“We are Forerunners. Guardians of all that exists. The roots of the Galaxy have grown deep under our careful tending. Where there is life, the wisdom of our countless generations has saturated the soil. Our strength is a luminous sun, towards which all intelligence blossoms… And the impervious shelter, beneath which it has prospered.”

The almost-solution

In the fourth chapter of his superb book, The Great Heresies, the Catholic apologist and debater Hillaire Belloc – of whom I have written very favourably in the past, and with very good reason – explored the Albigensian or Cathar Heresy against the...