* Banishment vs death sentence. Exterminati sunt: This is an equivocal term which we shall meet on subsequent pages. It may mean to expel forcibly—that is, to banish—or to destroy. In reference to heretics, the latter meaning came to prevail by the thirteenth century, but is would be hazardous so to construe {interpret in a particular way} the expression in all or even most cases where it appears before that date. In this particular context, following so closely the statement that heretics in Italy died by fire and sword, the probability is that the author meant to imply death, but this is only a guess.

* Anselm of Besate [Anselm the Peripatetic] (XI; rhetorician). Anselm of Besate (Anselmus Peripateticus, "Anselm the Peripatetic") was an 11th-century churchman and rhetorician. Anselm was born at Besate, near Pavia, to a notable local family shortly after the year 1000. He received his education in Padua and Reggio, and became attached to the church of Milan. He later served in the chapel of the Emperor Henry III (reigned 1046–1056). Around 1047, he composed the Rhetorimachia (or De materia artis) and dedicated it to Henry III. It is one of the first works on rhetoric to appear in western Europe after Rabanus Maurus' De institutione clericorum of 819. It is a treatise in three books, ostensibly a letter to his nephew Rutiland to correct his confusion about rhetoric. The main targets of Anselm's rhetoric are magic and clerical vice, but he also attacks logic. To some scholars it represents a continuation of the Ciceronian tradition, or its rediscovery in 11th-century Italy, but to others it is "unlike anything that went before" (Peter Dronke) and represents the birth of a new medieval "art of controversy". It has received two critical editions. // It is not safe to accept the conclusion that the heretics of Sardinia and Spain shared Vilgard's bookish delusions. His spirit did not die, however. In mid-century a teacher named Anselm the Peripatetic, of Milan, complained that he was regarded almost as a heretic and shunned as a demoniac for his learning. He, too, had a vision in which saints and muses struggled to possess him, while he himself was unable to choose between their attractions. (W/E)

* Adémar de Chabannes [Адемар Шабанский] (988/89-1034; monk, scribe). Adémar de Chabannes (also Adhémar de Chabannes) was a French monk, composer, scribe and literary forger. He was associated with the Abbey of Saint Martial, Limoges, where he was a central figure in the Saint Martial school, an important center of early medieval music. Much of his career was spent copying and transcribing earlier accounts of Frankish history; his major work was the Chronicon Aquitanicum et Francicum (Chronicle of Aquitaine and France). He is well-known for forging a Vita, purportedly by Aurelian of Limoges, that indicated Saint Martial was one of the original apostles. Though he successfully convinced the local bishop and abbot of its authenticity, the traveling monk Benedict of Chiusa exposed his forgery and damaged Adémar's reputation.

* Genealogy of heresy. "Manichaeism" (label). This name was very often applied to heresy in the Middle Ages. Perhaps churchmen turned to the pages of St. Augustine when confronted by doctrinal aberrations they did not fully understand; see, for example, the remarks of the bishop of Chalons in No. 6, of Guibert of Nogent (No. 9), and the polemical sermons of Eckbert of Schonau in {???}. When the "genealogy” of heresy was discussed, Mani was usually prominent among ancient heresiarchs mentioned.

* John 3:1-8 NIV 3 [1] Now there was a Pharisee, a man named Nicodemus who was a member of the Jewish ruling council. 2 He came to Jesus at night and said, “Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher who has come from God. For no one could perform the signs you are doing if God were not with him.” 3 Jesus replied, “Very truly I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God unless they are born again.” 4 “How can someone be born when they are old?” Nicodemus asked. “Surely they cannot enter a second time into their mother’s womb to be born!” 5 Jesus answered, “Very truly I tell you, no one can enter the kingdom of God unless they are born of water and the Spirit. 6 Flesh gives birth to flesh, but the Spirit gives birth to spirit {dualism!}. 7 You should not be surprised at my saying, ‘You must be born again.’ 8 The wind blows wherever it pleases. You hear its sound, but you cannot tell where it comes from or where it is going. So it is with everyone born of the Spirit.”

* Regeneration [New Birth]. {salvation comes from God; humans have no power in this} // Regeneration the Work of God. "The hearing ear, and the seeing eye, the Lord hath even made both of them."--Prov. xx. 12. This testimony of the Holy Spirit contains the whole mystery of regeneration. An unregenerate person is deaf and blind; not only as a stock or block, but worse. For neither stock nor block is corrupt or ruined, but an unregenerate person is wholly dead and a prey to the most fearful dissolution. This rigid, uncompromising, and absolute confession must be our starting-point in this discussion, else we shall fail to understand the claims of regeneration. This is the reason why every heresy that has conceded in one way or other that man has a share, most generally a lion's share, in the work of redemption, has always begun by calling in question the nature of sin. "Undoubtedly," they said, "sin is very bad--a terrible and abominable evil; but there is surely some remnant of good in man. That noble, virtuous, and amiable being, man, can not be dead in trespasses and sin. That may be true of some scoundrel or knave behind the bars, or of robbers and unscrupulous murderers; but really, it can not be applied to our honorable ladies and gentlemen, to our lovely girls, roguish boys, and attractive children. These are not prone to hate God and their neighbors, but disposed, with all their heart, to love all men, and render unto God the reverence due unto Him." Therefore away with all ambiguity in this matter! This method of smoothing over unpalatable truths, now so much in vogue among the affable people, we can not indorse. Our confession is, and ever shall be, that by nature man is dead in trespasses and sin, lying under the curse, ripe for the just judgment of God, and still ripening for an eternal condemnation. Surely his being, as man, is unimpaired; wherefore we protest against the presentation that the sinner is in this respect as a stock or block. No; as man he is unimpaired, his being is intact; but his nature is corrupt, and in that corrupt nature he is dead. (...) Hence without regeneration the sinner is utterly unprofitable. What is the use of an ear except it hear, or of an eye except it see? Therefore the Holy Ghost testifies: "The hearing ear and the seeing eye, the Lord has made even both of them." (Prov. xx. 12) And since in the world of spiritual things deaf ears and blind eyes do not avail anything, the Church of Christ confesses that every operation of saving grace must be preceded by a quickening of the sinner, by an opening of blind eyes, an unstopping of deaf ears--in short, by the implanting of the faculty of faith. Regeneration and the Sealing of the Spirit at the same time?

* Nicodemus [Никодим] (I). Nicodemus was a Pharisee and a member of the Sanhedrin mentioned in three places in the Gospel of John: 1) He first visits Jesus one night to discuss Jesus' teachings (John 3–21). 2) The second time Nicodemus is mentioned, he reminds his colleagues in the Sanhedrin that the law requires that a person be heard before being judged (John 7–51). 3) Finally, Nicodemus appears after the Crucifixion of Jesus to provide the customary embalming spices, and assists Joseph of Arimathea in preparing the body of Jesus for burial (John 19–42). An apocryphal work under his name—the Gospel of Nicodemus—was produced in the mid-4th century, and is mostly a reworking of the earlier Acts of Pilate, which recounts the Harrowing of Hell. Although there is no clear source of information about Nicodemus outside the Gospel of John, Ochser and Kohler (in an article in The Jewish Encyclopedia) and some historians have speculated that he could be identical to Nicodemus ben Gurion, mentioned in the Talmud as a wealthy and popular holy man reputed to have had miraculous powers. Others point out that the biblical Nicodemus is likely an older man at the time of his conversation with Jesus, while Nicodemus ben Gurion was on the scene 40 years later, at the time of the Jewish War. In John's Gospel. As is the case with Lazarus, Nicodemus does not belong to the tradition of the Synoptic Gospels, and is only mentioned by John, who devotes more than half of Chapter 3 of his gospel and a few verses of Chapter 7 to Nicodemus, and lastly mentions him in Chapter 19. The first time Nicodemus is mentioned, he is identified as a Pharisee who comes to see Jesus at night. According to the scripture, Jesus went to Jerusalem for the Passover feast. While in Jerusalem he chased the moneychangers from the temple and overturned their tables. His disciples remembered then the words of Psalm 69: "Zeal for your house will consume me." After these events "many believed in his name when they saw the signs that he was doing" (John 2-25). When Nicodemus visits Jesus he makes reference to these events: "Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher who has come from God. For no one could perform the signs you are doing if God were not with him."(John 3). Jesus replies: "Unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God." Then follows a conversation with Nicodemus about the meaning of being "born again" or "born from above": Nicodemus explores the notion of being literally born again from one's mother's womb, but most theologians recognise that Nicodemus knew Jesus was not speaking of literal rebirth. Theologian Charles Ellicott wrote that "after the method of Rabbinic dialogue, [Nicodemus] presses the impossible meaning of the words in order to exclude it, and to draw forth the true meaning. 'You cannot mean that a man is to enter the second time into his mother’s womb, and be born. What is it, then, that you do mean?'" In this instance, Nicodemus chooses the literal (rather than the figurative) meaning of anōthen and assumes that that meaning exhausts the significance of the word. Jesus expresses surprise, perhaps ironically, that "a teacher of Israel" does not understand the concept of spiritual rebirth: " Art thou a master of Israel, and knowest not these things? Verily, verily, I say unto thee, We speak that we do know, and testify that we have seen; and ye receive not our witness."—John 3-11, KJV. James F. Driscoll describes Nicodemus as a learned and intelligent believer, but somewhat timid and not easily initiated into the mysteries of the new faith. In Chapter 7, Nicodemus advises his colleagues among "the chief priests and the Pharisees", to hear and investigate before making a judgment concerning Jesus. Their mocking response argues that no prophet comes from Galilee. Nonetheless, it is probable that he wielded a certain influence in the Sanhedrin. Finally, when Jesus is buried, Nicodemus brought a mixture of myrrh and aloes—about 100 Roman pounds (33 kg)—despite embalming being generally against Jewish custom (with the exceptions of Jacob and Joseph).[John 19] Nicodemus must have been a man of means; in his book Jesus of Nazareth: Holy Week, Pope Benedict XVI observes that, "The quantity of the balm is extraordinary and exceeds all normal proportions. This is a royal burial."

* Sin unto death [Sin/Blasphemy against the Holy Spirit; Непростительный грех, Вечный грех, Хула на Святого Духа]. In Christian hamartiology {study of sin}, eternal sins, unforgivable sins, unpardonable sins, or ultimate sins are sins which will not be forgiven by God. One eternal or unforgivable sin (blasphemy against the Holy Spirit), also known as the sin unto death, is specified in several passages of the Synoptic Gospels, including Mark 3–29, Matthew 12–32, and Luke 12, as well as other New Testament passages including Hebrews 6-6, Hebrews 10-31, and 1 John 5. The unforgivable sin is interpreted by Christian theologians in unique ways, though they generally agree that one who has committed the sin is no longer able to repent, so one who is fearful that they have committed it has not done so. (...) Eastern Christianity. The importance of prayer (1 Thessalonians 5: "pray without ceasing") and humility (Jesus Prayer: "Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner") in Christianity is reflected by an Orthodox catechism as follows: "Jesus Christ called the Holy Spirit "Spirit of Truth" (John 14; 15; 16) and warned us, "All manner of sin and blasphemy shall be forgiven unto men; but the blasphemy against the Holy Spirit shall not be forgiven unto men" (Matthew 12).", "Blasphemy against the Holy Spirit" is conscious and hardened opposition to the truth, "because the Spirit is truth" (1 John 5). Conscious and hardened resistance to the truth leads man away from humility and repentance, and without repentance there can be no forgiveness. That is why the sin of blasphemy against the Spirit cannot be forgiven, since one who does not acknowledge his sin does not seek to have it forgiven."— Serafim Alexivich Slobodskoy, The Eighth Article of the Creed. (...) Roman Catholicism. The Catechism of the Catholic Church teaches that, while no sin is absolutely "unforgivable", some sins represent a deliberate refusal to repent and accept the infinite mercy of God; a person committing such a sin refuses God's forgiveness, which can lead to self-condemnation to hell. In other words, one damns oneself by final impenitence (refusal to repent).

* Martin of Tours [Мартин Турский] (316-397). Martin of Tours (Latin: Sanctus Martinus Turonensis) was the third bishop of Tours. He has become one of the most familiar and recognizable Christian saints in France, heralded as the patron saint of the Third Republic, and is patron saint of many communities and organizations across Europe. A native of Pannonia (in modern central Europe), he converted to Christianity at a young age. He served in the Roman cavalry in Gaul, but left military service at some point prior to 361, when he became a disciple of Hilary of Poitiers, establishing the monastery at Ligugé. He was consecrated as Bishop of Caesarodunum (Tours) in 371. As bishop, he was active in the suppression of the remnants of Gallo-Roman religion, but he opposed the violent persecution of the Priscillianist sect of ascetics. (...) On behalf of the Priscillianists. The churches of other parts of Gaul and in Spain were being disturbed by the Priscillianists, an ascetic {dualist} sect, named after its leader, Priscillian. The First Council of Saragossa had forbidden several of Priscillian's practices (albeit without mentioning Priscillian by name), but Priscillian was elected bishop of Avila shortly thereafter. Ithacius of Ossonoba appealed to the emperor Gratian, who issued a rescript against Priscillian and his followers. After failing to obtain the support of Ambrose of Milan and Pope Damasus I, Priscillian appealed to Magnus Maximus, who had usurped the throne from Gratian. Although greatly opposed to the Priscillianists, Martin traveled to the Imperial court of Trier to remove them from the secular jurisdiction of the emperor. With Ambrose, Martin rejected Bishop Ithacius's principle of putting heretics to death—as well as the intrusion of the emperor into such matters. He prevailed upon the emperor to spare the life of the heretic Priscillian. At first, Maximus acceded to his entreaty, but, when Martin had departed, yielded to Ithacius and ordered Priscillian and his followers to be beheaded (in 385). Martin then pleaded for a cessation of the persecution of Priscillian's followers in Spain. Deeply grieved, Martin refused to communicate with Ithacius, until pressured by the Emperor. Martin died in Candes-Saint-Martin, Gaul (central France) in 397. After he died, local citizens of the Poitou region and residents of Tours quarreled over where Martin would be buried. One evening after dark, several residents of Tours carried Martin's body to a waiting boat on the River Loire, where teams of rowers ferried his body on the river to Tours, where a huge throng of people waited on the river banks to meet and pay their last respects to Martin's body. One chronicle states that “2,000 monks, and nearly as many white-robed virgins, walked in the procession” accompanying the body from the river to a small grove outside of Tours, where Martin was buried.

* Council of Toulouse (1119). // II. The second council was held July 15,1119, pope Calixtus II presiding, assisted by his cardinals; and the bishops and abbots of Languedoc, Gascony, and part of Spain. Tencanons were published. 1. Is directed against the buying and selling of holy orders or livings 3. Is directed against the followers of Peter de Bruis, a sect of Manichaeans {??}, ordering that the secular, authorities shall repress those who affect an extreme piety {!!}, condemn the holy sacrament of Christ's body and blood, infant baptism, the priesthood, and other ecclesiastical orders, and lawful matrimony; directs that they shall be driven out of the Church as heretics. 5. Forbids to make slaves of free persons. 10. Excommunicates monks, canons, and other clerks who quit their profession, or who allow their beard and hair to grow after the fashion of the people of the world. See Mansi, 10,-856. McClintock and Strong Biblical Cyclopedia - Toulououse, Councils of (Concilium Tolosanum)

* Council of Toulouse (1229). The Council of Toulouse (1229) was a Council of the Roman Catholic Church called by Folquet de Marselha the Bishop of Toulouse in 1229 AD. The council forbade laity to read vernacular translations of the Bible. Background. The Council was called by the local bishop to address the perceived threat from the rapid growth of the Albigensian movement in 13th century southern France. The council resolved that a search in each parish was to be made for heretics (Albigensian and Cathar)[citation needed] and that if found their houses should be destroyed[citation needed] and that non-Latin translations of the Bible be destroyed.[citation needed] and likewise for other unauthorised copies.[citation needed] The Council pronounced: "We prohibit also that the laity should be permitted to have the books of the Old and the New Testament; unless anyone from the motives of devotion should wish to have the Psalter or the Breviary for divine offices or the hours of the blessed Virgin; but we most strictly forbid their having any translation of these books."[citation needed] Legacy. Folquet de Marselha, Bishop of Toulouse died two years later in 1231, but in 1234 another council was held at Tarragona[citation needed] to regulate the procedure of the Inquisition, which was already in Toulouse in 1233 and to also ratify the findings of the Toulouse Council. Canon two of this Tarragona council restated: “No one may possess the books of the Old and New Testaments, and if anyone possesses them he must turn them over to the local bishop within eight days, so that they may be burned”[citation needed]

* Baptism with chrism and oil. Chrism is essential for the Catholic Sacrament of Confirmation/Chrismation, and is prominently used in the sacraments of Baptism and Holy Orders. Those to be confirmed or chrismated, after receiving the laying on of hands, are anointed on the head by the bishop or priest. In baptism, if the person baptized is not to be immediately confirmed or chrismated, the minister anoints them with chrism. Newly ordained priests are anointed with chrism on the palms of their hands, and newly ordained bishops receive an anointing of chrism on their foreheads. It is also used in the consecration of objects such as churches and altars. (Chrism) // Oil of the Catechumens. Both adults and infants prior to baptism are anointed with the oil of the catechumens, which is also pure olive oil. For adults, this pre-baptismal anointing often takes place during a special initiation ceremony when the person begins to prepare for the Sacrament of Baptism. At the beginning of the process known as the Rite of Christian Initiation for Adults (RCIA), each person preparing for initiation is anointed with the oil of the catechumens. This rite most often takes place during Mass, prior to holy Communion. The priest or deacon anoints the catechumens. Then he prays that God will instill them with wisdom for discernment and with the strength necessary to avoid evil during their inquiry into the Catholic faith and their preparation for a life with Christ. In a similar way, an infant is anointed just before receiving the waters of baptism. This anointing is to help the child ward off evil, avoid temptation and possess the faith necessary to carry the cross of Christ throughout life. Simply Catholic - What are the Three Holy Oils?

* Bernard of Clairvaux [Бернард Клервоский] (1090-1153). Bernard of Clairvaux (Latin: Bernardus Claraevallensis), venerated as Saint Bernard, was a Burgundian abbot and a major leader in the revitalization of Benedictine monasticism through the nascent Cistercian Order. He was sent to found Clairvaux Abbey at an isolated clearing in a glen known as the Val d'Absinthe, about 15 kilometres (9.3 mi) southeast of Bar-sur-Aube. In the year 1128, Bernard attended the Council of Troyes, at which he traced the outlines of the Rule of the Knights Templar, which soon became an ideal of Christian nobility. On the death of Pope Honorius II in 1130, a schism arose in the church. Bernard was a major proponent of Pope Innocent II, arguing effectively for his legitimacy over the Antipope Anacletus II. In 1139, Bernard attended the Second Council of the Lateran and criticized Peter Abelard vocally. Bernard advocated crusades in general and convinced many to participate in the unsuccessful Second Crusade, notably through a famous sermon at Vézelay (1146). Bernard was canonized just 21 years after his death by Pope Alexander III. In 1830 Pope Pius VIII declared him a Doctor of the Church. (...) Conflict with Abelard. Towards the close of the 11th century, a spirit of independence flourished within schools of philosophy and theology. The movement found an ardent and powerful advocate in Peter Abelard. Abelard's treatise on the Trinity had been condemned as heretical in 1121, and he was compelled to throw his own book into a fire. However, Abelard continued to develop his controversial teachings. Bernard is said to have held a meeting with Abelard intending to persuade him to amend his writings, during which Abelard repented and promised to do so. But once out of Bernard's presence, he reneged. Bernard then denounced Abelard to the pope and cardinals of the Curia. Abelard sought a debate with Bernard, but Bernard initially declined, saying he did not feel matters of such importance should be settled by logical analyses. Bernard's letters to William of St-Thierry also express his apprehension about confronting the preeminent logician. Abelard continued to press for a public debate, and made his challenge widely known, making it hard for Bernard to decline. In 1141, at the urgings of Abelard, the archbishop of Sens called a council of bishops, where Abelard and Bernard were to put their respective cases so Abelard would have a chance to clear his name. Bernard lobbied the prelates on the evening before the debate, swaying many of them to his view. The next day, after Bernard made his opening statement, Abelard decided to retire without attempting to answer. The council found in favour of Bernard and their judgment was confirmed by the pope. Abelard submitted without resistance, and he retired to Cluny to live under the protection of Peter the Venerable, where he died two years later. Cistercian Order and heresy. Bernard had occupied himself in sending bands of monks from his overcrowded monastery into Germany, Sweden, England, Ireland, Portugal, Switzerland, and Italy. Some of these, at the command of Innocent II, took possession of Tre Fontane Abbey, from which Eugene III was chosen in 1145. Pope Innocent II died in the year 1143. His two successors, Pope Celestine II and Pope Lucius II, reigned only a short time, and then Bernard saw one of his disciples, Bernard of Pisa, and known thereafter as Eugene III, raised to the Chair of Saint Peter. Bernard sent him, at the pope's own request, various instructions which comprise the Book of Considerations, the predominating idea of which is that the reformation of the Church ought to commence with the sanctity of the pope. Temporal matters are merely accessories; the principles according to Bernard's work were that piety and meditation were to precede action. Having previously helped end the schism within the Church, Bernard was now called upon to combat heresy. Henry of Lausanne, a former Cluniac monk, had adopted the teachings of the Petrobrusians, followers of Peter of Bruys and spread them in a modified form after Peter's death. Henry of Lausanne's followers became known as Henricians. In June 1145, at the invitation of Cardinal Alberic of Ostia, Bernard traveled in southern France. His preaching, aided by his ascetic looks and simple attire, helped doom the new sects. Both the Henrician and the Petrobrusian faiths began to die out by the end of that year. Soon afterwards, Henry of Lausanne was arrested, brought before the bishop of Toulouse, and probably imprisoned for life. In a letter to the people of Toulouse, undoubtedly written at the end of 1146, Bernard calls upon them to extirpate the last remnants of the heresy. He also preached against Catharism.

* Gilbert de la Porrée [Gilbert of Poitiers, Gilbertus Porretanus; Гильберт Порретанский] (1085+-1154; scholastic theologian). Gilbert de la Porrée, also known as Gilbert of Poitiers, Gilbertus Porretanus or Pictaviensis, was a scholastic logician and theologian. (...) Sometime in the 1140s, Gilbert published his Commentary on Boethius's, Opuscula Sacra. Although intended as an explanation of what Boethius meant, it interpreted the Holy Trinity in such a way that it went against the teachings of the church. In 1142, Gilbert became Bishop of Poitiers, and within the same year two archdeacons, Arnaud and Calon, denounced Gilbert for his ideas on the Trinity. It was also in 1142 when Gilbert's teaching position was taken over in Chartres. By 1147, in Paris, Peter Lombard attacked Gilbert for his trinitarian beliefs. In 1148, Saint Bernard of Clairvaux, known as the great detector of heresies, brought Gilbert to trial. Saint Bernard had previous reasons to believe Gilbert was a heretic because when Abelard was tried and condemned, the school of Chartres—where Gilbert was chancellor at that moment—backed Abelard. Pope Eugene III presided over the trial. During the trial, Gilbert and Bernard were asked to recite and speak of specific biblical scriptures. Bernard, being nowhere near as well versed as Gilbert, was not able to condemn him. It was decided however that in order to make the church happy, Gilbert had to change parts of his book that were not in accordance with the official position on faith. Gilbert died in 1154. (...) Gilbert is almost the only logician of the 12th century who is quoted by the greater scholastics of the succeeding age. The Liber sex principiorum, attributed to him, but of an anonymous author, was regarded with a reverence almost equal to that paid to Aristotle, and furnished matter for numerous commentators, amongst them Albertus Magnus. Owing to the fame of this work, he is mentioned by Dante as the Magister sex principiorum. The treatise itself is a discussion of the Aristotelian categories, specially of the six subordinate modes. The author distinguishes in the ten categories two classes, one essential, the other derivative. Essential or inhering (formae inhaerentes) in the objects themselves are only substance, quantity, quality and relation in the stricter sense of that term. The remaining six, when, where, action, passion, position and habit, are relative and subordinate (formae assistantes). This suggestion has some interest, but is of no great value, either in logic or in the theory of knowledge {this is the very foundation of modern knowledge ??}. More important in the history of scholasticism are the theological consequences to which Gilbert's realism led him. In the commentary on the treatise De Trinitate of Boethius he proceeds from the metaphysical notion that pure or abstract being is prior in nature to that which is. This pure being is God, and must be distinguished from the triune God as known to us. God is incomprehensible, and the categories cannot be applied to determine his existence. In God there is no distinction or difference, whereas in all substances or things there is duality, arising from the element of matter. Between pure being and substances stand the ideas or forms, which subsist, though they are not substances. These forms, when materialized, are called formae substantiales or formae nativae; they are the essences of things, and in themselves have no relation to the accidents {actual individual existence (??)} of things. Things are temporal, the ideas perpetual, God eternal. The pure form of existence, that by which God is God, must be distinguished from the three persons who are God by participation in this form. The form or essence is one, the persons or substances three. This distinction clearly goes against the church's tenet of divine simplicity.[clarification needed] It was this distinction between Deitas or Divinitas and Deus that led to the condemnation of Gilbert's doctrine.

