CHAPTER II - WALDENSES AND CATHARI
In the year 1108 there appeared in Antwerp a certain eloquent zealot named Tanchelm. Apparently there existed in Antwerp only one priest, and he was living in concubinage. In these circumstances the enthusiast easily obtained a remarkable influence in the city, as he had already done in the surrounding Flanders country. His preaching was anti-sacerdotal, and he maintained the Donatist doctrine concerning the Sacrament. He declared indeed that owing to the degeneracy of the clergy the sacraments had become useless, even harmful, the authority of the Church had vanished. He is also credited with having given himself out to be of divine nature, the equal of Christ, with having celebrated his nuptials with the Virgin Mary, with having been guilty of vile promiscuous excesses, with having made such claims as that the ground on which he trod was holy and that if sick persons drank of water in which he had bathed they would be cured. We need not necessarily take these stories seriously. Our knowledge of Tanchelm and his followers is derived mainly from St. Norbert, Archbishop of Magdeburg and founder of the Praemonstratensian order, who after the leader’s death undertook the task of winning back his followers to the true faith. The evidence comes, as usual in these cases, entirely from hostile sources, and may easily be based on credulous gossip. Certain it does, however, appear to be that the man succeeded in obtaining a remarkable influence, surrounding himself with a bodyguard of 300 men and making himself a power and even a terror throughout the neighbourhood. That he cannot have regarded himself as an apostate is clear from his having paid a visit to Rome in 1112 on the question of the division of the bishopric of Utrecht. On the way back he was, together with his followers, seized by the Archbishop of Cologne. Three of the disciples were burned at Bonn; he himself escaped, to be killed three years later by a clout on the head administered by an avenging priest.[6]
Somewhat similar to Tanchelm, but indubitably a madman, was Eudo or Eon de l’Etoile, who created trouble a little later on in Brittany, declaring himself to be the son of God. The madman had convinced himself of his divine origin from reading a special reference to himself in the words: ‘Per eum qui venturus est judicare vivos et mortuos.’ Eon, in virtue of this high claim, plundered churches and monasteries, giving their property to the poor, nominated angels and apostles and ordained bishops. It is not easy to be certain as to the extent of his influence; for it is not possible to tell whether there was any direct connection between him and a sect who were spread abroad in Brittany about the same time, 1145-8, but were connected with others calling themselves Apostolic Brethren who, having their headquarters within the diocese of Châlons, were found in most of the northern provinces of France, their main tenets being that baptism before the age of thirty, at which Christ Himself was baptized, was useless, that there was no resurrection of the body, that property, meat and wine were to be adjured.[7]
Of much more serious consequence than either of these two fanatics was Arnold of Brescia, who, a pupil of the errant Abelard and accused of sharing his master’s heterodoxies, was proclaiming a much more inconvenient heresy when he invoked the ancient republican ideals of the city of Rome, maintaining that the papal authority within the city was an usurpation; and indeed that the whole temporal power of the papacy and all the temporal concerns of the Church as a whole were an usurpation—so that his crusade in Rome involved a larger crusade against the alleged secularism, wealth and worldliness of the clergy.[8] After his death, there remained a certain obscure sect of Arnoldists, calling themselves ‘Poor Men,’ a devoted unworldliness their gospel, who no doubt provided a receptive organism in which the later culture of Waldensianism might thrive.
But it was neither in the Low Countries and northern France nor in Italy that heresy was first recognized as a formidable menace. The danger came from southern France, particularly from Provence, from the country of the langue d’oc. In the fertile and beautiful territories of the Counts of Toulouse, between the Rhone and the Pyrenees, a land altogether distinct from the rest of France, where there was a vernacular language and literature much earlier than elsewhere in Europe, there existed a civilization unique, vivid and luxuriant. It was distinctive in that it was not in inspiration and essential character Catholic, for it owed much to intercourse with the Moors from across the Pyrenees, whose trade, whose special knowledge and skill, in particular medical skill, were welcomed there. The population was itself of mixed origin, having in it even Saracenic elements. This Provençal country, peculiar in Christendom, was pre-eminently the land of chivalry, of the troubadour, of romance and poetry and the adventures of love, of all the grace and mirth and joyousness that were in the Middle Ages. Clearly the atmosphere was not religious, the Church had little influence and the priesthood were disliked and despised. It was an atmosphere in which any anti-sacerdotal heresy might flourish.
