Publication details
"Poor of Christ" Not So Poor: A Paradox of the Cathar Heresy
| Basic information |
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| Original title: | "Poor of Christ" Not So Poor: A Paradox of the Cathar Heresy |
| Author: | David Zbíral |
| Further information |
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| Citation: | ZBÍRAL, David. "Poor of Christ" Not So Poor: A Paradox of the
Cathar Heresy. In Past, Present, and Future in the Scientific
Study of Religion. 2012.Export BibTeX @proceedings{975871,
author = {Zbíral, David},
booktitle = {Past, Present, and Future in the Scientific Study of Religion},
keywords = {apostolic poverty; christianity; economy; money},
language = {eng},
title = {"Poor of Christ" Not So Poor: A Paradox of the Cathar Heresy},
year = {2012}
} |
| Original language: | English |
| Field: | Philosophy and religion |
| Type: | Appeared in Conference without Proceedings |
| Keywords: | apostolic poverty; christianity; economy; money |
This paper explores the relationship between the ideal and the practice of voluntary poverty among dissenting preachers in the 12th to 14th-century Europe who called themselves “Good Men” and were labeled as “Cathars” or simply “heretics”. I argue that the “Good Men” used the ideal of poverty and of the “apostolic life” in their self-presentation narratives but at the same time, quite paradoxically, they had very progressive attitudes to money and profit. Indeed, they practiced a specific “religious” moneymaking, sometimes in quite assertive ways. To explain this paradox, I refer to the developmental theory presented by Lester K. Little in his Religious Poverty and the Profit Economy in Medieval Europe (London: Paul Elek, 1978).
