Sifting the Cinders of the Cathars

[Tamrin]

Trail of Faith

[Excerpt - www.visitvaldese.com - Linked Above]

The Waldensians were a devout religious group whose origin many believe was a result of the apostles traveling through valleys on their way to Spain, Romans 15:24. When the Moravians started their movement, they insisted that a Waldensian pastor ordain their first pastor because they believed the Waldensian roots went back to the apostles.

[Tamrin]

The Geneva Bible

[Excerpt - Lawson's Memorial Church - Linked Above]

The Geneva Bible was produced by English refugees that settled in the Swiss city of Geneva to escape the persecutions of the Roman Catholic Queen Mary, who reigned in England from 1553-58.

Geneva was a bastion of Bible text and translation/printing activity.

Robert Olivetan's French translation was published in Geneva in 1556. Financial support for the printing had come from Waldensian churches in northern Italy from an English translation appearing in Documentation on the Olivetan-Ostervald Bible by Curtis Gibson,

Also printed in Geneva was a 1556 reprint of the Spanish New Testament translated by Juan Perez de Pineda and a revised edition of the Diotati Italian Bible in 1562. Between then and 1665, five of the seven Italian Bibles came from Geneva.

[Tamrin]

Ancient Jewish Mysticism and the Kabbalah
and its link with the Languedoc

[Webpage - www.languedocmysteries.info - Linked Above]

Kabbalah is an ancient Jewish doctrine of esoteric knowledge. According to this doctrine the nature of God and the universe were was revealed to elect saints in the remote past, and have been preserved through the centuries by a chain of initiates. Kabbalah is part of the Jewish Oral Law - a mystical interpretation of the Torah. Kabbalah stresses an understanding of the divine commandments, the events described in the Torah, and the rules by which God governs the universe.

Early forms of esoteric mysticism existed before the time of Jesus. Ben Sira warns against esoteric teachings in his saying: "Thou shalt have no business with secret things" (Sirach iii. 22). Apocalyptic literature from the second and first centuries BC contained elements of Kabbalah. According to Josephus, such literature was jealously guarded by the Essenes, who claimed that they already dated from distant antiquity. Many books containing secret lore were kept hidden by the Enlightened (IV Esdras xiv. 45-46). One of the most sustained criticisms of Kabbalah is that it leads away from monotheism, and towards dualism, the belief that there are two gods. The dualistic system of good and of evil powers, traceable back to Zoroastrianism, was popular among Gnostics and certainly influenced the Kabbalah. Curiously, we know little of Kabbalism through the dark and middle ages until it reappears in the twelfth century in the Languedoc. One particular book of Kabbalah, the Bahir ("illumination"), or The Midrash of Rabbi Nehuniah ben haKana was first published in Provence in 1176. Many Orthodox Jews believe that the author was a Talmudic teacher of the first century. Most historians believe that the book was written soon before it was published in the Langue d'Oc.

That Kabbalistic writings should surface in the Languedoc, precisely at the time and in the place that dualist Gnostic cathars and mystical Troubadours flourished, has excited justifiable interest. With the power of the repressive Roman Catholic Church temporarily checked, it looks as though poets, theologians and philosophers enjoyed a temporary freedom to work together until the papal inquisition exterminated the Cathars and expelled the Jews, and the Troubadours disappeared into the mists of history. Most forms of Kabbalah teach that every letter, word, number, and accent of scripture contains a hidden sense; and it teaches the methods of interpretation for ascertaining these occult meanings - one of the aspects that have attracted vacuous celebrities to Kabbalah, along with the moneymaking charlatans who both pray and prey on them.

[Tamrin]

Whence the Cathars?

Bogomilism

[Excerpts - from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia - Linked Above]

Bogomilism (Bulgarian: Áîãîìèëñòâî) is the Gnostic dualistic sect, the synthesis of Armenian Paulicianism and the Bulgarian Orthodox Church reform movement, which emerged in Bulgaria between 927 and 970 and spread into Byzantine Empire, Kievan Rus', Serbia, Bosnia, Croatia, Italy and France.

The Bogomils were undoubtedly the connecting link between the so-called heretical sects of the East and those of the West. They were, moreover, the most active agents in disseminating such teachings in Russia and among all the nations of Europe. They may have found in some places a soil already prepared by more ancient tenets which were preserved in spite of the persecution of the institutional Church and handed down from the period of primitive Christianity... In the 12th and 13th century, the Bogomils were already known in the West as "Bulgari", i.e. Bulgarians (áúëãàðè). In 1207 the Bulgarorum heresis is mentioned. In 1223 the Albigenses are declared to be the local Bougres, and in the same period mention is made of the "Pope of the Albigenses who resided within the confines of Bulgaria" (see also Nicetas, Bogomil bishop). The Cathars and Patarenes, the Waldenses, the Anabaptists, and in Russia the Strigolniki, Molokani and Doukhobors, have all at different times been either identified with the Bogomils or closely connected with them.

[Tamrin]

Bernard of Clairvaux (1090 – August 21, 1153),
Saint Bernard (1174)

[Excerpt - Who's Who in the Cathar War - Linked Above]

Towards the middle of the twelfth century the preaching of a priest called Henry of Lausanne was drawing attention to what he saw as flaws in Roman Catholic theology and practices. In June 1145, at the invitation of Cardinal Alberic of Ostia, Bernard would travel to the territories of the Count of Toulouse to combat heresy. The threat was not at this time perceived as Catharism, but the teachings of Henry who had come to Occitania having been, as Bernard said, "forced to flee from all parts of France". Here is a translation of an extract from a letter from St Bernard to Alphonse Jordan, Count of Toulouse, written in 1145 before he set off to follow Henry to the Languedoc. It gives an idea of how popular Henry's taching had been.

