Another old heresy has recently spread beyond measure, arising from those who forsook the Lord when He spoke about eating His flesh and drinking His blood, declaring “this saying is hard,” and turning back. They are called Publicans or Patarines. Everywhere among Christians they have lain hidden since the time of the Lord’s Passion, straying in error. At first they had special houses in the villages where they lived, and all of them, whencesoever they came, recognized their houses by the smoke, as the saying goes. . . Men and women live together, but no sons or daughters are born of the intimacy.

Many however, have recovered their senses and returned to the faith. These have told how, about the first watch of the night, when gates, doors, and windows have been closed, the groups sit waiting in silence in their respective synagogues, and a black cat of marvelous size climbs down a rope which hangs in their midst. On seeing it, they put out the lights. They do not sign hymns or repeat them distinctly, but hum through clenched teeth and pantingly feel their way toward the place where they saw their lord. When they have found him they kiss him, each the more humbly as he is more inflamed with frenzy — some the feet, more under the tail, most the private parts. And, as if drawing license for lasciviousness from the place of foulness, each seizes the man or woman next to him and they commingle as long as each is able to prolong the wantonness.

– Walter Map, c. 1182, De nugis Curialium I.XXX, ed. M.R. James, via Wakefield and Evans, Heresies of the High Middles Ages

It’s a mixed bag, isn’t it, satanism? They lure you in with the hip dual-income-no-kids lifestyle, and the promise of occasional orgies, but before you know it they’ve got you kissing the cat’s arse every night.

I do hope this doesn’t get me a bunch of links from furries.

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