The Cathars:  Cathar Beliefs:  Ceremonies:  Endura

This is not really a rite or ceremony, so much as a practise amounting to voluntary euthenasia. The Occitan word Endura translates as "fasting".

In certain circumstances, believers would take the Consolamentum and then starve themselves to death. This might be done for example during an extended terminal illness, or in expectation of falling into the hands of the Inquisitors. Why hang around in hell, when freedom is only a few days away?

Although the practise is entirely in line with Cathar theology, and is attested in contemporary documentary evidence, there is some doubt about how common it was.

Since Catholics regarded suicide as a great sin, they seem to have made the most of one of their two charges that were genuine, villifying those who practised it. (The other was using contraception). Many Catholic works, even modern ones, make out that suicide was a routine and frequent practise. In fact there is no evidence that suicide was more common among Cathars than it was, or still is, among Catholics. The only known difference was the level of acceptance in the two communities.

Euthenasia - "A Good End"

The Cathars on leaving each other would say not Goodbye ["God be with you"] but "May you come to a good end" - meaning may you die having untertaken the consolomentum". This was the best possible death as it meant the release of the soul from its cycle of reincarnation.

The term euthenasia comers from the Greek. Hippocrates used it. It translates in English literally as "good end".

There are hints that the idea of wishing one's coreligionists a "good end" was more widespread, and might have been known to Persion Manichaeans or even Zoroastrians.

The picture on the left (detail right) is of a Persian ceramic dish dating from 1470-1481, the Timurid period. It is underglaze-painted fritware. The interesting thing about it is that around the center rosette are words that translate as "may you come to a good end" - repeated three times.

location: the Walters Art Museum, 600 N. Charles Street Baltimore, MD 21201 (Centre Street: Third Floor: Islamic Art) [but is it Islamic or Zoroastrian?]. Accession number 48.1031. 3 1/8 x 14 9/16 in. (8 x 37 cm)