Of themselves they say: "We are the poor of Christ, who have no fixed abode and flee from city to city like sheep amidst wolves, are persecuted as were the apostles and the martyrs, despite the fact that we lead a most strict and holy life, persevering day and night in fasts and abstinence, in prayers, and in labour from which we seek only the necessities of life. We undergo this because we are not of this world. But you, lovers of the world, have peace with it because you are of the world. False apostles, who pollute the word of Christ, who seek after their own interest, have led you and your fathers astray from the true path. We and our fathers, of apostolic descent, have continued in the Grace of God and shall so remain to the end of time. To distinguish between us and you Christ said "By their fruits you shall know them". Our fruits consist in following the footsteps of Christ.

(Sancti Bernardi epistolae, (letter 472, Everwini Steinfeldensis praepositi ad S. Bernardum) cited by Walter L Wakefield & Austin P Evans Heresies of the High Middle Ages, (Columbia, 1991) p. 129.)

Basic Tenets

Cathars were Gnostic Dualist Christians who claimed to retain many of the beliefs and practices of the early Christian Church.

All of their beliefs stemmed from logical deductions from a combination of these three fundamental beliefs (Gnosticism, Dualism and Christianity)

For example they displayed contempt for everything material, a position with enormous ramifications, based on their Dualism.

Dualism

The Cathars were Dualists. That is, they believed in two universal principles, a good God and a bad God, much like the Javeh and Satan of mainstream Christianity. As Dualists, they belonged to a tradition that was already ancient in the days of Jesus. (The revered Magi in the nativity story were Zoroastrians - Persian Dualists. Dualism came, and still comes, in many flavours. Even the Cathar variety came in more than one flavour, but the principal one was this: The Good God was the god of all immaterial things (such as light and souls). The bad God was the god of all material things, including the world and everything in it. He had contrived to capture souls and imprison them in human bodies through the process of conception. As Cathars put it, we are all divine sparks, even angels, imprisoned in a tunic of flesh.

According to later Cathar ideas, when we die the powers of the air throng around and persecute the newly released soul, which flees into the first lodging of clay that it finds. This "lodging of clay" might be human or animal. The soul would therefore be condemned to cycle of rebirth, trapped in another physical body. By leading a good enough life human beings or rather their souls could win freedom from imprisonment and return to heaven, the immaterial realm of the good god. For members of the Cathar Elect, death was no more than taking off a dirty tunic.

The realm of the Good God, heaven, was filled with light. (Some Cathars regarded the stars as divine sparks, or souls, or angels, in heaven). The realm of the bad god was the material world in which we serve out our earthly terms. Satan had entrapped these divine sparks and created humankind as their prison. Thus there was a part of the Good God trapped in all men and women, longing to rejoin its Maker. The Bad God filled humankind with temptations to frustrate souls from ever making that reunion. They could be tortured by disease, famine and other travails, including man's own inhumanity to his fellow man. Yet the Bad God had no power over the soul - a divine spark of the Good God. His remit was confined to material things. Any hell that existed was here on this material earth. To confound the Bad God it was necessary to abstain from all earthly temptations and to strengthen the inner spirit by prayer. It was a persuasive argument and it seemed to provide a rational explanation for all the misfortunes of the world.

Early Christianity adopted Neoplatonist ideas and these ideas paralleled Dualist ideas. Neoplatonism taught a doctrine of salvation alongside Dualism. Human bodies were material objects made of earth and dust, but our immortal souls were not, they were sparks of the divine. The divine was characterised as light, opposed to the darkness. According to Plotinus, souls were illuminated by the divine light. Matter on the other hand was just darkness, and had no real existence. These Neoplatonist ideas were an integral part of Early Christianity, later dropped in mainstream Christianity when it switched from Plato's philosophy to Aristotle's as a result of Thomas Aquinas's attempts to reconcile Christianity with Aristotle's philosophy. The Cathars' teachings on this, as on many other matters, reiterate those of the early Church, and suggest that their origins date from early Christian times. The Cathar Consolamentum, almost certainly preserves this ancient tradition:

Many early Christian writings reflect the same early Christian distaste and even loathing of the material world. Most of these writings were discarded from the orthodox version of the New Testament, but a few passages made it into canonical scripture. Here for example is 1 John 2:15-17

The idea that flesh was inherently evil was particularly popular in mainstream Christianity - it was formalised in the concept of Original Sin and was enormously popular up until the twentieth century. Today this traditional teaching is played down, and it comes as a shock to many Christians to hear the words like that of the Burial service from the Book of Common Prayer, contrasting an evil material body with a good spiritual one: ".... our Lord Jesus Christ, who shall change our vile body that it may be like to his glorious body."

Gnosticism

Cathars were also Gnostics. Gnostics believed, and still believe, that divine knowledge is granted only to an inner elite, like the "esoteric" knowledge of the Pythagoreans. The inner elite undertook a long period of training before leading severely ascetic lives. These were the Cathar Elect, or as they are now popularly known Parfaits. Cathars were also universalists, which means that they believed in the ultimate salvation of all human beings.

