When ten years old he became a catechumen, and at fifteen he reluctantly entered the army.
In early manhood he entered the cloister as a catechumen, receiving baptism about 370.
The prostrations of the credens before the Perfect were in their manner and import identical with the prostrations of the catechumen before the exorcist.
He also begins the rite of baptism by blowing in the catechumen's face.
Just as at the third scrutiny the early catechumen passed a last examination in the Gospels, Creed and Lord's Prayer, so after their year of abstinence the credens receives creed and prayer; the allocution with which the elder "handed on" this prayer is preserved, and of it the Abbe Guiraud remarks that, if it were not in a Cathar ritual, one might believe it to be of Catholic origin.