Caterpillar is the rendering in the Auth. Vers, of two Heb. words: 1. Invariably of V'^Gn, chasil'(oc- can 1 Kings viii, 87; 2 Chron. vi, 28; Psa. Ixxvlii, 48; Isa. xxxiii, 4; Joel i, 4; ii, 26); 2. Occasionally (Psa. cv, 84; Jer. li, 14, 27) of pbj, ye'fcA, elsewhere "canker-worm" (q. v.).
The English word caterpliUar belongs strictly to the lanm of the genus Lepidoptera, and more especially to the Isrvs of a section of it, the PapUiomdcB, It is, however, fiar from, proved that the chasil is any species of caterpillar. The root bon, chasal\ signifies to **cottsnme" or *' devour," and it is especially used to denote the ravages of the locust (Deut xxviii, 88). The word fig<nrxpQ^ by which it is fluently rendered in the Sept, firom ppttHncu, ** I eat up," conveys also the idea of ravenoosness. The Arabic and Syriac
terms also indicate a creature whose chief characteris- tic is voracity, and this attaches to all the species of locusts. The ancients, indeed, concur in referring the word to the locust tribe of insects, but are not agreed whether it signifies any particular ipedes of locust, or is the name for any of those stales or tranrformatUms through which the locust passes firom the egg to the perfect Insect The Latin fathers take it to mean the larva of the locust, and the Greek understand it as the name of an adult locust The Latins give the name hruckus to the young locust before it has wings, call it attelabus when it begins to fly, and locusta when it is tally able to fly. The suptfior antiquity, however, of the Sept entitles its opinion to preiference, and in some passages it ascribes JUght to the /3poDxoc, and speaks of it as a distinct species ; and in the former particular, especially, it is difficult to suspect it of an egregious error. The statement of Aristotle is also worthy of notice, who speaks of the attelabos as a ma- ture insect, for he refers to its parturition and eggs (^Hist. An. V, 29). The arguments and speculations of the most eminent modem writers may be seen in Bochart, Hieroz. ed. RosenmQller, iii, 256 sq. (Lips. 1798-6).— Kitto, s. v. ChasQ. See Locust.
Cathilri (xa^apoi^ pure) or Cathabists (q. d. Pu- ritant)f a name applied at different times in Church history to different sects ; all, however, characterized by aiming at, or aC least pretending to, peculiar purity of life and manners. 1. It was assumed by the Nova- tians in the third century, who excluded from the Church all who fell into sin after baptism. See Kovatiaivs, 2. The name of Cathari was also given in the twelfth century to the sects of the Albigenses, Yaudois, Pa- tarini, and others. The Boman Catholic historians abound in frightful accounts of the heresies and im- moralities of all these sects, to whom they attributed all the bad men and bad deeds of their times. Some modem Protestant writers, yielding too ready credence to the Roman historians, treat of the Cathari as if tliey were all dualists, if not Manichssans. The trath seems to be that the origin of most, if not all, of the sects above named is to be sought in circumstances of gen- eral operation, and principally in a prevailing sense of the corruptions of the dominant Church, and of her perversions of Gospel trath. That some of the sects thus originated professed dualistic doctrines is not to be doubted ; that all were corrupt in doctrine and lifis is probably an invention of their persecutors. See Albigenses.
I. History.— 'The origin of the Catliari is unknown; the name itself, however, is Greek, and indicates an Oriental origin. That an earnest spirit of protest against the corruptions of Bome arose in Western En- rope during the Bfiddle Ages, and manifested itself es- pecially about the thirteenth century, is certain ; but the doctrines and some of the rites of the really dual-- istic Cathari were doubtless derived fh>m the East It was fbrmeriy thought that the Cathari were lineal descendants of the Manichees of the third and fourth centuries ; but this view is now abandoned. There is no subtle religious philosophy like that of the Mani- chieans found among the Cathari ; their whole system was popular rather than mysterious. ** According to the Manichees, the creation is the result of the union of the soul of the world with matter, while the Cathari taught that the whole material creation was exclusive- ly the work of the evil principle. Above all, there is among them no trace of the profound personal rever- ence for Manes, and worship of his memory, which was one essential characteristic of the genuine Manichees, who looked upon their founder as the Paraclete prom- ised by Jesus to his'disctples. The Priscillianists suc- ceeded the Manichees in the West, and the Paulicians in the East; yet these latter, properly Syrian Gnos- tics, execrated Manes. The Paulicians were thought by Mosheim, Gibbon, and Maitland to have been the immediate religious ancestors of the Cathari. It is
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