Levitov claims that the medieval Western European Cathar sect was actually a survival of the antique Greco-Roman-Egyptian cult of Isis. He further claims that the Voynich Manuscript is a liturgical manual for a Cathar ritual of euthanasia called the Endura.
Jacques Guy has given a lingustic critique of Levitov's book, ON LEVITOV'S DECIPHERMENT OF THE VOYNICH MANUSCRIPT by Jacques B.M. Guy. Dr. Guy's review concludes that Levitov's claimed decipherment of the Voynich Manuscript is invalid. This article considers historical evidence on Catharism that contradicts Levitov's claim.
"Catharism was based on a distinction between a 'pure' elite on the one hand (perfecti, parfaits [perfects], bonshommes [Goodmen] or h�r�tiques [heretics; perfects were also called Good Christians. Women could be perfects, Perfectae.] ), and on the other hand, the mass of simple believers (credentes). The parfaits came into their illustrious title after they had been initiated by receiving the Albigensian sacrament of baptism by book and word (not by water). In Cathar language, this sacrament was called the consolamentum ('consolation'). Ordinary people referred to it as 'heretication'. Once he had been hereticated a parfait had to remain pure, abstaining from meat and women. (Catharism, though not entirely anti- feminine, showed no great tolerance of women.) A parfait had the power to bless bread and to receive from ordinary believers the melioramentum or ritual salutation or adoration. He gave them his blessing and kiss of peace (caretas). Ordinary believers did not receive the consolamentum until just before death, when it was plain that the end was near. This arrangement allowed ordinary believers to lead a fairly agreeable life, not too strict from the moral point of view, until the end approached. But once they were hereticated, all was changed. Then they had to embark (at least in the late Catharism of the 1300s) on a state of endura or total and suicidal fasting. From that moment on there was no escape, physically, though they were sure to save their souls. They could touch neither women nor meat in the period until death intervened, either through natural causes or as a result of the endura." (pp. viii-ix).
One often reads that the word "Cathar" comes from the late classical Greek word "katharoi" (pure ones). However, Nicolas Gouzy of the Centre d'�tudes Cathares (Center of Cathar Studies) writes, "It seems almost certain today that 'Cathars' is more comparable to an insult and would mean 'cat worshippers' or 'catists' which is supported by the use of the adjective 'catier' by a Flemish chronicler whose name escapes me at the moment and would derive from the Low German ketter (cat); also the German translation of the word 'heresy' is die Ketzerel, same root. The heretics are, in the iconography of the moralized Bibles of the XIth century, almost always accompanied by cats, symbol of evil for all of medieval Christendom." (Private e-mail, May 22, 1997.) Also, the Cathars didn't refer to themselves as Cathars, as one would expect if it meant "pure ones." They called their leaders "good Christians" or "goodmen".
Catharism originated from the Paulican movement near Byzantium. Paulicanism became Bogomilism in Bulgaria around 950 (Lambert, Medieval Heresy, pp. 10-16). Bogomilism eventually made an appearance in Western Europe to become Catharism. "In Eon's time (the 1140s), the first signs appear that this phase in the history of Western dissent is coming to an end as writers and chroniclers describe the stirrings of a fully international movement, named differently in different countries, but having distinctive elements of belief and organization in common. These betray a connection with the Bogomils of Byzantium and the Balkans... The first outbreak to be recorded took place in the Rhineland, where in 1143-4 the Premonstratensian provost Everwin of Steinfeld described to St. Bernard of Clairvaux the traits of a heresy detected at Cologne which had its own bishop and organization." (p. 60) The new heresy, to be called Catharism in the West, spread from there down to southern France by 1165 and northern Italy by 1167 (p. 63-5). Lambert's Chapter 8, "The Cathars", pp. 108-150, describes the rise and eventual end of the movement.
Catharism was eventually destroyed by the Albigensian Crusade in France and the Inquisition in both France and Italy. According to Lambert, "the last Cathar was burned in Languedoc as late as 1330." (p. 134) In Italy, "the last [Cathar] bishop to be reported in western Europe was captured in Tuscany in 1321; survivors continued for a time to find refuge, possibly in the Lombard countryside and in the Alps." (p. 140) However, the Centre d'�tudes Cathares Web page notes: "The last known Occitan goodman, B�libaste, was burned at Villerouge in 1321. In Northern Italy, the Inquisition archives conserve dualist depositions from the beginning of the XVth century."
