were led by laymen. They had two points in common: anti-clericalism and adherence to evangelical teaching. Their supporters condemned the accumulation of wealth by the Catholic clergy and denounced the privileges and power they possessed. Accordingly, they denied the need for mediation between people and God, a role assumed by the Roman Catholic clergy. All sacraments were thus declared insignificant. Heretics argued in their favor by quoting the Gospel, which they proposed to take literally. Not a single line of the New Testament speaks of priests, nor of the righteousness of acquiring wealth and power, which is what the clergy has been doing lately. Apostleship was declared to be the only model of righteous life acceptable for a priest. The disciples of Christ chose the path of humility and poverty, and Catholic priests abandoned their covenants in favor of wealth and power.
Expulsion of traders from the temple. Hood. El Greco, 1600, National Gallery, London, UK
Counts, dukes, princes and kings sought to nip in the bud the movements opposed to the church, which it declared heretical and, therefore, diabolical. The lords had their own interest in maintaining the Roman Catholic Church, because it was she who legitimized their power and crowned them kings. In the three southern French regions, however, secular power was not so strongly organized and dependent on the center, and therefore it was here that heretical movements gained a large number of supporters. The clergy did not have the same power and the same influence on the minds of the laity in Languedoc as in the ancient centers of Catholicism.
Ruins of Narbonne Castle, residence of the Counts of Toulouse in the 13th century. One of the Qatari castles
In the 12th century The county of Toulouse was experiencing its heyday, the inhabitants were freed from unbearable feudal oppression, since the rulers were mainly occupied with foreign policy and dynastic disputes. From the south they were pressed by the king of Aragon and the count of Barcelona, from the north and west by the English king (at the same time the Duke of Aquitaine) and the French. The Qatari teaching was received in Toulouse with a bang and quickly spread beyond the county, covering the entire Languedoc. In order to cleanse Languedoc of the so-called heresy, in an effort to subordinate it to the church, in 1209 the papacy declared the first internal Crusade. It was headed by Simon de Montfort, who, together with other lords from the north of France, intended to seize more lands for himself. 20 years later, according to the peace treaty of Meaux-Paris, all disagreements between Toulouse and the king of France were resolved, all southern possessions went to the Capetian domain, Count Raymond VII of Toulouse remained only part of the former possessions on which the Inquisition was introduced. The entire Cathar heresy was thus outlawed, and all those following the Cathar canon were subjected to an auto-da-fé. The Albigensian Crusade ended in complete victory for the Roman Catholic Church. Subsequently, several minor lords supported the actions of the Cathars, which were increasingly sporadic and by the end of the 14th century. stopped completely.
Bust of Simon de Montfort by J.-J. Fecher, 1838, Palace of Versailles, Versailles, France
Naturally, the eradication of heresy was the goal of the Albigensian Crusade only on paper, and the crusaders themselves had little interest in the Cathars, who professed the teachings of the Gospel. Even after the end of the campaign, many heretics remained alive; they simply transferred their activities underground. In fact, the Capetians and the Roman Catholic Church sought to establish their influence in the southern lands and thus strengthen their power in France. Actually, the Holy Inquisition began to pursue the persecution of heretics, whose activities began in 1233-1234. For 50 years, the power of the Inquisition, thanks to its terrifying methods of struggle, became enormous and dissidents were completely destroyed. The laity sought to communicate with heretics as little as possible, because they risked falling into the clutches of the inquisitors, but also because wandering monastic orders began to appear in the bosom of the Catholic Church, in particular the Franciscan Order, which preached poverty and humility - essentially an apostolic way of life, then to what the Cathar clergy urged. In modern terms, the image of the church was restored, and the need for Qatari creeds disappeared by itself.
Ecstasy of St. Francis. Hood. F. de Zurbaran, 1658, Alte Pinakothek, Munich, Germany
From now on, the “good people” lived in constant anticipation of the worst, many fled to northern Italy, such as Pierre Authier, who, however, returned to his homeland in 1298. The failure of the Cathar movement, according to many historians, is associated with the dualistic doctrine of the faith, which Few people supported it. The material lower world was considered by the Cathars to be the creation of Satan, so it is not surprising that they could not find shelter and supporters in it.
Occitan cross. Symbolized belonging to the Cathars. Initially, the symbol of such a cross appeared on the coat of arms of the Counts of Saint-Gilles, from where it moved to the coat of arms of the Counts of Toulouse, and then to the coat of arms of Languedoc. After the Albigensian Crusade the cross was abolished
The seeds of the Cathar teachings, planted on the fertile soil of the French south, sprouted during the Reformation, which also affected this part of Europe. In the XVI-XVII centuries. Defenders of Catholicism such as Bossuet denounced Lutherans and Calvinists as medieval heretics. And the reformists themselves saw in the Albigensians and Waldensians (representatives of another religious doctrine that arose at the same time in western Europe) harbingers of the Great Reform, who suffered for raising their voices against papism. And even today, Protestants in the south of France believe that the free spirit of the Cathars lives within them.
Pope Innocent III excommunicates the Cathars. Miniature from a 14th century codex.
As mentioned above, the heretics from Languedoc called themselves “good people” or “good Christians.” The Roman Catholic Church called them "Albigensians", "Neo-Manichaeans" or "heretics". The term “Cathars” was first used in 1953 in one of their scientific works and sounded like “Cathars from the south of France.” Such a clarification was required, apparently, because the term itself was used in the Middle Ages only in Germany and Italy. As for the widespread use of the term - this happened only in 1966 - when in one of the episodes of the popular French program “The Camera Explores the Past” the scriptwriters Alan Decaux and Andre Castelot, who studied the Languedoc heresy, called representatives of this religious movement that way. During this period, there were significant political and economic tensions between Paris and the southern, Occitan regions, so the topic of the Cathars, who suffered from the aggressive plans of the French crown, came at the right time. Since the 1980s. The tourism market in Languedoc uses the idea of "Catar castles" in its work. Today we offer a wide selection of excursions to the places where the Cathars lived in the Middle Ages and the fires of the Inquisition burned.
The Montsegur fortress is the last stronghold of the Cathars. Ariège Department, France
Timeline of the decline of the Qatar movement
IN 1208 Pope Innocent III put forward the idea of an internal Crusade to combat the Albigensian heresy. The project was unanimously supported by the princes from the French north, who hoped to seize new lands.
1229- completion of the Albigensian campaign. Almost all the lands of the French Mediterranean region fall under Capetian rule.
The crusaders attack the Albigensian heretics. Miniature of the 14th century.
1232 Many heretics, who went underground due to the victory of the Crusaders, find refuge in the castle of Montsegur (County of Foix).
1233 To combat heretics, Pope Gregory IX established the Inquisitorial Tribunal, which he placed under the leadership of the wandering monastic orders (Franciscans and Dominicans).
Saint Dominic de Guzman preaches against heretics from Languedoc. Fresco by Andrea Bonaiuti, 14th century. Basilica of Santa Maria Novella, Florence, Italy
1234 Two “good people”, followers of the Albigensian heresy, become the first victims of the Inquisition in Languedoc.
1244 After 10 months of siege, Montsegur, the last refuge of the Cathars, fell. All its inhabitants - 225 people - were burned alive under the walls of the castle.
Near 1300 Revival of heresy under the influence of Pierre Authier, a notary from Axe in the county of Foix.
1321 Guillaume Belibaste, the last “good man” of Languedoc, dies at the stake. IN 1329 The last three heretics were executed in Carcassonne.
Saint Dominic leading the auto-da-fé. OK. 1493 Fresco by Pedro Berruguete in the Cathedral of St. Thomas in Avila, Spain
Qatar teaching
On November 21, 1321, Arnaud Sicre testified to the Bishop of Pamiers. Sicre spent two years with Guillaume Bélibatst and then betrayed him and lured him into a trap. In his testimony, he refers to the speeches of Belibast and other Cathars - Guillaumet and Pierre Maury, who were in exile in the kingdom of Aragon. From the transcripts of his interrogation one can learn about the late Qatari doctrine, some excerpts are given below.
1. Satan imprisoned souls in human bodies
World creation. OK. 1376 Fresco by Giusto de Menabuoi in the Baptistery of the Cathedral of Padua, Italy
Satan came to the kingdom of heaven with a beautiful woman, whom he showed to all the good souls of our Heavenly Father, so Belibast told me. Then Satan took this woman with him, and the souls, who had lost their minds from lust, followed them. The fallen souls subsequently realized that they had become victims of the machinations of the enemy of the heavenly Father and remembered the greatness in which they had previously resided. Then Satan created a human body and imprisoned souls in it so that they would forever forget the greatness of the Heavenly Father.
2. Souls move from body to body until they are released
As Belibast said, these souls, leaving their clothes, that is, from the human body [at the moment of death], remain naked and strive to occupy the first shelter they find, for example, the body of any animal that is still heavy with a non-living embryo (dog, mare, rabbit or some other beast), or into the body of a woman. [...] And so souls pass from one garment to another until they find the one that is most beautiful - the body of a man or woman who has known the Good [i.e. profess the Cathar faith]. And in this body they gain glory, and upon leaving it they return to the heavenly Father.
3. Having sex pleases only Satan
Heretics are trying to attract believers to themselves. Miniature from the Bible moralisée of the 13th century. Bodleian Library, Oxford, UK
He [Belibast] said that no man should sleep with a woman. No more child, male or female, should be born, for all souls will soon be united to the heavenly Father. The lords [Guillaumette Maury means “good people”] figured out how to hide from others, they take a woman into the house, then the laity thinks that they are married, and does not consider them heretics. They do not touch a woman, despite the fact that they honor her as a wife.
