THE CATHARS PART I

In August 1234, a women layed on her death bed in a home in Toulouse owned by her son in law. She was a Cathar which was a Religion despised and feared by the Church of Rome. For many Cathars the Pope himself was the Anti-christ! And the Church of Rome was the “harlot of the Apocalypse” of the church of wolves.

On that day in 1234, some Cathar Priests visited the women and gave her the sacred rite of consolamentation Into the “last rites” of their religion. A common occurrence on the death bed of their faithful believers.

But their arrival was noted by an informer hostile to the religion. Perhaps she was being spied upon, because she was known as a Cathar supporter. Her son in law acted as a courier for the Toulouse cathars.

The Dominican Inquisitors were with the Bishop of Toulouse, who had just said mass. It was on this day that their founder Dominic de Guzman had been canonized and proclaimed in Toulouse. The monks were about to have their evening meal then by divine “providence” the Prior was told of this dying woman openly accepting Cathar rites. The Prior notified the Bishop who insisted that the Inquisition deal with this outrage to the “True” religion at once.

By 400a.d. the plains of Provence had already been Christianized. Convents and Basilicas had been built over the ruins of pagan temples, making well use of their stones and columns Relics of the martyrs of the new doctrine were deposited in these churches. By becoming saints the marters became more acceptable to the pagans, who were accustomed to numerous gods and semi-gods.

Only the Druids in the Pyrenees continued their sacrifices to Abellio, their “god of light”, which had nothing to do with other persecutions or cruelties. This divinity had not created the world nor the creatures that inhabited it.

The Judeo-Roman christologists preached it but could not make any inroads with these spiritualists. Since the church couldn’t convert these pagans it osterized them by becoming more materialistic and opulent before exterminating them.

For the Druids a Christ emerging from the house of the murderous adulterous King David appeared as a contradiction. The Christ who died on the cross could never be the divinity of light. A God cannot die, and would never allow others to kill in his name because they differed with his views.

Persecuted and cursed the Druids were confined to the mountain tops and deepest caves praising the Holy Father according to their ancient and Holy custom.

The Christians came to the Pyrenees. They were persecuted by their brothers, who declared them herectics in the councils of Saragossa and Bordeaux in 380AD. Their leader Priscillian was tortured and killed in 380AD by the Roman Emperor Magnus Maximus, himself a convert to Christianity.

The Gnostic Priscillian were welcomed by the Druids and it was they who eventually converted the Druids to Christianity.

Their new homeland was in the Sarralunga forest between Sarbarth’es and Olmes, in the mountain range of Saint Bartholomew’s Peak .

From the Druids, the Priscillians, the bards and the Troubadours the Cathars were born.

The Cathars taught that God is Spirit. That love is absolute, perfect in itself, immutable, eternal and just. Nothing evil or transitory can exist in it or come from it. Its works can only be perfect, immutable, eternal, just as pure in the end as the fountain from which they flow.

This world is made up of imperfect matter and Gods Perfection.. A world of misery and a God who is love itself,

Between creatures who are only born to die, and a God who is eternal life. The Cathers came to conclude that there is an incompatibility between what is perfect and what isn’t. A cause and effect if you will. If the cause is immutable , so are the effects. If the cause or the world is the work of a good God then why was it not made perfect like himself. If he wanted to make it perfect and couldn’t, then it is obvious that he is neither all powerful nor perfect. If he could have made it perfect and didn’t want to, he would have a conflict with the perfection of love. Therefore for the Cathars God did not create the terrestrial world.

Could God be happy with so much disorder and confusion in the world. How is it that all of Gods creatures, who seem to concentrate on torture and terrorizing others, could come from a perfect creator, of pure kindness. How can the fires, floods, earthquakes volcanic eruptions and other natural disasters which make the poor homeless, destroy the crops that feed his people, and kill and or destroy thousands of families, be created from a God of perfection?

For those who seek truth it is hard to ascribe these events to a perfect and all powerful God. The God that our enemies use to justify our destruction.

These were the thoughts of the Albigensian Cathars. How could a perfect God have created man whose ultimate destiny was death after being tortured by all types of evils?

The fundamental opposition between good and evil is found in Mazdaism, Druidism, and Pythagorean philosophy and now Catharism and is known as the dualist system. The predesesor of Catholism the Church of Rome was very much apposed to this theology as they supported the all powerful and all knowing and one and only True God. Any theology that didn’t support or questioned the dogma was deemed heretical and would soon be delt with by a cold horror that would sweep the land in the name of Christ but not the Christ of history but the Vaticans Christ!

So without finishing their meal the Inquisitors left with the Bishop to the home of the woman. They entered her home so suddenly that her friends weren't able to warn her of their arrival. The bishop sat down beside her and calmly began to discuss her beliefs with her. She felt no alarm perhaps she didn't realize who was visiting her! Perhaps she thought he was a Cathar priest, not a Roman priest Bishop! Evidently unconcerned, she began to talk freely, thinking that this was part of the Cathar “death rites”. The Bishop led her on, encouraging her to talk and telling her you “must not lie”. “ I tell you must be steadfast in your belief do not confess anything you do not believe in”.

She replied with considerable composure and dignity “my lord what I say I believe, and I shall not change my commitment out of concern for the miserable remainder of my life”.

At this the Bishops demeanor changed and turned foul “therefore you are a heretic !” He exclaimed for what you have confessed is the faith of heretics. Accept what the Church of Rome believes......Believe!! Showing courage the woman refused. So the Bishop evoking Jesus Christ formally proclaimed her a Heretic and by doing so condemned her to death!

