Cathari (kăth`ərī) [Gr.,=pure], name for members of the widespread dualistic religious movement of the Middle Ages. Carried from the Balkans to Western Europe, Catharism flourished in the 12th and 13th cent. as far north as England. It was known by various names and in various forms (see Bogomils Bogomils (bō`gōmĭlz)
..... Click the link for more information. ; Albigenses Albigenses (ălbĭjĕn`sēz) [Lat.,=people of Albi, one of their centers], religious sect of S France in the Middle Ages.
..... Click the link for more information. ). Catharism was descended from Gnosticism Gnosticism (nŏs`tĭsĭzəm), dualistic religious and philosophical movement of the late Hellenistic and early Christian eras.
..... Click the link for more information. and Manichaeism Manichaeism (măn`ĭkēĭzəm) or Manichaeanism
..... Click the link for more information. and echoed many of the ideas of Marcion Marcion (mär`shən, mär`sēən), c.85–c.
..... Click the link for more information. . The Cathari tended to reject not only the outward symbols of the Christian church, such as the sacraments and the hierarchy, but also the basic relationship between God and humanity as taught by orthodox Christianity. Instead, the Cathari believed in a dualistic universe, in which the God of the New Testament, who reigned over spiritual things, was in conflict with the evil god (or Satan), who ruled over matter. Asceticism, absolute surrender of the flesh to the spirit, was to be cultivated as the means to perfection. There were two classes of the Cathari, the believers and the Perfect. The believers passed to the ranks of the Perfect on acceptance of the consolamentum, a sort of sacrament that was a laying on of hands. The Catharist concept of Jesus resembled modalistic monarchianism monarchianism (mōnär`kēənĭzəm) [Gr.
..... Click the link for more information. in the West and adoptionism adoptionism, Christian heresy taught in Spain after 782 by Elipandus, archbishop of Toledo, and Felix, bishop of Urgel (Seo de Urgel). They held that Jesus at the time of his birth was purely human and only became the divine Son of God by adoption when he was
..... Click the link for more information. in the East. Persecution, such as that by the Inquisition Inquisition (ĭn'kwĭzĭsh`ən), tribunal of the Roman Catholic Church established for the investigation of heresy.
..... Click the link for more information. , and the efforts of popes like Innocent III destroyed Catharism by the 15th cent.

Bibliography

See J. Madaule, The Albigensian Crusade (tr. 1967); J. R. Strayer, The Albigensian Crusades (1971); S. O'Shea, The Perfect Heresy (2000).

Cathari

or Albigensians

Heretical Christian sect that flourished in Western Europe in the 12th–13th century. The Cathari adhered to the dualist belief that the material world is evil and that humans must renounce the world to free their spirits, which are good and long for communion with God. Jesus was seen as an angel whose human suffering and death were an illusion. Followers divided themselves into the “perfect,” who had to maintain the highest moral standards, and ordinary “believers,” of whom less was expected. By 1200 they had established 11 bishoprics in France and Italy. In an effort to stamp out their heresy, Pope Innocent III declared the Albigensian Crusade, in which the populace in Cathar regions was indiscriminately massacred. Persecution through the Inquisition, sanctioned by St. Louis IX, was even more effective, and when the Cathar stronghold of Montségur fell in 1244, most Cathari fled to Italy. The movement disappeared in the 15th century.

Cathari

heretical Christian sect in 12th and 13th centuries; professed a neo-Manichaean dualism. [Christian Hist.: EB, II: 639]

See : Apostasy

Cathari

heretical and ascetic Christian sect in Europe in 12th and 13th centuries. [Christian Hist.: EB, II: 639]

See : Asceticism

Cathari (redirected from Cathar)

Bibliography

Cathari

Cathari
(redirected from Cathar)