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Possible definitions for oathay

Cathay
Former name for China, especially N China. The word is derived from Khitay, the name of a seminomadic people who dominated N China in the 10th-12th cent. By the time of Genghis Khan, the Mongols had begun referring to N China as Kitai (still the Russian word for China). The name may have been introduced to Europe by returning Franciscan friars c.1254, but it was M. Polo's Travels 50 years later that put Cathay's image before the European public.


Cathari
Heretical Christian sect that flourished in Western Europe in the 12th-13th cent. The Cathari adhered to the dualist belief that the material world is evil and that humans must renounce the world to free their spirits, which are good and long for communion with God. Jesus was seen as an angel whose human suffering and death were an illusion. Followers divided themselves into the "perfect," who had to maintain the highest moral standards, and ordinary "believers," of whom less was expected. By 1200 they had established 11 bishoprics in France and Italy. In an effort to stamp out their heresy, Pope Innocent III declared the Albigensian Crusade, in which the populace in Cathar regions was indiscriminately massacred. Persecution through the Inquisition, sanctioned by St. Louis IX, was even more effective, and when the Cathar stronghold of Monts\u00e9 gur fell in 1244, most Cathari fled to Italy. The movement disappeared in the 15th cent.


Nathan
Prophet at the courts of David and Solomon in ancient Israel. In II Samuel he rebuked David for taking Bathsheba from her husband. As punishment, David was not allowed to build the Temple at Jerusalem, since Nathan had a vision informing him that its construction must be postponed until Solomon succeeded to the throne. Nathan later anointed the new king.

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