Untitled - Shattering Denial

98
THE INQUISITION
The Cathari believed that "the Believers/ who asked
for the consolamentum during sickness, would not keep
the laws of their new faith, if they happened to get well.
Therefore, to safeguard them against apostasy, they
were strongly urged to make their salvation certain by
the endura. A manuscript of the Register of the Inqui
sition of Carcassonne, for instance, tells us of a Cath-
aran minister who compelled a sick woman to undergo
the endura, after he had conferred upon her the Holy
Spirit. He forbade any one "to give her the least
nourishment . . . and as a matter of fact no food or
drink was given her that night or the following day,
lest perchance she might be deprived of the benefit of the
consolamentum." *
One of "the Perfected," named Raymond Belhot,
congratulated a mother whose daughter he had just
"consoled," and ordered her not to give the sick girl
anything to eat or drink until he returned, even
though she requested it.
said the mother,
"
If she asks me for it,"
"I will not have the heart to re
fuse her." "You must refuse her," said "the good
man," "or else cause great injury to her soul." From
that moment the girl neither ate nor drank; in fact she
manus impositionem nihil dant ei ad usum vel ad esum, nisi puram aquam
ad bibendum, et ita fame ipsum perimunt." Dollinger, ibid., p. 373 (this
passage is taken from the Summa de Catharis of Sacconi). Cf. pp. 271, 370.
1(< Ne dicta infirma perderet bonum quod receperat." Ms. 609 of the
library of Toulouse, fol. 134.