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660 - Paulician

These heretics were a Manichoean sect of Asiatic origin, and first appeared in the western part of Armenia in the seventh century. At that period the primitive Manichaeanism of Africa, directly derived from the teaching of Mani, (and which at no time possessed continuous communication with the East,) had been for more than a century crushed or dispersed by Roman persecution ; and the sources of Paulicianism must be sought therefore in the body of Manichaean influence and belief, which, after the execution of Mani, found a refuge from proscription within the eastern frontier of the Roman Empire.

There, for more than three centuries, the heresy learned to modify its language and institutions in accordance with the requirement of an orthodox but unsettled country ; and when it appears in the seventh century under the name of Paulicianism, it is found to bear evident traces of this modification. Thus wo find the Paulicians, while retaining the characteristic errors of Manichoan dualism, both renounced the dangerous dogma of the apostleship of Mani and explained or rejected the more odious portions of his teaching, and it is thus that the Paulician heresy may be said to represent a reformed or schismatic development of Manichseism.

The precise origin and date of the title "Paulician" is wrapt in some obscurity, but, at any rate, the name is not older than the seventh century and the reign of Constans II. Its origin is attributed to one Paul, the son of a Manichaean woman named Callinice, who with his brother John is said to have preached the reformed heresy in the country lying near the sources of the Euphrates. This story however rests on no solid foundation, and is probably a Western invention. Even if such a person as this Paul did exist, his fame was eclipsed by the more fruitful labors of Constantine, who must be looked upon as the real founder of the Paulician sect. For seven-and-twenty years (that is, from about the year 660 to 687 AD) this Constantine, or Sylvanus, as he was afterwards called, labored to erect the Paulician church. Starting from Mananalis, near Samosata, he preached throughout Armenia and Pontus, and the success of his missionary enterprise was so great that it at length provoked the interference of Constantinople.

An imperial commissioner, by name Simeon, was despatched by Constantine Pogonatus, the fourth of the Heraclian emperors, to Colonia, the scene of this preacher's latest success ; but the conduct of the Paulicians so favourably affected him that he exchanged the role of persecutor, first for that of convert, subsequently for that of martyr. An apostate (Justus) betrayed his former brethren,and enabled the Byzantine government everywhere to detect and punish the heresy. Though marked with the usual circumstances of cruelty on the part of the imperial authorities, and of devotedness on the part of the heretics, the persecution was wholly ineffectual, and in the reign of the emperor's successor another Paul revived and extended the heresy in Cappadocia.

Whatever was the precise origin of the Paulician name, it is certain that these heretics claimed the special protection or a monopoly of the pure doctrine of the Apostle of the Gentiles ; but notwithstanding this claim, and notwithstanding the invariable assumption by their leaders of names which (like Sylvanus, Tychicus, Titus, and Timothy) are peculiarly connected with the ministry of St. Paul, the tenets of the Paulicians were distinctively Manichaean and by no means Pauline. They however emphatically repudiated the apostleship of Mani, but, except that they rejected his individual inspiration, they differed as to no material dogma from the old Manichoans. They taught the essential evil of matter, the eternal hostility of the two principles; they denied the inspiration of the Old Testament and the Deity of the Jehovah ; they despised the Cross, and, holding the Valentinian doctrine that the spiritual Christ passed the body of the Virgin like water through a pipe, were naturally accused of insulting her memory ; they taught a purely illusory baptism, and hail no Eucharist at all; they excluded their ministers or scribes (who bore the humble title of fellow-voyagers) from all government in their community; above all, they were iconoclasts, and placed the Scriptures in the hands of the laity.

The greater part of these errors were, it will be seen, shared by the early disciples of Mani. The abandonment of the Eucharist, of which the older sectaries retained but a meaningless profanation, is but the natural development of the leading tenets of dualism, and the subordination of the clergy is only a matter of discipline. An apparently graver difference exists in the fact that the Paulicians blended the two orders of virtue, the "perfect" and the catechumen; but this was a modification natural enough in a comparatively barbarous community, nor is it other than a reasonable development of that equality between the lay and clerical perfect which was a fundamental principle, or, at least, an invariable usage of ancient Manichoism. These changes had moreover the specific advantage of giving to the Paulicians a more consistent and rational creed, and a more united and enthusiastic communion. They were enabled, too, in this way, to combine the discordant elements of democracy and sacerdotalism, for each Paulician respected in himself the sacredness of an individual "perfect." But few differences existed in the two canons : the Paulicians certainly, the Manichaeans possibly, excluded the Petrine Epistles, and the former, while including the Acts of the Apostles and the epistle of the Paulician Sergius, rejected the works of Mani, which indeed had probably early disappeared, or at least were not easily accessible in Armenia. Finally, by substituting for the crudo method of denial of the authenticity of adverse scripture the more convenient system of metaphorical explanation, they avoided the charge, if not the punishment, of sacrilege.

