The Cathars

Who Were the Cathars

The Cathars were a unique and large sect of Christians who sought to follow a more pure life than that which they felt was present within the Catholic Church of their time. They broke off from the Holy Roman Catholic Church in the Middle Ages. Their primary areas of reign were in Italy and the Languedoc.

Many followers of Catharism were members of the nobility from southern France, but the Cathars had a large following among the artists and poor people, as well.

What the Cathars Believed

The Cathars believed that the world was an evil place and in order to compensate for this dissatisfaction and defect, they sought to live their lives in fasting, prayer, work and non-violence.

The Dead Sea Scrolls and the Cathar Claim to Apostolic Succession

The Cathars believed that their beliefs and tradition dated back to the time of the apostles and this belief was somewhat reinforced by the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls and the Damascus Document wherein the implication is made that St. Paul was excommunicated from the Catholic Church near the end of his life.

Because the Roman Catholic Church teachings are based primarily on the teachings of St. Paul, this would, in effect, validate their claim; although the Holy Roman Catholic Church claims the same succession back to the Papacy of St. Peter which is also equally unprovable at this time.

Priests and Perfects

Their system included the equality and respect of women, which allowed for the female gender to participate in all the offices of their faith and become ‘priests’ or the ‘perfect’ which was the office of priest in the Cathar tradition.

Scriptures that Still Remain from the Cathar Religion

The only remaining scriptures from the Cathars include The Gospel of the Secret Supper and The Book of the Two Principles. The Gospel of the Secret Supper is not originally a Cathar text, but one that was inherited from the Bogomils in the 12th century. According to The Gnostic Bible, edited by William Barnstone and Marvin Meyer, The Gospel of the Secret Supper “is a gospel of the invisible father, his son the angel Christ, and John of the canonical gospels, who questions the lord (Jesus Christ) and the invisible father at a Last Supper (Passover Meal).” The Book of the Two Principles was a prime manuscript of moral doctrine to the Cathar faith which proposed a god incapable of evil and cites a unique doctrine of belief in that the God of the Old Testament, the biblical god, is not the God they worship, but rather, a demon impersonating as a god.

It was this and other radical concepts of the Cathars which made them unusually threatening to the Catholic Church of the time.

The Inquisition and the Albigensian Crusade

The Cathars and their profound popularity and growth were among the primary motivations for the Inquisition and it was the Albigensian Crusade in the year 1244 which took down the final vestiges of this newfound faith by literally killing them to the very last man and woman.

Sources: The Cathars – By Sean Martin, The Gnostic Bible – Edited by William Barnstone and Marvin Meyer

Court of Inquisition in the Middle Ages

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