the apostle St. John protect from violation his city and sepulchre. The cathedral of Ephesus was turned into a stable for mules and horses; and the Paulicians vied with the Saracens in their contempt and abhorrence of images and relics. It is not unpleasing to observe the triumph of rebellion over the same despotism which has disdained the prayers of an injured people. The emperor Basil, the Macedonian, was reduced to sue for peace, to offer a ransom for the captives, and to request, in the language of moderation and charity, that Chrysocheir would spare his fellow-Christians, and content himself with a royal donative of gold and silver and silk garments. "If the "emperor," replied the insolent fanatic, "be desirous of peace, let "him abdicate the East, and reign without molestation in the West. "If he refuse, the servants of the Lord will precipitate him from the "throne." The reluctant Basil suspended the treaty, accepted the defiance, and led his army into the land of heresy, which he wasted with fire and sword. The open country of the Paulicians was exposed to the same calamities which they had inflicted; but when he had explored the strength of Tephrice, the multitude of the barbarians, and the ample magazines of arms and provisions, he desisted with a sigh from the hopeless siege. On his return to Constantinople he laboured, by the foundation of convents and churches, to secure the aid of his celestial patrons, of Michael the archangel and the prophet Elijah; and it was his daily prayer that he might live to transpierce, with three arrows, the head of his impious adversary. Beyond his expectations, the wish was accomplished: after a successful inroad Chrysocheir was surprised and slain in his retreat; and the rebel's head was triumphantly presented at the foot of the throne. On the reception of this welcome trophy, Basil instantly called for his bow, discharged three arrows with unerring aim, and accepted the applause of the court, who hailed the victory of the royal archer. With Chrysocheir, the glory of the Paulicians faded and withered: 20 on the second expedition of the emperor, the impregnable Tephrice was deserted by the heretics, who sued for mercy or escaped to the borders. The city was ruined, but the spirit of independence survived in the mountains: the Paulicians defended, above a century, their religion and liberty, infested the Roman limits, and maintained their perpetual alliance with the enemies of the empire and the Gospel. Their decline. About the middle of the eighth century, Constantine, surnamed Copronymus by the worshippers of images, had made an expedition into Armenia, and found, in the cities of Melitene and Theodosio 20 Συναπεμαράνθη πᾶσα ἡ ἀνθοῦσα τῆς Τεφρικῆς εὐανδρία [p. 212]. How elegant is the Greek tongue, even in the mouth of Cedrenus! 21 tion from Thrace. polis, a great number of Paulicians, his kindred heretics. As a favour, or punishment, he transplanted them from the banks Their of the Euphrates to Constantinople and Thrace; and by transplantathis emigration their doctrine was introduced and diffused Armenia to in Europe. If the sectaries of the metropolis were soon mingled with the promiscuous mass, those of the country struck a deep root in a foreign soil. The Paulicians of Thrace resisted the storms of persecution, maintained a secret correspondence with their Armenian brethren, and gave aid and comfort to their preachers, who solicited, not without success, the infant faith of the Bulgarians.22 In the tenth century they were restored and multiplied by a more powerful colony which John Zimisces 23 transported from the Chalybian hills to the valleys of Mount Hamus. The Oriental clergy, who would have preferred the destruction, impatiently sighed for the absence, of the Manichæans: the warlike emperor had felt and esteemed their valour: their attachment to the Saracens was pregnant with mischief; but, on the side of the Danube, against the barbarians of Scythia, their service might be useful, and their loss would be desirable. Their exile in a distant land was softened by a free toleration the Paulicians held the city of Philippopolis and the keys of Thrace; the Catholics were their subjects; the Jacobite emigrants their associates: they occupied a line of villages and castles in Macedonia and Epirus; and many native Bulgarians were associated to the communion of arms and heresy. As long as they were awed by power and treated with moderation, their voluntary bands were distinguished in the armies of the empire; and the courage of these dogs, ever greedy of war, ever thirsty of human blood, is noticed with astonishment, and almost with reproach, by the pusillanimous Greeks. The same spirit rendered them arrogant and contumacious: they were easily provoked by caprice or injury; and their privileges were often violated by the faithless bigotry of the government and clergy. In the midst of the Norman war, two thousand five hundred Manichæans deserted the standard of Alexius Comnenus,24 and retired to their native homes. He dissembled till 21 Copronymus transported his συγγενείς, heretics; and thus πλατύνθη ἡ αἵρεσις Haixiavy, says Cedrenus (p. 463 [tom. ii. p. 10, ed. Bonn]), who has copied the annals of Theophanes. 