ual. Their familiarity with Scripture is vouched for by the warning of Lucas, Bishop of Tuy, that the Christian should dread their conversation as he would a tempest, unless he is deeply skilled in the law of God, so that he can overcome them in argument. Their strict morality was never corrupted, and a hundred years after St. Bernard the same testimony is rendered to the virtues of those who were persecuted in Florence in the middle of the thirteenth century. In fact the formula of confession used in their assemblies shows how strict a guard was maintained over every idle thought and careless word.[1]
Their proselyting zeal was especially dreaded. No labor was too severe, no risks too great, to deter them from spreading the faith which they deemed essential to salvation. Missionaries wandered over Europe through strange lands to carry the glad tidings to benighted populations, regardless of hardship, and undeterred by the fate of their brethren, whom they saw expiate at the stake the hardihood of their revolt. Externally they professed to be
Catholics, and were exemplary in the performance of their religious duties till they had won the confidence of their new neighbors, and could venture on the attempt of secret conversion whenever they saw opportunity. They scattered by the wayside writings in which the poison of their doctrine was skilfully conveyed
- ↑ Processus contra Valdenses (Archivio Storico Italiano, 1865, Nos. 38, 39). —
'i S. Bernard! Serm. in Cantica Ixv. cap. 5; Ixvi. cap. 1. — Gregor. Fanens Dispu-
tat. cap. 17. — Anon. Passaviens. contra Waldens. cap. 7. — Radulf. Coggeshall.
~- Chron. Anglic. (D. Bouquet, XVIII. 93).— Concil. Remens. ann. 1157, c. 1.— Ec-
berti Schonaug. contra Catharos Serm. i. cap. 1. — Cunitz, Beitrage zu den theol.
Wissenschaften, 1852, B. IV. pp. 4, 12-14. — Lucse Tudens.de altera Vita Lib. ii.
cap. 9 ; Lib. iii. cap. 5. — Lami, Antichita Toscane, p. 550.
The Cathari probably had Romance versions of the New Testament as early as 1178, when we find the cardinal legate disputing at Toulouse with two Catharan bishops whose ignorance of Latin was a subject of ridicule, while they seem to have been ready enough with Scripture. — Roger. Hoveden. Annal. ann. 1178. See also Molinier, Annales de la Facultg des lettres de Bordeaux, 1883, No. 3.
Abbot Joachim bears testimony to the external virtues of the Cathari of Ca- labria, and the advantage which they derived from the vices of the clergy. — Tocco, L'Eresia nel Medio Evo, p. 403.
The story of the sacrament made from the bodies of children born of promiscuous intercourse was widely circulated and variously applied. It was related in the eleventh century of the Euchitae by Psellus (De Operat. Daemon.) and continued to be told of successive heretics — even of the Templars,
