The Binding Of Isaac Afterbirth Heretic Mod Download
Toccara Delacerda
The Cathars originated from an anti-materialist reform movement within the Bogomil churches of the Balkans calling for what they saw as a return to the Christian message of perfection, poverty and preaching, combined with a rejection of the physical. The reforms were a reaction against the often perceived scandalous and dissolute lifestyles of the Catholic clergy. Their theology, Gnostic in many ways, was basically dualist. Several of their practices, especially their belief in the inherent evil of the physical world, conflicted with the doctrines of the Incarnation of Christ and Catholic sacraments. This led to accusations of Gnosticism and attracted the ire of the Catholic establishment. They became known as the Albigensians because many adherents were from the city of Albi and the surrounding area in the 12th and 13th centuries.
Between 1022 and 1163, the Cathars were condemned by eight local church councils, the last of which, held at Tours, declared that all Albigenses should be put into prison and have their property confiscated. The Third Lateran Council of 1179 repeated the condemnation. Innocent III's diplomatic attempts to roll back Catharism were met with little success. After the murder of his legate Pierre de Castelnau in 1208, and suspecting that Raymond VI, Count of Toulouse was responsible, Innocent III declared a crusade against the Cathars. He offered the lands of the Cathar heretics to any French nobleman willing to take up arms.
From 1209 to 1215, the Crusaders experienced great success, capturing Cathar lands and systematically crushing the movement. From 1215 to 1225, a series of revolts caused many of the lands to be regained by the Cathars. A renewed crusade resulted in the recapturing of the territory and effectively drove Catharism underground by 1244. The Albigensian Crusade had a role in the creation and institutionalization of both the Dominican Order and the Medieval Inquisition. The Dominicans promulgated the message of the Church and spread it by preaching the Church's teachings in towns and villages to stop the spread of heresies, while the Inquisition investigated people who were accused of teaching heresies. Because of these efforts, all discernible traces of the Cathar movement were eradicated by the middle of the 14th century. Some historians consider the Albigensian Crusade against the Cathars an act of genocide.[3][4]
The word "Cathar" is derived from the Greek word katharos, meaning "clean" or "pure."[5] Partially derived from earlier forms of Gnosticism, the theology of the Cathars was dualistic, a belief in two equal and comparable transcendental principles: God, the force of good, and the demiurge, the force of evil. Cathars held that the physical world was evil and created by this demiurge, which they called Rex Mundi (Latin, "King of the World"). Rex Mundi encompassed all that was corporeal, chaotic and powerful. The Cathar understanding of God was entirely disincarnate: they viewed God as a being or principle of pure spirit completely unsullied by the taint of matter. He was the God of love, order, and peace. Jesus was an angel with only a phantom body, and the accounts of him in the New Testament were to be understood allegorically.[6][7][8] According to Cathar teaching, humans originally had no souls. They taught that the evil God, or Satan in another version, either gave new souls to people or used the souls of fallen angels. Alternatively, God took pity on men and gave them souls. Some Cathars believed in the transmigration of souls, in which the soul went from one body to another. Whether they did so or not, sexual intercourse under all circumstances was a grave sin, because it either brought a new soul into the evil world or perpetuated the cycle of souls being trapped in evil bodies.[9][10] Civil authority had no claim on a Cathar, since this was the rule of the physical world. Accordingly, the Cathars refused to take oaths of allegiance or volunteer for military service.[11] Cathar doctrine opposed killing animals and consuming meat.[12][13]
Cathars rejected the Catholic priesthood, labelling its members, including the pope, unworthy and corrupted.[14] Disagreeing on the Catholic concept of the unique role of the priesthood, they taught that anyone, not just the priest, could consecrate the Eucharistic host or hear a confession.[15] There were, however, men selected amongst the Cathars to serve as bishops and deacons.[16] Cathars rejected the dogma of the real presence of Christ in the Eucharist and Catholic teaching on the existence of Purgatory.[17]
