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What was the Sin of Jesus? The Cathar Lord's Prayer — Transcript

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0:00Without doubt, the Lord's Prayer is the
0:03centerpiece of Christian piety. Recited
0:05daily by millions of the faithful. Its
0:08words are so iconic that many of you
0:10probably have the entire prayer or at
0:13least parts of it committed to memory.
0:15And this has been true for centuries for
0:17every form of Christianity.
0:20Even those forms condemned as heresy.
0:24The Cathar Church, thought by many to be
0:26a dualist Gnostic form of Christianity,
0:30also held the Lord's Prayer to be
0:31central to their piety. Indeed, one even
0:34had to achieve proper initiation to even
0:37recite the prayer in the Cathar church
0:39at all. But the relatively recent
0:41discovery of a Cathar manuscript reveals
0:43that this church had a radically
0:45esoteric interpretation of the Lord's
0:48Prayer. And hiding behind the words
0:51known by millions are said to be
0:54profound, even strange metaphysical
0:56teachings, including the secret sin of
1:00Jesus himself. Let's explore this
1:03medieval gnostic interpretation of the
1:06secrets of the Lord's Prayer. Make sure
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1:38Books, our bookstore. You can find all
1:40those links in the description and in
1:42the pinned comment below. But now, let's
1:45turn to the secrets of the Cathar's
1:47interpretation of the Lord's Prayer. I'm
1:51Dr. Justin Sledge, and welcome to
1:53Esoterica, where we explore the arcane
1:56and history, philosophy, and religion.
2:04Before
2:23we get started, just a small caveat.
2:25I'll be taking up what is called the
2:26traditional position on the Cathar
2:28church throughout this episode. Though
2:30recent scholarship has strongly argued
2:32that there may have never really been an
2:34organized movement of Cathars and thus a
2:36Cathar church at all and thus no
2:39community to have such scriptures as
2:41we'll be talking about. Now I've laid
2:42out the skeptical position on the
2:44existence of the Cthars as a kind of
2:45counterchurch in another episode. So you
2:47want to check out that to get a sense of
2:49the argument. That said, the traditional
2:51position on the Cathars, which has
2:53really only emerged since the mid-9th
2:55century, holds that a dualist variant of
2:58Christianity was introduced into central
3:00Europe and took hold especially in
3:02northern Italy and in southern France,
3:04especially in the Langualkk region with
3:06its origins in Eastern European dualist
3:09philosophy known as bogumism. Now, such
3:12a dualist religion may have indeed
3:13reached all the way back into antiquity
3:15to the groups that we sometimes refer to
3:17as the Gnostic schools of late
3:19antiquity. And while there existed some
3:21internal variation among the so-cal
3:23cathars, the central core of their ideas
3:26was that reality was to be divided into
3:28onlogically distinct good and spiritual
3:30and evil and physical camps. Human souls
3:34were originally angels stolen out of
3:36heaven and then plunged into the evil
3:38physical world by Satan such that if
3:40they don't undergo a process of
3:42spiritual fear of p purification, they
3:44would be caught forever in a cycle of
3:46reincarnation. To achieve salvation, the
3:49Cathars had spiritual leaders who led
3:51lives of extremely strict purity. the
3:54so-called perfecti who would welcome
3:56other believers or support into the
3:58purity at the end of their lives through
4:00the soul kathar sacrament known as the
4:02consolmentum.
4:03This ritual would purify the soul such
4:06that it could escape the physical body
4:08and the physical realm more generally
4:10and then be reinstated into the purely
4:12spiritual angelic realm. Now whether the
4:16Cathars existed as a distinct church can
4:19be contested but what is definitely
4:21certain is that the Catholic Church
4:22thought that they existed and waged the
4:24Albagencian crusade against them
4:27resulting in widespread torture and
4:28genocidal violence in the south of
4:30France from 1209 to 1229 followed by the
4:34horrors of Inquisition. The last Cathar
4:36is said to have been burned at the stake
4:38in 1321 with heresy hunting eventually
4:40becoming witch hunting in the centuries
4:42that followed. Further, we have
4:45collections of writings which are
4:47clearly expressing an esoteric dualist
4:50interpretation of Christianity that seem
4:52to emerge from southern France and
4:54northern Italy primarily from the 14th
4:56century and they seem to have been in
4:58writing in Italy along with works of
5:00confessed exathars like Renerius Sako
5:03detailing their doctrines. Now, I've
5:05covered many of these writings like the
5:07doctrine of the two principles and the
5:09secret supper in previous episodes. if
5:11you want to check out those alleged
5:12Cathar writings, they're certainly some
5:14form of esoteric dualism. So, between
5:17the skeptical position and the
5:18traditional position on the Cathars,
5:20there is a ton to debate over. But along
5:23with the writings I just mentioned, a
5:25small volume of dualist text has also
5:28been discovered in Ireland of all
5:30places. James Usher, the 17th century
5:33bishop of Arma, had collected a small
5:35library of works on the Waldenians in
5:38order to compose a book about that
5:40heresy. The Waldensians were another
5:42heretical faction pledged to radical
5:44apostolic poverty that emerged in late
5:4712th century France around the same time
5:49and in the same region as the Cathars.
