Paulicians

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Adualistichereticalsect, derived originally fromManichaeism. The origin of the namePaulician is obscure. Gibbon (Decline and Fall, liv), says it means "Disciples of St. Paul" (Photius, op. cit., II, 11; III, 10; VI, 4). Their special veneration for the Apostle, and their habit of renaming their leaders after his disciples lend some colour to this view. On the other hand, the form (Paulikianoi, notPaulianoi) is curious; and the name seems to have been used only by their opponents, who held that they were followers ofPaul of Samosata (Conybeare, op. cit., cv). The birthplace of their founder evidently suggested this; but there is no connection between theirdoctrine and his. Photius relates that a certainManicheewoman, named Kallinike sent her two sons Paul and John toArmenia to propagate thisheresy; the name is corrupted fromPauloioannoi (Friedrich op. cit., I). The existence of suchpersons is now generally denied. The latest authority, Ter-Mkrttschian (Die Paulicianer, 63), says the name is anArmenian diminutive and means "followers of little Paul", but does not explain who little Paul may be. It occurs first in the Acts of theArmenian Synod of Duin in 719, a canon of which forbids any one to spend the night in the house of "the wickedheretics called Pollikian" (Ter-Mkrttschian, 62).

Doctrine

The cardinal point of the Paulician heresy is a distinction between theGod who made and governs the material world and theGod ofheaven who createdsouls, who alone should be adored. They thought all matter bad. It seems therefore obvious to count them as one of the many neo-Manichaeansects, in spite of their own denial and that of modern writers (Ter-Mkrttschian, Conybeare, Adeney, loc. cit.; Harnack, "Lehrbuch der Dogmengeschicte", Tübingen, 1909, II, 528). But there is a strongMarcionite element too. They rejected theOld Testament; there was no Incarnation, Christ was anangel sent into the world byGod, his real mother was the heavenlyJerusalem. His work consisted only in his teaching; tobelieve in him saves men from judgment. Thetruebaptism and Eucharist consist in hearing his word, as inJohn 4:10. But many Paulicians, nevertheless, let their children bebaptized by theCatholicclergy. Theyhonoured not the Cross, but only the book of the Gospel. They wereIconoclasts, rejecting all pictures. Their Bible was a fragmentaryNew Testament. They rejected St. Peter's epistles because he had denied Christ. They referred always to the "Gospel and Apostle", apparently onlySt. Luke andSt. Paul; though they quoted other Gospels in controversy.

The wholeecclesiastical hierarchy is bad, as also all Sacraments and ritual. They had a special aversion tomonks. Their own organization consisted first of the founders of theirsect in various places. These were apostles andprophets. They took new names after people mentioned by St. Paul, thus Constantine called himself Silvanus; apparently they claimed to be thesepersons come to life again. Under the apostles andprophets were "fellow-workers" (synechdemoi) who formed a council, and "notaries" (notarioi), who looked after the holy books and kept order at meetings. Their conventicles were called, not churches, but "prayer-houses" (proseuchai). They maintained that it was lawful to conceal or even deny theirideas for fear ofpersecution; many of them lived exteriorly asCatholics. Their ideal was a purely spiritual communion of faithful that should obliterate all distinctions of race. Their enemies accuse them constantly of gross immorality, even at their prayer-meetings. One of their chief leaders, Baanes, seems to have acquired as a recognized surname the epithet "filthy" (ho ryproz). They would recognize no other name for themselves than "Christians"; theCatholics were "Romans (Romaioi), that is, people who obey the Roman emperor, as theMonophysites called their opponentsMelchites. Harnack sums them up as "dualisticPuritans and Individualists and as "an anti-hierarchicChristianity built up on the Gospel, and Apostle, with emphatic rejection ofCatholicChristianity" (Dogmengeschichte, II 528).

Since Gibbon the Paulicians have often been described as a survival of early and pureChristianity, godly folk who clung to the Gospel, rejecting latersuperstitions, who were grosslycalumniated by their opponents. Conybeare (op. cit.) thinks they were a continuation of the Adoptionists. Dr. Adeney calls them "in many respectsProtestants beforeProtestantism" (The Greek andEastern Churches, 219). Thisidea accounts for the fact that thesect has met among modern writers with more interest and certainly more sympathy than it deserves.

