§ 80. THE CATHAKI. 479
food, kill animals, take oaths, or favor war and capital pun ishment.
The marriage bed was renounced as contrary to God's law, and some went so far as to say openly that the human body was made by the devil. The love of husband and wife should be like the love of Christ for the Church, without carnal desire. The command to avoid looking on a woman, Matt. 5 : 27, 28, was taken literally, and the command to leave husband and wife was interpreted to mean the renun ciation of sexual cohabitation. Witnesses condemned mar riage absolutely,1 and no man or woman living in sexual relations could be saved. The opinion prevailed, at least among some Catharan groups, that the eating of the for bidden fruit in Eden meant carnal cohabitation.2
As for animal nourishment, not only were all meats for bidden, but also eggs and cheese. The reason given was that these were the product of carnal intercourse.3 The words of Peter on the housetop, Acts 10 : 14, were also quoted. The Cathari, however, allowed themselves fish, in view of Christ's example in feeding the multitude and his example after his resurrection, when he gave fish to his disciples. The killing of animals, birds, and insects, except frogs and serpents, was also forbidden.* The ultimate ground for this refusal to kill animal life was stated by one of the Inquisitorial manuals to be a belief in metempsychosis, the return of the souls of the dead in the bodies of animals.
The condemnation of capital punishment was based on such passages as : " Give place unto wrath, vengeance is mine, I will repay, saith the Lord," Rom. 12 : 19 ; and the judicial execution of heretics and criminals was pronounced homicide, a survival from the Old Testament and the influ ence of its evil god. The Cathari quoted Christ's words,
1 Moneta, p. 315 ; jacere cum uxore sua sicut cum meretrice, Dollinger, II. 30 ; matrimonium est meretricium, Douais, II. 93 ; Dollinger, II. 18, 21, 23, 25, 28, 40, 156, 300, etc. ; omnem carnalem concubitum dampnabilem dicunt. Douais, II. 93, 96, etc.
2 Bonacursus, p. 776 ; Douais, II. 93, 103, etc.
8 Ibid., p. 777 ; Rainerius, p. 1762 ; Dollinger, II. 294, 300. 4 Dollinger, II. 5, 152, 181, 248, 294.
480 THE MIDDLE AGES. A.D. 1049-1294.
" Ye have heard how it hath been said an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth." l One of the charges made against the established Church was that it countenanced war and mar shalled armies.
The interdiction of oaths was in obedience to the words of Christ, and was in the interest of strict integrity of speech.2
The Cathari also renounced priestly vestments, altars, and crosses as idolatrous. They called the cross the mark of the beast, and declared it had no more virtue than a ribbon for binding the hair. It was the instrument of Christ's shame and death, and therefore not to be used.3 Thorns or a spear would be as appropriate for religious symbols as the cross.
They also rejected, as might have been expected, the doctrines of purgatory and indulgences.4
In addition to the consolamentum, the Cathari practised two rites called the melioramentum and the endura.5 The melioramentum, which is adduced again and again in the judicial sentences, was a veneration of the officials admin istering the consolamentum, and consisted of a threefold salutation. The Catholics regarded it as a travesty of the adoration of the host.6
The endura, which has been called the most cruel practice the history of asceticism has to show, was a voluntary star vation unto death by those who had received the consola mentum. Sometimes these rigorous religionists waited for thirteen days for the end to come,7 and parents are said even to have left their sick children without food, and mothers to have withdrawn the breast from nursing infants in exe cuting the rite. The reports of such voluntary suicide are quite numerous.
1 Salve Burce, in Dollinger, II. 71, a remarkable passage ; Douais, II. 94 ; Rainerius, p. 1702.
2 Bonacursus, p. 777 ; Ermengaud, p. 1269. See Alphande"ry, P- 83 sq.
8 Dollinger, under Kreuz in Index II. 730 ; Bonacursus, p. 777 ; Douais, II. 94.
4 Rainerius, 1762. See Alphande"ry, p. 44.
5 See Dollinger in Index under these two words and Schmidt, II. 71-103, « Dollinger, I. 193, 210 ; II. 4, 25, 30, etc. ; Douais, II. 23, etc,
7 Alphand<§ry, p. 51 ; Dollinger, II, 205,