The most formidable development of hostility to the Church came from the Manichæism of those who bore at various times and in different places the names of Cathari, Patarius, or Albigenses. The attraction of the Manichæan theory lay in its apparent explanation of the problem of evil. There exist side by side in the world a good principle and an evil principle. The latter is identifiable with matter and is the work of Satan. Hence sin consists in care for the material creation. It follows that all action tending to the reproduction of animal life is to be avoided, so that marriage was strongly discouraged. To the earlier views was added the doctrine of metempsychosis, or the transmigration of souls, which, acting as a means of reward and retribution, seemed fully to account for man's sufferings. These views together explain the avoidance as food by the Cathari of everything which was the result of animal propagation, and also the severity of the ascetic practices which were charged against them. [Sidenote: Their doctrines.] In the sphere of doctrine the division between the Cathari and the Catholic Church was absolute. According to these sectaries Satan is the Jehovah of the Old Testament: hence all Scriptures before the Gospels are rejected. They accepted the New Testament, but regarded Christ as a phantasm and not a man. Thus the doctrine of the Real Presence had no meaning for them, indeed, they rejected the sacraments and all external and material manifestations of religion. Here, of course, they had much in common with the Waldenses, whom the Church confounded with them; and there seems little doubt that the way for the preaching of Catharism in the south of France was paved by the previous work of Peter de Bruis and, even more, of Henry of Lausanne. But the reasons for opposition to the Church were not the same among the Waldenses and the Cathari; and the latter soon parted company with the seekers after primitive Christianity by developing an organisation of their own. Thus as the Cathari grew in numbers and carried on a vigorous missionary work, their devotees tended to form themselves into a Church. At least two distinct Orders were recognised. The Perfected were a kind of spiritual aristocracy who renounced all property and were sworn to celibacy, while they submitted themselves to penances of such rigour that their lives were often endangered, if not shortened. Below them were the mass of believers who were allowed to marry and to live in the world, assimilating themselves so far as possible to the ideal set before them by the higher caste. From the Perfected were chosen officers with the names of bishop and deacon, the latter acting as assistants to the chief officers. The ritual was simple but definite, and the most characteristic ceremony was the Consolamentum, the baptism of the Holy Ghost, by which the believers were placed in communion with the Perfected and so became absolved from all sin.