ed the example and memory
of the first ages. In the Gospel, and the Epistles of St. Paul, his
faithful follower investigated the Creed of primitive Christianity;
and, whatever might be the success, a Protestant reader will applaud
the spirit, of the inquiry. But if the Scriptures of the Paulicians were
pure, they were not perfect. Their founders rejected the two Epistles of
St. Peter, [4] the apostle of the circumcision, whose dispute with their
favorite for the observance of the law could not easily be forgiven. [5]
They agreed with their Gnostic brethren in the universal contempt for
the Old Testament, the books of Moses and the prophets, which have been
consecrated by the decrees of the Catholic church. With equal boldness,
and doubtless with more reason, Constantine, the new Sylvanus,
disclaimed the visions, which, in so many bulky and splendid volumes,
had been published by the Oriental sects; [6] the fabulous productions
of the Hebrew patriarchs and the sages of the East; the spurious
gospels, epistles, and acts, which in the first age had overwhelmed the
orthodox code; the theology of Manes, and the authors of the kindred
heresies; and the thirty generations, or aeons, which had been created
by the fruitful fancy of Valentine. The Paulicians sincerely condemned
the memory and opinions of the Manichaean sect, and complained of the
injustice which impressed that invidious name on the simple votaries of
St. Paul and of Christ.

[Footnote 2: In the time of Theodoret, the diocese of Cyrrhus, in Syria,
contained eight hundred villages. Of these, two were inhabited by Arians
and Eunomians, and eight by Marcionites, whom the laborious bishop
reconciled to the Catholic church, (Dupin, Bibliot. Ecclesiastique, tom.
iv. p. 81, 82.)]

[Footnote 3: Nobis profanis ista (sacra Evangelia) legere non licet sed
sacerdotibus duntaxat, was the first scruple of a Catholic when he was
advised to read the Bible, (Petr. Sicul. p. 761.)]

[Footnote 4: In rejecting the second Epistle of St. Peter, the
Paulicians are justified by some of the most respectable of the ancients
and moderns, (see Wetstein ad loc., Simon, Hist. Critique du Nouveau
Testament, c. 17.) They likewise overlooked the Apocalypse, (Petr.
Sicul. p. 756;) but as such neglect is not imputed as a crime, the
Greeks of the ixth century must have been careless of the credit and
honor of the Revelations.]

[Footnote 5: This contention, which has not escaped the malice of
P