A heresy in the Languedoc (southwestern France), most prominent during the early Gothic period. Also called the Albigensian heresy, Cathar theology arose out of a question that Christian philosophers have asked themselves for a very long time: If God is perfect, how can he have created an imperfect world? To answer this question, the Cathars postulated the existence of two Gods, a lesser and a greater. The Cathars believed that the higher God did NOT in fact create the world, rather he/she/it left this task to a lesser being called Samael, “blind God” in Hebrew. The Cathars believed that the God of the Old Testament was in fact Samael, an omnipotent yet imperfect being, not the true God, who would never sully him/her/itself with the act of creation. The Cathars believed Jesus was an emissary of this higher God.
Because of their belief in the inherent inferiority of the material world, Cathars rejected the idea that the Jesus’ crucifixion and resurrection were important-after all, it was only Jesus’ body that was crucified, his body that was resurrected. His spiritual self remained unstained and untrammeled by the afflictions of mortality. Needless to say, this incurred the wrath of Rome (see Albigensian Crusade).
The Cathars were also rumored to be the guardians of the Holy Grail.