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Christocentic Religion Vs Albigenianism Essay

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Thought separated by a few centuries for when they were highly focused on, both Christocentric and affective spirituality and Albigensianism find common ground and polar opposites between each other. If there was one thing both views practiced and encouraged, it was the practice of asceticism. Both beliefs practiced rigorous discipline, but more so, the practices were self-harming and self-deprecating. For Albigensians, practices included starvation (f) and the encouragement of suicide (CP 16), while those who followed affective spirituality, primarily women, would "[join] with the crucifix through physical suffering both involuntary and voluntary - that is, through illness and through self-mortification," may it be through "horrible pain, twisting of the body, and bleeding - whether inflicted by God or by oneself" (CP1 Medieval Essays 11). However, as written in Section 8 of the CP1 Handout, Albigensians performed these types of acts in order to "[align] with the good God by freeing the soul from the body and matter which they believed were evil" (CP1 16); they wanted to feel pain because they detested physicality and humanity, and wanted to free themselves from this …show more content…

It was common belief amongst Albigensians that "carnal marriage is always a mortal sin" (CP1 Medieval Essays 14), as well as the belief that marriage lead to sexual relations, which lead to trapping more souls into the material bodies which they so rejected and yearned to escape from so that humanity would be able to be in communion with the "good God." Medieval women chose not to marry in order to bring themselves as individuals closer to God, rather than for believing it to be a mortal sin, yet some still viewed it as "the most feared of all the disease, [that of the] bridal bed" (Handout for CP1 Medieval Essays

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