Origin And Doctrine Of The Paulicians. Part II.

Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, Vol. 5, by Edward Gibbon, [1788], at sacred-texts.com

Chapter LIV: Origin And Doctrine Of The Paulicians. Part II.

About the middle of the eight 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.  ²¹ 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 Haemus. The Oriental clergy who would have preferred the destruction, impatiently sighed for the absence, of the Manichaeans: 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 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 Manichaeans deserted the standard of Alexius Comnenus,  ²⁴ 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 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 aera, 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 Haemus, 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 Manichaean 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 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 Manichaean 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, 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 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;  ³¹ 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.  *_0042 The struggles of Wickliff in England, of Huss in Bohemia, were premature and ineffectual; but the names of Zuinglius, Luther, and Calvin, are pronounced with gratitude as the deliverers of nations.

A philosopher, who calculates the degree of their merit and the value of their reformation, will prudently ask from what articles of faith, above or against our reason, they have enfranchised the Christians; for such enfranchisement is doubtless a benefit so far as it may be compatible with truth and piety. After a fair discussion, we shall rather be surprised by the timidity, than scandalized by the freedom, of our first reformers.  ³² With the Jews, they adopted the belief and defence of all the Hebrew Scriptures, with all their prodigies, from the garden of Eden to the visions of the prophet Daniel; and they were bound, like the Catholics, to justify against the Jews the abolition of a divine law. In the great mysteries of the Trinity and Incarnation the reformers were severely orthodox: they freely adopted the theology of the four, or the six first councils; and with the Athanasian creed, they pronounced the eternal damnation of all who did not believe the Catholic faith. Transubstantiation, the invisible change of the bread and wine into the body and blood of Christ, is a tenet that may defy the power of argument and pleasantry; but instead of consulting the evidence of their senses, of their sight, their feeling, and their taste, the first Protestants were entangled in their own scruples, and awed by the words of Jesus in the institution of the sacrament. Luther maintained a corporeal, and Calvin a real, presence of Christ in the eucharist; and the opinion of Zuinglius, that it is no more than a spiritual communion, a simple memorial, has slowly prevailed in the reformed churches.  ³³ But the loss of one mystery was amply compensated by the stupendous doctrines of original sin, redemption, faith, grace, and predestination, which have been strained from the epistles of St. Paul. These subtile questions had most assuredly been prepared by the fathers and schoolmen; but the final improvement and popular use may be attributed to the first reformers, who enforced them as the absolute and essential terms of salvation. Hitherto the weight of supernatural belief inclines against the Protestants; and many a sober Christian would rather admit that a wafer is God, than that God is a cruel and capricious tyrant.

Yet the services of Luther and his rivals are solid and important; and the philosopher must own his obligations to these fearless enthusiasts.  ³⁴ I. By their hands the lofty fabric of superstition, from the abuse of indulgences to the intercesson of the Virgin, has been levelled with the ground. Myriads of both sexes of the monastic profession were restored to the liberty and labors of social life. A hierarchy of saints and angels, of imperfect and subordinate deities, were stripped of their temporal power, and reduced to the enjoyment of celestial happiness; their images and relics were banished from the church; and the credulity of the people was no longer nourished with the daily repetition of miracles and visions. The imitation of Paganism was supplied by a pure and spiritual worship of prayer and thanksgiving, the most worthy of man, the least unworthy of the Deity. It only remains to observe, whether such sublime simplicity be consistent with popular devotion; whether the vulgar, in the absence of all visible objects, will not be inflamed by enthusiasm, or insensibly subside in languor and indifference. II. The chain of authority was broken, which restrains the bigot from thinking as he pleases, and the slave from speaking as he thinks: the popes, fathers, and councils, were no longer the supreme and infallible judges of the world; and each Christian was taught to acknowledge no law but the Scriptures, no interpreter but his own conscience. This freedom, however, was the consequence, rather than the design, of the Reformation. The patriot reformers were ambitious of succeeding the tyrants whom they had dethroned. They imposed with equal rigor their creeds and confessions; they asserted the right of the magistrate to punish heretics with death. The pious or personal animosity of Calvin proscribed in Servetus  ³⁵ the guilt of his own rebellion;  ³⁶ and the flames of Smithfield, in which he was afterwards consumed, had been kindled for the Anabaptists by the zeal of Cranmer.  ³⁷ The nature of the tiger wa s the same, but he was gradually deprived of his teeth and fangs. A spiritual and temporal kingdom was possessed by the Roman pontiff; the Protestant doctors were subjects of an humble rank, without revenue or jurisdiction. His decrees were consecrated by the antiquity of the Catholic church: their arguments and disputes were submitted to the people; and their appeal to private judgment was accepted beyond their wishes, by curiosity and enthusiasm. Since the days of Luther and Calvin, a secret reformation has been silently working in the bosom of the reformed churches; many weeds of prejudice were eradicated; and the disciples of Erasmus  ³⁸ diffused a spirit of freedom and moderation. The liberty of conscience has been claimed as a common benefit, an inalienable right:  ³⁹ the free governments of Holland  ⁴⁰ and England  ⁴¹ introduced the practice of toleration; and the narrow allowance of the laws has been enlarged by the prudence and humanity of the times. In the exercise, the mind has understood the limits of its powers, and the words and shadows that might amuse the child can no longer satisfy his manly reason. The volumes of controversy are overspread with cobwebs: the doctrine of a Protestant church is far removed from the knowledge or belief of its private members; and the forms of orthodoxy, the articles of faith, are subscribed with a sigh, or a smile, by the modern clergy. Yet the friends of Christianity are alarmed at the boundless impulse of inquiry and scepticism. The predictions of the Catholics are accomplished: the web of mystery is unravelled by the Arminians, Arians, and Socinians, whose number must not be computed from their separate congregations; and the pillars of Revelation are shaken by those men who preserve the name without the substance of religion, who indulge the license without the temper of philosophy.  ⁴²  *_0043

Footnotes

21 Copronymus transported his heretics; and thus 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 intended mission, and addressed his preservative, the Historia Manichaeorum to the new archbishop of the Bulgarians, (p. 754.)

