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Cathars
Cathars (Gk., ‘pure’). The name was applied to several sects in patristic times, but is used mainly for a large group of dissenters who posed a serious challenge to the Church in the 12th and 13th cents. They were known to their contemporaries under various names: Cathars, Manichaeans, Bulgari, Albigenses (in France), and Patarines (in Italy). Affirming two principles of good and evil, they rejected the flesh and material creation as evil; the purpose of redemption was the liberation of the soul from the flesh. They held that Christ was an angel with a phantom body who consequently neither suffered nor rose again, and whose redemptive work consisted only in teaching man the true doctrine. Rejecting the sacraments, the doctrines of hell, purgatory, and the resurrection of the body, and believing that all matter was bad, they condemned marriage and the use of meat, milk, eggs, and other animal produce. As these ideals were too austere for most people, they distinguished two classes: the ‘perfect’, who received the ‘consolamentum’, i.e. baptism of the Holy Spirit by the imposition of hands, and kept the precepts in all their rigour, and ordinary ‘believers’, who were allowed to lead normal lives but promised to receive the ‘consolamentum’ when death approached.
Traces of this way of thinking can be found in W. Europe in the early 11th cent. From c.1140 there is clear evidence of their distinctive ideas and organization, and by 1200 they were strong in S. France and Lombardy. The reforms of the Fourth Lateran Council of 1215 and the emergence of the Dominican Order were both in part reactions to the threat of heresy, as was the development of the Inquisition. |
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E. A. LIVINGSTONE. "Cathars." The Concise Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church. 2000. Encyclopedia.com. 25 May. 2012 <http://www.encyclopedia.com>. E. A. LIVINGSTONE. "Cathars." The Concise Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church. 2000. Encyclopedia.com. (May 25, 2012). http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1O95-Cathars.html E. A. LIVINGSTONE. "Cathars." The Concise Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church. 2000. Retrieved May 25, 2012 from Encyclopedia.com: http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1O95-Cathars.html |
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Cathari
Cathari [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 ; Albigenses ). Catharism was descended from Gnosticism and Manichaeism and echoed many of the ideas of Marcion . 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 in the West and adoptionism in the East. Persecution, such as that by the Inquisition , and the efforts of popes like Innocent III destroyed Catharism by the 15th cent.
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"Cathari." The Columbia Encyclopedia, 6th ed.. 2011. Encyclopedia.com. 25 May. 2012 <http://www.encyclopedia.com>. "Cathari." The Columbia Encyclopedia, 6th ed.. 2011. Encyclopedia.com. (May 25, 2012). http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1E1-Cathari.html "Cathari." The Columbia Encyclopedia, 6th ed.. 2011. Retrieved May 25, 2012 from Encyclopedia.com: http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1E1-Cathari.html |
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Cathars
Cathars (Lat., Cathari, from Gk., katharoi, ‘pure ones’). Christian dualist heresy in W. Europe, which, in the 13th–14th cents., was a serious threat to the Catholic Church especially in S. France (see ALBIGENSES) and N. Italy. The origins of the movement are obscure, and although its doctrines were influenced by the Bogomils of Bulgaria, it remains a possibility that its dualism was an independent development or inheritance.
The inner circle of the Cathars were the ‘perfects’, who followed a life of rigorous asceticism and praying the Lord's Prayer. Admission to this circle was by the rite of consolamentum after an arduous probation, but other adherents received it on their deathbed. Those thus ‘consoled’ saw themselves as the only true Christians and denied the title to Catholics. |
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JOHN BOWKER. "Cathars." The Concise Oxford Dictionary of World Religions. 1997. Encyclopedia.com. 25 May. 2012 <http://www.encyclopedia.com>. JOHN BOWKER. "Cathars." The Concise Oxford Dictionary of World Religions. 1997. Encyclopedia.com. (May 25, 2012). http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1O101-Cathars.html JOHN BOWKER. "Cathars." The Concise Oxford Dictionary of World Religions. 1997. Retrieved May 25, 2012 from Encyclopedia.com: http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1O101-Cathars.html |
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Cathar
Cathar (from Greek katharos, ‘pure’) A member of a medieval sect seeking to achieve a life of great purity. Cathars believed in a ‘dualist’ heresy. Their basic belief was that if God, being wholly good, had alone created the world it would have been impossible for evil to exist within it, and that another, diabolical, creative force must have taken part. They held that the material world and all within it were irredeemably evil. The heresy originated in Bulgaria and appeared in western Europe in the 1140s. In southern France the followers of this Christian heresy were called ALBIGENSIANS.
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"Cathar." A Dictionary of World History. 2000. Encyclopedia.com. 25 May. 2012 <http://www.encyclopedia.com>. "Cathar." A Dictionary of World History. 2000. Encyclopedia.com. (May 25, 2012). http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1O48-Cathar.html "Cathar." A Dictionary of World History. 2000. Retrieved May 25, 2012 from Encyclopedia.com: http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1O48-Cathar.html |
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Cathar
Cathar a member of a heretical medieval Christian sect which professed a form of Manichaean dualism and sought to achieve great spiritual purity. The name is recorded in English from the mid 17th century, and comes from medieval Latin Cathari (plural), from Greek katharoi ‘the pure’.
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ELIZABETH KNOWLES. "Cathar." The Oxford Dictionary of Phrase and Fable. 2006. Encyclopedia.com. 25 May. 2012 <http://www.encyclopedia.com>. ELIZABETH KNOWLES. "Cathar." The Oxford Dictionary of Phrase and Fable. 2006. Encyclopedia.com. (May 25, 2012). http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1O214-Cathar.html ELIZABETH KNOWLES. "Cathar." The Oxford Dictionary of Phrase and Fable. 2006. Retrieved May 25, 2012 from Encyclopedia.com: http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1O214-Cathar.html |
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"Cathar." Oxford Dictionary of Rhymes. 2007. Encyclopedia.com. 25 May. 2012 <http://www.encyclopedia.com>. "Cathar." Oxford Dictionary of Rhymes. 2007. Encyclopedia.com. (May 25, 2012). http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1O233-Cathar.html "Cathar." Oxford Dictionary of Rhymes. 2007. Retrieved May 25, 2012 from Encyclopedia.com: http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1O233-Cathar.html |
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