Here is an excerpt from the Occitan (Wakefield and Evans say Proven�al) Ritual of Lyons in Wakefield and Evans, pp. 488-9. (Occitan is the regional language of southern France spoken in the Cathar area. It is very similar to Catalan. For more information, see the Occitan Language Page. )
(This is the beginning of the Ministration of the Consolamentum.)
"If he is to receive the consolamentum forthwith, let him peform his melioramentum and take the Book from the hand of the elder. And let the elder exhort him and preach to him with suitable scriptural verses and in such words as are proper for the consolamentum. Let him speak thus:
'Peter, you wish to receive the spiritual baptism by which the Holy Spirit is given in the Church of God, together with the Holy Prayer and the imposition of hands by Good Men. Of this baptism our Lord Jesus Christ says in the Gospel of St. Matthew to His disciples: "Going therefore, teach ye all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you; and behold, I am with you all days, even to the consummation of the world." [Matt. 28:19-20] And in th Gospel of St. Mark, He says: "Go ye into the whole world and preach the gospel to every creature. He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved; but he that believeth not shall be condemned." [Mark 16:15-16] And in the Gospel of St. John, He says to to Nicodemus: "Amen, amen, I say to thee, unless a man be born again of water and the Holy Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God." [John 3:5] And John the Baptist spoke of this baptism when he said, "I baptize with water but He that shall come after me is mighter than I, the latchet of whose shoe I am not worthy to loose. He shall baptize you in the Holy Spirit and fire." [John 1:26-27; Matt. 3:11] And Jesus says in the Acts of the Apostles, "For John indeed baptized with water, but you shall be baptized with the Holy Spirit." [Acts 1:5]
'This holy baptism with the imposition of hands was instituted by Jesus Christ, according to that which St. Luke recounts, and He says that His friends shall perform it, as St. Mark relates, "They shall lay their hands upon the sick and they shall recover." [Mark 16:18] Ananias administered this baptism to St. Paul when the latter was converted and afterward Paul and Barnabas administered it in many places. And St. Peter and St. John administered it to the Samaritans, as St. Luke tells in the Acts of the Apostles: "Now when the apostles, who were in Jerusalem, had heard that Samaria had received the word of God, they sent unto them Peter and John, who, when they were come, prayed for them, that they might receive the Holy Spirit. For He was not as yet come upon any of them. Then they laid their hands upon them and they received the Holy Spirit." [Acts 8:14-17, omitting part of v. 16] This holy baptism, by which the Holy Spirit is given, the Church of God has preserved from the apostles until this time and it has passed from Good Men to Good Men until the present moment, and it will continue to do so until the end of the world.'"
The Christianity of this passage is quite obvious. The extensive use of New Testament quotations is quite typical of both the Occitan and Latin Cathar rituals.
Online, there is Societas Gnostica Norvegia: Cathar Texts. It has two excerpts from the Cathar Ritual of Lyons and a Bogomil text used by the Cathars.
Further on, the introduction notes, "At the head of the 'office' was of course Jacques Fournier himself, a sort of compulsive Maigret, immune to both supplication and bribe, skillful at worming out the truth (at bringing the lambs forth, as his victims said), able in a few minutes to tell a heretic from a 'proper' Catholic - a very devil of an Inquisitor, according to the accused. He proceeded, and succeeded, essentially through the diabolical and tenacious skill of his interrogations; only rarely did he have recourse to torture. He was fanatical about detail, and present in person at almost all the sittings of his own court." (p. xiii). Because of this, the Inquisition Register and Le Roy Ladurie's book also give an accurate picture of Catharism.
Thus Jacques Fournier's Inquisition records, even if they are hostile in tone, are factually accurate and agree with surviving Cathar texts. Wakefield & Evans quote many other Inquisition and medieval historical records of which this is also largely true.
