and opinions of the Manichæan sect, and complained of the injustice which impressed that invidious name on the simple votaries of St. Paul and of Christ.

plicity of

Of the ecclesiastical chain, many links had been broken by the Paulician reformers; and their liberty was enlarged, as they The simreduced the number of masters at whose voice profane Pheir belief reason must bow to mystery and miracle. The early separa- and worship. tion of the Gnostics had preceded the establishment of the Catholic worship; and against the gradual innovations of discipline and doctrine they were as strongly guarded by habit and aversion as by the silence of St. Paul and the evangelists. The objects which had been transformed by the magic of superstition appeared to the eyes of the Paulicians in their genuine and naked colours. An image made without hands was the common workmanship of a mortal artist, to whose skill alone the wood and canvas must be indebted for their merit or value. The miraculous relics were an heap of bones and ashes, destitute of life or virtue, or of any relation, perhaps, with the person to whom they were ascribed. The true and vivifying cross was a piece of sound or rotten timber; the body and blood of Christ, a loaf of bread and a cup of wine, the gifts of nature and the symbols of grace. The mother of God was degraded from her celestial honours and immaculate virginity; and the saints and angels were no longer solicited to exercise the laborious office of mediation in heaven and ministry upon earth. In the practice, or at least in the theory, of the sacraments, the Paulicians were inclined to abolish all visible objects of worship, and the words of the Gospel were, in their judgment, the baptism and communion of the faithful. They indulged a convenient latitude for the interpretation of Scripture and as often as they were pressed by the literal sense, they could escape to the intricate mazes of figure and allegory. Their utmost diligence must have been employed to dissolve the connection between the Old and the New Testament; since they adored the latter as the oracles of God, and abhorred the former as the fabulous and absurd invention of men or dæmons. We cannot be surprised that they should have found in the Gospel the orthodox mystery of the Trinity: but instead of confessing the human nature and substantial sufferings of Christ, they amused their fancy with a celestial body that passed through the virgin like water through a pipe; with a fantastic crucifixion, that eluded the vain and impotent malice of the Jews. A creed thus simple and spiritual was not adapted to the genius of the times; and the rational Christian, who might chans.

They hold principles of the Magians

the two

and Mani

7 The six capital errors of the Paulicians are defined by Peter Siculus (p. 756) with much prejudice and passion.

VOL. VII.

E

have been contented with the light yoke and easy burden of Jesus and his apostles, was justly offended that the Paulicians should dare to violate the unity of God, the first article of natural and revealed religion. Their belief and their trust was in the Father, of Christ, of the human soul, and of the invisible world. But they likewise held the eternity of matter; a stubborn and rebellious substance, the origin of a second principle, of an active being, who has created this visible world, and exercises his temporal reign till the final consummation of death and sin. The appearances of moral and physical evil had established the two principles in the ancient philosophy and religion of the East, from whence this doctrine was transfused to the various swarms of the Gnostics. A thousand shades may be devised in the nature and character of Ahriman, from a rival god to a subordinate dæmon, from passion and frailty to pure and perfect malevolence but, in spite of our efforts, the goodness and the power of Ormusd are placed at the opposite extremities of the line; and every step that approaches the one must recede in equal proportion from the other."

The apostolic labours of Constantine-Sylvanus soon multiplied the

The establishment

of the Paulicians in Armenia,

Pontus, &c.

number of his disciples, the secret recompence of spiritual ambition. The remnant of the Gnostic sects, and especially the Manichæans of Armenia, were united under his standard; many Catholics were converted or seduced by his arguments; and he preached with success in the regions of Pontus 10 and Cappadocia, which had long since imbibed the religion of Zoroaster. The Paulician teachers were distinguished only by their Scriptural names, by the modest title of Fellow-pilgrims, by the austerity of their lives, their zeal or knowledge, and the credit of some extraordinary gifts of the Holy Spirit. But they were incapable of desiring, or at least of obtaining, the wealth and honours of the Catholic prelacy: such antiChristian pride they bitterly censured: and even the rank of elders or presbyters was condemned as an institution of the Jewish synagogue. The new sect was loosely spread over the provinces of Asia Minor to the westward of the Euphrates; six of their principal congregations

Primum illorum axioma est, duo rerum esse principia; Deum malum et Deum bonum, aliumque hujus mundi conditorem et principem, et alium futuri ævi (Petr. Sicul. p. 756).

Two learned critics, Beausobre (Hist. Critique du Manichéisme, 1. i. iv. v. vi.) and Mosheim (Institut. Hist. Eccles. and de Rebus Christianis ante Constantinum, sec. i. ii. iii.), have laboured to explore and discriminate the various systems of the Gnostics on the subject of the two principles.