* Albertus Magnus [Albert the Great, Albert of Cologne; Альберт Великий] (c 1200-1280; philosopher). Albertus Magnus OP, also known as Saint Albert the Great or Albert of Cologne, was a German Catholic Dominican friar, philosopher, scientist, and bishop. Later canonised as a Catholic saint, he was known during his lifetime as Doctor universalis and Doctor expertus and, late in his life, the sobriquet Magnus was appended to his name. Scholars such as James A. Weisheipl and Joachim R. Söder have referred to him as the greatest German philosopher and theologian of the Middle Ages. The Catholic Church distinguishes him as one of the 36 Doctors of the Church. (...) Albert's writings collected in 1899 went to thirty-eight volumes. These displayed his prolific habits and encyclopedic knowledge of topics such as logic, theology, botany, geography, astronomy, astrology, mineralogy, alchemy, zoology, physiology, phrenology, justice, law, friendship, and love. He digested, interpreted, and systematized the whole of Aristotle's works, gleaned from the Latin translations and notes of the Arabian commentators, in accordance with Church doctrine. Most modern knowledge of Aristotle was preserved and presented by Albert. His principal theological works are a commentary in three volumes on the Books of the Sentences of Peter Lombard (Magister Sententiarum), and the Summa Theologiae in two volumes. The latter is in substance a more didactic repetition of the former. Albert's activity, however, was more philosophical than theological (see Scholasticism). The philosophical works, occupying the first six and the last of the 21 volumes, are generally divided according to the Aristotelian scheme of the sciences, and consist of interpretations and condensations of Aristotle's relative works, with supplementary discussions upon contemporary topics, and occasional divergences from the opinions of the master. Albert believed that Aristotle's approach to natural philosophy did not pose any obstacle to the development of a Christian philosophical view of the natural order {which the Eastern Orthodox strongly disagree with}. (...)

* Peter Lombard [Pierre Lombard; Пётр Ломбардский/Новарский] (c 1096-1160; scholastic theologian). Peter Lombard (also Peter the Lombard, Pierre Lombard or Petrus Lombardus;), was a scholastic theologian, Bishop of Paris, and author of Four Books of Sentences which became the standard textbook of theology, for which he earned the accolade Magister Sententiarum. (...) In Paris, where he spent the next decade teaching at the cathedral school of Notre Dame, he came into contact with Peter Abelard and Hugh of St. Victor, who were among the leading theologians of the time. There are no proven facts relating to his whereabouts in Paris until 1142 when he became recognized as writer and teacher. Around 1145, Peter became a "magister", or professor, at the cathedral school of Notre Dame in Paris. Peter's means of earning a living before he began to derive income as a teacher and from his canon's prebend is shrouded in uncertainty. Lombard's style of teaching gained quick acknowledgment. It can be surmised that this attention is what prompted the canons of Notre Dame to ask him to join their ranks. He was considered a celebrated theologian by 1144. (...) Writings. Peter Lombard wrote commentaries on the Psalms and the Pauline epistles; however, his most famous work by far was Libri Quatuor Sententiarum, or the Four Books of Sentences, which became the standard textbook of theology at the medieval universities. From the 1220s until the 16th century, no work of Christian literature, except for the Bible itself, was commented upon more frequently. All the major medieval thinkers, from Albert the Great and Thomas Aquinas to William of Ockham and Gabriel Biel, were influenced by it. Even the young Martin Luther still wrote glosses on the Sentences, and John Calvin quoted from it over 100 times in his Institutes. Though the Four Books of Sentences formed the framework upon which four centuries of scholastic interpretation of Christian dogma was based, rather than a dialectical work itself, the Four Books of Sentences is a compilation of biblical texts, together with relevant passages from the Church Fathers and many medieval thinkers, on virtually the entire field of Christian theology as it was understood at the time. Peter Lombard's magnum opus stands squarely within the pre-scholastic exegesis of biblical passages, in the tradition of Anselm of Laon who taught through quotations from authorities. It stands out as the first major effort to bring together commentaries on the full range of theological issues, arrange the material in a systematic order, and attempt to reconcile them where they appeared to defend different viewpoints. The Sentences starts with the Trinity in Book I, moves on to creation in Book II, treats Christ, the saviour of the fallen creation, in Book III, and deals with the sacraments, which mediate Christ's grace, in Book IV. Doctrine. Peter Lombard's most famous and most controversial doctrine in the Sentences was his identification of charity with the Holy Spirit in Book I, distinction 17. According to this doctrine, when the Christian loves God and his neighbour, this love literally is God; he becomes divine and is taken up into the life of the Trinity. This idea, in its inchoate form, can be extrapolated from certain remarks of St. Augustine of Hippo (cf. De Trinitate xiii.7.11). Although this was never declared unorthodox, few theologians have been prepared to follow Peter Lombard in this aspect of his teaching. Compare Pope Benedict XVI's encyclical Deus caritas est, 2006. Also in the Sentences was the doctrine that marriage was consensual and need not be consummated to be considered perfect, unlike Gratian's analysis (see sponsalia de futuro). Lombard's interpretation was later endorsed by Pope Alexander III, and had a significant impact on Church interpretation of marriage. He emphasized the reciprocal consent of the parties is sufficiently constitutive of an absolutely indissoluble marriage, and is its only cause independent of sexual intercourse. // Sponsalia de futuro. Sponsalia de futuro (or sponsalia pro futuro, also stipulatio sponsalitia) was a Canon form of engagement used by medieval rulers in cases when one or both future spouses were minors. It was seen as a precursor to valid marriage. In order to celebrate a sponsalia de futuro, both children had to be older than seven. It was Peter Lombard who introduced the distinction between a sponsalia de praesenti and a sponsalia de futuro. While the former, a promise of an immediately effective marriage, created a marriage that could not be dissolved, the latter concerned only a future marriage and as such was seen as a {<>} betrothal dissoluble by the mutual consent of the involved parties. It was presumed that the consummation of marriage included the sponsalia de praesenti and thus rendered the sponsalia de futuro a valid marriage.

* Theories of Atonement [Why Christ died] (IV-XII). Ransom theory of atonement (Patristic). The ransom theory of atonement was a theory in Christian theology as to how the process of Atonement in Christianity had happened. It therefore accounted for the meaning and effect of the death of Jesus Christ. It was one of a number of historical theories, and was mostly popular between the 4th and 11th centuries, with little support in recent times. It originated in the early Church, particularly in the work of Origen. The theory teaches that the death of Christ was a ransom sacrifice, usually said to have been paid to Satan, in satisfaction for the bondage and debt on the souls of humanity as a result of inherited sin. Satisfaction theory of atonement (Anselm of Canterbury). The satisfaction theory of atonement is a theory in Catholic theology which holds that Jesus Christ redeemed humanity through making satisfaction for humankind's disobedience through his own supererogatory {doing mor than is necessary} obedience. The theory draws primarily from the works of Anselm of Canterbury, specifically his Cur Deus Homo ("Why was God a man?"). It has been traditionally taught in the Roman Catholic tradition of Western Christianity. Since one of God's characteristics is justice, affronts to that justice must be atoned for. It is thus connected with the legal concept of balancing out an injustice {Jesus' death was a "debt paid to God's honor"}. Anselm regarded his satisfaction view of the atonement as a distinct improvement over the older ransom theory of atonement, which he saw as inadequate, due to its notion of a debt being owed to the devil. Anselm's theory was a precursor to the innovations of later theologians like John Calvin, who introduced the idea of Christ suffering the Father's just punishment as a vicarious {acting or done for another} substitute. Moral influence theory of atonement (Peter Abelard). The moral influence or moral example theory of atonement, developed or most notably propagated by Abelard (1079–1142), is an alternative to Anselm's satisfaction theory of atonement. Abelard focused on changing man's perception of God as not offended, harsh, and judgmental, but as loving. According to Abelard, "Jesus died as the demonstration of God's love," a demonstration which can change the hearts and minds of the sinners, turning back to God. Doctrine (Abelard). It was not until Anselm, with his satisfaction theory of atonement, that a theory of atonement was specifically articulated. The moral influence theory was developed, or most notably propagated, by Abelard (1079-1142), as an alternative to Anselm's satisfaction theory. Abelard not only rejected the idea of Jesus' death as a ransom paid to the devil, which turned the Devil into a rival god, but also objected to the idea that Jesus' death was a "debt paid to God's honor." He also objected to the emphasis on God's judgment, and the idea that God changed his mind after the sinner accepted Jesus' sacrificial death, which was not easily reconcilable with the idea of "the perfect, impassible God [who] does not change."(...) Beilby and Eddy note that Abelard was "challenged in his views by Bernard of Clairvaux, condemned by the Council of Sens (1140), and eventually excommunicated. His general approach to the atonement, however, has lived on in various forms throughout the last millennium."

* Gyrovague [Gyrovagus; пренебр. Странствующий монах] (V-VIII). Gyrovagues (sometimes Gyrovagi or Gyruvagi) were wandering or itinerant monks without fixed residence or leadership, who relied on charity and the hospitality of others. The term, coming from French, itself from Late Latin gyrovagus (gyro-, "circle" and vagus, "wandering"), is used to refer to a kind of monk, rather than a specific order, and may be pejorative as they are almost universally denounced by Christian writers of the Early Middle Ages. The Council of Chalcedon (451) and Second Council of Nicaea (787) prohibit this practice. The "gyrovagi" were denounced as wretched by Benedict of Nursia, who accused them of indulging their passions and cravings. Augustine called them Circumcelliones {!! >>} (circum cellas = those who prowl around the barns) and attributed the selling of fake relics as their innovation. Cassian also mentions a class of monk, which may have been identical, who were reputed to be gluttons who refused to fast at the proper times. Up until the time of Benedict, several attempts had been made by various synods at suppressing and disciplining monks who refused to settle in a cloister. With the establishment of the Rule of St. Benedict in the 8th century, the cenobitic and eremitic forms of monasticism became the accepted form of monasticism within the Christian Church, and the wandering monk phenomenon faded into obscurity. Legacy. As with the term Sarabaites, after the eighth century the term Gyrovagi was sometimes used pejoratively to refer to degenerate monks within a monastery, or to travelling salesmen. In the early 13th century, some of the first Friars Preachers of the Dominican order were dismissed as gyrovagues and their active preaching dismissed as beneath the dignity of the serious religious who lived in monasteries. In Defense of the Mendicants, Dominican Thomas of Cantimpre wrote: "Well, my brethren, you need not be ashamed to be called or to be gyrovagues. You are in the company of St. Paul, the teacher of the nations...While they [the monks] sit in their monasteries...you go touring round with Paul, doing the job you have been given to do." || The Circumcellions (Agonistici) were bands of nomadic anti-Roman rebels, Punic-speaking bandits from the lower strata of society, who supported Donatism and were sometimes led by Donatist clergy. However, they broke out of control, attacking Roman landlords and colonists and redistributing goods. Their support for the Donatists caused the Donatists to be identified with them, leading officials to take punitive action against the Donatist Church. (Circumcellions) // Benedict of Nursia, a sixth-century expert on community life, warned his monks about adopting the lifestyle of a "sarabite" (person who lives without principles) or a "gyrovague" (person whose law is to do whatever strikes the fancy). Such people are always on the move, never settling down. They are not rooted in community. Such constant movement and rootlessness will result in a downfall, warns Benedict. (GB) R. Paul Stevens, Alvin Ung - Taking Your Soul to Work: Overcoming the Nine Deadly Sins of the Workplace

* Sarabaites [Remoboths; Remnuoth, Сарабаиты] (IV). Sarabaites were a kind of Christian monks widespread before the time of Benedict of Nursia. They were also known as remoboths. They either continued like the early ascetics, to live in their own homes, or dwelt together in or near cities. They acknowledged no monastic superior, obeyed no definite rule, and disposed individually of the product of their manual labour. Jerome speaks of them under the name remoboth, and John Cassian tells of their wide diffusion in Egypt and other lands. Both writers express a very unfavourable opinion concerning their conduct, and a reference to them in the Rule of Saint Benedict is of similar import. At a later date, the name Sarabaites, the original meaning of which cannot be determined, designated in a general way degenerate monks. The Rule of St. Benedict considered their nonadherence to church canon only to be exceeded by the gyrovagues. Remnuoth. Remnuoth — одна из трёх упоминаемых Иеронимом Стридонским категорий монахов, существовавших в IV веке в Египте. Несмотря на то, что это слово более нигде не встречается, попытки определить его смысл и выявить черты соответствующей разновидности монашества неоднократно предпринимались. Традиционно это слово связывается с упоминаемой Иоанном Кассианом, также посещавшим в IV веке монастыри Египта, разновидностью монашества под названием «sarabaitai». Оба этих автора высказывали своё осуждение этому «третьему виду монахов». Первую попытку объяснения этих терминов предпринял немецкий коптолог XVIII века Пауль Яблонский[de]. Начиная с 1990-х годов появилось множество исследований на эту тему. Общепринятого перевода этих слов нет, считается, что они происходят из коптского языка. Поскольку коптский язык является мёртвым, звучание этих слов также неизвестно. (...) Аналогичный по смыслу, но несколько более подробный рассказ приводится в 18-м собеседовании Иоанна Кассиана, который, как и Иероним, в конце IV века посещал монастыри Египта. Он также пишет о трёх родах монахов, называя третий «сарабаитами» (лат. sarabaitae). В главе 7 своего рассказа он сообщает об их происхождении и образе жизни. По его словам, вначале существовали только две «хорошие» разновидности монахов: киновиты и анахореты. При этом ещё с древности существовала тенденция, выразителями который были Анания и Сапфира, к ухудшению праведного образа жизни. Эти поползновения были пресечены «строгостью» апостола Петра, однако со временем его указания были забыты. В отличие от истинных монахов, смирение и отказ от мира у сарабаитов показные. (...) Кассиан сообщает также, что по численности сарабаиты почти равны киновитам, что этот вид монахов существует и в других странах. (...) Ни remnuoth, ни sarabaitai более нигде в таком смысле, как разновидность монахов, не упоминаются. Неизвестно также, откуда Иероним Стридонский взял свою классификацию, и не выдумал ли он её. В связи с этим исследователями предпринимаются попытки обнаружить сходные по смыслу слова среди обозначений разновидностей ранних египетских монахов. Высказывалось предположение, что образ жизни осуждаемых Иеронимом и Кассианом схож с организацией мелитианской общины — раскольнического течения, возникшего в начале IV века. То, что реальная ситуация не укладывается в простую трёхчастную схему, было понятно уже учёному VII века Исидору Севильскому, который в своих «Этимологиях» утверждал, что существует шесть видов монахов: киновиты, пустынники (лат. eremitae), отшельники (лат. anachoretae) и, с другой стороны, псевдо-отшельники, киркумкеллионы (лат. circumcelliones) и «те, которые называют себя sarabaitae или remobothitae». // Benedict of Nursia, a sixth-century expert on community life, warned his monks about adopting the lifestyle of a "sarabite" (person who lives without principles) or a "gyrovague" (person whose law is to do whatever strikes the fancy). Such people are always on the move, never settling down. They are not rooted in community. Such constant movement and rootlessness will result in a downfall, warns Benedict. (GB) R. Paul Stevens, Alvin Ung - Taking Your Soul to Work: Overcoming the Nine Deadly Sins of the Workplace

* Alberic of Ostia [Альберих Остийский] (1080-1148). Alberic of Ostia was a Benedictine monk, and Cardinal Bishop of Ostia from 1138 to 1148. (...) Accompanied by Thibaut and other bishops and abbots, he returned to Rome in January 1139. The same year, Alberic was sent to exhort the inhabitants of Bari, a town on the Adriatic, to acknowledge as their lawful sovereign Roger II of Sicily, against whom they were in revolt. They refused, however, to listen to the legate of the Holy See, and shut their gates against him. In 1140, Alberic was appointed to examine into the conduct of Ralph of Domfront, Latin Patriarch of Antioch. In a council of eastern bishops and abbots at Jerusalem, over which Alberic presided, Ralph was deposed and cast into prison (30 November 1140). Pope Eugene III sent Alberic (1147) to combat the Albigenses in the neighbourhood of Toulouse. In a letter written at this time to the bishops of that district, St Bernard of Clairvaux calls Alberic "the venerable Bishop of Ostia, a man who has done great things in Israel, through whom Christ has often given victory to His Church". St Bernard was induced to join the legate, and it was owing chiefly (according to the Catholic Encyclopedia) "to the miracles and eloquence of the Saint" that the embassy was in some degree successful. Three days before the arrival of St Bernard, Alberic had been given a very cold welcome. The populace, in derision of his office, had gone to meet him, riding on asses, and escorted him to his residence with the music of rude instruments. It is said of him that he could not win the people, but that the Albigensian leaders feared him more than any other cardinal of his time. The last work of Alberic was that of co-operating with St Bernard in promoting the Second Crusade. He it was who arranged with Louis VII of France the details of the undertaking.

* Eberwin von Helfenstein (d 1152). Eberwin von Helfenstein is a Catholic saint. His feast day is April 10th. He was a German Premonstratensian and provost of the Steinfeld Premonstratensian {Order of Canons Regular of Prémontré, religious order of Canons regular of the Catholic Church} Monastery. Eberwin means in Old High German: Joy in the boar. Eberwin von Helfenstein came in 1121 as an Augustinian canon with several companions from the Springiersbach monastery to Steinfeld in the Eifel in order to set up the monastery, abandoned by the Benedictines, as a canon monastery. In 1130, Provost Eberwin and his monastery joined the Premonstratensian order. Through word and writing, Helfenstein fought against the "heresies" deviating from the teaching of the church, especially the teaching of the Cathars, which was widespread in Cologne and the surrounding area. He was with St. Bernhard von Clairvaux was a close friend. second.wiki - Eberwin von Helfenstein

* Premonstratensians [Премонстранты]. The Order of Canons Regular of Prémontré (Latin: Candidus et Canonicus Ordo Praemonstratensis), also known as the Premonstratensians, the Norbertines and, in Britain and Ireland, as the White Canons (from the colour of their habit), is a religious order of Canons regular of the Catholic Church founded in Prémontré near Laon in 1120 by Norbert of Xanten, who later became Archbishop of Magdeburg. Premonstratensians are designated by O.Praem. (Ordo Praemonstratensis) following their name. Norbert was a friend of Bernard of Clairvaux and was largely influenced by the Cistercian ideals as to both the manner of life and the government of his order. As the Premonstratensians are not monks but Canons Regular, their work often involves preaching and the exercising of pastoral ministry; they frequently serve in parishes close to their abbeys or priories.

* Scribes and Pharisees. Scribes, as the name suggests, were a group of people whose profession was of writing and, at times, interpreting the laws of the Bible. Scribes were associated with tasks that involved administration and having a thorough knowledge of the established laws, the legal language, and its interpretation, etc. Pharisees, on the other hand, were known to belong to an educated class. They were people who were included in the elite class. Pharisees were political and religious leaders who influenced the common folk. Yet another task of theirs was to impose the written laws on the people. They were alleged to have misinterpreted the Bible and the laws therein. A Scribe is usually referred to as a person who is adept at writing and is familiar with legal terms and language. Pharisees were a group of intellectual people. These people belonged to an elite upper class. They were respected as they were religious and political leaders. They had the ability to impose the law on the common people. They had the authority of interpreting the law that the Jews followed. This was a group of people that came to action in Palestine only after the Jews had overtaken the power from the former Greek rulers. The timeline of this event can be placed somewhere after 165 BCE. It was possible only for the individuals of the old Pharisee families to become Pharisees. Anyone outside of the family could hold such a position. Difference Between Scribes and Pharisees

* Baptism by fire [Крещение огнем]. The phrase baptism by fire or baptism of fire is a phrase originating from the words of John the Baptist [Иоанн Креститель] in Matthew 3. Matthew 3 "I indeed baptize you with water unto repentance: but he that cometh after me is mightier than I, whose shoes I am not worthy to bear: he shall baptize you with the Holy Ghost, and with fire" King James Version 1611. The phrase also occurs in Luke 3 and it might be taken as a reference to the fiery trial of faith which endures suffering and purifies the faithful who look upon God's glory and are transformed, not consumed (Mark 10, James 1-4, 1 Peter 1, 1 Peter 4). See also Dante's Purgatory 27-15. Within Christianity, in Methodism (inclusive of the holiness movement), baptism by fire is synonymous with the second work of grace: entire sanctification, which is also known­ as Baptism with the Holy Spirit; on the other hand, in Pentecostalism, baptism by fire is synonymous with Spirit baptism that is accompanied by glossolalia. Christianity. Many Christian writers, such as John Kitto, have noted that it could be taken as a hendiadys {figure of speech used for emphasis: rain and weather i.o. rainy weather}, the Spirit as fire, or as pointing out two distinct baptisms - one by the Spirit, one by fire. If two baptisms, then various meanings have been suggested for the second baptism, by fire - to purify each single individual who accept Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior to be the temple of the Holy Spirit, to cast out demons and to destroy the stronghold of the flesh by the Fire of God. Of this expression, J. H. Thayer commented: "to overwhelm with fire (those who do not repent), i.e., to subject them to the terrible penalties of hell". W. E. Vine noted regarding the "fire" of this passage: "of the fire of Divine judgment upon the rejectors of Christ, Matt. 3 (where a distinction is to be made between the baptism of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost and the fire of Divine retribution)". Arndt and Gingrich speak of the "fire of divine Judgment Mt. 3; Lk. 3". Finally, as J. W. McGarvey observed, the phrase "baptize you ... in the fire" also refers to the day of Pentecost, because there was a "baptism of fire" which appears as the tongue of fire on that day. Parted "tongues," which were mere "like as of fire ... sat upon" each of the apostles. Those brothers were "overwhelmed with the fire of The Holy Spirit" on that occasion.

* Ananias of Damascus [Анания]. Ananias was a disciple of Jesus at Damascus mentioned in the Acts of the Apostles in the Bible, which describes how he was sent by Jesus to restore the sight of Saul of Tarsus and provide him with additional instruction in the way of the Lord. (...) During his conversion experience, Jesus had told Paul (who was then called Saul) to go into the city and wait. Jesus later spoke to Ananias in a vision, and told him to go to the "street which is called Straight", and ask "in the house of Judas for one called Saul, of Tarsus". (Acts 9:11) Ananias objected that Saul had been persecuting "thy saints", but the Lord told him that Saul was "a chosen vessel unto me, to bear my name before the Gentiles, and kings, and the children of Israel". (Acts 9:15). When Ananias went in to Saul and laid his hands on him, the "scales" of dead tissue on the surface of his eyes fell off, and he looked up at Ananias. After additional instruction, Saul was baptized. (Acts 9:18; 22:16)

* Matthew 19:3-9 NIV (divorce) 3 Some Pharisees came to him to test him. They asked, “Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife for any and every reason?” 4 “Haven’t you read,” he replied, “that at the beginning the Creator ‘made them male and female,’ 5 and said, ‘For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh’? 6 So they are no longer two, but one flesh. Therefore what God has joined together, let no one separate.” 7 “Why then,” they asked, “did Moses command that a man give his wife a certificate of divorce and send her away?” 8 Jesus replied, “Moses permitted you to divorce your wives because your hearts were hard. But it was not this way from the beginning. 9 I tell you that anyone who divorces his wife, except for sexual immorality, and marries another woman commits adultery.”

* Matthew 19:10-12 NIV (staying single, celibacy, eunuchs) 10 The disciples said to him, “If this is the situation between a husband and wife, it is better not to marry.” 11 Jesus replied, “Not everyone can accept this word, but only those to whom it has been given (therefore it can be accepted or rejected). 12 For there are eunuchs who were born that way, and there are eunuchs who have been made eunuchs by others—and there are those who choose to live like eunuchs for the sake of the kingdom of heaven. The one who can accept this should accept it.” || Matthew 19:10-12 CEV 10 The disciples said, “If that’s how it is between a man and a woman, it’s better not to get married.” 11 Jesus told them, “Only those people who have been given the gift of staying single can accept this teaching. 12 Some people are unable to marry because of birth defects or because of what someone has done to their bodies. Others stay single for the sake of the kingdom of heaven. Anyone who can accept this teaching should do so.” || Matthew 19-12 KJV 10 His disciples say unto him, If the case of the man be so with his wife, it is not good to marry. 11 But he said unto them, All men cannot receive this saying, save they to whom it is given. 12 For there are some eunuchs, which were so born from their mother's womb: and there are some eunuchs, which were made eunuchs of men: and there be eunuchs, which have made themselves eunuchs for the kingdom of heaven's sake. He that is able to receive it, let him receive it.

