Untitled - Shattering Denial

THE INQUISITION 75
of God." 1 But the acts of the Apostles proved that bap
tism was a mere ceremony, for they declared that the
Samaritans, although baptized, had not thereby received
the Holy Spirit, by whom alone the soul is purified from
sin. 2
The Catholic Church also erred greatly in teaching
infant baptism. As their faculties were undeveloped,
infants could not receive the Holy Spirit. The Cathari
at least till the middle of the thirteenth century did
not confer the Consolamentum upon newly born infants.
According to them, the Church could only abandon these
little
3
ones to their unhappy destiny. If they died, they
were either forever lost, or, as others taught, condemned
to undergo successive incarnations, until they received the
Consolamentum, which classed them with "the Perfected."
It was preposterous to imagine that Christ wished to
change bread and wine into his body in the Eucharist.
The Cathari considered transubstantiation as the worst
of abominations, since matter, in every form, was the
work of the Evil Spirit. They interpreted the gospel
texts in a figurative sense: "This is My Body," they said,
simply means: "This represents My Body,"
pating the teaching of Carlstadt and Zwingli. 4
thus antici
They all
1
John iii. 5.
2 Act i. 5; viii. 14-17 Moneta, op. cit., p. 290.
3
Moneta, op. cit., p. 394. Dollinger, op. cit., vol. i, p. 193; vol. ii (Doku-
mente}, pp. 217, 240, 246.
4 Moneta, op. cit., p. 295; Alanus, Adversus hareticos et Waldenses, ed.