PASSAGINI (PASAGINI). - Heretics, also called Pas(s)agi, known especially in Lombardy in the second half of the 12th century, condemned in the constitution Ad abolendam of Lucius III and by Frederick I Barbarossa (Verona 1184); mentioned in the imperial edicts of the years 1238-39 and in subsequent papal documents.
They are combated as a well-known sect in a section added to the Manifestatio haeresis catharorum of Buonaccorso (v.) and above all in a Summa contra catharos et passagi(n)os by an uncertain author, much transcribed in the 13th century; they are mentioned in a Compilatio auctoritatum or Summa breviata (ed. C. Douais).
Their characteristic is the return to the religiosity of the Old Testament. They interpret monotheism in an anti-Trinitarian sense: Jesus Christ, an adoptive son, is the first creature of God, the sole principle and sole divine person; even the Holy Spirit does not have a divine nature. They adopt as the exclusive means of salvation the Mosaic prescriptions, particularly those concerning circumcision, which they oppose to Baptism, the observance of the Sabbath in place of Sunday, the prohibition against eating blood and the flesh of strangled animals and of what has been offered to idols (cf. Acts 15:20-20); they exclude, however, specifically, the resumption of the ancient sacrifices; they eliminate the Eucharist with everything they regard as purely ecclesiastical institution, such as the Baptism of children,
Confirmation, etc. God has revealed himself only through the Old and the New Testament. Hence a particular veneration for the ancient Patriarchs and righteous men was natural among them: they ascended directly into heaven, without a stay in limbo until the liberating descent of Jesus Christ. As for the other deceased, the p. hold that they, good or bad, await the final Judgment which will destine them to paradise or to hell; there is therefore no purgatory and prayers for the dead are useless; they consider idolatry the cult of images and the veneration of the Cross. On other points they coincide with other heretics: the aversion to the Church and its representatives; clerics may neither possess nor wear precious garments; prelates and preachers must eat common foods and the faithful have critical freedom regarding their conduct. They even contest the powers of secular authority, denying to it, for example, the ius gladii; they condemn oaths.
The sources leave various points obscure in the doctrinal and organizational complex of the p. Their distinction from the circumcised (v.) is quite probable; they are not true Jews, since they admit the New Testament and the work of Jesus Christ, although unspecified, and they seem to leave a task of preaching and direction to the Catholic hierarchy. Some would derive their name from the practice of preaching or itinerant propaganda, which was however shared by all heretical sects. It is not necessary to seek the Mosaism of these Christians in contacts with the Palestinian world, brought about by pilgrimage (passagium, whence the name of p.) or by the crusade in the Holy Land, since Jewish proselytism was always alive in medieval Europe.
Bibliography5 works
Ilarino da Milano