* Synod of Nicaea - Canon 3 [clerical spiritual marriage]. // CANON 3. "The Great Synod has stringently forbidden any bishop, presbyter, deacon, or any one of the clergy whatever, to have a subintroducta {introduced in secret; an unmarried woman living in association with a man in a merely spiritual marriage} dwelling with him, except only a mother, or sister, or aunt, or such persons only as are beyond all suspicion." CSUN - THE ECUMENICAL COUNCIL, NICAEA A.D. 325

* Virgines subintroductae [subintroducta]. The term subintroducta refers to an unmarried woman living in association with a man in a merely spiritual marriage, a practice that seems to have existed already in the time of Hermas {The Shepherd of Hermas, book ??}; in the 4th century such a woman was also referred to as an "agapeta". The Agapetae are distinct from the Virgines subintroductae, who were another class of virgins who lived with clerics. The name comes form the Greek word agapetai, meaning 'beloved'. The Council of Nicaea, AD 325, decides in Canon 3: "The great Synod has stringently forbidden any bishop, presbyter, deacon, or any one of the clergy whatever, to have a subintroducta dwelling with him, except only a mother, or sister, or aunt, or such persons only as are beyond all suspicion." Art & Popular Culture - Virgines subintroductae

* The Shepherd of Hermas [«Пастырь» Ерма] (I-II). The Shepherd of Hermas (sometimes just called The Shepherd) is a Christian literary work of the 1st or 2nd century, considered a valuable book by many Christians, and considered canonical scripture by some of the early Church fathers such as Irenaeus. The Shepherd had great authority in the 2nd and 3rd centuries. Along with the Apocrypha, it was bound with New Testament in the Codex Sinaiticus, and it was listed between the Acts of the Apostles and the Acts of Paul in the stichometrical list of the Codex Claromontanus. The work comprises five visions, twelve mandates, and ten parables. It relies on allegory and pays special attention to the Church, calling the faithful to repent of the sins that have harmed it. The book was originally written in Rome, in the Greek language, but a Latin translation was made very shortly afterwards. Only the Latin version has been preserved in full; of the Greek, the last fifth or so is missing. The shepherd is one of the meanings that was probably attached to some figurines of the Good Shepherd as well as a symbol for Christ, or a traditional pagan kriophoros. «Пастырь» Ерма. «Па́стырь» Е́рма (лат. Hermae Pastor), варианты Па́стырь Эрма, Герма, Ермы, Эрмы, Гермы, — раннехристианская книга, встречающаяся в древних рукописях рядом с каноническими текстами Нового Завета. Традиционно датируется II веком. Известна в греческом подлиннике и в латинском и эфиопском переводах; достаточно объёмна (примерно равна Евангелиям Матфея и Марка, вместе взятым). Всегда пользовалась большим уважением у христиан, но не была принята Церковью в канон священных книг. По форме изложения принадлежит к апокалиптической литературе: автор указывает на близость второго Христова пришествия и общего суда. Согласно тексту, автор жил в Риме, во время папы Климента, был сначала богат, занимался мирскими делами, не всегда соблюдал правду, имел злоязычную жену и порочных сыновей, к которым не был достаточно строг, и за то был наказан от Бога потерей богатства. Недоумевая о причинах постигшего его бедствия, Ерма (Герма) был вразумлён рядом случившихся ему видений. Эти наставления и видения, записанные им, образуют текст из трёх частей: 1) описание четырёх видений; 2) двенадцать нравственных правил; 3) десять подобий, из которых каждое заключает в себе определённую истину. Примечательно мнение Ерма, что каждый человек, в продолжение всей своей земной жизни, сопровождается одним добрым и одним злым ангелом. На русский язык переведена протоиереем Петром Преображенским (1862).

* Montwimer massacre [Cathars]. Montwimer massacre, 29 May 1239, Montwimer. Papal Inquisition/Crusaders. 183 Cathars burned at the stake by Robert le Bougre and Thibaut IV of Champagne. List of massacres in France

* Bogomil expansion. Whether or not the New Theology {Symeon the New Theologian (949-1022), New Theology, "Greek Neo-Messalianism"} had influenced any western heresies in the eleventh century, it had certainly impacted upon the development of Bogomilism.  It is clear, from the study of Neo-Messalianism, that by the twelfth century, in Byzantium, Neo-Messalian {A new Messalianism in Byzantium; Messalians = Euchytes, Lycopetrians, IV} ideas and practices were becoming fused with the dualist Bogomil heresy, which had spread there from its native Bulgaria. Faced with the persecutions of the Komneni Emperors, several heretics were tempted to take the crusading routes in the reverse direction, towards Germany, France, Flanders, Champagne, Burgundy, Toulouse and Aquitaine, whose inhabitants were known, collectively, to the Greeks and the peoples of the East, as “the Franks”.  The Bogomils must have hoped that these Franks, who were so keen to fight for Christian rights in the East, would wish to provide a refuge for other Christians who were being persecuted, not in this case by Muslims, but by the Greeks. The religious movement that the Bogomils would inaugurate in the West would become famous as the heresy of the Cathars. It is known that eastern dualist heretics came to Frankish lands in the 12th century, where they were sometimes called Popelicani or Publicani. This was the name that was used in the contemporary chronicles, both for the Paulician dualist communities that the Crusaders found in the East, and for the Paulician fighting troops, that the southern Italians came up against, when fighting with the Normans against the Byzantine army. It is hard to know whether the missionary immigrants to the West were actually Paulicians (dualist followers of an old heresy which had originated in Armenia), or whether they were Bogomils, who were being given the only Latin name that Westerners had for eastern dualists. Other groups who appeared in the West, and who seemed to have Greek connections, were called Cathars. Is there any evidence that might suggest that the latter in particular had brought Greek Neo-Messalian (or New Theology) ideas with them? (...) Heretics with Greek connections in Köln. In 1143 at Köln (Cologne), a dispute arose between two reformist groups who were both antagonistic towards the Church, one of which seems to have been led by immigrants.  This dispute is documented, because it provoked Evervinus, Prior of the Premonstratensian Abbey of Steinfeld, to send an urgent letter to Bernard de Clairvaux. According to Evervinus, one group sought a straightforward renewal of the Church.  These critics thought it had strayed too far from its early Christian founders, and had become too worldly and too corrupt for its sacraments to be any longer valid. The second group, however, believed that its adherents belonged to the original, uncorrupted apostolic church; they were said to have their own hierarchy and their own pope; they condemned marriage, held no possessions and tried to lead an austere and exceptionally pure life, abstaining from all meat and milk products, because they were the product of copulation. Although there is no mention of a dualist metaphysic as such, there is an inordinate stress on personal purity. (...) Similarly they did not, like dualists, reject water baptism, but considered it as a preparation for the real baptism of fire and the Spirit. (...) This seems to be an early testimony to the introduction, into the West, of Byzantine Bogomilism, and it seems to point as much to Neo-Messalian, as to dualist, influence. Early Catharism in Frankish areas

* Greek Neomassalianism [New Theology, Symeon the New Theologian]. {< Euchites [Messalians, Lycopetrians, proto-Hesychasts?] (IV)} There is no reason to suppose that what was called ‘Messalianism’ in the twelfth century had any direct connection with the earlier heresy; but the name was presumably resurrected to reflect some similarity in doctrine, if only on the importance of the Holy Spirit. It is very difficult to characterise 12th-century ‘Messalianism’, for two main reasons. Firstly, contemporary commentators harked back to classical accounts, to inform their understanding of this new tendency, often just repeating what had been said in the distant past. Secondly, it is almost impossible to separate this phenomenon from the dualist heresy of Bogomilism, which was spreading through Byzantium at the time. Trying to distinguish between ‘Messalian’ and Bogomil ideas. Bogomilism was a dualist religion. Dualist religion believes that there are two opposing creations, which are mixed together in our universe. One is angelic, spiritual and good, and is worth striving for. The other is natural, material and evil, and must be shunned. Two types of dualist heresy were flourishing in the Byzantine Empire at this time, the old-established Paulician heresy (originally from Armenia, with a strong community at this time in Thrace) and the more recent Bogomil heresy (a successful Bulgarian popular movement, which had probably been influenced by the Paulicians). Bogomil missionaries were now moving into the Byzantine capital itself, Constantinople. In the twelfth century, the connection (or confusion) in Greek minds between Bogomilism and Messalianism was remarkable. Almost all mentions of heresy at this time in Byzantium conflate the two. (...) Anna Komnene, his [Euthymius Zigabenus] contemporary, traced the Bogomils back to a fusion of Paulicianism and Messalianism. (...) Information from Euthymius Zigabenus. Can anything be known of the Messalian (let us call it Neo-Messalian) element in all this confusion? If one looks at Zigabenus’ detailed and studious work on twelfth-century Bogomilism in his encyclopaedia of heresy, The Dogmatic Panoply, and eliminates all those doctrines which are a) dualist and world-renouncing (i.e. in the Bogomil tradition), b) the usual stereotypes about devil-worship, infanticide, hypocrisy etc., c) extracted from ancient attacks on the original Messalians, – such as that of Timotheus of Constantinople, – and therefore likely to be out of date, this should leave only doctrines that are new and different, which might be those that contemporaries categorised as Messalian. This process leaves only two otherwise unaccountable teachings. The first was that there was neither Son nor Spirit for the first 5000 years of history, and that after another 5033 years, the Trinity would return to Unity. This may suggest that these heretics recognised an overall pattern in history, connected to a progressive revelation of the Trinity. If the Son and the Spirit were not active in the first 5000 years, God the Father must have been working alone in those 5000 years, i.e. the time of the Old Testament. Then for 33 years (i.e. during the lifetime of Jesus Christ) the Father and the Son worked together. For the final 5000 years, all three members of the Trinity are at work. At the end of time, everything will be absorbed into the unity of God. The second new and curious teaching was that there were two grades among the initiated, and those in the higher grade were filled with the Holy Spirit, and were called theotokoi (bearers of God) because, like Mary, they were able to give birth to the Word of God through the Holy Spirit. Their meeting place was therefore called a Bethlehem, because there Christ was born again in them. This seems to emphasise an illuminist view of individual perfectibility, which will become clearer later.

* Symeon the New Theologian [Neomessalianism, New Theology, Bogomilism, Joachimism]. Symeon the New Theologian and his scheme of history. (...) Like Joachim later on, he seems to have pondered on the division of history based on Biblical parallels. (...) Looking forward to a new heaven and a new earth He does also look ahead to the renovation of the world in the future, and the coming of a new heaven and a new earth, after the destruction of the present world. Just as the corporeal life of the old Adam will be left behind for a new spiritual life with the second Adam (Christ), so “shall the whole creation, in the same way and at God’s command, become, not what it was before, material and perceptible, […] but an immaterial, spiritual dwelling-place;” and he depicts the new earth as perfectly beautiful, green and flourishing, with a sun that shines seven times more brightly than our sun, etc. All this, however, will happen outside time, after the Second Coming of Christ. (...) He therefore exhorts his monks and his readers to seek to get as close as possible to God beforehand, to be baptised by fire and the spirit, to become a son of the light and of the day, so that he will be able to stand the brilliance of the Day of the Lord. (...) Becoming gods by adoption and god-bearers Symeon stresses the importance of making oneself, during one’s time on earth, a “friend of God” and indeed “a god in so far as this is possible for men”. This would not sound so outrageous to Greek ears, where the ultimate end of theology is given as theosis (deification). This would only be realised in its fullness in the afterlife. He hopes that his followers will imitate Christ well enough to become “gods by adoption”, and he quotes Galatians 3 about “putting on Christ”. This is a recurring theme: “The saints are become gods by adoption through having God indwelling them;” (...) Two baptisms. Many suspected Byzantine heretics, including Chrysomallos, were said to have encouraged the use of two initiation ceremonies or baptisms. Symeon certainly believed that water baptism was insufficient, and that there needed to be a second baptism of the spirit. (...) Symeon the New Theologian on illumination by, and union with, the divine light. It is by now quite clear that for Symeon, the inner illumination of the Holy Spirit is paramount. In the Fifth Ethical Discourse, he tells the story of a disciple, who describes his vision of light, and is told by his spiritual father that he has seen God. This is taken to be autobiographical. When he next has the vision, a voice says to him: “Yes, I am God, who for your sake became man. And, as you see, I have made, and will make, you god.” (...) Symeon the New Theologian’s followers. It seems that the ‘spirituals’, who were being persecuted in Greece in Joachim’s time, were followers of a mystical tradition, based upon, or similar to, that which can be found in the writings by, or attributed to, Symeon the New Theologian. It also seems that Byzantine Bogomilism was, as all the Byzantine commentators believed, a fusion of the ideas attributed to Symeon (the new Messalianism) with the popular dualist heresy from Bulgaria. There would seem to have been good reasons for Joachim, as a radical Cistercian reformer, to have been attracted by the religious teaching of practitioners of the New Theology. The New Theology may also have had a more immediate effect in the West, in the early eleventh century, although any link is far from proven. The next piece will consider an outbreak of heresy in the 1020s, which may, or may not, be connected to the New Theology. This is worth studying for its own sake by anyone familiar with the story of the Amalricians, because of some uncanny parallels between the two incidents.

* Canon regular. Canons regular are canons (a category of clergy) in the Catholic Church who live in community under a rule (Latin: regula) and are generally organised into religious orders, differing from both secular canons and other forms of religious life, such as clerks (or clerics) regular, designated by a partly similar terminology. Preliminary distinctions. All canons regular are to be distinguished from secular canons who belong to a resident group of priests but who do not take public vows and are not governed in whatever elements of life they lead in common by a historical Rule. One obvious place where such groups of priests were required was at a cathedral, where there were many Masses to celebrate and the Divine Office to be prayed together in community. Other groups were established at other churches which at some period in their history had been considered major churches, and (often thanks to particular benefactions) also in smaller centers. As a norm, canons regular live together in communities which take public vows. Their early communities took vows of common property and stability. As a later development, they now usually take the three public vows of chastity, poverty, and obedience though some Orders or congregations of canons regular have retained the vow of stability.

* Regular clergy. Regular clergy, or just regulars, are clerics in the Catholic Church who follow a rule (Latin: regula) of life, and are therefore also members of religious institutes. It is contrasted with secular clergy, clerics who are not bound by a rule of life.

* Vow of Stability. A few years ago, I read Thomas Merton’s famous memoir, The Seven Storey Mountain (it was this book that led me to read The Story of a Soul , which got me started on my obsessive interest in St. Thérèse of Lisieux ), about his conversion to Catholicism and his decision to enter a Cistercian monastery. I’ve been reading more Merton lately. In The Sign of Jonas , I learned, to my surprise, that Cistercian monks make five vows at the time of their profession. I knew about the vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience, but it turns out they also make vows of stability and conversion of manners. I was intrigued with the vow of stability . This vow means that a monk stays put. Unless he’s sent somewhere else by his superiors, or gets a dispensation from Rome, a monk must remain in the monastery of his profession. Merton explains: “By making a vow of stability the monk renounces the vain hope of wandering off to find a ‘perfect monastery.’ This implies a deep act of faith: the recognition that it does not much matter where we are or whom we live with. …Stability becomes difficult for a man whose monastic ideal contains some note, some element of the extraordinary. All monastaries are more or less ordinary.… Its ordinariness is one of its greatest blessings.” When I first read this, it reminded me of—what else?—marriage. Marriage is a vow of stability, made with the conviction that by committing yourself to one person, you’re better able to achieve happiness than by searching continually for the “perfect” person and that the ordinariness that descends on it after the early exhilaration and novelty wear off is, in fact, one of its most prized aspects. Monks Take a “Vow of Stability.’ Maybe You Should, Too.

* Rule of Saint Augustine. The Rule of Saint Augustine, written about the year 400, is a brief document divided into eight chapters and serves as an outline for religious life lived in community. It is the oldest monastic rule in the Western Church. The Rule, developed by Augustine of Hippo (354–430), governs chastity, poverty, obedience, detachment from the world, the apportionment of labour, the inferiors, fraternal charity, prayer in common, fasting and abstinence proportionate to the strength of the individual, care of the sick, silence and reading during meals. It came into use on a wide scale from the twelfth century onwards and continues to be employed today by many orders, including the Dominicans, Servites, Mercederians, Norbertines, and Augustinians.

* Guelphs and Ghibellines. The Guelphs and Ghibellines were factions supporting the Pope and the Holy Roman Emperor, respectively, in the Italian city-states of Central Italy and Northern Italy. During the 12th and 13th centuries, rivalry between these two parties formed a particularly important aspect of the internal politics of medieval Italy. The struggle for power between the Papacy and the Holy Roman Empire arose with the Investiture Controversy, which began in 1075, and ended with the Concordat of Worms in 1122. The division between the Guelphs and Ghibellines in Italy, fuelled by the imperial Great Interregnum, persisted until the 15th century.

* Equites [Equestrian order]. The equites (Latin: eques nom. singular; literally "horse-" or "cavalrymen", though sometimes referred to as "knights" in English) constituted the second of the property-based classes of ancient Rome, ranking below the senatorial class. A member of the equestrian order was known as an eques. (...) Ethos. From the earliest times and throughout the Republican period, Roman equites subscribed, in their role as Roman cavalrymen, to an ethos of personal heroism and glory. This was motivated by the desire to justify their privileged status to the lower classes that provided the infantry ranks, to enhance the renown of their family name, and to augment their chances of subsequent political advancement in a martial society. For equites, a focus of the heroic ethos was the quest for spolia militaria, the stripped armour and weapons of a foe whom they had killed in single combat. (...) The higher the rank of the opponent killed in combat, the more prestigious the spolia, and none more so than spolia duci hostium detracta, spoils taken from an enemy leader himself.[Note 3] Many equites attempted to gain such an honour, but very few succeeded for the reason that enemy leaders were always surrounded by large numbers of elite bodyguards. (...) Relations with the emperor It was suggested by ancient writers, and accepted by many modern historians, that Roman emperors trusted equestrians more than men of senatorial rank, and used the former as a political counterweight to the senators. According to this view, senators were often regarded as potentially less loyal and honest by the emperor, as they could become powerful enough, through the command of provincial legions, to launch coups. (...) There is evidence that emperors were as wary of powerful equites as they were of senators. Augustus enforced a tacit rule that senators and prominent equestrians must obtain his express permission to enter the province of Egypt, a policy that was continued by his successors. Also, the command of the Praetorian Guard was normally split between two equites, to reduce the potential for a successful coup d'état. At the same time, command of the second military force in Rome, the cohortes urbanae, was entrusted to a senator. Oligarchical rule in the early principate (to AD 197). Because the senate was limited to 600 members, equites equo publico, numbering several thousands, greatly outnumbered men of senatorial rank. Even so, senators and equites combined constituted a tiny elite in a citizen-body of about 6 million (in AD 47) and an empire with a total population of 60–70 million. This immensely wealthy elite monopolised political, military and economic power in the empire. It controlled the major offices of state, command of all military units, ownership of a significant proportion of the empire's arable land (e.g. under Nero (r.54–68), half of all land in Africa proconsularis province was owned by just six senators) and of most major commercial enterprises. Overall, senators and equites cooperated smoothly in the running of the empire. In contrast to the chaotic civil wars of the late republic, the rule of this tiny oligarchy achieved a remarkable degree of political stability. In the first 250 years of the principate (30 BC – AD 218), there was only a single episode of major internal strife: the civil war of 68–69. Equestrians in the later empire (AD 197–395). Rise of the military equestrians (3rd century). The 3rd century saw two major trends in the development of the Roman aristocracy: the progressive takeover of the top positions in the empire's administration and army by military equestrians and the concomitant exclusion of the Italian aristocracy, both senators and equites and the growth in hierarchy within the aristocratic orders. Augustus instituted a policy, followed by his successors, of elevating to the ordo equester the primus pilus (chief centurion) of each legion, at the end of his single year in the post. This resulted in about 30 career-soldiers, often risen from the ranks, joining the order every year. These equites primipilares and their descendants formed a section of the order that was quite distinct from the Italian aristocrats who had become nearly indistinguishable from their senatorial counterparts.

* Pope Adrian IV [Hadrian IV] (c 1100-1159). Pope Adrian IV (Latin: Adrianus IV; born Nicholas Breakspear (or Brekespear), also Hadrian IV), was head of the Catholic Church and ruler of the Papal States from 4 December 1154 to his death in 1159. He is the only Englishman to have been pope so far. (...) Eugenius {III} had died in July 1153. His successor, Anastasius IV, had been already elderly when elected to succeed him, and only ruled for a year. Comparing the two, the popular historian John Julius Norwich comments that the former {Eugenius} "was old and ineffectual, concerned chiefly with his own self-glorification"; Adrian, though, was "a man of very different calibre". Anastasius died on 3 December 1154, and by which time, Breakspear had returned to Rome. Even before the death of Eugenius, argues Barber, "a new and formidable figure had appeared" on the political scene. The Hohenstaufen Frederick Barbarossa had been elected Holy Roman Emperor on 4 March 1152. Barbarossa and Eugenius had contracted, at the Treaty of Constance, to unite against both William of Sicily and the Roman Commune. Ullmann has identified four major areas of concern for Adrian at the beginning of his pontificate: the city of Rome under Arnold of Brescia, the new emperor who was marching towards Rome for his coronation, his counterpart in the east whose army had recently invaded southern Italy, and restlessness among the Pope's own vassals in his patrimony. By the time of Adrian's consecration, the city of Rome was a major player in Papal-Aristocratic regional politics. Under the governance of a republican commune since 1144, Pope Eugenius had recognised it the following year. While the city was usually happy to acknowledge the feudal lordship of the Pope, it was—even compared to other Italian city states—both "unusually self-aware, and also unusually idiosyncratic" compared to others. The commune was hostile to the Papacy. The Papacy was weak in the city of Rome. The heretic, Arnold of Brescia, had ruled since 1146 and was popular. He also had the support of the Roman Commune. The popularity of Arnold directly translated into hostility towards the popes. Chichele {Chichele Professorships are statutory professorships at the University of Oxford named in honour of Henry Chichele} Professor Chris Wickham describes the relationship between the Pope and the lords of his Patrimony as one in which, because "their lords did not by any means all look to Rome [they] had to be coaxed back or brought back by force". Papal politics was beset by problems at home and abroad. The election of Adrian IV as Pope, comments the papal scholar Ian S. Robinson—and, indeed, the elections of his immediate predecessors—"took place in the shadow of the communal revolution in Rome". From Eugenius, Adrian inherited what Walter Ullmann has called a "mutual assistance pact" with the Emperor, the Treaty of Constance, signed the year of Eugenius' death. For the popes, its most important aspect was the stipulation that the crowning of the next emperor was contingent on expelling Arnold of Brescia from Rome. It also assured each party of the other's support against both King William in Sicily and the Byzantine Empire when necessary. The treaty was confirmed by Adrian in January 1155. Eugenius was a believer in the Gregorian doctrine of Papal supremacy, stating that Christ "gave to St Peter the keys of the kingdom of heaven, the power of both the earthly and the heavenly empire". From the beginning of his reign, Barbarossa sought to present himself as the heir to a long, established line of Roman Emperors, and likewise that his empire was a continuation of theirs. The historian Anne A. Latowsky explains how this was the cause of tension in the European polity: Despite grandiose allusions to the German inheritance of the universal dominion of Augustus, the Roman Empire continued to be, as it had been for centuries, a primarily theoretical concept based on an idealized notion of the protection of all Christendom...such claims often clashed with papal pretensions to the primary role as guardians of a unified and universal Christendom. Norwich argues that, by now, whatever the public statements of either Papal or Imperial party, they were mutually antagonistic, and had been for many years. Even before Adrian's pontificate, he says, no peace treaty was strong enough to unite them for long: "The days when it had been realistic to speak of the two swords of Christendom were gone—gone since Gregory VII and Henry IV had hurled depositions and anathemas at each other nearly a hundred years before". The situation, suggest Duggan, was "a minefield", for the Pope, and Adrian had to negotiate it.

* Treaty of Constance [First Treaty of Constance] (1153). The First Treaty of Constance was signed between the Emperor Frederick I and Pope Eugene III in 1153. By the terms of the treaty, the Emperor was to prevent any action by Manuel I Komnenos to reestablish the Byzantine Empire on Italian soil and to assist the pope against his enemies in revolt in Rome. In 1155, as part of the agreement securing his imperial coronation, Frederick reaffirmed the terms of Constance for Pope Adrian IV. The Second Treaty of Constance made peace between the Emperor and the Lombard League in 1183.

* Lombard League (1167-1250). The Lombard League (Lega Lombarda in Italian, Liga Lombarda in Lombard) was a medieval alliance formed in 1167, supported by the popes, to counter the attempts by the Hohenstaufen Holy Roman emperors to assert influence over the Kingdom of Italy as a part of the Holy Roman Empire. At its apex, it included most of the cities of Northern Italy, but its membership changed with time. With the death of the third and last Hohenstaufen emperor, Frederick II, in 1250, {Frederick Barbarossa - Henry VI - (Otto IV, Welf) - Frederick II} it became obsolete and was disbanded. (...) Though not a declared separatist movement, the League openly challenged the emperor's claim to power (Honor Imperii). Frederick I strived against the cities, especially Milan, which already had been occupied and devastated in 1162. He nevertheless was no longer able to play off the cities against each other. At the Battle of Legnano on 29 May 1176, the emperor's army finally was defeated. The Treaty of Venice, which took place in 1177, established a six-year truce from August, 1178 to 1183, when in the Peace of Constance a compromise was found where after the Italian cities agreed to remain loyal to the Holy Roman Empire but retained local jurisdiction and droit de régale over their territories. Among the League's members, Milan, now favoured by the emperor, began to take a special position, which sparked conflicts mainly with the citizens of Cremona.

