Cathars

The Cathars (also called Albigensians) were a dualist Christian movement. They flourished in Languedoc (southern France) and northern Italy in the 12th–13th centuries.

Beliefs (historical)

• Dualism: a good God created the spiritual world, and an evil principle (the Rex Mundi, often identified with the God of the Old Testament) created the material world.
• Souls are trapped in bodies, and salvation is release from the cycle of reincarnation.
• Consolamentum: the single sacrament, a laying on of hands that made one a Perfectus or Perfecta (the "Good Men" and "Good Women"). The Perfect were celibate, vegetarian (fish excepted) and refused oaths.
• Most Cathars held a docetic Christology: Christ did not truly take flesh (see Docetism). They rejected the Catholic sacraments, the cross and the Church hierarchy.
• Their roots probably lie in the Bogomils of Bulgaria and Byzantium. The Council of Saint-Félix (1167) organised Cathar bishoprics.

Suppression

• The Albigensian Crusade (1209–1229) was called by Innocent III after the murder of the legate Pierre de Castelnau (1208). At the sack of Béziers (22 July 1209) many thousands were killed. The phrase attributed to Arnaud Amalric, "Kill them all; God will know his own", is reported only by Caesarius of Heisterbach decades later. Simon de Montfort led the crusade until his death in 1218. The Treaty of Paris (1229) ended it.
• The Inquisition was founded partly to suppress the Cathars (Gregory IX, 1230s).
• At Montségur (March 1244) about 200 Perfect were burned. The last known Cathar Perfect, Guillaume Bélibaste, was burned in 1321.

Founder's view

Tradition / belief Founder's belief: the founder holds that those the Church burned likely held the truth. This is a statement of faith, not a historical finding. Historians record the persecution but do not judge the truth of Cathar theology.