ried
in their affinity to the apostle of the Gentiles. His disciples, Titus,
Timothy, Sylvanus, Tychicus, were represented by Constantine and his
fellow-laborers: the names of the apostolic churches were applied to the
congregations which they assembled in Armenia and Cappadocia; and this
innocent allegory revived 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, the
apostle of the circumcision, whose dispute with their favorite for the
observance of the law could not easily be forgiven. 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; 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.

Of the ecclesiastical chain, many links had been broken by the Paulician
reformers; and their liberty was enlarged, as they reduced the number of
masters, at whose voice profane reason must bow to mystery and miracle.
The early separation of the Gnostics had preceded the establishment of
the Catholic worship; and against the gradual innovations of discipline
and doctrine they were as strongly guarded by habit and aversion, as by
the silence of St. Paul and the evangelists. The objects which had been
transformed by the magic of superstition, appeared to the eyes of the
Paulicians in their genuine and naked colors. An image made without
hands was the common workmanship of a mortal artist, to whose sk