Here is an account of how they saw themselves, recorded in 1143 or 1144 by Eberwin, Prior of the Premonstratensian Abbey of Steinfeld writing to Bernard of Clairvaux (St Bernard):

Of themselves they say: "We are the poor of Christ, who have no fixed abode and flee from city to city like sheep amidst wolves, are persecuted as were the apostles and the martyrs, despite the fact that we lead a most strict and holy life, persevering day and night in fasts and abstinence, in prayers, and in labour from which we seek only the necessities of life. We undergo this because we are not of this world. But you, lovers of the world, have peace with it because you are of the world. False apostles, who pollute the word of Christ, who seek after their own interest, have led you and your fathers astray from the true path. We and our fathers, of apostolic descent, have continued in the Grace of God and shall so remain to the end of time. To distinguish between us and you Christ said "By their fruits you shall know them". Our fruits consist in following the footsteps of Christ.

(Sancti Bernardi epistolae, (letter 472, Everwini Steinfeldensis praepositi ad S. Bernardum) cited by Walter L Wakefield & Austin P Evans Heresies of the High Middle Ages, (Columbia, 1991) p. 129.)

Implications of Cathar Beliefs

The idea that human beings were sparks of light trapped in tunics of material flesh had a number of logical consequences:

Procreative sex was bad, since conception would result in another soul being trapped. For this reason, normal sex between man and wife was as bad as any other procreative sex. Marriage was worthless, while contraception was regarded with approval. Also, there was no reason to condemn any form of non-procreative sex.
The less one had to do with evil (ie material) things, the better. Eating animals, or animal products, was particularly abhorred, though fish were allowed (as they were thought to reproduce asexually and were not therefore able to imprison a soul).
The sooner we can shed this tunic of flesh, the sooner our souls could be free to fly like a spark of light back to heaven, the realm of the good God. There was therefore no reason to discourage suicide.
There was not any reason to regard men as better than women. The important part, the soul, was the same. Only the vile material body was different.
Since material objects were creations of the Bad God, it was absurd to imagine that they could be of any virtue. So, for example, jewels, money, relics, the Eucharist, reproductions of the cross, and church buildings were of no value whatsoever. Similarly the Catholic teaching about resurrection of the body was absurd. The very idea of a physical body in heaven was ridiculous. Further, it was not plausible that the Good God would send anyone from his realm into the evil material world of the Bad God. Jesus must therefore have been a sort of phantom, looking like a man but in fact immaterial.
Anyone who attached great value to material things was at best mistaken and at worst a disciple of the Bad God. It was no secret that the Pope was the richest man in Europe. Cardinals, bishops and priests lived in great luxury and dressed in gorgeous robes. Worse, the Roman Church encouraged the worship of material objects such as the relics of saints. And worse yet it venerated the cross - not only a material object but also an instrument of torture. There was no escaping the logical conclusion. Roman Catholics were worshipping the wrong God - the God of Evil who had created this world. The behaviour of devout Catholics seemed to confirm this conclusion. Carthars referred to the Roman Church as the Church of Wolves.

The Cathar Church Hierarchy

Cathars did not regard Parfaits as priests. Parfaits did exercise sacramental responsibilities but did not carry out sacrifices, the defining activity of a priest. The New Testament word often translated as priest, presbyter, does not really mean "priest". It means "elder", which is how it is translated in many modern bibles. Perhaps significantly, the New Testament never uses the word priest (sacerdos) nor does it talk about a priesthood (except in the sense that all believers are priests). In this, as in much else, historians concur that Cathars appear to represent a survival of the Earliest Christian Church.

Although the Cathars did not recognise a priesthood, they did elect bishops from among the elect. These were bishops in the sense that the word (episcopos) is used in the New Testament - it could reasonably be translated into English as supervisor.

Cathar bishops were responsible for distinct areas. Various bishoprics were mentioned including Toulouse, Carcassonne, Albi, Agen, Lombers, Saint-Paul, Cabaret, Servian and Montségur ( Montsegùr), to which was soon added that of the Razès (founded during the 1226 Cathar Council at Pieusse).

When a bishop died another official, the Elder Son (filius major), would take his place. The Younger Son (filius minor) would replace the Elder Son and a new Younger Son would be chosen from the existing Elect. The Elder and Younger sons can conveniently be regarded as first and second deacons respectively. Cathar Deacons were tasked with the Apareilementum (or public confession). Some authorities, including Jean Duvernoy, claim that each Deacon controlled a region. Among the seats of the deacons were Moissac, Cordes, Toulouse, Puylaurens, Avignonet, Fanjeaux, Montréal, Carcassonne, Mirepoix, Le Bézu , Puilaurens, Peyrepertuse, Quéribus, and Tarascon-sur-Ariège. Historians disagree about the existence of Deaconesses.

Cathars did not recognise the hierarchy of the Roman Church, much of which has no biblical sanction. There are for example no archbishops, metropolitans, primates, cardinals, patriarchs, or popes mentioned in the New Testament.

