Was the Bible forbidden in the Middle Ages, as some have claimed?

[Tantum_ergo]

Hisalone, would you please show me the originals of the Bible?

What’s that? You mean there are **no original source documents **of the books of the Bible? Nothing but manuscript COPIES and fragments? How do you KNOW these copies are authentic when the originals have been DESTROYED?

Why, you’re going on nothing but hearsay. . .

 

[Hisalone]

Êtes toujours vous à l’école ?

So you are unable to address my precepts?

 

[Hisalone]

Hisalone, would you please show me the originals of the Bible?

What’s that? You mean there are **no original source documents **of the books of the Bible? Nothing but manuscript COPIES and fragments? How do you KNOW these copies are authentic when the originals have been DESTROYED?

Why, you’re going on nothing but hearsay. . .

We have thousands of bible manuscripts from many geographical areas spanning many centuries with remarkable agreement.

What we have on the Cathars is what their enemies said about them.

 

[Tantum_ergo]

What we have on the Cathars is what their enemies said about them.

And of course it is utterly impossible that an ‘enemy’ could speak factual truth. Naturally, the enemy would lie like a rug, so really the only POSSIBLE way to get an ACCURATE assessment of the Cathars would be to assume that everything written (by the ‘enemy’) was a lie. Is this what you are trying to say?

 

[brotherhrolf]

Thank You that is my point.
Earlier in the thread the polemic was that there was no need for the bible in the venacular because common folks couldnt read in the 16th century. Francis from the merchant class could read and write hundreds of years earlier making the polemic false.

Please , please, please, please, please get your histor straight. Francis lived in the early 13th century beofre printing presses.

 

[brotherhrolf]

You cant wiggle out of it so easily.
There is no, none, nada original source documents by the Cathars they all have been destroyed yet you base your opinion on nothing more than hearsay. And claim to be a scholar?

Oh, pish, tosh! What are your credentials Hisalone? I’ve given mine. Let’s get our priorities straight, shall we. You have become the advocate for Old Scholar. How do I know you are not Old Scholar under a new name. Should I question the mods?

 

[Hisalone]

And of course it is utterly impossible that an ‘enemy’ could speak factual truth. Naturally, the enemy would lie like a rug, so really the only POSSIBLE way to get an ACCURATE assessment of the Cathars would be to assume that everything written (by the ‘enemy’) was a lie. Is this what you are trying to say?

Tantum how comfortable would you be if the history of the Catholic Church was written by Jack Chick?

 

[Hisalone]

Oh, pish, tosh! What are your credentials Hisalone? I’ve given mine. Let’s get our priorities straight, shall we. You have become the advocate for Old Scholar. How do I know you are not Old Scholar under a new name. Should I question the mods?

Show me original Cathars source documents and all will be well. If you cannot you have nothing further to say and should go walking away meekly into the night.

 

[Tantum_ergo]

Hisalone, since YOU have no ‘original Cathars source documents’ please tell me on what you base your ‘scholarly’ premise as to what they taught, and did.

 

[Tantum_ergo]

So, Hisalone, you really are saying that not just the Catholic Church but that the secular authorities of the time. . .and indeed the majority of scholars of our times. . .cannot be ‘trusted’ since they have no ‘original Cathars documents’ and that therefore since all we ‘know’ was said by ‘an enemy’ we cannot believe ANYTHING the ‘enemy’ wrote.

So much for ‘the scholarly approach’. . .

 

[Hisalone]

Hisalone, since YOU have no ‘original Cathars source documents’ please tell me on what you base your ‘scholarly’ premise as to what they taught, and did.

Tantum this is what the modern Cathars say about themselves

WHAT WE BELIEVE

Here are the fundamentals of good Christian beliefs :

The good Christian believes in one GOD, wholly good, the Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

The good Christian believes that GOD has revealed Himself in Jesus Christ.

The good Christian believes that there is only one way to salvation - GOD’s way to us in Jesus Christ, which is discerned by knowledge of faith alone through GOD’s grace.

The good Christian believes that Jesus Christ is GOD in appearance and substance; fully human and fully divine, in a way that we cannot understand, and which Scripture does not fully explain, but decisively different from all other human beings, in kind, not simply in degree.

The good Christian believes that the New Testament is the written Word of GOD, the uniquely inspired testimony to GOD’s self-disclosure in human history reaching its peak in the revelation by Jesus Christ.

The good Christian believes that other ancient writings from the days of the Apostolic Church - even those written prior to the four Gospels and canonical Scripture - have value for spiritual inspiration.

The good Christian believes in the sanctity of all human life based on our creation in the image of GOD and our election by GOD for service in His Kingdom.

The good Christian believes that the mission of the church is to spread the radical good news of salvation by word and deed, to be the light of GOD in a darkened world. This mission calls people of faith to discipleship and obedience in the pursuit of personal and social holiness.

The good Christian further believes that the fruit of the gospel Message is the proclamation of justice, mercy and peace.

cathar.net/Witness3000/communications/publications/cathar_doctrine.html

 

[Hisalone]

I have no evidence what preReformation Cathars believed and taught. I am skeptical what the Catholic Church who systematically eliminated them tells about them.

