Chapter 4: The Albigensian Attack [The Great Heresies]

EWTN ^ | 1938 | Hilaire Belloc

[Iscool]

Let’s see, those Albigensians figured:
* Sodomy is fine, but motherhood is evil.
* Being deathly skinny is fabulous
* Meat is murder
* The only true evil in the world is orthodox Christianity.
* God was evil to have created mankind. Who does THIS sound like to you?

It sounds like your religion made this stuff up...And likely to convince your religion's own people that it's honorable to rip these people apart, literally...

The article speaks of great numbers joining this 'heretical' religion, so much so that it worried about it's own numbers and it's own members fleeing to join this anal sex religion...

I'm not buying it...

[Iscool]

Catholicism is only the yoke Our Lord speaks of in Matthew 11.

You gotta quit believing those fortune cookies...

[Jack of all Trades]

Not looking for a debate, but: The real presence in the Eucharist, communion of saints, the immaculatness, and perpetual virginity of Mary, prayer to saints and Mary, the lifelong chastity of Joseph - to name a few.

I thought my heart was in the right place, and that my faith would increase through prayer and participation, but it’s becoming more of a problem.

[ckilmer]

The Cathars’ [albigensians] beliefs were very similar to the Celtic and Arian churches beliefs were until they were (with much resistance) absorbed into the Roman Church during the 7th and 8th centuries. The Cathars, the Arian and Celtic Churches did not believe in Jesus’ divinity, nor did they believe him to be the ‘son of God’ any more than the rest of us are, but they did believe him to be descended from King David and therefore ‘King of the Jews’.
http://theiberianseaschool.com/component/content/article/18-articles/112-the-cathars

[ckilmer]

The Visigoths, who controlled the area later ruled by the Counts of Toulouse, had been Arian Christians, but the Franks adopted the Roman variety of Christianity. The Counts seem to have been as conventionally Catholic as any other sovereign, and in some ways were more enthusiastic than most. Raymond IV for example had been a principal leader of the First Crusade. (His Son Alphonse was baptised in the River Jordan, and was thus called Alphonse-Jordan).

http://www.languedoc-france.info/190215_dissidents.htm

[Rashputin]

Why would you leave issues like that until later? Having studied for years prior to deciding that the Catholic Church is in fact the real Church, I don't understand how you could defer such things.

The people I've known who became Catholics after a lot of soul searching and then later had problems with some issues were all really having a problem handling peer pressure, not the issues themselves. I'm just pointing out that I've seen those same things mentioned before by folks and saying what the real problem ended up being. I don't have any way of knowing whether that's a factor in your personal situation or not, it's just interesting to me to see the same subset of potential issues. Maybe just the way phrased things seemed familiar, I dunno.

[ckilmer]

I’ll find my sources but while I’m doing so its worth remembering that the European Cathars never called themselves Cathars, it was a name given them by their enemies which stuck, along with the term Albigensians. In fact they never gave themselves an offical name at all, so even if the Novatians called themselves Cathars the later Cathars didn’t, making it odd that they would have chosen that name in the 4th Century but not used it later. Also, its worth checking what the earlier Cathars’ doctrines were. A name is not the same as a set of ideals. Although having said that there may be echoes of Arianism in the later Cathar’s view of the nature of Christ. I’m happy to be wrong about this but I have read other sources which contradict it. To this day no-one really knows where the Cathars of the Languedoc came from. The Bogomils are described as their primary source but no-one knows where they came from either. People talk about Manicheans, Paulicians, Gnostics, Zoroastrians but no-one actually knows for sure.ThePeg 15:26, 10 April 2007 (UTC)

My source was THE CATHARS by Sean Martin who identifies the earlier Katharoi but points out they weren’t the same in essence or doctrine. Centuries separated the two movements. Also, there was in fact nothing Arian about the Cathars. Arian didn’t believe Christ was wholly God. The Cathars believed he was wholly Spirit and thus almost not remotely human. If anything they were closer to the Docetists, who believed Christ was pure Spirit and only ‘appeared’ to be human and suffer on the Cross, which was also what the Cathars believed.

Interestingly, there is an Apocryphal/Gnostic text which may indicate what the Cathars were getting at. I read it today in Watkins’ bookshop but, stupidly, I don’t remember what it was called. Its in a book in honour of G R S Mead, the great early scholar of Gnosticism. It appears in a chapter called THE GNOSTIC CRUCIFIXION and is a passage in which one of the Apostles, I think John (now I come to think of it the text is the Acts of John), runs from the Crucifixion in tears and hides in a cave. He then has a vision in which Christ appears to him and explains the paradox of the situation ‘I suffer but I do not suffer’. Although the earthly Christ suffers the immortal Christ does not.

This is one of the most extraordinary thing about the Cathars. So many of their more obscure doctrines have appeared in Gnostic texts we have discovered over the last century or so, from the Pistis Sophia to the Nag Hammadi manuscripts. We had thought all of these lost, but it appears clear that the Cathars had access to them, whether in terms of Scripture or orally we don’t know. ThePeg (talk) 01:10, 14 June 2008 (UTC)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk%3ACatharism

[Chaguito]

So, if I understand what you’re saying, the Frankish centralists who wanted to destroy and absorb their opposition in the Southeast obtained a pretext to destroy the Albigensians from the Church. Belloc’s article points that out, if I remember correctly.