4. How to pray so as not to fall into sin
The central part of the triptych “Adoration of the Magi”. Hood. I. Bosch, ca. 1510 Prado Museum, Madrid, Spain
No one should read “Our Father” [said Pierre Maury] except our “good lords,” for only to them the righteous path is open. But we and others with us will fall into mortal sin if we say prayer, because the righteous path is hidden from us, for we eat meat and commit fornication with wives. What kind of prayer should I say if not “Our Father”? - asked Arnaud Sicre. The heretic answered: Lead me, Lord, as you led the Magi. As for “Ave Maria,” he said that it was an invention of the papists.
5. Fake it so you don't get caught by the Inquisition
Chalice of St. Remy. Used to anoint French kings. Made in the 12th century. Reims Cathedral, Reims, France
Once I asked him whether he was baptized, he answered me that he was pretending when he signed the cross on himself. In fact, he simply raises his fingers to his head, and then to his chest, as if shooing away flies. Then I asked him if he believed that the prosphora is the body of Christ. He replied that he did not believe. He also told me that he goes to church so that he will be considered a Catholic, and to pray, because you can talk with the Heavenly Father anywhere - both in church and outside it.
6. The Virgin Mary, the saints and the crucifix are idols
Crucifixion. The first development of the Isenheim Altar. Hood. M. Grunewald, 1506-1515 Unterlinden Museum, Colmar, France
Every time he saw an image of the Blessed Virgin, he told me: give half a coin to this Mashenka, and he mocked the icon. He said that the human heart is the real temple of God, and that the earthly Temple is nothing. He called the icons of Christ and saints hanging in cathedrals idols. I heard from him that he hates the crucifix and refuses to worship it, and struggles with the desire to destroy it. Because the Son of God was nailed to this cross, we should not love this instrument of torture, but hate it and eradicate it from our lives in every possible way.
“In Narbonne, where faith once flourished, the enemy of faith began to sow tares: the people lost their minds, desecrated the sacraments of Christ, the salt and wisdom of the Lord; Having become distraught, he turned away from true wisdom and wandered into an unknown place along the winding and confusing paths of error, along lost paths, turning away from the straight path.”
Thus begins the “Albigensian History” of the Cistercian monk Pierre de Vaux-de-Cernay (c. 1193 - after 1218). This author, before beginning the story of the crusade against the Cathar heresy, which had been bleeding Languedoc since 1209, gives brief information about the teachings of the Cathars: the “faith” that once flourished is the Christian Catholic faith, which has long been rooted in the south of France; The “delusion” into which the people of Occitania fell is none other than the teaching of the Cathars, which appeared almost secretly on this land shortly after the beginning of the millennium (the first Cathar heretics were burned at the stake of Orleans and Toulouse in 1022: we are talking about ten canons).
The deepest error, the main mistake of these heretics, according to the Roman Catholic Church, was their dualistic theology, which Pierre de Vaux-de-Cernay sets out as follows:
“The heretics believed in the existence of two creators: one was invisible, they called him the “good” God, the other was visible, and they called him the “evil” God. To the good God they ascribed the New Testament, to the evil God the Old Testament, which they therefore completely rejected, with the exception of a few passages inserted into the New Testament, considering them for this reason worthy of being preserved in memory. They considered the [unknown] author of the Old Testament to be a “liar”: in fact, he said about our first parents Adam and Eve that on the day they ate the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, they would die; however, having eaten the fruit, they did not die as he predicted. These heretics said in their secret meetings that Christ, who was born in earthly and visible Bethlehem and died crucified, was a bad Christ and that Mary Magdalene was his concubine: she was the woman taken in adultery of whom the Gospels speak. In fact, they said, the good Christ never ate or drank or took on real flesh: he came into the world only in a purely spiritual way, incarnate in the body of St. Paul. That is why we wrote “in earthly and visible Bethlehem,” because the heretics imagined another land, new and invisible, where, according to some of them, the good Christ was born and crucified. They also said that the good God had two wives, Oolla and Ooliba, who bore him sons and daughters. Other heretics said that there was one creator, but that he had two sons, Christ and the Devil [...]"
The Cathar preachers actually argued that there were two Gods, a good God, a pure, immaculate spirit, and the God of Evil, whom they called Satan or Lucifer, who created the material and unclean world - the sun, stars, earth, the bodies of animals and people; the latter, accordingly, turned out to be the satanic world, and from this it followed that the good God was not omnipotent. As for humans (the descendants of Adam and Eve), they were also twofold creatures: as beings of flesh, and therefore material, they were the creations of the Devil, and each of them contained a soul, which the good God breathed into each body and which he longed to free her in order to return her to the heavenly world. Unfortunately, God himself could not free these souls, since the abyss separates the divine spirit from the material world created by Lucifer: and then in order to do this, he created a Mediator, Jesus, who was at the same time His son, His image and the most beautiful, the most impeccable and perfect of the angels (Catari theologians did not recognize the dogma of the Holy Trinity). Jesus descended into the impure world of matter to free human souls from their carnal prison and return them to heavenly purity; but Satan recognized in him God’s Messenger and wanted to destroy him, which is why the Passion of Christ and the crucifixion of the divine Messenger happened. However, the non-flesh body of Christ cannot actually suffer or die; Having shown the Apostles the path to salvation, Christ again ascended to heaven, leaving His Church on earth, the soul of which is the Holy Spirit. However, the Lord of Evil, who remained in the earthly world, continues to lead people onto the path of error: he destroyed the pure Church of Christ and replaced it with a false Church, the Roman Church, which was called “Christian”, but in reality it is the Church of the Devil, and what it teaches is the opposite what Jesus taught: she is the unclean beast of Revelation, the Babylonian harlot, while the true and pure Church, possessing the Holy Spirit, is the Cathar Church.
From these theological constructions it follows: 1) that the sacraments of the Roman Catholic Church (baptism, communion, marriage, unction) are just material rites, traps of Satan; the kind of baptism is just water, the wafer cannot be the body of Christ, it is only dough, the cross should not be worshiped, it should be hated and cursed, since it was an instrument of the humiliation and torment of Jesus; 2) that the Blessed Virgin could not be the mother of Jesus, since he never had a body, he, like the good God, is a pure spirit; 3) that the human soul, until the Holy Spirit descended into it, until it received saving illumination that makes a person pure, remains under the power of Satan and passes in each subsequent life into one of the many bodies of people or animals (the doctrine of transmigration shower); 4) that for those who have become pure, death brings the final deliverance of the soul and that at the end of time, when all souls will be liberated from the Darkness of bodies, the Light will again be completely separated and saved from the intolerable domination of matter. And then the material world will disappear, the sun and stars will go out and fire will consume the souls of demons: only eternal life in God will continue.
Superimposed on this confused doctrine of the purpose of the soul was a set of prayers and rituals known to us as the Cathar Breviary, two versions of which dating back to the 13th century, one in Latin, the other in Occitan, escaped the common fate of almost complete destruction of all that was associated with the teachings of the Cathars, after the so-called Albigensian Crusade. The Cathar Church, which taught that marriage was prostitution, denied the resurrection of the flesh and composed, in the words of Pierre de Vaux de Cernay, “strange fables,” was in reality modeled on the Roman Catholic Church.
It included two categories of faithful: priests who led an ascetic life full of hardships, and laymen who lived an ordinary life, could marry, engage in some craft, have personal property and only try to live righteously and honestly. The first were called perfect: invariably dressed in black, they observed impeccable chastity; they refused meat, since the body of any animal could contain a human soul; They also did not eat eggs, milk, butter and cheese, because all these products were obtained from the sexual activity of living beings, but they were allowed to eat fish. This way of life, if led without the slightest deviation, ensured the perfect liberation of the soul after the death of the body. The latter were called believers: they did not seek to imitate the life of the perfect, but hoped that the faith of the latter would bring salvation to them, and they had to lead an honest, righteous and worthy life.
The perfect men and women, who could be called militant Cathars, were most often wandering hermits, they went from village to village, from castle to castle and everywhere evoked respect due to their severity, kindness, moral strength and asceticism, because strictly observed fasts; their pale, emaciated faces, their thinness, which must have been in no way inferior to the exhaustion of venerable gurus and eastern fakirs, the gentle, quiet voice with which they preached - in all this the people saw evidence of their holiness, calling them good people.
Those Cathars who remained in the cities led an equally monastic lifestyle in communities, settling in special houses, which the hostile part of the population called “houses of heretics”; in such a house there was invariably a large, austere hall with bare walls, most often whitewashed with lime, where the faithful gathered for prayer. The entire furnishings of this room consisted of a wooden table covered with a white tablecloth, on which lay the Gospel, and another, smaller table, on which stood a jug and a basin for washing hands; White candles were constantly burning in the hall, the flame of which symbolized the flame of the Holy Spirit.