2 Petrus Siculus, who resided nine months at Tephrice (A.D. 870) for the ransom of captives (p. 764), was informed of their intended mission, and addressed his preservative, the Historia Manichæorum, to the new archbishop of the Bulgarians (p. 754). The colony of Paulicians and Jacobites transplanted by John Zimisces (A.D. 970) from Armenia to Thrace is mentioned by Zonaras (tom. ii. 1. xvii. [c. 1] p. 209) and Anna Comnena (Alexiad, 1. xiv. p. 450, &c. [ed. Par. 1651]). 24 The Alexiad of Anna Comnena (1. v. p. 131 [t. i. p. 232, ed. Bonn], 1. vi. p. 154, 155 [p. 272 sq., ed. Bonn], 1. xiv. p. 450-457 [ed. Par. 1651], with the Annotations of the moment of revenge; invited the chiefs to a friendly conference; and punished the innocent and guilty by imprisonment, confiscation, and baptism. In an interval of peace the emperor undertook the pious office of reconciling them to the church and state: his winterquarters were fixed at Philippopolis; and the thirteenth apostle, as he is styled by his pious daughter, consumed whole days and nights in theological controversy. His arguments were fortified, their obstinacy was melted, by the honours and rewards which he bestowed on the most eminent proselytes; and a new city, surrounded with gardens, enriched with immunities, and dignified with his own name, was founded by Alexius, for the residence of his vulgar converts. The important station of Philippopolis was wrested from their hands; the contumacious leaders were secured in a dungeon, or banished from their country; and their lives were spared by the prudence, rather than the mercy, of an emperor, at whose command a poor and solitary heretic was burnt alive before the church of St. Sophia.25 But the proud hope of eradicating the prejudices of a nation was speedily overturned by the invincible zeal of the Paulicians, who ceased to dissemble or refused to obey. After the departure and death of Alexius they soon resumed their civil and religious laws. In the beginning of the thirteenth century their pope or primate (a manifest corruption) resided on the confines of Bulgaria, Croatia, and Dalmatia, and governed by his vicars the filial congregations of Italy and France. 26 From that æra a minute scrutiny might prolong and perpetuate the chain of tradition. At the end of the last age the sect or colony still inhabited the valleys of Mount Hamus, where their ignorance and poverty were more frequently tormented by the Greek clergy than by the Turkish government. The modern Paulicians have lost all memory of their origin; and their religion is disgraced by the worship of the cross, and the practice of bloody sacrifice, which some captives have imported from the wilds of Tartary.27 Their intro In the West the first teachers of the Manichæan theology had been repulsed by the people or suppressed by the prince. duction into The favour and success of the Paulicians in the eleventh and twelfth centuries must be imputed to the strong, though Italy and France, Ducange) records the transactions of her apostolic father with the Manichæans, whose abominable heresy she was desirous of refuting. 25 Basil, a monk, and the author of the Bogomiles, a sect of Gnostics who soon vanished (Anna Comnena, Alexiad, 1. xv. p. 486-494 [ed. Par.]; Mosheim, Hist. Ecclesiastica, p. 420). 26 Matt. Paris, Hist. Major, p. 267. This passage of our English historian is alleged by Ducange in an excellent note on Villehardouin (No. 208), who found the Paulicians at Philippopolis the friends of the Bulgarians. See Marsigli, Stato Militare dell' Imperio Ottomano, p. 24. secret, discontent which armed the most pious Christians against the church of Rome. Her avarice was oppressive, her despotism odious: less degenerate perhaps than the Greeks in the worship of saints and images, her innovations were more rapid and scandalous: she had rigorously defined and imposed the doctrine of transubstantiation : the lives of the Latin clergy were more corrupt, and the Eastern bishops might pass for the successors of the apostles if they were compared with the lordly prelates who wielded by turns the crosier, the sceptre, and the sword. Three different roads might introduce the Paulicians into the heart of Europe. After the conversion of Hungary the pilgrims who visited Jerusalem might safely follow the course of the Danube: in their journey and return they passed through Philippopolis; and the sectaries, disguising their name and heresy, might accompany the French or German caravans to their respective countries. The trade and dominion of Venice pervaded the coast of the Adriatic, and the hospitable republic opened her bosom to foreigners of every climate and religion. Under the Byzantine standard the Paulicians were often transported to the Greek provinces of Italy and Sicily: in peace and war they freely conversed with strangers and natives, and their opinions were silently propagated in Rome, Milan, and the kingdoms