body
under the breasts. Where the fear of the persecutor was absent he was
also clad in a black gown. The Perfect ones present give him the kiss of
peace, and the rite is over. This part of the rite answers partly to the
Catholic confirmation of a baptized person, partly to the ordination of
a pope of Rome or Alexandria. The latter in being ordained had the
Gospel laid on their heads, and the same feature occurs in old Gallican
and Coptic rites of ordaining a bishop.

Thus the Cathar ritual, like that of the Armenian dissenters (see
PAULICIANS), reflects an age when priestly ordination was not yet
differentiated from confirmation. "Is it not curious," says the Abbe
Guiraud, "to remark that the essential rite of the _consolamentum_ is in
effect nothing but the most ancient form of Christian ordination?"

The Cathar Eucharist was equally primitive, and is thus described by a
contemporary writer in a 13th-century MS. of the Milan Library:--"The
Benediction of bread is thus performed by the Cathars. They all, men and
women, go up to a table, and standing up say the 'Our Father.'[4] And he
who is prior among them, at the close of the Lord's Prayer, shall take
hold of the bread and say: 'Thanks be to the God of our Jesus Christ.
May the Spirit be with us all.' And after that he breaks and distributes
to all. And such bread is called bread blessed, although no one believes
that out of it is made the body of Christ. The Albanenses, however,
deny that it can be blessed or sanctified, because it is corporeal"
(i.e. material).

As Tertullian relates of his contemporaries in the 2nd century, so the
Cathars would reserve part of their bread of blessing and keep it for
years, eating of it occasionally though only after saying the
_Benedicite_. The Perfect kept it wrapped up in a bag of pure white
cloth, tied round the neck,[5] and sent it long distances to regions
which through persecution they could not enter. On the death-bed it
could even, like the Catholic _Viaticum_, take the place of the rite of
_Consolamentum_, if this could not be performed. Once a month this
solemn rite of breaking bread was held, the _credentes_ assisting. The
service was called _apparellamentum_, because a table was covered with a
white cloth and the Gospel laid on it. The Perfect were adored, and the
kiss of peace was passed round.

The influence of Catharism on the Catholic church was enormous. To
counteract it celibacy was finally imposed on the cle