For a long time the Catholics accused the Cathars of having their own Pope, apparently misunderstanding the famous visit of Cathar bishop from the Balkans to a Cathar Council in the Languedoc.

Ordinary Believers
("Credentes"; or Listeners - "Auditores")

Like the members of most religions, ordinary Cathar believers held a range of beliefs at different times and in different places. In general, their beliefs would be almost indistinguishable from those of most modern Christians. Certainly, their beliefs would seem unremarkable to most people in the western world. Certainly too, ordinary Cathars and ordinary Catholics in the Languedoc got on together perfectly well before the Crusades.

Ordinary Cathar believers behaved much like anyone else at the time, they contracted marriages, had children, ate meat, fought in wars, and followed the Ten Commandments when it suited them. The distinguishing feature was that they undertook to undergo a special ceremony (called the Consolamentum) before their death. They generally deferred this rite until they were on their deathbeds, just as early Christians normally deferred baptism until they were on theirs. This rite ensured that their soul would be released from the cycle of earthly imprisonment. Instead it would be free to return to the realm of light.

Although undergoing the Consolamentum before their death was the only obligation on them, adherents of the sect seem to have led more ascetic lives than their conventional Catholic neighbours. They made serious efforts to follow not only the Ten Commandments (especially about killing and lying) but other biblical injunctions (for example not swearing oaths in any circumstances). They kept three Lents each year, and fasted on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays of each week. During these fasts a diet of bread and water was usual. Believers would also engage in a regular form of public confession which, they were taught, dated from the earliest days of Christianity.

Some believers chose to undertake the Consolamentum before the prospect of death loomed. This changed the believer into one of the Cathar Elect, which had profound implications for the rest of their lives. This was not a step to be undertaken lightly. Such a believer would be put under a period of probation for initiation, which lasted at least one and often several years, during which they fasted continuously, before being considered for the Consolamentum.

Cathars in England

Cathars spread throughout Europe and are recorded in many countries. A group of some 30 men and women, referred to as Publicans, were detected in England. They were brought before a synod of bishops and King Henry II at Oxford probably in the winter of 1165.

In those days there came to England certain erring folk of the sect commonly thought to be called Publicans. These seem to have originated in Gascony under an unknown founder, and they spread the poison of their infidelity in a great many regions; for in the broad lands of France, Spain, Italy, and Germany so many are said to be infested with this pestilence that, as the Psalmist of old complained, they seem to have multiplied beyond number

... When they were questioned systematically upon the articles of holy faith, they answered correctly enough on the nature of the Celestial Physician, but as to the remedies by which He deigns to heal human infirmities - that is, the divine sacraments - they gave the wrong replies. They scorned holy baptism, the Eucharist, and matrimony, and with wicked rashness they disparaged the Catholic unity which these divine aids instil.

...They laughed at threats uttered in all piety against them in the hope that through fear they might be brought to their senses, and misapplied the word of the Lord "Blessed are they that suffer persecution for justice's sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven". Thereupon, the bishops, taking precautions lest the heretical poison should spread more widely, publicly denounced them as heretics and handed them over to His Catholic Highness for corporal punishment. He commanded that the brand of heretical infamy be burned on their brows, that they be flogged in the presence of the people, and that they be driven out of the city. And he strictly enjoined anyone from presuming to give them shelter or offer them any comfort. When the sentence had been declared, they were led away, rejoicing in their just punishment, their master leading them jauntily and chanting "Blessed are ye when men shall revile you". ... Then the detestable group were branded on the brows, and suffered a just severity - as a mark of his primacy he who was their leader receiving a double brand on brow and chin. Stripped of their clothing to the waist and publicly flogged with resounding blows, they were driven out of the city, and perished miserably in the bitter cold, for it was winter and no one offered them the slightest pity.

The quotation is from William of Newburgh's history of the Kings of England, written around 1199-1201: Willelmi Parvi, canonici de Novoburgo, historia rerum anglicarum 1. xiii ed. by Richard Howlett, in Chronicles of the Reigns of Stephen, Henry II and Richard I (Rolls Series, LXXXII [4 vols, London, 1884-1889] I 131-34). English translation from Wakefield and Evans, Heresies of the High Middle Ages, 40 (pp 245 - 247). (

Here's another, fuller translation:

OF THE ENTRANCE OF HERETICS INTO ENGLAND, AND THEIR EXTERMINATION.

