evil spirit; man's body was also his creation, but man's soul was created by the God of good. Christ came as an archangel to deliver man from the yoke of the evil spirit; but as the body was of an evil origin He only wore it in semblance, not in reality. The religious practices founded on this belief were those of severe asceticism. The bodily life was entirely evil; only the energy of the soul partook of good. This, according to the Cathari, was the great lesson for the Christian Church to teach, and this, they asserted, was its teaching in early times; but the Church grew secular by mixing with the world, and fell under the sway of the evil spirit. Christ's designs for man's redemption could only be fulfilled by a pure body of believers, who rejected all that savoured of the corruption which belonged to all visible objects. The sacraments were condemned because they used material substance for Divine purposes. More absurd still in the eyes of the Cathari was the custom of infant baptism; how was it possible that one who could not be taught should be admitted into any covenant? Penitence was necessary before a man could be a member of the true Church.
These opinions of the Cathari form at least a connected system, and in some shape or other showed considerable vitality. I do not mean to say that their fundamental conception of the creation of the world by a God of evil, and their consequent abhorrence of all that was material, was long an article in popular belief. But its echo remained and gave form to protests against the secularisation of the Church and the materialism of the hierarchical system,