The Churches are without congregations, congregations are without priests, priests are without proper reverence, and, finally, Christians are without Christ.

(Sancti Bernardi epistolae 241 from Migne, Patrologia latina, CLXXXII, 434-36; Cited by Walter Wakefield & Austin Evans, Heresies of The High Middle Ages (Columbia, 1991) p 93)

Bernards's secretary, Geoffrey of Auxerre, writing in the same year repeats Bernard's comments and goes on:

The life of Christ was barred to the children of Christians so long as the grace of baptism was denied to them. Prayers and offerings for the dead were ridiculed as were the invocation of saints, pilgrimages by the faithful, the building of temples, holidays on holy days, the anointing with the chrism; and in a word, all the institutions of the [Catholic] Church were scorned.

(Sancti Bernardi vita et res gestae libris septem comprehensae; Liber tertius auctore Gaufrido monacho, v 16, 17 in Patrologia latina, CLXXXV, 312-13; Cited by Walter Wakefield & Austin Evans, Heresies of The High Middle Ages (Columbia, 1991) p 93)

With the invective removed it sounds as though the Reformation has arrived in the Languedoc some three centuries before Martin Luther introduced it to Germany. After his visit, his main impression seems to have been the shameless corruption in his own Church. The people of the Languedoc had abandoned the Roman Catholic Church en mass for unnamed heresies:

... if you question the heretic about his faith, nothing is more Christian; if about his daily converse, nothing more blameless; and what he says he proves by his actions ... As regards his life and conduct, he cheats no one, pushes ahead of no one, does violence to no one. Moreover, his cheeks are pale with fasting; he does not eat the bread of idleness; he labours with his hands and thus makes his living ... Women are leaving their husbands, men are putting aside their wives, and they all flock to those heretics! Clerics and priests, the youthful and the adult among them, are leaving their congregations and churches and are often found in the company of weavers of both sexes.

(from Bernard's sermon 65 on the Caticle of Canticles (or Song of Songs, or Song of Solomon): Sancti Bernardi Sermones super Cantica canticorum, Semon 65 from Sancti Bernardi Opera, Cited by Walter Wakefield & Austin Evans, Heresies of The High Middle Ages (Columbia, 1991) p 130)

Although he does not mention the word Cathar, there are several indications here that Bernard is referring to Cathars: living the Christian ideal; pale through fasting; working for a living; appealing equally to men, women, and Catholic priests. The term "weaver" is frequently used as a synonym for Cathar Parfait, since this was their most favoured itinerant trade.

"Bernard of Clairvaux may well represent the most important figure in Templarism" (Templar History site)

[Tamrin]

Cathars and Cathar Beliefs in the Languedoc

[Excerpt - www.cathar.info - Linked Above]

The Cathars were a religious group who appeared in Europe in the eleventh century, their origins something of a mystery though there is reason to believe their ideas came from Persia by way of the Byzantine Empire, the Balkans and Northern Italy. Records from the Roman Catholic Church mention them under various names and in various places. Catholic theologians debated with themselves for centuries whether Cathars were Christian heretics or whether they were not Christians at all. The question is apparently still open. Roman Catholics still refer to Cathar belief as "the Great Heresy" though the official Catholic position is that Catharism is not Christian at all.

Cathars believed in two principles, a good creator god and his evil adversary (much like God and Satan of mainstream Christianity). Cathars called themselves Christians; their neighbours distinguished them as "Good Christians". The Catholic Church called them Albigenses, or less frequently Cathars.

Cathars maintained a Church hierarchy and practiced a range of ceremonies, but rejected any idea of priesthood or the use of church buildings. They divided into ordinary believers who led ordinary medieval lives and an inner Elect of Parfaits (men) and Parfaites (women) who led extremely ascetic lives yet still worked for their living - generally in itinerant manual trades like weaving. Cathars believed in reincarnation and refused to eat meat or other animal products. They were strict about biblical injunctions - notably those about living in poverty, not telling lies, not killing and not swearing oaths.

[Tamrin]

Cathar Beliefs: Vindication

[Concluding summary - Article www.cathar.info - Linked Above]

Without doubt, the Cathars had a stronger claim than the Roman Church to represent the teachings and practises of the Early Christian Church. Its tradition represented ancient practices abandoned or amended by the Orthodox Church and then further by the Roman Church. The truth seems to that, in the bosom of medieval society, Cathars represented the last witness to the earliest Christian Church. Cathars themselves were aware of this, and told their persecutors so. They even seem to have known the route by which their tradition came to western Europe. Here is an extract from a letter of 1143 or 1144 from Eberwin, Prior of the Premonstratensian Abbey of Steinfeld, writing to Bernard of Clairvaux (Saint Bernard):

Indeed, those who were burned told us during their defence that this heresy has lain concealed from the time of the martyrs even to our own day, and has persisted thus in Greece and certain other lands.

[Tamrin]

CATHARS – BOGOMIELEN – ALBIGENSIANS

[Excerpt - Article, Shepherds of Arcadia - Linked Above]

The Cathars were dualist Christians who from the 11th through the 13th century became a mighty challenge to the Byzantine and Roman Church.

The spread of Catharism (from the Greek Katharos = Pure) was a re-emergence of an old nightmare, what the church had tried to vanquish during the first 6 centuries A.D.

The Cathars were originally from Thraïce (Bulgaria) where the religion was instigated by the ‘dualist Pope Bogomilus’.

The Bogomils spread through the Balkans towards western Europe and later to the Kingdom of Kiev (Ukraine).

They had much in common with the Manicheans of the 4th century (St Augustine was a Manichean for 9 years before his conversion). They believed that God was stronger than Satan. Material creation was the work of Satan/Rex Mundi, the Lord of the world.