In this country there was preaching early in the twelfth century a certain Pierre de Bruys, denouncing infant baptism, image-worship, the Real Presence in the Sacrament, the veneration of the Cross. He declared indeed that the Cross—simply the piece of wood on which the Saviour was tortured—should be regarded as an object rather of execration than of veneration. As nothing save the individual’s own faith could help him, vain and useless were churches and prayers and masses for the dead. No symbol had efficacy; only personal righteousness. Pierre de Bruys was burnt, but a small sect of Petrobrusians survived him for several years, their heresies being dissected by Peter the Venerable of Cluny.[9]
Much more numerous and more troublesome than the Petrobrusians were the followers of Henry, a monk of Lausanne, of whose original doctrines little is known save that he rejected the invocation of saints and preached an ascetic doctrine, with which was inevitably associated a denunciation of worldliness among the clergy. Later on he became more venturesome, rejecting the Sacrament and avowing many of the tenets of Pierre de Bruys. So successful was his teaching in the south of France that St. Bernard was wellnigh in despair. Christianity seemed almost banished out of Languedoc. With fiery zeal Bernard threw himself into the work of reclamation, and apparently met with much success, the refusal of Henry of Lausanne to meet him in a disputation going a long way to discredit his influence. His sect survived his death, the nature of which is uncertain. It is possible that the Apostolic Brethren found in Brittany and elsewhere in France, if they were not connected with Eon de l’Etoile, were really Henricians.[10]
The chief interest of the heresies so far mentioned is the indication they afford of the potential popularity of any anti-sacerdotal propaganda. Apart from the crusade of Arnold of Brescia, which had a special significance of its own belonging less to the history of dogma than of politics, none of the movements had within them the power of inspiration and sincerity to make them of permanent influence and importance. It was otherwise with the movement set on foot by Peter Waldo, a wealthy merchant of Lyons, uncultured and unlearned, but filled with an intense zeal for the Scriptures and for the rule of genuine godliness. From diligent study of the New Testament and the Fathers he came to the conclusion that the laws of Christ were nowhere strictly obeyed. Resolved to live a Christ-like life himself, he gave part of his property to his wife and distributed the proceeds of the remainder among the poor. He then started to preach the gospel in the streets, and soon attracted admirers and adherents, who joined him in preaching in private houses, public places and churches. As priests had been very neglectful of that part of their duty, the preaching apparently had something of the charm of novelty.
