well known that nomben of those religionists were transpUnted into Thrace by Constantino CopronTmoB about the middle of the eighth century. Tet the Pan- licians had no rites or ceremonies whatever, no ecclesi- astical or hierarcliical organisation ; they were stran- gers to ascetic abstinence from animal food, and did not condemn marriage. Such radical difierences as these will not allow us to suppose the heterodox move- ment of Southern and Western Europe to liave been a simple transplantation of Asiatic PauUcianism, tliongh this sect may have contributed in some measure— more or less directly— to the formation of Catliarism. The fact seems to be that Dualism manifested itself in Chris- tendom at different periods under various successive and independent forms" {Land, Quart. Review, iv, 10). Schmidt assigns it a Slavonic origin (South Macedo- nia), and ascribes its introduction into Italy to Slavonic traders. The first Cathari in Italy were found about A.D. 1086 near Turin, and their chief and others were burned. By the twelfth century they were estab- lished at various points, firom Upper Italy to Calabria. A Romanist writer has recently sought to show that Dante was a Catharist (Aronz, Dante hirHique, Paris, 1854; and Ckefde la Comidie Anti-catkoHque de Dante AUghieri, Paris, 1856). In the thirteenth century, Pungilovo, said to have been a Catharist, but a man of eminent charity and goodness, came near being canon- ized by the Roman Church. Seb Canonization. The greatest successes of the Catharists in Western Europe were in the south of France, where they were either identical with the Albigenses, or confounded with them. See Albigenses. During the twelfth century they, and all other dissidents from Rome, suf- fered grievous local persecutions ; but there " had been no general, persevering, systematic attempt to exter- minate them. Meantime they had spread from Con- stantinople to Spain ; they were masters in the Slavon- ic provinces which now form the north-east of Turkey; they were formidable in Lombardy ; they had auda- ciously insinuated themselves into the pontifical city itself; above all, the only transalpine nation that had emerged from barbarism had almost thrown off its al- legiance to Rome ; heresy sat enthroned in a central region, whence, in one generation, it could spread over France, Spain, and Italy. The Church was in peril ; but the year 1198 witnessed the beginning of a pontif- icate in which an iron will was to put forUi in her ser- vice all the resources of rare intrepidity, unremitting vigilance, and far-seeing sagacity. Innocent III was the very incarnation of the idea of the papacy ; he was distinguished by precisely the sort of character and talents which were qualified to effect the purposes of the hierarchy of which he was the head." During his pontificate, the cruel crusades against the Albigenses and Cathari, which have made the names of Iimocent Bnd Dominic notorious in history, swept away thou- sands of Catharist Dualists and of simple-minded Albi- genses together. See Albigenses. There were con- gregations of them enough to constitute whole dioceses in the thirteenth century ; but the Inquisition, direct- ed by Innocent III, and established by the Council of Toulouse, 1229, for the search and suppression of her- esy, pursued them relentlessly ; so that after the four- teenth century no traces of them are to be found.
II. Doctrines, —The heretical Cathari held to Dual- ism, i. e. to God as the original good, and to an evO principle as the author of evil. This is a simple, and, to an uneducated mind, a natural solution of the prob- lem of the origin of evil. The absoltOe Dualists held that the evil principle was an original one as well as the good. The struggle between them is eternal. "It was believed that some souls had been created by the evil being, and, of course, would never be saved. Such were all atrocious criminals, lyrants, persecutors, ene- mies of God and of his Church. Others, created by the good God, had been seduced frt>m the heavenly world above by Satan, who disguised himself, for the
purpose, as an angel of beauty and light. These were condemned to expiate their offence in earthly bodies, and to pass from one body to another, sometimes even, as an additional punishment, assuming the shape of animals, until, at last, they should obtain deliverance from their terrestrial hell by being admitted into the true Church. The conaotamentum (see below) reunites the exiles to their guardian angels (called *Holy Ghost' or * Paraclete*), of whom there is a distinct one for every soul of heavenly creation. St. Panl, in par- ticular, had successively inhabited thirty-two l^odke. Of course there was to be no real resurrection."
The majority of the Cathari held to a more moderate form of Dualism. Of Uiis class were the Bogomiles (q. V.) in Slavonia and the East ; and in Italy, the Con- corensians or Concorezenses, so called from a oormp- tion of the name of the town Coriza, in Dalmatia. They held to one God, who created matter from noth- ing; but the arrangement of mstter into the existing form of the visible world, in which so much evil exists, was due, not to God, but to a fsllen spirit — an exceed- ingly mighty angel, who seduced a Uiird of the heav- enly hosL The absolute Dualbts held that all soiils came to the earth at once ; the Concorensbns main- tained that Adam and Eve were created (their bodies by the evil power, their souls from God), and that all souls are derived from them. Hence the metempsy- chosis of the abFolute duality had no place in their system. The Word of God, both in the O. T. and N. T., was interpreted by the Catharists to suit thdr du- alistic theory. Jesus Christ, the highest of created be- ings, was sent from heaven to teach the captive s]drits the secret of setting themselves free from the chains of matter and of evil. He came in an ethereal body, which had only the appesrance of the human form ; for, as he said of himself^ he is ** from above*' (John viii, 28), or, as St. Paul said, " from heaven" (1 Cor. XV, 47). Me expressly denied having inherited any- thing from bis mother (John U, 4). He had but the likeness of flesh (Rom. viii, 8 ; Phil, ii, 8). It was for this reason that .he could widk upon the water; and this was the glory revealed on the Mount of Transfig- uration. His death, not being real, was but an appa- rent triumph of the evil one.