§ 15. PETER DE VAUX-SARNAI
In the "Historia Albigensium" of the Cistercian Peter de Vaux-Sarnai we pass from scattered references to a work devoted specifically to their doctrines and doings. It is dedicated to Innocent III, the Pope who passed from words to deeds, working out a definite policy for their absolute extinction. The monk claims to set down "the simple truth in a simple way," and we may add "for simple readers," if the following description of Raymond, Count of Toulouse, is a sample of his claim: "A limb of the devil, a son of perdition, the first-born of Satan, an enemy of the Cross and persecutor of the Church, defender of heretics, suppressor of Catholics, servant of perdition, abjurer of the Faith, full of crime, a store-house of all sins." Several of his statements about their doctrines and practices lack confirmation from any other source, especially some too blasphemous to be repeated here. After the usual charge of the two Gods, good and evil,[42] he says that they accepted only those parts of the Old Testament which are quoted in the New. John the Baptist was one of the greater demons. There were two Christs—the bad one was born in Bethlehem and crucified in Jerusalem. The good Christ never assumed real (veram) flesh, and never was in this world, except spiritually in the body of Paul. The heretics imagined a new and invisible earth, and there, according to some, the good Christ was born and crucified. The good God had two wives, Colla and Coliba, and had sons and daughters. Others say there is one Creator who had as sons Christ and the Devil. They say, too, that all the Creators were good, but that all things were corrupted by the daughters spoken of in the Apocalypse. Almost the whole of the Roman Church is a den of thieves, and is "illa meretrix" mentioned in the Apocalypse. On the Sacraments they held views already ascribed by Eymeric to the Manichees, and mentioned by others, "instilling into the ears of the simple this blasphemy, that, had the body of Christ been as large as the Alps, it would long ago have been consumed by the partakers thereof."[43] "Some, denying the resurrection of the flesh, said that our souls were those angelic spirits which, after being thrust out of heaven through the pride of apostasy, left their glorified bodies in the air, and after a seven-times succession in certain terrestrial bodies as a sort of penance returned to their own bodies that had been left." Some are called "perfecti" or "boni homines," others "credentes." The "perfecti" wear black and profess (though they lie) chastity. The "credentes" live a secular life and do not attain to the life of the "perfecti," though one with them in faith and unfaith (fide et infidelitate). However wickedly they have lived, yet they believe that if, "in supremo mortis articulo," they say a Pater noster and receive imposition of hands from their "masters," they will be saved; no credent about to die can be saved without this imposition of hands. They call their masters deacons and bishops. If any "perfect" sin a mortal sin, e.g. by eating the very smallest portion of meat, egg or cheese, all who have been "consoled" by him lose the Holy Spirit and ought to be "consoled" again. The Waldenses also are evil, but much less so than the other heretics. "In many things they agree with us: in some disagree." They omit many of the others' infidelities. They carry sandals, and say that so long as a man carries these, if need arise, he can without episcopal ordination make (conficere) the Body of Christ.