We do not know how the Qatari Church was structured, whose origins and development took place mainly underground. Only Pierre de Vaux-de-Cernay gives us a few and brief information about this at the beginning of his Albigensian History:
“The perfect heretics had representatives of power, whom they called “deacons” and “bishops”; they were asked for the laying on of hands, so that every dying person would consider the salvation of his soul possible, but in reality, if they laid hands on a dying person, no matter what his guilt, if only he was able to read the Pater Noster, they considered him saved and, to use their expression, “consoled” to such an extent that without any penance, without any other atonement for his sins, he ascended to heaven. On this occasion we heard the following funny story: a certain believer, lying on his deathbed, received a consolamentum from his teacher through the laying on of hands, but could not read the Pater Noster and gave up the ghost. His comforter did not know what to say: the deceased was saved because he accepted the laying on of hands, but he was cursed because he could not say the prayer! [...] And then the heretics went for advice to a knight named Bertrand de Cessac and asked him how they should reason. The knight gave them the following advice and answer: “We will talk about this man and claim that he is saved. As for everyone else, if they don’t read the Pater Noster at the last minute, we will consider them damned.”
This passage perfectly demonstrates the spirit of the times. The people of that era and the generations that came after them were obsessed with the thought of saving their souls after death, and the Christians of the Roman Catholic Church had a remedy to help cope with this persistent anxiety: the death on the cross of Jesus, the Son of Man, and his resurrection as the Son of God soon after execution was for them a guarantee of eternal life and salvation, provided that these Christians during their lifetime were introduced to the sacraments of the Church (in particular and first of all, they received baptism - a necessary and sufficient condition for a person to be accepted into the fold Church - and then, before death, remission of sins and unction).
For their part, the Cathars, who argued that the Catholic theogony was incorrect and that it should be replaced by the dualistic theogony, the same one that we briefly outlined above, considered the rites and sacraments of the Roman Catholic Church to be devoid of all meaning and value. In other words, the Christians, whom we will call traditional - in order to distinguish them from the Cathars, who also called themselves "Christians" - were deeply convinced of the truth of the saying "Outside the Church (implying the Roman Catholic) there is no salvation" and They saw in the adherents of the new Church (the Cathar) minions of Satan, doomed to burn forever in hell. And conversely, these latter were no less deeply convinced that their duty in earthly life was to return the lost souls of Catholic Christians to the right path of the pure religion of the true God - the good God - from which the Lord of Evil had forced them to turn.
Apart from this meager information about the heretical teaching of the Cathars and about the above-mentioned "Trebnik", a few hints of their dogmas contained in the statutes of the councils convened to combat this heresy between 1179 (III - ecumenical - council in the Lateran) and 1246 years (the Council of Beziers), as well as several sentences passed on the Cathars by the Inquisition, we know almost nothing about the teachings of the Cathars. But from the texts of the chroniclers already mentioned and from hints made by two Occitan poets who composed the “Song of the Crusade against the Albigensians,” it follows that the heresy spread throughout the south of France, from the Garonne to the Mediterranean Sea. These authors unanimously call Toulouse a hotbed of heresy; Thus, Pierre de Vaux-de-Cernay in the very first lines of his “Albigensian History” declares:
“[...] Toulouse, the main source of the poison of heresy, which poisoned the peoples and turned them away from the knowledge of Christ, His true radiance and divine light. The bitter root grew so deep and penetrated so deeply into the hearts of people that it became extremely difficult to pull it out: the inhabitants of Toulouse were repeatedly asked to renounce heresy and expel heretics, but only a few were persuaded - they, having given up life, became so attached to death, so they were touched and infected by a nasty animal wisdom, mundane, devilish, which does not allow that wisdom from above, which calls for good and loves good.”
It would be useful to clarify here that Pierre de Vaux-de-Cernay wrote these lines between 1213 and 1218 (extreme dates), two centuries after the Cathar heresy appeared in Languedoc; therefore, we can conclude from his words that by this time the Qatari teaching had spread widely in those parts.
About half a century before the call for a crusade against the Albigenses was made, in 1145, Saint Bernard himself, sent by the abbot of Clairvaux on a mission to Toulouse soil, described the state of religion in this area in these bleak words:
“Churches stand without parishioners, parishioners do without priests, priests have lost their honor. There are only Christians left here without Christ. The sacraments have been trampled into the dirt, major holidays are no longer celebrated. People die in sin, without repentance. Children are deprived of life in Christ by denying them the grace of baptism.” (Messages, CCXLI)
Around the same time that Pierre de Vaux-de-Cernay was writing his History of the Albigenses, the Occitan poet Guilhem of Tudela began composing his Song of the Crusade against the Albigensians, which sounds the same alarming tone:
Let's get started. Heresy has risen like a reptile from the bottom of the seas
(May the Lord strike her with his right hand!)
The entire Albigensian region fell into the reach of her claws -
Both Carcassonne and Loragais. They lay across the entire width -
From the walls of Beziers to the walls of Bordeaux - traces of her paths!
She stuck to true believers like a burr,
And there were - I won’t lie - everyone was under her thumb.
On the other hand, the huge number of areas attacked by the Crusaders under the leadership of their merciless commander, Simon de Montfort, suggests that the Cathars settled everywhere south of the Garonne: Pierre de Vaudet-Cernay lists about one and a half hundred inhabited points of Occitania that suffered during the Albigensian Crusade. The most significant of them (in chronological order) are Beziers, Carcassonne, Castres, Pamiers, Ombert, Albi, Limoux, Montreal, Monge, Montferrand, Castelnaudary, Cahuzac, Narbonne, Moissac, Castelsarrazin, Hauterives, Muret, Marmande, Rodez and, of course, , Narbonne and Toulouse, not counting the Provençal cities (Beaucaire, Nimes, Montelimar). In all these cities where the perfect ones lived and preached, there were many Cathars, and it can be assumed that because of their appearance, because of the secrecy surrounding the “houses of heretics,” and also because of their works of mercy and preaching, they attracted attention and , must have often aroused the curiosity of the people, thereby causing discontent among the local clergy.
Not a single official or secret document has reached us that would talk about the structure of the Qatari Church, except for the already mentioned Trebnik. However, we know from the writings of Pierre de Vaudé-Cernay and Guillaume de Puylorand that it consisted of two stages: each region had its own Cathar bishop, assisted by an “eldest son” and a “younger son.” Before his death, this bishop transferred his episcopal office through the ritual laying on of hands to his eldest son, who was succeeded in this rank by a younger son, whose duties were entrusted to a new younger son chosen from among the local perfects. Each city or other large settlement was entrusted to the care of a deacon, who was appointed by the bishop and who was assisted by a more or less significant number of perfect people, including - it must be emphasized - perfect women: let's not forget that Occitania was a country of troubadours and courtly love and women enjoyed much greater moral independence there than in the French kingdom. At the same time, the very nature of the Qatari religious system of concepts was not combined with an outward-looking cultural life, as well as with the gold and luxury of the Catholic Church; the Cathars had neither mass, nor vespers, nor joint prayer, nor processions, nor open sacraments accessible to all (baptism, communion, marriage); everything happened behind closed doors, in the silence and secrecy of the “houses of heretics,” as outsiders usually called them.
As for the Cathar teaching, it was partly based on the Gospels (but rejected the dogma of the Trinity, coming close in this matter to the Arian heresy, which was mentioned above), as well as on the teaching of the Apostles and the Manichaeism of the Bogomils; The very modest rites of the Cathars associated with the acceptance of a man or woman into the Cathar Church as believers or the transition from the state of a believer to the state of a perfect (or perfect) were subject to strict rules known to us from the code of prayers and rituals of initiation, usually referred to as the “Cathar Breviary” "
This is how this “Trebnik” describes the rite preceding entry into the Cathar Church:
“If the believer [Catholic] remains in abstinence [waiting to be accepted into the ranks of the Cathars] and if the Christians [this word was used by perfect to designate themselves, since they considered themselves the only true followers of Christ, refusing this to Catholics] agree to give him prayer [accept him into their ranks], let them wash their hands, and the believers [Cathars who are not among the perfect], if there are any among those present, will also do this. Then one of the perfect ones, the one who follows the Elder [the Qatari cleric who receives those admitted to initiation], must bow to the Elder three times, then prepare the table, and then bow again three times. Then he must say: “Benedicite, parcite nobis.” The believer must then perform melioramentum and take the book [the Gospel] from the hands of the Elder. And the Elder should then read him an instruction with evidence appropriate to the occasion [read the relevant passages from the New Testament].
Afterwards, the Elder must say a prayer, and the believer must repeat it after him. Then the Elder must say to him: “We give you this holy prayer, accept it from God, from us and from the Church, now you can say this prayer at every hour of your life, day and night, alone or with others, and never touch neither food nor drink without saying this prayer. And if you don’t do this, you will have to repent.” And the believer should answer: “I receive prayer from God, from you and from the Church.” Then he must perform melioramentum and give thanks, after which the [perfect] Christians will pray twice with bows and genuflections, and the believer will do it after them.”
After performing this ritual, the neophyte Cathars, who were in the position of ordinary “believers” in the sense given to this concept above, continued to lead ordinary lives, trying to live righteously and honestly. Some were engaged in some worthy and profitable craft, which allowed them to provide financial management of the organization, buy and maintain “communal houses” (such houses existed in almost all cities of Occitania, where they served simultaneously as schools, hospitals, orphanages, and monasteries) , and pay for the work of ordinary people who served as guards, guides or messengers for them. There were others - young people entrusted to the perfect by their parents, or converts to the Cathar faith of people of all ages who hoped to one day receive a consolamentum and in their turn become perfect. However, with the exception of these militant Cathars, most of the believers in the towns or villages of southern France lived much like the Catholic Christians, content to attend worship services and venerate the "good people", those stern, black-clad perfections who walked throughout the region, preaching the Qatari teaching.
