The Cathar believed man’s spirit, the creation of the good God was imprisoned in his physical body, the creation of the evil God Lucifer. The only true objective of his life was the liberation of this spirit from its imprisonment. This liberation could take place only if the man, or woman, lived according to the doctrines of Catharism, abhorring and avoiding those creations of the evil God, the physical world. Unless one did this his soul could potentially be reincarnated, a number of times, in human or animal bodies. The soul would remain imprisoned in the spiritual world until such time as the Cathar became perfected and thus liberated his spirit. To the Cathars predestination was therefore not a problem as it was in orthodox Christianity for they believed all spirits would eventually be released to the spiritual world.

Because of these beliefs the Cathars had two levels of adherents. This believers who underwent spiritual baptism, would become perfect. It was they who had attained the liberation of the spirit and were the leaders and administers of the religion. Only these prefects could legitimately be considered Cathars for only they had achieved purity and had obtained the assurance of salvation through the ritual of the consolamentum. The ordinary believers were followers of, or believers in, Catharism. But they were not real members of this sect and were not assured salvation at the end of their present physical existence. This differentiation can easily be compared with the distinction in orthodox Christianity between the catechumen and the baptized members of the Church. Believers were people who had accepted the tenets of the Cathar faith and hoped to be allowed to receive the consolamentum before their death and be assured of salvation.

The proper life for the Cathar, that is, the life which would liberate the spirit, lay in rejecting the physical world, all that had been created by the evil God. This rejection included physical pleasures and comforts, but it centered on procreation as the worst of all evils. As a consequence of this belief, the Cathars, or more specifically the perfected believers, rejected sex in or out of marriage, marriage itself, and the eating of foods they thought related to coition, such as meat, eggs, and cheese. In addition to these tenets of faith, the Cathars rejected taking oaths and the killing of humans for any reason because of such commands in Scripture. They would not kill most animals realizing that they possibly contained spirits of there departed.

The Cathar recognized no such thing as sin in the Judeo-Ghristian sense as not being a substance but a voluntary turning away from God. To the Cathar evil was a substance created by the evil God, Lucifer, just like any physical substance of earth or flesh. The act of participating in the creations of the evil God, “acts of the flesh such as incest, robbery, or drunkeness” could not be an offense against the good God of the immaterial spirit. These activities were merely of the flesh, carried out by a body created by the evil God and were only natural to physical creations. The flesh had no relationship to the good God and therefore any activity of the flesh couldn’t be turning him away from him. Under this theory a Cathar could do anything he wishes and yet not sin. Because a Cathar, perfect or believer, could not commit a “sin” against the Spirit by engaging in such an act as incest, is not to say such acts were permitted. The objective of Cathars life was to shed the flesh, to avoid all contact and intercourse with the creations of the evil God. Only after he had received the consolamentum and was totally devoid of all contact with physical things.

It was inevitable that their very different creation myths would create conflicting moral values, behavioral patterns, and religious beliefs. The Cathars based their beliefs on their interpretation of the New Testament, for they rejected the Old as a revelation of the evil God and inapplicable to themselves. They denied the orthodox Christian concept of the Trinity, believing the Son less than the Father, the Holy Spirit less than the Son, and each being dif­ferent substance. They denied that Jesus had become human and that his incarnation and crucifixion were actual events. Because of the spiritual nature of Christ these events could only appear real. Because of their interpretation the Cathars denied the authority of the Church to teach, interpret Scripture and posit doctrine, and to mediate between God and man by sacraments.

The Cathars view of the Virgin Mary.

The most popular saw Mary as an angelic being, like Christ, who had come into the world before Him, to make possible the appearance of His birth. They considered the Church a creation of the evil God and therefore not only useless,but harmful. The Church and it’s sacraments were the evil God’s instruments to trick men and women and prevent their conversion to the true, Cathar, faith.

It was only natural that the Church should react to this rejection of its authority, to this threat to its territories and jurisdiction, and the danger to faithful Christians it considered implicit Cathar doctrine. It’s first reaction was a Peaceful one, an attempt to teach Cathars the errors of their ways by preaching the true faith. This mission was entrusted to the Cistercian monks about 1145 and Bernard of Clairvaux became its leading emissary. This attempt to solve the “problem” lasted for some sixty years. Preachers travelled the countryside, preaching and debating with heretics, writing polemical treatises against them, and attempting to institute a reform among their own orthodox clergy.

By the beginning of the thirteenth century it had become evident that these missionary efforts were vain, for the Cathars had not only survived but increased. The Church took a second step to deal with the heretics, a Crusade.

The actual motives for the Crusade, and the manner of its conduct, have long been a matter of controversy. We here need only to state that a crusade was called by Pope Innocent III on March 10, 1208, and it lasted until 1229.

During these twenty-one years the whole of Languedoc — its social, governmental, and economic structure, and even its language — was altered. Multitudes of people, both Cathars and faithful Catholics, were either killed or deprived of their means of livelihood. At the Crusade’s end, however, the Cathars still flourished, albeit in a new manner, for the efforts of the Crusade had forced them to go underground and to operate clandestinely. The third, and final, step in the Church’s attack on the heresy was the famous, or rather infamous, Inquisition. This inquisition, to which the Dominican Order owes its infamy and growth, developed incredible efficiency and by the beginning of the fourteenth century had managed to eliminate the Cathar threat to the Church by annihilating Catharism.

Catharism became an extinct religious movement and was then interpreted by members of the organization responsible for this extinction. It’s no wonder that after six hundred years, misunderstanding of Cathar teaching and behavior should have replace accurate analysis. Perhaps a more analytical, survey of Cathar moral teaching and practice can now be attempted.