The
Cathari advocated a simple and ascetic life, in accordance with the
teaching of primitive Christianity, refrained from all ecclesiastical
ceremonies and despised the sacraments, particularly baptism. More
radical than later reformers, they rejected the doctrine of
transubstantiation, and saw in the eucharist only a symbol of the union
of God and the soul. This made their name synonymous with heresy. But by
far the most famous of heretical sects was the sect of the Waldenses or
Albigenses. It numbered amongst its adherents--if not publicly, at any
rate secretly--many of the great Provencal lords, and there can be no
doubt that this community was permeated by the spirit of a renewed
Christianity, the Christianity of St. Francis and the German mystics.
The Albigenses believed that not Christ, but His semblance only, had
been crucified; they rejected the God of the Old Testament and their
doctrine of the two creators,--the devil who created the objective
world, and the true God who created the spiritual world--is reminiscent
of the loftiest Parseeism and the profoundest gnosticism.
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