The main rite, a necessary condition for the salvation of the soul, was the consolamentum, a rite that made the believer (or believer) a full member of the Cathar Church - a perfect one - partly in the same way that Christian baptism symbolically introduces a newborn baby into the Roman Catholic Church, but with the essential difference that for Cathar, this rite was not just a symbolic action: it had the power to transform an ordinary person, whose soul remained captive, imprisoned in the body, into a person in whom the Holy Spirit actually dwells (hence the definition of the rite as spiritual baptism, as it is sometimes called). Having received such “consolation”, the soul of a man or woman on the day of his or her death avoided transmigration into another body and joined the divine Spirit in heaven, provided that from the day of his baptism the owner of this soul led a holy and virtuous life, that is, without the slightest concessions and without the slightest reservation he obeyed the strict rules of the Cathar religion. The believer who received the consolamentum, thanks to this, became a new being, perfect, and his soul calmed down: after the death of the body in which it lived, it will be freed and will regain the Light that it lost at birth.
And yet, having received the promise of eternal bliss, the soul was exposed to great danger: after this spiritual baptism, the smallest sin committed would turn into sacrilege, and he would lose the Holy Spirit that dwelt in him.
In order to return to the state of perfection, one must again receive consolamentum. It was for this reason that some believers waited until they were close to death to be “consoled”: then they could be sure that they would not lose the benefit of this rite in their last moments of life, which thus corresponded at the same time to the Catholic sacraments of baptism (making the baptized a Christian, that is, the guardian of the Holy Spirit) and communion (renewing this union with God) with ordination (transforming a layman into a clergyman) and unction.
The solemn ceremony of “spiritual baptism” took place in the large prayer hall of the Qatari house described above, where the faithful came to pray; All white candles were lit in the hall; they were supposed to symbolize the Light of the Holy Spirit that descended on the Apostles on the day of Pentecost, after the Ascension of Christ into heaven. The elder of the house first addressed the believer who wished to become a member of the Cathar Church with an opening speech, reminding him of the supernatural significance of the rite that was soon to take place. The Qatar Breviary has preserved for us the contents of this speech:
“Peter [presumed name of the believer], you want to receive spiritual baptism, through which the Holy Spirit is given in the Church of God, with holy prayer, with the laying on of hands of good people [perfect]. Our Lord Jesus Christ speaks about this baptism in the Gospel of Matthew to his disciples: “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe everything that I have commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.” And in the Gospel of Mark He says:
“Go into all the world and preach the Gospel to every creature. Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved; and whoever does not believe will be condemned.” And in the Gospel of John, He says to Nicodemus: “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God.” [...] This holy baptism, through which the Holy Spirit is given, has been preserved by the Church of God from the time of the apostles to the present day, and it is passed on from some good people to other good people, and so it has come down to us, and so it will be as long as the light lasts; You should also know that the Church of God has been given the power to bind and loose, to forgive sins and to forgive them. [...] And in the Gospel of Mark He says: “These signs will follow those who believe: In My name they will cast out demons; they will speak in new tongues; they will take snakes; and if they drink anything deadly, it will not harm them; They will lay hands on the sick, and they will recover.” And in the Gospel of Luke He says: “Behold, I give you power to tread on serpents and scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy, and nothing will harm you.” [...]"
After this, the Elder told the believer about the tenets of the Cathar religion, about what obligations he would be bound for the rest of his life, and read the Pater Noster, explaining each line of this prayer, which the one preparing to join had to repeat after him. Then the believer solemnly renounced the Catholic faith, in which he had been since childhood, promised that from now on he would not touch meat, eggs, or any other food of animal origin, would abstain from carnal pleasures, would never lie, never will not take an oath and will never renounce the Cathar faith. Then he had to say these words:
“I receive this holy prayer from God, from you and from the Church,” and then loudly and clearly announce that he wants to be baptized. After this, he performed melioramentum (knelt down three times and asked for a blessing) before the Elder and asked God to forgive him everything in which he had sinned in thought, deed or omission. Then the good people (perfect) present in chorus pronounced the formula for the remission of sins:
“In the name of the Lord, ours and the name of the Church, may your sins be forgiven you.” And finally, the solemn moment of performing the ritual, which was supposed to make the believer perfect, would come: the Elder took the Gospel and placed it on the head of the new member of the Church, and on top he and his assistants each laid their right hand and prayed to God that this person the Holy Spirit descended, while all those gathered read aloud the Pater Noster and other Cathar prayers appropriate to the occasion. Then the Elder read the first seventeen verses of the Gospel of John, said again, this time alone, Pater Noster, and the new perfect received from him, and then from the other perfects, a kiss of peace, which he then gave to the one of those gathered who stood closest to him , and he passed the kiss to his neighbor, and so, from one to another, this kiss went around all those gathered.
The “Comforted One,” now made perfect, dressed in black clothes, signifying his new state, donated all his property to the Cathar community and began to lead the wandering life of a merciful preacher following the example of Jesus and his apostles. The city deacon or the Cathar bishop of the province had to choose for him, among other perfect companions, who was called socius (or association, if it was a woman), with whom he, surrounded by the veneration and worship of the peasants, townspeople and nobility, was henceforth to share his life, his labors and adversities.
The crusade against the Cathars, the so-called “Albigensian Crusade”, was in fact a pretext invented by Philip Augustus in order to seize the lands of Count Raymond VI of Toulouse, that is, the County of Toulouse itself and its possessions, such as the Viscountates of Béziers and Albi , with the sole purpose of expanding the territory of the French kingdom. It wouldn't hurt to say a few words about this man here. He was born in 1156 and died in 1222 in Toulouse, was married five times, his wives were Ermessinde de Pele (died in 1176), Beatrice, sister of the Viscount of Béziers (he married her before 1193), Burginda de Ausignan (the wedding took place in 1193)" Jeanne, the sister of Richard the Lionheart (she brought him Agen as a dowry) and finally, in 1211, he married Eleanor, the sister of the Aragonese king.
Raymond VI, Count of Toulouse and Saint-Gilles, Duke of Narbonne and Marquis of Provence, succeeded his father, Raymond V, in 1194. The profitable treaty he concluded put an end to the war that the latter waged with the English Plantagenets (with Henry II, then with his son, Richard the Lionheart), from whom he took Quercy. In 1198 he allied with his brother-in-law, Richard the Lionheart, and several major vassals against Philip Augustus; in subsequent years, he continually entered into armed conflicts with various lords of the south. When Raymond VI was not in arms and was not at war, he maintained a brilliant court where troubadours flocked, and showed sympathy for the Cathars, who, taking advantage of his patronage, settled on his lands. In 1205 or 1206, the count, frightened by the actions of Pope Innocent III, who persuaded Philip Augustus to launch a crusade against these heretics (that is, on his, Raymond's, lands), promised the papal legate Pierre de Castelnau, whom we will talk about later, that he would not tolerate longer than the Cathars in their possessions; however, he never kept his promise, and in the future we will see how the mission of Pierre de Castelnau, the papal legate, will end with the terrible Albigensian crusade.
This brief information allows us to outline the following two circumstances, which, in turn, will help us understand the meaning of this unworthy religious war: 1) the power of Raymond VI, Count of Toulouse, whose possessions were almost as extensive and rich as those of his overlord, the king of France, and the fact that, among other things, he was the brother-in-law of Richard the Lionheart (with whom he, as we have already said, allied against Philip Augustus, who was a distant relative of the count), made him a natural opponent of the king; 2) the freedom of his morals and his disposition towards the Cathars, which everyone knew, made Count Raymond VI and the enemy of God (and therefore Pope Innocent III), which in 1207 led to his excommunication from the Church by the decision of Pierre de Castelnau, confirmed dad next May.
As a result of all this, Count Raymond VI, both for the pope and for the French king, was a man who had to be dealt with. The Crusade against the Cathars provided a pretext and justification for this crime, since there were a lot of heretics both in the county of Toulouse and throughout Occitania. Pierre de Vaux-de-Cernay, who fiercely pursued the Cathars with his only weapon - a strong quill pen in his hand, explains this to us with undisguised bias, but vividly and vividly, and along the way gives some precious information to which we will draw the reader's attention along the way affairs:
“Let us note to begin with that he [Count Raymond VI], one might say, loved heretics from the cradle and favored them, and he revered those who lived on his lands as best he could. Until this day [before 1209; the murder of the papal legate, which became the occasion for the crusade, occurred in 1208], it is said that wherever he goes, he leads with him heretics, dressed in ordinary clothes, so that if he has to die, he can die at in their hands: in fact, it seemed to him that he could be saved without any repentance if, on his deathbed, he could accept the laying on of hands from them. He always carried the New Testament with him in order, if necessary, to obtain the laying on of hands with this book from the heretics. [...] The Count of Toulouse, and we know this for certain, once told the heretics that he would like to raise his son [the future Raymond VII] in Toulouse, among the heretics, so that he would be brought up in their faith. The Count of Toulouse once told the heretics that he would willingly give a hundred silver coins to convert one of his knights to the faith of the heretics, whom he often persuaded to convert to this faith by forcing him to listen to sermons. In addition, when the heretics sent him gifts or food supplies, he accepted it all with the liveliest gratitude and kept it with the greatest care: he did not allow anyone to touch them except himself and several of his associates. And very often, as we learned with great certainty, he even worshiped the heretics, kneeling, and asked their blessing, and gave them the kiss of peace. [...] One day the count was in a church where mass was being celebrated: he was accompanied by a mime, who, according to the custom of jesters of this kind, mocked people, grimacing and making feigned movements. When the priest turned to the crowd with the words "Dominus vobiscum", the vile count ordered his histrion to imitate the priest and mock him. Another time, this same count also said that he would prefer to be like a certain dangerous heretic from Castres, in the diocese of Albi, who had neither arms nor legs, and lived in poverty, than to be a king or emperor.”