History

Constantine of Mananalis, calling himself Silvanus, founded what appears to be the first Paulician community at Kibossa, near Colonia inArmenia. He began to teach about 657. He wrote no books and taught that theNew Testament as he presented it (his "Gospel and Apostle") should be the only text used by his followers (Georgios Monachos, ed. Friedrich, 2). The other Paulician Apostles after Constantine were Symeon (called Titus), sent by the emperor Constantine Pogonatus (668-85) to put down thesect, but converted to it; then Gegnesius anArmenian (Timothy); Joseph (Epaphroditus); Zachary, who was rejected by many and called a hireling; Baanes; Sergius (Tychicus). They founded six congregations inArmenia andPontus, to which they gave the names of Pauline Churches (Kibossa was "Macedonia", and so on).

Constantine-Silvanus, after having preached for twenty-seven years and having spread hissect into the Western part ofAsia Minor, was arrested by the Imperial authorities (by Symeon), tried forheresy and stoned to death. In 690 Symeon-Titus himself, having become a Paulician, was also executed with many others. The history of these people is divided between their persecutions and their own quarrels. AnArmenian Paul (thought by some to have given his name to thesect) set up congregation at Episparis in the (Armenian) district Phanaroea (d. c. 715). His two sons Gegnesius-Timothy and Theodore quarrelled about his succession. Gegnesius went to Constantinople in 717 and persuaded the emperor Leo III and the patriarch Germanus I that he wasorthodox. Armed with an imperial safe-conduct he came to Mananalis and succeeded in crushing Theodore's opposition. After his death his son Zachary (the "hireling") and his son-in-law, Joseph-Epaphroditus, again quarrelled and formed parties as to which should succeed. Zachary's party went under; many of them were destroyed by theSaracens.

Joseph (d. 775) founded communities all overAsia Minor. Then came Baanes (Vahan; d. 801). Under him thesect decreased in numbers and influence. But a certain Sergius-Tychicus, who made a newschism, reformed and strengthened the movement in his party. The Paulicians were now either Baanites (the old party), or Sergites (the reformedsect). Sergius was azealous propagator of theheresy; he boasted that he had spread his Gospel "from East to West. from North to South" (Petrus Siculus, "Historia Manichaeorum", op. cit., 45). The Sergites meanwhile fought against their rivals and nearly exterminated them. From the Imperial government the Paulicians met with alternate protection andpersecution. Constantine IV, and still more Justinian II,persecuted them cruelly. The firstIconoclast emperors (Leo III and his successors) protected them; Conybeare counts these emperors as practically Paulicians themselves (op. cit.). Nicephorus I tolerated them in return for their service as soldiers in Phrygia and Lycaonia. Michael I began to persecute again and his successor Leo V, though anIconoclast, tried to refute the accusation that he was a Paulician by persecuting them furiously. A great number of them at this time rebelled and fled to theSaracens. Sergius was killed in 835. Theodora, regent for her son Michael III, continued thepersecution; hence a second rebellion under one Karbeas, who again led many of his followers across the frontiers.