The small band, adopting the garb as well as the reality of poverty, came to be known as the Poor Men of Lyons. At first their ministrations were approved, and even when the Archbishop of Lyons prohibited their preaching and excommunicated them, the Pope, Alexander III, appealed to by Waldo, gave his benediction to his vow of poverty and expressly sanctioned the preaching of himself and his followers, provided they had the permission of the priests. This proviso, however, in time came to be disregarded, and the Poor Men, becoming more and more embittered in their denunciation of clerical abuses, began to mingle erroneous doctrines with their anti-sacerdotalism. The clergy, who naturally resented the onslaught upon their alleged shortcomings, resented also the usurpation of the function of preaching. It was not difficult to maintain that such usurpation was itself indicative of heresy. Richard, monk of Cluny, writing against the Waldenses near the close of the century, while admitting the merit of the rich man in voluntarily embracing poverty, on the other hand found that Waldo read the Scriptures with little understanding, that he was proud in his own conceit, and possessing a little learning assumed to himself and usurped the office of the Apostles, preaching the Gospel in the streets and squares. He caused many men and women to become his accomplices in a like presumption, whom he sent to preach as his disciples. They being simple and illiterate people, traversing the village and entering into the houses, spread everywhere many errors.[11]
That they were a heretical sect and no part of the true Church is demonstrated by Moneta, the chief authority on Waldensianism, from the question of orders. Who gave the Poor Men of Lyons their orders, without which there can be no Christian Church? No one but Waldo himself! From whom did Waldo obtain them? No one. Waldo ‘glorified himself to be a bishop; in consequence he was an antichrist, against Christ and His Church.’[12] From preaching it was an easy transition to hearing confessions, absolving sins, enjoining penances. The Poor Men came eventually to undertake all these offices. By the time of the Council of Verona of 1184, when the attitude that the Church ought to adopt towards the new organization was first seriously discussed as a matter of urgent moment, the points of importance were—that the Waldenses refused obedience to the clergy, held that laymen and even women had the right to preach, that masses for the dead were useless, and that God was to be obeyed rather than man.[13]
The last article is clearly a butting against sacerdotal authority. In fact, anti-sacerdotalism is still the real sum and substance of the teaching. There was no explicit doctrinal, intellectual error of the first magnitude. Implicitly, however, there was; for underlying the whole Waldensian propaganda lay a heretical principle: that which bestows authority to exercise priestly functions is not ordination at all, but merit and the individual’s consciousness of vocation.[14]
The Church felt Waldensianism to be a serious menace because it speedily became popular and spread rapidly. The Poor Men later came to believe themselves the true Church, from which Catholicism had in its corruption fallen away. And in support of this they were wont to point to their own personal purity. To secure godliness was ever their main concern. A simple adherent of the Waldensian creed, interrogated as to the precepts his instructors had inculcated, explained that they had taught him ‘that he should neither speak nor do evil, that he should do nothing to others that he would not have done to himself, and that he should not lie or swear.’[15]
It would be difficult to find an apter summary of the ideals of Christian conduct! On certain points of behaviour the Waldenses laid particular stress—perhaps most of all upon the necessity of scrupulous truthfulness; and like many people who have a keen sense of the compelling beauty of truth for its own sake, they strongly disapproved of the taking of oaths.
Simple goodness and high-mindedness have rarely at any time of history failed to make their appeal to men’s hearts; and it is clear that in the Middle Ages especially a strict rule of life, particularly if it had something austere and ascetic in it, held a remarkable attraction and influence. A writer, inveighing against the Waldenses towards the end of the fourteenth century, admits the efficacy of their purity in promoting their teaching. ‘Because their followers saw and daily see them endowed with exterior godliness, and a good many priests of the Church (O shame!) entangled with vice, chiefly of lust, they believed that they are better absolved from sins through them than through the priests of the Church.’[16] An inquisitor bears testimony—and no testimony could be less biased in their favour—to the moral excellence of the sect. ‘Heretics,’ he goes so far as to say, ‘are recognized by their customs and speech, for they are modest and well-regulated. They take no pride in their garments, which are neither costly nor vile. They do not engage in trade, to avoid lies and oaths and frauds, but live by their labours as mechanics—their teachers are cobblers. They do not accumulate wealth, but are content with necessaries. They are chaste and temperate in meat and drink. They do not frequent taverns or dances or other vanities. They restrain themselves from anger. They are always at work; they teach and learn and consequently pray but little. They are to be known by their modesty and precision of speech, avoiding scurrility and detraction, light words and lies and oaths.’[17] That the Waldenses should sometimes have been accused of hypocrisy and have met with ridicule from sophisticated enemies is not surprising; but generally there is striking evidence as to their simple piety. There were some stories told at times of sexual immorality among them. These we need not take very seriously. Similar stories were told against all heretical sects; and they can be accounted for easily in this case by a confusion found frequently between the Waldenses and the Cathari. The preponderating evidence in favour of the moral excellence of the former is strong. It is not perhaps too much to say that the distinctive dangerousness of the former lay in the fact of such excellence, such fruits of the spirit being brought forth among a sect which arrogated to itself apostolic functions without lawful authority.
