– The Tree of Gnosis: Gnostic Mythology from Early Christianity to Modern Nihilism (1992)
As far as reversed biblical exegesis is concerned, the two religions of the Cathars continue to activate new possibilities inherent in the system and at the same time rediscover, or simply adopt, old solutions once used by the Marcionites, the Manichaeans, and obviously the Bogomils, who are their source and their model. Most of the Cathars thus continue to identify the Old Testament god with the Devil, according to an option present in Gnosticism, Manichaeism, and Bogomilism. The school of John of Lugio is revolutionary in so far as it accepts the reality of both the Old and the New Testament, yet in a world other than this one, a parallel universe that, although much superior to ours, is still frankly bad for being corruptible. It is difficult to understand why John of Lugio had to resort to such an unexpected interpretation. Rationalism is one reason, according to which miracles are not, and never have been, possible in this world but may be possible in a parallel one. Yet it may be arbitrary to ascribe to John of Lugio this Protestant understanding of God’s silence. We must therefore content ourselves with the observation that the deepest Cathar thinker activated one of the least probable options of reversed exegesis, namely, the reversal of the reversal: The Bible is absolutely false for this world (extremistic reversal), but it is absolutely and literally true in another world (extremistic reversal of the reversal, denial of the denial), to which the perfectly historical narratives of the Old and New Testaments apply. From a systemic viewpoint, this is the most original contribution of Catharism to the working out of the system.
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