Digital Continent Digital Continent Easter 2017 | Page 13

Heresy: Cathar/Albigensian
The Latin form, haeresis, comes from the “Greek word meaning ‘a choosing.’” 10 A
choosing that led God’s people away from the orthodox teachings of the Catholic Church. Those
who strayed away from orthodoxy and who sought to lead others away from orthodox teaching
were known as heretics, “they were not merely lost sheep, doomed to spend eternity in hell; they
actively sought to lead others along their path to perdition.” 11 It was the Catholic Church that
maintained the standard by which all of Christendom lived their lives, rendering “to Caesar the
things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are Gods” (RSV, Mt 22:21). The Church
sought to educate the heretic, to bring him back into orthodoxy, or right belief, “to turn sinners
away from their sin.” 12 Heresy from within the Body of Christ was thought to be considerably
more dangerous than the onslaught of the Muslims so far away. 13 The state found itself using
capital punishment against the heretic as a way of maintaining order, “secular officials put
heretics to death in the conviction that one faith in one
church was the indispensable cement of Christian
society.” 14
10
Walter Wakefield, Heresy, Crusade and Inquisition in Southern France, 1100-1250, (CA: University of California
Press, 1974), 16.
11
rd
Thomas Madden, The Concise History of the Crusades, 3 ed., (NY: Rowman & Littlefield, 2014), 119.
12
John Vidmar, OP, The Catholic Church Through the Ages: A History, (N.J., Paulist Press, 2005), 143.
13
rd
Thomas Madden, The Concise History of the Crusades, 3 ed., (NY: Rowman & Littlefield, 2014), 119.
14
Walter Wakefield, Heresy, Crusade and Inquisition in Southern France, 1100-1250, (CA: University of California
Press, 1974), 17.