At this time certain heretics came into England, of that sect, as it is believed, commonly called Publicans. These, spread the poison of their heresy (which had originated from an un known author in Gascony,) in many regions; for such numbers are said to be infected with this pestilence throughout the extensive provinces of France, Spain, Italy, and Germany, that we may ex claim, in the words of the prophet, “ Lord, how are they increased that trouble me!” [Ps. iii. 1.] Finally, when the bishops and princes act towards them too leniently, these subtle foxes issue from their hiding-places, and, under the mask of piety, by leading astray the simple, lay waste the vineyard of the Lord of Hosts both grievously and widely; but when the zeal of the faithful is kindled against them by the inspiration of God, they lie concealed in their dens, and become less noxious; but still they cease not to annoy, by disseminating their secret poison. Their victims are rustics, and the half-witted, who are, consequently, slow to under stand their fallacies; but, when once tinctured with this heresy, they remain inflexible to all discipline; whence it rarely happens that they are reconverted to the truth, when they are dragged from their lurking-places. From such, and similar heretical pests, Eng land had always been free, though so many sprang up in other parts of the world. This island, however, when it was denominated Britain, from its inhabitants the Britons, gave birth to Pelagius, the future heresiarch in the East, and in process of time admitted his error to her own shores; to annihilate which the pious fore sight of the Gallican church again and again sent forth the blessed German; but when this island, after the expulsion of the Britons, became possessed by the Angles, and was no longer denominated Britain, but England, no poisonous heresy ever issued from it; nor, till the time of king Henry the second, did heresy infuse itself from other countries for the purpose of propagation and extension. Then, also, by the assistance of God, such means were adopted to counteract the poison, that it must tremble at the idea of again entering the island.

There were about thirty men and women who concealed their error, and came hither, for the purpose of disseminating their heresy, under the conduct of one Gerard, to whom all looked up as teacher and chief; for he alone had any tincture of learning; the others, Germans by birth and language, were both illiterate and silly, as well as uncouth and rude. After a short residence in England, they added to their party only one weak woman, who was overcome by their poisonous insinuations, and bewitched (as it is said) by certain sorceries. Indeed, they could not remain long concealed, for certain persons having carefully examined them, they being of a foreign sect, they were discovered, seized, and confined in public prisons. The king, however, being unwilling to. punish them without examination, commanded a council of the bishops to be assembled at Oxford. Here, when they were solemnly interrogated concerning their faith, the man who appeared the best informed undertaking the cause, and speaking for all, replied that they were Christians, and highly venerated apostolical doctrine. Being questioned singly concerning the articles of the holy faith, they answered rightly concerning the substance of the doctrines of the heavenly Physician, but perversely concerning those remedies—that is, the holy sacraments, whereby He deigns to heal human in?rmity; they rejected holy Baptism, the Eucharist, and matrimony; and, with impious daring, derogated from the catholic unity, which admits of these divine assistances. When they were pressed by texts taken from the holy Scriptures, they said they believed as they had been taught, but were unwilling to dispute about their faith. When admonished to repent, and become united to the body of the Church, they despised all whole some counsel. They laughed at the threats kindly held out to induce them to become wise through fear, misapplying the divine expression, “ Blessed are they which are persecuted for righteous ness' sake; for theirs is the kingdom of heaven,” [Matt. v. 10.] The bishops, therefore, guarding against the further dissemination of heresy, delivered them, as convicted heretics, to the catholic prince to be subjected to corporeal discipline. He commanded the mark of heretical ignominy to be branded on their foreheads, and that they should_be whipped in the presence of the people, and expelled the city, and strictly inhibited any one to presume to entertain or supply them with any comfort whatever. Their sen tence being proclaimed, they were conducted to their just punish ment rejoicing, their leader preceding with hasty step, and singing, “Blessed shall ye be when men shall hate you.”—To such a degree did the seducing spirit pervert the minds of those he had deceived. The woman whom they had led astray in England, having departed from them for fear of punishment, confessed her error, and‘ was recovered to the Church. Moreover, this vile assemblage, with branded foreheads, was subjected to just severity, and he who had, the supremacy over them underwent the stigma of a double brand, on his forehead and his chin, to designate his authority. Their garments being torn down to their waists, they were publicly scourged; and while the lash yet resounded, they were expelled the city, and miserably perished from the inclemency of the weather, for it was winter, while no person showed them the smallest pity. The pious severity of this discipline not only cleansed the kingdom of England from that pest which had crept into it, but also prevented its future intrusion, by the terror which it struck into heretics.

The Church Historians of England, Vol IV, Part II, The History of William of Newburgh: The Chronicles of Robert de Monte, Rev Joseph Stevenson, (London: Seeleys, 1856), Chapter XIII, (pp. 460-1). (availble on Google Books)

We can only speculate at how gratified the bishops must have been that not a single member of their Christian flock offered not "the slightest pity" to their mutilated, stripped, resoundingly scourged, Christian brethren from overseas, but instead left them to starve or freeze to death in the bitter winter cold.

The Elect (Parfaits and Parfaites)

When a believer underwent the Consolamentum, his or her life changed for ever. After this rite they were members of the Elect. From now on they would lead the life of an ascetic. They were to be completely chaste, and were not permitted even to touch members of the opposite sex. They were not permitted to tell a lie, swear an oath, nor kill any living creature. They would have to undertake frequent fasts, including three 40 day fasts each year.