These last words of the Count of Toulouse may be true, but they do not at all indicate the “abomination” of Raymond VI - they rather serve as proof that this ruler, no matter how libertine he was, was able to admire, and even envied, an almost mystical the purity of faith of the perfect, doomed to ascend to the bonfires that he may someday have to light for them. And in fact, it did not take the Cathars even two centuries to finally create in Occitanie, and mainly in the county of Toulouse, a Church firmly rooted in all its districts and in all its cities, and this Church was not a secret , nor underground, and found adherents both among the village common people and among the townspeople, and among its members, as well as its sympathizers, were powerful barons and noble nobles of Languedoc.
However, the Cathar teaching was not the only heresy of Languedoc. In fact, Pierre de Vaux-de-Cernay informs us of the existence of a Christian sect that arose in the south of France around 1170 and began with the sermons of one Pierre Waldo, a wealthy Lyon merchant who abandoned everything he had acquired in order to call for a return to the original gospel ethics; his followers were called Waldensians, forming this name from the name of the founder of the sect.
“These people were undoubtedly bad,” he writes, “but if you compare them with the Cathar heretics, they were much less corrupt. In fact, they agreed with us on many issues, but disagreed on others. Their error concerned mainly four points: they were obliged, like the apostles, to wear sandals, they said that in no case should one swear an oath or kill, and they asserted that any of them could, if necessary and under condition, who wears sandals, to celebrate the sacrament of the Eucharist, even if this person was not a clergyman and was not ordained by a bishop.”
The Waldenses were persecuted by Rome and a crusade was launched against them in 1487, but they managed to survive and find shelter in the Alpine villages of Piedmont, Savoy and Luberon. When they began to be persecuted again in the 17th century (under Louis XIV), they joined the Calvinist reformed Church. Let us clarify that the Waldenses had nothing to do with the Cathars: in particular, they never supported any Manichaean theories.
As is generally accepted in modern European historiography, the word “Cathars” in relation to representatives of this movement was first used in 1163 by the Rhineland cleric Ecbert of Schönau.
When I was a canon in Bonn, I often, together with my brotherly soul (unanimis) and friend Bertolf, argued with them and drew attention to their mistakes and methods of defense. I learned many things from those who were with them at the beginning and then left... These are the people whom we call “Cathars” in Germany, “Fifls” in Flanders, “weavers” in France, because many of them prefer this craft ...
Ecbert combined the previously common Latin name cattari(fr. catiers, that is, “cat worshipers” - because of the supposed rituals among heretics involving cats) with Greek καθαρος , thereby associating them with the Novatian movement that existed in the era of early Christianity, who called themselves “Kafars” (from the Greek. καθαροί - “pure, undefiled”).
The term was subsequently often used in documents of the Inquisition, from where it passed into the first historical studies devoted to the “Albigensian heresy.” Despite the fact that the word “Cathars” was, in fact, a disparaging nickname, it was firmly entrenched as the main name for a long time, along with “Albigensians”. In addition to these two, the names “Manichaeans”, “Origenists”, “Fifls”, “Publicans”, “Weavers”, “Bulgarians” (French. bougres), "patarens".
Story
Emergence and origins
Catharism was not a fundamentally new worldview that arose in the Middle Ages. The theological views that later characterized Catharism can also be found among the first teachers of Christianity, who were influenced by Gnosticism and Neoplatonism (for example, Origen of Alexandria).
The first researchers, relying primarily on the anti-heretical works of Catholic theologians, followed their authors, looking for the roots of the Cathar doctrine in Eastern influences, especially in Zoroastrianism and Manichaeism, drawing a direct line of descent of the Cathars from Mani through the Paulicians and Bogomils. Accordingly, Catharism was considered initially a non-Christian phenomenon that established itself on the basis of European Christianity.
Currently, after the discovery of a large number of new sources, these views are being revised. Most modern researchers (J. Duvernois, A. Brenon, A. Cazenave, I. Hagmann, etc.) consider Catharism to be one of the numerous, but unique Christian movements that emerged simultaneously in Western and Eastern Europe during the Millennium era. This movement was represented by various communities, not necessarily connected with each other and sometimes differing in doctrine and way of life, but representing a certain unity in the field of structure and ritual, both in the temporal framework - between the X and XV centuries, and in the geographical - between Asia Minor and Western Europe. In Eastern Europe and Asia Minor, such communities include the Bogomils. The Bogomils of Byzantium and the Balkans, as well as the Cathars of Italy, France and Languedoc, were one and the same church.
Cathar texts are characterized by the absence of references to texts of non-Christian religions. Even in their most radical positions (for example, on dualism or reincarnation), they appeal only to Christian primary sources and apocrypha. The theology of the Cathars operates with the same concepts as Catholic theology, “now approaching and now moving away in their interpretation from the general line of Christianity.”
First medieval mentions
Expectations of the end of the world, which was first predicted in 1000, then in 1033, as well as the obvious crisis of European Christianity, gave rise to people's hopes for a renewal of religious life. This period includes both reforms sanctioned by the papacy (see Cluny Reform) and unofficial (heretical) attempts to realize the ideal of apostolic life. Already in the first monastic chronicles of the Millennium era, along with descriptions of various disasters, messages about “heretics, sorcerers and Manichaeans” appear.
Eastern Europe
Early evidence of Bogomils in the Byzantine Empire dates back to the 10th-11th centuries, and the Bogomils in them look like brothers of Western heretics, who began to be called Cathars from the 12th century. The Cathars themselves, according to the testimony of the Western European monk Everwin of Steinfeld, claimed that their tradition had been preserved since ancient times by their brothers in Greece, from whom it was adopted and continued by them to this day.
Western Europe
At the height of the movement for spiritual reform in the 11th century, spiritual movements appeared simultaneously in many regions of Western Europe, organized into monastic communities based on the Gospel, denying the legitimacy of the hierarchy of the Roman Church, a number of its dogmas (for example, about the human nature of Christ) and sacraments ( marriage, Eucharist). Since these movements also practiced baptism through the laying on of hands, characteristic of the Cathars, historians consider them proto-Cathars.
The various spiritual movements of the 11th century had many common features. They refused to baptize small children, denied the sacrament of confession and the sacrament of marriage, which was just then introduced by the papacy. They also rejected the validity of church sacraments if the priest performing them is in a state of sin, and also criticized the cult of the Crucifixion as an instrument of execution.
Other sources from the time speak of the burning of "publicans" in Champagne and Burgundy, "fifles" in Flanders, "patarens" in Italy, and claim "terribly vile sects of weavers or Arians" in the South of France, who were sometimes called "Albigensians". There is reason to believe that all these names refer to the same type of organized Christian communities, which the dominant Church called “heretical.”
Churches of European Cathars
Occitanie and France
The Occitan bishoprics of the Cathars of the 12th century arose on the territory of two large feudal formations: the Count of Toulouse (a vassal of the king of France) and the union of viscounts located between Barcelona and Toulouse and united by the Trancavel family (Carcassonne, Béziers, Albi and Limoux). The count and viscounts of these lands did not show much zeal in the persecution of heresy. In 1177, Count Raymond V, sincerely hostile to heretics, wrote to the Chapter of Citeaux that he was unable to overcome heresy because all his vassals supported it. His son Raymond VI (-) was friendly towards heretics. The Trancavel dynasty for a long time provided even greater assistance to the heresy. Finally, the Counts of Foix went even further, becoming directly involved in the Cathar Church.
For several generations the balance of power in the Occitan lordships was in favor of the Cathar churches, and this precluded any persecution. Before the crusade against the Albigensians, Catharism spread in the west from Quercy to Gourdon and Agenois (“Church of Agen”); in the center - the territories of Toulouse, Lauragais and the county of Foix ("Toulouse Church"), in the north - Albigeois ("Albi Church"), in the east - Kabarde, Minervois and Carcasse ("Carcassonne Church"), extending even to Corbières and the sea . In 1226, a fifth bishopric was created, in Rhazes (Limoux region), which was formerly part of the "Church of Carcasse".
Northern Italy
Documentary evidence about the environment of the Italian Cathars, available to historians, reveals four characteristic features of this environment:
Organization of church life in Qatari communities
Clergy
From the very beginning, Catharism was characterized by sharp anticlericalism (criticism of the so-called “prejudices of the Church of Rome” - the cult of saints, relics, images, etc.). However, while criticizing the “apostasy of the Roman Church,” they never argued that the Church and its hierarchy are not needed at all.
Like the Catholics, the Cathar church had a division between clergy and laity. Laymen (lat. credentes, or "believers") were not required to renounce their former Catholic habits or loyalties, but they recognized the spiritual authority of the Cathar teachers (lat. perfecti, or “perfect”).
The Qatari clergy combined the mixed functions of priests and monks. Both men and women were included in it. Like Catholic priests, the Cathar perfects preached, provided rituals for the salvation of souls and absolution of sins. Like monks, they lived in communities, observed fasts and abstinence and ritual hours of prayer.
