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BOGOMILS
OF
BULGARIA AND BOSNIA;
************
The Early Protestants of the East.
AN ATTEMPT TO RESTORE SOME LOST LEAVES OF
PROTESTANT HISTORY.
BY
L. P. BROCKETT, M. D.,
Author of
"The Cross And The Crescent," " History Of Religious Denominations,"etc.
_________________
PHILADELPHIA:
AMERICAN BAPTIST PUBLICATION SOCIETY,
1420 CHESTNUT STREET.
Entered to Act of Congress, in the year1879, by the
AMERICAN BAPTIST PUBLICATION SOCIETY,
In the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington.
CONTENTS
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SECTION I.
Introduction.—The Armenian and other Oriental churches
SECTION II.
Dualism and the phantastic theory of our Lord's advent
in the Oriental churches.—The doctrines they rejected.—They held to baptism
SECTION III.
Gradual decline of the dualistic doctrine.—The holy and exemplary lives of thePaulicians
SECTION IV.
The cruelty and bloodthirstiness of the Empress Theodora.—The free state and city ofTephrice
SECTION V.
The Sclavonic development of the Catharist or Paulician churches.—Bulgaria, Bosnia,and Servia its
principal seats.—Euchites, Massalians, and Bogomils
SECTION VI.
The Bulgarian Empire and its Bogomil czars
SECTION VII.
A Bogomil congregation and its worship.—Mostar, on the Narenta
SECTION VIII.
The Bogomilian doctrines and practices.—TheCredentesandPerfecti.—WeretheCredentesbaptized?
SECTION IX.
The orthodoxy of the Greek and Roman churches rather theological than practical.—Fallof the Bulgarian Empire.. 43
SECTION X.
The Emperor Alexius Comnenus and the Bogomil Elder Basil.—TheAlexiadof thePrincess Anna Comnena
SECTION XI.
The martyrdom of Basil.—The Bogomil churches reinforced by the Armenian Paulicians
under the Emperor John Zimisces
SECTION XII.
The purity oflifeof the Bogomils.—Their doctrines andpractices.—Theirasceticism
SECTION XIII.
The missionary spirit and labors of the elders andPerfecti.—The entireabsence of any hierarchy
SECTION XIV.
The Bogomil churches in Bosnia and the Herzegovina.—Their doctrines more thoroughlyscriptural than those of the Bulgarian churches.—Bosnia as a banate and kingdom
SECTION XV.
Bosnian history continued.—The good Ban Culin
SECTION XVI.
The growth of the Bogomil churches under Culin.—Their missionary zeal and success
SECTION XVII.
The authorities from whose testimony this narrative is drawn.—Its thoroughcorroboration by a cloud of witnesses
SECTION XVIII.
The era of persecution.—The crusades against the Bogomils.—Archbishop of Colocz
SECTION XIX.
Further crusades.—The hostility of Pope Innocent IV.—More lenient, but not moreeffective, measures
SECTION XX.
The establishment of the Inquisition in Bosnia.—Letter of Pope John XXII.—Previoustestimony of enemies to the purity of the lives of the Bogomils
SECTION XXI.
Further persecution.—A lull in its fury during the over-lordship of the Serbian CzarStephen Dushan.—The reign of the Tvart-ko dynasty
SECTION XXII.
The Reformation in Bohemia and Hungary a Bogomil movement.—Renewal of persecutionunder Kings Stephen Thomas and Stephen Tomasevic.—ThePobratimtso
SECTION XXIII.
Overtures to the sultan.—The surrender of Bosnia to Mahomet II. understipulations.—His base treachery
and faithlessness.—The cruel destruction and enslavement of the Bogomils of Bosniaand, twenty years later, of those of the Duchy of Herzegovina
SECTION XXIV.
The Bogomils not utterly extinguished.—Their influence on society, literature, and
progress in the Middle Ages.—Dante, Milton, etc.—The Puritans.—Conclusion
APPENDIX: I.
A liturgy of the Toulouse Publicans in (probably) the Sixteenth Century
APPENDIX II.
Were the Paulician and Bogomil churches Baptist Churches?
PREFACE.
THE belief that there had existed throughall the ages since the Christian era churches which adhered strictly to scripturaldoctrines and practice—churches which were the true successors in faith andordinances of those founded by the apostles, and had never paid homage to Greek patriarchor Roman pope— was firmly impressed upon the minds of the Baptist church-historiansof the first fifty years of the present century. They believed also that these churcheswere essentially Baptist in their character, and some of them made extensive researchesamong the works of secular and ecclesiastical historians of the earlycenturies tofind tangible proofs to sustain their conviction. They were partially, but only partially,successful, for the historians of those periods were ecclesiastics of either the Greek orRoman churches, who added, in most cases, the bitterness of personal spite, from theirdiscomfiture by the elders of these churches, to their horror at any departure from papalor patriarchal decrees.