The other great contemporary heresy—Catharism—has some striking points of resemblance with Waldensianism, but more important points of contrast. The new Manichæism emanated from the East, being found in the Balkans in the tenth century tolerated and flourishing under John Zimiskes, especially in Thrace and Bulgaria, after a period of attempted extirpation under Leo the Isaurian and Theodora. The Manichæan belief appeared in Italy about 1030, and speedily made its way into France, first entering Aquitaine, then spreading over the whole country south of the Loire. Early in the twelfth century it penetrated further north—into Champagne, Picardy, Flanders; and at the same time in one form or another it was found in Hungary, Bohemia, Germany. It was so far-spread indeed that its existence presented a very serious problem for the Church.[18]
There were several varieties of Manichæan doctrine, corresponding with the different sects of Bogomiles, as they were called in Bulgaria and other Slavic lands, Paulicians among the Greeks, Cathari in Western Europe; but the different varieties were united in their fundamental dualism. The Manichæan idea started in an attempt to find a solution for the problem of good and evil presented by the assumption that God the Creator is all-good and all-wise.[19] Could such a Creator be the author of all the evil abroad in the world? Yet evil could not be fortuitous; the material universe presented too much evidence of purpose and design. A creator of the evil there must have been; but an evil person or principle. To this creator—call him Satan or Lucifer, what you will—must be due sin and such disasters as famines, wars and tempests.[20]
For such a dualism—two creators, one beneficent, the other malign—the Catharan discovered abundant evidence in the Scriptures. In the Temptation Satan offers Christ all the glories of the earth, which must mean that they, constituting the material world, belong to Satan.[21] There were numerous passages descriptive of the discrepancy between the earthly and the heavenly. Christ said, ‘My Kingdom is not of this world.’ One Catharan tenet was that Jehovah, the God of the Old Testament, was the malign creator. For he was a sanguinary deity, dealing in curses and violence, wars and massacres. What single point in common, urged the Catharan, was there between this deity and that of the New Testament, who desired mercy and forgiveness? The Catharan dubbed Jehovah a deceiver, a thief, a vulgar juggler. He strongly condemned the Mosaic law, declaring it radically evil. Had it not been entirely abrogated by the law of Christ, according to Christ’s own statement?[22]
There were differences among the Manichæans as to whether the evil deity was equal to the other or not. The Bogomiles believed that God had two sons, the younger Jesus, the elder Satan, who was entrusted with the administration of the celestial kingdom and the creative power. Satan revolted, was turned out of heaven, and thereupon created a new world and, with Adam and Eve, a new race of beings. Another Manichæan system saw in Lucifer, not a son of God, but an angel, expelled from heaven. Two other angels—Adam and Eve—agreed to share his exile. In order to secure their permanent allegiance to himself Satan created Paradise to drive the idea of heaven from their minds. Not satisfied with this device he hit upon another—the union of the sexes. He accordingly entered into the serpent and tempted Eve, awakening the carnal appetite, which is original sin, and has ever since been the main source of the continuance of the Devil’s power.[23]
The Manichæans of all sections regarded Jesus as having been sent by the good God to destroy the power of the evil one by bringing back the seed of Adam to heaven. In their view Jesus was inferior to God, not God Himself, but rather the highest of the angels.[24] Denying His divinity, they also denied His humanity. For holding Satan to be essentially the lord of the material world and the originator of the propagation of the human race, they could not allow that Christ’s body was of the same substance as of the ordinary man. According to them, the transfiguration was Christ’s revelation of His celestial body to the disciples.[25] The Passion and Crucifixion had no significance for the Cathari. Indeed Christ’s death was a delusion. The Devil tried to kill Jesus, under the impression that His body was vulnerable; whereas in reality it was as invulnerable as His spirit.