These Paulicians, now bitter enemies of the empire, were encouraged by the khalifa. They fortified a place called Tephrike and made it their headquarters. From Tephrike they made continual raids into the empire; so that from this time they form a political power, to be counted among the enemies ofRome. We hear continually ofwars against theSaracens,Armenians, and Paulicians. Under Basil I the Paulician army invadedAsia Minor as far as Ephesus, and almost to the coast opposite Constantinople. But they were defeated, and Basil destroyed Tephrike in 871. This eliminated thesect as a military power. Meanwhile other Paulicians,heretics but not rebels, lived in groups throughout the empire. Constantine V had already transferred large numbers of them to Thrace; John I Tzimiskes sent many more to the same part to defend it against theSlavs. They founded a new centre at Philippopolis, from which they terrorized their neighbours. During the ninth and tenth centuries theseheretics inArmenia,Asia Minor, and Thrace constantly occupied the attention of the government and theChurch. The "Selicians" converted by the Patriarch Methodius I (842-46), were Paulicians. Photius wrote against them and boasts in hisEncyclical (866) that he has converted a great number. InArmenia thesect continued in the "Thonraketzi" founded by a certain Smbat in the ninth century. Conybeare attributes to this Smbat a work, "The Key of Truth", which he has edited. It accepts theOld Testament and the Sacraments of Baptism. Penance, and the Eucharist. This work especially has persuaded many writers that the Paulicians were much maligned people. But in any case it represents a very late stage of their history, and it is disputed whether it is really Paulician at all. Constantine IX persuaded or forced many thousands to renounce theirerrors.

The emperor Alexius Comnenus is credited with having put an end to theheresy. During a residence at Philippopolis, he argued with them and converted all, or nearly all, back to theChurch (so his daughter: "Alexias", XV, 9). From this time the Paulicians practically disappear from history. But they left traces of theirheresy. InBulgaria the Bogomilesect, which lasted through theMiddle Ages and spread to the West in the form ofCathari,Albigenses, and otherManichaeanheresies, is a continuation of Paulicianism. InArmenia, too, similarsects, derived from them, continue till our own time.

There were Paulician communities in the part ofArmenia occupied byRussia after thewar of 1828-29. Conybeare publishes very curious documents of their professions offaith and disputations with the Gregorianbishop about 1837 (Key of Truth, xxiii-xxviii). It is from these disputations and "The Key of Truth" that he draws his picture of the Paulicians as simple, godly folk who had kept an earlier (sc. Adoptionistic) form ofChristianity (ibid., introduction).

Sources

There are four chief documents: (1) Photius, Four books against the Paulicians(Diegesis peri tes ton neophanton manichaion anablasteseos), in P.G., CII, 15-264. (2) Euthymius Zigabenus, in his "Panoplia", XXIV [P.G., CXXX, 1189, sqq., separate edition of the part about the Paulicians, ed. Gieseler (Gottingen, 1841)]. (3) Peter the Abbot, "Concerning the Paulicians and Manichees", ed. Gieseler (Gottingen, 1849), who identifies the author with Petrus Siculus, who wrote a "Historia Manichaeorum qui Pauliciani dicuntur", first published byRader (Ingolstadt, 1604), of which work Gieseler considers "Concerning the Paulicians" to be merely an excerpt. (4) George Monachos, "Chronikon", ed. Muralt (St. Petersburg, 1853).

Of Photius's work only book I contains the history; the rest is a collection ofhomilies against theheresy. There is interdependence between these four sources. The present state of criticism (due chiefly to Karapet Ter-Mkrttschian) is this: — Photius's account (book I) falls into two parts. Chapters i-xiv are authentic, xv-xxvii a later edition. The original source of all is lost. George Monachos used this. Peter the Monk either copied George or used the original work. Photius may have used Peter (so Ter-Mkrttschian) or perhaps the original. Derived from these are Zigabenus and the spurious part of Photius's book. Bonwetsch (Realencyklopädie für prot. Theol., 3rd ed., Leipzig 1904, XV, 50) represents (according to Friedrich and as probable only) the order of derivation as: (1) An account contained in amanuscript of the tenth century (Cod. Scorial. I,phi, 1, fol. 164 sqq.) ed. Friedrich in the "Sitzungsbericht der Münchener Akademie", (1896), 70-81; (2) Photius, i-x; (3) George Monachos; (4) Peter the Abbot; (5) Zigabenus; (6) Pseudo-Photius, x-xxvii; (7) Petrus Siculus.

Other sources are theArmenianbishop John Ozniensis [ed. by Aucher (Venice, 1834) and used byDöllinger and Conybeare] and the "Key of Truth" [Mrkttschian in "Zeitschrift für Kirchengeschichte", 1895, and Conybeare's edition,Armenian and English, with introduction and notes (Oxford, 1898)].

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