Cathar meetings were fairly simple. In a typical gathering, those present would make one or more recitations of the Lord's Prayer, make a general confession of sins, ask for forgiveness, and conclude with a common meal. There were however some special rituals.[18] Catharism developed its own unique form of "sacrament" known as the consolamentum, to replace the Catholic rite of baptism. Instead of receiving baptism through water, one received the consolamentum by the laying on of hands.[19][20] Cathars regarded water as unclean because it had been corrupted by the earth, and therefore refused to use it in their ceremonies.[21] The act was typically received just before death, as Cathars believed that this increased one's chances for salvation by wiping away all previous sins.[22] After receiving consolamentum, the recipient became known as perfectus.[23] Having become "perfect," the soul, upon the death of the body, could escape the perpetual cycle of death and rebirth and achieve salvation.[10] Prior to becoming a perfect, believing Cathars were encouraged but not always required to follow Cathar teaching on abstaining from sex and meat, and most chose not to do so. Once an individual received the consolamentum, these rules became binding.[17] Cathar perfects often went through a ritual fast called the endura. After receiving the consolamentum, a believer would sometimes take no food and rely only on cold water, a practice eventually resulting in death. The procedure was typically performed only by those close to death already.[24] Some members of the Church claimed that if a Cathar upon receiving the consolamentum showed signs of recovery, the person would be smothered to death to ensure entry into Heaven. This did sometimes happen but there is little evidence that it was common practice.[25] Cathar bishops were selected from among the perfect.[16] If a person receiving the consolamentum ever committed a grievous sin, the procedure had to be reapplied. If the bishop who dispensed it committed a serious sin, all of the people to whom he had given the procedure would need to undergo it again.[26]
Cathar theology found its greatest success in the Languedoc, a name eventually given to a region later incorporated into the French nation.[27][28] An alternative name for the region is "Occitania."[28] In the Languedoc, political control and land ownership was divided among many local lords and heirs.[29][30] Before the crusade, there was little fighting in the area.[31][32] Regions to the north were divided into separate polities, but all of them generally recognized themselves as part of the Kingdom of France. They spoke different dialects, but these could broadly be classified under the French language. By contrast, Languedoc regions did not consider themselves French. Their language, Occitan, was not mutually intelligible with French. Instead, it was closer to Catalan.[33] The County of Toulouse, the dominant political entity in the region, was a fief to the Angevin Empire, which controlled the Duchy of Aquitaine in the west. In many areas south and east of Toulouse, the Crown of Aragon and the Principality of Catalonia were both more influential than the French kingdom or even northern Languedoc.[31][32][34]
[T]he North and the South of what is now France were, in the twelfth century, two different countries, as different as France and Spain are today. The people of each country disliked and distrusted those of the other. The northerners thought the southerners were undisciplined, spoiled by luxury, a little soft, too much interested in social graces, too much influenced by contemptible people such as businessmen, lawyers, and Jews. The southerners thought the northerners were crude, arrogant, discourteous, uncultured, and aggressive. The climate was such that if war were to break out between the two countries it was sure to be long and bitter.[37]
The Cathars were part of a widespread spiritual reform movement in medieval Europe[38] which began about 653 when Constantine-Silvanus brought a copy of the Gospels to Armenia.[39] In the following centuries a number of dissenting groups arose, gathered around charismatic preachers, who rejected the authority of the Catholic Church. These groups based their beliefs and practices on the Gospels rather than on Church dogma and sought a return to the early church and the faith of the Apostles. They claimed that their teaching was rooted in Scripture and part of Apostolic tradition.[40] Sects such as the Paulicians in Armenia, Bogomils from Bulgaria and the Balkans, Arnoldists in northern Italy, Petrobrusians in southern France, Henricans in Switzerland and France, and Waldensians of the Piedmont area on the border of France and Italy, were violently persecuted and repressed.[41] The Paulicians were ordered to be burned to death as heretics;[42] the Bogomils were expelled from Serbia[43] and later subjected to the Inquisition[44] and the Bosnian Crusade; Peter of Bruys, leader of the Petrobrusians, was pushed into a bonfire by an angry mob in 1131.[45]
A number of prominent 12th century preachers insisted on it being the responsibility of the individual to develop a relationship with God, independent of an established clergy. Henry of Lausanne criticized the priesthood and called for lay reform of the Church.[46] He gained a large following.[47] Henry's preaching focused on condemning clerical corruption and clerical hierarchy, and there is no evidence that he subscribed to Cathar teachings on dualism.[48] He was arrested around 1146 and never heard from again.[49] Arnold of Brescia, leader of the Arnoldists, was hanged in 1155 and his body burnt and thrown into the Tiber River, "for fear", one chronicler says, "lest the people might collect them and honour them as the ashes of a martyr".[50] The Waldensians, followers of Peter Waldo, experienced burnings and massacres.[51]
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