EPILOGUE 797
own scriptures, increasing dramatically through archeology and scholarship.
Whatever its appellation, gnosticism is for real. It represents a world religion
with fundamental notions and an extraordinary history. Today, gnosticism is
surprisingly alive. Since the uncovering of the Nag Hammadi library in Egypt
and the possession of a treasure of original gnostic scripture, gnosticism as an
alternative intellectual and spiritual body of knowledge finds itself at a sum-
mit. This is evidenced in the quality of the historical and religious studies that
gnosticism has generated, the many new translations of core scripture, and the
general esteem and curiosity that gnosticism elicits, though in-depth knowl-
edge of the history and nature of gnostic speculation is still rare. Apart from
genuine coincidences in thought, gnosticism and Kabbalah find themselves in
a similar period of revival and respect.
Contemporary interest in gnosticism is especially awake in France, where
the Cathar past has become a pleasant obsession. The joy of free-spirited
gnostic troubadours who sang of imperfect love as well as the massacres of a
gnostic region capture the French and world imagination. The fortresses,
castles, texts, and the Inquisition's city archives remain. The latter document
some horrendous events in the years of the Cathar extermination, during
which it is estimated that half the population of this dense region in south-
western France may have been killed. Historians, anthropologists, and novel-
ists have turned their attention to the papal crusade in 1209, in which a
northern French army of twenty thousand came down under the crusade
commander Simon de Montfort and sacked the city of Beziers, slaughtering
twenty thousand men, women, and children, including Cathar perfects and
Catholics priests, indiscriminately, all for the possession of the rich lands of
the south and a secure place in heaven. On one violent afternoon in 1308 in
the mountain village of Montaillou, all the inhabitants who were not slaugh-
tered were arrested. A bishop named Jacques Fournier was the inquisitor in
the city of Pamiers who interrogated the surviving heretics. Some of those
who confessed under torture were given penances, others went to the stake.
(In 1320 in this same area, a center of Kabbalism, more than a hundred
Jews—both forced converts wearing the yellow cross and professing Jews—
were burned in mass.)^30 The Cathar incident took on greater meaning when
- "Confession of Baruch, once a Jew, then baptized and now returned to Judaism," translated
by Nancy P. Stork of the English department at San Jose State University, found in the Jacques
Fournier Register on the Jacques Fournier Home Page, http://www.sjsu,edu/depts/english/
Fournier/Baruch.htm, pp. 1.10.