beyond the Alps.28 It was soon discovered that many thousand Catholics of every rank, and of either sex, had embraced the Manichæan heresy; and the flames which consumed twelve canons of Orleans was the first act and signal of persecution. The Bulgarians,29 a name so innocent in its origin, so odious in its application, spread their branches over the face of Europe. United in common hatred of idolatry and Rome, they were connected by a form of episcopal and presbyterian government; their various sects were discriminated by some fainter or darker shades of theology; but they generally agreed in the two principles-the contempt of the Old Testament, and the denial of the body of Christ The introduction of the Paulicians into Italy and France is amply discussed by Muratori (Antiquitat. Italiæ medii Ævi, tom. v. dissert. lx. p. 81-152) and Mosheim (p. 279-382, 419-422). Yet both have overlooked a curious passage of William the Apulian, who clearly describes them in a battle between the Greeks and Normans, A.D. 1040 (in Muratori, Script. Rerum Ital. tom. v. p. 256): Cum Græcis aderant quidam, quos pessimus error But he is so ignorant of their doctrine as to make them a kind of Sabellians or Patripassians. Bulgari, Boulgres, Bougres, a national appellation, has been applied by the French as a term of reproach to usurers and unnatural sinners. The Paterini, or Patelini, has been made to signify a smooth and flattering hypocrite, such as l'Avocat Patelin of that original and pleasant farce (Ducange, Gloss. Latinitat, medii et infimi Ævi). The Manichæans were likewise named Cathari, or the pure, by corruption, Gazari, &c. Persecution of the Albigeois, either on the cross or in the Eucharist. A confession of simple worship and blameless manners is extorted from their enemies; and so high was their standard of perfection, that the increasing congregations were divided into two classes of disciples, of those who practised and of those who aspired. It was in the country of the Albigeois, 30 in the southern provinces of France, that the PauliA.D. 1200, &c. cians were most deeply implanted; and the same vicissitudes of martyrdom and revenge which had been displayed in the neighbourhood of the Euphrates were repeated in the thirteenth century on the banks of the Rhône. The laws of the Eastern emperors were revived by Frederic the Second. The insurgents of Tephrice were represented by the barons and cities of Languedoc: Pope Innocent III. surpassed the sanguinary fame of Theodora. It was in cruelty alone that her soldiers could equal the heroes of the Crusades, and the cruelty of her priests was far excelled by the founders of the Inquisition an office more adapted to confirm than to refute the belief of an evil principle. The visible assemblies of the Paulicians, or Albigeois, were extirpated by fire and sword; and the bleeding remnant escaped by flight, concealment, or Catholic conformity. But the invincible spirit which they had kindled still lived and breathed in the Western world. In the state, in the church, and even in the cloister, a latent succession was preserved of the disciples of St. Paul, who protested against the tyranny of Rome, embraced the Bible as the rule of faith, and purified their creed from all the visions of the Gnostic theology. The struggles of Wickliff in England, of Huss 31 30 Of the laws, crusade, and persecution against the Albigeois, a just, though general, idea is expressed by Mosheim (p. 477-481). The detail may be found in the ecclesiastical historians, ancient and modern, Catholics and Protestants; and among these Fleury is the most impartial and moderate. 31 The Acts (Liber Sententiarum) of the Inquisition of Toulouse (A.D. 1307-1323) have been published by Limborch (Amstelodami, 1692), with a previous History of the Inquisition in general. They deserved a more learned and critical editor. As we must not calumniate even Satan, or the Holy Office, I will observe that, of a list of criminals which fills nineteen folio pages, only fifteen men and four women were delivered to the secular arm." • Dr. Maitland, in his 'Facts and Documents relating to the ancient Albigenses and Waldenses,' remarks (p. 217, note) that Gibbon ought to have said thirty-two men and eight women. He imagines that Gibbon was misled by the fact that the index-maker most commonly (but by no means always) states the nature of the sentence passed on each person. From the book, however, it appears that forty persons were delivered to the secular arm, viz. twenty-nine Albigenses, seven Waldenses, and four Beguins.-S. The popularity of Milner's History of the Church' with some readers may make it proper to observe that his attempt to exculpate the Paulicians from the charge of Gnosticism or Manicheism is in direct defiance, if not in ignorance, of all the original authorities. Gibbon himself, it appears, was not acquainted with the work of Photius, Contra Manicheos Repullulantes,' the first book of which was edited by Montfaucon, Bibliotheca Coisliniana, pars ii. p. 349, 375, the whole by Wolf, in his Anecdota Græca. Ham |