For those who expected to die within hours this had less significance than for those who undertook the rite without the expectation of imminent death. They lived simple, peaceful, devotional, chaste lives of poverty, often travelling on foot in pairs like the disciples, preaching and working in simple trades like weaving to earn their living. To their followers the Elect were living saints. Touched by the Holy Spirit, they were God's ambassadors in an alien world. The contrast with bejewelled, warmongering, sybaritic, indolent, lascivious Churchmen living on forcibly extorted tithes was difficult for the slowest peasant to miss.

The Elect were not an ordained priesthood, though their Catholic critics never seem to have fully understood this (and even modern works still refer to Parfaits as "priests"). The defining feature of a priest is that he makes sacrifices to a divinity - something that Parfaits did not do, and so cannot correctly be called priests. They did however minister and preach, and they also controlled the Church, electing their own bishops. They received from the Believers unquestioning obedience. As vessels in whom the Holy Spirit dwelt, they were adored by the faithful, who would prostrate themselves before them whenever they asked for their prayers. (Another practice dating from the earliest days of Christianity). The Elect alone were adopted sons of God. Ordinary believers would ask members of the Elect to pray to the Good God for them - specifically for the Good God to lead them to a good death.

The Elect were not permitted to eat meat, or other animal products such as cheese, eggs or milk. All of these were held to be produced per Siam generatinis sen coitus, and everything sexually begotten was impure. Another reason why the Perfect should not eat animals was that a human soul might be imprisoned in its body. Curiously, the Elect were permitted to eat fish. Fish were believed to be born in the water without sexual connection, and on the foundation of this fallacy Christians framed their fasting rules. As they pointed out, the Jesus of Gospels was recorded as having eaten fish but not meat. (The common practice of eating fish but not meat on Fridays is a Catholic vestige of the same Mediaeval fallacy.) Vegetarianism was regarded as evidence of heresy, as was the refusal to kill any animal, as Cathars interpreted the commandment "Thou shalt not kill" as referring to all animals (The original Hebrew is ambiguous and some Jewish scholars have agreed with the Cathar reading, some with the Catholic reading).

As well as refusal to kill, Inquisitors had a range of easy ways of identifying Cathar Parfaits. Before the real persecutions started they had always worn black robes, but they stopped doing that when the persecutions began in earnest. They also refused to swear oaths in any circumstances, which made it easy to identify them once subject to questioning. To identify them in the first place a good indicator was their pale countenance. With rigorous fasting throughout the year, their pallor often gave them away. Too bad for anyone who just happened to have a light complexion. The Faithful, unless they were checked, would kill anyone that did not look like a healthy meat eater. As on other occasions the unusually liberal Bishop Wazo of Liege had trouble enforcing rationality among the faithful:

... in a measure he [Wazo] curbed the habitual headstrong madness of the French, who yearned to shed blood. For he had heard that they identified heretics by pallor alone, as if it were certain fact that those who have a pale complexion are heretics. Thus, through error coupled with cruelty, many truly Catholic persons had been killed in the past.
(Extract from Gesta episcoporum Leodiensium from the period 1043-1048, translated from Latin into English; Cited by Walter Wakefield & Austin Evans, Heresies of The High Middle Ages (Columbia, 1991) p 93)

Even the liberal Bishop Wazo had qualms only about the killing of Catholics - not about killing Cathars.

From all the evidence we have, the Cathars of the Languedoc were highly respected by those who knew them best. The contrast with local Catholic churchmen was apparent to all. The medieval historian Sir Steven Runciman having indicated the shortcomings of senior churchmen, goes on:

The parish priests, faced with such examples, either followed suit or sank into despondent apathy. Some, like the chaplain of Saint-Michel de Lanes, who would not interrupt his gaming even to celebrate the Sacraments, were as worldly as any of their superiors. Others were frankly immoral, like the chaplain of Rieux-en-Val, who lived with the lady of the village, after she had murdered her husband. Others again, to save trouble, maintained the friendliest relations with the heretics and even were present at their ceremonies. None of them could command a fraction of the respect given to the heretic leaders either for the purity of their lives or for the force and efficacy of their preaching.
Steven Runciman, The Medieval Manichee (Cambridge University Press, 1999) p 136 (for those who are interested, Sir Steven provides references for each of the last 5 sentences of this paragraph.

Cathar Ceremonies

The central Cathar rite was the Consolamentum, or Baptism of the Holy Spirit and fire referred to in the New Testament. The Holy Spirit derived from God and was sent by Christ. The Consolamentum removed all sin, reversed the effects of the Fall, and restored the lost tunic of immortality. A Consoled person is an angel walking in the flesh, separated from heaven by a thin veil of death. Only a Parfait could administer the Consolamentum. It was striking in its simplicity, and seems to have faithfully preserved a ceremony of the very earliest Christian Church.

Cathars had a ceremony corresponding to the Catholic mass or Eucharist, but again bearing a striking resemblance the ceremony of the Early Church. They blessed bread and shared it between them, though none imagined that its substance was anything other than bread. (It is odd that even bread could have held any virtue since as a material object it belonged to the realm of the Evil god, and for this reason some Cathars seem to have rejected the idea of blessed bread). At the other end of the spectrum, some Cathars would reserve part of their blessed bread and keep it, perhaps for years, eating of it occasionally though only after saying the Benedicite (As the Church Father Tertullian relates of his contemporaries in the 2nd century).