There was, therefore, no death, and of course no resurrection.[26]
The dogma of the expiatory character of Christ’s life the Cathari necessarily rejected. He came, according to them, solely to teach the duty of penitence and to show the way to salvation, which lay only through membership of the Catharan church.
The Virgin Mary possessed the same form of celestial body as Christ; though apparently a woman, she was actually sexless. Some Cathari held that the Virgin was only symbolical—of the Catharan church.[27] Some, too, held that John the Baptist was one of the demons of the evil god, who acted as an obstacle to the beneficent God, by preaching the material baptism of water instead of the true baptism which is purely spiritual.[28]
Such were some of the main doctrinal features of Catharism. Its ethical teaching was intimately connected with its theology. Refusing to credit that the good God could predestine any to perdition, they held that salvation ultimately awaited all. What gain, in these circumstances, had the Catharan over his unconverted neighbours? Only a gain in point of time. Life on earth, the Devil’s domain, was thought of as a dwelling in and with corruption, a penance, a probation. The aim was to have done with such life, such probation, as soon as might be. The unbeliever, though he eventually reached heaven, did not do so immediately after death, but had to continue his penance in another material form. One of the essential ideas of Catharism, then, was the transmigration of souls.[29] But for the Catharan, death meant the instant discarding of the filthy garment of the decadent flesh, the entrance at once into glory.
It was in the ability to cast aside the bondage of the material world that there consisted the Catharan’s supreme advantage over other people. The feeling that this was an advantage clearly depended on one’s attitude towards human life. To the Catharan the essential sin was worldliness. The Catharan made no distinction between mortal and venial sins for this reason. All concern and pleasure in the affairs of the world was mortal sin. Money-making was of course depraved; but so also was devotion to parents, children, friends. Had not Christ said as much?[30] The Catharan must give up everything he held dear in life for the sake of the truth, which was the Catharan faith.[31] While the Bogomiles sanctioned prevarication in order to escape persecution, the stricter adherents of the creed combined together with a Waldensian devotion to strict truthfulness without oaths, a conviction that to deny the smallest article of their faith was a heinous offence.[32]
His belief in metempsychosis meant that the Catharan was a vegetarian. He abjured cheese, milk and eggs as well as meat; but flesh was worst of all, because all flesh is of the Devil.[33] But the human spirit was regarded with the greatest sanctity. The effusion of blood was always wrong, the circumstances made no difference—it was always murder. The parricide was no wickeder than the soldier in battle or the judge condemning the criminal to death.[34] No human being was ever justified in preventing his fellow men from following out their own course to salvation. It may seem at first sight curious that the Catharan, so strongly condemning the taking of another’s life, should in certain cases condone and even encourage suicide. The explanation is, however, simple enough. Once granted the conception of the radically evil nature of the world and, secondly, of entrance into the Catharan fold as ensuring immediate entrance into glory without further probation after death, it was legitimate for a believer, conscious of his having accomplished the object of his earthly penance and made his salvation secure, to hasten the time of his departure into heaven. Hence the initiated would sometimes escape the sufferings of illness, or the recent convert flee from the temptation of the desire for the temporal things he had renounced, by suicide. Such Catharan suicide was known as the Endura.
