Re: Mount And Blade With Fire And Sword Serial Keygen 1143
Onofre Alamillo
Catharism (/ˈkθərɪzəm/ KATH-ər-iz-əm;[1] from the Ancient Greek: καθαροί, romanized: katharo, "the pure ones"[2]) was a Christian quasi-dualist or pseudo-Gnostic movement which thrived in Southern Europe, particularly in northern Italy and southern France, between the 12th and 14th centuries.[3]Denounced as a heretical sect by the Catholic Church, its followers were attacked first by the Albigensian Crusade and later by the Medieval Inquisition, which eradicated the sect by 1350. Many thousands were slaughtered,[4][5] hanged, or burnt at the stake,[6] sometimes without regard for "age or sex."[4]
The first mention of Catharism by chroniclers was in 1143, four years later the Catholic Church denounced Cathar practices, particularly the consolamentum ritual. From the beginning of his reign, Pope Innocent III attempted to end Catharism by sending missionaries and persuading the local authorities to act against the Cathars. In 1208, Pierre de Castelnau, Innocent's papal legate, was murdered while returning to Rome after excommunicating Count Raymond VI of Toulouse, who, in his view, was too lenient with the Cathars.[10] Pope Innocent III then declared de Castelnau a martyr and launched the Albigensian Crusade in 1209. The nearly twenty-year campaign succeeded in vastly weakening the movement; the Medieval Inquisition that followed ultimately eradicated Catharism.
The lack of any central organisation among Cathars, regional differences in beliefs and practices, as well as the lack of sources from the Cathars themselves, has prompted some scholars to question whether the Church exaggerated its threat, and others to wonder whether it even existed.[11]
In the testimony of suspects who were put to the question by the Inquisition, the term 'Cathar' was not used amongst the group of accused heretics themselves.[14] The word 'Cathar' (aka. Gazarri etc.) is coined by Catholic theologians and used exclusively by the inquisition or by authors otherwise identified with the Orthodox church--for example in the anonymous pamphlet of 1430, Errores Gazariorum (Re: Errors of the Cathars).[15] The full title of this treatise in English is, "The errors of the Gazarri, or of those who travel riding a broom or a stick."[16]
However the presence of a variety of beliefs and spiritual practices in the French countryside of the 12th and 13th centuries that came to be seen as heterodox relative to the Church in Rome is not actually in question, as the primary documents of the period exhaustively demonstrate.[17][page needed][18][19]
Several of these groups under other names (e.g. the Waldensians or Valdeis etc.) bear a close similarity to the 'creed' or matrix of beliefs and folk-traditions pieced together under the umbrella of the term 'Catharism.'[17][page needed][18] The fact that there was clearly a spiritual and communal movement of some sort can scarcely be denied since legions of people were willing to part with their lives to defend it. Whether they acted in defense of the doctrine or in defense of the human community who held these beliefs, the fact that many gave themselves up willingly to the flames when the option to recant was given to them in many or most cases is significant. As the scholar Claire Taylor puts it, "[This issue] matters at an ethical level, because by being cleverly iconoclastic and populist in suggesting that those using 'Cathar' have made 2+2=5, Pegg and Moore [re: scholars questioning whether or not the Cathars exist] make 2+2=3 by denying the existence of the persecuted group. The missing element is a dissident religious doctrine, for which historians using a fuller range of sources believe thousands of people were prepared to suffer extreme persecution and an agonising death."[20][21]
The origins of the Cathars' beliefs are unclear, but most theories agree they came from the Byzantine Empire, mostly by the trade routes and spread from the First Bulgarian Empire to the Netherlands. The movement was greatly influenced by the Bogomils of the First Bulgarian Empire,[22] and may have originated in the Byzantine Empire, namely through adherents of the Paulician movement in Armenia and eastern Anatolia who were resettled in Thrace (Philippopolis).
The name of Bulgarians (Bougres) was also applied to the Albigensians, and they maintained an association with the similar Christian movement of the Bogomils ("Friends of God") of Thrace. "That there was a substantial transmission of ritual and ideas from Bogomilism to Catharism is beyond reasonable doubt."[23] Their doctrines have numerous resemblances to those of the Bogomils and the Paulicians, who influenced them,[24] as well as the earlier Marcionites, who were found in the same areas as the Paulicians, the Manicheans and the Christian Gnostics of the first few centuries AD, although, as many scholars, most notably Mark Pegg, have pointed out, it would be erroneous to extrapolate direct, historical connections based on theoretical similarities perceived by modern scholars.