Consolamentum or Consolament.

The Consolamentum was a spiritual baptism, as described in the New Testament, where the Jewish practice of baptism by water was abrogated, and baptism by fire implemented. (Modern Christians remember this as Pentecost and some, Pentecostalists, make it the main feature of their theology). Only a Parfait could administer the Consolamentum, which meant that every new Parfait stood at the end of a chain of predecessor Parfaits linking him or her to the apostles and to Jesus himself.

It was the most significant ceremony in Cathar theology, marking the transition from ordinary believer (auditore or credente) to to Parfait, one of the elect. During the ceremony the Holy Spirit was believed to descend from heaven, and part of the Holy Spirit would then inhabit the Parfait's corporal body. It was largely because of this indwelling portion of the Holy Spirit that Parfaits were expected and willing to lead such austere ascetic lives, and why ordinary believers were prepared to "adore" them.

The ceremony was striking in its simplicity. It required no material elements such as water or anointing oil, and seems to have preserved a ceremony of the very earliest Christian Church. For Cathars this was hardly surprising, since they claimed that the the rite had been appointed by Christ, and had been handed down from generation to generation by the boni homines. For Catholics it was rather a mystery and their best explanation was that the Cathar rite was a distorted imitation of various Catholic rites.

The Consolamentum was also given to sick or injured believers, in the expectation of death. As long as they died quickly this presented no great problem as they had little opportunity to fall back into sin. But if they recovered they were now Parfaits, and presumably expected to behave as such. Some authorities (notably Jean Duvernoy) differentiate between the baptism of the Perfects, from the 'Solace' baptism granted to the dying for the remission of their sins. Even though both rites are identical those who received the 'Solace' baptism and survived seem to have been obliged to then undertake the normal training and receive the Consolamentum again to became a fully functioning member of the Elect.

Becoming a Parfait or Parfaite required a long period of probation and instruction, just as becoming a Christian did in the early Church. Compare the following statements accurately reflecting three different views of how to become a member of the Church of Christ:

Medieval Catholic	Early Church	Cathar Church
A person would be received into the Church by being baptised, without necessarily needing to give their consent, as in the case of infant baptism.	A person would be received into the Church in one of two circumstances. They would be deemed worthy after a long period of preparation and instruction or they would request to be received on their deathbed. In either case they would need to give their consent.	A person would be received into the Church in one of two circumstances. They would be deemed worthy after a long period of preparation and instruction or they would request to be received on their deathbed. In either case they would need to give their consent.

As Wakefield and Evans, Heresies of the High Middle Ages, § 57 (p 465), put it "Like a catechumen of the early Church - Catharist practices reflect the ancient usage - a believer had to undergo a period of probation, normally at least a year, during which he was instructed in the faith and disciplined in a life of rigorous asceticism"

Wakefield and Evans cite Jean Guiraud, "Le consolamentum cathare", Revue Des questions historiques, new series XXXI (1904), 74-112, and refer also to Dondaine, Un Traiténéo-manichéen du XIIIe siècle: Le Liber de duobus principus, suivi d'un fragment de rituel cathare (Rome, 1939), pp 45-46, and Arno Borst, Die Katharer (Schriften der Monumenta Germaniae Historica, XII (Stuttgart, 1953) PP 193-96.

Click on the following link for the detailed account of the ceremony of the Consolamentum (taken from the Traditio - the Lyons Ritual) in Occitan and English Next:

Below is a summary of what it involved.

After a long period of training and fasting, the rite proceeded as follows:

The "Melhoramentum"
The Perfect held the Bible above the kneeling postulant's head and recited the "Benedicite" .
The postulant received from a Parfait a copy of the "The Pater" (Lord's Prayer).
The Perfect addressed the postulant and explained to him from Scripture the indwelling of the spirit in the Perfect, and his adoption as a son by God.
The Lord's Prayer was then repeated by the postulant, the Perfect explaining it clause by clause.
There followed the Renunciation, primitive in form, except that it (in some cases it was adapted so that the postulant solemnly renounced the harlot church of the persecutors and their replicas of the cross, their sham baptisms and their other magical rites).
Next followed the spiritual baptism itself, consisting of the imposition of hands, and the touching of the Gospel on the postulant's head.
The Parfait's vocation was then defined, he or she was reminded of all the things that are forbidden, and of what was required of them: pardoning wrongdoers, loving enemies, praying for those who calumniate and accuse, offering the other cheek to the smiter, giving up one's mantle to him that takes one's tunic, neither judging nor condemning. Asked if he will fulfil each of these requirements, the postulant answered: "I have this will and determination. Pray God for me that he give me his strength".
The next part of the rite reproduced the confiteor as it existed in the 2nd century, asking pardon for previous sins.
Then followed the act of consoling. The Perfect took the Gospel and placed it on the postulant's head. Other Perfects present placed their right hands on the postulant's head.
They then three times adored the Father and Son and Holy Spirit and said a prayer asking God to welcome his servant and to send down the Holy Spirit.
They then said the parcias, and repeated three times the "Let us adore the Father and Son and Holy Spirit", and then pray: "Holy Father, welcome thy servant in thy justice and send upon him thy grace and thy holy spirit."
Then they repeated the adoration and the The Lord's Prayer, then read the John Gospel (1:1-17). This was the most solemn part of the rite, for the postulant was now a Perfect.
All Perfects present would give the kiss of peace and the rite was over.