Yet more remarkable than the sanction of suicide was another consequence of the Manichæan creed—the condemnation of matrimony.[35] The connection of thought was logical and the conclusion perhaps logically inevitable. If it be accepted that the carnal body is the invention of the Devil and the propagation of the species his device for prolonging his power, the love of the sexes original sin, then it is clear that marriage is service of Satan. So the Cathari enjoined the severest possible chastity.[36] As usual they found evidence of their belief in the Bible. But for them there was no difference between one form of sexual intercourse and another. Adultery, even incest, was not one whit more iniquitous than marriage. On the whole they were rather less evil. For adultery was only temporary and produced a feeling of shame; whereas marriage was permanent, a lasting living in sin, contemplated without shame. The bearing of children was regarded with horror. Every birth was a new triumph for the evil one; a pregnant woman was possessed of the Devil, and if she died pregnant, could not at once be saved.[37]
Catharan beliefs inevitably involved the denunciation of Catholicism.[38] It was the Catholic that was the heretic; the wearer of the pontifical tiara could not possibly be even a disciple of Him who wore a crown of thorns, was indeed antichrist. The clergy from the highest to the lowest were pharisees; the sacraments—infant baptism, the sacrificial mass—were declared to have no warrant in Scripture, to be mere figments of the imagination.[39]
The Cathari, it has to be remembered, were a church. They had an organization, held services with a certain very simple ritual, for example substituting for the mass a simple blessing of bread at table, the Catharan meal bearing a close resemblance to the early Christian ἀγάπη. Confessions were made to elders of the church once a month. But the most distinctive ceremony of the sect was the Consolamentum, an imposition of hands whereby the ordinary believer was admitted into the select ranks of the Perfected. The number of the latter was always small, and consisted principally of the avowed ministers of the faith. The Consolamentum, which meant re-entrance into communion with the spiritual world, was the desire of all true Cathari, but was apt to be postponed until late in life, often until the death-bed. The actual ritual of the Consolamentum—or hæretication, as Catholics termed it—was very brief. The candidate, after a series of genuflections and blessings, asked the minister to pray God that he might be made a good Christian.[40] Such prayer having been offered, the candidate was then asked if he was willing to abjure prohibited foods and unchastity, and to endure persecution if necessary. When the Consolamentum was given to a man on his death-bed, it was frequently followed by the Endura, which commonly took the form of suffocation or self-starvation.
The Perfected consisted of four orders—bishop, filius major, filius minor, deacon—their duties being to preside at services and missionary work, in which the Cathari were zealous. Outside their ranks were the simple adherents, the Believers or, as they were sometimes called, Christians. These bound themselves eventually to receive the Consolamentum; but, generally speaking, they were under no obligations save to venerate the Perfected who, in the strictest sense, composed the true Catharan Church, and to live the pure life their faith enjoined. But they were under no coercive authority, and were even permitted to marry.
Wherein lay the attraction of the Catharan doctrine and system? For evidently they were attractive, as their great and rapid spread over Europe shows. It is at first difficult to discern anything attractive in teaching so austere; and if the Catharan promised a reward in heaven, so also did the Catholic. In his case purgatory had first to be faced, but then the ordeal on earth was less exacting. There would appear to be two explanations, the one high-minded, the other the reverse. In its early days the gospel of Catharism probably made to some a lofty appeal. It denounced palpable clerical abuses, repugnant to the moral consciousness. The austerity of its ethical principles seemed to point to a higher standard of living in days when any outstanding examples of asceticism, whether in the Church or outside it, evoked admiration. In its hatred for the evil spirit of materialism, in its detestation particularly of that worst of human passions, cruelty, there was an element of nobility which finds a response in the instinct which we to-day call humanitarian.[41] In so far as its appeal was of this nature, it was sincere and fine. Unhappily, however, Catharism unquestionably developed another appeal of a wholly different character, which resulted almost inevitably from the complete impracticableness of its ideal. A creed that approved of suicide and denounced marriage stands self-condemned. It was at war with the very principles of life itself. The ascetic rule it enjoined was one ‘more honoured in the breach than the observance.’ There was taint of unhealthiness and corruption in a rule so hopelessly at variance with nature; while a creed which, if it meant anything, held as its highest hope the speediest possible destruction of all human life, was devoid of the balance and sanity which is essential in any doctrine that is to be of any practical service in the world. Such a religion as Catharism could not harmonize with the most elementary facts of life and human nature. The consequence was—and herein lies the greatest condemnation of the sect—that it went on proclaiming an impracticable ideal while admitting that it was impracticable, sanctioning a compromise, itself antithetical to its essential dogma, whereby alone the heresy was able to continue at all. The compromise is seen in two practices—the distinction made between the Perfected and the Believers and the postponement of the Consolamentum, or complete initiation, until the end of life. The Believers—the great bulk of the adherents of the creed—might do pretty well as they liked, in fact ignore all the Catharan precepts of conduct, might marry, have riches, make war, eat what they chose, provided only they were prepared to receive the Consolamentum before they died. Such an arrangement is merely the apotheosis of the system of the death-bed repentance, it is an encouragement to insincerity and hypocrisy. This does not mean that most, or necessarily even many, Cathari were hypocrites. Most of them, probably, were originally simple-minded labourers and artisans, attracted by a novel gospel, which discerned the evils of the times, gave hopes of heaven and was marked by the ascetic and missionary enthusiasms which were then regarded as the hall-mark of a spiritual origin and divine inspiration.