Lambert's book and Wakefield & Evans' book are a good combination for the study of Catharism, since Lambert give the historical narrative and refers to source documents in Wakefield & Evans.
Le Roy Ladurie quotes a vivid eyewitness account of an endura. Brune Pourcel of Montaillou gave this testimony to Fournier's Inquisition.
"Fifteen or seventeen years ago, said Brune Pourcel (i.388), one dusk, at Easter, Guillaume Belot, Raymond Benet (the son of Guillaume Benet) and Rixende Julia, of Montaillou, brought Na Roqua to my house in a bourras [a rough piece of canvas]; she was gravely ill and had just been hereticated. And they said to me: 'Do not give her anything to eat or drink. You mustn't!' "
"That night, together with Rixende Julia and Alaza�s Pellissier, I sat up with Na Roqua. We kept on saying to her, 'Speak to us! Say something!' "
"But she would not open her lips. I wanted to give her some broth made of salt pork, but we could not get her to open her mouth. When we tried to do so in order to give her something to drink, she clenched her lips. She remained like this for two days and two nights. The third night, at dawn, she died. While she was dying, two night birds commonly called gavecas [owls] came on to the roof of my house. They hooted and when I heard them I said: 'The devils have come to carry off the late Na Roqua's soul!' " (p. 226, English version.)
Nelli (1968a) says that the word "endura" is Occitan for privation or fast (p. 123). He also notes, "The Endura, neither ritual nor obligatory -- was an absolute and prolonged fast which could lead the consoled to (voluntary) death." (p. 95)
Lambert describes the Endura as a late development within Catharism. "The endura, a form of suicide, occasionally by violent means, but usually by taking to bed and refusing food, passing from life secure in the possession of the consolamentum on a diet of sugared water, became an occasional feature; it had always been a logical end for those who believed that life itself was an imprisonment under Satan, and a possible psychological effect of the obsessive and perfectionist life of the perfect, but its early incidence is rare and a little ambiguous. Never at all frequent, its incidence increased in late Catharism, when after 1295 one commanding personality, the radical dualist Pierre Autier, led a revival; for him the endura could be a convenient means of removing followers who knew too much when the inquisition was on their track." (pp. 137- 8)
The idea here is that after receiving the consolamentum, which gave the forgiveness of sins, one could no longer sin. That involved leading the severe lifestyle of the perfects. If one could not do that, it were best to die while still in a state of grace. This idea also appears at times in the history of the early Christian Church, where people would postpone baptism for their deathbeds.
After hearing that the Endura was only a late practice in Catharism, the author inquired about this question at the Centre d'�tudes Cathares (Center of Cathar Studies). M. Nicolas Gouzy sent the following response. (private E-mail communication, Jan 6, 1997):
"It is not possible to make the claim that someone who received the consolation was bound to suicide by starvation. It is true that this thesis still prevails among numerous 'esotericist' authors and poorly informed historians.
"There is no trace of ritual suicide or ritual murder in the Catholic authors of violently anti-heretical notices or treatises, like those of Vaux de Cernay, Alain de Lille, Moneta de Cremone... They would not have missed using this argument if it had been true. Neither is ritual suicide attested by the Southern [French] inquisition.
"One must await the first decade of the XIV century to see the endura appear, very precisely defined as a ritual fast associated with a consolamentum in extremis or given in precarious situations, around twenty cases for the period 1300-1320. It was only, and you are right to mention it, the last Cathar perfecti, the most poorly initiated, who actually tried to propose an expiatory fast to someone newly consoled. But not the Authi� brothers.
"In summation: it is not known with certainty whether the endura was an ordinary religious practice or not, but it is known that it was not an institution, and that never, emphatically never, did the Good Christians advise a ritual suicide! "
A Cathar bibliography lists some other books in English on Catharism
In French, there is Centre d'�tudes Cathares (Center of Cathar Studies), an authoritative resource. There is also Voyage en Terre d'Oc: le catharisme. (Travels in the Land of Oc: Catharism) which has excellent pictures. Les Cathares has some history.
Welcome to the Cathars! is the web page of The Assembly of Good Christians, a modern Cathar church.