5:52Their existence isn't in doubt, however,
5:54because they still survive down to this
5:57day despite centuries of inquisitional
5:59persecution. So go Waltinsians. But in
6:03this collection of purported Waldensian
6:05documents was a slender volume of
6:07apparently dualist seemingly Cathar
6:10teachings written in Oitan. The book
6:13contains two documents actually. One
6:16entitled by scholars as a vindication of
6:18the church of God and then the Cathar
6:21commentary on the Lord's Prayer. The
6:23manuscript itself is actually quite
6:25beautiful, though it hasn't been
6:26digitized yet. And it clearly lends a
6:28kind of sacradal quality with its
6:30elaborate decoration. And I suppose
6:32while we're here, I guess I should also
6:34talk for just a brief minute about the
6:35vindication for a moment before turning
6:37to the commentary. The vindication,
6:40probably representing a moderate duelist
6:42sect, is a defense of the Cathar church
6:44as the true church over and against the
6:46church of Rome. The true church, as the
6:49text argues, is not a church of stone
6:52and wood, but a spiritual body which has
6:55received the specific power of pardoning
6:57sins through prayer from Christ. This is
7:00possible only if a person joins that
7:02spiritual body and absolutely abstains
7:05from killing, which also includes
7:06animals. The Cathars were kind of early
7:08Christian vegans. Committing adultery,
7:11which it could include even marrying
7:12other people. The Cathar perfecti were
7:15celibate. theft, which could mean any
7:17form of ownership, considering that the
7:19Perfecti followed radical apostolic
7:21poverty, any form of deception, swearing
7:23an oath, any form of blasphemy or
7:26cursing, and maintaining what the text
7:28calls the law of life as opposed to the
7:30law of death as written in the Old
7:32Testament, a document that moderate
7:34Cathars held to be ultimately satanic in
7:38its origin. Further, a sign of the true
7:41church will be its persecution, its
7:43tribulations, and the martyrdom of its
7:46members. As the church of Rome was, at
7:48least at that time, directly massacring
7:50me members of the Qatar church, this was
7:53a sure sign that the Roman church wasn't
7:55the true church. Rather, it was a
7:58diabolical church led by the antichrist.
8:00Finally, the true church would offer a
8:02purely spiritual baptism. Early Cathars
8:06actually held that John the Baptist was
8:07a satanic agent sent to hinder the
8:10mission of Christ, distracting people
8:12with his baptism of water. Rather, the
8:15Cathars held that true baptism by the
8:18act of laying on of hands was a purely
8:20spiritual act which made for the
8:22remission of sins in their central
8:24ritual, the consolum. Early Cathars
8:27actually rejected any form of water
8:29baptism. While later moderated Cathars
8:31saw water baptism as either redundant
8:34and not bad or an initial baptism before
8:37the high spiritual baptism and thus
8:39moderated their views a bit on John the
8:41Baptist. And the text concludes that
8:43just like those outside of Noah's ark
8:45perish in the flood, so too will
8:48everyone lacking the spiritual baptism
8:50eternally perish. And so on an
8:52especially cheery note, the text comes
8:54to an end. And so after that mic drop,
8:57the text begins a line by line
8:59commentary on the Lord's Prayer. While
9:02this prayer is of course central in
9:04Christian life generally, even saying it
9:07was reserved only for those who had
9:08already gone some degree of Cathar
9:10initiation into the true church. And
9:13apparently understanding its esoteric
9:15message was actually important part of
9:17becoming one of those perfecti through
9:19the consolmentum. So it's good to have
9:21it otherwise we'd all be doomed to
9:24reincarnation. I mean, I'm probably
9:26already redundantly doomed, but um maybe
9:29this will help someone who's watching.
