Cathar Connections to Gnosticism Part 3

There are a number of primary sources available for the study of Catharism, including texts of Cathar rituals and prayers. Two ritual texts, the Consolamentum and the Pater Noster, written in Latin, are extant today. These are combined in the text of the Lyons ritual. The Consolamentum is not particularly unusual in content or language, in fact, it appears rather orthodox. Several other historical documents exist that may be attributed to the Cathars, including a text recounting the happenings at the Cathar Council of 1167. Several Bogomil texts exist that were, in all likelihood, accessible to the Cathars of Western Europe. The Interrogation of John, or "Secret Supper", and the Vision of Isaiah would have been available to the Cathars in France. These texts, more than the ritual texts mentioned earlier, included information about cosmogony and theology. These texts clearly describe a gnostic, dualist cosmogony. The secondary sources for the Cathar heresy include a number of orthodox Christian writers, including inquisitors, chroniclers, and preachers. There are a number of accounts of the inquisition of the Cathars, primarily dating to the mid-thirteenth century, during the time of the Albigensian crusade. This body of work, encompassing the writings of Rainier Sacconi, Bernard of Caux and John of St. Pierre, serves as a helpful historic record. These writings preserve the perceptions and views of the orthodox church. There is also a manual for inquisitors dating to the thirteenth century, detailing the crimes of the Cathars. Several historical chronicles written from an orthodox Christian perspective exist, including a record of the Standoff at Lombers and Pierre de Vaux de Cernay. A sermon against Bogomilism by Cosmas of Constantinople preaches against the beliefs of the Bogomils and thus, provides a great deal of information regarding the beliefs and practices of the Bogomils of the East.

The gnostic sources for this paper are varied, but all are present within the Nag Hammadi library. These sources include several theological writings, especially the Gospel of Truth and the Gospel of Phillip, as well as the Gospel of Thomas, a collection of sayings of Jesus. These texts will serve to represent a tradition of Valentinian Gnosticism. It is impossible to know if the Cathars could have had access to these texts in the twelth and thirteenth centuries. It has, however, been suggested that the Bogomils of Eastern Europe had access to a Gospel of Thomas.

There are a number of primary sources for the Manichean movement. These texts may be grouped into several collections. The first of these is attributed to Mani, the founder of Manicheanism, and was originally written in Aramaic, though no complete copies of the text survive. This collection includes a Living Gospel, a book of Psalms and Prayers, as well as a number of other texts. A second collection of texts, written in Coptic, was found in 1930. This collection, the most thorough of those discovered, includes several commentaries, a history of the Life of Mani, a book of Psalms, and a text of the Letters of Mani, which was unfortunately lost in World War II. These texts describe the beliefs and practices of Manicheanism in great detail, providing a rich source of knowledge about this faith, which existed alongside gnosticism and shared a number of gnostic beliefs.