They fortify East. His father had been impaled by the Catholic inquisitors; and religion, or at least nature, might justify his desertion and revenge. Five thousand of his brethren were united by the same motives; they renounced the allegiance of anti-christian Rome; a Saracen emir introduced Carbeas to the caliph; and the commander of the faithful extended his sceptre to the implacable enemy of the Greeks. In the mountains between Siwas 22 and Trebizond he founded or fortified the city of Tephrice Tephrice,23 which is still occupied by a fierce and licentious people, and the neighbouring hills were covered with the Paulician fugitives, who now reconciled the use of the Bible and the sword. During more than thirty years, Asia was afflicted by the calamities of foreign and domestic war; in their hostile inroads the disciples of St. Paul were joined with those of Mahomet; and the peaceful Christians, the aged parent and tender virgin, who were delivered into barbarous servitude, might justly accuse the intolerant spirit of their sovereign. So urgent was the mischief, so intolerable the shame, that even the dissolute Michael, the son of Theodora, was compelled to [A.D. 859] march in person against the Paulicians: he was defeated under the walls of Samosata; and the Roman emperor fled before the heretics whom his mother had condemned to the flames.24 The Saracens fought under the same banners, but the victory was ascribed to Carbeas; and the captive generals, with more than an hundred tribunes, were either released by his avarice or tortured by his fanaticism. The valour and ambition of Chrysocheir,25 his successor, embraced a wider circle of rapine and 22 [Sebastea.] 23 Otter (Voyage en Turquie et en Perse, tom. ii.) is probably the only Frank who has visited the independent Barbarians of Tephrice, now Divrigni [Devrik], from whom he fortunately escaped in the train of a Turkish officer. [The Paulicians first occupied and fortified (with the help of the Emir of Melitene) Argaûs and Amara (Theoph. Cont. iv. 16, p. 166, ed. Bonn). Argats has been identified with Argovan, on a tributary of the Euphrates, due north of Melitene, by J. G. C. Anderson (Journal of Hellenic Studies, xvii. p. 27, 1897); and he places Amara (or Abara) on a high pass on the road from Sebastea to Lycandus, nearly due south of Sebastea. Tephrice lay S.E. from Sebastea on the road from that city to Satala. "The secluded position of Divreky made it the seat of an almost independent band of Kurds, when it was visited by Otter in 1743. Voyage en Turquie et en Perse, ii. 306." Finlay, ii. p. 169, note. See further, for the site, Guy Le Strange in Journ. R. Asiat. Soc. vol. 28 (1896). The Arabic name was Abrik.] 24 [For this expedition see Theoph. Contin. iv. c. 23.] 25 In the history of Chrysocheir, Genesius (Chron. p. 67-70, edit. Venet. [leg. 5760; p. 121 sqq., ed. Bonn]) has exposed the nakedness of the empire. Constantine Porphyrogenitus (in Vit. Basil. c. 37-43, p. 166-171) has displayed the glory of his Asia Minor revenge. In alliance with his faithful Moslems, he boldly penetrated into the heart of Asia; the troops of the frontier and the palace were repeatedly overthrown; the edicts of persecution were answered by the pillage of Nice and Nicomedia, of Ancyra and Ephesus; nor could the apostle St. John protect and pillage from violation his city and sepulchre. The cathedral of Ephesus was turned into a stable for mules and horses; and the Paulicians vied with the Saracens in their contempt and abhorrence of images and relics. It is not unpleasing to observe the triumph of rebellion over the same despotism which has disdained the prayers of an injured people. The emperor Basil, the Macedonian, was reduced to sue for peace, to offer a ransom for the captives, and to request, in the language of moderation and charity, that Chrysocheir would spare his fellow-Christians, and content himself with a royal donative of gold and silver and silk-garments. "If the emperor," replied the insolent fanatic, "be desirous of peace, let him abdicate the East, and reign without molestation in the West. If he refuse, the servants of the Lord will precipitate him from the throne." The reluctant Basil suspended the treaty, accepted the defiance, and led his army into the land of heresy, which he wasted with fire and sword. The open country of the Paulicians was ex-fc. A.D. posed to the same calamities which they had inflicted; but, when he had explored the strength of Tephrice, the multitude of the barbarians, and the ample magazines of arms and provisions, he desisted with a sigh from the hopeless siege. On his return to Constantinople he laboured, by the foundation of convents and churches, to secure the aid of his celestial patrons, of Michael the archangel and the prophet Elijah; and it was his daily prayer that he might live to transpierce, with three arrows, the head of his impious adversary. Beyond his expectations, the wish was accomplished: after a successful inroad, Chrysocheir was surprised and slain in his retreat; and the 26 grandfather. Cedrenus (p. 570-573 [ii. p. 209 sqq., ed. B.]) is without their passions or their knowledge. [In regard to this campaign of Basil (in 871 or 