Before the persecutions started, Cathars seem to have regarded the Roman Church much the same as everything else in this material world. But increasingly evidence seemed to confirm that the Roman Church was actively allied to the wrong God. In the first place the Roman Catholics venerated the Old Testament. But the God of the Old Testament was not the Good God that Cathars recognised. He was, as anyone can confirm themselves by reading the Old Testament, ignorant, cruel, bloodthirsty and unjust. For Cathars the God of the Old Testament was the Demiurge, the supernatural being that we associate with the Devil. In other words, for the Cathars, Roman Catholics were voluntarily worshipping Satan.
Other Catholic beliefs and practices seemed to provide confirmation. Anyone who attached great value to material things was at best mistaken and at worst a disciple of the Bad God, and here again the Roman Church seemed to qualify. Cardinals, bishops and priests lived in great luxury and dressed in gorgeous robes. Even Churchmen recognised the fault of their fellow shepherds. Pope Innocent III, the richest man in Christendom, noted of the Archbishop of Narbonne:
- "…He knows no other god but money and has a purse
where his heart should be. His monks and canons take mistresses
and live by usury… Throughout the region the prelates
are the laughing stock of the laity."
Cathars knew their scripture and could cite Matthew 7:22
-
No man can serve two masters: for either he will hate one
and love the other; or else he will hold to one and despise
the other. Ye cannot serve God and Mammon.
Further,
the Roman Church encouraged the worship of material objects
such as the relics of saints. And worse yet it venerated
the cross - not only a material object but also an instrument
of torture. All this seemed to confirm that Roman Catholics
were worshipping the God of Evil who had created this world.
That the Roman Church perverted Christian Scripture, replaced
ancient rites with new ones, and persecuted minorities provided
yet more confirmation. They drew what seemed obvious conclusions
from Matthew 7, 15-16:
-
Watch out for the false prophets who come to you in the guise of lambs, when within lurk voracious wolves. Only their fruit will tell them apart.
So it was that Cathars referred to the Roman Church as the Church of Wolves.
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