9:31Sadly, the first page of the text has
9:33actually just been cut out and seems to
9:35introduce the prayer as basically the
9:36core of Jesus's teaching, which is sort
9:39of interesting considering that Jesus
9:40actually may have been taught the prayer
9:43by John the Baptist. Anyway, it's
9:45interesting detail. That said, the text
9:48specifically comments on the Vulgate
9:49version found in Matthew rather than the
9:52Luke version for reasons that I'll talk
9:53about in a moment. But what the
9:55commentary reveals is nothing less than
9:58an elaborate cosmology, including the
10:01entire arc of salvation, all
10:04underwritten by copious biblical
10:06quotations. I would say that somewhere
10:08around 90% of the text is actually just
10:10proof text taken from the Bible for the
10:12seemingly strange assertions made in the
10:15commentary. and rather go line by line
10:18through the commentary and summary, it's
10:19a bit easier just to outline the Cathar
10:22theology as it's laid out in the
10:23commentary more linearly rather than
10:26sort of go in the convoluted line by
10:28line way that it's revealed in the
10:30commentary. So from the text, we learned
10:32that God is the father of all substances
10:35and is identified with karas and light,
10:38divine love, the first of all
10:40substances. Now, karas sometimes gets
10:43translated as charity into English. But
10:44this really doesn't work. Karas is
10:47translating the Greek word agapee, a
10:50term really popularized in the Greek
10:51language by Christianity. But agapee or
10:54keras is a purely selfless unconditional
10:57love which is freely given by God. It's
11:00a an effusive ontological embrace which
11:03flows from the divine and undergirds all
11:06being. God as the gospel of John informs
11:08us is simply karas but dwelling in
11:12heaven which is the form of love itself
11:14other divine substances come to be as
11:16well specifically further is karas and
11:19love but after that we have visitations
11:21or mercies and spirits the visitations
11:24or mercies which are seem to be the same
11:26thing are means by which the divine love
11:28or the karas is transmitted down to this
11:31lower physical realm. The metaphor the
11:33text likes to use is the visitations are
11:35like clouds through which karas drops
11:38like dew or rain. In other sections, the
11:40visitations are illuminated by the
11:42divine light of karas. And further, the
11:45divine name is itself a visitation. It's
11:48actually how we draw down divine love
11:51through prayer. But there are further
11:53visitations such as divine peace and
11:55divine aid represented by mountains upon
11:58which the new Jerusalem will be
11:59constructed at the end of time. And all
12:02of these visitations are made by cords
12:04of divine love which tether all being
12:07together into one vast woven ontology of
12:11love. The totality of which the text
12:13denotes as Adam. But in the Cathar
12:16mythology, we are those spirits that
12:18once dwelled in heaven with God, but
12:20were stolen away by the devil and
12:22trapped within these prisons of clay
12:24that we call bodies. Now, the text notes
12:26that the spirits committed some kind of
12:28sin, but it never specifies what sin
12:30exactly. But this is perhaps what
12:32allowed the forces of Satan to steal us
12:34out of heaven in the first place. And
12:36the text deals a good bit on our
12:38condition of spiritual exile, especially
12:40relying on the imagery of the devil as
12:42the king of Assyria who historically
12:45destroyed the northern kingdoms of
12:46Israel in 722 B.CE and exiling 10 of
12:50those tribes of Israel. So the tale goes
12:52at least with human beings composed of
12:54our original spiritual form now combined
12:57with life and soul. And it may be that
13:00life is the vital lower kind of soul
13:02that keeps us alive. While soul
13:04specifically is what gets reincarnated
13:06if we're not spiritually redeemed via
13:08the Cathar church. But in our exile, we
13:11suffer from spiritual hunger and thirst
13:14and are thus doubly tempted. God is said
13:17to tempt us. Yep. God is said to tempt
13:19us as punishments for that original sin
13:21which caused our initial spiritual fall,
13:23but also and of course the forces of
13:25Satan tempt us as well. And that's that
13:27whole lead us not in temptation line
13:29from the Lord's prayer. But according to
13:32the commentary, God thankfully hears our
13:34prayers and sends Jesus to teach us the
13:37truth about our condition, redeem us
