The Visions I have seen are truth at the end of this road. At Rhedae, now known as Rennes-le-Chateau, Charlemagne instituted a survey of the region. [3] The belief may have originated in the Byzantine Empire. The extreme asceticism made the Cathari a church of the elect, and yet in France and northern Italy it became a popular religion. Both are in huge error on some basic points! Why do they not live by those guidelines? I believe in reincarnation and dualism. I went on a path of meditation and soul searching which I am still on, it never ends. The Catholic kings eventually won, although it took 200 years. I think Maybe this world is meant to burn away the things that could prevent us from entering there.
Our temple is in our heart, not bricks and mortar. Easy to watch but with very little about the true Cathar religion in it. In 1208, Pierre de Castelnau, Innocent's papal legate, was murdered while returning to Rome after excommunicating Count Raymond VI of Toulouse, who, in his view, was too lenient with the Cathars. Eventually the Cathars became numerous enough to convert some counts and kings. I need to explore this theme further, I think - I'm not sure now that I do believe in reincarnation totally but I certainly believe that the soul/spirit/energy force thingy lives on after death - I have had far too much proof not to believe. None of the Catholic kings wanted these Cathars in their territories. I could go on, but I would be challenging a psyche that has been influenced by two thousand years of misinformation. Maybe it. [23][34] They regarded the Old Testament as written by Satan, except for a few books which they accepted,[5] and considered the Book of Revelation not a prophecy about the future, but an allegorical chronicle of what had transpired in Satan's rebellion. I think this is what the Cathars recognised in Man's spirit and their dualism philosophy is not only their belief in the material world created by Satan, but of Man himself - he also is a dual being. Yes, I believe in dualism, I belive that there is another place of true untarnished Love and beauty that words can never ascribe meaning to. The Catholic concept of creation was seen as divinely ordained by a just but stern deity akin to the god of the Old Testament. In 1244 the great fortress of Montségur near the Pyrenees, a stronghold of the perfect, was captured and destroyed. Through love we have our communion with our brothers and sisters. The origins of the Cathars' beliefs are unclear, but most theories agree they came from the Byzantine Empire, mostly by the trade routes and spread from the First Bulgarian Empire to the Netherlands. Dominic met and debated with the Cathars in 1203 during his mission to the Languedoc. Many thanks for taking the time to comment. [40] They created a number of bishoprics, first at Albi around 1165[41] and after the 1167 Council at Saint-Félix-Lauragais sites at Toulouse, Carcassonne, and Agen, so that four bishoprics were in existence by 1200. Deplorable as this may seem to us today it was simply the mores of a more brutal age and little seems to have been thought about God's representative on earth having every intention of wiping others human beings off the face of the earth. [51] Although many women found something attractive in Catharism, not all found its teachings convincing. Some believe in multiple universes occupying the same space... absurd?
The vatican has many of those teachings that will never be allowed to see the light of day.
[65], The official war ended in the Treaty of Paris (1229), by which the king of France dispossessed the house of Toulouse of the greater part of its fiefs, and that of the Trencavels (Viscounts of Béziers and Carcassonne) of the whole of their fiefs. [56], In 1215, the bishops of the Catholic Church met at the Fourth Council of the Lateran under Pope Innocent III; part of the agenda was combating the Cathar heresy. In the first half of the 11th century isolated groups of such heretics appeared in western Germany, Flanders, and northern Italy. [10] Pope Innocent III then abandoned the option of sending Catholic missionaries and jurists, declared Pierre de Castelnau a martyr and launched the Albigensian Crusade in 1209. Arnaud-Amaury, the Cistercian abbot-commander, is supposed to have been asked how to tell Cathars from Catholics. Maybe someday the truth will be found in a safe container in an obscure cave, and all we believe will come crashing down. "That there was a substantial transmission of ritual and ideas from Bogomilism to Catharism is beyond reasonable doubt. Thank You for your reply. did not believe in oaths as this was seen as tying oneself to the material world. [13] These are probably the same Cathari (actually Novations) who are mentioned in Canon 8 of the First Ecumenical Council of Nicaea in the year 325, which states "... [I]f those called Cathari come over [to the faith], let them first make profession that they are willing to communicate [share full communion] with the twice-married, and grant pardon to those who have lapsed ..."[14], The writings of the Cathars were mostly destroyed because of the doctrine's threat perceived by the Papacy;[15] thus, the historical record of the Cathars is derived primarily from their opponents. Good story. and I have learned to protect any man or woman who can not protect themselves, and I do so fiercly. Catharism was initially taught by ascetic leaders who set few guidelines and so some Catharist practices and beliefs varied by region and over time. The Cathars have long been in the Languedoc area but many originally came from Bulgaria. :). What give the church the right to dominate the world and be superior to everyone else? From this point it is easy to see how both this idea and the belief in reincarnation would put them on a collision course with the orthodox beliefs of the Catholic church which instigated, not just the everyday persecutions of torture and massacre, but also an all out Crusade against them. Personally speaking, I'm happier believing in Cathar ideals - it appeals to my views on the mysteries of the meaning of life and why we are all here. The chronicler of the crusade which followed, Peter of Vaux de Cernay, portrays the sequence of events in such a way that, having failed in his effort to peaceably demonstrate the errors of Catharism, the Pope then called a formal crusade, appointing a series of leaders to head the assault. Thankyou. Some Cathar communities believed in a mitigated dualism similar to their Bogomil predecessors, stating that the evil god, Satan, had previously been the true God's servant before rebelling against him. [4], Catharism was greatly influenced by the Bogomils of the First Bulgarian Empire,[5] and may have also had roots in the Paulician movement in Armenia and eastern Byzantine Anatolia through Paulicians resettled in Thrace (Philipopolis). That was the last straw. What I can never understand is why Christians are incapable of sticking to a religion started by a man of peace and humility.
[12] One large text has survived, The Book of Two Principles (Liber de duobus principiis),[16] which elaborates the principles of dualistic theology from the point of view of some Albanenses Cathars.[17]. Moore's work is indicative of a larger historiographical trend towards examination of how heresy was constructed by the church.