23 The colony of Paulicians and Jacobites transplanted by John Zimisces (A.D. 970) from Armenia to Thrace, is mentioned by Zonaras (tom. ii. l. xvii. p. 209) and Anna Comnena, (Alexiad, l. xiv. p. 450, &c.)

24 The Alexiad of Anna Comnena (l. v. p. 131, l. vi. p. 154, 155, l. xiv. p. 450 - 457, with the Annotations of Ducange) records the transactions of her apostolic father with the Manichaeans, 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, l. xv. p. 486 - 494 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.

27 See Marsigli, Stato Militare dell' Imperio Ottomano, p. 24.

28 The introduction of the Paulicians into Italy and France is amply discussed by Muratori (Antiquitat. Italiae Medii Aevi, tom. v. dissert. lx. p. 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. 1040, (in Muratori, Script. Rerum Ital. tom. v. p. 256: )

Cum Graecis aderant quidam, quos pessimus error Fecerat amentes, et ab ipso nomen habebant.

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 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 Aevi.) The Manichaeans were likewise named Cathari or the pure, by corruption. Gazari, &c.

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 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.

*_0042 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 Graeca. Hamburg 1722. Compare a very sensible tract. Letter to Rev. S. R. Maitland, by J G. Dowling, M. A. London, 1835. - M.

32 The opinions and proceedings of the reformers are exposed in the second part of the general history of Mosheim; but the balance, which he has held with so clear an eye, and so steady a hand, begins to incline in favor of his Lutheran brethren.

33 Under Edward VI. our reformation was more bold and perfect, but in the fundamental articles of the church of England, a strong and explicit declaration against the real presence was obliterated in the original copy, to please the people or the Lutherans, or Queen Elizabeth, (Burnet's History of the Reformation, vol. ii. p. 82, 128, 302.)

34 "Had it not been for such men as Luther and myself," said the fanatic Whiston to Halley the philosopher, "you would now be kneeling before an image of St. Winifred."

35 The article of Servet in the Dictionnaire Critique of Chauffepie is the best account which I have seen of this shameful transaction. See likewise the Abbe d'Artigny, Nouveaux Memoires d'Histoire, &c., tom. ii. p. 55 - 154.

36 I am more deeply scandalized at the single execution of Servetus, than at the hecatombs which have blazed in the Auto de Fes of Spain and Portugal. 1. The zeal of Calvin seems to have been envenomed by personal malice, and perhaps envy. He accused his adversary before their common enemies, the judges of Vienna, and betrayed, for his destruction, the sacred trust of a private correspondence. 2. The deed of cruelty was not varnished by the pretence of danger to the church or state. In his passage through Geneva, Servetus was a harmless stranger, who neither preached, nor printed, nor made proselytes. 3. A Catholic inquisition yields the same obedience which he requires, but Calvin violated the golden rule of doing as he would be done by; a rule which I read in a moral treatise of Isocrates (in Nicocle, tom. i. p. 93, edit. Battie) four hundred years before the publication of the Gospel.

Note: Gibbon has not accurately rendered the sense of this passage, which does not contain the maxim of charity Do unto others as you would they should do unto you, but simply the maxim of justice, Do not to others the which would offend you if they should do it to you. - G.

37 See Burnet, vol. ii. p. 84 - 86. The sense and humanity of the young king were oppressed by the authority of the primate.

38 Erasmus may be considered as the father of rational theology. After a slumber of a hundred years, it was revived by the Arminians of Holland, Grotius, Limborch, and Le Clerc; in England by Chillingworth, the latitudinarians of Cambridge, (Burnet, Hist. of Own Times, vol. i. p. 261 - 268, octavo edition.) Tillotson, Clarke, Hoadley, &c.

39 I am sorry to observe, that the three writers of the last age, by whom the rights of toleration have been so nobly defended, Bayle, Leibnitz, and Locke, are all laymen and philosophers.

40 See the excellent chapter of Sir William Temple on the Religion of the United Provinces. I am not satisfied with Grotius, (de Rebus Belgicis, Annal. l. i. p. 13, 14, edit. in 12mo.,) who approves the Imperial laws of persecution, and only condemns the bloody tribunal of the inquisition.

41 Sir William Blackstone (Commentaries, vol. iv. p. 53, 54) explains the law of England as it was fixed at the Revolution. The exceptions of Papists, and of those who deny the Trinity, would still have a tolerable scope for persecution if the national spirit were not more effectual than a hundred statutes.

42 I shall recommend to public animadversion two passages in Dr. Priestley, which betray the ultimate tendency of his opinions. At the first of these (Hist. of the Corruptions of Christianity, vol. i. p. 275, 276) the priest, at the second (vol. ii. p. 484) the magistrate, may tremble!

*_0043 There is something ludicrous, if it were not offensive, in Gibbon holding up to "public animadversion" the opinions of any believer in Christianity, however imperfect his creed. The observations which the whole of this passage on the effects of the reformation, in which much truth and justice is mingled with much prejudice, would suggest, could not possibly be compressed into a note; and would indeed embrace the whole religious and irreligious history of the time which has elapsed since Gibbon wrote. - M.