Summary
CATHARAN ARGUMENTS TO JUSTIFY THE ATTRIBUTION OF THE OLD TESTAMENT TO THE EVIL PRINCIPLE
(Archives de l'Inquisition de Carcassonne.—Doat, XXXVI. 91.)
The literature of the Cathari has been so successfully exterminated that anything attributable to the sect is of interest. The following, from a controversial tract, dating probably about the close of the thirteenth century, may be regarded as a fair summary of the reasons alleged by the sect to prove that the Creator, Jehovah, was Satan. There is sufficient identity between them and those given by Moneta (adversus Catbaros, Lib. II. c. vi.) to show that they are in some sort the official and customary arguments of the heretics. I omit the counter-arguments of the writer, who generally follows Moneta, though he often reasons independently.
Primo igitur objicitur illud, Geneseos tertio: Ecce Adam quasi unus ex nobis factus est. Hoc dicit Deus de Adam postquam peccavit, et constat quod dicit verum aut falsum: si verum, ergo Adam factus erat similis ei qui loquebatur et eis cum quibus loquebatur. Sed Adam post peccatum factus erat peccator; ergo malus: si dixit falsum, ergo est mendax, ergo sic dicendo peccavit, et sic fuit malus.
Item ad idem. Deus ille dicit, Geneseos primo: Videte neforte sumat de ligno vitœ etc. Deus autem novi testamenti dicit, Apocalipsis primo: Vincenti dabo edere de ligno vitœ. Ille prohibet, iste promittit, ergo contrarii sunt ad invicem. […]
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- A History of the Inquisition of the Middle Ages , pp. 563 - 583Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2010First published in: 1888