* Itching ears. Itching ears is a term used in the Bible to describe individuals who seek out messages and doctrines that condone their own lifestyle, as opposed to adhering to the teachings of the apostles. 2 Timothy 4:3-4 NIV 3 For the time will come when people will not put up with sound doctrine. Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear. 4 They will turn their ears away from the truth and turn aside to myths. {-> eager to be told what one wants to hear}

* Second Council of the Lateran (1139). The Second Council of the Lateran was the tenth ecumenical council recognized by the Catholic Church. It was convened by Pope Innocent II in April 1139 and attended by close to a thousand clerics. Its immediate task was to neutralise the after-effects of the schism which had arisen after the death of Pope Honorius II in 1130 and the papal election that year that established Pietro Pierleoni as the antipope Anacletus II. Tenth Ecumenical Council. After the death of Honorius II, Petrus Leonis, under the name of Anacletus II, was elected as Pope by a majority of the cardinals and with the support of the people of Rome on the same day as a minority elected Innocent II. In 1135, Innocent II held a council at Pisa, which confirmed his authority and condemned Anacletus. Anacletus's death in 1138 helped largely to solve the tension between rival factions. Nevertheless, Innocent decided to call the Tenth Ecumenical Council. The Council assembled at the Lateran Palace and nearly a thousand prelates attended. In his opening statement Innocent deposed those who had been ordained and instituted by Anacletus or any of his adherents. King Roger II of Sicily was excommunicated for maintaining what was thought to be a schismatic attitude. The council also condemned the teachings of the Petrobrusians and the Henricians, the followers of Peter of Bruys and Henry of Lausanne. Finally, the council drew up measures for the amendment of ecclesiastical morals and discipline which the council fathers considered had grown lax. Many of the canons relating to these matters were mostly a restating of the decrees of the Council of Reims and the Council of Clermont. Important canons. The most important results of the council included: Canon 4: Injunction to bishops and ecclesiastics not to cause scandal {!!} by wearing ostentatious clothes but to dress modestly. Canons 6, 7: Repeated the First Lateran Council's condemnation of marriage and concubinage among priests, deacons, subdeacons, monks, and nuns. Canon 10: Excommunicated laity who failed to pay the tithes due the bishops, Canon 12: Fixed the periods and the duration of the Truce of God. Canon 14: Prohibition, under pain of deprivation of Christian burial, of jousts and tournaments which endangered life. Canon 20: Kings and princes were ordered to dispense justice in consultation with the bishops. Canon 23: Forbade the condemnation of Legitimate Marriages {hobby-horse of heretics}. Canon 25: Forbade any cleric to accept a benefice from a layman. Canon 27: Nuns were prohibited from singing the Divine Office in the same choir with monks. Canon 28: No church was to be left vacant more than three years from the death of the bishop; secular canons who excluded regular canons or monks from episcopal elections were condemned. Canon 29: The use of bows and slings (or perhaps crossbows) against Christians was prohibited. Another decision confirmed the right of religious houses of a diocese to participate in the election of the diocese's bishop.

* Apocrypha - Book of Sirach [Wisdom of Sirach, Ben Sira, Ecclesiasticus, Ecclus; Книга Премудрости Иисуса, сына Сирахова] (-II). {Ecclesiasticus, Ecclus (apocryphal) <> Ecclesiastes (canonical)} The Book of Sirach, also called the Wisdom of Sirach or simply Sirach, and also known as the Book of Ecclesiasticus; abbreviated Ecclus.) or Ben Sira, is a Jewish work originally in Hebrew of ethical teachings, from approximately 200 to 175 BCE, written by the Jewish scribe Ben Sira of Jerusalem, on the inspiration of his father Joshua son of Sirach, sometimes called Jesus son of Sirach or Yeshua ben Eliezer ben Sira. In Egypt, it was translated into Greek by the author's unnamed grandson, who added a prologue. This prologue is generally considered the earliest witness to a canon of the books of the prophets, and thus the date of the text is the subject of intense scrutiny. The book itself is the largest wisdom book from antiquity to have survived. (...) The Wisdom of Sirach is a collection of ethical teachings. Thus Sirach, sometimes called Ecclesiasticus, closely resembles Proverbs, except that, unlike the latter, it is presented as the work of a single author, not an anthology of maxims drawn from various sources, presented in verse form. The question of which apothegms actually originated with Sirach is open to debate, although scholars tend to regard him as a compiler or anthologist.

* II Tim. 1:6 NIV {Cathars} 6 For this reason I remind you to fan into flame the gift of God, which is in you through the laying on of my hands.

* Apollos [Аполлос, апостол от 70] (I). Apollos was a 1st-century Alexandrian Jewish Christian mentioned several times in the New Testament. A contemporary and colleague of Paul the Apostle, he played an important role in the early development of the churches of Ephesus and Corinth.

* 1 Corinthians 3:6-8 NIV 6 I planted the seed, Apollos watered it, but God has been making it grow. 7 So neither the one who plants nor the one who waters is anything, but only God, who makes things grow. 8 The one who plants and the one who waters have one purpose, and they will each be rewarded according to their own labor.

* Horace: The Epistles. Book I: Epistle XVI. (...) BkIEpXVI-79 The meaning of true goodness. If a slave says to me: ‘I’ve never stolen, or run,’ I reply: ‘Then you’ve your reward, you’ve never been flogged.’ ‘I’ve never killed anyone’: ‘You’ll not hang on a cross And feed crows.’ (...) The good and wise man will dare to say: ‘Pentheus, Lord of Thebes, what shame can you force me to suffer And endure?’ ‘I’ll take your goods.’ My cattle you mean, Possessions, couches, silver: do so.’ ‘I’ll chain you, hand And foot, and imprison you under a cruel jailor.’ ‘Yet, whenever I wish, the gods will set me free.’ I take it he means, ‘I’ll die’. Death is the final goal.

* Bogomils - Ordo [Ordo of Bulgaria vs Drugunthia/Dragovitia, relative/mitigated/moderate/monarchian vs radical/absolute dualists]. {monarchian: one God, one creation; material part delegated to a created Satan} Habet ordinem suum de Bulgaria: This designated, as we have said, a Bogomil sect which taught mitigated {relative, moderate} dualism and was probably located in the vicinity of present-day Skoplje in Yugoslavia (Borst, p. 244). Derivatives such as Bulgari, Burgari, Bulgri, and Bougres gained currency in northern Europe with the general meaning of “heretics”. Our “consecrated in the sect” reveals the problem of rendering the Latin word, ordo, which here bespeaks a distinctive heretical concept. The consolamentum, the heretical baptism by imposition of hands, as we shall see in subsequent pieces, set its recipients apart; for, by receiving that consecration (ordinamentum Christi) handed down by authentic tradition from Christ and His disciples, their souls had found the way of return to heaven. Only they were capable of transmitting the same gift of salvation to others. But the consolamentum was also bestowed within a doctrinal tradition: the “sect” (ordo) of Bulgaria—mitigated dualists—was at sharp odds with that of Drugunthia—radical or absolute dualists. Thus the word ordo merges two concepts: (1) the spiritual status of the Elect, which was attained only within (2) the sect which its members regarded as the true Church of Christ (“holy order”). This usage was known to Catholic contemporaries after about 1160. But in yet another context the word ordo denotes the episcopal status. The bishop, chosen by his church, was confirmed in office by repetition of the consolamentum. If there was a change in the ritual for such occasions, no record of it has been discovered. || But the consolamentum was also bestowed within a doctrinal tradition: the “sect” (ordo) of Bulgaria—mitigated dualists—was at sharp odds with that of Drugunthia—radical or absolute dualists. // Ordo of Drugunthia or Dragovitia. Drugonthie: The name is found in several sources in a wide variety of spellings (e.g., Dugunthia, Drugontie, Drugutis, Dorgovetis). The reference is to the sect of Bogomil absolute dualists in the region of Dragovitsa in Thrace.

* Ultramontanism [Ультрамонтанство]. Ultramontanism is a clerical political conception within the Catholic Church that places strong emphasis on the prerogatives and powers of the Pope. The term's origins are in ecclesiastical language from the Middle Ages: when a non-Italian was elected to the papacy, he was said to be papa ultramontano, that is, a pope from beyond the mountains (the Alps). Foreign students at medieval Italian universities also were referred to as ultramontani. After the Protestant Reformation in France, the concept was revived but with its directionality reversed to indicate the man "beyond the mountains" in Italy: the Pope. The term ultramontain was used to refer to Catholics who supported papal authority in French affairs – as opposed to the Gallican and Jansenist factions, who did not – and was intended as an insult implying lack of patriotism. From the 17th century, ultramontanism became closely associated with the Jesuits {??}. Ультрамонтанство. Ультрамонта́нство (от выражения итал. papa ultramontano — «папа из-за гор» (Альп) < лат. ultra — «далее», «за пределами» + лат. montes — «горы») — идеология и течение в Римско-католической церкви, выступавшие за жёсткое подчинение национальных католических церквей папе римскому, а также защищавшие верховную светскую власть пап над светскими государями Европы. Позднее термин стал обозначать наиболее ортодоксальное, наиболее последовательное направление клерикализма.

* Josephines [Josephini; Джозефиниm Жозепини] (XII-XIII); Christian heretics condemned by Pope Lucius III's decree Ad abolendam in 1184 with the support of the Emperor Frederick I. They were "subject to a perpetual anathema" along with others; almost nothing is known about the Josephines.

* Slavonic Josephus. The Slavonic Josephus is an Old East Slavic translation of Flavius Josephus' History of the Jewish War which contains numerous interpolations and omissions that set it apart from all other known versions of Josephus' History. The authenticity of the interpolations was a major subject of controversy in the 20th century, but the latest scholarship has rejected them. (...) The earliest surviving manuscript of the Slavonic Josephus dates to 1463. The translation itself, however, is at least a century older than that. Some scholars have associated it with the very first Slavic school of translators active in the ninth and tenth centuries. Others have associated it with the Jewish community of Lvov in the fourteenth century. Virtually any date between those two extremes is possible. (...) The Cambridge History of Judaism states that the Slavonic version includes statements which Josephus could have hardly written and that recent scholarly opinion dismisses the Slavonic Josephus as less than authentic, but the 11th-century creation as an ideological struggle against the Khazars. Van Voorst states that the Slavonic Josephus at times focuses on blaming Pilate and the Jews, to the point of suggesting that the Jews and not the Romans crucified Jesus {isn't that the standard Christian view ??}. // Slavonic Josephus. The three references found in Book 18 and Book 20 of the Antiquities do not appear in any other versions of Josephus' The Jewish War except for a Slavonic version of the Testimonium Flavianum (at times called Testimonium Slavonium) which surfaced in the west at the beginning of the 20th century, after its discovery in Russia at the end of the 19th century. Although originally hailed as authentic (notably by Robert Eisler), it is now almost universally acknowledged by scholars to have been the product of an 11th-century creation as part of a larger ideological struggle against the Khazars. As a result, it has little place in the ongoing debate over the authenticity and nature of the references to Jesus in the Antiquities. Craig A. Evans states that although some scholars had in the past supported the Slavonic Josephus, "to my knowledge no one today believes that they contain anything of value for Jesus research". (Josephus on Jesus)

* Josephus on Jesus. The extant manuscripts of the book Antiquities of the Jews, written by the first-century Jewish historian Flavius Josephus around 93–94 AD, contain two references to Jesus of Nazareth and one reference to John the Baptist. The first and most extensive reference to Jesus in the Antiquities, found in Book 18, states that Jesus was the Messiah and a wise teacher who was crucified by Pontius Pilate. It is commonly called the Testimonium Flavianum. Almost all modern scholars reject the authenticity of this passage in its present form, while most scholars nevertheless hold that it contains an authentic nucleus referencing the life and execution of Jesus by Pilate, which was then subject to Christian interpolation or alteration. However, the exact nature and extent of the Christian redaction remains unclear. Modern scholarship has largely acknowledged the authenticity of the second reference to Jesus in the Antiquities, found in Book 20, Chapter 9, which mentions "the brother of Jesus, who was called Christ, whose name was James." This reference is considered to be more authentic than the Testimonium. Almost all modern scholars consider the reference in Book 18, Chapter 5 of the Antiquities to the imprisonment and death of John the Baptist also to be authentic and not a Christian interpolation. A number of differences exist between the statements by Josephus regarding the death of John the Baptist and the New Testament accounts. Scholars generally view these variations as indications that the Josephus passages are not interpolations, since a Christian interpolator would likely {bad arguing} have made them correspond to the New Testament accounts, not differ from them. Scholars have provided explanations for their inclusion in Josephus' later works.

* Mundiali machina [This worldly structure]. Mundiali machina: Durand of Huesca {ex-Waldensian} Liber contra manicheos {Manichaeans; standard label} uses these and similar words (mundana machina, machina mundi) often, saying that they refer to the present age or life, as opposed to the life of the future, to the heavens, earth, seas, air, and all the things visible therein, but that they do not, as heretics say, mean a world which has its own prince and hates Christ.

* Galdino della Sala [Гальдино делла Сала] (c 1096-1176). Galdino della Sala, Galdinus or Galdimus (Milanese: Galdin), was a Roman Catholic saint from Milan in northern Italy. He was a cardinal elevated in 1165 and he also served as Archbishop of Milan from 1166 to his death in 1176. He was a staunch supporter both of Pope Alexander III, and of Milan and its neighbours in Lombardy, in their joint and parallel struggles against the Antipope Victor IV, supported by Holy Roman Emperor Frederick I Barbarossa. He is remembered also for his charity in Milan to the poor and to those imprisoned for debt. Alexander III canonized him as a saint of the Roman Catholic Church, and he is a patron of both Lombardy and his old archdiocese.

* Galatians 2:7 NIV (Paul) 7 On the contrary, they recognized that I had been entrusted with the task of preaching the gospel to the uncircumcised, just as Peter had been to the circumcised.

* Christian appropriation of the Covenant. Paul emphasizes the gospel’s greatness in reconciling God and man as well as Jew and Gentile in Ephesians 2:11–22. Furthermore, he accentuates the importance of God’s setting aside the Mosaic law so that it would no longer be a tool used in the covenant community to divide the world (v. 14). Note, however, that Christ by no means nullified God’s moral standards in tearing down the wall separating Jew and Gentile. The Mosaic covenant was meant to be a temporary guardian to direct God’s people to His Messiah (Gal. 3:23–29). This covenant contained many elements of the eternal moral law of God, but the religious system it established was but one step on the way to the new heavens and earth, a step to be left behind once it served its purpose. God’s eternal moral law would not go away but only the ceremonial law given for the old covenant period of redemptive history. Thus, Paul is able to call Christians to obey many of the commandments found in the Mosaic law while also telling us in today’s passage that Christ has abolished “the law of commandments expressed in ordinances” (Rom. 13:8–10; Eph. 2:15). What has been set aside is the old covenant — that administration of the one covenant of grace made with the nation of Israel — and everything that was tied only to the temporary national bond between the Israelites and Yahweh. We are able to learn much about the person and work of Jesus from the ceremonies that have been abrogated, but these temporary things are no longer obligatory for those who are in the Savior. The one Lord of all has come and fulfilled the law, bringing it to its fullest expression in the law of Christ, revoking every regulation designed only for the old covenant. As one Prince, He establishes one new people, the fulfillment of all that human beings were created to be as persons forever at peace with one another (Eph. 2:16). John Calvin writes, “If two contending nations were brought under the dominion of one prince, he would not only desire that they should live in harmony, but would remove the badges and marks of their former enmity.” Under the new covenant, Jews do not become Gentiles and Gentiles do not become Jews. Rather, one new man is created in Christ, one in whom old ethnic distinctions are relativized and in whom alone we find peace with others. The One New Man

* Galatians 3:23-29 NIV [Children of God; end of the Law, universal faith]. 23 Before the coming of this faith, we were held in custody under the law, locked up until the faith that was to come would be revealed. 24 So the law was our guardian until Christ came that we might be justified by faith. 25 Now that this faith has come, we are no longer under a guardian. 26 So in Christ Jesus you are all children of God through faith, 27 for all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. 28 There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. 29 If you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise {appropriation of the covenant/blessing}.

* Silver Age - Gender theories. Erotic Utopia: The Decadent Imagination in Russia's Fin de Siecle. Olga Matich. The first generation of Russian modernists experienced a profound sense of anxiety resulting from the belief that they were living in an age of decline. What made them unique was their utopian prescription for overcoming the inevitability of decline and death both by metaphysical and physical means. They intertwined their mystical erotic discourse with European degeneration theory and its obsession with the destabilization of gender. In Erotic Utopia, Olga Matich suggests that same-sex desire underlay their most radical utopian proposal of abolishing the traditional procreative family in favor of erotically induced abstinence. (GB)

* Social degeneration [Degeneration theory]. Social degeneration was a widely influential concept at the interface of the social and biological sciences in the 18th and 19th centuries. During the 18th century, scientific thinkers including Georges-Louis Leclerc, Comte de Buffon, Johann Friedrich Blumenbach, and Immanuel Kant argued that humans shared a common origin but had degenerated over time due to differences in climate. This theory provided an explanation of where humans came from and why some people appeared differently from others. In contrast, degenerationists in the 19th century feared that civilization might be in decline and that the causes of decline lay in biological change. These ideas derived from pre-scientific concepts of heredity ("hereditary taint") with Lamarckian emphasis on biological development through purpose and habit. Degeneration concepts were often associated with authoritarian political attitudes, including militarism and scientific racism, and a preoccupation with eugenics. The theory originated in racial concepts of ethnicity, recorded in the writings of such medical scientists as Johann Blumenbach and Robert Knox. From the 1850s, it became influential in psychiatry through the writings of Bénédict Morel, and in criminology with Cesare Lombroso. By the 1890s, in the work of Max Nordau and others, degeneration became a more general concept in social criticism. It also fed into the ideology of ethnic nationalism, attracting, among others, Maurice Barrès, Charles Maurras and the Action Française. Alexis Carrel, a French Nobel Laureate in Medicine, cited national degeneration as a rationale for a eugenics programme in collaborationist Vichy France. The meaning of degeneration was poorly defined, but can be described as an organism's change from a more complex to a simpler, less differentiated form, and is associated with 19th-century conceptions of biological devolution. In scientific usage, the term was reserved for changes occurring at a histological level – i.e. in body tissues. Although rejected by Charles Darwin, the theory's application to the social sciences was supported by some evolutionary biologists, most notably Ernst Haeckel and Ray Lankester. As the 19th century wore on, the increasing emphasis on degeneration reflected an anxious pessimism about the resilience of European civilization and its possible decline and collapse.[citation needed]

* New Man [Christianity]. The New Testament uses the phrase “new man” three times. In Ephesians 2:15 Paul says that Christ on the cross created “one new man” in Himself. In Ephesians 4:24, Paul tells us to “put on the new man, which was created according to God.” Then in Colossians 3:10 Paul says that we “have put on the new man, which is being renewed.” (...) In his first mention of the new man, Paul speaks of how Christ created one new man out of the two peoples on the earth, the Jews and the Gentiles, slaying the enmity that was between them because of ordinances (Eph. 2:15). This shows us that the new man is something corporate, just as Adam was not only a single man but the beginning of man as a collective entity (Gen. 1:26 {26 And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth.}). We are all members of the “race” of fallen Adam. In this corporate man, also called the “old man” in the Scriptures (Eph. 4:22; Rom. 6:6), we see many characteristics such as pride, selfishness, anger, lust, and vainglory. Although we may think there are many kinds of men, in God’s view, all fallen mankind is part of the old man, the corporate Adam, who was crucified on the cross with Christ. (...) In this new man “there cannot be Greek and Jew...but Christ is all and in all” (Col. 3:11). (...) It is actually just the church, that humanity that is redeemed, regenerated and transformed by Christ Jesus. On one hand, Christ created this new man on the cross. On the other hand, this new man comes into existence as the Holy Spirit transforms us by His working in us. The new man is of the new creation, which is God’s old creation with the element of God added to it. When we are regenerated, God’s life and nature enter us, and we become a new creation (2 Cor. 5:17). This is the beginning of the new man. We can also say, as Paul indicates in Ephesians 4 and Colossians 3, that the new man is being created as the believers are being transformed daily into the image of Christ and built together into a dwelling place of God in Spirit (Eph. 2:22). This new man expresses all the divine attributes of Christ in the uplifted and transformed human virtues. The church as the corporate new man, and thus new mankind on this earth, accomplishes God’s eternal purpose of expressing Him in this universe. What is the New Man?

* New Man [Silver Age]. The subtitle of What Is To Be Done? is From Tales about New People, whose proptotype is the new man of the New Testament {Ephesians 2:15, Ephesians 4:24, Colossians 3:10}. In her biography of Merezhkovsky, Gippius referred to Solov'ev, Briusov, Blok, and Rozanov as "new people". Irina Paperno uncovered the multiplicity of Christian symbols in What Is To Be Done? In Chernyshevsky and the Age of Realism, she described it as a socialist gospel and a new religion and noted the apocalyptic character of Chernyshevsky's utopian socialism and his concern with the heavenly kingdom on earth. Although at the beginning of the twentieth century the term "new man" evoked Nietzsche's superman, in Russia it maintained both its Christian and Chernyshevskian, 1860s connotations. Gippius titled her first book of short stories New People (Noviye liudi, 1896). Like their predecessors in utopian fiction, her heroes indulge in long debates about universal harmony, God, the meaning of love, and the transformation of life. In a typical instance of cultural layering, the title of Gippius's book and its contents were informed by three competing ideologies: Christianity, Nietzscheanism, and 1860s radical utopianism. Commenting on Merezhkovsky's study of Tolstoy and Dostoevsky, Bely emphasized the multiple referentiality of the phrase "new people" and the turn of the twentieth century. He wrote that "Merezhkovsky's task was to reveal a commune of new men who have transformed the consciousness of Tolstoy and Dostoevsky into a creative lifestyle [byt]; this commune would be informed by the third testament, fusing the New and Old Testament into one". In speaking of "new men", Bely emphasized literature as a stimulus to action, which was the prupose of Chernyshevsky's novel. (GB) Olga Matich - Erotic Utopia: The Decadent Imagination in Russia's Fin de Siecle

* Zinaida Gippius. Russian poet, novelist, playwright, religious thinker, and critic, and one of the most prominent figures of the Symbolist movement during Russia’s Silver Age. The oldest of four sisters in a family that moved frequently, her early education was spotty at best. But she began writing poetry at the age of seven, and was already published by the time she met the aspiring writer Dmitry Merezhkovsky at the age of 19. The two were married within a year, though Gippius insisted that they remain equals in the relationship, with their own separate living quarters and careers. Gippius became a prolific writer of short stories, novels, and essays, and found success as a literary critic under a male pseudonym. But she was best known for her poetry which, unlike her commercial work, was dark and deeply personal. She often referred to her poems as personal prayers. Her writing helped give rise to Russian Symbolism, while earning her a reputation as a “demoness” and a “decadent Madonna,” an image which she embraced. Gippius identified with androgyny, which she expressed by wearing masculine and feminine clothing in turn. Even her poetry, which was written under her own name, was often written with a male voice. She also believed that bisexuality was the natural state of people, and wrote that “it is equally good and natural for any person to love any other person.” She had affairs with both men and women, although it’s unclear how many of the affairs were sexual, just as it’s unclear whether she had a physical relationship with her husband, who may have himself been gay. Her views of sexuality, politics, and religion were closely entwined, and she believed that sexual and gender liberation were religious and revolutionary pursuits. In 1901, she and her husband co-founded the Religious and Philosophical Meetings, which tried to create ties between Russia’s revolutionary thinkers and religious leaders under the banner of a “New Church.” Their close friend and writer Dmitry Filosofov joined their cause, and even entered into a spiritual marriage with the couple, calling themselves the “Brotherhood of Three.” Though decidedly against the Tsar, their religiosity put the three of them at odds with the emerging Bolsheviks. After the 1917 October Revolution, they were forced to flee the country, and Filosofov parted ways. Gippius and Merezhkovsky lived for periods in Poland, Italy, and France, bringing together other Russian expats and still attempting to spread their religious and philosophical ideas. But they eventually found themselves isolated from their previous friends, not helped by the fact that Gippius had made many enemies as a harsh critic and the center of several love triangles throughout her life. Merezhkovsky died suddenly in 1941, and Gippius, devastated, spent her final months writing his biography. ZINAIDA GIPPIUS 1869TO –1945

* Good men [Boni homines, Cathars]. Boni homines: The Cathars thus referred to those who had received the consolamentum, never using the term “Perfect,” which, however, became common usage among their Catholic contemporaries and has been perpetuated by historians. This is the earliest known appearance of the term “Good Men.” Grundmann and Borst cite numerous other occurrences in the sources. “Good men” was also a collective term applied to magistrates, officials, and distinguished attendants in legal hearings during the Middle Ages, as the use in the next sentence of our text illustrates {"those who chose to be called Good Men"}.

* Seven catholic Epistles [Seven canonical Epistles]. The catholic epistles. Seven canonical epistles attributed to apostles other than Paul. The seven catholic (universal or general) epistles are the epistle of James, the two epistles of Peter, the three epistles of John, and the epistle of Jude. The catholic epistles.

* Epistle of James [Послание Иакова]. The Epistle of James, the Letter of James, or simply James (Ancient Greek, romanized: Iakōbos), is a General {'catholic'} epistle and one of the 21 epistles (didactic letters) in the New Testament. The author identifies himself as "James, a servant of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ" who is writing to "the twelve tribes scattered abroad" (James 1). The epistle is traditionally attributed to James the brother of Jesus (James the Just), and the audience is generally considered to be Jewish Christians, who were dispersed outside Israel. Framing his letter within an overall theme of patient perseverance during trials and temptations, James writes in order to encourage his readers to live consistently with what they have learned in Christ. He condemns various sins, including pride, hypocrisy, favouritism, and slander. He encourages and implores believers to humbly live by godly, rather than worldly wisdom and to pray in all situations. For the most part, until the late 20th century, the epistle of James was relegated to benign disregard – though it was shunned by many early theologians and scholars due to its advocacy of Torah observance and good works. Famously, Luther at one time considered the epistle to be among the disputed books, and sidelined it to an appendix, although in his Large Catechism he treated it as the authoritative word of God. The epistle aims to reach a wide Jewish audience. During the last decades, the epistle of James has attracted increasing scholarly interest due to a surge in the quest for the historical James, his role within the Jesus movement, his beliefs, and his relationships and views. This James revival is also associated with an increasing level of awareness of the Jewish grounding of both the epistle and the early Jesus movement.