Levitov claims that Catharism was actually a survival of the antique pagan cult of Isis, Osiris, and Horus. "The Voynich manual is not a testament. It is a prayer manual in Liturgical form and probably a Litany, so that there is no other theological word used - not Jesus, Mary, Jehovah, Moses. It concerns itself with expressions of the function of Isis: 'Ye who are troubled come to me, and I will give you rest... ' The 'man in the pupil of the eye of Horus' was referred to by the ancients as 'Rex Mundi', King of the Universe, sometimes benevolently and possibly malevolently later by the sect if one is to equate Rex Mundi, with the Hebrew Melech Haolam, as Jehovah's epithet, 'King of the Universe'." (p. 7) "On the other page [his Figure 6, f80v of the Voynich Manuscript] at the top left is the figure is Isis holding her sistrum [a bell-like instrument sacred to Isis]." (p. 13) "Actually, there is not a single so-called botanical illustration which does not contain some Cathari symbol or Isis symbol. There is, as I have said before, no attempt to conceal the nature of the manuscript. The innumerable stars [in the Voynich star illustrations] are representative of the stars in Isis' mantle. The eyes of Horus appear in the shapes of leaves (see Figure 3 [f7v of the Voynich Manuscript].)" p. 42.
Levitov's major sources on medieval heresy seem to be Baigent, Leigh, & Lincoln; Guiraud; Koch; Lea; and Molinier. Note that most of these are either old (Guiraud, 1928; Lea, 1888; and Molinier, 1881) or rather speculative (Baigent, Leigh, & Lincoln). Levitov says, "No matter what historian one reads regarding this period of European history, one never finds the Cathari described as other than a Christian heretical sect." (p. 44) He also freely admits, "At no place in history - and I have spent hundreds of hours of research in my own and Public Libraries - does the concept of Isis appear." (p. 71)
Neither has the author ever seen it mentioned in any primary or secondary source on Catharism.
As we have seen, this is definitely not true! Wakefield and Evans quote, extensively or in their entirety, six Cathar texts and two Bogomil texts used by the Cathars.
In his review of Levitov's book, Terence McKenna writes, "However, A. E. Waite in his The Holy Grail mentions '... there is fortunately one fragmentary record of Albigensian belief which has survived ... I refer to the Cathar Ritual of Lyon which is now well known having been published in 1898 by Mr. F. C. Conybeare.' Waite goes on to mention that part of the Lyon Codex contains 'certain prayers for the dying.' The Codex is in the Langue d'Oc. Does it resemble the Voynich material? We are not told." (p. 50) This Ritual, of course, is the Occitan (Proven�al) Ritual published by Cl�dat and quoted extensively in Wakefield and Evans, and partly in several other books and websites noted in the Bibliography. There are also many other surviving Cathar writings in addition to the Ritual of Lyons; these are noted in the Bibliography.
As we have seen from Le Roy Ladurie, Jacques Fournier's Inquisition records, even if they are hostile in tone, are factually accurate and agree with surviving Cathar texts. Wakefield & Evans quote many other Inquisition and medieval historical records of which this is largely true.
This passage is largely taken from Lea (vol. 1, p. 93-5) (Of course, Lea's book is old (1888) and does not reflect the latest research.) Although Levitov is describing what he thought the views of historians were in the passage above, it is generally his concept of the Endura. "The women depicted on the page [his Figure 8, f81r of the Voynich Manuscript] are undergoing the Endura. They have cut certain veins are bleeding to death in a bath of warm water." (p. 31) "For the most part, however, the Voynich Manuscript emphasizes the rite [of Endura] as it affects terminal illness and especially if accompanied with agonizing pain." (p. 49) He thinks that the entire Voynich Manuscript is a liturgy for his Endura. "The Voynich, insofar as it deals almost entirely with the 'treatment' of the sick and dying, probably represents only a small fragment of Cathari religion. That it is liturgical is beyond question, especially considering the stressed syllables." (p. 145)
At one point he displays some confusion. "There is, also, only one way that someone ambitious could move up to be one of 'the Perfected' in the hierarchy, and that would be to survive an Endura. Medically, I doubt that anyone could survive a venesection in a warm bath. Survival might be possible after ingestion of ground glass or poison. A fast of three days would have to be the most logical, or at least the safest of the Endura programs. For the most part, however, the Voynich Manuscript emphasizes the rite as it affects terminal illness and especially if accompanied with agonizing pain." (p. 49)
We have already considered the Cathar endura attested by what historical evidence there is. Many details of it are poorly attested and therefore unclear, but the following things seem clear:
1) The Endura followed an individual's receiving the consolamentum and was a consequence of the consolamentum, rather than an attempt to relieve unbearable suffering.
