read, were dissuaded by their religious guides from meddling with the bible. Constantine, however, made the best use of the deacon's present-he studied his New Testament with unwearied assiduity--and more particularly the writings of the apostle Paul, from which he at length endeavoured to deduce a system of doctrine and worship. "He investigated the creed of primitive Christianity," says Gibbon," and whatever might be the success, a protestant reader will applaud the spirit of the inquiry.”* The knowledge to which Constantine himself was, under the divine blessing, enabled to attain, he gladly communicated to others around him, and a Christian church was collected. In a little time several individuals arose among them qualified for the work of the ministry; and several other churches were collected throughout Armenia and Cappadocia. It appears from the whole of their history to have been a leading object with Constantine and his brethren to restore, as far as possible, the profession of Christianity in all its primitive simplicity. Their public appearance soon attracted the notice of the Catholic party, who immediately branded them with the opprobrious appellation of Manichæans; but" they sincerely condemned the memory and opinions of the Manichæan sect, and complained of the injustice which impressed that invidious name on them." There is reason, therefore, to think, that they voluntarily adopted the name of Paulicians, and that they derived it from the name of the great apostle of the Gentiles. Constantine now assumed or received the name of Sylvanus, and others of his fellow labourers were called Titus, Timothy, Tichicus, &c. and as the churches arose and were formed in different places, they were named after those apostolic churches to which Paul originally addressed his inspired ↑ Gibbon, Ubi supra. * Decline and Fall, vol. x. ch. 54. writings, without any regard to the name of the city or town in which they assembled for worship. The labours of Constantine-Sylvanus, were crowned with success. Pontus and Cappadocia, regions once renowned for Christian piety, were again blessed with a diffusion of the light of divine truth. He himself resided in the neighbourhood of Colonia, in Pontus, and their congregations, in process of time, were diffused over the provinces of Asia Minor, to the westward of the Euphrates. "The Paulician teachers," says Gibbon, "were distinguished only by their scriptural names, by the modest title of fellow-pilgrims; by the austerity of their lives, their zeal and knowledge, and the credit of some extraordinary gift of the Holy Spirit. But they were incapable of desiring, or at least of obtaining the wealth and honours of the Catholic prelacy. Such antichristian pride they bitterly censured." Roused by the growing importance of the sect, the Greek emperors began to persecute the Paulicians with the most sanguinary severity; and the scenes of Galerius and Maximin were re-acted under the Christian forms and names. "To their excellent deeds," says the bigotted Peter Siculus," the divine and orthodox emperors added this virtue, that they ordered the Montanists and Manichæans (by which epithets they chose to stigmatise the Paulicians) to be capitally punished; and their books, wherever found, to be committed to the flames; also that if any person was found to have secreted them, he was to be put to death, and his goods confiscated." A Greek officer, armed with legal and military powers, appeared at Colonia, to strike the shepherd, and, if possible, reclaim the lost sheep to the Catholic fold. "By a refinement of cruelty, Simeon (the officer) placed the unfortunate Sylvanus before a line of his disciples, who were command ed, as the price of their own pardon, and the proof of their repentance, to massacre their spiritual father. They turned aside from the impious office; the stones dropt from their filial hands, and of the whole number, only one executioner could be found; a new David, as he is styled by the Catholics, who boldly overthrew the giant of heresy. This apostate, whose name was Justus, stoned to death the father of the Paulicians, who had now laboured among them twenty-seven years. The treacherous Justus betrayed many others, probably of the pastors and teachers, who fared the fate of their venerable leader; while Simeon himself, struck with the evidences of divine grace apparent in the sufferers, embraced at length the faith which he came to destroy-renounced his station, resigned his honours and fortunes, became a zealous preacher among the Paulicians, and at last sealed his testimony .with his blood.† During a period of one hundred and fifty years, these Christian churches seem to have been almost incessantly subjected to persecution, which they supported with Christian meekness and patience; and if the acts of their martyrdom, their preaching and their lives were distinctly recorded, I see no reason to doubt, that we should find in them the genuine successors of the Christians of the first two centuries. And, in this as well as former instances, the blood of the martyrs was the seed of the church. A succession of teachers and churches arose, and a person named Sergius, who had laboured among them in the ministry of * Gibbon, ut supra. "Thrice hail, ye faithful shepherds of the fold, "Firmly the thorny path of suffering trod, "And counted death "all gain" to live with God. VOL. I HYPOCRISY, a poem by the Rev. C. Colton, parti p. 156. the gospel thirty-seven years, is acknowledged, even by their vilest calumniators to have been a most exemplary Christian. The persecution had, however, some intermissions, until at length Theodora, the Greek empress, exerted herself against them, beyond all her predecessors. She sent inquisitors throughout all Asia Minor in search of these sectaries, and is computed to have killed by the gibbet, by fire, and by the sword, A HUNDRED THOUSAND PERSONS. Such was the state of things at the commencement of the ninth century.* * It has been already stated that we derive all our information concerning the Paulicians, through the medium of their adversaries, the writers belonging to the Catholic church. It should not, therefore, surprise us to find them imputing the worst of principles and practices to a class of men whom they uniformly decry as heretics. Mosheim says, that of the two accounts of Photius and Peter Siculus, he gives the preference for candour and fairness to that of the latter-and yet I find Mr, Gibbon acknowledging, that "the six capital errors of the Paulicians are defined by Peter Siculus with much prejudice and passion." (DECLINE and FALL, vol. x. ch. 54.) One of their imputed errors is, that they rejected the whole of the Old Testament writings; a charge which was also brought, by the writers of the Catholic school, against the Waldenses and others, with equal regard to truth and justice. But this calumny is easily accounted for. The advocates of Popery, to support their usurpations and innovations in the kingdom of Christ, were driven to the Old Testament for authority, adducing the kingdom of David for their example. And when their adversaries rebutted the argument, insisting that the parallel did not hold, for that the kingdom of Christ which is not of this world, is a very different state of things from the kingdom of David, their opponents accused them of giving up the divine authority of the Old Testament. Upon similar principles, it is not difficult to vindicate the Paulicians from the other charges brought against them; but to do that would require more room than can be here allotted to the subject. 355 CHAPTER IV. A VIEW OF THE STATE OF THE CHRISTIAN PROFESSION FROM THE BEGINNING OF THE NINTH TO THE END OF THE TWELFTH CENTURY. A. D. 800-1200. SECTION I. A concise description of the vallies of Piedmont, and of the Pyrenees; with some account of the life and doctrine of Claude, bishop of Turin. THE principality of Piedmont,* derives its name from the circumstance of its being situated at the foot of the Alps-a prodigious range of mountains, the highest, indeed, in Europe, and which divide Italy from France, Swisserland and Germany. It is bounded on the east by the duchies of Milan and Montferrat; on the south by the county of Nice and the territory of Genoa; on the west by France; and on the north by Savoy. In former times it constituted a part of Lombardy, but more recently has been subject to the king of Sardinia, who takes up his residence at Turin, the capital of the province, and one of the finest cities in Europe. It is an extensive tract of rich and fruitful vallies, embosomed in mountains which are encircled again with mountains higher than they, insected with deep and rapid rivers, and exhibiting, in The term "Piedmont" is derived from two Latin words, viz. Pede montium, “ at the foot of the mountains.” |