The Lives of the Saints, Volume III (of 16): March. Baring-Gould Sabine

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treatises written against the heretics, taking each of their doctrines in order, to refute them; and lastly, the valuable transactions of the Inquisition at Toulouse, published by Limborch, containing a great number of cases, the interrogations, and confessions, and sentences; the archives of the Inquisition at Carcassonne, portions of which are published in Vaissette, and the Inquisitorial formulary of questions put to Albigenses as to their faith, in Ricchinus.

      The doctrines peculiar to the Albigenses were these: – There were two Creators, the good God, who was the author of the New Testament, and who made the world of good spirits; and the bad God, who was the author of the Old Testament, and Creator of the visible world, and of the evil spirits.10 This latter God they called a liar, because he told the first man: "The day thou eatest of the tree thou shalt surely die," and man did not die the same day that he broke the commandment; they also called him a murderer because he slew Pharaoh and his host, and the inhabitants of the Plain. This bad God was either a fallen angel,11 or the Son of the chief God and Creator, who had two sons, Christ and Satan.12 Others held that the good God had two wives, Colla and Coliba, by whom he begat many sons and daughters.13 Others, that the men made by the good God were good, but that through union with women, whom they derived from the Evil Principle, they fell.14 The creation of men was veiled in the following myth by some of the Albigenses. The devil made men out of clay, and bade God send into them souls. God answered, that men thus constructed would be too strong, "They would dethrone me." Whereupon Satan made man of the foam of the sea; and God said, "That is good, he is a mixture of strength and fragility." And he sent a soul into the man thus made.15 Generally the Albigenses held that there were two Christs; one bad, who was born in Bethlehem of Mary, and who was crucified; and another good, who had a phantom body and was purely spiritual, and who appeared on earth in the body of the Apostle Paul. The good Christ neither ate nor drank, but the bad Christ, the Son of Mary, lived as do other men, and had for concubine, Mary Magdalene.16

      The Trinity was naturally rejected by the Albigenses, as incompatible with their Dualism. They also rejected the Old Testament as the work of the Evil Principle; and regarded Moses, the Prophet, and even John the Baptist, as possessed with evil demons.17

      With regard to the future, some of the Albigenses taught that the souls of men were the fallen angels condemned to spend seven lives in human bodies. Others denied the existence of the soul altogether.18 With such disbelief in the immortality of the soul, or such notion of its being an angel in a state of purgation, the resurrection of the body, Purgatory and Hell were rejected; and with them, prayer for the dead and invocation of saints – for how pray for a soul which is annihilated, or how invoke an apostate angel?19

      The idea of a visible Church, and the necessity of sacraments, could not be entertained with such a creed; and the Albigenses repudiated baptism, communion, and other rites. Marriage they denounced as fornication, and they condemned intercourse between man and woman as sin in the higher ranks of the elect.20 Others, however, said that fornication was no sin.21 But this refers to the lower order of the faithful.

      The faithful were divided into two orders: the higher, or "perfect," who wore a black dress, abstained from marriage, the eating of flesh, eggs, and cheese; and the "believers," who gave free scope to their lusts, and whose salvation was due to a certain ceremony being performed over them by one of the "perfect," which was called the "consolation." If one of the perfect ate the least morsel of meat or cheese or egg, he sinned mortally, and all who had been consoled by him fell at the same time out of a state of grace, and it was necessary for them to be re-consoled; and even those who were saved fell out of heaven for the sins of him who had consoled them. The sacrament of consolation was performed by one of the "perfect" laying his hands upon one of the "believers," who repeated a Pater Noster; and such act placed the "believer" in a state of grace from which he could only fall by the fall of his consoler. This ceremony was performed at the point of death.

      The ceremony of reception is thus described by Peter of Vaux-Cernaix: —

      "When any one went over to the heretics, he who received him said, 'Friend, if you wish to be one of us, it behoves you to renounce the whole faith that is held by the Roman Church.' He must answer, 'I renounce.' 'Then receive the Holy Spirit from the good men,' and then he breathes seven times in his face. Also he says to him, 'You must renounce that cross which the priest made on you in baptism, on your breast, and on your shoulders, and on your head, with oil and chrism.' He must answer, 'I renounce it.' 'Do you believe that water can work your salvation?' He answers, 'I do not believe it.' 'You must renounce that veil which the priest placed on your head when you were baptized.' He must answer, 'I renounce it.' Thus he receives the baptism of the heretics, and denies the baptism of the Church. Then they all place their hands upon him, and kiss him, and clothe him with a black garment, and from that hour he is as one of themselves."

      The ceremony of consolation, or heretication, was only performed at the point of death; but if the sick person should show signs of recovery, he or she was required to abstain from food, or to open a vein, so as to prevent convalescence and precipitate death. I may as well give a few instances which came under the notice of the inquisitors of Toulouse, from Limborch: —

      "This admission was believed to save the soul of the person admitted, and was called spiritual baptism, the consolation, the reception, and the good end; and it was believed that those sanctified by it were bound from that moment to abstain from touching a person of another sex, and from food, or the soul fell from its state of purification. Thus we read of the trial of a woman whose father had been received amongst the Albigenses, 'that she was forbidden by her father to touch him, because after his reception no woman ought to touch him, and from that time she never did touch him.' (Fol. 49.) And in another woman's trial, 'that it was unlawful for her to touch Peter Sancii, and that she heard that it was reported amongst them that they neither touch a woman, nor suffer themselves to be touched by one.' (Fol. 68.) But inasmuch as it was possible that the person received might return to his former pollutions (says Limborch in his introduction to the Acts of the Inquisition), his reception was delayed to his last sickness, when there was no more hopes of recovery, that so he might not lose the good he had received; for which reason some were not admitted, though one of the Albigenses was present, because it was not believed they would immediately die. Thus it is reported of Peter Sancii (fol. 68) that having called 'to hereticate a certain sick woman, she was not then hereticated, because he did not think it proper, upon account of her not being weak enough.' And afterwards, though the distemper grew more violent, Peter Sancii did not hereticate her, because she recovered. As for those who were received during their illness, they were commanded to make use of the Endura, that is, fasting, and to hasten death by opening a vein and bathing. Thus it is related of a certain woman, that 'she persevered in the abstinence which they call the Endura many days, and hastened her bodily death by losing her blood, frequent bathing, and greedily taking a poisonous draught of the juice of wild cucumbers, mixing it with broken glass, that, by tearing her bowels, she might sooner die.' (Fol. 14-b.) Of another, it is said, 'that she was forbidden by her mother-in-law to give her little daughter, who had been hereticated by Peter Sancii, any milk to drink, by which the child died.' (Fol. 46.) Another confesses, 'that she had not seen her father since his heretication eating or drinking anything but cold water.' (Fol. 49.) But one Hugo, who continued several days in the Endura, did afterwards, by his mother's persuasion, eat and recover. (Fol. 63.) The same year, Peter Sancii invited him 'to enter into the Endura, and so to make a good end; but he would not agree to it till he came to die.' The same Hugo saw 'that Sancii procured and hastened his own death by bleeding, bathing, and cold.' Peter Auterii is

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