The Cathars:  Cathar Beliefs:  Vindication:  Other Sacraments

As Cathars and Catholics alike well knew, in the early thirteenth century the Roman Church had invented its official list of seven Sacraments within living memory. 

Here is a passage from Hugh of Poitiers a monk from the monastery of Sainte Madaleine in Vézelay written in 1167 when The Catholic Church had developed a concept of their being seven sacraments, but there was no agreement as to what they were. A group of Cathars (called Deonarii or Publicans) had been investigated at Vézelay:

They were held for some sixty days or more, and were frequently brought before the gathering and questioned - now with threats and again with soft words - about the Catholic faith. At length, after the vain expenditure of much effort, with the advice and assistance of the archbishops of Lyon and Narbonne, the Bishop of Nevers, several abbots, and many other learned men, they were adjudged guilty of the charge that, while paying lip service to the unity of the Divine Essence, they rejected absolutely all the holy sacraments of the Universal Church: specifically, the baptism of children, the Eucharist, the seal of the life-giving Cross, sprinkling with holy water, the building of churches, good works in tithes and offerings, the marital relations of husband and wife, the monastoc life, and all the functions of clergy and priests.

Luc d'Achery's edition of Hugh of Poitiers' Historia Vizeliacensis monasterii, published in Bouquet et al (Eds) Recueil des historiens des Gaules et de la France (24 vols, Paris, 1738 - 1904) XII, 343-44. English translation from Wakefield & Evans, Heresies of the High Middle Ages, 41. p 248.

The Seven Sacraments as they are now defined all had questionable scriptural authority, and generally the Cathars claimed to represent an older tradition than the Catholic Church. 

Confession. The earliest known form of Christian confession was a group activity, involving the public admission of sin. It was identical to the Cathar Apareilementum, quite different from the Medieval or modern Catholic practice.

Confirmation and Ordination. Various Catholic theologians recognised elements of the Consolamentum in their own Sacraments.  "Is it not curious" says one of them in the nineteenth century "to remark that the essential rite of the Consolamentum is in effect nothing but the most ancient form of Christian ordination?".  The same applied to confirmation, since the Consolamentum represented an ancient usage "when the ceremonies of Confirmation and Ordination had yet to be distinguished".

Marriage. The Cathars did not recognise marriage, claiming that although it was mentioned in the New Testament it was not sanctioned by it. The Catholic position (reflected in the words of the marriage service) is that marriage was instigated by God and that Jesus himself was a guest at a wedding. While true, the fact that the God of the Old Testament instituted Jewish (polygamous) marriage could have carried little weight with the Cathars.

Extreme Unction. Extreme Unction was an innovation of the Roman Church in the Middle Ages. It has been suggested, but not proved, that it was developed as a conscious response to the Consolamentum administered to dying Cathars, popular because it ensured a place in heaven.

The Eucharist. The Catholic doctrine of transubstantiation was formally propounded in 1215 based on contemporary philosophical notions that were later discredited. The Cathar practise of blessing bread before meals by contrast is identical to the practice of the earliest Christians at communal meals called agapes (abandoned by mainstream churches in the second or third centuries when their own agapes degenerated into dispeputable occasions)