the Councils of Rome. Furthermore, this group consists of women as well as men, both from Toulouse and from further away in the region. What we encounter here is the Occitan tradition of ‘paratge’, the total equality between people of all walks of life. It is in this concept that we recognize one of the pillars of European social thinking. It embodies the idea of the ‘burgher’ in medieval Gaul as opposed to the liegeman or vassal which were characteristic of the absolute monarchy. And the document adds: ‘…and came together to receive the Consolamentum’. I would like to go deeper into the concept of the Consolamentum in order to better understand the essential elements of Catharism and its evangelical ideal. The Consolamentum One of the characteristics of Catharism was the rejection of the sacraments of the Gregorian church. These sacraments were gradually introduced to formalise a human behavioural code within the structure of the church hierarchy. In this way, the Roman church ruled its members directly from their birth until the final extreme unction before death. The sacraments represent submission to the dogmas that were ordained by the church hierarchy. A refusal to comply with the Catholic sacraments resulted in an excommunication by the church which was also followed by the powerful lords and kings. This excommunication made someone an ‘apostat’ and completely excluded him from the society of which he formerly was a recognized member. To the Cathars, a sacrament meant something completely different. To them it was a direct connection with original Christianity. They only recognized the sacrament that Jesus administered to his apostles:
> Aquest Sanh babtisme, per loqual Sant Esperit es datz, a tengut la gleisa de Deu dels apostols en sa, et es vengutz de bos homes en bos homes entro aici, e o fara entro la fi del segle’.4
> Quar aqui on so doi o trei ajustat el meu nom, eu so aqui e meg de lor.8
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the baptism of fire, which is receiving the Holy Spirit through the laying on of hands. This they called the Consolamentum. As we may read in the Occitan Ritual of Lyon: ‘This holy baptism, bestowed by the Holy Spirit, the Church of God, has been kept alive from the time of the apostles unto this day. It has been passed on from ‘bons hommes’ to ‘bons hommes’ until this day and will be observed until the end of the world’. 5 Catharism ignited an impulse to rejuvenate and preserve original Christianity in the sense of community, of brotherhood. This brotherhood of humanity was born on the day of Pentecost when the apostles received the Holy Spirit as a holy spiritual Force. The canons of Orléans refer to this spiritual force when in 1022 they profess: ‘We embrace the law which was written by the Holy Spirit within humans and we know only what we have learned from God, the Creator of all things.’ (6) This refers to the same ‘inner man’ which inquisitor Bernard Gui ridiculed in scornful terms when he confirmed that the Cathars believed ’…that there are both different spiritual bodies as well as one inner man.’ Because of the descent of the Holy Spirit, all the doctrines of Christianity are transformed into a living force that is an individual possession while at the same time this force may be shared by each and every one in the Christian collective. As the manuscript of Lyon states: ‘For where two or three are gathered in my name, there am I among them.’ With these words Christianity lays the foundation for a brotherly community by setting the example of a universal unity to which all men are called. On this corner stone the Church of God, Gleisa in the Occitan language, was built. Not as a hierarchical structure with
The ideal of brotherhood, the essence of the gospel of the Cathars