From the close of the seventh century to the middle of the ninth the Paulicians suffered continuous and unremitting persecution. If we except, as a measure of kindness, the transportation in the eighth century by the Emperor Copronymus of a small colony from Asia to Thrace, and perhaps one short time of truce in the reign of Nicephorus Logothota, the treatment which the Asian Paulicians, from the time of their first appearance, received from the emperors fully justifies their subsequent revolt. Even heretical emperors were unahle to afford them much protection, for as iconoclasts they were too unpopular to venture on the open toleration of an odious heresy, and the orthodox princes had no temptation to be lenient. Constantine Pogonatus and Justinian II head the list of persecutors, while Leo the Armenian and the glutton Michael, who eclipsed their fame, were in turn cast into the shade by the Empress Theodora, who, while she restored the images to the Eastern Church, promised it the absolute extirpation of the Manichoan heretics. During her brief reign no less than 100,000 Paulicians perished by the imperial cruelty. The whole sect revolted. Led by Karbeas, himself an officer of the imperial army, whose father had been impaled by the imperial executioner, they established themselves at Tephrice, a fortress in the mountains of Trebizond, and there, in alliance with the Saracen emir, they preserved their independence, and harassed the dominions of the Emperor.

The imperial forces, led by Michael the drunkard, were quite unable to cope with the enthusiasts, and suffered at their hands a shameful defeat under the walls of Samosata. On the death of Karbeas, the place of leader was supplied by Chrysocheir, a heretic of equal ability and greater fierceness. Under his standard the Paulicians enjoyed the pillage of Nice, Nicomcdia, and Ancyra, and stabled their horses in the famous church of the Ephesians; but he at length fell in an obscure skirmish, and Basil the Macedonian reduced the impregnable Tephrice. From that time, though far from being exterminated, and always dangerous by their alliance with the Mahometan sultans, they never again seriously threatened the peace of the Empire. Throughout these troubles the Paulician colony of Copronymus had remained unmolested in its Thracian home.

By the close of the ninth century the Paulician preaching had perverted the faith of the Bulgarians, and caused alarm and sorrow to the provincial archbishop. In the next century (the tenth) they were reinforced by a largo and powerful colony, which John Zimisccs transported into Thracia from the mountains of Pontus. They soon obtained possession of Philippopolis; their courage made them favourites with the Bulgarians, on whom they conferred their heretical faith, and with whom they were confounded in their national appellation. Their valour made them respected by the Government, but their missionary zeal was terrible to the Church. The close of the tenth century is marked by the rise in Bulgaria of an obscure body of dissenting heretics, a circumstance strongly testifying to the robust condition of Panlician Manichaeism [Bogomiles]. The last persecution of the Paulicians, which was comparatively bloodless, was undertaken by Alexius Comnenus at the close of the eleventh century. He had more than once recognised the valour and punished the independence of his Bulgarian troops. He now adopted a characteristic scheme of conversion. Fixing his winter quarters near the Paulician capital, he superintended the erection of an orthodox rival in the city of Alexiopolis. Thence for many weeks the Emperor preached and argued against the dangers of heresy. Honors and emoluments were showered on the converts ; the obstinate suffered imprisonment and confiscation. The new city built expressly for those who yielded to the imperial persuasion was enriched with every privilege the Empire could bestow. Many converts were made, for the greedier and less zealous Pauliciane readily accepted the gold and the orthodoxy of the Emperor. Philippopolis, divided against itself, was wrested from their hands ; the leaders who were faithful to their error were imprisoned or exiled, and their property distributed among their less faithful brothers.

For once cruelty was absent from the councils of the imperial inquisitor, and the only heretic who suffered death was Basil, the deluded founder of the wretched Bogomiles. On the departure of Alexius from Bulgaria, an event soon followed by his death, most of the converted heretics recanted, and the old faith of Paulicianism recovered its former influence ; but its missionary zeal was on the wane, and with its loss of activity its distinctive character disappears. Before the thirteenth century it seems to have succeeded in establishing relations with the sects of Italy and France, the scene of the latest development of revived Manichoism. But from the close of the eleventh century Paulicianism as such ceases to be significant.

After the eleventh century the history of Paulicianism is involved in obscurity, and confused so much by the rise, development and destruction of the Albigensian movement that it is difficult to decide how much of later Manichoism can properly be called Paulician. At the end of the twelfth century Matthew Paris informs us that a Paulician pope or priniato named Bartholomew governed from some spot on the confines of Bulgaria affiliated societies in France and Italy. This probably is the error of an ill-informed person, although it is reasonably clear that community of creed and interest had at that date brought the Manichaeism both of East and West into commmunication.

After the destruction of the Albigensian heresy Western Manichaeism in its ineffectual life in Bosnia must have drawn much of its vitality from Paulician sources, but in the absorbing interest of the struggle between Christian and Mahometan the existence of these inhabitants of a barbarous district was almost forgotten. In the middle of the fifteenth century two native princes of Bosnia, are recorded as having supported the Manichoan heretics, and in the same century these Paulicians (if they may he so termed) tasted for the last time genuine orthodox persecution. This persecution, commenced by Stephen Thomas, King of Bosnia, in A.d. 1420, was earned on by Stephen Thomas, his successor, and was terminated about the year AD 1463 by the conquest of the country by the Ottoman Turks. From time to time various dignitaries, of whom the most renowned was the Cardinal Carvalho, have claimed the honour of having converted the Paulicians, and it is certain that they attracted the attention both of Nicolas V and Pius II. The latest missionary efforts directed towards them were due to Deodatus of Sophia, who attempted the conversion of some Manichasans on the borders of Bulgaria about the close of the seventeenth century. By the 19th Century few barbarous heretics still held dualistic opinions in the Danubian provinces, and these have also been classed with the Paulicians, but they were known to practise bloody sacrifices, and by their barbarism they would seem more akin to the Bogomiles than to the Paulicians. An accurate account of their religion and opinions was wholly wanting.