Catharism — Medieval Gnostic Christianity
Catharism (12th-13th century France and Italy) was a medieval revival of Gnostic dualism — whose persecution in the Albigensian Crusade produced one of the most brutal episodes of religious violence in European history.
Catharism (from Greek: catharos — pure) was a dualist Christian movement that flourished in southern France (Languedoc) and northern Italy from the late 11th to the early 14th century. The Cathars held a Gnostic-style dualism: the material world was created by a malevolent being (identified with the God of the Old Testament or with Satan), while souls were divine sparks imprisoned in matter. The path of liberation involved renunciation of the material world (the Cathar elite, the Perfecti, abstained from meat, eggs, dairy, wine, and sexual relations) and reception of the consolamentum — the Cathar equivalent of baptism and ordination, given by the laying on of hands. Pope Innocent III launched the Albigensian Crusade against them in 1209, leading to the massacre of tens of thousands and the systematic destruction of Cathar culture. The Cathars' final stand at Montségur (1244) — where over 200 Perfecti walked voluntarily into the flames rather than recant — became one of the most celebrated acts of religious martyrdom in European history.
The good God did not make this world — he is the God of souls, and souls alone are his creation. We who are pure serve him alone.
Historian Malcolm Lambert (The Cathars) demonstrated that Catharism was not a survival of ancient Gnosticism transmitted underground but an independent medieval revival of dualist principles — arising from the encounter between Byzantine Bogomilism and Western Christian dissent in the 11th century.
Cathar texts
Written about in
- What Gnosticism says about courage
When a comparable dualism reappeared in southern France and northern Italy, it was destroyed by crusade and inquisition. This is the part of the history to read before treating any of these ideas as safely symbolic.