 

[Tantum_ergo]

The MODERN Cathars?

I thought we were discussing the 12th century Cathars. Would you mind showing the primary sources that explain how your ‘modern Cathars’ are descended, directly, from the 12th century ones?

Gracious me, you remind me of the ‘modern pagan’ crowd, or the Wiccans. Groups that sprang up in the 20th century out of whole cloth claiming to be direct descendents of 5th century Druids in the first group, and everything from Zeus worshippers to prehistoric ‘mother goddess protofeminists’ in the second.

 

[Hisalone]

Tantum see my immediate post above yours.
Neither one of can conclusively proclaim what those beliefs and teachings were. To say otherwise is simply wrong.

 

[Tantum_ergo]

You have NO EVIDENCE of what the 12th century Cathars really believed. . .only a ‘skepticism’ about what was written of them by ‘the Church’ with its ‘systematic elimination’ (and of course THAT phrase is totally ‘unloaded’ and absolutely neutral and scholarly).

Uh-huh.

Sorry. . .your claim to scholarship was on shaky ground as it was; but now you’ve pretty much just proven that in the interests of promoting your personal belief you’re willing to make all sorts of claims you can’t back up, all the while sneering at the supposed ‘lack of scholarship’ on the part of others who question you.

Well, there isn’t any need to go any further on this topic–you’ve already demonstrated that your claims are erroneous, your ‘scholarship’ nonexistent, and your bias ugly and currently insurrmountable. . .may God enlighten you.

 

[Hisalone]

You have NO EVIDENCE of what the 12th century Cathars really believed. . .only a ‘skepticism’ about what was written of them by ‘the Church’ with its ‘systematic elimination’ (and of course THAT phrase is totally ‘unloaded’ and absolutely neutral and scholarly).

Uh-huh.

Sorry. . .your claim to scholarship was on shaky ground as it was; but now you’ve pretty much just proven that in the interests of promoting your personal belief you’re willing to make all sorts of claims you can’t back up, all the while sneering at the supposed ‘lack of scholarship’ on the part of others who question you.

Well, there isn’t any need to go any further on this topic–you’ve already demonstrated that your claims are erroneous, your ‘scholarship’ nonexistent, and your bias ugly and currently insurrmountable. . .may God enlighten you.

There is no desire for truth on your part,

 

[LilyM]

Thank You that is my point.
Earlier in the thread the polemic was that there was no need for the bible in the venacular because common folks couldnt read in the 16th century. Francis from the merchant class could read and write hundreds of years earlier making the polemic false.

Neither Francis nor his father were ‘common folks’, they were well-to-do, hence Francis’ father taking him to court over some property. If the father was poor there’d be nothing worth suing him for.

 

[Hisalone]

Neither Francis nor his father were ‘common folks’, they were well-to-do, hence Francis’ father taking him to court over some property. If the father was poor there’d be nothing worth suing him for.

Merchant class, merchant class, merchant class!

 

[Zooey]

If obligatory abstention from marital sexual union is virtuous then yes they were virtuous. But for a sola-scriptura group they were definitely anti-Scripture on this one, least it is difficult to see how one should ‘go forth and multiply’ if celibacy within the marital union is the expected norm!
…
It is universally accepted that to kill is wrong. The CC is particularly emphatic about this, hence such staunch defence of the unborn…

It is hardly surprising they angered the Pope when they taught that it was wrong for husband and wife to have marital sex.

But of greater depravity was their teachings that suicide was an ideal to aspire to, particularly encouraging parents to kill their children before killing themselves. Small wonder the Pope was angry at such obscenty…

It is interesting Cats and Dogs says 'there was no heresy to the Sciptures. Where in Sacred Scripture is it taught that ritual suicide is an ideal to aspire to? Where is it taught that parents should win God’s favour by performing human sacrifices?

I suggest that much of the demise of this group had more to do with them wiping themselves out as any act by an outside force.
A group which encourages simple folk to kill their children and then kill themselves is sick perverse and warped. Small wonder the CC acted and acted swiftly. It would not be the CC that I know love an cherish had it acted any differently.

Thank you, Lilyflower!!
This was what I learned in Miss Waldron’s history class, which inspired my shock at OS claiming “high moral character” for the Albigensians. (Silly me, I guess, but* I have never regarded murdering one’s own children an example of “Christian virtue*”).
Miss Waldron, by the bye, was a lifelong Presbyterian. She had, therefore, no stock in defending the Catholic position…except one which OS & Co. conspicuously lack: a commitment to the truth…rather than, say, an affection for anti-Catholic propaganda.
She was a bloody good teacher. May her soul rest in the peace she so richly earned.

 

[brotherhrolf]

Merchant class, merchant class, merchant class!

We are talking “merchant class” in the early 13th century which is not the “merchant class” of the 16th century during the Reformation. Remember, NO PRINTING PRESS…how many times do I have to say this? You are being entirely anachronistic in this.