2) It was not an institution.
3) It was definitely never conceived as a ritual suicide.
4) It was not done by groups.
5) It mostly occured in the last (probably after 1300) period of Catharism.
6) Most of the time it consisted of a fast, rather than venisection, or drinking poison or cucumber juice with ground glass (this doesn't sound like a painless way to die!).
All these things contradict Levitov's account of the Endura.
Discussing early Catharism, Lambert says, "In addition to these established examples, other outbreaks imperfectly recorded, such as the case of the clerk Jonas in Cambrai, an episode in V�zelay in 1167, or that of the party of strangers from either the Rhineland or Flanders who landed in England, only to be branded at the council of Oxford in 1166 and turned adrift to starve, have the smell of Catharism, and may well have formed part of the same movement." (p. 65)
Levitov discusses extensively the episode of the party of strangers from either the Rhineland or Flanders who landed in England. This episode is probably what gave Levitov the idea that the Voynich Manuscript might be written in a medieval pidgin Dutch. He also notes, "The Voynich survived because it was most probably taken to England by the sect. The manual was probably confiscated and given to some monastic order to store. In the time of Henry VIII, the Duke of Northumberland was given permission to despoil the Catholic monastic orders. The manuscript most likely fell into his hands and since it was ascribed to Roger Bacon, and the Duke's good friend, Dr. John Dee, was a collector of Baconiana, Northumberland probably presented the Voynich to Dee." (pp. 13-15) (And, of course, Dee then sold the Voynich Manuscript to Rudolph II of Prague!)
The surviving information on the Cathar Endura, sparse though it is, also contradicts what Levitov's decipherment would show.
Therefore, the available historical evidence on Catharism contradicts Levitov's claim of decipherment of the Voynich Manuscript. In the author's opinion, there is sufficient valid historical evidence to invalidate his claim of decipherment of the Voynich Manuscript.
Please direct any discussion of this article to the Voynich Manuscript E-mail list, [email protected].
The following authors give partial or complete surviving Cathar texts: Bec, Birks and Gilbert, Brenon, Cl�dat, Nelli (1968b), Oldenbourg, Petry, and Wakefield and Evans. Wakefield and Evans have the most complete selection in English. Online there is Societas Gnostica Norvegia: Cathar Texts.
Levitov Figure Number | Levitov Page Number | Folio/side in the VMs |
Voynich page number (FSG transcription) |
2 |
6 |
f.68r2 |
126 |
3 |
10 |
f.7v |
14 |
5 |
16 |
f.79v |
156 |
6 |
17 |
f.80v |
158 |
7 |
23 |
f.66r |
117 |
8 |
24 |
f.81r |
159 |
9 |
43 |
f.80r |
157 |
10 |
45 |
f.50r |
97 |
11 |
51 |
f.86v4 |
168 |
12 |
57 |
f.14r |
25 |
13 |
62 |
f.25r |
47 |
14 |
66 |
f.28r |
53 |
15 |
72 |
f.70r1 |
133 |
17 |
93 |
f.1r |
1 |
18 |
103 |
f.56r |
109 |
19 |
109 |
f.22v |
42 |
20 |
146 |
f.27v |
52 |
21 |
151 |
f.85r2 |
171 |
22 |
158 |
f.68v1 |
130 |
24 |
164 |
f.70v1 |
136 |
25 |
169 |
f.72r1 |
139 |
-- |
170 |
f.104r |
214 |
26 |
172 |
f.70v2 |
135 |