Just like the Catholic bishop in his diocese, the Qatari bishop was the source of the priesthood, and the initiation of members of the community took place at his hands. Believers who were baptized (consecrated) by the bishop led a life dedicated to God and believed that they had the power to forgive sins. This power was believed to be transferred from “one “good people” to another.” In the Cathar texts it constitutes the essence of the “Order of the Holy Church.” The Cathars believed that their bishops transmitted this tradition to each other in a direct line from the apostles.
At the head of each Cathar Church was a bishop and his two assistants (coadjutors) - the “eldest Son” and the “younger Son”, also consecrated by the bishop to this rank. After the death of the bishop, the “eldest Son” became his immediate successor. The territory of the bishopric was divided among a certain number of deacons: they played a mediating role between the episcopal hierarchy and the communities located in the villages and towns that they regularly visited. The bishops themselves rarely lived in large cities, preferring communities in small towns. According to historians, such a church organization resembles the structure of the early Christian Church.
Communities
Like Catholic monasteries, Cathar monastic houses were places where neophytes who wished to lead a religious life were trained. There they studied the catechism and their religious duties for two or three years, after which they took the necessary vows and were ordained by the bishop by the laying on of hands. The baptism (initiation) ceremony was public, and believers were always present.
Preachers and preachers regularly left their communities to perform religious duties and also to visit relatives and friends in or around the city.
The Cathar women's and men's communities lived by their own labor. Some of these community houses were similar to modern hospices, where believers received spiritual guidance and comfort, and provided themselves with what they called a “happy ending” that brought salvation to the soul.
Male monastic communities were ruled by “elders”, female ones by “priorisses” or “stewards”. The monastic houses of the Cathars were not closed and often had manufactories with them. They were very numerous in the cities, actively participating in local economic and social life.
Many Languedoc residents considered the Cathars to be “good Christians who have great power to save souls” (from testimony before the Inquisition).
The Qatari monks followed the “Rules of Justice and Truth” and the Gospel instructions. They avoided killing (including killing animals), lying, condemnation, and so on. All this was considered a grave sin, devaluing the Spirit that descended on them. The sinner had to repent and go through the "consolation"- a sacrament whose name directly comes from the common Christian term “Comforter” (Paraclete).
The rise of Catharism
Montsegur
They themselves, through their lives and morals, demonstrated in practice the purity and rigorism of the apostolic way of life, which was recognized even by their opponents. The Cathars were supporters of absolute non-violence and refused to lie or swear. Many people of that time, as can be seen from the protocols of the Inquisition, perceived them as poor itinerant preachers carrying the Word of God. Research from the 70s - 80s of the 20th century shows Catharism as a literal adherence to the commandments of Christ, and especially the instructions of the Sermon on the Mount. As modern researchers believe, this evangelism was one of the central points of Catharism.
However, the dualistic Christianity of the Cathars was an alternative religious construct. They did not call for reform of the clergy and a “return to Scripture.” They declared their desire to return to the purity of the Church of the Apostles, which was not the “usurper Roman Church,” but their own, the “Church of Good Christians.”
However, for all their sharp criticism of the institution of the Catholic Church (in their terminology - “synagogue of Satan”), the Cathars were not inclined to show hostility towards the Catholics themselves. There is much evidence of peaceful communication between believers of both religions in precisely those areas where Catharism had a significant influence. Coexistence between heretical monks and the Catholic clergy at the local level generally occurred without conflict. From the documents of the Inquisition it follows that believers, for the most part, considered themselves to belong to both churches at once, believing that both of them were more likely to save the soul than one.
On the contrary, where the Catholic Church dominated, the Cathars often became the target of persecution. The attitude of the Roman hierarchs towards them was sharply intolerant. Local rulers, loyal to the pope, sought to capture them and “whoever they could not tear away from madness was burned with fire.”
In the first decades, persecution was rather sporadic. While the condemnation of heretics was a matter for episcopal courts, the Church hesitated in choosing methods of repression. At first, executions took place according to the verdicts of the secular authorities. But gradually councils and pontifical bulls prepared the ground for the Church’s lawmaking in the area of heresy.
At the end of the 12th century, the confrontation between Catharism and Catholicism intensified. The papacy, alarmed by the spread of heresy, increased pressure, which caused a retaliatory escalation of criticism from the Cathars. The pope sent Cistercian missions to Toulouse and Albi in 1178 and 1181, but the missionaries did not enjoy the cooperation of local rulers and achieved practically nothing from them in the persecution of heresy.
The crusade against the Albigensians was characterized by brutal reprisals against civilians (Béziers in 1209, Marmande in 1219), as well as huge mass bonfires where heretics were burned - in Minerva (140 burned in 1210), Lavore (400 burned in 1211 ). However, the local population, for whom the war was both religious and national liberation in nature, actively resisted the crusaders, supporting their legitimate counts.
In 1220, it finally became clear that the attempt to establish the Catholic Montfort dynasty in Toulouse and Carcassonne had failed. The Cathar communities, which the Crusaders initially inflicted serious damage on, began to gradually recover.
In 1226, Louis VIII of France, son of Philip Augustus, decided to restore his rights to the Mediterranean counties transferred to him by Montfort, and he himself led the French army, moving it against Raymond Trancavel, Raymond VII of Toulouse and their vassals. Despite fierce resistance in some regions (especially Lima and Cabaret), the royal army conquered Languedoc. In 1229, the Count of Toulouse, having submitted, signed a peace treaty, ratified in Paris.
Final defeat of the Qatari movement
Residents of Carcassonne are expelled from the city during the siege by the troops of Simon de Montfort
In 1229, the king finally won the war declared by the pope, and the latter took advantage of the king's victory: from that time on, the Church was given complete freedom of action. Secular rulers - defenders of heretics - according to the decisions of the Lateran Council of 1215 and the Toulouse Council of 1229 were deprived of lands and property. The Cathar communities went underground. However, they remained very numerous. To protect themselves from repression, they organized a secret network of resistance based on community and family solidarity.
In the treatises and rituals of the Cathars there are no references explaining the sequential transmigration of souls from one bodily prison to another. Only the anti-Qatari polemics and testimony before the Inquisition contain information on this topic. However, the theoretical texts of Good Christians claim that, contrary to what Catholic clergy teach, God does not create endlessly new souls in order to one day stop time and judge everyone in the state and age in which He finds them. On the contrary, a certain number of divine souls have fallen into the slavery of bodies, and now they must “awaken” from this world before they can hear the call to leave it and return to their heavenly homeland.
As already mentioned, they believed in the universal salvation of all divine souls who fell into the slavery of bodies during the creation of the evil world. They believed that by moving from body to body after their fall, these souls would gain experience and the opportunity to know Good, realize that they belong to another world, and would be called by God to reunite with Him.
The means of Salvation, according to Catharism, was evangelical, but at the same time radically different from the atoning sacrifice of the Catholic Christ.
The Cathars believed that, in fact, the Son of God came into this world not to atone for original sin with His sacrifice and death on the cross, but simply to remind people that their Kingdom is not of this world, and to teach them a saving sacrament that will forever deliver them from evil and from time. This is the sacrament of baptism with the Holy Spirit, the Comforter, transmitted by Christ to His apostles.
Ritual and cult
The “good news” of the Gospel, from the point of view of the Cathars, consists of enlightenment by the Word of Christ, in the awakening of souls receiving salvation through baptism by the laying on of hands, about which John the Baptist said: “He who comes after me is mightier than I... He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire " Christ breathed this Spirit into the apostles, who passed it on to their disciples.
Thus, in the Cathar interpretation of the Gospel, the main significance belonged to Pentecost, and not to the Passion. Most likely, this interpretation is more archaic. Both in the Cathars' interpretation of sacred texts and in their liturgy, researchers find very close similarities with early Christianity.
The sacrament of consolament, practiced by the Cathars, served simultaneously as baptism, initiation, and communion, since baptism by water alone was absolutely insufficient. The consolament also granted remission of sins, entry onto the path of repentance, a sign of the power to bind and untie, which marks the Church of Christ. Given to the dying, this sacrament was also unction. And, finally, connecting the soul with the spirit, it was, as it were, a spiritual, mystical marriage. The only thing it didn't have was Transubstantiation.
Baptism by consolament was a collective, public ceremony open to all. Accompanied by the Elder or Priorissa, the neophyte came to the bishop's house "to surrender to God and the Gospel", to adopt the tradition of the Lord's Prayer - the most important prayer, which had to be repeated regularly at a certain time and a certain number of times, and then to accept the Book of Scripture itself. Next, after a long ceremony, the bishop and all the Good People present laid their right hands on the head of the neophyte and recited the first verses of the Gospel of John. Consolament for the dying was a similar ritual: it was performed by two Good People in the presence of the family and friends of the dying person.
Documents show that Good Christians were often present at the table of believers. At the beginning of each meal - exclusively vegetarian - the eldest of the Good Men or Good Women blessed the bread, broke it and distributed it to everyone present. This ritual, observed since the Millennium, replaced the Eucharist. They did this in memory of the Last Supper, but did not consider that they were eating the Body of Christ when they broke bread; to them, these words from the Gospel symbolized the Word of God as it spread throughout the world.
If any believer met a Good Man or a Good Woman, he greeted them with a triple request for a blessing, or, in Occitan, melhorier, and prostrated himself three times before them in prostration.
At the end of each ritual ceremony, Christians and believers exchanged the kiss of peace, men among themselves, and women among themselves. Strict vows of chastity effectively prohibited Cathar monks from any physical contact with persons of the opposite sex.
