The Albigensian Heresy

n. Historical links fail us when we attempt to construct the genealogical table. The general fact to be recognized is that while the Catholic Church had expelled those ancient heresies from her door

ecame more and more subordinate to discipline and conduct. It was offered as a solution to the mystery of evil, but in the catechizing of their candidates for membership, no question touching Dualism was put to them. Thus discipline of life was presented to them not as a struggle w

e Conception attempts to surmount. The Manichees, under Parsic influence, taught that as "the light shineth in the darkness, and the darkness overcame it not," so the Christ could not enter a human body, except in appearance; and the Priscillianists denied a human body to Him, and said He was innascibilis, because the human body was the seat of sin. The Albigensian solution was that Christ was created sinless man in heaven, and in His perfect nature of body, soul and spirit was born in the Virgin Mary. The one passage

en the three Persons. The Father was greater than the Son (St. John xiv. 28) and the Holy Ghost, and the Son greater than the Holy Ghost. The Holy Ghost did not function in the world until after the Ascension of Christ. He does not Himself enter into man at the imposition of hands. The perfect man as made in the image of God has a tripartite

ectual, Catharism spiritual. Catharism taught that none could be saved outside its fold, but none were predestined from entering that fold. If this is Gnosticism it is the Gnosticism of Marcion, the mildest of all Gnostics. (The only exception to this "Catholicism" was due to the emphasis which the Cathar

intolerance, and freedom into disruption. But any upheaval, social or religious, to be successful must be united and progressive. It must be of one heart and one mind in defence and attack. It must also convince the people that it has recovered old truths or discovered new. The indispensable Foundation of Belief is one God: a religion which starts with two, and yet protests that it is Christian, whatever other merits it may possess, can never attract and retain the adherence of that or any other age, whatever relation it might seek to establish between the two. Catharism from the very beginning was a house divided against itself as to the God of its worship and obedience. The Albigensian Christ o

portrait by t

od's God, in t

gustine Riccheni, Professor at Bologna, at Rome in A.D. 1743. Of Moneta himself we know little. He was born at Cremona, and, fired by the eloquence of the Dominican Friar, Regin

nd