* 1 Timothy 3:2-7 NIV 2 Now the overseer is to be above reproach, faithful to his wife, temperate, self-controlled, respectable, hospitable, able to teach, 3 not given to drunkenness, not violent but gentle, not quarrelsome, not a lover of money. 4 He must manage his own family well and see that his children obey him, and he must do so in a manner worthy of full respect. 5 (If anyone does not know how to manage his own family, how can he take care of God’s church?) 6 He must not be a recent convert, or he may become conceited and fall under the same judgment as the devil. 7 He must also have a good reputation with outsiders, so that he will not fall into disgrace and into the devil’s trap.

* Toulouse, mother of heresy {Cathars}. On the situation in Toulouse, one example of the views of a horrified contemporary may suffice. Henry, abbot of Olairvaux, who played an important part in the events described in this translation, wrote of Toulouse, which he called the mother of heresy and the source of error: “Verily, we had not been told the third part of all the evil abominations which that noble city nourished in the bosom of its unbelief. The place of abomination of desolation (Matt. 24) was fixed therein and the counterpart of the reptiles {snakes, vipers} of the prophets (cf. Jer. 8; Eccles. 10) had secured a dwelling among its hiding places. There the heretics ruled the people and reigned among the clergy, so that like people, like priest (Osee 4), and the life of the pastor was itself shaped for the ruin of the flock. Heretics spoke and all applauded. A Catholic spoke and they said, ‘What is this?’ making it seem wondrous and miraculous if anyone was found among them who would even dare to whisper about the word of faith. So much had the pestilence prevailed upon the land that they had not only created priests and pontiffs for themselves but had evangelists who, spoiling and canceling out the true Gospel, forged a new gospel for them and from their hearts wickedly preached a fresh teaching to the deluded people.... Upon our arrival there, so great was the license of the heretics everywhere that as we pursued our proper course through the streets and squares they railed at us, pointed their fingers at us, shouted at us that we were imposters, hypocrites, heretics. Complaints hardly less severe had been voiced in a letter of 1173 from the archbishop of Narbonne.

* Bible quotes - Swearing. Matthew 5:34-37 NIV 34 But I tell you, do not swear an oath at all: either by heaven, for it is God’s throne; 35 or by the earth, for it is his footstool; or by Jerusalem, for it is the city of the Great King. 36 And do not swear by your head, for you cannot make even one hair white or black. 37 All you need to say is simply ‘Yes’ or ‘No’; anything beyond this comes from the evil one. // Psalm 110 NIV 4 The Lord has sworn and will not change his mind: “You are a priest forever, in the order of Melchizedek.” // Genesis 22:16-18 NIV 16 and said, “I swear by myself, declares the Lord, that because you have done this and have not withheld your son, your only son, 17 I will surely bless you and make your descendants as numerous as the stars in the sky and as the sand on the seashore. Your descendants will take possession of the cities of their enemies, 18 and through your offspring all nations on earth will be blessed, because you have obeyed me.” // Hebrews 6:16 NIV 16 People swear by someone greater than themselves, and the oath confirms what is said and puts an end to all argument.

* Alexius of Rome [Алексий, человек Божий] (IV). Saint Alexius or Alexius of Rome or Alexius of Edessa (also Alexis) was a fourth-century monk who lived in anonymity and is known for his dedication to Christ. There are two versions of his life that are known to us, a Syriac one and a Greek one. Syriac version. According to Syriac tradition St. Alexius was an Eastern saint whose veneration was later transplanted to Rome. The relocation of the veneration to Rome was facilitated by the belief that the saint was a native of Rome and had died there. Greek version. The Greek version of his legend made Alexius the only son of Euphemianus, a wealthy Christian Roman of the senatorial class. Alexius fled his arranged marriage to follow his holy vocation. Disguised as a beggar, he lived near Edessa in Syria, accepting alms even from his own household slaves, who had been sent to look for him but did not recognize him, until a miraculous icon of the Blessed Virgin Mary (later this image was called Madonna of St. Alexius) singled him out as a "Man of God". Fleeing the resultant notoriety {??}, he returned to Rome, so changed that his parents did not recognize him, but as good Christians took him in and sheltered him for seventeen years, which he spent in a dark cubbyhole {a small snug or cramped place} beneath the stairs, praying and teaching catechism to children. After his death, his family found a note on his body which told them who he was and how he had lived his life of penance from the day of his wedding, for the love of God. // St. Alexis was a fourth-century ascetic whose story was the subject of a poem in French, written about 1040. Son of a wealthy member of the equestrian order in Rome, Alexis married but immediately left home and wife for a mendicant life as a Christian in Syria. After many years he returned to Rome and, unrecognized, begged shelter in his old home. Only on his deathbed was his true identity revealed. The poem seems to have enjoyed great popularity in the eleventh and twelfth centuries and was frequently recited in castle and town. (Heresies of the high middle ages : selected sources, translated and annotated / by Walter L. Wakefield and Austin P. Evans.)

* Man of God. Man of God is a biblical title of respect applied to prophets and beloved religious leaders.

* Third Council of the Lateran (1179). The Third Council of the Lateran met in Rome in March 1179. Pope Alexander III presided and 302 bishops attended. The Catholic Church regards it as the eleventh ecumenical council. By agreement reached at the Peace of Venice in 1177 the bitter conflict between Alexander III and Emperor Frederick I was brought to an end. When Pope Adrian IV died in 1159, the divided cardinals elected two popes: Roland of Siena, who took the name of Alexander III, and Octavian of Rome who, though nominated by fewer cardinals, was supported by Frederick and assumed the name of Pope Victor IV. Frederick, wishing to remove all that stood in the way of his authority in Italy, declared war upon the Italian states and especially the Church which was enjoying great authority. A serious schism arose out of this conflict, and after Victor IV's death in 1164, two further antipopes were nominated in opposition to Alexander III: Paschal III (1164–1168) and Callistus III (1168–1178). Eventually, at the Peace of Venice, when Alexander gained victory, he promised Frederick that he would summon an ecumenical council. Besides removing the remains of the recent schism, the Council condemned the Cathar {and Waldensan} heresies and pushed for the restoration of ecclesiastical discipline. It also became the first general Council of the Church to legislate against sodomy. Three sessions were held, on 5, 14, and 19 March, in which 27 canons were promulgated. The most important of these were: Canon 1. In order to prevent the possibility of future schisms, only cardinals were to possess the right to elect a pope. In addition a two-thirds majority was to be required in order for the election to be valid. If any candidate should declare himself pope without receiving the required majority, he and his supporters were to be excommunicated. Canon 2 declared null and void those ordinations performed by the antipopes Octavian (Victor IV), Guy of Crema (Paschal III), and John de Struma (Antipope Callixtus III). Canon 3 forbade the promotion of anyone to a parish before the age of 25 and to the episcopate before the age of 30. Canon 5 forbade the ordination of clerics not provided with any means of proper support. Canon 7 forbade the charging of money to conduct burials, bless a marriage or indeed the celebration of any of the sacraments. Canon 11 forbade clerics to have women in their houses or to visit the monasteries of nuns without a good reason; declared that married clergy should lose their benefices; and decreed that priests who engaged in "that unnatural vice for which the wrath of God came down upon the sons of disobedience and destroyed the five cities with fire" (sodomy) should be deposed from clerical office and required to do penance - while laymen should be excommunicated. Canon 18 required every cathedral church to appoint a master to teach the clerics and the poor scholars of the church; this action helped launch the cathedral schools that later became universities. It also regulated the license to teach (licentia docendi), stating "let no one demand any money for a licence to teach, or under cover of some custom seek anything from teachers, or forbid anyone to teach who is suitable and has sought a licence." Selling the license to teach could prevent the progress of churches. Canon 19 declared excommunication for those who tried to tax churches and clergy without the consent of the bishop. Canon 23 concerns the proper organisation of accommodation for lepers. Canon 25 excommunicates those who engage in usury. Canon 26 forbade Jews and Muslims from having Christian servants and states that the evidence of Christians is always to be accepted against Jews. Canon 27 stressed the duty of princes to repress heresy and condemned "the Brabantians, Aragonese, Basques, Navarrese, and others who practice such cruelty toward Christians that they respect neither churches nor monasteries, spare neither widows nor orphans, neither age nor sex, but after the manner of pagans, destroy and lay waste everything".

* Acts 2:44 NIV 44 All the believers were together and had everything in common.

* Christus nudus <> Christus victor. Christus nudus (“the naked Christ”) <> Christus victor (“Christ the victor”). We need a God who bears our shame. And we have one in the naked Christ. (...) Thus the early church even began what may seem like a strange practice. Converts were baptized naked in imitation of a Christ who hung naked on the cross. In response to this, Saint Jerome’s (347–420 AD) oft-repeated motto for the Christian lifestyle read as follows: “nudus nudum Jesum Sequi” (naked to follow a naked Christ). Because of Jesus, the metaphor of nakedness was transformed from a mark of shame to a metaphor of purity, innocence, and life-giving vulnerability. The Naked God: The Cross and Body Shame // This phrase {"naked, following a naked Christ"}, originally written by Saint Jerome, was most memorably borrowed by Walter Map to describe Waldensian heretics, not Saint Francis. Francis and Waldo had many things in common, including their commitment to apostolic poverty. (Louisa A. Burnham - So Great a Light, So Great a Smoke: The Beguin Heretics of Languedoc)

* Stephen of Bourbon [Этьен/Стефан де Бурбон] (1180-1261). Stephen of Bourbon (French: Étienne de Bourbon; Latin: Stephanus de Borbone) was a preacher of the Dominican Order, author of the largest collection of preaching exempla of the thirteenth century, a historian of medieval heresies, and one of the first inquisitors.

* Acts 7. Acts 7 is the seventh chapter of the Acts of the Apostles in the New Testament of the Christian Bible. It records the address of Stephen before the Sanhedrin and his execution outside Jerusalem, and introduces Saul (who later became Paul the Apostle). The book containing this chapter is anonymous, but early Christian tradition uniformly affirmed that Luke composed this book as well as the Gospel of Luke. Stephen's speech (7:1–53). On the surface, Stephen's speech seemingly did match the charges against him, but the recorded words apparently are a part of a 'larger polemical discourse, building on and developing the arguments already put forward in the sermons and trial speeches of the apostles'. It can be categorized into 'rewritten Bible', "a selective retelling of biblical history from a particular theological standpoint" in similar form as Psalm 105, among others in the Bible. Stephen's death (7–60). The reaction of the audience to Stephen's speech reached a dramatic high point in verse 54 and heightened even further Stephen's description of his vision in verses 55–56. Stephen's vision of God's glory has a continuity with his speech on Abraham (7) and Moses (cf. Exodus 33—23), but now extends to the open heaven (verse 56) with the figure of Jesus himself positioned 'at the right hand of God' (verse 55) denoting the highest place of honor and confirming Stephen's claim that the rejected savior is in fact God's 'Righteous One'. Stephen as 'the prototype for Christian martyrdom' dies 'calling on the name of the Lord' expecting the exalted Jesus to receive his spirit (verse 59) and then cries out 'in a loud voice' (verse 60; cf. Luke 23) for forgiveness that echoes the prayer of Luke 23.

* 1 John 5:19 [1 Ин. 5:19]. NIV 19 We know that we are children of God, and that the whole world is under the control of the evil one. 1 Ин. 5:19 Весь мир лежит во зле.

* John 14:30 [Ин. 14:30] NIV 30 I will not say much more to you, for the prince of this world is coming. He has no hold over me. Ин. 14:30 Ктому не много глаголю с вами: грядет бо сего мира князь и во Мне не имать ничесоже. "Говоря о князе мира, разумеет диавола и злых людей, потому что диавол владычествует не над небом и землею, – иначе он все бы низвратил и ниспроверг, – но господствует над теми, которые сами предаются ему." (Иоанн Златоуст) Ин. 14:30 Уже немного Мне говорить с вами; ибо идет князь мира сего, и во Мне не имеет ничего. "Князем мира называется он не как властитель и господин мира. Да идет от нас такая богохульная мысль! – И как возможно, чтоб властвовал над миром тот, кто не имеет власти даже над свиньями? Но называется он князем мира потому, что, раздражая пожелание богатства и других вещей мира сего, он порабощает себе прилепляющихся к ним и берет над ними власть. Князем же тьмы называется он потому, что ниспал от света божественной славы, по причине гордости своей, и сделался наследником вечной тмы. Но Бог и Владыка наш, яко Творец и Устроитель всего мира, естественно и властно есть князь всех – небесных, земных и преисподних, будучи светом невечерним и неприступным и Господом всего – и настоящего, и будущего." (Симеон Новый Богослов)

* Creation out of nothing [ex nihilo]. Augustine and Christian thinkers in general departed from Neoplatonism at one crucial point. Neoplatonism maintained that the world was continuous in being with the ultimate divine reality, the One. The One, in its limitless plenitude of being, overflows into the surrounding void, and the descending and attenuating degrees of being constitute the many-leveled universe. In contrast to this emanationist conception Augustine held that the universe is a created realm, brought into existence by God out of nothing (ex nihilo). It has no independent power of being {"held up by God's grace" (spiritually) <> Valentinius: held up by Horus (technically)}, or aseity, but is contingent, absolutely dependent upon the creative divine power. Further, Augustine emphasized that God did not create the universe out of preexistent matter or chaos, but that “out of nothing” simply means “not out of anything” (De natura boni). This understanding of creation, entailing the universe’s total emptiness of independent self-existence and yet its ultimate goodness as the free expression of God’s creative love, is perhaps the most distinctively Christian contribution to metaphysical thought. It goes beyond the earlier Hebraic understanding in making explicit the ex nihilo character of creation in contrast to the emanationism of the Neoplatonic thought-world. This basic Christian idea entails the value of creaturely life and of the material world itself, its dependence upon God, and the meaningfulness of the whole temporal process as fulfilling an ultimate divine purpose. (Britannica - Christianity)

* Natural theology. Christian philosophy as natural theology. Natural theology is generally characterized as the attempt to establish religious truths by rational argument and without reliance upon alleged revelations. It has focused traditionally on the topics of the existence of God and the immortality of the soul. (Britannica - Christianity)

* Matthew 21-32 NIV The Parable of the Two Sons. 28 “What do you think? There was a man who had two sons. He went to the first and said, ‘Son, go and work today in the vineyard.’ 29 “‘I will not,’ he answered, but later he changed his mind and went. 30 “Then the father went to the other son and said the same thing. He answered, ‘I will, sir,’ but he did not go. 31 “Which of the two did what his father wanted?” “The first,” they answered. Jesus said to them, “Truly I tell you, the tax collectors and the prostitutes are entering the kingdom of God ahead of {not: instead of} you. 32 For John came to you to show you the way of righteousness, and you did not believe him, but the tax collectors and the prostitutes did. And even after you saw this, you did not repent and believe him.

* On Bogomil views of the relationship between God, Christ, and the devil, see p. 15, above, and n. 55. In a gloss on the Gospel used in the Bogomil church of Bosnia, the man with two sons is said to be the Father invisible, the younger son the fallen angels, the elder son the angels who remained faithful. About 1240, Moneta of Cremona wrote that the Cathars believed that the devil and the angelic spirit in Adam were brothers, the devil being the elder of the two; see No. 50, n. 24. (WE)

* Alexander Soloviev (historian). Alexander Vasilievich Soloviev (Serbian: Александар Соловјев, Russian: Алекса́ндр Васи́льевич Соловьёв) (1890–1971) was a historian of Serbia and Serbian law. He published research on the Bogumils, Serbian heraldry, philately and archeology, and translations from Russian and French.

* A short sketch of Catharist doctrine is found standing alone and untitled in one manuscript. It seems to be related to this proclamation and to the related passage in No. 38, but has some interesting variations. It reads as follows: “The Manichaeans say there are two gods and two beginnings: a good God and a malign god. The malign they hold to be the creator of this world, author of the Mosaic law. John the Baptist, they say, is damned. The Christ who appeared in this world was a pseudo-Christ and had pseudoapostles. They aver, also, that the {real} Christ through whom we hope for salvation was born in a celestial Jerusalem. Christ [bom of] Joseph and Mary, suffered in a celestial Jerusalem, betrayed by His brothers. They say that the good God had two wives, Collam and Hoolibam [sic], from whom He engendered sons and daughters in human fashion. They say that He had to do with the wife of the malign god, and the malign god, enraged thereby, sent his son into the court of the good God, whom he deceived, and took from thence gold and silver, human and animal souls, and sent them forth and dispersed them among his seven realms, those, indeed, to which Christ was sent. Hence, they say, Christ suffered seven times. They also declare that {the earthly ??} Christ was the husband of Mary Magdalen. To show this, they explain that he was alone with her three times: in the temple, in the garden, and at the well. They say that each one shall regain his wife, his sons, and his property in the kingdom of God. Certain of them believe that when the soul leaves the human body, unless one shall die in their sect, it goes into another body, either human or animal; others say only into a human body. (WE)

* Alaric II [Аларих II] (c 458/466-507). Alaric II (Gothic: Alareiks, "ruler of all"; Latin: Alaricus) was the King of the Visigoths in 484–507. He succeeded his father Euric as king of the Visigoths in Toulouse on 28 December 484; he was the great-grandson of the more famous Alaric I, who sacked Rome in 410. He established his capital at Aire-sur-l'Adour (Vicus Julii) in Aquitaine. His dominions included not only the majority of Hispania (excluding its northwestern corner) but also Gallia Aquitania and the greater part of an as-yet undivided Gallia Narbonensis. (...) The earliest-documented event in Alaric's reign concerned providing refuge to Syagrius, the former ruler of the Domain of Soissons (in what is now northwestern France) who had been defeated by Clovis I, King of the Franks. According to Gregory of Tours' account, Alaric was intimidated by Clovis into surrendering Syagrius to Clovis; Gregory then adds that "the Goths are a timorous race." (...) Battle of Vouillé and aftermath. After a few years, however, Clovis violated the peace treaty negotiated in 502. Despite the diplomatic intervention of Theodoric, king of the Ostrogoths and father-in-law of Alaric, Clovis led his followers into Visigothic territory. Alaric was forced by his magnates to meet Clovis in the Battle of Vouillé (summer 507) near Poitiers; there the Goths were defeated and Alaric slain, according to Gregory of Tours, by Clovis himself. Ability as king. In religion Alaric was an Arian, like all the early Visigothic nobles, but he greatly mitigated the persecution policy of his father Euric toward the Catholics and authorized them to hold in 506 the council of Agde. He was on uneasy terms with the Catholic bishops of Arelate (modern Arles) as epitomized in the career of the Frankish Caesarius, bishop of Arles, who was appointed bishop in 503. Caesarius was suspected of conspiring with the Burgundians, whose king had married the sister of Clovis, to assist the Burgundians capture Arles. Alaric exiled him for a year to Bordeaux in Aquitania, then allowed him to return unharmed when the crisis had passed. Alaric displayed similar wisdom in political affairs by appointing a commission headed by the referendary Anianus to prepare an abstract of the Roman laws and imperial decrees, which would form the authoritative code for his Roman subjects. This is generally known as the Breviarium Alaricianum or Breviary of Alaric.

* Defensores et receptatores. These terms rapidly assumed technical meaning as to the degree of implication in heresy. In a “consultation,” presumably written about 1242 by Raymond of Pennafort (d. 1275) as a guide to inquisitorial practice in the see of Tarragona, “defenders” were defined as those who knowingly defended heretics in word or deed, hindering the Church’s prosecution. “Receivers” were those who knowingly welcomed heretics to their houses several times. Lesser weight of guilt attached to “concealers” (celatores), who did not report heretics {turned a blind eye on them ??} when they saw them, and “secreters” (occultores), who conspired to prevent such reports {actively hid them ??}. All such persons were to some degree “fautors” (fautores), suspect of heresy, who must purge themselves.

* Eckebert [Eckbert of Schonau] (d 1184; abbot, writer against heretics). Eckebert (Ekbert, Egbert) (born in the early part of the twelfth century of a distinguished family along the Middle Rhine; died 28 March 1184) was Benedictine Abbot of the Abbey of Schönau, and a writer. (...) He preached and wrote much for the salvation of souls and the conversion of heretics. The Cathari, then numerous in the Rhineland, gave him especial concern. While a canon at Bonn he often had occasion to debate with heretics, and after his monastic profession, was invited by Rainald of Dassel, Archbishop of Cologne, to debate publicly with the leaders of the sect in Cologne itself.

* Hugh of Poitiers [Vézelay Abbey] (d 1167; chronicler ). Hugh of Poitiers was a Benedictine monk of Vézelay Abbey and chronicler. His Historia Vizeliacensis monasterii was written from about 1140 to 1160. Besides being a rather partisan account of the affairs of the Abbey, it is an important source for the history of France in its period. It was written for Abbot Ponce of Vézelay (1138–1161), who was brother to Peter the Venerable of Cluny Abbey. He also wrote the Origo et historia brevis Nivernensium comitum, about the county of Nevers. // Vézelay Abbey. Vézelay Abbey (French: Abbaye Sainte-Marie-Madeleine de Vézelay) is a Benedictine and Cluniac monastery in Vézelay in the east-central French department of Yonne. It was constructed between 1120 and 1150. (...) About 1050 the monks of Vézelay began to claim to hold the relics of Mary Magdalene, brought, they said, from the Holy Land either by their 9th-century founder-saint, Badilo, or by envoys despatched by him. A little later a monk of Vézelay declared that he had detected in a crypt at St-Maximin in Provence, carved on an empty sarcophagus, a representation of the Unction at Bethany, when Jesus' head was anointed by Mary of Bethany, who was assumed in the Middle Ages to be Mary Magdalene. The monks of Vézelay pronounced this to be Mary Magdalene's tomb, from which her relics had been translated to their abbey. Freed captives then brought their chains as votive objects to the abbey, and it was the newly elected Abbot Geoffroy in 1037 who had the ironwork melted down and reforged as wrought iron railings surrounding the Magdalene's altar. Thus the erection of one of the finest examples of Romanesque architecture which followed was made possible by pilgrims to the declared relics and these tactile examples demonstrating the efficacy of prayers. Mary Magdalene is the prototype of the penitent, and Vézelay has remained an important place of pilgrimage for the Catholic faithful, though the actual claimed relics were torched by Huguenots in the 16th century. (...) The abbey's self-assured monastic community was prepared to defend its liberties and privileges against all comers: the bishops of Autun, who challenged its claims to exemption; the counts of Nevers, who claimed jurisdiction in their court and rights of hospitality at Vézelay; the abbey of Cluny, which had reformed its rule and sought to maintain control of the abbot within its hierarchy; the townsmen of Vézelay, who demanded a modicum {small quantity} of communal self-government. The beginning of Vézelay's decline coincided with the well-publicized discovery in 1279 of the body of Mary Magdalene at Saint-Maximin-la-Sainte-Baume in Provence, given regal patronage by Charles II, the Angevin king of Sicily. When Charles erected a Dominican convent at La Sainte-Baume, the shrine was found intact {??}, with an explanatory inscription stating why the relics had been hidden. The local Dominican friars compiled an account of miracles that these relics had wrought. This discovery undermined Vézelay's position as the principal shrine of the Magdalene in Europe. // This was the culmination of a series of conflicts during the first half of the twelfth century, the first of which ended with the murder of the abbot at the time and the burning of the monastery. The revolt of 1152 led to the establishment of a short-lived commune, which was put down in 1155. There has been some dispute about this; but Charles Petit-Dutaillis in Les Communes frangaises: Caracteres et evolution des origines au XVIIle siecle, accepts the commune as a fact. It is a matter of some interest in that Vezelay is one of the towns in which a charge of heresy coincided with civilian opposition to temporal control by the clergy. The town of Vezelay, in the department of Yonne, is situated on the Cure River, a few miles east of the Yonne and about thirty miles northeast of Nevers. Now a picturesque village, it was in the twelfth century a place of some importance. The history of Vezelay by Aime Cherest, Vezelay: Etude historique, makes some useful corrections and additions to the history by Hugh of Poitiers. The story of the insurrections in the town is told by Leon de Bastard, who doubts a true communal uprising in 1152; his argument is rebutted by F. Bourquelot.

