Tea at Trianon: Catharism, Calvary Chapel, and Catholicism

John Wilson Croker on Marie-Antoinette

"We have followed the history of Marie Antoinette with the greatest diligence and scrupulosity. We have lived in those times. We have talked with some of her friends and some of her enemies; we have read, certainly not all, but hundreds of the libels written against her; and we have, in short, examined her life with– if we may be allowed to say so of ourselves– something of the accuracy of contemporaries, the diligence of inquirers, and the impartiality of historians, all combined; and we feel it our duty to declare, in as a solemn a manner as literature admits of, our well-matured opinion that every reproach against the morals of the queen was a gross calumny– that she was, as we have said, one of the purest of human beings."

~from History of the Guillotine by John Wilson Croker, 1844

Edmund Burke on Marie-Antoinette

"It is now sixteen or seventeen years since I saw the queen of France, then dauphiness, at Versailles; and surely there never lighted on this orb, which she hardly seemed to touch, a more delightful vision. I saw her just above the horizon, decorating and cheering the elevated sphere she had just begun to move in, glittering like a morning star full of life and splendor and joy. Oh, what a revolution....Little did I dream that I should have lived to see such disasters fall upon her, in a nation of gallant men, in a nation of men of honor and of cavaliers! I thought ten thousand swords must have leaped from their scabbards, to avenge even a look which threatened her with insult. But the age of chivalry is gone; that of sophisters, economists, and calculators has succeeded...."

~Edmund Burke, October 1790

Thursday, October 12, 2023

Catharism, Calvary Chapel, and Catholicism

I consulted many of the same primary sources for my novel about the Cathars. From The Crossroads:

The following is meant to be a companion to the previous post “Catharism, Calvary Chapel, and Catholicism” (though long overdue! ☹). On a broader level it can serve as a resource for a few primary sources on Catharism in the Middle Ages. It includes a pair of orthodox writers as well as a citation from the Charter of Niquinta which is alleged to have come from the Cathar council at Saint-Félix-de-Caraman, ca.1167.

With respect to the ancient Catholic sources, the issue was raised in the previous post as to how much credence they ought to be given. It was noted that scholars like Mark Gregory Pegg have challenged the historiographical status quo which has been to generally accept the picture that they painted. As Malcolm Barber indicates, “even orthodox attacks on Cathar belief are important since they were particularly concerned to define it accurately in order to give wight to their refutations”.[1] Following this methodology then, the Cathari were understood by their opponents to be dualist (i.e. neo-Manichaean) heretics, who established a rival church.

Bernard Gui (d. 1331), Dominican inquisitor. From the Inquisitors Manual:
It would take too long to describe in detail the manner in which these same Manichaean heretics preach and teach their followers, but it must be briefly considered here….Of baptism, they assert that the water is material and corruptible and is therefore the creation of the evil power, and cannot sanctify the soul, but that the churchmen sell this water out of avarice, just as they sell earth for the burial of the dead, and oil to the sick when they anoint them, and as: they sell the confession of sins as made to the priests. (My emphasis).
(Read more.)