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Medieval Sourcebook: Raynaldus: on the Accusations against the Albigensians



We know the beliefs of the Cathars, or "Albigensians" mainly through the
writings of opponents. This account is from an early thirtheenth century
chronicle
First it is to be known that the heretics held that there are two Creators; viz.
one of invisible things, whom they called the benevolent God, and another of
visible things, whom they named the malevolent God. The New Testament they
attributed to the benevolent God; but the Old Testament to the malevolent God,
and rejected it altogether, except certain authorities which are inserted in the
New Testament from the Old; which, out of reverence to the New Testament, they
esteemed worthy of reception. They charged the author of the Old Testament with
falsehood, because the Creator said, "In the day that ye eat of the tree of the
knowledge of good and evil ye shall die;" nor (as they say) after eating did
they die; when, in fact, after the eating the forbidden fruit they were
subjected to the misery of death. They also call him a homicide, as well because
he burned up Sodom and Gomorrah, and destroyed the world by the waters of the
deluge, as because he overwhelmed Pharaoh, and the Egyptians, in the sea. They
affirmed also, that all the fathers of the Old Testament were damned; that John
the Baptist was one of the greater demons. They said also, in their secret
doctrine, (in secreto suo) that that Christ who was born in the visible, and
terrestrial Bethlehem, and crucified in Jerusalem, was a bad man, and that Mary
Magdalene was his concubine; and that she was the woman taken in adultery, of
whom we read in the gospel. For the good Christ, as they said, never ate, nor
drank, nor took upon him true flesh, nor ever was in this world, except
spiritually in the body of Paul....
They said that almost all the Church of Rome was a den of thieves; and that it
was the harlot of which we read in the Apocalypse. They so far annulled the
sacraments of the Church, as publicly to teach that the water of holy Baptism
was just the same as river water, and that the Host of the most holy body of
Christ did not differ from common bread; instilling into the ears of the simple
this blasphemy, that the body of Christ, even though it had been as great as the
Alps, would have been long ago consumed, and annihilated by those who had eaten
of it. Confirmation and Confession, they considered as altogether vain and
frivolous. They preached that Holy Matrimony was meretricious, and that none
could be saved in it, if they should beget children. Denying also the
Resurrection of the flesh, they invented some unheard of notions, saying, that
our souls are those of angelic spirits who, being cast down from heaven by the
apostacy of pride, left their glorified bodies in the air; and that these souls
themselves, after successively inhabiting seven terrene bodies, of one sort or
another, having at length fulfilled their penance, return to those deserted
bodies.
It is also to be known that some among the heretics were called perfect" or
"good men;" others "believers" of the heretics. Those who were called perfect,
wore a black dress, falsely pretended to chastity, abhorred the eating of flesh,
eggs and cheese, wished to appear not liars, when they were continually telling
lies, chiefly respecting God. They said also that they ought not on any account
to swear.
Those were called "believers" of the heretics, who lived after the manner of the
world, and who though they did not attain so far as to imitate the life of the
perfect, nevertheless hoped to be saved in their faith; and though they differed
as to their mode of life, they were one with them in belief and unbelief Those
who were called believers of the heretics were given to usury, rapine, homicide,
lust, perjury and every vice; and they, in fact, sinned with more security, and
less restraint, because they believed that without restitution, without
confession and penance, they should be saved, if only, when on the point of
death, they could say a Pater noster, and received imposition of hands from the
teachers.
As to the perfect heretics however they had a magistracy whom they called
Deacons and Bishops, without the imposition of whose hands, at the time of his
death, none of the believers thought that he could be saved; but if they laid
their hands upon any dying man, however wicked, if he could only say a Pater
noster, they considered him to be saved, that without any satisfaction, and
without any other aid, he immediately took wing to heaven.
From Raynaldus, "Annales," in S. R. Maitland, trans., History of the Albigenses
and Waldenses, (London: C. J. G. and F. Rivington, 1832), pp. 392-394.


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(c)Paul Halsall Jan 1996
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