John Damascene, writing in the 8th century AD, also notes of an earlier sect called the "Cathari", in his book On Heresies, taken from the epitome provided by Epiphanius of Salamis in his Panarion. He says of them: "They absolutely reject those who marry a second time, and reject the possibility of penance [that is, forgiveness of sins after baptism]".[25] These are probably the same Cathari (actually Novations) who are mentioned in Canon 8 of the First Ecumenical Council of Nicaea in the year 325, which states "... [I]f those called Cathari come over [to the faith], let them first make profession that they are willing to communicate [share full communion] with the twice-married, and grant pardon to those who have lapsed ..."[26]
The writings of the Cathars were mostly destroyed because of the doctrine's threat perceived by the Papacy;[27] thus, the historical record of the Cathars is derived primarily from their opponents. Cathar ideology continues to be debated, with commentators regularly accusing opposing perspectives of speculation, distortion and bias. Only a few texts of the Cathars remain, as preserved by their opponents (such as the Rituel Cathare de Lyon) which give a glimpse into the ideologies of their faith.[24] One large text has survived, The Book of Two Principles (Liber de duobus principiis),[28] which elaborates the principles of dualistic theology from the point of view of some Albanenses Cathars.[29]
It is now generally agreed by most scholars that identifiable historical Catharism did not emerge until at least 1143, when the first confirmed report of a group espousing similar beliefs is reported being active at Cologne by the cleric Eberwin of Steinfeld.[a] A landmark in the "institutional history" of the Cathars was the Council, held in 1167 at Saint-Flix-Lauragais, attended by many local figures and also by the Bogomil papa Nicetas, the Cathar bishop of (northern) France and a leader of the Cathars of Lombardy.
Gnostic cosmology identified two creator deities. The first was the creator of the spiritual realm contained in the New Testament, while the second was the demiurge depicted in the Old Testament who created the physical universe.[32] The demiurge, often called Rex Mundi ("King of the World"),[33] was identified as the God of Judaism.[32]
Some gnostic belief systems including Catharism began to characterise the duality of creation as a relationship between hostile opposing forces of good and evil.[34] Although the demiurge was sometimes conflated with Satan or considered Satan's father, creator or seducer,[22] these beliefs were far from unanimous. Some Cathar communities believed in a mitigated dualism similar to their Bogomil predecessors, stating that the evil god Satan had previously been the true God's servant before rebelling against him.[35] Others, likely a majority over time given the influence reflected on the Book of the Two Principles,[36] believed in an absolute dualism, where the two gods were twin entities of the same power and importance.[35]
All visible matter, including the human body, was created or crafted by this Rex Mundi; matter was therefore tainted with sin. Under this view, humans were actually angels seduced by Satan before a war in heaven against the army of Michael, after which they would have been forced to spend an eternity trapped in the evil God's material realm.[22] The Cathars taught that to regain angelic status one had to renounce the material self completely. Until one was prepared to do so, they would be stuck in a cycle of reincarnation, condemned to suffer endless human lives on the corrupt Earth.[37]
Cathars venerated Jesus Christ and followed what they considered to be his true teachings, labelling themselves as "Good Christians".[13] However, they denied his physical incarnation[33] and Resurrection.[38] Authors believe that their conception of Jesus resembled Docetism, believing him the human form of an angel,[39] whose physical body was only an appearance.[40][38] This illusory form would have possibly been given by the Virgin Mary, another angel in human form,[35] or possibly a human born of a woman with no involvement of a man.[36]
They firmly rejected the Resurrection of Jesus, seeing it as representing reincarnation, and the Christian symbol of the cross, considering it to be not more than a material instrument of torture and evil. They also saw John the Baptist, identified also with Elijah, as an evil being sent to hinder Jesus's teaching through the false sacrament of baptism.[22] For the Cathars the "resurrection" mentioned in the New Testament was only a symbol of re-incarnation.[41]
Most Cathars did not accept the normative Trinitarian understanding of Jesus, instead resembling nontrinitarian modalistic Monarchianism (Sabellianism) in the West and adoptionism in the East, which might or might not be combined with the mentioned Docetism.[42] Bernard of Clairvaux's biographer and other sources accuse some Cathars of Arianism,[43][44] and some scholars see Cathar Christology as having traces of earlier Arian roots.[45][46]
7fc3f7cf58