Assessing the historical significance of Catharism
For a long time in historical literature, both a significant part of domestic and foreign, the assessment of the historical role of the Qatari movement was clearly negative, although in the Soviet tradition, for example, in the TSB, there was a tendency towards a positive assessment of Catharism as a movement of resistance to the dictates of the medieval papacy, which was extremely was assessed negatively in the USSR. The main source on which the researchers relied were treatises refuting this medieval heresy - the anti-heretical Summa, compiled by theologians of the 13th century. Catharism was viewed as an anti-church, largely barbaric heretical teaching that threatened to undermine the position of Christianity in Europe. Since the 80s of the twentieth century. After the works of the Oxford historian Robert Moore, there was a revision of the attitude towards Catharism. Today, most Western scholars of Catharism tend to take a more positive view. According to their version, the Cathars, with their teaching about love and rejection of violence, were an attempt by European society to return to the origins of Christianity (thus anticipating Luther’s Reformation) and thereby create an alternative to Catholicism, which was experiencing a deep crisis.
From the same position, the significance of other major religious movements of the Middle Ages that preceded the Reformation is assessed - the Waldensians, Beguins, etc. However, it is Catharism that is considered the most long-lasting and successful of such attempts. The forceful suppression of this attempt, which took the form of a devastating war and subsequent brutal repressions, is regarded as one of the first precedents in the history of Europe for the triumph of totalitarian ideology.
Contemporary historiographical debate on Catharism
Until 1950, the study of this issue was exclusively influenced by theologians. This circumstance led to disagreements in assessing the origin of Catharism. Some researchers (including L.P. Karsavin and the author of one of the first major monographs on the history of the Inquisition, Henry Lee) consider Catharism “neo-Manichaeism” that came to the West from the non-Christian East: “The essence of the Cathar dogma is completely alien to Christianity.” This position is shared by some modern researchers. However, the development of the archives of the Inquisition led to a revision of the prevailing opinion among historians.
Catharism is one of the religions that shaped human consciousness, strengthened hearts and inspired huge numbers of people, from Asia Minor to the Atlantic Ocean, to make the decision to devote themselves to God, during the period from at least the 10th to the 15th centuries.... It is one of the forms of Christianity and relies - even if we consider this a distortion - on the Word and ritual, which we ourselves absorbed with our mother's milk.
These researchers emphasize numerous common features inherent in both Catharism and European culture in general in the 11th-12th centuries. The most serious contribution to refuting the “traditional” vision of this heresy as a branch of Eastern Manichaeism was made by Jean Duvernoy. His book The Religion of the Cathars was the first to provide, through the study of a complete collection of various types of documents, a comprehensive analysis of the historical data of the medieval religious phenomenon called Catharism. The author came to the conclusion about the exclusively Christian context of Catharism, and since then this conclusion has been dominant among modern historians.
Cathar terminology
Adoremus See Prayers
Adoratio A term from the Inquisitorial Dictionary, a contemptuous designation for the ritual of asking for a blessing, called by the Cathars melhorament or melhorier. By focusing on the gesture of kneeling that accompanied this rite, the Inquisition tried to ridicule this practice, calling it a rite of “veneration” by believers of heretics.
Albanenses This was the name given by the Italian Dominicans to the members of the Cathar Church of Decensano (near Lake Garda), supposedly founded by a bishop named Albanus, who at the end of the century was in dispute with another Cathar bishop named Garatus. In the 13th century, the followers of Albanus professed the so-called absolute dualism of Bishop Bellesmanza and his Elder Son Giovanni de Lugio, author of the Book of the Two Principles, who also became a bishop around 1250.
Apareilement or Aparelhament An Occitan word meaning “preparation” and representing a ceremony of collective repentance, similar to monastic confession. This confession was conducted monthly by deacons in the male and female monastic communities of the Cathars. This ceremony, also called servici, is described in detail in the Lyon Cathar Ritual. For those who want to know more, we recommend "La religion des cathares" by Jean Duvernoy, in two volumes.
Caretas or Kiss of Peace Known from Qatari rituals, the practice meaning “reconciliation, forgiveness” is a common Christian practice in the Middle Ages. The kiss of peace concluded the liturgical ceremonies of the Cathars. Testimonies before the Inquisition describe this ritual in detail, speaking of a "kiss on the face" or even "on the lips": "With this kiss the Perfects give us peace, kissing us twice on the lips, then we kiss them twice in the same way." Quote from "Le dossier de Montsegur: interrogatoires d'inquisition 1242-1247". Testimony of Jordan de Pereil. Between Good Men and Good Women, who were forbidden by the Rules to touch each other, the kiss took place through the Book of the Gospel.
Consolamentum or Consolament The only sacrament practiced by the Cathars and called by them "the holy baptism of Jesus Christ." It was about spiritual baptism (as opposed to John's "water baptism"). It was carried out by the laying on of hands, according to a rite similar to the early Christian one (without material components such as water and oil). It was also called the baptism of the Holy Spirit - the Comforter, complementing baptism with water and descending on the Apostles during Pentecost. For the Cathars, this baptism, performed by the true Christian Church, also had the meaning of repentance, since it washed away sins and saved the soul. It was performed on neophytes and meant their entry into Christian life (order), and for believers - the salvation of the soul and a happy ending (unction). The liturgical words and gestures of this rite are described in great detail in the three Cathar Rites that have come down to us, as well as in the protocols of the Inquisition. “... Now, wanting to become perfect, I find God and the Gospel, and I promise never again to eat meat, eggs, cheese, or fatty foods with the exception of vegetable oil and fish, for the rest of my life I will no longer swear or lie, and not to renounce the faith under pain of fire, water or other means of death. After I had promised all this, I read the Pater Noster... When I said the prayer, the perfect ones laid the Book on my head, and read the Gospel of John. At the end of the reading, they gave me the Book to kiss, then we exchanged the “kiss of peace.” Then they prayed to God, doing a lot of kneeling." Quote from the Documents of Montségur: Evidence from the Inquisition 1242-1247 Transcribed from the words of Guillaume Tarju de la Galiole.
Convenenza Occitan word meaning "agreement, treaty". In times of war and persecution, beginning with the Siege of Montsegur, the Convenenza became a contract between the Good Man and the believer, allowing the Consolamentum to be accepted even if the person was speechless. Jordan du Mas was wounded and received consolation "at the barbican, which was near the car. Good People Raymond de Saint-Martin and Pierre Sirvin came there and gave the wounded consolation, although he had already lost the ability to speak..." Quote from the Montsegur Documents: Evidence Inquisition 1242-1247" Recorded from the words of Azalais, widow of Alzu de Massabrac.
Endura Occitan word meaning "fasting". The inquisitors of the 14th century used it in an attempt to accuse the last of the Good Men of encouraging suicide among believers who received consolation on their deathbed but survived. However, researchers believe that this was a misinterpretation of the ritual fasts on bread and water that the newly baptized were required to observe, according to the Rules. There are only a few examples of hunger strikes undertaken by Good Men caught by the Inquisition, who refused water and food in order not to speak during interrogation, because the Inquisitors preferred to burn them alive.
Melhorament or melioramentum An Occitan word meaning "striving for the better." The Good Man's greeting to the faithful, represented by the inquisitors as worship. When meeting a Good Man or a Good Woman, the believer knelt down and prostrated before them three times, saying: “Good Christian (Good Christian Woman), I ask for the blessing of God and yours.” The third time he added: “And pray to God for me, that He will make me a Good Christian and bring me to a happy ending.” The monk or nun responded to this: “Accept God’s blessing,” and then: “We will pray to God for you, so that He will make you a Good Christian and lead you to a happy ending.”
Our Father or Holy Word, the fundamental prayer of Christians among the Cathars. They said it daily during the Hours, during the Consolament, before meals, etc. Their version did not differ from the Catholic one except for one word: instead of “our daily bread” they said “our ever-present bread” - a variant that goes back to the translation of St. Jerome and emphasizes the symbolic meaning of bread, which meant the Word of God. In addition, they used the Greek doxology “For Thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, forever and ever,” on which they based their belief in universal salvation.
Poor Catholics The Cathars were not the only ones who rebelled against the clergy, who accumulated wealth contrary to the words of the evangelists. Duran Huesca was the first founder of the Order of Poor Catholics. After the Council of Pamiers in 1207, having met personally with Saint Dominic, Duran of Huesca thus helped the emergence of the Order of Poor Catholics. In 1212 they built two monasteries for brothers and sisters in Elna (Roussillon). The main task of the order was to constantly preach, like the Perfect Ones, to live in poverty, pray and sleep on bare boards... Duran Huesca is today known for his battles with heretics, and especially for his work “Liber contra Manicheos”.
Believers According to Everwin de Steinfeld, in the mid-12th century, in the Rhineland, the faithful represented a middle stage between the simple faithful (or listeners) and the heretical clergy of Christians or the elect. By the laying on of hands the believer became a neophyte. In Languedoc of the 13th century, the Inquisition already distinguishes only simple “believers in heretics,” that is, people listening to the science of heretics. In fact, the believers were a mass of faithful who “believe what the heretics say and believe that the heretics can save their souls,” according to the registers of the Inquisition. In the early 14th century, Pierre Authier defined a believer as a person who ritually greets Good People and asks for their blessing.
Grail In medieval romances, the Grail is associated with the cup in which the blood of Jesus was collected and brought to Western Europe by Joseph of Arimathea. She became the object of the mystical quest of the Knights of the Round Table in such works as: “The Tale of the Grail” by Chrétien de Troyes, “Percival” by Wolfram von Eschenbach and others. This Grail myth, based on Celtic mythology, was used by Cistercian preachers. At first glance, there is no visible or indirect connection between the legends of the Grail and Catharism. The German scholar Otto Rahn's book Crusaders Against the Grail (published in 1933) first raised this issue for consideration. In Gerard de Sede's book “The Secret of the Cathars” there is evidence of such a connection.
