y
reason to question the general truth of his testimony, especially as it
tallies so well with what we learn of the predecessors and successors of
the Paulicians. They had rejected several of the Manichean doctrines,
those, I believe, which were borrowed from the Oriental, Gnostic, and
Cabbalistic philosophy of emanation; and therefore readily condemned
Manes, prothumos anathematizousi Maneta. But they retained his capital
errors, so far as regarded the principle of dualism, which he had taken
from Zerdusht's religion, and the consequences he had derived from it.
Petrus Siculus enumerates six Paulician heresies. 1. They maintained the
existence of two deities, the one evil, and the creator of this world;
the other good, called pater epouranios, the author of that which is to
come. 2. They refused to worship the Virgin, and asserted that Christ
brought his body from heaven. 3. They rejected the Lord's Supper. 4. And
the adoration of the cross. 5. They denied the authority of the Old
Testament, but admitted the New, except the epistles of St. Peter, and,
perhaps, the Apocalypse. 6. They did not acknowledge the order of
priests.

There seems every reason to suppose that the Paulicians, notwithstanding
their mistakes, were endowed with sincere and zealous piety, and
studious of the Scriptures. A Paulician woman asked a young man if he
had read the Gospels: he replied that laymen were not permitted to do
so, but only the clergy: ouk exestin hemin tois kosmikois ousi tauta
anaginoskein, ei me tois hiereusi monois. p. 57. A curious proof that
the Scriptures were already forbidden in the Greek church, which I am
inclined to believe, notwithstanding the leniency with which Protestant
writers have treated it, was always more corrupt and more intolerant
than the Latin.

[742] Gibbon, c. 54. This chapter of the historian of the Decline and
Fall upon the Paulicians appears to be accurate, as well as luminous,
and is at least far superior to any modern work on the subject.

[743] It is generally agreed, that the Manicheans from Bulgaria did not
penetrate into the west of Europe before the year 1000; and they seem to
have been in small numbers till about 1140. We find them, however, early
in the eleventh century. Under the reign of Robert in 1007 several
heretics were burned at Orleans for tenets which are represented as
Manichean. Velly, t. ii. p. 307. These are said to have been imported
from Italy; and the heresy began to strike