anail and the younger Michael. The elder son rebelled against the
father and became the evil spirit. After his fall he created the lower
heavens and the earth and tried in vain to create man; in the end he had
to appeal to God for the Spirit. After creation Adam was allowed to till
the ground on condition that he sold himself and his posterity to the
owner of the earth. Then Michael was sent in the form of a man; he
became identified with Jesus, and was "elected" by God after the baptism
in the Jordan. When the Holy Ghost (Michael) appeared in the shape of
the dove, Jesus received power to break the covenant in the form of a
clay tablet (_hierographon_) held by Satanail from Adam. He had now
become the angel Michael in a human form; as such he vanquished
Satanail, and deprived him of the termination _-il_ = God, in which his
power resided. Satanail was thus transformed into Satan. Through his
machinations the crucifixion took place, and Satan was the originator of
the whole Orthodox community with its churches, vestments, ceremonies,
sacraments and fasts, with its monks and priests. This world being the
work of Satan, the perfect must eschew any and every excess of its
pleasure. But the Bogomils did not go as far as to recommend asceticism.
They held the "Lord's Prayer" in high respect as the most potent weapon
against Satan, and had a number of conjurations against "evil spirits."
Each community had its own twelve "apostles," and women could be raised
to the rank of "elect." The Bogomils wore garments like mendicant friars
and were known as keen missionaries, travelling far and wide to
propagate their doctrines. Healing the sick and conjuring the evil
spirit, they traversed different countries and spread their apocryphal
literature along with some of the books of the Old Testament, deeply
influencing the religious spirit of the nations, and preparing them for
the Reformation. They sowed the seeds of a rich religious popular
literature in the East as well as in the West. The Historiated Bible,
the Letter from Heaven, the Wanderings through Heaven and Hell, the
numerous Adam and Cross legends, the religious poems of the "Kaleki
perehozhie" and other similar productions owe their dissemination to a
large extent to the activity of the Bogomils of Bulgaria, and their
successors in other lands.

_History._--The Bogomil propaganda follows the mountain chains of
central Europe, starting from the Balkans and continuing along the