Roots of modern Christianity

[muckefuck]

"I have heard tell that there is a paradise, and I believe it. I have heard tell that there is a hell, but, that, I neither believe nor deny. I believe that there is a paradise because that is a good thing, from what I hear, but I do not believe nor deny hell, because that is an evil thing." (Testimony of Grazida Lizier of Montaillou, as translated by Dr Nancy Stork and reproduced here.)

Comments

[alfaboy.livejournal.com]

so... if it's pleasing, it's not a sin?

[muckefuck.livejournal.com]

If you're an ingenue who lives in the sticks in 14th century France, apparently so.

[lhn.livejournal.com]

Especially in the sticks of a hotbed of Albigensianism lately reclaimed by orthodoxy. I don't remember if disbelief in hell was a Cathar thing. (I think maybe, on the grounds that the Devil/Demiurge's domain was the material world so that there was no need for another one, but it's been a while since I read about it.) But the widespread local distrust in church doctrine (and the clergy itself) that led to Montaillou going Albigensian was almost certainly a factor.

[thefirethorn.livejournal.com]

or maybe,

"If my parents and my husband didn't object, and the man responsible for my soul told me to do it, then it is not a sin."

Interesting that she didn't argue along that vein at all, something like "I was just a kid at the time and didn't know any better, the preist said it was ok, who was I to tell him he was a horndog?"

I found it interesting that no one blames the priest for neglecting to teach her that boinking a man with a vow of chastity is a bad thing. Of course, she had been taught that all sex was bad, including married sex, so what difference did it make?

[lhn.livejournal.com]

I found it interesting that no one blames the priest for neglecting to teach her that boinking a man with a vow of chastity is a bad thing.

Well, the priest was a big old Cathar himself, who tried to save himself by turning states' evidence on everyone else. So of course by the time of the trials, all that was part and parcel with the sinful life he'd ostensibly renounced. (Not that it really helped him-- IIRC, he died in the Inquisition's custody.)

[snowy-owlet.livejournal.com]

What's your take on this? Self-serving twisting of doctrine to serve one's own desires or an interestingly englightened viewpoint given the time/culture?

[muckefuck.livejournal.com]

Near impossible to know, isn't it? At the end of her testimony, the inquisitor records:

In saying that all carnal union is displeasing to God, believes she is doing well, without realizing that she is enunciating an essentially Cathar idea. In her other affirmations, in contrast, she is consciously insolent, although the trial record has the appearance of naïveté.

Is this "insolence" merely indignation at being questioned by a condescending Catholic prelate or is it the conviction of a free thinker? Is she really a naïve girl or is pretending to be one her best chance of escaping punishment at the hands of the Church?

I've just begun to read some of the original documents and it's such an alien society, I'm having trouble comprehending people's viewpoints. Catharism in particular is repugnant to me as a philosophy and I've never understood what made it so popular.

[thefirethorn.livejournal.com]

what about it do you find repugnant?

[muckefuck.livejournal.com]

The whole rejection of the physical world, along with the body and all of its functions. In common with other dualist heresies dating back to Manichee, it claims that all material things are the creation of the Devil whereas only pure spirit come from God. Therefore, extreme asceticism is required to release the spirit from the flesh so that it may entre Heaven. I already find that mediaeval Christianity has too much emphasis on suffering and abnegation for my taste and contemporaneous mainstream Christians found the Cathars freaky in their self-denial. From what little I've read so far, it also seems to have a lot of emphasis on saving oneself and very little on mercy or altruism.

Oddly, there are some commonalities with Buddhism, but the emphasis is so different. Catharism seems to combine all the fun of hard-core Theravada Buddhism with all the flaws of a dogmatic revealed religion.

[lhn.livejournal.com]

The whole rejection of the physical world, along with the body and all of its functions. In common with other dualist heresies dating back to Manichee, it claims that all material things are the creation of the Devil whereas only pure spirit come from God. Therefore, extreme asceticism is required to release the spirit from the flesh so that it may entre Heaven. I already find that mediaeval Christianity has too much emphasis on suffering and abnegation for my taste and contemporaneous mainstream Christians found the Cathars freaky in their self-denial.

Though sometimes manifested in weird forms, as with Pierre Clergue, the priest responsible for Grazida's spiritual and carnal instruction. (She was one of a dozen documented mistresses of his, btw.) I'm not sure how widespread the idea that since everything physical was evil, there was no point in worrying too much about any given act, but it seems to have worked for Pierre. (At least till the Inquistion showed up. :-) ) He's so clearly an opportunist, though, that it's unclear how representative the idea was.

The counterpoint to this, in any case, is the way you were supposed to make up for your sins in life. When you were believed to be dying, you were expected to commit yourself to the endura, a regimen of total self-denial. Essentially, dying people were supposed to starve themselves to death. (And certainly, that would ensure that there would be no incorrect diagnoses of terminal illness-- if your condition didn't get you, the endura would.)

[snowy-owlet.livejournal.com]

Yes: please elucidate, because I know absolutely nothing about Catharism, and I'm depending on you to do my research for me.