So was immediately picked up in her bed and carried outside to a nearby meadow outside of the city limits owned by the Count of Toulouse. She was immediately burned to death!

The Bishop and the Dominican Inquisition made their way back through the streets of Toulouse and thanking God and their saintly founder they “ate with rejoicing what had been prepared for them. A Dominican Monk, who had been present in the room concluded 'God performed these works on the first feast of the Blessed Dominic to the glory and praise of his name.

The Blessed Dominic was a cruel and fanatical Spanish Monk, Dominic de Guzman who joined the anti-Cathar crusade and such was the zest and zeal for his passion that the Pope established in 1216 the order of the Dominicans.

They were to destroy heresy, utterly and finally by whatever means was necessary. He died in 1221 and in 1234 the year the woman in Toulouse was burned to death he was made a saint by his friend who was made a Pope the previous year.

During the 12th century particularly in the South of France the church had become overtaken with corruption. The church fathers were more concerned with taking care of their real estate and increasing their income than administering to their flock. They had mistresses, they gambled, they were involved in money-lending, charging fees for eccentric offices, permitting illegal marriages and acting as lawyers.

Finally Pope Innocent III, in 1198, condemned these practices. According to the Pope the arch Bishop of the Landudec, was worshiping at only one alter, the alter of money! He charged large fees for consecrating Bishops, let monks marry, condoned other practices not acceptable to church dogma.

The Pope dismissed him, another Arch bishop and also seven Bishops. Several of the bishop’s families were turning away from Rome. The nobles were constantly in dispute with Rome over matters of property, and income.

Staunchly loyal to their regions, they formed alliances with groups of Cathars. Some even became full members of the Cathar Faith. The wife of the Count of Foix in the 12th century, became a “perfect” as did the Counts sister Escomande.

The Cathars were a group of Holy Men and Women who lived a life of Simplicity, renunciation, and spirituality. They refer to themselves as the ”good men” or good Christians. They served a group of people whose needs weren’t being met by the church. The Church of Rome left  its spiritual role to one of materialism.

The Cathars rejected worldly materialism, they lived a life of simplicity, prayer and teaching. They were vegetarians, they traveled in pairs and gave spiritual comfort for those who wished to know more. They represented truth and honesty to those who have had enough lies and decent from Rome.

All could partake both men and women it was not a male dominated society, unlike the Church of Rome! At first there wasn’t a hierarchy or organizational chart.

Bernard of Clairveaux of the Cisterarian monastery was dedicated to simple living. Bernard traveled extensively in the South of France, in 1145, debating with other “perfects” in village squares. He recognized their simplicity and piety but condemned their heresy.

Many of the Nobel's supported the Cathars because they saw it as a movement centered in the Languedoc and not in Rome.

The church was not happy and in 1209 it launched a crusade to wipe out the Cathars. Northern armies of knights descended upon the Languedoc destroying many of the cities and towns. Burning thousands of Cathars, alive sometimes hundreds at once, in huge arenas. By this time the dilapidated castle at Montsequeur, perched upon an impregnable rocky hill top, had been rebuilt as a base for the Cathar Church.

After destruction of the lower valleys in 1232, it became center of the faith, and the seat of a Bishop of the Cathars. A small village for Cathar “perfects” was built between the castle and the nearby cliffs, the remains can be seen to this day.

Accompanying the northern armies was a cleric Dominic de Guzman, who formed the Order of Dominicans which later became known as the Inquisition.

A cold horror swept the land as the inquisition tortured and burned its way through the South of France. The Inquisition was feared and hated everywhere. Many were beaten or murdered as the order continued its pursuit of the heresies.

For the Cathar’s it was a war they could not win. There ways were simple those suspected of heresy were put to the question! A process of pain centered information extraction that even the notorious Gestapo would have admired for its cold and ruthless efficiency.

The suspect was arrested after a confession, the Dominicans had a firm grasp of psychology and knew that incarceration and fear would do most of the work for them..

They moved on to a torture, but they had a sensitivity to blood, the torturers tended to use instruments that were blunt, red hot and restrictive. Bones could be broken, limbs dislocated, so that any blood spilled was by accident and not on purpose. And thus acceptable to the church rules. Once a victim was in a mind to confess—to anything probably—Dominican Lawyers would copy everything record their testimony and often detailed the events they witnessed, then the victim was asked to confirm that the confession was free and spontaneous. Then they were turned over to the state for execution.

The church as a Christian organization didn’t execute or so they claimed, unconcerned with the level of hyprocacy involved. Through these testimonies they created a vast archive that held data on all they encountered. Although they burned thousands they came into contact with they usually did it only after extensive interrogation.

They wished always to maintain and augment this collective memory that formed the heart of their power. They believed that a convert who would betray his friends was worth more than a roasted corpse.

The Inquisition was the intelligence agency of the thirteenth century. It maintained an extensive sophisticated data base for its time. It investigated suspected heretics recorded testimonies, denunciations, and confessions in intricate and legal detail and maintained archives of these records so that information could be retrieved long afterwards.

The Inquisition became the churches KILLERS. Their family of secret informers, ruthless interrogators and cold judges all acting in the name of Christ.

The historical Messiah had long been forgotten what mattered now was the VATICAN CHRIST.

In 1244 the Inquisition won its first Crusade against heresy with the fall of the Cathar Castle at Monteseure. Two hundred or more Cathars were burnt alive.