‘How must I differentiate to what extent one evil is greater than another, and one good is less good than another good, master?’
‘One must look into the heart of it to see what is heresy. In its most extreme case it is a noxious weed which seeks to strangle the good plant, but we must eradicate this weed wisely, for as we know, some poisons are not only harmful to the weed, but also to humans and horses and others only to cattle or dogs.’
Seeing my blank look, Andre considered another explanation.
‘In my opinion the only true heresy seeks to take Christianity as a living spiritual reality, and transform it into a dead animal, one that only seems to live, but is decayed and lifeless . . . theoretical.’
‘Do you mean, like the theologians do?’
‘Yes, but they have the help of the Arabic philosophers who interpret Aristotle in such a way that man begins to lose sight of the spirit.’
‘Master,’ I interrupted, seeing my chance, ‘I had a very strange dream last evening, in which I –’
‘Did you? Well, you must tell it to me sometime . . .’
‘But it concerned this very subject. A monk called Thomas and his companion were living in the shelter outside the abbey.
This Thomas spoke about a task that he had to perform, he said something about Christianising Aristotle.’
‘Indeed, your mind works wonders in your sleep!’ he exclaimed and I knew there was no point in pursuing it further. ‘We were speaking of the heresies.’ He scratched his greying head and pulled at his beard. ‘Come outside.’
We turned away from Gilgamesh, leaving the comforting smells of the stables and walked to the garden, now blanketed in snow. Andre glimpsed a bush, now covered in the smallest leaves, and picked one or two. Rubbing them between the palms of his hand, he sniffed the scent lightly. A moment later, he remembered me and continued as before.
‘To begin with, we must consider Christianity. Since the holy death in Palestine things have changed, Christian. In the first centuries men still had a knowledge of Christ, but this knowledge became corrupted. Some began to doubt that a God could have died on the cross, that is to say, Christ could not be born nor could He die since He could not have lived in a mortal body whose very essence is, to their way of thinking, sinful. You and I know, however, that Christ did indeed die on the cross, but his cross signifies life, not death, as the church would have us believe. As time passed, Christian, men have become dull of spirit and clearer of mind, and this means they need to make everything comprehensible, in a tangible way. So the church comes up with all manner of dogma and stupidity to explain things that cannot be explained. It tells us that Jesus was born to a virgin, when it is well known that Mary was inspired by the heavenly Sophia who comes from the region of the Virgin in the starry heavens! The church no longer knows the meaning behind the sacraments, or the reason behind the partaking of the wafer and the wine. It has lost the knowledge of why the monstrance is decorated with the sun and a sickle moon. The Cathars have a sentiment for this, you see? They have come into contact with an old Gnostic wisdom that understands what the church has forgotten. They know that Christ has come to us from the sun and that we partake of wafer and wine to remind us of that, because the wafer and the wine are products of sun forces. The monstrance depicts the forces of the sun, or Son, Christian, as they gain victory over the old forces of the Father, or the moon wisdom of the Jews.’
‘But master –’
‘Listen, they have become empty rituals now, and the church seeks to protect itself from what scraps of wisdom still exist in the world.’
‘In the name of power?’
‘Yes, Christian. There is a vast empire to protect and the pope has become its new caesar. He is the new pontificus maximus, you see he even retains the name! It should not surprise me if in the future he makes himself a god, infallible. Is he not almost a god? When the pope tells us that a black cross is the symbol for Christ, then we must accept it, is that not so? Or else prepare our carcasses for the pyre.’
‘So we do not believe in the black cross, master?’
‘Our cross, as I have just told you, is a red cross, it is a living cross, Christian! It tells us that Christ lives in our blood.’
‘And so you are telling me that the heretics know more about Christ than the church and this makes the church despise them?’
‘Cathars know many things even if their wisdom has become distorted as we have said, and it is worth keeping that in mind. There is distortion everywhere, it is inevitable.’
‘Then everyone is wrong and the world shall fall into ruin.’ I was crestfallen, my heart weighed down and my mind filled with thoughts like an anthill is filled with ants.