For the last twenty-five or thirty yearsthe ranks of the Baptist ministry have been so largely recruited from Paedobaptistchurches—all of which had their origin, confessedly, either at the Reformation orsince—that manyofour writers have been disposed to hold in abeyance theirclaims to an earlier origin, and to say that it was a matter of no consequence, but therewas no evidence attainable of the existence of Baptist churches between the fourth and theeleventh or twelfth centuries.
To the writer it has seemed to be amatterof great consequence tobe able to demonstrate that there were churches of faithfulwitnesses for Christ who had never paid their homage or given in their allegiance to theanti-Christian churches of Constantinople or Rome. Even in idolatrous Israel, in the reignof its worst king, Ahab, the despairing prophet was told by Jehovah, "Yet I have leftme seven thousand in Israel, all the knees which have not bowed unto Baal, and every mouthwhich hath not kissed him " Was it possible that among these many millions ofmisguided souls who had given themselves over to the delusions of the Greek and Romanchurches, there was not at least as large a proportion, who had not been partakers in thesins or these anti-Christian churches, but had washed their robes and made them white inthe blood of the Lamb?
It was true that both the Greek and Romanchurches had put the brand of heresy on every sect which had dared to deny their dogmas;but might it not be that beneath that brand could be discerned the lineaments of the Brideof Christ?
My attention was first called to thepossibility of discovering more than had hitherto been known in regard to these earlyProtestants of the Eastern lands some two years since, While engaged in some studies for awork on the Eastern Question. In the Christian churches of Armenia, Bulgaria, and Bosnia Ibelieved were to be found the churches which from the fifth to the fifteenth century werethe true successors of the churches founded by the apostles' in all matters of faith andpractice. The "Historical Review of Bosnia," contained in the second edition ofMr. Arthur J. Evans' work on Bosnia in 1876, first opened my eyes to the wealth of the newhistorical discoveries thus brought to light in Bosnia and Bulgaria. Mr. Evans is a memberof the Church of England, an eminent scholar, thoroughly devoted to archaeologicalinvestigations, and had made very patient and successful researches on this very subject.While he had explored the libraries of Mostar and Serajevo, as well as of the Greek andRoman Catholic convents throughout Bosnia and the Herzegovina, I found that a considerableportion of his facts were gleaned from two recent historical works—Herr Jirecek'sGeschichteder Bulgaren(Berlin, 1876), and M. Hilferding'sSerben used Bulgaren,originallypublished in the Sclavonic language, but translated into in 1874. Jirecek is a Bohemian,and, I believe, a Roman Catholic, but a man of great fairness. Hilferding is- a Russian,and attached to the Greek Church. Both treat largely (as they are under the necessity ofdoing) of the Bogomils, as these early Christians were called, since their history is verylargely the history of the two nations for five or six centuries. Both give very minutedescriptions of the faith and life of these people, and most of the historical facts givenin the following pages are derived from them. But wherever Mr. Evans could find anythingin the early secular or ecclesiastical writers of the Dark Ages or medieval times bearingon this subject he has carefully gleaned it, even though it were but A single sentence.This has been done, on his part, solely from a love of archaeological research, for he hasevidently no special sympathy with the people about whom he writes; but he is entitled tothe praise of manifesting a judicial fairness as between them and their persecutors.
My own labor on the subject has not beenconfined to the verification of Mr. Evans' quotations and references, but has extended incertain directions which he had left untouched, such as a careful study of all thoseaffiliated sects whose connection with the Bogomils he had demonstrated, and the tracingup, so far as possible, all hints in regard to their special tenets. Among these I havefound, often in unexpected quarters, the. most conclusive evidence that these sects wereall, during their earlier history, Baptists, not only in their views on the subjects ofbaptism and the Lord's Supper, but in their opposition to Paedobaptism, to a churchhierarchy, and to any worship of the Virgin Mary or the saints, and in their adherence tochurch independency and freedom of conscience in religious worship. In short, theconclusion has forced itself upon me that in these " Christians " of Bosnia,Bulgaria, and Armenia we have an apostolic succession ofChristian churches, NewTestament churches,andBaptist churches,and that as early as the twelfthcentury these churches numbered a converted, believing membership as large as that of theBaptists throughout the world to-day. I have chosen in the narrative to present only thefacts ascertained, without making any deductions from them. They are so plain that thewayfaring man can comprehend their significance. In the Appendix (II.) I have endeavoredto summarize these facts and to show their significance to Baptists. I now offer the wholeas a humble contribution to Baptist church history.
L. P. B.
Brooklyn N. Y., February 1,1879.
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