A Discourse on the Albigensian Heresy

I am not easily convinced by Peter the Sicilian (1), and I suspect rather that his work preceded the age of Photius A 9th-century Patriarch of Constantinople and a prolific scholar. by a little. But to me, the age of that man, or his testimony, is equally relevant: for it will be established that the Albigensians were the offspring of the Manichaeans of a later age. This is true: for all the dogmas we have expressed are found in them; and thus the praised Anathematisms Formal curses or decrees of excommunication issued by the Church against specific heresies. (2) state: Anathema to those who treat the Holy Mother of God original: "Deiparam" Mary with insult; (3) I anathematize those denying the resurrection of the flesh; (4) I anathematize those who admit metempsychosis metempsychosis: the philosophical concept of reincarnation or the transmigration of a soul into a new body, which they themselves call the "transfer of souls" original: "metangismon" (a pouring from one vessel into another).

Photius, in his history of the Paulicians (5), writes: Blaspheming against our most holy Lady, the Mother of God, they do not shudder to say things that can neither be written nor heard.... In like manner, showering the communion of the precious Body and Blood of Christ our God with countless insults... they turn away from the holy Prophets, and all the ancient scripture, and other saints, whom they call thieves and robbers.

Peter the Sicilian, proposing six main points, or as he calls them, "distinguishing marks" original: "gnorismata" of the Manichaean sect (6), lists after the first point (regarding the two principles of good and evil) a second: that they reject the Mother of God, ever-Virgin, out of hatred, and say that Christ was not born from her; and a third: that they deny the divine and tremendous conversion This refers to the doctrine of Transubstantiation, the belief that the bread and wine become the actual body and blood of Christ. of the Body and Blood of our Lord Jesus Christ from the sacred Mysteries; likewise a fifth: that they do not admit the books of the Old Testament, and call the Prophets thieves and robbers.

The same followed in the writings of Agapius, or Photius writing about Agapius: He denies the resurrection of all and the Judgment, transferring these terms to other meanings... he carries on an intolerable hatred and implacable war with the Mother of God and ever-Virgin Mary... he does not recognize the Body and Blood of Christ as that which we Christians venerate, but as that which his own frenzied mind has devised... he approves of metempsychoses [reincarnations]; these points indeed continually agree with the accounts of others.

Most of these things are even found in the works of those who are certainly ancient. For Theodoret says of the same people (7): They reject the resurrection of bodies as a myth... they say that souls pass into bodies; and that some are sent into the bodies of birds, others into those of cattle, wild beasts, and serpents. Epiphanius disputes at length against Mani regarding reincarnation (8), and in favor of the resurrection of bodies (9), which Philaster also recorded (10) that the Manichaeans denied along with the Last Judgment; and Rufinus (11) maintains they received this belief from Valentinus A famous 2nd-century Gnostic teacher.. I shall say nothing

(1) Page 30. (2) From Tollius, page 144. (3) Ibid. page 140. (4) Page 138. (5) Coislin Library, page 352. (6) Page 17. (7) Book 1, On the Fables of Heretics, final chapter. (8) Heresy 65, num. 28 and 55. (9) Num. 35. (10) Heresy 61. (11) Explanation of the Creed.