13:39from the forces of evil, and ultimately
13:41destroy the forces of evil. And here
13:43Jesus becomes shrouded in the lineage of
13:45David. He teaches the law of life, the
13:48proper name of the father in heaven, but
13:50also as a secret teaching that's encoded
13:52in this very commentary. And as a
13:55Davidic king, he becomes a new kingdom
13:57unto himself opposed to the satanic
13:59kingdom of Babylon, which is the
14:01physical world. And from here, the
14:04saints will come to populate while the
14:05forces of Satan will eventually be
14:07destroyed. But in this mission, and this
14:10is perhaps the most shocking element in
14:12the whole commentary, even Jesus sins at
14:16least once. The text deploys Matthew
14:1826:39 when Jesus is contemplating his
14:21fate such that let this chalice pass
14:24from me. Nevertheless, not as I will,
14:27but as thou wilt. The text interprets
14:30this lack of will, a misalignment of the
14:32will of Jesus with the will of the
14:34divine, however momentary, as a sin. And
14:37perhaps given the duelist position on
14:39the radical weakness, even the evil of
14:41the physical body, even Jesus couldn't
14:44bear the thought of his fate on the
14:46cross and sins. But Jesus does
14:48ultimately overcome this sin after being
14:50tempted by Satan himself and thus
14:52redeems himself and us as in the process
14:55if we become of course righteous
14:57Cathars. But following the ascension of
15:00Christ, we have access to the perfecting
15:02power of karas through the super
15:05substantial bread mentioned in the
15:06Matthew version of the Lord's Prayer.
15:09Give us this day our super substantial
15:11bread in the Vulgate, as opposed to the
15:13admittedly less interesting Luke
15:16version, which is more popular, which
15:18only mentions give us this day our daily
15:20bread. Obviously, this super substantial
15:23bread is no normal fair. Rather, it's
15:27literally the means by which we achieve
15:29the bond of perfection. Hence, true
15:32cathar initiates being known as
15:34perfecti, which binds our spirit to the
15:37heavenly Christ, but also to our fellow
15:39spirits in love, the chief commandment
15:41of the law of life. In fact, the text
15:44tells us that this super substantial
15:45bread was only accessible in the coming
15:48of Christ. And finally, just as Christ
15:50prayed for the will of the father to be
15:52done, so too must we doubly pray as
15:55well. First, our physical bodies pray to
15:57do the will of God, but also because
15:59we're ultimately spirits, we're able to
16:01pray in a heavenly mode as well. Thus,
16:04we pray that God's will be done on earth
16:06as it is in heaven. Again, confronting
16:10the sin that at least according to this
16:12text, even Jesus fell into. While this
16:15commentary can be a bit tedious and
16:17confusing to be honest, it is a
16:19fascinating glimpse into the medieval
16:21gnostic Christianity that we know as
16:23Catarism. Gnostic in the sense that
16:25secret knowledge was crucial for
16:27salvation that was so persecuted as to
16:30have gone extinct in the 14th century.
16:33So why did this text survive at all?
16:36Probably because of that first document,
16:38especially in establishing the true
16:39church as the one persecuted by the evil
16:42church of Rome. something equally true
16:44of the Waldencians as it was for the
16:46Cathars. And it's likely the case that
16:48this text simply fell in with other
16:50literature about the Waldenians and that
16:52was ultimately sent off to Ireland and
16:54it preserves. We have it just in one
16:57manuscript. Thus, in a bit of historical
16:59accident, two Kathar texts, the
17:01commentary being a bit more duelist than
17:03the Vindication, two texts do survive
17:06down to us. You can find an English
17:08translation of both texts in the
17:10wonderful volume Heresies of the High
17:12Middle Ages by Wakefield and Evans with
17:15further studies on the Cathars and the
17:16text in its original language by an
17:19Branon and Enrico Riperelli. Though
17:21those texts are mostly in French like a
17:23lot of Cathar studies, but there's a few
17:26more Cathar texts and rituals that I'll
17:28be covering in the future. So, we're not
17:29done with the Cathars yet. Check out my
17:31other episodes if you're interested in
17:33more Cathar texts. But I'm Dr. Justin
17:36Sledge and thank you for watching
17:38Esoterica, where we explore the arcane
17:42and history, philosophy, and religion.
18:09>> [music]

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