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 widely known sect in a section added to Buonaccorso’s Manifestatio haeresis catharorum (v.) and, above all, in a Summa contra catharos et passagi(n)os by an uncertain author, extensively copied in the 13th century; they are mentioned in a Compilatio auctoritatum or Summa breviata (ed. C. Douais).
Their characteristic is a return to the religiosity of the Old Testament. They interpret monotheism in an anti-Trinitarian sense: Jesus Christ, an adopted son, is God’s first creature, the sole principle and the sole divine person; the Holy Spirit, too, does not have a divine nature. They resume as the exclusive means of salvation the Mosaic prescriptions, particularly those concerning circumcision, which they set against Baptism; observance of the Sabbath instead of Sunday; the prohibition against eating blood and the flesh of strangled animals and anything that has been offered to idols (cf. Act. 15, 20–20); they expressly exclude, however, the restoration of the ancient sacrifices; they abolish the Eucharist along with everything they regard as of purely ecclesiastical institution, such as the baptism of infants,
Confirmation, etc. God manifested himself only through the Old and New Testaments. It was therefore natural among them to show particular veneration for the ancient Patriarchs and righteous men: they ascended directly into heaven, without remaining in limbo until the liberating descent of Jesus Christ. As for the other departed, the p. hold that, whether good or evil, they are awaiting the final Judgment, which will assign them to paradise or hell; hence purgatory does not exist, and prayers for the dead are useless; they regard as idolatry
the cult of images and veneration of the Cross. On other points they coincide with other heretics: hostility to the Church and its representatives; clerics may neither possess nor wear precious garments; prelates and preachers must eat ordinary food, and the faithful have critical freedom regarding their conduct. They even dispute the powers of secular authority, denying it, for example, the ius gladii; they condemn oaths.
The sources leave various points in the doctrinal and organizational complex of the p. obscure. circumcised (v.) is highly probable; they are not Jews in the strict sense, since they admit the New Testament and the work of Jesus Christ, although without specifying it, and seem to leave a task of preaching and direction to the Catholic hierarchy. Some would derive their name from the practice of itinerant preaching or propaganda, which was nevertheless shared by all heretical sects. It is not necessary to seek the Mosaic character 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 vigorous in the European Middle Ages.