What connection is there between the Cathars and the Gnostics?

Answer 1

The Cathars were a late Gnostic Christian sect that appears to have begun in Cologne, Germany and then spread into southern France. The earliest known references to Catharism dates from about 1143-44, when the movement was led by the archbishop of Cologne, who was later burnt for refusing to recant.

Scholars believe that the Cathar movement arose out of the Bogomil sect in the Balkans. The Bogomil sect, in turn, is believed to have developed, much earlier, out of the Paulicists, with possible direct influences from the Massalanians and perhaps Manichaeanism (both known as Gnostic Christian sects).

The Cathar faith spread long after the time when Gnostic Christianity was at its peak, and had developed in some of its beliefs and practices away from early Gnosticism. Just as Manichaeanism had the Elect and Auditors, so Catharism had its Parfait and Believers. They held similar dualistic beliefs and were vegetarians, just as most Gnostic sects were.

In the years after Jesus was crucified, many people began to read the scriptures that were spreading across Europe. These people formed many different concepts of Christianity. They called themselves many different names. Cathar, Fraticelli... You can read some about this in: 'Huguenots and Jews of the Languedoc'.

The term "Cathars" derives from the Greek word Katheroi and means "Pure Ones". They were a gnostic Christian sect that arose in the 11th century, an offshoot of a small surviving European gnostic community that emigrated to the Albigensian region in the south of France.The medieval Cathar movement flourished in the 12th century A.D. throughout Europe until its virtual extermination at the hands of the Inquisition in 1245.

There are an ever increasing number of historians and other academics engaged in serious Cathar studies. Interestingly, to date, the deeper they have dug, the more they have vindicated Cathar claims to represent a survival of the Earliest Christian Church.