* The best introduction in English is an essay by George Lincoln Burr, “The Literature of Witchcraft,” in Papers of the American Historical Association, IV (1889-1890). See also the introduction by Professor Burr to Lea’s Materials toward a History of Witchcraft. Still of much value are the chapters on sorcery, the occult arts, and witchcraft in Lea, History of the Inquisition. (...) The works listed above all treat of witchcraft in Western Europe during the later Middle Ages as a Christian heresy not to be identified with sorcery and demonology in general, which are world-wide phenomena. Anthropologists have challenged this view as too narrow, insisting that witchcraft lies in the realm of folklore rather than Christian theology. A spirited presentation of this point is by Margaret Murray in two books: The Witch-cult of Western Europe, and The God of the Witches. A later, more cautious development of the same general thesis is by Arne Runeberg, Witches, Demons, and Fertility Magic. Some lively reading in the newspapers of 1964 was provided by self-styled witches in England who accepted the Murray school of thought in explaining themselves. A volume which fits neither of the categories mentioned above and which diffuses rather more heat than light is by Montague Summers, The History of Witchcraft and Demonology. For the author, witchcraft was no delusion, but a living reality, the god of the witches being in truth the devil. There is an urbane summing-up of various interpretations of witchcraft in Elliot Rose, A Razor for a Goat. // First published in 1962, Elliot Rose's A Razor for a Goat is a study of witchcraft as a religion, whether the religion was a form of pagan survival or a depraved Christian (or anti-Christian) heresy. Rose surveyed witch-scares, fairy folklore, 'ritual' deaths, the Canon Episcopi, and goliards for evidence for witchcraft, and to make some suggestions about the reality behind the popular beliefs on witchcraft societies and Sabbats. One of the first studies to debunk the dominant theory of the time that witchcraft had been an organized pre-Christian religion, A Razor for a Goat is listed on many anthropology, religion, and history course bibliographies.

* Goliards (XII-XIII). The goliards were a group of, generally young, clergy in Europe who wrote satirical Latin poetry in the 12th and 13th centuries of the Middle Ages. They were chiefly clerics who served at or had studied at the universities of France, Germany, Spain, Italy, and England, who protested against the growing contradictions within the church through song, poetry and performance. Disaffected and not called to the religious life, they often presented such protests within a structured setting associated with carnival, such as the Feast of Fools, or church liturgy. Origins of the goliardic tradition. The goliardic class is believed to have arisen from the need of younger sons to develop means of support. The medieval social convention of primogeniture meant that the eldest son inherited title and estate. This practice of bestowing the rights of inheritance upon the eldest son left younger sons to seek other means by which to support themselves. Often, these younger sons went, or were sent, to the universities and monasteries of the day, where theology and preparation for clergy careers were a major focus. Many felt no particular affinity for religious office, and often could not secure an office even if they desired one because of an overabundance of those educated in theology. Consequently, over-educated, under-motivated clerics often adopted not the life of an ordered monk, but one mainly intent on the pursuit of carnal pleasures.

* Feast of Fools (XII?-XV). The Feast of Fools (Latin: festum fatuorum, festum stultorum) was a feast day celebrated by the clergy in Europe during the Middle Ages, initially in Southern France, but later more widely. During the Feast, participants would elect either a false Bishop, false Archbishop or false Pope. Ecclesiastical ritual would also be parodied and higher and lower level clergy would change places. The passage of time has considerably obscured modern understandings of the nature and meaning of this celebration, which originated in proper liturgical observance, and has more to do with other examples of medieval liturgical drama than with either the earlier pagan (Roman) feasts of Saturnalia and Kalends or the later bourgeois lay sotie. Context. The central idea appears to have been a brief social revolution, in which power, dignity and impunity is briefly conferred on those in a subordinate position. In the views of later commentators, this makes the medieval festival a successor to the Roman Kalends of January, although there is no continuity between the two celebrations. Lower level clergy would participate in the festival and hold masses which would mock usual church traditions. Many of the most colourful descriptions of the medieval festival are a result of centuries of misunderstandings and unscholarly conflations of events widely dispersed in time and place; most rely on the condemnations of later writers, which either exaggerate or deliberately misreport what was effectively an orderly, if not always fully scripted, liturgical celebration with some dramatic elements. The involvement of inversion (subdeacons occupying the roles normally fulfilled by higher clergy) and the 'fools' symbolised orthodox biblical ideas of humility (e.g. the last being first) and becoming a 'fool for Christ' (1 Corinthians 4). In the Middle Ages, particularly in France, the Feast of Fools was staged on or about the Feast of the Circumcision, 1 January. It is related to certain other liturgical dramas, such, for example, as the Feast of the Ass, the Play of Daniel, and the Office of the Star. So far as the Feast of Fools had an independent existence, it seems to have grown out of a special "festival of the subdeacons", which John Beleth, a liturgical writer of the twelfth century sometimes thought to have been an Englishman by birth, assigns to the day of the Circumcision. He is the earliest to draw attention to the fact that, as the deacons had a special celebration on St Stephen's day 26 December, the priests on St John the Evangelist's day 27 December, and again the choristers and mass-servers on the Feast of the Holy Innocents on 28 December, so the subdeacons were accustomed to hold their feast about the same time of year, but more particularly on the festival of the Circumcision. Official condemnation. The Feast of Fools and the almost blasphemous extravagances in some instances associated with it were constantly the object of sweeping condemnations of the medieval Church. On the other hand, some Catholic writers have thought it necessary to try to deny the existence of such abuses. One interpretation that reconciles this contradiction is that, while there can be no question that Church authorities of the calibre of Robert Grosseteste repeatedly condemned the licence of the Feast of Fools in the strongest terms, such firmly rooted customs took centuries to eradicate. It is certain that the practice lent itself to serious abuses, whose nature and gravity varied at different epochs. It should be said that among the thousands of European liturgical manuscripts the occurrence of anything which has to do with the Feast of Fools is extraordinarily rare. It never occurs in the principal liturgical books, the missals and breviaries. There are traces occasionally in a prose or a trope found in a gradual or an antiphonary. It would therefore seem there was little official approval for such extravagances, which were rarely committed to writing. With a view to checking the abuses committed in the celebration of the Feast of Fools on New Year's Day at Notre-Dame de Paris in the twelfth century, the celebration was not entirely banned, but the part of the "Lord of Misrule" or "Precentor Stultorum" was restrained, so that he was to be allowed to intone the prose "Laetemur gaudiis", and to wield the precentor's staff, but this before the first Vespers of the feast, not during it. During the second Vespers, it had been the custom that the precentor of the fools should be deprived of his staff when the verse in the Magnificat, Deposuit potentes de sede ("He has put down the mighty from their seat") was sung. Hence the feast was often known as the "Festum 'Deposuit'". Eudes de Sully allowed the staff to be taken at that point from the mock precentor, but laid down that the verse "Deposuit" not be repeated more than five times. There was a similar case of a legitimised Feast of Fools at Sens about 1220, where the whole text of the office has survived. There are many proses and interpolations (farsurae) added to the ordinary liturgy, but nothing much unseemly. This prose or conductus, was not a part of the office, but only a preliminary to Vespers. In 1245 Cardinal Odo, the papal legate in France, wrote to the Chapter of Sens Cathedral demanding that the feast be celebrated with no un-clerical dress and no wreaths of flowers. The Feast of Fools was forbidden under the severe penalties by the Council of Basel in 1431 and a strongly worded document issued by the theological faculty of the University of Paris in 1444; numerous decrees of provincial councils followed. The Feast of Fools was condemned by early Protestants, and among Catholics it seems that the abuse had largely disappeared by the time of the Council of Trent, though instances of festivals of this kind survived in France as late as the 16th century. // Lord of Misrule. In England, the Lord of Misrule – known in Scotland as the Abbot of Unreason and in France as the Prince des Sots – was an officer appointed by lot during Christmastide to preside over the Feast of Fools. The Lord of Misrule was generally a peasant or sub-deacon appointed to be in charge of Christmas revelries, which often included drunkenness and wild partying. The Church in England held a similar festival involving a boy bishop. This custom was abolished by Henry VIII in 1541, restored by the Catholic Mary I and again abolished by Protestant Elizabeth I, though here and there it lingered on for some time longer. On the Continent it was suppressed by the Council of Basel in 1431, but was revived in some places from time to time, even as late as the eighteenth century. In the Tudor period, the Lord of Misrule (sometimes called the Abbot of Misrule or the King of Misrule) is mentioned a number of times by contemporary documents referring to revels both at court and among the ordinary people. While mostly known as a British holiday custom, some folklorists, such as James Frazer and Mikhail Bakhtin, have claimed that the appointment of a Lord of Misrule comes from a similar custom practised during the Roman celebration of Saturnalia. In ancient Rome, from 17 to 23 December (in the Julian calendar), a man chosen to be a mock king was appointed for the feast of Saturnalia, in the guise of the Roman deity Saturn. This hypothesis has been heavily criticized by William Warde Fowler, who claims that, despite the frequency with which Christian traditions arise directly from re-framings of the customs of antiquity, the Christmas custom of the Lord of Misrule during the Christian era and the Saturnalian custom of antiquity may have completely separate origins; the two separate customs, however, can be compared and contrasted.

* The word “synagogue” was sometimes used in the Middle Ages with reference to heretical assemblies and schismatic groups and should not here be interpreted as linking heresy and Judaism. See also Sathanas synagogam in reference to a heretical refuge at Lavaur. In 1387, in a document which seems to confuse Waldenses and Cathars, the former are said to meet in a synagoga to hear preaching, share blessed bread, and engage in sexual orgies. Facere synagogam in that document seems to refer specifically to the distribution of the bread. By the fifteenth century, the words synagoga diabolica were used to refer to the witches’ Sabbat. Here Map may be no more than recalling the biblical “synagogues of Satan” (Apoc. 2; 3). // Revelation 2:8 NIV 8 To the angel of the church in Smyrna write: These are the words of him who is the First and the Last, who died and came to life again. 9 I know your afflictions and your poverty—yet you are rich! I know about the slander of those who say they are Jews and are not {??}, but are a synagogue of Satan. Revelation 3:9 NIV 9 I will make those who are of the synagogue of Satan, who claim to be Jews though they are not, but are liars—I will make them come and fall down at your feet and acknowledge that I have loved you.

* This and the preceding paragraph are reminiscent of the prophecy of Joachim of Flora, the Italian mystic, and his theory of the three ages—of the Father, of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. In his thought the world was moving toward the end of the second age, which would occur in 1260.

* The Son alone was incarnate. In Christian theology, the incarnation is the belief that Jesus Christ, the second person of the Trinity, also known as God the Son or the Logos (Koine Greek for "Word"), "was made flesh" by being conceived in the womb of a woman, the Virgin Mary, also known as the Theotokos (Greek for "God-bearer"). The doctrine of the incarnation, then, entails that Jesus is fully God and fully human. (Incarnation) // {illustration of the intricacies involved} I would have to fill a large book should I wish to write out the absurdities and impieties which would follow (1) if it were true that because these three persons are one thing with respect to what we predicate commonly of all three, the incarnation of one person of God requires the incarnation of the remaining two persons or (2) if [it were true that] because the Son alone was incarnate, [the three persons] are three separate things, as he against whom I have made these replies supposes. Hence, it is clear how little he ought to be eager to argue about profound matters—especially about issues concerning which one does not err without danger. {answer: they are separate and one at the same time (??)} COMPLETE PHILOSOPHICAL AND THEOLOGICAL TREATISES of ANSELM of CANTERBURY. Translated by JASPER HOPKINS and HERBERT RICHARDSON.

* Anselm of Canterbury (1033/4-1109). Anselm of Canterbury, also called Anselm of Aosta (Italian: Anselmo d'Aosta) after his birthplace and Anselm of Bec (French: Anselme du Bec) after his monastery, was an Italian Benedictine monk, abbot, philosopher and theologian of the Catholic Church, who held the office of Archbishop of Canterbury from 1093 to 1109. After his death, he was canonized as a saint. As archbishop, he defended the church's interests in England amid the Investiture Controversy. For his resistance to the English kings William II and Henry I, he was exiled twice: once from 1097 to 1100 and then from 1105 to 1107. While in exile, he helped guide the Greek bishops of southern Italy to adopt Roman rites at the Council of Bari. He worked for the primacy of Canterbury over the bishops of York and Wales but, though at his death he appeared to have been successful, Pope Paschal II later reversed himself and restored York's independence. (…) Writings. Anselm has been called "the most luminous and penetrating intellect between St Augustine and St Thomas Aquinas" and "the father of scholasticism", Scotus Erigena having employed more mysticism in his arguments. Anselm's works are considered philosophical as well as theological since they endeavor to render Christian tenets of faith, traditionally taken as a revealed truth, as a rational system. Anselm also studiously analyzed the language used in his subjects, carefully distinguishing the meaning of the terms employed from the verbal forms, which he found at times wholly inadequate. His worldview was broadly Neoplatonic, as it was reconciled with Christianity in the works of St Augustine and Pseudo-Dionysius,[d] with his understanding of Aristotelian logic gathered from the works of Boethius. He or the thinkers in northern France who shortly followed him—including Abelard, William of Conches, and Gilbert of Poitiers—inaugurated "one of the most brilliant periods of Western philosophy", innovating logic, semantics, ethics, metaphysics, and other areas of philosophical theology. Anselm held that faith necessarily precedes reason, but that reason can expand upon faith: "And I do not seek to understand that I may believe but believe that I might understand. For this too I believe since, unless I first believe, I shall not understand".[e] This is possibly drawn from Tractate XXIX of St Augustine's Ten Homilies on the First Epistle of John: regarding John 7–18, Augustine counseled "Do not seek to understand in order to believe but believe that thou may understand". Anselm rephrased the idea repeatedly[f] and Thomas Williams(SEP 2007) considered that his aptest motto was the original title of the Proslogion, "faith seeking understanding", which intended "an active love of God seeking a deeper knowledge of God". Once the faith is held fast, however, he argued an attempt must be made to demonstrate its truth by means of reason: "To me, it seems to be negligence if, after confirmation in the faith, we do not study to understand that which we believe".[g] Merely rational proofs are always, however, to be tested by scripture and he employs Biblical passages and "what we believe" (quod credimus) at times to raise problems or to present erroneous understandings, whose inconsistencies are then resolved by reason. (...) Cur Deus Homo. Cur Deus Homo ("Why God was a Man") was written from 1095 to 1098 once Anselm was already archbishop of Canterbury as a response for requests to discuss the Incarnation. It takes the form of a dialogue between Anselm and Boso, one of his students. Its core is a purely rational argument for the necessity of the Christian mystery of atonement, the belief that Jesus's crucifixion was necessary to atone for mankind's sin. Anselm argues that, owing to the Fall and mankind's fallen nature ever since, humanity has offended God. Divine justice demands restitution for sin but human beings are incapable of providing it, as all the actions of men are already obligated to the furtherance of God's glory. Further, God's infinite justice demands infinite restitution for the impairment of his infinite dignity. The enormity of the offence led Anselm to reject personal acts of atonement, even Peter Damian's flagellation, as inadequate and ultimately vain. Instead, full recompense could only be made by God, which His infinite mercy inclines Him to provide. Atonement for humanity, however, could only be made through the figure of Jesus, as a sinless being both fully divine and fully human. Taking it upon himself to offer his own life on our behalf, his crucifixion accrues infinite worth, more than redeeming mankind and permitting it to enjoy a just will in accord with its intended nature. This interpretation is notable for permitting divine justice and mercy to be entirely compatible and has exercised immense influence over church doctrine, largely supplanting the earlier theory developed by Origen and Gregory of Nyssa that had focused primarily on Satan's power over fallen man. Cur Deus Homo is often accounted Anselm's greatest work, but the legalist and amoral nature of the argument, along with its neglect of the individuals actually being redeemed, has been criticized both by comparison with the treatment by Abelard and for its subsequent development in Protestant theology.

* In 1233 Gregory IX established the Papal Inquisition to regularize the persecution of heresy. The Papal Inquisition was intended to bring order to the haphazard episcopal inquisitions which had been established by Lucius III in 1184. Gregory's aim was to bring order and legality to the process of dealing with heresy, since there had been tendencies by mobs of townspeople to burn alleged heretics without much of a trial. In 1231 Pope Gregory IX appointed a number of Papal Inquisitors (Inquisitores haereticae pravitatis), mostly Dominicans and Franciscans, for the various regions of France, Italy and parts of Germany. Contrary to popular belief, the aim was to introduce due process and objective investigation into the beliefs of those accused to the often erratic and unjust persecution of heresy on the part of local ecclesiastical and secular jurisdictions.

* Moneta of Cremona's Summa adversus Catharos et Valdenses has been at the centre of the conception of Catharism for a long time. Widely used by contemporaries, both the text and its author retained a consistent place in the Dominican (and later also Jesuit) memory of anti-heretical writing from the time of its composition until it was edited by Thomas Ricchini at the Dominican convent in Rome in 1743. Ricchini's edition was used in early nineteenth-century histories of the Catholic Church and of Catholic writers, but it was placed back at the centre of the history of heterodoxy with the advent of modern scholarship on heresy that began, in earnest, with Charles Schmidt {French historian and theologian (1812-1895)} in the middle of the nineteenth century. Schmidt, really the first modern commentator to look at the Cathars as a subject in their own right, was a leading figure in a revival of interest in medieval heresy, and his Histoire et doctrine de la secte des cathares ou albigeois set the standard for much of the work that followed. Another work on Catharism was being written at the same time, by Hahn, and Schmidt acknowledged this work, but he did not perceive it as being exactly parallel to his own project. He saw himself as addressing a topic that had been little covered, looking at heresy not as part of the history of the Church so much as part of the wider western intellectual tradition. That meant that his interest in reading the anti-heretical texts of the high medieval period was primarily in excavating what visible remains of heterodox thought could be discerned, rather than in the commentators and authors who wrote about it. His approach to his topic was therefore one of self-conscious and deliberate reconstruction of a sect, a process that he described as rebuilding an edifice from scattered debris. These materials, his debris, were collected largely from French archives, and to a lesser extent from German and Swiss archives, but Schmidt was frank about his inability or disinclination to use Italian material: at the time he was writing, the material was too scattered, and access to it too problematic. Tellingly, he described the task of reconstruction as an exercise in reconnecting events and information which would otherwise look unrelated, in order to present a coherent whole. The Textbook Heretic: Moneta of Cremona's Cathars

* Acts 23:8 NIV 8 (The Sadducees say that there is no resurrection, and that there are neither angels nor spirits, but the Pharisees believe all these things.)

* Cf. No. 21, where the first two errors stated here are touched on in the Prologue and are treated in detail in the body of Vacarius’s work. The error on the Eucharist is not mentioned there, however. Among the “common errors” which the Speronists shared with others, the following may have been included, according to the chapter titles of Book III: (1) that the Roman Church does not possess the true faith, which exists only in the heretics’ church {exclusivity} and comes from God and the apostles {apostolic claim}; (2) that a wicked priest cannot fulfill his office {unworthy priests}; (3) that oaths are forbidden; (4) that temporal justice is against God’s will {‘answer God alone’ ??}; and (5) that purgatory does not exist.

* The Italian faction, the Poor Lombards—they refer to themselves as the Poor, the Poor in Spirit, and the Italian Brethren—wrote to some Waldenses in Germany to describe a conference between themselves and the Poor of Lyons, whom they call the Ultramontanes, the comrades of Waldes, and the Waldenses. (46) // Poor Lombards: Italian Waldenses who had broken away from the Poor of Lyons in 1205. // Runcarians [Runcarii, John of Ronco, Poor Lombards, Ultramontanians, Montanelli] (XV ??); This movement originates in the south of France in 1170s, and gradually spreads from Pyrenees to Carpathians under a number of different names: the Waldenses (from the name of the movement's founder, Waldo), the Poor Men of Lyons or the Lyonists (Waldo's native city), the Runcarians (head of the Italian branch, John of Ronco), the  {== ??} Montanelli or Ultramontanians (those who live in the mountains or beyond the mountains), the Poor in Spirit, the Poor of Lombardy, etc. <> Reconciled Poor.

* 1 Timothy 4:15 NIV 4 The Spirit clearly says that in later times some will abandon the faith and follow deceiving spirits and things taught by demons. 2 Such teachings come through hypocritical liars, whose consciences have been seared as with a hot iron. 3 They forbid people to marry and order them to abstain from certain foods, which God created to be received with thanksgiving by those who believe and who know the truth. 4 For everything God created is good, and nothing is to be rejected if it is received with thanksgiving, 5 because it is consecrated by the word of God and prayer.

* John 1 NIV (The Word Became Flesh) 1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2 He was with God in the beginning. 3 Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made.

* Hebrews 1-11 NIV (8 But about the Son he says ..) 10 He also says, “In the beginning, Lord, you laid the foundations of the earth, and the heavens are the work of your hands. 11 They will perish, but you remain; they will all wear out like a garment. 12 You will roll them up like a robe; like a garment they will be changed. But you remain the same, and your years will never end.”

* The heretic is using a punctuation which differs from that used in the Vulgate. The Interpreter’s Bible, VIII, 465, suggests that it is preferable on linguistic and interpretative grounds, noting that it was so taken by commentators in the first four centuries of the Christian era. The verses would thus read: “Without Him was made nothing. That which was made in Him was life." This rendering is also found in a ritual used by the Albigenses and also in the tract of an Albigensian heretic, where other questions of interpretation arise from the punctuation. (WE) || John 1:3-4 NIV 3 Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. 4 In him was life, and that life was the light of all mankind.

* Summa [literary genre] (XII-XIII). Summa and its diminutive summula (plural summae and summulae, respectively) was a medieval didactics literary genre written in Latin, born during the 12th century, and popularized in 13th century Europe. In its simplest sense, they might be considered texts that 'sum up' knowledge in a field, such as the compendiums of theology, philosophy and canon law. Their function during the Middle ages was largely as manuals or handbooks of necessary knowledge used by individuals who would not advance their studies any further. It was a kind of encyclopedia that developed a matter about Law, Theology or Philosophy most of all. Matters were divided in a more detailed way as it was in the tractatus (treatise), since they were divided into quaestiones (questions) and these ones were also divided into articles.

* Cathars - Ritual murder/suicide. {In particular, they administer this imposition of hands to believers in their sect who are ill, out of which has stemmed the popular rumor that they kill them by strangulation, so that they may be martyrs or confessors.} Such oft-repeated charges are not supported by evidence from the sources of this period. It may be, however, that suicide to avoid falling into the hands of the Inquisition {forces of the Antichrist (??) <> самосожжение} or while in its custody, or deaths which resulted from the refusal of invalid Cathars to eat when they were too ill first to say the Lord’s Prayer {??} account for the considerable emphasis which later writers placed on suicide among the Cathars. In the last quarter of the thirteenth century in Italy and early in the fourteenth century in France, the practice of “endura” did appear. It was described as the withholding of food and drink after baptism, from the moribund or from children {??}, for in such cases the consolamentum had been administered without the preliminary demonstration of the recipients’ ability to endure the abstinence imposed on the Perfect and they might have been unable to maintain their purity. It seems to have been rarely practiced by those who had been perfected in the usual way. However, Manselli argues, from a reference to martyrdom in the recantation of a heretic in the twelfth century, that the endura was practiced then.

* Eulogia. The term eulogia, Greek for "a blessing", has been applied in ecclesiastical usage to "a blessed object". It was occasionally used in early times to signify the Holy Eucharist, and in this sense is especially frequent in the writings of St. Cyril of Alexandria. The origin of this use is doubtless to be found in the words of St. Paul (1 Corinthians 10:16). But the more general use is for such objects as bread, wine etc., which it was customary to distribute after the celebration of the Divine Mysteries. Bread so blessed, we learn from St. Augustine (De pecat. merit., ii, 26), was customarily distributed in his time to catechumens, and he even gives it the name of sacramentum, as having received the formal blessing of the Church: What the catechumens receive, though it is not the Body of Christ, is holy — holier, indeed, than our ordinary food, since it is a sacramentum. For the extension of this custom in later ages, see Antidoron; Sacramental bread. The word eulogia has a special use in connection with monastic life. In the Benedictine Rule monks are forbidden to receive "litteras, eulogias, vel quaelibet munuscula" without the abbot's leave. Here the word may be used in the sense of blessed bread only, but it seems to have a wider signification, and to designate any kind of present. There was a custom in monasteries of distributing in the refectories, after Mass, the eulogiae of bread blessed at the Mass {Panchenko: invocation of the Virgin (??)}. // 1 Corinthians 10:16 NIV 16 Is not the cup of thanksgiving for which we give thanks {"the cup blessed by the Lord, which we bless in our turn" (Panikulam Georg - Koinonia in the New Testament: A Dynamic Expression of Christian Life)} a participation in the blood of Christ? And is not the bread that we break a participation in the body of Christ?

* Romans 8-21 NIV (Present Suffering and Future Glory) 18 I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us. 19 For the creation waits in eager expectation for the children of God to be revealed. 20 For the creation was subjected to frustration, not by its own choice, but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope 21 that[h] the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the freedom and glory of the children of God. // Romans 8-22 KJV 20 For the creature was made subject to vanity, not willingly, but by reason of him who hath subjected the same in hope, 21 Because the creature itself also shall be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God. 22 For we know that the whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain together until now.

* Several glosses on the Gospel which were used in the Bogomil church of Bosnia are described in A. V. Solovjev, “La Doctrine de l’eglise de Bosnie”. Glossing Luke 10-35 less thoroughly than does this passage, two of them make several of the same interpretations—of the traveler, Jerusalem and Jericho, and the Samaritan. But the priest and the Levite are Moses and John the Baptist. In one gloss the oil and the wine are God’s mercy; the innkeeper is either Peter or Paul. In one gloss the two pence are the Jewish faith, in another the Old and New Testaments. Thus if {!!} the Cathars derived this interpretation of the parable from the Bogomils and if it is accurately described by Moneta, there were significant changes in details.