10 The countries between the Euphrates and the Halys were possessed above 350 years by the Medes (Herodot. 1. i. c. 103) and Persians; and the kings of Pontus were of the royal race of the Achæmenides (Sallust. Fragment. 1. iii. with the French supplement and notes of the President de Brosses).

Persecution

represented the churches to which St. Paul had addressed his epistles; and their founder chose his residence in the neighbourhood of Colonia," in the same district of Pontus which had been celebrated by the altars of Bellona 12 and the miracles of Gregory.13 After a mission of twenty-seven years, Sylvanus, who had retired from the tolerating government of the Arabs, fell a sacrifice to Roman of the Greek persecution. The laws of the pious emperors, which seldom emperors. touched the lives of less odious heretics, proscribed without mercy or disguise the tenets, the books, and the persons of the Montanists and Manichæans: the books were delivered to the flames; and all who should presume to secrete such writings, or to profess such opinions, were devoted to an ignominious death.14 A Greek minister, armed with legal and military powers, appeared at Colonia to strike the shepherd, and to reclaim, if possible, the lost sheep. By a refinement of cruelty, Simeon placed the unfortunate Sylvanus before a line of his disciples, who were commanded, as the price of their pardon and the proof of their repentance, to massacre their spiritual father. They turned aside from the impious office; the stones dropped from their filial hands; and of the whole number only one executioner could be found, a new David, as he is styled by the Catholics, who boldly overthrew the giant of heresy. This apostate, Justus was his name, again deceived and betrayed his unsuspecting brethren, and a new conformity to the acts of St. Paul may be found in the conversion of Simeon like the apostle, he embraced the doctrine which he had been sent to persecute, renounced his honours and fortunes, and acquired among the Paulicians the fame of a missionary and a martyr. They were not ambitious of martyrdom, but in a calamitous period

"Most probably founded by Pompey after the conquest of Pontus. This Colonia, on the Lycus above Neo-Cæsarea, is named by the Turks Coulei-hisar, or Chonac, a populous town in a strong country (D'Anville, Géographie Ancienne, tom. ii. p. 34; Tournefort, Voyage du Levant, tom. iii. lettre xxi. p. 293).

12 The temple of Bellona, at Comana in Pontus, was a powerful and wealthy foundation, and the high priest was respected as the second person in the kingdom. As the sacerdotal office had been occupied by his mother's family, Strabo (1. xii. p. 809, 835, 836, 837 [p. 535, 557, sqq., ed. Casaub.]) dwells with peculiar complacency_on the temple, the worship, and festival, which was twice celebrated every year. But the Bellona of Pontus had the features and character of the goddess, not of war, but of love.

13 Gregory, bishop of Neo-Cæsarea (A.D. 240-265), surnamed Thaumaturgus, or the Wonder-worker. An hundred years afterwards, the history or romance of his life was composed by Gregory of Nyssa, his namesake and countryman, the brother of the great St. Basil.

14 Hoc cæterum ad sua egregia facinora, divini atque orthodoxi Imperatores addiderunt, ut Manichæos Montanosque capitali puniri sententiâ juberent, eorumque libros, quocunque in loco inventi essent, flammis tradi; quod siquis uspiam eosdem occultasse deprehenderetur, hunc eundem mortis pœnæ addici, ejusque bona in fiscum inferri (Petr. Sicul. p. 759). What more could bigotry and persecution desire?

15 It should seem that the Paulicians allowed themselves some latitude of equivocation and mental reservation, till the Catholics discovered the pressing questions which reduced them to the alternative of apostacy or martyrdom (Petr. Sicul. p. 760).

:

of one hundred and fifty years their patience sustained whatever zeal could inflict; and power was insufficient to eradicate the obstinate vegetation of fanaticism and reason. From the blood and ashes of the first victims a succession of teachers and congregations repeatedly arose amidst their foreign hostilities they found leisure for domestic quarrels they preached, they disputed, they suffered; and the virtues, the apparent virtues, of Sergius, in a pilgrimage of thirty-three years, are reluctantly confessed by the orthodox historians. The native cruelty of Justinian the Second was stimulated by a pious cause; and he vainly hoped to extinguish, in a single conflagration, the name and memory of the Paulicians. By their primitive simplicity, their abhorrence of popular superstition, the Iconoclast princes might have been reconciled to some erroneous doctrines; but they themselves were exposed to the calumnies of the monks, and they chose to be the tyrants, lest they should be accused as the accomplices, of the Manichæans. Such a reproach has sullied the clemency of Nicephorus, who relaxed in their favour the severity of the penal statutes, nor will his character sustain the honour of a more liberal motive. The feeble Michael the First, the rigid Leo the Armenian, were foremost in the race of persecution; but the prize must doubtless be adjudged to the sanguinary devotion of Theodora, who restored the images to the Oriental church. Her inquisitors explored the cities and mountains of the lesser Asia, and the flatterers of the empress have affirmed that, in a short reign, one hundred thousand Paulicians were extirpated by the sword, the gibbet, or the flames. Her guilt or merit has perhaps been stretched beyond the measure of truth: but if the account be allowed, it must be presumed that many simple Iconoclasts were punished under a more odious name; and that some who were driven from the church, unwillingly took refuge in the bosom of heresy.