So, the Albigensians were a convenience for the Church and for the Franks. Not good to be an Albigensian.

[Pyro7480]

It sounds like your religion made this stuff up...I'm not buying it...

[Rashputin]

"It sounds like your religion made this stuff up..."

LOL. Sure, these Satanic heretics were really wonderful little sheep following Christ with just an occasional stop by the wayside for a sodomy break and an opportunity to preach their denial of the deity of Christ. The sort of folks who claim to read Scripture but ignore the parts they don't like, redefine words in order to suit their preconcieved conclusions, then stick their little snouts in the air and claim they're committed to Sola Scriptura are prone to such theories.

How can someone claim to be a Christian but defend those past or present who have denied the deity of Christ? It seems to me that in order to defend those who deny the deity of Christ someone would have to be a heretic themselves. Most of those posting anti-Catholic crap around here is what's made up, not the historic record of what Albigensians preached. Algbiensian beliefs are a natural fit with the leftist homosexual humanist agenda that really drives the constant anti-Catholic posts around here.

[NYer]

Thank you for the response. As freeper Rashputin commented, Why would you leave issues like that until later?

I am a big fan of Marcus Grodi's program, The Journey Home, and watch it on a regular basis. The same issues you noted - the real presence in the Eucharist, communion of saints, the immaculatness, and perpetual virginity of Mary, prayer to saints and Mary, the lifelong chastity of Joseph - are always mentioned as stumbling blocks from Grodi's convert guests. Marcus has an excellent site - The Coming Home Network International. It has a forum where such issues are discussed on a daily basis. Perhaps it would be worth your while to visit his site, read through the library articles and meet up with others like yourself, who are still struggling with these issues.

Coming Home Network

Just curious but why would you swim the Tiber with so many unresolved issues? Were these not properly addressed during RCIA?

Please drop me a line and let me know how I can be of assistance. Rest assured of my daily prayers for your intentions.

[dangus]

>> The article speaks of great numbers joining this ‘heretical’ religion, so much so that it worried about it’s own numbers and it’s own members fleeing to join this anal sex religion... I’m not buying it... <<

So The Catholic Church can’t possibly justified in anything they do, or in any part of anything they do (I’m not trying to justify the massacre, just the opposition to the Albigensians which led to the war). Therefore, every justification of the Catholic church is actually proof that the Catholic church is wrong. Am I getting that right?

>> The article speaks of great numbers joining this ‘heretical’ religion, so much so that it worried about it’s own numbers and it’s own members fleeing to join this anal sex religion <<

Well, you’re the one who insisted on characterizing this religion as free thinking. Consider this:

The religion establishes that having children is evil. So no-one is spending their money on having children. And therefore ALL that money goes to inheritance. But wait... there are no heirs!

But say you’re a Duke who’s concerned about having an heir. That’s OK; you’re not a “Cathar,” but you can still be one of the elect by promulgating the religion.

Part of the reason that the Catholic church miscalculated as to how much force would be needed is that they presumed it wasn’t THAT popular, but they were astonished to find how much of the nobility sided with the Albi, even though they hadn’t become Cathars.

Can you see why the nobility would have promulgated this sect?

So how unfair was the Catholic church? If you were actually tried as a heretic off the battlefield, you were found innocent prima facie simply by being married, having children, or eating meat. So if those accusations were merely false propaganda, they also exonerated all but the vegetarian bachelors.

[CTrent1564]

ckilmer:

Thanks for the post, and you are correct, a form of arianism stayed on around parts of Spain and France, which is why the filoque was added in that part of the Catholic Church to more fully refute the Arian position. In fact, I think it was the at the Third Council of Toledo in the 6the century that it was added and it became the standard form of the Creed in the Frankish empire. The region where the Cathars resided had always had some aspects of Christological heresies.

As for Raymond VI, he at one time seemed to side with the Cathars and it was one of his milatary advisors, who was a Cathar, who murdered the papal Legate which then resulted in the Pope and the Frankish Kings aligning for the Crusade against the Cathars. Raymond VI then recanted his Cathar leanings and allied himself with Simon Montfort and the Franks but at some point, he seemed to side with the Cathars again and he and Simon then fought each other.

[WPaCon]

Iscool, are you someone who doesn’t believe that Jesus was always God?

[dangus]

By the way, I might just have to “borrow” that.

[lastchance]

It is just plain scary to think powers of reason have been so compromised.

If I use the twisted logic of some. Islam is superior to Catholicism because though it teaches that Christ is not divine and puts non believers to death by the sword it is not Catholic and therefore is right and good.

[Lucius Cornelius Sulla]

There was little difference in the Church's attitudes and behavior towards the Albigensians and their Muslim brothers. Funny to find so many supporters of the associates of Islam on FR.

[Chaguito]

The dishonesty of your response is beyond comprehension.

The fact that Islam is false and Catharism is false does not make one a supporter of Islam who abhors the league of convenience between the Catholic Church and land-hungry nobles, with the resulting murder of 20,000 in one town alone, which the Catholic Encyclopedia calls a “regrettable excess”.

I have tried to find some justification for your non sequitur in that same Catholic Encyclopedia, and find none, beyond Innocent III saying the Albigensians were “worse than Saracens”.

[Lucius Cornelius Sulla]

Innocent III was right.

[Chaguito]

Are you sure you aren’t Petronski? 8^)

So, if you had unlimited power, you would gather all muslims in one place and kill them all for what they believe?