* Matthew 6:34 NIV 34 Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own. Matthew 6:34 KJV 34 Take therefore no thought for the morrow: for the morrow shall take thought for the things of itself. Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof.

* Luke 24:39 NIV 39 Look at my hands and my feet. It is I myself! Touch me and see; a ghost does not have flesh and bones, as you see I have.” || This is not an angel but the resurrected Christ, formerly a human being. By means of a resurrection, He has gone through a transformation, and now He is God, a Spirit. He says, "Feel me. I'm not a ghost. I am solid." So they felt Him, and sure enough, He was solid. He would not have invited them to feel Him if He did not have substance, and this was probably included in the Bible so that we would understand what our potential is. We are not going to be ghosts—we are going to be like Christ, as it says in Philippians 3:20-21. We will have a body like His glorious body, and His body has substance. Yet, even though it was substantial, the wall presented absolutely no problem: He apparently went right through it. He did not have to open the door to enter the room. What the Bible says about Jesus Christ's Glorified Body

* Matthew 10:16-20 NIV 16 “I am sending you out like sheep among wolves. Therefore be as shrewd as snakes and as innocent as doves. 17 Be on your guard; you will be handed over to the local councils and be flogged in the synagogues. 18 On my account you will be brought before governors and kings as witnesses to them and to the Gentiles. 19 But when they arrest you, do not worry about what to say or how to say it. At that time you will be given what to say, 20 for it will not be you speaking, but the Spirit of your Father speaking through you.

* Keys of the kingdom [Keys of the Church]. Matthew 16:18-19 NIV 18 And I tell you that you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not overcome it. 19 I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven {"keys of the Church" ??}; whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven.” // The keys of the kingdom is a Christian concept of eternal church authority. Christians believe it was established in the 1st century AD, initially through Saint Peter, then through the rest of the 12 Apostles. The latter, continuing with the early Church Fathers, would eventually comprise the early church and its doctrine. It is this authority, having been given the keys, that subsequent doctrinal points have been built upon. The authority can be literally traced to one passage in the New Testament, where Jesus mentions them first in response to St. Peter answering a question, and secondly in speaking to a group of disciples. In these two instances, the concept of authority follows having been given the "keys of the kingdom of heaven", and regards loosing {allowing} and binding {forbidding} things on earth, and thus, having loosened and bound the same in heaven (Matthew 16, Matthew 18). A third authority regarding sin is seen without mentioning "keys" in John 20. Not all adherents to the faith in the risen Jesus Christ follow the further doctrinal concepts of sole authority held in any particular church, organization or individual today. One view is that the keys were used for a specific purpose and at a set time; namely at the Day of Pentecost—the baptism of the Holy Spirit. There is much debate regarding the further doctrinal base the church's leadership established in the early centuries. Many subsequent Restorationist denominations and religious groups today, including The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church) and The Family International, believe they also hold this authority. In the LDS Church, the concept is strongly tied to the priesthood keys held by the President of the Church and the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles.

* Bogomils - The Secret Supper. This is the apocryphal work translated under the title The Secret Supper in No. 56, part B. It is also known as Secretum hereticorum [the secret of the heretics] and lnterrogatio Johannis [the questions of John]. // Book of the Secret Supper [Откровение Иоанна Богослова, апокриф, Вопросы Иоанна] (X); Bogomil apocryphal text from Bulgaria, possibly based on a now lost Paulician treatise, which also became an important Cathar scripture; translated into Latin and introduced to Italy in the late 12th century, then taken to Provence before the Albigensian Crusade; John the Evangelist poses a series of questions to Jesus at a secret supper in the kingdom of heaven; mitigated dualism. Satan brought forth all living things, plants, animals, fish and birds, then created man and woman from clay in order to serve him, animating the man with an angel from the second heaven and the woman with an angel from the first heaven. The angels were distressed at having to inhabit material forms. Satan encouraged them to sin, but they did not know how, so Satan filled the woman with a longing for sin, then created a serpent from his spittle, inhabited it and seduced her with its tail {Kapov}. He then filled Adam with lust for debauchery with the result that {??} all their children were offspring of the devil and of the serpent. Nativity. Jesus then describes his own birth, telling John that the Father sent an angel, in the form of Mary, to receive Him in the Holy Spirit. Jesus descended from the seventh heaven and came forth from her ear. Satan then sent Elijah in the form of John the Baptist to give a false baptism by water, but John is warned that only baptism in spirit by Jesus can bring about the remission of sin. Those baptized with water marry, but those baptized in the spirit remain celibate. Last Judgement {rather orthodox marrative}. The final part of the book is a description of the Last Judgement when those who have followed an angelic life shall be honored, while those who lived a life of iniquity shall find wrath, fury and distress in everlasting fire. Satan, after waging war upon the just, will be bound with unbreakable bonds and cast into a pool of fire. Then the Son of God will sit on the right hand of his Father, the righteous will be set among the choirs of angels, God shall be in the midst of them and wipe away their tears, and of His kingdom there shall be no end for ever and ever.

* Christ foretold in the OT [according to Christians]. Isaiah 7:14 NIV 4 Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign: The virgin will conceive and give birth to a son, and will call him Immanuel. [15 He will be eating curds and honey when he knows enough to reject the wrong and choose the right, 16 for before the boy knows enough to reject the wrong and choose the right, the land of the two kings you dread will be laid waste. 17 The Lord will bring on you and on your people and on the house of your father a time unlike any since Ephraim broke away from Judah—he will bring the king of Assyria.”] // Matthew 1:23 NIV 23 “The virgin will conceive and give birth to a son, and they will call him Immanuel” (which means “God with us”).

* Saint Lawrence (225-258). Saint Lawrence or Laurence (Latin: Laurentius, lit. "laurelled") was one of the seven deacons of the city of Rome under Pope Sixtus II who were martyred in the persecution of the Christians that the Roman Emperor Valerian ordered in 258. Lawrence encountered the future Pope Sixtus II, who was of Greek origin and one of the most famous and highly esteemed teachers, in Caesaraugusta (today Zaragoza). Eventually, both left Spain for Rome. When Sixtus became the Pope in 257, he ordained Lawrence as a deacon, and though Lawrence was still young appointed him first among the seven deacons who served in the cathedral church.

* Third Order of Saint Francis. The Third Order of Saint Francis, is a third order in the Franciscan order. The preaching of Francis of Assisi, as well as his example, exercised such an attraction on people that many married men and women wanted to join the First Order (friars) or the Second Order (nuns), but this being incompatible with their state of life, Francis found a middle way and in 1221 gave them a rule according to the Franciscan charism. Those following this rule became members of the Franciscan Third Order, sometimes called tertiaries. It includes religious congregations of men and women, known as Third Order Regulars; and fraternities of men and women, Third Order Seculars. The latter do not wear a religious habit, take vows, or live in community. However, they do gather together in community on a regular basis. "They make profession to live out the Gospel life and commit themselves to that living out the Gospel according to the example of Francis."

* Cathars - Perfecti vs Believers. In his third book, Bernard Gui had entered a passage on the orders among the Waldenses which was based on a confession before the Inquisition at Pamiers. According to it, all three orders were elective and were ordained by the imposition of hands and the Lord’s Prayer. Bishops and priests could hear confessions, but only the former had the power, rarely used, to remit some or all of the penalty for sin. Bishops consecrated the Eucharist, granted the power to priests to preach. Deacons provided for the material wants of priests and bishops but could not hear confessions. Only those ordained as deacons or in the higher ranks were called “the Perfect”; the term for all others was “believers,” or “friends.” (WE)

* Hail Mary [Ave Maria, prayer]. The 'Hail Mary' (Latin: Ave Maria) is a traditional Christian prayer addressing Mary, the mother of Jesus. The prayer is based on two biblical episodes featured in the Gospel of Luke: the Angel Gabriel's visit to Mary (the Annunciation), and Mary's subsequent visit to Elisabeth, the mother of John the Baptist (the Visitation). The Hail Mary is a prayer of praise for and of petition to Mary, regarded as the Theotokos (Mother of God). Since the 16th century, the version of the prayer used in the Catholic Church closes with an appeal for her intercession. The prayer takes different forms in various traditions, and has often been set to music. In the Latin Church, the Hail Mary forms the basis of other prayers such as the Angelus and the Rosary. In the psalmody of the Oriental Orthodox Churches a daily Theotokion is devoted to ascribing praise to the Mother of God. The Eastern Orthodox Churches have apart from the Theotokion a quite similar prayer to the Hail Mary (without explicit request for the intercession of Mary), both in Greek and in translations, for frequent private prayer. The Eastern Catholic Churches follow their respective traditions or adopt the Latin Church version, which is also used by many other Western groups historically associated with the Catholic Church, such as Lutherans, Anglicans, Independent Catholics, and Old Catholics.

* Salve Regina [hymn]. The "Salve Regina" (Ecclesiastical Latin: meaning 'Hail Queen'), also known as the "Hail Holy Queen", is a Marian hymn and one of four Marian antiphons sung at different seasons within the Christian liturgical calendar of the Catholic Church. The Salve Regina is traditionally sung at Compline in the time from the Saturday before Trinity Sunday until the Friday before the first Sunday of Advent. The Hail Holy Queen is also the final prayer of the Rosary. The work was composed during the Middle Ages and originally appeared in Latin, the prevalent language of Western Christianity until modern times. Though traditionally ascribed to the eleventh-century German monk Hermann of Reichenau, it is regarded as anonymous by most musicologists. Traditionally it has been sung in Latin, though many translations exist. These are often used as spoken prayers. {Salve Regina - hymn <> Ave Maria - prayer}

* + Restoration movement. Many of their basic beliefs were set forth in what they called “Articles of Faith,” many of which share common elements with our own {Latter-day Saints}. Other parallels may be drawn to the school of the prophets and Zion’s Camp. Perhaps even more importantly, God Himself prepared these people for the Restoration of the Gospel. In the spring of 1820, a fifteen-year-old girl had a vision of 12 personages dressed in white robes. Her father later foretold the restoration, telling his granddaughter that her generation would see the gospel restored to its purity and power and that in that day, she should remember him

* Book of Wisdom. Wisdom 1: 11 Therefore guard against profitless grumbling, and from calumny withhold your tongues; For a stealthy utterance will not go unpunished, and a lying mouth destroys the soul. usccb - Wisdom // Book of Wisdom. The Book of Wisdom, or the Wisdom of Solomon, is a Jewish work written in Greek and most likely composed in Alexandria, Egypt. Generally dated to the mid-first century BC, the central theme of the work is "Wisdom" itself, appearing under two principal aspects. In its relation to man, Wisdom is the perfection of knowledge of the righteous as a gift from God showing itself in action. In direct relation to God, Wisdom is with God from all eternity. It is one of the seven Sapiential or wisdom books in the Septuagint, the others being Psalms, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, Song of Songs (Song of Solomon), Job, and Sirach. It is included in the deuterocanonical books by the Catholic Church and the anagignoskomena (Gr. meaning "those which are to be read") of the Eastern Orthodox Church. Most Protestants consider it part of the Apocrypha.

* 1 Samuel 21:12-15 NIV 12 David took these words to heart and was very much afraid of Achish king of Gath. 13 So he pretended to be insane in their presence; and while he was in their hands he acted like a madman, making marks on the doors of the gate and letting saliva run down his beard. 14 Achish said to his servants, “Look at the man! He is insane! Why bring him to me? 15 Am I so short of madmen that you have to bring this fellow here to carry on like this in front of me? Must this man come into my house?”

* Segarelli vs Dolcino, Margarita. Segarelli, an unlettered peasant with little gift for leadership, was at first tolerated by Church leaders but was finally recognized as dangerous, haled before the Inquisition, and burned by the secular arm on July 18, 1300. Dolcino was a man of a different stripe. He had some education, a certain magnetism, and much determination. After the execution of Segarelli, he assumed direction of the group in northern Italy and offered armed resistance to ecclesiastical and secular authority, which declared a crusade against him. He met a fearful death on July 1, 1307. A fourteenth-century inquisitorial manual maligns him by saying that he confessed that he taught, not because he believed what he said but out of vainglory and because he thus won many advantages, temporal delights, and prestige. Margarita is pictured as a woman of singular beauty, noble blood, and much wealth. We are told that she was offered freedom and a suitable husband if she would abjure heresy. She chose death at the stake.

* The allusion is probably to the execution of Dolcino and some few of his followers after their overthrow and capture on Monte Rebello, and immediately thereafter. Most of those who remained faithful to him to the end seem to have been killed either by cold and famine or by the crusaders who were sent out to destroy them.

* T Peter John Olivi - Commentary on the Apocalypse. Olivi’s monumental work was completed in 1297, a few months before his death on 14 March, 1298. Widely read, copied, and translated into the vernacular, the commentary on John’s Apocalypse—along with Olivi’s commentary on Matthew—was officially condemned in the 14th century, and many copies were ceremonially burned, as were some of their readers. Only 14 manuscripts are known to have survived. This translation was made of the critical edition of Olivi’s book. Composed in the Scholastic style of the University of Paris, Olivi first delivered these chapters as a series of lectures in Franciscan studia. The text is a blend of the traditional exposition, highly selective, of Richard of St. Victor with the prophetic insights of Joachim of Fiore and Bonaventure’s Franciscan theology. Olivi followed Joachim’s principle of concordia {??} consistently to develop his own superabundant hermeneutics of multiple literal fulfillments. Without blinking, Olivi viewed his own times critically and spoke of future history in the apocalyptic light of John’s radical eschatology. Olivi articulated a profoundly moral philosophy of history moved by novelty, proclaiming the death of the old and the dawn of the new, and laid the groundwork for the many reformations of the church in the centuries to come {??}. He affirmed salvation by charisma {a divinely conferred power or talent} as the fundamental principle of the future ecclesia spiritualis; conceived the possibility of the providential reunion of Christians and Jews; and foresaw both the Jewish Holocaust and the salvation of all Israel {?? big words}. Peter of {??} John Olivi - Commentary on the Apocalypse

* +Peter John Olivi. The notion of the “sixth era” is from the apocalyptic teaching of Peter John Olivi, who drew many of his ideas from Abbot Joachim of Flora . Olivi divided the history of the world into three ages: (1) the age of the Father, or of the Old Testament; (2) that of the Son, from the birth of Christ until about 1300; (3) that of the Holy Spirit, which was to be ushered in by the return of Christ, the overthrow of the mystical Antichrist (whom the Beguins identified with the pope) and the real Antichrist (possibly a descendant of Emperor Frederick II), and the completion of the work of the apostles by the Spiritual Franciscans. The second age, that of the Son, Olivi believed was divided into seven eras, the sixth of which commenced with the founding of the Franciscan order. The seventh he prophesied would be the time of cataclysm in preparation for the coming of the third age, that of the Holy Spirit. For an illustration of how the ideas of Olivi were distorted by some of his followers, see the record of the trial of Na Prous Boneta, published with a brief introduction by William H. May.

* This is an obscure paragraph, upon which some light is thrown by the eleventh chapter of Olivi’s commentary on the Apocalypse. There, as one may gather from the report of a commission appointed to examine the commentary and decide upon passages which might be “heretical, erroneous, or audacious," Olivi taught that between the time of the mystical Antichrist and the real Antichrist, the Spiritual Franciscans would preach actively to all peoples. When they had finished this mission, the beast which “rose up out of the bottomless pit” (Apoc. 17) would make war upon them, would conquer and slaughter them. These are the saints referred to in Apoc 7-9, in which their number is given as one hundred and forty-four thousand “marked by the sign of the living God.” Thus it was given to Antichrist to triumph for a time (Apoc. 13-8). But he will finally be overthrown through the teaching of a small band of Spirituals, as recounted later, and thus the way will be prepared for the second coming of Christ and the Last Judgment. In our text, therefore, the first reference to Antichrist would seem to be to the mystical Antichrist, the second reference to the real. The reference to Elijah and Enoch is merely the Beguin version of a tradition which ran through the Middle Ages in various forms; they are the two Old Testament figures, the prophet and the patriarch who escaped death by being caught up into the terrestrial paradise, there to await the second coming of Christ. Some of Olivi’s followers seem to have believed that “Enoch” and “Elijah” referred to St Francis and Olivi. (WE)

* The reference is to Frederick II of Sicily {later Frederick II, Holy Roman Emperor}, by the treaty of Caltabellatta (1302) titled “king of Trinacria.” He was the third son of Peter III of Aragon and Sicily and became regent of the island in 1291 at the age of nineteen. His rule was a troubled one; he had to cope with the opposition of the Angevin claimants to the throne, first Charles II, then his son, Robert, who were aided by the king of France and the pope. But he managed to keep his throne and consolidate his power, so that his son Peter succeeded him upon his death in 1337. He is of interest in the present context because he gave asylum for a time to Spiritual Franciscans who fled from Italy, and also because his name was linked with the apocalyptic beliefs of the extremists. They presumed that one hundred years after the death of St Francis, Robert and his allies, the ten kings of the Saracens, would overthrow the existing “carnal” Church and thus usher in the new era of the Holy Spirit, fulfilling the prophecy in Apoc. 17. (WE)

* Richard of Saint Victor [Ришар Сен-Викторский] (d 1173). {contemplation over reason} Richard of Saint Victor was a Medieval Scottish philosopher and theologian and one of the most influential religious thinkers of his time. A canon regular, he was a prominent mystical theologian, and was prior of the famous Augustinian Abbey of Saint Victor in Paris from 1162 until his death in 1173. // Ришар Сен-Викторский (ок. 1110—1173) — французский философ, теолог, представитель мистицизма, шотландец по происхождению, ученик Гуго Сен-Викторского, приор монастыря Святого Виктора в Париже, преподаватель Сен-Викторской богословской школы. Развивал идеи Гуго Сен-Викторского и Бернара Клервоского. Пытался примирить веру и разум с приоритетом веры. Ставил мистическое созерцание выше логического мышления. Учение. Согласно Фоме Аквинскому, Ришар (Richardus) проводил различие между contemplatio («созерцанием»), meditatio («раздумьем») et cogitatio («мышлением»). Мышление связанно с «чувственными восприятиями» (perceptiones sensuum) и воображением (imaginationes). Раздумья-медитации связаны с постижением принципов. Созерцание означает не что иное как интуицию истины.

* Bonaventure (1221-1274). Bonaventure (Italian: Bonaventura), born Giovanni di Fidanza, was an Italian medieval Franciscan, scholastic theologian and philosopher. The seventh Minister General of the Order of Friars Minor, he was also Cardinal Bishop of Albano. He was canonised on 14 April 1482 by Pope Sixtus IV and declared a Doctor of the Church in the year 1588 by Pope Sixtus V. He is known as the "Seraphic Doctor" (Latin: Doctor Seraphicus). His feast day is July 15. Many writings believed in the Middle Ages to be his are now collected under the name Pseudo-Bonaventure.

* Revelation 10:1-11 NIV (The Angel and the Little Scroll) 10 Then I saw another mighty angel coming down from heaven. He was robed in a cloud, with a rainbow above his head; his face was like the sun, and his legs were like fiery pillars. 2 He was holding a little scroll, which lay open in his hand. He planted his right foot on the sea and his left foot on the land, 3 and he gave a loud shout like the roar of a lion. When he shouted, the voices of the seven thunders spoke. 4 And when the seven thunders spoke, I was about to write; but I heard a voice from heaven say, “Seal up what the seven thunders have said and do not write it down.” 5 Then the angel I had seen standing on the sea and on the land raised his right hand to heaven. 6 And he swore by him who lives for ever and ever, who created the heavens and all that is in them, the earth and all that is in it, and the sea and all that is in it, and said, “There will be no more delay! 7 But in the days when the seventh angel is about to sound his trumpet, the mystery of God will be accomplished, just as he announced to his servants the prophets.” 8 Then the voice that I had heard from heaven spoke to me once more: “Go, take the scroll that lies open in the hand of the angel who is standing on the sea and on the land.” 9 So I went to the angel and asked him to give me the little scroll. He said to me, “Take it and eat it. It will turn your stomach sour, but ‘in your mouth it will be as sweet as honey.’” 10 I took the little scroll from the angel’s hand and ate it. It tasted as sweet as honey in my mouth, but when I had eaten it, my stomach turned sour. 11 Then I was told, “You must prophesy again about many peoples, nations, languages and kings.”

* Revelation 17 NIV (Babylon, the Prostitute on the Beast) 17 One of the seven angels who had the seven bowls came and said to me, “Come, I will show you the punishment of the great prostitute, who sits by many waters. 2 With her the kings of the earth committed adultery, and the inhabitants of the earth were intoxicated with the wine of her adulteries.” 3 Then the angel carried me away in the Spirit into a wilderness. There I saw a woman sitting on a scarlet beast that was covered with blasphemous names and had seven heads and ten horns. 4 The woman was dressed in purple and scarlet, and was glittering with gold, precious stones and pearls. She held a golden cup in her hand, filled with abominable things and the filth of her adulteries. 5 The name written on her forehead was a mystery: babylon the great, the mother of prostitutes. and of the abominations of the earth. 6 I saw that the woman was drunk with the blood of God’s holy people, the blood of those who bore testimony to Jesus. When I saw her, I was greatly astonished. 7 Then the angel said to me: “Why are you astonished? I will explain to you the mystery of the woman and of the beast she rides, which has the seven heads and ten horns. 8 The beast, which you saw, once was, now is not, and yet will come up out of the Abyss and go to its destruction. The inhabitants of the earth whose names have not been written in the book of life from the creation of the world {predestination ??} will be astonished when they see the beast, because it once was, now is not, and yet will come. 9 “This calls for a mind with wisdom. The seven heads are seven hills on which the woman sits. 10 They are also seven kings. Five have fallen, one is, the other has not yet come; but when he does come, he must remain for only a little while. 11 The beast who once was, and now is not, is an eighth king. He belongs to the seven and is going to his destruction. 12 “The ten horns you saw are ten kings who have not yet received a kingdom, but who for one hour will receive authority as kings along with the beast. 13 They have one purpose and will give their power and authority to the beast. 14 They will wage war against the Lamb, but the Lamb will triumph over them because he is Lord of lords and King of kings—and with him will be his called, chosen and faithful followers.” 15 Then the angel said to me, “The waters you saw, where the prostitute sits, are peoples, multitudes, nations and languages. 16 The beast and the ten horns you saw will hate the prostitute. They will bring her to ruin and leave her naked; they will eat her flesh and burn her with fire. 17 For God has put it into their hearts to accomplish his purpose by agreeing to hand over to the beast their royal authority, until God’s words are fulfilled. 18 The woman you saw is the great city that rules over the kings of the earth.”

