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. 21 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 Theodosiopolis, a great number of Paulicians, his kindred heretics. As a favor, or punishment, he transplanted them from the banks of the Euphrates to Constantinople and Thrace; and by this emigration their doctrine was introduced and diffused 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." In the tenth century, they were restored and multiplied by a more powerful colony, which John Zimisces 23 transported from the 20 Συναπεμαράνθη πᾶσα ἡ ἀνθοῦσα τῆς Τεφρικῆς εὐανδρία. How ele gant is the Greek tongue, even in the mouth of Cedrenus! 21 Copronymus transported his σvyyeveis, heretics; and thus inλaτύνθη ἡ αἵρεσις τῶν Παυλικιανῶν, says Cedrenus, (p. 463,) who has copied the annals of Theophanes. 22 Petrus Siculus, who resided nine months at Tephrice (A. D. 870) For the ransom of captives, (p. 764,) was informed of their intendea 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 Zo 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 valor: their attachment to the Saracens was pregnant with mischief; but, on the side of the Danube, against the Barbarians of Scythia, their ser vice might be useful, and their loss would be desirable. Their exile in a distant land was softened by a free toleration: the l'aulicians 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 Bulga rians 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, and retired to their native homes. He dissembled till 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 winter quarters 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 honors and rewards which he bestowed on the most eminent proselytes; and a new city, surrounded with gardens, enriched with im munities, and dignified with his own name, was founded by 24 naras (ton. ii 1. xvii. p. 209) and Anna Comnena, (Alexiad, 1. xiv. p 150 &c.) 24 The Alexiad of Anna Comnena (1. v. p. 131, 1. vi. p. 154, 155, 1 ziv. p. 450-457, with the Annotations of Ducange) records the ransactions of her apostolic father with the Manichæans, whose abominable heresy she was desirous of refuting. Alexius for the residence of his vulgar converts. The inportant station of Philippopolis was wrested from their hands the contumacious leaders were secured in a dungeon, or ban ished 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." But the proud hope of eradi cating 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.20 From that æra, a minute scrutiny night 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 In the West, the first teachers of the Manichæan theology had been repulsed by the people, or suppressed by the prince. The favor and success of the Paulicians in the eleventh and twelfth centuries must be imputed to the strong, though 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 1 Basil, a monk, and the author of the Bogomiles, a sect of Gnos ics, who soon vanished, (Anna Comnena, Alexiad, 1. xv. p. 486-494 Mosheim, Hist. Ecclesiastica, p. 420.) 26 1 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. 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 reads 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 Philippopo is; 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. 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," 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 28 25 The introduction of the Paulicians into Italy and France is amply discussed by Muratori (Antiquitat. Italiæ Medii Ævi, tom. v. dissert. lx. . 81-152) and Mosheim, (p. 379-382, 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. 1010, (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. 29 Bulgari, Boulgres, Bougres, a national appellation, has been ap plied 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 Evi.) The Manicheans were likewise named Cathari, or the pure, by corruption Gazari, &c. various sects were discriminated by some fainter or darker hades of theology; but they generally agreed in the two principles, the contempt of the Old Testament and the denial of the body of Christ, either on the cross or in the eucharist. A confession of simple worship and blameless manners is ex orted from their enemies; and so high was their standard of perfection, that the increasing congregations were divided nto two classes of disciples, of those who practised, and of those who aspired. It was in the country of the Albigeois," in the southern provinces of France, that the Paulicians were most deeply implanted; and the same vicissitudes of martyrdom and revenge which had been displayed in the neighborhood of the Euphrates, were repeated in the thirteenth century on the banks of the Rhone. 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; si 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 kindied still lived and breathed in the Western world. In the state, in the church, and even in the eloister, a latent succession was preserved of the disciples of St. Paul; who protested against the tyranny of Rome, er. braced the Bible as the rule of faith, and purified their cree 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 amongst these Fleury is the most impartial and moderate. 31 The Acts (Liber Sententiarum) of the Inquisition of Tholouse (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 calunni ate 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. |