Nevertheless, the temptation to insincerity was clearly present. ‘Believe in the Catharan creed, venerate the Perfected, receive the Consolamentum before death,’ made a simple and an attractive faith for one who wished to enjoy the pleasures of life to the full, yet to whom the tortures of a material hell were painfully vivid. ‘We are the only true Christians, the Catholic church is but an usurpation, utterly corrupt,’ made a convenient excuse for the feudal lord, by whom only the excuse was wanted, to harry the clergy and make inroads on their property. Nor need we wonder that these holders of a doctrine of ultra-asceticism, of a complete celibacy, were credited with even the foulest of sexual orgies. The distinction between Perfected and Believers was an antinomian arrangement. Intense asceticism among the very select number of the former was made compatible with excesses among the latter. Was not the very rigour of existence among the completely initiated an invitation positively to extreme indulgence prior to such initiation? It would be highly uncritical to place a great deal of credence in the many stories told of immoral practices among Cathari. Such stories were bound to be told. We find them in connection with practically every mediæval heresy; it was such an obvious device for the discrediting of unholy beliefs to demonstrate that they involved unholy lives. But it would also be uncritical to reject the stories altogether. There is an inherent probability that a certain percentage—it may be only a small percentage—of those told of the Cathari were true. The critic’s objection, ‘what abomination may one not expect of those who hold incest no worse a crime than marriage?’ is pertinent and sound.[42] What results are likely, once given the impossibility of complete continence, from such a perverted teaching?
Indeed, notwithstanding its better qualities, its still better possibilities, Catharism was essentially perverted: and the antagonism it aroused and the efforts made to suppress it are in no way surprising. It has been termed ‘a hodge-podge of pagan dualism and gospel teaching, given to the world as a sort of reformed Christianity.’[43] A hodge-podge it undoubtedly was, an amalgam of ancient Manichæism and elements of eastern origin, which were not Christian at all but Mazdeist, together with certain features of pure Christianity. It is no wonder that the Catholic Church viewed with alarm the challenge made by a faith so compounded when it claimed to be the only true Christianity. Catharism was not an antagonist to be despised. Its missionary enterprise, its anti-social tendencies and the evident popularity of its anti-sacerdotal features made it undeniably dangerous. Moreover, it did not stand alone. Taken together, the different anti-sacerdotal heresies, of which Waldensianism and Catharism were the chief, which were abroad in Europe before the end of the twelfth century, presented a serious problem and indeed a menace. Was not the widespread phenomenon of organized heresy a challenge to the whole conception of the Civitas Dei alike on its spiritual and its secular side? If only in self-defence must not the Church—society on its spiritual side—take special measures to counteract the influence of rebels, who had deliberately made war upon it by declaring themselves alone to be the true repositories of the sacred truths upon which God’s Kingdom here upon earth was founded? There were three possible methods of answering the challenge of heresy. The first was reform, the weeding out of those abuses which gave anti-sacerdotalism its case and its opportunity, reform whereby all might be enabled to recognize incontestably that Christ was plainly revealed in the life of His Church. The second was missionary propaganda, the utilization of the same weapon which the enemy so trenchantly wielded—that of persuasion. The third possible method was constraint.