.The Cathars did have other ceremonies, or quasi-ceremonies, including the following;

Melhoramentum.

Not really much of a ceremony, more a formal greeting. Derived from an Occitan word meaning improving, the Melhoramentum was the acknowledgement by a believer of the Holy Spirit dwelling with the Parfait.

The believer would kneel and, with both hands folded, bow three times to the ground. On each genuflexion the believer would say: «Bless me, Lord; pray for me». Then, the Cathar prayed : «Lead us to our rightful end». The perfect, man or woman, then answered «God bless you... In our prayers, we ask from God to make a good Christian out of you and lead you to your rightful end».

As so often, the Catholics never really seem to have understood what this was about. This practice was often regarded as worship or as they usually put it "adoration" of the Parfait.

Click on the following link for the Melhormentum (taken from the Traditio - the Lyons Ritual) in Occitan and English Next:

Lo Servissi (The "Service")
the Apareilementum or Aparelhament.

This was a monthly rite involving a public and a solemn confession, identical to the earliest form of confession known in the Christian Church.

The aparelhament could give rise to punishments, ranging from prayers with genuflection to fasting. Absolution was given en "masse".

The rite was restricted to the Elect and formed part of the ceremony of Cathar Baptism or Consolamentum. Click on the following link for the Servissi (taken from the Traditio - the Lyons Ritual) in Occitan and English Next:

Convenenza.

The opportunity to undergo the Consolamentum on one's deathbed presupposed that death would not come quickly. (The problem is similar to that of modern Catholics who believe in the efficacy of the Last Rights or Extreme Unction). In time of War, the problem was more acute as men were often left conscious, but dying and deprived of speech. The solution was a ceremony called Convenenza. It was not itself a Consolamentum, but it fulfilled the parts of the Consolamentum that required the candidate to respond and make undertakings. The Consolamentum could then be administered subsequently if the candidate was wounded and could not speak.

The Convenenza seems to have been common before battles and during sieges. We have a first hand account of this practice, taken from the Déposition de Guillaume Tardieu de la Galiole (translated by Jean Duvernoy «Le Dossier de Montségur : interrogatoires d'lnquisition 1242-1247»):

«... Then, on this Perfect's request, I devoted myself to God and the Gospel and promised to no longer eat meat, eggs, cheese and fat apart from oil and fish. I also promised not to swear in all my life, and to forsake the sect out of fear of fire, water and other kinds of death. After this oath, I recited the Pater Noster in the Parfaits' manner, then the Perfait held the book above my head and read the Gospel of Saint John. After this, they gave me peace first with the book and then with the mouth, kissing me twice across the mouth and prayed God, amidst much kneeling and "venias"»

Sir Seven Runciman, in The Medieval Manichee (CUP, 1982) PP 152-3) has a slightly different viewpoint, and seems to consider the Convenenza to be more generally available as a sort of preliminary membership.

Before the rite of entry into the sect, the ceremony of the Convenenza (Convenientia), could be performed, the would-be believer had to be adjudged a suitable recipient. Large numbers of persons who certainly sympathised with and even believed in the heresy never went through the ceremony. It was only when they were already besieged in Montségur in 1244 that the soldiers who were fighting for Catharism all celebrated the Convenenza. Till then they had not strictly been members of the sect.

At the ceremony of the Convenenza the celebrant made one promise. to honour the superior cast: in the sect, the Perfects, and to hold himself at their disposal whenever they should need him. In return he was promised that he should have the second initiatory rite, the Consolamentum, that would make him a Perfect, administered to him on his deathbed, or sooner if he so desired. In the latter case the initiation was very stringent. The noviciate might last for a year or more, and the candidate would be very carefully examined to be sure that he could stand the rigours of a Perfect's life. William Tardieu told the Inquisitor: that for a year he was kept as a novice under the charge of a Perfect; but because he fell very ill he was given the Consolamentum sooner than at first was intended, as his death seemed probable. Dulcia of Villeneuve-la—Comtal was kept as a novice for three years in various establishment: of Perfect women and then it was decided that she was still too young and her vocation was not clear enough. Raymonde Jougla of Saint-Martin de Lande, a. candidate who for a year Was being prepared at a community of Perfect women, was left behind by them when they fled for safety to Montségur, as they did not think her nearly ready—she was not firm enough in the faith. The period of preparation, the Abstinentia, lasted for a year at least; and during that time the candidate had to live a life of the utmost austerity and strictness, under the care of some Perfect.

