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| The First Origins: The Essenes |
 Let us now try and go back to the still unknown sources of Catharism!
We used to gather – under the name of Gnostics – plenty of dissimilar groups, sometimes even opposed, in order to have a good reason to fight, to exterminate them and above all to slander them. Here is what Antonin Gadal says about this so controversial topic:
Gnosticism has its roots among the Judeo-Samaritans. It is in Palestine, and more particularly in Samaria that we must find its cradle.
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 The Essenes formed a Gnostic community of pious Jews who were clearly distinquishable from their compatriots.
They differed by the great purity of their way of life.
They approved of marriage, necessary for the preservation of mankind, but did not follow the voluptuousness of the flesh. They condemned the act of swearing, the owning of property, feeding with any kind of meat and loathed lies.
They lived in complete detachment from passions, ordinary human conflicts as well as from earthly goods. They were also called ‘Therapeutae’ because they cured the sick.
That community of the ‘pure’ presented itself as the guardian of the real Hebrew priesthood. It prepared the luminous birth of the new era: the Christian era.
Envoy and guide of the Essenian brotherhood, the ‘Master of Righteousness’
prefigures, through his life and deeds, the ‘coming of a new man’ of which Jesus Christ (brought up among the Essenes) will be the prototype.
For the Essenes, one can only get close to the divine mysteries by leading a life in Spirit, love for God and by a deep respect for men and life.
Because they lived like the first Christians, the Fathers of the church considered them apostolic Christians.
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