Sins As in all monotheistic religions, sin is man's violation of divine law. For Christian Cathars, this divine law was clear instructions and commandments of the Gospel: sins for them were murder, adultery, violence, lies, theft, slander, oath, condemnation... Any of these sins meant for a Christian, that is, for a Cathar monk, the immediate loss of Christian condition. "Freed from evil" through baptism of repentance, Consolament, and having received grace, the Christian of the Cathars was not to sin, because evil could no longer act through him. A Good Man who lied, killed, swore, or knowingly touched a woman had to go through re-baptism and re-novitiate.
Two Churches Pierre Authier and his comrades preached the Gospel even more clearly and convincingly than their predecessors. Severely persecuted, they associated themselves with Christ and His apostles, whom the world had persecuted before them, and called the persecuting Roman Church evil and falsely Christian. Echoing the Rhine heretics of 1143, Pierre Hauthier preached: “There are two Churches, one persecuted but forgiving, the other possessing and skinning.” Everyone at that time understood which Church of Christ was and which was from this world.
Giovanni De Lugio Mentioned since 1230 as the Eldest Son of the Cathar bishop of the Church of Decensano. Possibly from Bergamo. He is one of the most learned clerics of his time. He wrote a theological Cathar treatise known as The Book of Two Principles, of which only an abridged version has reached us. This book was primarily written against the theses of the Qatari hierarch Didier of the Church of Concorezzo and is the pinnacle of Qatari theological reflection on the problem of evil. Giovanni de Lugio's treatise was written according to all the rules of medieval scholasticism of the mid-13th century. He became bishop of the Church of Decensano around 1250, but disappeared from the records a few decades later, possibly a victim of the repressions of the 1270s in Italy.
Deacons In the Qatari Church, the deacon was the first step in the hierarchy. Cathar deacons were required to visit religious houses for administration and disciplinary meetings in designated areas within each Church. Deacons also conducted the ceremony of collective confession and repentance in men's and women's religious houses. Religious houses, where the deacons themselves lived, played the role of hospice houses. All Cathar deacons were men; there are no sources that indicate the existence of deaconesses.
House (monastic) The Cathar monks and nuns lived in small communities of women and men in religious houses, reminiscent of Catholic monasteries, but with free entry and exit. There they engaged in physical labor and practiced rituals and sacraments together. Some of these houses also served as hotels, hospitals or hospices; some had the specific functions of schools or seminaries. There were many such monastic houses open to the public in the small towns of Languedoc. Most of them consisted of only a few people, sometimes members of the same family. Widows, married women who gave birth to many children, girls without a dowry - in a word, all those who decided to devote themselves to God and achieve salvation as Good Women - lived in communities that were by no means isolated from the world, together with their sisters, mothers, aunts, sometimes in the same house where other relatives lived, and sometimes in a neighboring house.
Cathar bishops The Cathar communities were governed by ordained bishops in the manner of the early Church. Like Catholic bishops, they had the right to initiate those who entered the Christian community in their Church or bishopric. Like bishops in the Orthodox Church, they were also monks. The first heretical bishops are mentioned in the Rhineland between 1135 and 1145. At the end of the 12th century, the bishop of the Church of France, Lombardy and four bishoprics of Languedoc was already known. There was no centralized power over the bishops like the papal one; all Churches were local.
Baptism A sacrament that in all Christian Churches signifies entry into Christian life. In the early Christian Church, baptism also meant repentance and remission of sins. The act of baptism was then twofold: by water (by immersion) and by the Spirit (by laying on of hands). Later, the Roman Church separated these two rites, reserving the name baptism for baptism by water, and reserving the laying on of hands for the consecration of bishops. At the same time, the meaning of baptism by water narrowed to the washing away of original sin, and increasingly began to be performed on young children. In the Cathar Consolament rituals, the laying on of hands is always called baptism: "Holy baptism of Jesus Christ", or "spiritual baptism of Jesus Christ". The Cathars apparently retained the features of baptism characteristic of the early Church: they laid hands only on adults who were aware of what was happening and asked for the remission of their sins. For them, this was the only true baptism, because baptism by water or “baptism of John” performed in the Roman Church was, from their point of view, insufficient for salvation. Moreover, they believed that only their baptism was “based on Scripture.”
Cemeteries The Cathars did not attach any importance to the sacralization of the body and did not believe in resurrection in bodies. Therefore, they did not have any special burial rituals. If circumstances permitted, those who died in heresy were buried, like everyone else, in ordinary parish cemeteries. If the local priest forbade this, then the Qatari community had its own cemetery, such as in Lordat or Puyloran. During the underground times, the dead were buried wherever they could: in the garden, on the river bank, etc. The Inquisition often exhumed these corpses and burned them.
Younger Son and Elder Son These hierarchical ecclesiastical degrees were first mentioned in Languedoc in 1178. The Elder Son and the Younger Son are coadjutors of the Cathar bishops. They immediately received episcopal consecration and their functions could be equated to episcopal ones. Therefore, after the death of the bishop, the Elder Son became the bishop, and the Younger Son became the Elder Son. Then a new Younger Son was chosen and ordained. Further, the hierarchy of the Cathars consisted of deacons, and the lowest level were the Elders and Priorisses (leaders and leaders of male and female religious houses).
Prayers Like all Christian monks, the Good People said prayers at certain hours all their lives. First of all, it is Benedicite (Benedicite, parcite nobis, Bless and have mercy on us), Adoremus (Adoremus Patrem et Filium et Spiritum Sanctum, Amen - Let us adore the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, Amen). Further, this is the fundamental prayer of the Cathars, “Our Father”, which Christ taught to the Apostles. Simple believers, not yet freed from evil, did not directly turn to God with this prayer, but their request for blessing during the Melhorament ritual was a prayer. But as follows from the “Register of the Inquisition by Jacques Fournier,” (vol. 2, pp. 461-462, in the 14th century believers said the following prayer: “Holy Father, right God of the good spirit, You who never lied, did not deceive, did not doubt and I was not mistaken. Out of fear of death, which awaits us all, we ask You, do not let us die in a world foreign to God, for we are not of the world, and the world is not for us, but let us know what You know and love. what you love..."
Clothed with the Holy Spirit The terms hereticus indutus, heretica induta ("vested heretic") are very often used in the archives of the Inquisition to designate Cathar monks, in order to distinguish them from ordinary believers. Perhaps this comes from the fact that before the persecution, the Good People wore special black or dark monastic robes. But believers often called Good People "clothed with the Holy Spirit."
Vows The three monastic vows that the Cathars took were: chastity, poverty and obedience. These are vows common to all Christianity, based on the precepts of the Gospel. Also added to this were the vows of community life and abstinence, and the vow to observe monastic hours (“liturgical hours”). In practice, entering the Christian life meant complete dedication and self-giving for the Cathars.
Pentagram A geometric figure in the form of a pentagon, into which a five-pointed star is inscribed. Esotericists of the twentieth century are unreasonably looking for Qatari symbolism in it.
Bee The Cathars wore an engraving of a bee on their buckles and buttons; for the Perfect, it symbolized the mystery of fertilization without physical contact.
Fish Like all Christian monks who lived in fasting and abstinence, the Cathars abstained from meat, but not on certain days, but in general, with the exception of fish.
Family (marriage) Like many heretics of the 11th-12th centuries, the Cathars rejected the sacrament of marriage, introduced very late by the Roman Church (11th century), not wanting to confuse the divine sacrament with a purely material and social act. Conception and birth in itself, without the sacrament, according to Christian terminology, is a “bodily sin.” The Cathars said that “to know your wife physically as well as another woman is one and the same sin.” They also believed that embryos in the womb are simply bodies, that is, bodily shells formed by the devil that do not yet have a soul. On the other hand, the birth of children, according to the Catharism system, was necessary for the “awakening of the world”, so that souls could move into other bodies after death and gain a new chance for salvation, until all the fallen angels could finally return to the Kingdom. Some Dominican inquisitors spread rumors that the Cathars could lead humanity to extinction by prohibiting the birth of children. However, only Cathar monks and nuns took vows of absolute chastity, and their believers married (including marriages in the Catholic Church) and started families. They had numerous children, like their Catholic neighbors. There are known cases when marriages were concluded between Qatari believers through the mediation of the Good Man, but without any sacrament, only as a mutual agreement. The Cathars did not consider virginity to be of great value. Most of them became monks and nuns in adulthood, after they had already started a family and raised children. By entering religious life, often at the same time, they released each other from their marital vows. The true marriage mentioned in the Gospel (“what the Lord has united, let no man separate”), for the Cathars, was the spiritual marriage of soul and Spirit, taking place during the Consolament, reuniting the heavenly creation, torn apart after the fall.
Death From the Cathar point of view, the physical death of the body was a sign of the devilish nature of this world. Overall, this fit into their idea of the transitory nature of everything visible and served as proof that an evil creator was unable to create anything “stable and enduring.” Death was evil and came from evil; God under no circumstances can punish with it or send to death. That is why the Cathars rejected the doctrine of the atoning sacrifice of Christ. Good People condemned both murder and the death penalty. On the contrary, they made vows to courageously face martyrdom following the example of Christ and
