CATHAR1 CATHARINE. 



97 



professed the dualism couched in scriptural lan- 

 guage, which places the devil nearly on a level with 

 God, and entertained the conceit of a high moral 

 perfection. The influence of Arian and Platonic 

 notions was conspicuous in their explanations of the 

 doctrine of the Trinity, which defined the Father to 

 be the unity of the divine will, the Son, or Logos, 

 to be his first thought, and the Spirit to be their 

 common operation. In every good man they saw a 

 Christ, and, therefore, in their congregations, sepa- 

 rated the elect from the novices. The merit of the 

 Redeemer they believed to consist more in his ex- 

 ample than in his expiatory death, and built their 

 hopes of happiness, for the consummation of which a 

 resurrection of the body did not appear to them 

 requisite, on their own virtue. They regarded the 

 exaltation of the soul over the mortal nature, so as to 

 become wholly absorbed in mystical contemplation, 

 as the highest stage in t.e religious life of man. 

 They despised the mass, the service of the altar, and 

 similar ceremonies, as mere vanity. The adoration 

 of the cross, of saints, and relics, together with all 

 arbitrary penances and good works, so called, they 

 deemed idle superstition. The daily blessing of their 

 meats and drinks they esteemed equivalent to the 

 celebration of the eucharist. The imposition of the 

 hands of spotless teachers served for the communi- 

 cation of the Spirit, for baptism, and as a pledge of 

 the forgiveness of sins. Deep devotion of the heart 

 in prayer, and a life of purity, connected with absti- 

 nence from sexual pleasure, and from the use of 

 stimulating food, were their exercises of piety. The 

 tenets of popery, and the whole establishment of 

 the Catholic priesthood, as it then existed, they 

 looked upon as unchristian and pernicious. They 

 insisted on the restoration of the apostolic simplicity, 

 and the literal fulfilment of the precepts of the New 

 Testament, which they read, indeed, with assiduity, 

 but frequently misunderstood. In an age when 

 the heartless subtilties of dialectics, the mechanical 

 administration of divine worship, and the scandalous 

 morals of the clergy, widened more and more the 

 breach between religion and the established church, 

 such doctrines and maxims necessarily met with ap- 

 probation, on account of their opposition to the pre- 

 valent practices. 



The piety and morality at which most of the sepa- 

 ratists diligently aimed, the charm of their secret 

 connexion, and the lu'gh intelligence of things sacred 

 to wliich they made claim, the warmth of their mys- 

 ticism, and the moving power of their simple wor- 

 ship, procured them many adherents, and those not 

 from the common people merely. They were joined 

 by the discontented of all classes, even by the clergy 

 and nobles; whence they were called, in France, 

 bans hommes, good, i. e. noble, people ; and, hi the 

 rude state of the existing political constitutions, amid 

 the confusion of civil wars and ecclesiastical contro- 

 versy, their congregations, with little mutual con- 

 nexion, and not menacing the state with danger, 

 were able to pursue with impunity, for years, their 

 quiet course. But these sects were not free from 

 corruptions. The nocturnal assemblies, the com- 

 munity of goods, the homeless, roving life (on ac- 

 count of which several of them were called Passa- 

 geri, Passaging, and the contempt of the marriage 

 state, which originated in ascetic views, gave rise, in 

 many cases, since they permitted the two sexes to 

 live together, to gross immoralities ; and the mystery, 

 in which they enveloped their religious exercises, 

 sometimes served to conceal the errors of an un- 

 bridled fanaticism. But, when the old denominations 

 became disgraced by such errors, new leaders, and 

 reforms in doctrine and life, gave rise to new sects, 

 and imparted a fresh impulse to the once excited 

 11. 



spirit of separation. From this originated the excite- 

 ments occasioned among the people of France, Swit- 

 zerland, and Italy, by Peter Bruys, and Henry and 

 Arnold of Brescia, in the twelfth century, which in- 

 troduced tlie names Petrobrusians, Henricians, and 

 Arnoldists. See Arnold of Brescia. 



The ecclesiastical authority now became zealous 

 in searching out and punishing heretics ; so that these 

 new, but unconnected, classes of Cathari soon be- 

 came extinct. The older Cathari, Publicans, Pata- 

 renes, &c., had the prudence, wherever they were 

 settled, to adhere publicly to the Catholic church, 

 and to hold their private meetings in the night. 

 They even allowed the persecuted members to have 

 recourse, before the spiritual courts, to an apparent 

 recantation ; but, the attention of these authorities 

 being once excited, and the popes carrying on the 

 persecution of the heretics by their own legates, and 

 establishing the horrible inquisition in the thirteenth 

 century, the most blameless life, and the utmost 

 secrecy in the performance of religious exercises, no 

 longer afforded security to these heterodox believers. 

 The fate of the Albigenses (q. v.), who were mainly 

 Cathari, finally produced the overthrow of all this 

 iamily of sects in the thirteenth century. The Wal- 

 denses (q. v.) alone, who were unjustly confounded 

 with the Cathari, escaped. No sects, of a later 

 origin, have borne this general appellation. 



CATHARINE, ST ; a virgin of Alexandria, who, 

 according to Catholic tradition, suffered martyrdom 

 under Maximin, about A.D. 236. She is represented 

 with a piece of a wheel ; and the legend of her 

 marriage with Christ has been painted by several of 

 the first masters. Correggio's Catharine, in Dresden, 

 is beautiful. There are two other St Catharines 

 mentioned. The knights of St Catharine on mount 

 Sinai are an ancient military order, instituted for the 

 protection of the pilgrims who came to visit the tomb 

 of St Catharine, on this mountain. In Russia, the 

 order of St Catharine is a distinction for ladies, insti- 

 tuted by Catharine, wife of Peter the Great, in me- 

 mory of his signal escape from the Turks in 1711. 



CATHARINE OF FRANCE, queen of England 

 youngest child of Charles VI. and Isabella of Bava- 

 ria, was born in 1401, and, in 1420, was married to 

 Henry V. of England, who was then declared suc- 

 cessor to the crown of France. To this prince she 

 bore Henry VI., crowned in his cradle king of both 

 countries. After the death of Henry, Catharine 

 privately married Owen Theodore, or Tudor, a Welsh 

 gentleman of small fortune, but descended from the 

 ancient British princes. By this marriage she had 

 two sons, the eldest of whom, Edmund, earl of Rich- 

 mond, by a marriage with Margaret Beaufort, of the 

 legitimated branch of Lancaster, became lather of 

 Henry VII., and founder of the house of Tudor. 

 Catharine was treated with some rigour, on the dis- 

 covery of her second marriage, and died in the prime 

 of life, in 1438. 



CATHARINE OF ARRAGON, queen of Eng- 

 land, the youngest daughter of Ferdinand of Arragon 

 and Isabella of Castile, was born in 1483. In 1501, 

 she was married to Arthur prince of Wales, son of 

 Henry VII. Her husband dying about five months 

 after, the king, unwilling to return her dowry, caused 

 her to be contracted to his remaining son Henry, 

 and a dispensation was procured from the pope for 

 that purpose. In his fifteenth year, the prince made 

 a public protest against the marriage ; but, at length, 

 yielding to the representations of his council, he 

 consented to ratify the contract, and, on his accession 

 to the throne, in 1509, was crowned with her. The 

 inequality of their ages, and the capricious disposition 

 of Henry, were circumstances very adverse to the 

 durability of their union, and it seems surprising that 