Endura

This is not really a rite or ceremony, so much as a practice amounting to voluntary euthanasia. The Occitan word Endura translates as "fasting".

In certain circumstances, believers would take the Consolamentum and then starve themselves to death. This might be done for example during an extended terminal illness, or in expectation of falling into the hands of the Inquisitors. Why hang around in hell, when freedom is within easy reach to those who have undertaken the Consolamentum? The practice of suicide was after all common among early Christians. We have the testimony of a Roman magistrate addressing a group of early Christians who were asking him to execute them. He told them it was easy enough to buy some rope or find a suitable precipice.

Although the practice is entirely in line with Cathar theology, and is attested in contemporary documentary evidence, there is some doubt about how common it was. References to it are rare, late and often suspicious - bearing the hallmarks of hostile witnesses. The case of Guilhelma, a resident of Toulouse for example, is typical of suspicious reportage - she is supposed to have regularly bled herself while sitting in a hot bath, and eventually poisoned herself and ate ground glass.

Since Catholics regarded suicide as a great sin, they seem to have made the most of the Cathar acceptance of it. (In much the same way that they exploited a second charge that they found so horrifying and that was apparently true - that Cathars used and had no objection to contraception). Many Catholic works, even modern ones, make out that suicide was a routine and frequent practice, and it is not unknown for propagandists to claim, or more often hint, that many Cathars spent their lives in repeated suicide attempts - starving themselves, slashing their wrists, poisoning themselves and consuming powdered glass. These accusations are based on the one isolated and questionable story of Guilhelma - and rely on an old myth that eating powdered glass will cause death. In fact there is no evidence that suicide was more common among Cathars than it was, or still is, among Catholics. The only known difference was the level of acceptance in the two communities.

The idea of a "good end" is an old one. The term euthanasia comes from the Greek. Hippocrates used it. It translates in English literally as "good end". The Cathars on leaving each other would say not Goodbye ["God be with you"] but "May you come to a good end" - meaning "may you die having undertaken the consolamentum". This was the best possible death as it meant the release of the soul from its cycle of reincarnation. There are hints that the idea of wishing one's coreligionists a "good end" was more widespread, and might have been known to Persian Manichaeans or even Zoroastrians.

The Cathars believed that the God of the New Testament was the good one, and the God of the Old Testament was the evil one, better known as Satan. The good God created the spirit, while the evil one created the material world. Contrary to the regular Christian belief, the Cathars thought of the entire world as evil, and as such it could not have been created by a benevolent god.

Here we can see the key aspect of the Cathar doctrines - the emphasizing of asceticism and the rejection of the physical world, as well as a direct response to the growingly scandalous and decadent lives of the Catholic clergymen in France. They also believed that the Evil God, or Satan, was the God of Judaism and they held that the Jewish law was wholly evil.

Their teaching is further characterized by a belief that human spirits were actually those of angels, who were seduced by Satan and forced to spend their lives in the material plane. In order to reach their angelic form or status, the Cathars preached full renouncing of the physical world of sin, and a devotion to the spiritual matters. The final release of their souls from the material world was done through the Cathar consolamentum ceremony.

When Belief Disturbs the Money
Jesus Christ was highly venerated by the Cathars, but in a unique way. They believed that he was one of the angels and rejected his human form, considering it only an appearance. Cathars adhered to the core, good teachings of Christ, and thus called themselves ‘the Good Christians’.

The Resurrection of Jesus was denied, as well as the symbol of the Christian cross - another material thing which was simply a tool for torture and evil. Their adherents also completely avoided any form of killing and would not eat any animal products, or anything that was a form of sexual reproduction.

They believed that the Catholic Church was a false organization which prostituted itself for power and wealth gained by sinful means. And here we can see the first reason why the Catholic Church considered them as heretics.

The Cathar Crusades Begin
The Cathar Crusade (also known as the Albigensian Crusade) begun in 1209. A force of around 10,000 crusaders was assembled and soon began their march. The first town in their path was Beziers, which was protected by a prominent noble and a Cathar follower - Raymond Roger Trencavel.

But seeing his situation and being largely unprepared to defend Beziers effectively, Trencavel fled to the mighty fortress of Carcassonne, in order to prepare a suitable defense. Sadly, the city of Beziers was left to the mercy of the crusaders, and mercy was not quite a common term in the crusader vocabulary.

Under the command of the papal legate, a Cistercian abbot by the name of Arnaud Amalric, the crusaders besieged the city and on the following day managed to enter within the city walls. What followed was a shocking massacre of its Cathar inhabitants. The entire city was burnt down and all of its residents murdered.

Interestingly, the city was not only inhabited by Cathars but by Catholics too. Even so, they were all put to the sword together. When the soldiers attempted to distinguish Cathar from Catholic, Amalric reportedly said: “ Kill them all! God will distinguish them.” In a letter to the pope, Arnaud Amalric coolly wrote that around 20,000 people were massacred that day in Beziers.

Cathar Beliefs