* At the instigation of an apostate Jew who had become a Dominican, Gregory IX ordered an inquistition of the Talmud and other Jewish books suspected of containing blasphemous passages. At Paris, in proceedings begun in 1239, several rabbis defended their books, but unsuccessfully, and the offending works were condemned and burned in large numbers in 1244. Similar burnings took place elsewhere in subsequent years. The work to which Bernard Gui here refers is his Mishnah Torah, the code of Jewish law. Bernard Gui himself was active in searching out and condemning Jewish books in 1310, using formulas under that date which may in fact have originated much earlier. Again, in 1319, he supervised the burning of two wagonloads of copies of the Talmud. The sentence condemning the books in 1319 is in Liber sententiarum. (WE)

* On witchcraft and sorcery, see the works cited in No. 42. Neither the distinction between mere practice of occult arts and actual worship of the devil nor the competence of inquisitorial courts in cases involving the former had been clearly established when Bernard Gui wrote. In 1320 Pope John XXII conferred upon the Inquisition jurisdiction over cases of sorcery, although he rescinded that grant of power in 1330. The Liber sententiarum does not disclose any sentences by Bernard Gui for sorcery, but he did include in the Practica three formulas for degrading and sentencing clerics who were guilty of dabbling in magic; and six cases involving sorcery were tried at Pamiers in 1321, shortly before he completed his work. Such cases became more numerous thereafter. About forty years after Bernard Gui wrote, another inquisitor, Eymeric, went into more detail in his Directorium inquisitorum. He distinguishes between sorcerers and diviners who were mere soothsayers and those whose practices “smell’ of heresy. In the following chapter Eymeric discusses invocations of the devil, stating that if invocation involves adoration (latria) or coupling the names of demons with those of saints in prayer (dulia), it is clearly heretical. (WE)

* Corrigia or ligatura of Aphrodite. Ligaturae, alligaturae and alligamenta are amulets for dispelling diseases. Suballigaturae are magic draughts [poisons], precautionary measures [spells]," etc. (GB) C.G. Jung - Collected Works of C.G. Jung, Volume 9 (Part 2): Aion: Researches into the Phenomenology of the Self

* T Ascension of Isaiah [Вознесение Исайи] (I-II). The Ascension of Isaiah is a pseudepigraphical Judeo-Christian text. Scholarly estimates regarding the date of the Ascension of Isaiah range from 70 AD to 175 AD and the reason for this large range in dating is due to the fact that there is virtually no information that allows for a confident dating into any specific period. Many scholars believe it to be a compilation of several texts completed by an unknown Christian scribe who claimed to be the Prophet Isaiah, while an increasing number of scholars in recent years have argued that the work is a unity by a single author that may have utilized multiple sources. Dating of the text. It is generally believed that the text is composed of three different sections written at different times, by different authors. The earliest section, regarding chapters 3–4, was composed at about the end of the first century AD or perhaps early second century and is believed to be a text of Jewish origins which was later on redacted by Christian scribes. The date of the Vision of Isaiah (chapters 6–11) is rather more difficult to determine, but it is no more recent than the third century, since Jerome (c. 347–420 AD) cites a fragment of the work in some of his writings, but from internal evidence it seems that the text is to be placed before the end of the second century AD. Structure. The book has three main sections: 1) The first part of the book (chapters 1–5), generally referred to as the Martyrdom of Isaiah, recounts and expands on the events of 2 Kings chapter 21. Isaiah warns the dying Hezekiah that his heir, Manasseh, will not follow the same path. When Manasseh takes over, and Isaiah's warning proves true, Isaiah and a group of fellow prophets head into the desert, and a demon named Beliar inspires a false prophet named Belkira to accuse Isaiah of treason. The king consequently condemns Isaiah to death, and although Isaiah hides in a tree, he is found, and Belkira leads the execution. 2) Into the middle of this (3–4) is a Christian apocalypse called the Testament of Hezekiah, describing a vision of the coming of Jesus, the subsequent corruption of the Christian church, the rule of Beliar, and the second coming. All of this is phrased in such a way that it is clearly a code for the persecution of the Church by Nero and the belief that Nero was an Antichrist. 3) The second part of the book (chapters 6–11) is referred to as the Vision of Isaiah and describes an angel-assisted journey {хождение}, prior to the events of the first part of the book, by Isaiah through the Seven Heavens {plurality of heavens}. In its surviving form it is clearly written from a Christian perspective, concentrating on Jesus' death and his resurrection, and especially the ascension of Jesus. The birth of Jesus is curiously described as being preceded by Jesus descending through each of the heavens, disguising himself as an angel {Gnostic theme} appropriate to each as he goes. The extant complete manuscripts of the Ascension of Isaiah include a brief account of Jesus' nativity, birth, and crucifixion (11–22). (...)  Elements of the Ascension of Isaiah are paralleled in other Jewish and Christian writings. The method of Isaiah's death (sawn in half by Manasseh) is agreed upon by both the Babylonian Talmud and Jerusalem Talmud and is probably alluded to by the writer of the Epistle to the Hebrews (11). The demon Beliar appears in quite a number of apocryphal works, including the Book of Jubilees, the Book of Enoch, the Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs, and the Sibylline Oracles. Finally, Isaiah's journey through the Seven Heavens parallels that of Enoch in the Second Book of Enoch. The first section of the text also contains hostility toward the Samaritans, a Jewish sect that claim to be Jews left behind during the Babylonian exile disowned by the remainder. Proto-Trinitarianism. Some scholars have noted that the Ascension reflects a proto-Trinitarian perspective, such as when the inhabitants of the sixth heaven sing praises to "the primal Father and his Beloved Christ, and the Holy Spirit". Theological controversy. The Ascension of Isaiah suggests early Christian belief in subordinationism, similar to that of Origen and, later, Novatian. The text describes the worship of the "Great Glory" by the "Beloved" and the "Angel of the Holy Spirit," implying hierarchy in the ranks of the trinity. Further, it is suggested that the angels escorting Isaiah in his ascension are none other than Jesus ("the Beloved") and the Angel of the Holy Spirit. By the text labeling Jesus and the Holy Spirit as angelic beings, a Christology and pneumatology are established that distinguish "the LORD" from "my LORD" {Christ (??)} and the Holy Spirit. This would be cause to label the story as heretical in the Western Orthodox tradition, along with similar theological beliefs, such as Arianism. Nonetheless, early Jewish-Christians, most likely in the Palestinian region, would have found this story influential in understanding theology, pneumatology and Christology, largely due to its referral to the Hebrew scriptures' prophets. Demons. Theological demons noted in the text are: 1) Belial is the angel of lawlessness (Antinomianism) and is also identified as Samael and Satan. "And Manasseh turned aside his heart to serve Belial; for the angel of lawlessness, who is the ruler of this world, is Belial, whose name is Matanbuchus."— (Ascension of Isaiah 2) 2) Samael is identified in the vision that Isaiah experienced, wherein he ascended to the firmament and notes, "there I saw Sammael [sic] and his hosts, and there was great fighting therein. ...as above so on the earth [below] also {!!}; for the likeness of that which is in the firmament is here on the earth." Samael is also often identified as Malkira (Heb.: melek ra - lit. "king of evil", "king of the wicked"; or malach ra - "messenger of evil", "angel of iniquity"), which are all epithets of the false prophet sent by Belial to accuse Isaiah of treason. Вознесение Исайи. «Вознесе́ние Иса́йи» (греч. Ἀναβατικὸν Ἠσαΐου, лат. Ascensio Isaiae) — раннехристианский апокриф, который составлялся различными авторами с конца I в. до IV в. В апокрифе повествуется о чудесных видениях пророка Исайи, а также о его мученической смерти.

* Vision of Isaiah. Six known manuscripts of The Vision in various European languages (the earliest is from the twelfth century) reflect a common Slavonic text prepared in Bulgaria (Slavonic was the official language of Bulgaria after a.d. 893; thus the manuscripts are called either Slavonic or Bulgarian). The Latin translation from the Slavonic, first printed in Venice in 1522, came from a manuscript now lost Emile Turdeneau (“Apocryphes bogomiles et apocryphes pseudo-bogomiles”) shows how the Bogomils edited The Vision to suit their doctrine. They omitted passages which put personages of the Old Testament in heaven, those which referred to the Son of God as Jesus or the Christ, and those which mentioned the Cross as an object of veneration, as well as words which might be construed as supporting the divine motherhood of Mary. (WE)

* Nine orders of angels [Christianity]. Highest orders: Seraphim, Cherubim, Thrones; Middle orders: Dominions, Virtues, Powers; Lowest orders: Principalities, Archangels, Angels.

* Another witness told a variant of the same story. He said it was found in a prophecy of Isaiah that when a heretic was searching in books for answers to his doubts he was visited by an angel and carried to the heavens. The “people” of the first five heavens, he was told, were spirits, neither good nor evil, waiting the Day of Judgment. In the seventh heaven he beheld the righteous (heretical) men and women, who there were all alike. It was explained that differences in their earthly bodies had been the work of the devil {gender ??; return to the One ??}. He adored the Holy Father, who was Father of the people of Israel, that is, the heretics. God, however, would not let the heretic address Him as “Father,” because he had doubted. However, he was assured that subsequently, when he had put off the tunic of the world, which is the body conceived in uncleanliness {i.e. died (??)}, his soul could return. (WE)

* Isaiah 14-15 NIV 12 How you have fallen from heaven, morning star, son of the dawn! You have been cast down to the earth, you who once laid low the nations! 13 You said in your heart, “I will ascend to the heavens; I will raise my throne above the stars of God; I will sit enthroned on the mount of assembly, on the utmost heights of Mount Zaphon. 14 I will ascend above the tops of the clouds; I will make myself like the Most High.” 15 But you are brought down to the realm of the dead, to the depths of the pit.

* Cf. Gen. 2. At this point there is a long marginal gloss (no. 7) which describes Paradise. According to the gloss, the first man thought Paradise was good, even as men continued to do after him, but it was actually evil. Death came to man not because of his disobedience, but because of the wiles of the devil. Man, the glossator remarks, would not have escaped death even had he refused to eat of the fruit.

* Romans 4:15 NIV 15 because the law brings wrath. And where there is no law there is no transgression. {applicable ??} {Full paragraph: 13 It was not through the law that Abraham and his offspring received the promise that he would be heir of the world, but through the righteousness that comes by faith. 14 For if those who depend on the law are heirs, faith means nothing and the promise is worthless, 15 because the law brings wrath. And where there is no law there is no transgression.}

* Mark 12 NIV 25 When the dead rise, they will neither marry nor be given in marriage; they will be like the angels in heaven. || Luke 20-36 NIV 35 But those who are considered worthy of taking part in the age to come and in the resurrection from the dead will neither marry nor be given in marriage, 36 and they can no longer die; for they are like the angels. They are God’s children, since they are children of the resurrection.

* Matt. 24:29 29 “Immediately after the distress of those days “‘the sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light; the stars will fall from the sky, and the heavenly bodies will be shaken.’. At this point, there is a marginal gloss (no. 12) explaining that the sun is the prince (Satan) and his throne; the moon is the law of Moses; and the stars are the spirits of the prince’s ministry. These will have no more place over which to rule, “but Christ, the Son of God, who is a sun of sevenfold light, shall reign.” (WE)

* Guiraud, describes this ceremony as a confession by believers to a Perfect. But the wording of the Service belies this. It refers to eliminating the desires of the flesh, keeping the fasts, and reciting the Prayer, all of which were obligations of the Perfect. Moreover, the participants in the Service are in other sources called either “heretics” or “Cathars”, both of which terms are normally restricted to the Perfect. It does not seem likely, therefore, that believers took part in the Service, although they may have been present. If the believers did confess in the Service, we have proof that high moral standards were demanded of them—a contradiction of the charge, not infrequently made, that Catharist believers were prone to immorality, even encouraged in it. (WE)

* Isaiah 29:19-21 NIV 19 Once more the humble will rejoice in the Lord; the needy will rejoice in the Holy One of Israel. 20 The ruthless will vanish, the mockers will disappear, and all who have an eye for evil will be cut down— 21 those who with a word make someone out to be guilty, who ensnare the defender in court and with false testimony deprive the innocent of justice.

* Luke 17 NIV 21 nor will people say, ‘Here it is,’ or ‘There it is,’ because the kingdom of God is in your midst.” [or: is within you].

* Joel 2 NIV 17 Let the priests, who minister before the Lord, weep between the portico and the altar. Let them say, “Spare your people, Lord. Do not make your inheritance an object of scorn, a byword among the nations. Why should they say among the peoples, ‘Where is their God?’”.

* Panem nostrum supersubstancialem: In many manuscripts of the Vulgate these words appear in Mark 6 {Jesus Feeds the Five Thousand (bread and fish)}, but are replaced by panem quotidianum [daily bread] in the Lord’s Prayer in Luke 11, and the use of the latter has generally prevailed. Although panem supersubstancialem was quite familiar to orthodox commentators the use of these words in the Lord’s Prayer was considered evidence of heresy in the Middle Ages. The editor of our text notes that just after the word “people” in the sentence which follows, some lines are marked for deletion from the text. They read: “ ‘Give us this day,’ as if one were to say: Holy Father, bestow Thy strength on us, so that in the time of grace we may be worthy to fulfill the law and commandments of Thy Son, who is the living bread.” The deletion seems to have been made in order to substitute the long exposition of panem supersubstancialem, which is to be regarded as an interpolation in the original commentary; the original passage reappears in substance at the end of the interpolation. See also the definition of panem supersubstancialem in No. 60, part B, chap. V. (WE)

* Sin of commission. There are two basic ways we sin: either by omission or commission. Sins of omission are those in which we knew we should have done something good, but refused (James 4:17). A sin of commission is a sin we take action to commit, whether in thought, word, or deed. A sin of commission can be intentional or unintentional. Foreknowledge is not the issue. If you visit another country in which traffic drives in the left lane, and you drive in the right lane, you are still breaking the law whether you know it or not. The Old Testament Law prescribed special sacrifices for sins that were unintentional but were nevertheless sins (Numbers 15:22–24; cf. Hebrews 9:7). Humanity’s first sin was a sin of commission. God forbade the eating of a certain fruit (Genesis 2:16–17). Adam and Eve knew God’s command and disobeyed anyway (Genesis 3:6). They took action to commit a sinful act. When King David committed adultery and then had Uriah killed to cover it up, both were sins of commission (2 Samuel 11). (...) We are all guilty of sins of commission. We all commit intentional sin by acting in ways God has forbidden. We also commit unintentional sin in our ignorance of God’s standards (Acts 3:17; 1 Peter 1:14; Leviticus 4:13–14). GotQuestions - What is a sin of commission?

* 1 Corinthians 6:9-11 NIV (Lawsuits Among Believers) 9 Or do you not know that wrongdoers will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: Neither the sexually immoral nor idolaters nor adulterers nor men who have sex with men {the words men who have sex with men translate two Greek words that refer to the passive and active participants in homosexual acts.} 10 nor thieves nor the greedy nor drunkards nor slanderers nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God. 11 And that is what some of you were. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God.

* Luke 9:62 NIV 62 Jesus replied, “No one who puts a hand to the plow and looks back is fit for service in the kingdom of God.” || Jesus was apt to explain that those who considered being his disciples would be prudent to count the cost first (Lk 4:28 14:28) because there was no going back once one stepped onto his path, that it was better to have not undertaken the journey at all than to start and then quit. Luke 9:62 Meaning of No One Who Puts a Hand to the Plow // Luke 14:28 NIV 28 “Suppose one of you wants to build a tower. Won’t you first sit down and estimate the cost to see if you have enough money to complete it? // "Count the cost first". The Highest Price. Let’s back up now. Here’s verses 26–27 {Luke 14:26-27}, just before the unit she cites. He says this: “If anyone comes to me and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, and even his own life” — notice the word was hate — “he cannot be my disciple. Whoever does not bear his own cross and come after me cannot be my disciple.” Now, this is extreme language. The most extreme that he could use, I think, to show that the degree of the cost we may have to pay is extreme. The first extreme language is “I am calling you to something that is going to look like hatred of wife and children and parents.” And the second extreme language is “I am calling you to get on a cross,” which means a willingness to die an excruciating death. It’s not just a metaphor. This is a cross, meaning, “Join me on the way to martyrdom.” So, counting the cost of discipleship means realizing that authentic discipleship may exact from you the highest price relationally and the highest price physically. No Negotiating. Now, let’s go to the other side of the text and jump forward three verses. Jesus ends the paragraph like this: “So, therefore, any one of you who does not renounce all that he has cannot be my disciple” (Luke 14). Now, there are two absolutes in that sentence. One is found in the phrase any one. This applies to every disciple, not just a select few: “Any one of you who does not renounce all he has.” That’s the first absolute. The other absolute is found in the word all. You must renounce all that you have to be my disciple. Your resources may stay in your sway as a manager, a steward, but you must be ready at any time to let go of everything for Jesus’s sake. (...) In other words, there’s no negotiating here with Jesus. There’s no calculating. There is no saying, “Well, if the cost reaches this, then I’m not interested in Jesus anymore.” Because Jesus says, “You can’t sign up that way. Nobody signs up for seventy percent of what I require.” That’s not what disciples say. We don’t talk like that. Hypocrites talk like that. Well no, hypocrites don’t. They lie. Following Christ Is Costly — But How Do You Count the Cost?

* Moneta of Cremona states that some heretics taught that they would receive and perform baptism in water in order by that sign to draw men on to the baptism of the Holy Spirit. In other orthodox sources, the Cathars are represented as entirely repudiating the baptism of water. It is emphatically rejected in another heretical work; see No. 60, part A, chap. XI. (WE)

* All of this section is written in Latin, with the exception of the thrice-repeated directions “Three times.” Solovjev analyzes this as a four-part service (each part represented by one paragraph here), consisting of a litany, the Lord’s Prayer, another litany, and the Gospel of John, and supposes that preaching from a Gospel text would also be part of this worship. Solovjev finds a close parallel between this and the usage of Bogomils of Bulgaria and Bosnia, the only exception being the absence here of a phrase found in the Eastern texts: Dignum et justum est [he is worthy and just]. Solovjev had not noticed that in the description of the consolamentum by Anselm of Alessandria that phrase does occur. Slight variations in phraseology are to be expected over wide areas and many years, but the similarity which Solovjev pointed out is, in fact, closer than he supposed.

* Matthew 28:19-20 NIV 19 Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, 20 and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.”

* Acts 1:5 NIV 5 For John baptized with [or: in] water, but in a few days you will be baptized with [or: in] the Holy Spirit.”

* 1 John 2:15-17 (On Not Loving the World {ascetic withdrawal <> wordly presence}) 15 Do not love the world or anything in the world. If anyone loves the world, love for the Father is not in them. 16 For everything in the world—the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life—comes not from the Father but from the world. 17 The world and its desires pass away, but whoever does the will of God lives forever.

* Greeting used for a man. The difference between this and the earlier salutation “used for women” {that is, proffer the Gospels to be kissed} is made clear by the description of a heretication about 1231 in which, after the believer had declared his wish to be consoled and his obligations had been explained, he performed his melioramentum and “afterward kissed the Book of the heretics; this done, they placed the Book and their hands on his head and read the Gospel. Thereafter these heretics made their confession (fecerunt apparellamentum) and performed the Act of Peace, at that time kissing each other once on each cheek.” {and so where is the difference described here exactly ??} (WE)

* This probably does not mean that the wicked world will cease entirely to be, but that the incarceration of the heavenly spirits therein will end. See n. 210, below. || (210) Ps. 76 (A.V. 77): 11. With the preceding description of the Last Judgment, cf. chap. XI. Should the passage be taken to mean that the present evil world will be destroyed in an absolute sense? This would seriously modify the doctrine of radical dualism, of two coeternal creations, which is manifested elsewhere in the treatise. Mile Thouzellier suggests that in the light of chap. XI, especially the paraphrase of Matt. 24 therein, the interpretation is not that the diabolic creation will be utterly dissolved but that the state of imprisonment of souls in terrestrial life will end; that is, in so far as God's creatures are concerned, the domination of evil over them will be destroyed. The good and imperishable heavens spoken of in this chapter symbolize the fallen souls whom Christ redeemed. {Dualism: the old world will become the pool of fire, which will exist unto eternity. (??); pool of fire = prime matter (perfect chaos) ??}

* Hebrews 11:1 NIV (Faith in Action) 11 Now faith is confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see.

* Luke 20:34-38 NIV 34 Jesus replied, “The people of this age marry and are given in marriage. 35 But those who are considered worthy of taking part in the age to come and in the resurrection from the dead will neither marry nor be given in marriage, 36 and they can no longer die; for they are like the angels {in this/the next world ??}. They are God’s children, since they are children of the resurrection. 37 But in the account of the burning bush, even Moses showed that the dead rise, for he calls the Lord ‘the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.’ {who are still alive 'somewhere' ??} 38 He is not the God of the dead, but of the living, for to him all are alive.”

* Isaiah 66:22 NIV “As the new heavens and the new earth that I make will endure before me,” declares the LORD, “so will your name and descendants endure. || Isaiah 65:17 NIV “See, I will create new heavens and a new earth. The former things will not be remembered, nor will they come to mind.

* 2 Peter 3-10 NIV 5 But they deliberately forget that long ago by God’s word the heavens came into being and {then} the earth was formed out of water and by water {Thales ??}. 6 By these waters also the world of that time was deluged and destroyed {by water}. 7 By the same word the present heavens and earth are reserved for fire, being kept for the day of judgment and destruction of the ungodly. 8 But do not forget this one thing, dear friends: With the Lord a day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like a day. 9 The Lord is not slow in keeping his promise, as some understand slowness. Instead he is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance. 10 But the day of the Lord will come like a thief. The heavens will disappear with a roar; the elements will be destroyed by fire, and the earth and everything done in it will be laid bare [or: be burned up].

* Concluded under sin [locked up under the control of sin]. It would be understandable if someone reading Galatians, to this point, would be confused. Paul has written about the law in a way that might suggest to an outsider that he means the law in itself is somehow evil. With all of his talk about the promises made to Abraham becoming available to everyone through faith in Christ, is he saying that the law was a pointless diversion? Paul clarifies, in the previous verse, that he was not saying that, using a potent phrase: "Kill that idea!" He is showing that God meant all along for the law to show, in part, that human beings cannot keep God's law (Galatians 3:21) {21 Is the law, therefore, opposed to the promises of God? Absolutely not! For if a law had been given that could impart life, then righteousness would certainly have come by the law.}. Why? We are sinful, and knowing what God wants us to do cannot keep us from doing it. We continue to sin. In other words, the law cannot give eternal life because no human being can keep the law perfectly. We all break it. The law shows us that we cannot escape our own sin. We are all in prison "under sin," and the law can offer only condemnation. It does not provide a way out. So what is the way out? It comes only through the promise given to Abraham and received by Christ. Those who believe in Christ "by faith" receive the promise, too. Paul will go on to show how receiving that promise, along with Christ, provides for the forgiveness of and escape from our sin. What does Galatians 3:22 mean?

* Ashur [Assur, Assyria].  Ashur commonly symbolizes the devil in heretical thought. // (27-12) Ezekiel 32. The Fearful Fall of Egypt. Ezekiel 32is written in poetic and figurative style and relates to Egypt’s pending downfall and the decimation of her people, especially the leaders—the “bright lights” (v. ). In verse 22 the Lord says Ashur (Assyria) is already in hell, which was where Egypt was headed. The reference to the “nether parts of the earth” in verses 18 and 24 is typical of the ancient belief that hell is below the earth. Pharaoh was to join the kings of Tyre, Sidon, Damascus, Assyria, Persia, Idumea, and so forth, in hell, with their armies, and be comforted to know that they share a common fate (see v. 31; Clarke, Commentary, 4:510). || Ezekiel 32:22 NIV “Assyria is there with her whole army; she is surrounded by the graves of all her slain, all who have fallen by the sword. 23 Their graves are in the depths of the pit and her army lies around her grave. All who had spread terror in the land of the living are slain, fallen by the sword. Prophecies of the Restoration

* Psalm 101:26-27 DRA 26 In the beginning, O Lord, thou foundedst the earth: and the heavens are the works of thy hands. 27 They shall perish but thou remainest: and all of them shall grow old like a garment: And as a vesture thou shalt change them, and they shall be changed.

* Isaiah 51:6 NIV 6 Lift up your eyes to the heavens, look at the earth beneath; the heavens will vanish like smoke, the earth will wear out like a garment and its inhabitants die like flies. But my salvation will last forever, my righteousness will never fail.

* Anti-incense. (unrelated) Isaiah 1:13/21 NIV 13 Stop bringing meaningless offerings! Your incense is detestable to me. 21 See how the faithful city {"Roman Church"} has become a prostitute {harlot}! She once was full of justice; righteousness used to dwell in her— but now murderers!

* Istis rationibus. The author uses ratio in various meanings, and it is not always easy to find a phrase acceptable in English and faithful to the Latin. Rationes may designate, as noted by Borst, lists of scriptural verses cited to support a point, and in such cases is synonymous with auctoritates x or divina testimonia [testimony of the Scriptures], Elsewhere the word may imply something more, the proper exegesis of such texts; for example, in IV, 4: per divina testimonia verissimam rationem demonstrare [to clarify the precise meaning by scriptural references]. Rationes may also refer to logical arguments or “philosophical” conclusions; for example, the arguments in §§ 16-20 are subsequently (II, 1) referred to as “the argumentations of philosophers.” In the singular, ratio usually means simply “argument” in the sense of a valid conclusion; for example, II, 1: nostri adversarii... nullam habeant rationem [our adversaries ... have no argument]. Other shades of meaning may also be found: Qua ratione [How] in § 8; and rationabiliter [reasonably] juxtaposed with ratione et merito [in reason and justice] in § 11. (WE)

* Liber de Causis. The Liber de Causis was a philosophical work once attributed to Aristotle that became popular in the Middle Ages, first in Arabic and Islamic countries and later in the Latin West. The real authorship remains a mystery, but most of the content is taken from Proclus' Elements of Theology. This was first noticed by Thomas Aquinas, following William of Moerbeke's translation of the works of Proclus into Latin. As such it is now attributed to a Pseudo-Aristotle.

* Create vs make. Facturam sive creationem. The author almost invariably links the words creare [create] and facere [make] and their derivatives, such as creatio and factura. Such coupling of words or phrases is characteristic of his style. The linking of “create” and “make,” however, may also reflect his basic disagreement with other Catharist groups, the mitigated dualists. They saw in God the only true “creator” but they attributed to the evil one the construction, or the making, of this world and its inhabitants out of the pre-existent matter brought into being by God; that is, for them God “created,” the devil “made,” the world of matter. This doctrine the author of The Book of the Two Principles firmly opposes, for he and his fellow Albanenses conceived of two creations, good and evil, existing eternally with their creators; “to create and make” he understands as producing changes in the mode of existence {prime matter -> matter}, in one of the three ways expounded by John of Lugio. Cf. the opinion of the Albigensian author of die “Manichaean” Treatise (No. 58), chap. I. (WE)

* Malachi 2 NIV (Breaking Covenant Through Injustice) 17 You have wearied the Lord with your words. “How have we wearied him?” you ask. By saying, “All who do evil are good in the eyes of the Lord, and he is pleased with them” or “Where is the God of justice?”

* Ezekiel 13:18-19 NIV 18 and say, ‘This is what the Sovereign Lord says: Woe to the women who sew magic charms on all their wrists and make veils of various lengths for their heads in order to ensnare people. Will you ensnare the lives of my people but preserve your own? 19 You have profaned me among my people for a few handfuls of barley and scraps of bread. By lying to my people, who listen to lies, you have killed those who should not have died and have spared those who should not live.

* We take this jumble of words to mean approximately the following: A cause (God) which remains unchanged produces always the same result (good). A new result (the sin of the angels) can be explained only by supposing that a new cause (evil) has come into effect, for authority declares that whenever a new result is produced, it is because of the introduction of some new agent {or a change in the original agent}. If the “dispositions of the agent” (whatever was the cause of the angels’ acts) remained unaffected by internal change or external influence, the result could not have been to bring evil into existence, but rather evil would have remained nonexistent. A change from good to evil could arise only from diversity of cause. (WE)