§ 16. REINÉRI SACCHO
Peculiar interest attaches to the statements of Reinéri Saccho[44] because he had once been a Catharist (but not a Waldensian), and wrote as an Inquisitor (A.D. 1254). He distinguishes between Catharist and Waldensian, but his remarks refer primarily to the heretics of Lombardy, although he is careful to point out that their opinions differ little from Catharists in Provençe and other places. He charges the Waldensians with thirty-three errors, amongst which are:
(2) Belief in Traducianism. "The soul of the first man was made materially from the Holy Spirit, and the rest through it by traduction."
(6) Any good man may be a son of God in the same way as Christ was, having a soul instead of a Godhead.
(8) To adore or worship the body of Christ, or any created thing, or images or crosses, is idolatry.
(9) Final penance (poenitentia) avails nothing.
(11) The souls of good men enter and leave their bodies without sin.
(12) The punishment of Purgatory is nothing else than present trouble.
(14) Prayers for the dead avail nothing.
(15) Tenths and other benefactions should be given to the poor, not to the priests.
(18) They derided Church music and the Canonical Hours.
(19) Prayers in Latin profit nothing, because they are not understood.
(23) The Roman Church is not the head of the Church. It is a Church of malignants.
(31) Any man may divorce his wife and follow them, even if his wife is unwilling to be divorced, and e converso.
(33) No one can be saved outside their sect.
In addition to these he mentions other of their errors: Infant Baptism profits nothing—priests in mortal sin cannot consecrate—transubstantiation takes place in the hand, not of him who consecrates, but of him who worthily receives: consecration may be made at an ordinary table (quoting Mal. i. 11)—Mass is nothing, because the Apostles had it not—no one can be absolved by a bad priest—a good layman has power to absolve: he can also remit sins by the imposition of hands, and give the Holy Spirit—Public Penance is to be reprobated, especially in the case of women—married persons sin mortally, if they come together without hope of offspring—Holy Orders, Extreme Unction and the tonsure were derided—every one without distinction of sex may preach—Holy Scripture has the same effect in the vulgar tongue as in Latin—the Waldenses knew by heart the text of the New Testament, and a great part of the Old—they despised decretals, excommunications, absolutions, indulgences, all saints but the Apostles, canonizations, relics, crosses, times and seasons—they said in general that the doctrines of Christ and His Apostles were sufficient for salvation without the statutes of the Church.
With regard to the Catharists he observed that they were divided into three divisions—Albanenses, Concorezenses and Bognolenses. There were others in Tuscany, the Marquisate of Treves and in Provençe who differed very little, if at all, from those previously mentioned. The opinions common to them all were:
(1) The Devil made the world and all things in it.
(2) All the Sacraments of the Church are of the Devil, and the Church itself is a Church of malignants.
(3) Carnal marriage is always a mortal sin.
(4) There is no resurrection of the flesh.
(5) It is mortal sin to eat eggs, flesh and such-like.
(6) It is mortal sin for the secular power to punish heretics or malefactors.
(7) There is no such thing as Purgatory.
(8) Whoever kills an animal commits a great sin.
(9) They had four Sacraments: (a) Imposition of hands, called Consolamentum, but by that imposition of hands and the saying of the Lord's Prayer there is no remission of sins if the person officiating be in mortal sin; (b) Benediction of the Bread; (c) Penance; (d) Orders.
To the Catharists of Toulouse he ascribes the following doctrines (which they held in common with the Albanenses):
(10) There are two principles, Good and Evil.
(11) There is no Trinity in the Catholic sense, for the Father is greater than the Son and the Holy Ghost.
(12) The world and all that is in it were created by the evil God.
(13) They held some Valentinian ideas.
(14) The Son of Man was not really incarnate in the Virgin Mary, and did not eat—in short, Docetism.
(15) The patriarchs were the servants of the Devil.
(16) The Devil was the author of the Old Testament, except Job, Psalms, Proverbs, Wisdom, Ecclesiasticus and the Major and Minor Prophets.
(17) The world will never end.
(18) The Judgement is past.
(19) Hell is in this world.
This detailed examination of the heresy is of great importance, not only on account of the peculiar advantages which Reinéri Saccho possessed as both heretic and inquisitor, but because it shews that even at this late stage, Catharist and Waldensian had not been welded into one under the blows of a persecution directed equally against both. At one in their hatred of the Roman Church and all its works, there is a marked difference in their deism. The Waldensian, according to Saccho's classification, knows nothing of Dualism, is sound on the doctrine of the Trinity, and believes both Old and New Testaments to be the Word of God. The Catharist, on the other hand, believes in a good and an evil God, the latter being the Creator of the world of matter, which therefore is itself evil. Hence, whatever perpetuates matter, e.g. marriage, is also evil; but the world being the work of a God must also, like its maker, be endless. That part of the Old Testament which describes its beginning and its development into kingdoms and hierarchies, together with all their chief representatives, be they patriarchs, princes or priests, has the evil God for its author. Only the poets and the prophets who took a more spiritual view of things earthly, are inspired by the good God.