Wincenty Myszor

In Judeo-Christian theology, as in Hellenistic Christianity, the cross of Jesus was a fundamental problem. Until the time of Constantine in the Imperial community it was a sign of disgrace. For Christians the cross was a sign of salvation. The theological problem was caused by the inclusion of the cross as a positive symbol in a general and religious sense. In Judeo-Christian theology a method of typology was used which was known also in Jewish exegesis. The cross as a symbol of salvation was predicted among others by ”Jacob’s ladder” (cf. Genesis 28,12). Christians understood it as a cosmic cross on which Logos (the Son of God) had descended to earth, and as a path to salvation for people ascending to heaven. From ”Jacob’s ladder” only certain details were chosen for the
exegesis: ”the wood of the ladder/cross”, the motif of descent and ascent. In this way the typology of the ”ladder of the cross” allowed the meaning of the cross as a symbol of the shame of Jesu’s death sentence to win out

Cathar religiousness was not regulated top-down, by any central institution as in the Church. Distinct, particular forms of religiousness were revealed in respective writings. What united them was dualism, what set them apart was reliance on apocryphal which generally expressed folk attitudes in medieval religiousness. A more systematic approach to Cathar teachings is better seen in accounts by Church polemics than in original Cathar writings. Medieval religiousness manifested itself in the apocryphal Interrogatio Iohannis. The text was used by Bogomils and Cathars alike. The dualism in the Interrogatio is not as radical as anti-Cathar polemics show it. In the Interrogatio, it is seen in an opposition between Christ, the Son of God, and satan, also „a son of God.” Satan created the world by the consent of God, his Father. Dualism was also marked in rigorous attitudes toward marriage and material goods. The Cathars of the Interrogatio Iohannis rejected institutional Church and its sacraments, baptism and the Eucharist, attributing to them a spiritualistic or eschatological sense. The folk origin of the text’s character reveals influences of apocryphal literature, but also of Church teaching and New Testament themes, including those opposed to Cathar logic.