872) it was generally supposed that he crossed the Euphrates, as the Continuator of Theophanes states (p. 269). But J. G. C. Anderson has shown that this must be a mistake and that the scene of the whole campaign was west of the Euphrates (Classical Review, April, 1896, p. 139). Basil's object (after his failure at Tephrice) was to capture Melitene, the chief Saracen stronghold of the Cis-Euphratesian territory in Asia Minor. Theoph. Contin. ib.] 871-2] Their decline 27 [A.D. 874-5] rebel's head was triumphantly presented at the foot of the throne. On the reception of this welcome trophy, Basil instantly called for his bow, discharged three arrows with unerring aim, and accepted the applause of the court, who hailed the victory of the royal archer. With Chrysocheir, the glory of the Paulicians faded and withered; on the second expedition of the emperor, the impregnable Tephrice was deserted by the heretics, who sued for mercy or escaped to the borders. The city was ruined, but the spirit of independence survived in the mountains; the Paulicians defended, above a century, their religion and liberty, infested the Roman limits, and maintained their perpetual alliance with the enemies of the empire and the gospel. Their transplan Armenia About the middle of the eighth century, Constantine, surtation from named Copronymus by the worshippers of images, had made to Thrace an expedition into Armenia, and found, in the cities of Melitene and Theodosiopolis, a great number of Paulicians, his kindred heretics. As a favour 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.28 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.29 In the tenth century, they were restored and multiplied by a more powerful colony, which John Zimisces 30 transported from the Chalybian hills to the valleys 27 Συναπεμαράνθη πᾶσα ἡ ἀνθοῦσα τῆς Τεφρικῆς εὐανδρία [p. 212]. How elegant is the Greek tongue, even in the mouth of Cedrenus! [Cp. the continuation of George Mon. p. 841, ed. Bonn.] 48 Copronymus transported his συγγενείς, heretics ; and thus πλατύνθη ἡ αἵρεσις Пavλikiavov, says Cedrenus (p. 463 [ii. p. 10]), who has copied the annals of Theophanes. [Sub a.m. 6247.] 29 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 Manichæorum, to the new archbishop of the Bulgarians (p. 754 [p. 1241, ed. Migne]). [For Petrus Siculus, cp. Appendix 6.] 30 The colony of Paulicians and Jacobites, transplanted by John Zimisces (A.D. 970) from Armenia to Thrace, is mentioned by Zonaras (tom. ii. 1. xvii. p. 209 [o. 1]) and Anna Comnena (Alexiad, 1. xiv. p. 450, &c. [c. 8]). [This colonisation must have taken place after the conquest of Eastern Bulgaria and the war with Sviatoslav; and therefore not before A.D. 973. Cp. Schlumberger, L'épopée byzantine, of Mount Hamus. The Oriental clergy, who would have preferred the destruction, impatiently sighed for the absence, of the Manichæans; the warlike emperor had felt and esteemed their valour; 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 Manichæans deserted the standard of Alexius Comnenus,31 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 honours and rewards which he bestowed on the most eminent proselytes; and a new city, surrounded with gardens, enriched with immunities, and p. 181. Scylitzes (=Cedrenus, ii. p. 382) says that it was Thomas, Patriarch of Antioch, who suggested the transplantation. He realised that in the Eastern proTunces the Paulicians were dangerous allies of the Saracens.] si The Alexiad of Anna Čomnena (1. v. p. 131 [c. 3], 1. vi. p. 154, 155 [c. 2], 1. xiv. p. 450-457 [c. 8, 9], with the annotations of Ducange) records the transactions of her apostolic father with the Manichæans, whose abominable heresy she was desirous of refuting. 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 [A.D. 1111] solitary heretic was burnt alive before the church of St. Sophia." 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. From that æra, 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 Hamus, 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.34 Their introduction and France In the West, the first teachers of the Manichæan theology into Italy had been repulsed by the people, or suppressed by the prince. The favour 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 32 Basil, a monk, and the author of the Bogomiles, a sect of Gnostics, who soon vanished (Anna Comnena, Alexiad, l. xv. p. 486-494 [c. 8, 9, 10]; Mosheim, Hist. Ecclesiastica, p. 420). [This Basil was not "the author of the Bogomils". Bogomil is the Slavonic equivalent of the Greek name Theophilos; and Bogomil, who founded the sect, lived in the tenth century under the Bulgarian prince Peter (regn. 927-969). There arose soon two Bogomil churches: the Bulgarian, and that of the Dragoviči; and from these two all the other later developments started. Rački seeks the name of the second church among the Macedonian Dragoviči on the Vardar; while Golubinski identifies them with Dragoviči in the neighbourhood of Philippopolis. See Jireček, Gesch. der Bulgaren, p. 176. For the Bogomilian doctrines, see Appendix 6.] 33 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. 34 See Marsigli, Stato Militare dell' Impero Ottomano, p. 24. |
