hey at once interpreted them
in a spiritual or symbolic sense. The only legitimate marriage in
their eyes was the union of the Bishop with the Church, or the union
of the soul with the Holy Spirit by the ceremony of the
_consolamentum_.

They condemned absolutely all marital relations. That was the sin of
Adam and Eve. Pierre Garsias taught at Toulouse that the forbidden
fruit of the Garden of Eden was simply carnal pleasure.

One of the purposes of marriage is the begetting of children. But the
propagation of the human species is plainly the work of the Evil
Spirit. A woman with child is a woman possessed of the devil. "Pray
God," said one of "the Perfected" to the wife of a Toulouse lumber
merchant, "pray God that He deliver you from the devil within you."
The greatest evil that could befall a woman was to die _enceinte_;
for being in the state of impurity and in the power of Satan, she
could not be saved. We read of the Cathari saying this to Peirona de
la Caustra: _quod si decederet praegnans non posset salvari_.

Marriage, because it made such a condition possible, was absolutely
condemned. Bernard Gui thus resumes the teaching of the Cathari on
this point: "They condemn marriage absolutely; they maintain that it
is a perpetual state of sin; they deny that a good God can institute
it. They declare the marital relation as great a sin as incest with
one's mother, daughter, or sister." And this is by no means a
calumnious charge. The language which Bernard Gui attributes to these
heretics was used by them on every possible occasion. They were
unable to find words strong enough to express their contempt for
marriage. "Marriage," they said, "is nothing but licentiousness;
marriage is merely prostitution." In their extreme hatred, they even
went so far as to prefer open licentiousness to it, saying:
"Cohabitation with one's wife is a worse crime than adultery." One
might be inclined to think that this was merely an extravagant
outburst; but, on the contrary, they tried to defend this view by
reason. Licentiousness, they argued, was a temporary thing, to which
a man gave himself up only in secret; he might in time become ashamed
of it, repent and renounce it entirely. The married state, on the
contrary, caused no shame whatever; men never thought of renouncing
it, because they did not dream of the wickedness it entailed: _quia
magis publice et sine verecundia peccatum fiebat_.

No one, therefore, was admitted to the