Revolt of the
Paulicians,

A.D. 845-880.

The most furious and desperate of rebels are the sectaries of a religion long persecuted, and at length provoked. In an holy cause they are no longer susceptible of fear or remorse : the justice of their arms hardens them against the feelings of humanity; and they revenge their fathers' wrongs on the children of their tyrants. Such have been the Iussites of Bohemia and the Calvinists of France, and such, in the ninth century, were the Paulicians of Armenia and the adjacent provinces. They were first

17

16 The persecution is told by Petrus Siculus (p. 579-763) with satisfaction and pleasantry. Justus justa persolvit. Simeon was not rires but xnres (the pronunciation of the two vowels must have been nearly the same), a great whale that drowned the mariners who mistook him for an island. See likewise Cedrenus (p. 432-435 [tom. i. p. 756-761, ed. Bonn]).

17 Petrus Siculus (p. 763, 764), the continuator of Theophanes (1. iv. c. 4 [c. 16],

awakened to the massacre of a governor and bishop, who exercised the Imperial mandate of converting or destroying the heretics; and the deepest recesses of Mount Argæus protected their independence and revenge. A more dangerous and consuming flame was kindled by the persecution of Theodora, and the revolt of Carbeas, a valiant Paulician, who commanded the guards of the general of the East. His father had been impaled by the Catholic inquisitors; and religion, or at least nature, might justify his desertion and revenge. Five thousand of his brethren were united by the same motives; they renounced the allegiance of anti-Christian Rome; a Saracen emir introduced Carbeas to the caliph; and the commander of the faithful extended his sceptre to the implacable enemy of the Greeks. They fortify In the mountains between Siwas and Trebizond he founded Tephrice, or fortified the city of Tephrice,18 which is still occupied by a fierce and licentious people, and the neighbouring hills were covered with the Paulician fugitives, who now reconciled the use of the Bible and the sword. During more than thirty years Asia was afflicted by the calamities of foreign and domestic war: in their hostile inroads the disciples of St. Paul were joined with those of Mahomet; and the peaceful Christians, the aged parent and tender virgin, who were delivered into barbarous servitude, might justly accuse the intolerant spirit of their sovereign. So urgent was the mischief, so intolerable the shame, that even the dissolute Michael, the son of Theodora, was compelled to march in person against the Paulicians: he was defeated under the walls of Samosata; and the Roman emperor fled before the heretics whom his mother had condemned to the flames. The Saracens fought under the same banners, but the victory was ascribed to Carbeas; and the captive generals, with more than an hundred tribunes, were either released by his avarice or tortured by his fanaticism. The valour and ambition of Chrysocheir, his successor, embraced a wider circle of rapine and revenge. In alliance with his faithful Moslems, he boldly penetrated into the heart of Asia; the troops of the frontier and the palace were repeatedly overthrown ; the edicts of persecution were answered by the pillage of and pillage Nice and Nicomedia, of Ancyra and Ephesus; nor could Asia Minor.

p. 103, 104 [p. 165-167, ed. Bonn]), Cedrenus (p. 541, 542, 545 [tom. ii. P. 153 sqq.]), and Zonaras (tom. ii. 1. xvi. [c. 2] p. 156), describe the revolt and exploits of Carbeas and his Paulicians.

18 Otter (Voyage en Turquie et en Perse, tom. ii.) is probably the only Frank who has visited the independent barbarians of Tephrice, now Divrigni, from whom he fortunately escaped in the train of a Turkish officer.

19 In the history of Chrysocheir, Genesius (Chron. p. 67-70, edit. Venet.) has exposed the nakedness of the empire. Constantine Porphyrogenitus (in Vit. Basil. c. 3743, p. 166-171 [p. 266-276, ed. Bonn]) has displayed the glory of his grandfather. Cedrenus (p. 570-573 [tom. ii. p. 209-212, ed. Bonn]) is without their passions or their knowledge.