Re: De her ontstaan van de Paulicianen
Geiserik
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A dualistic heretical sect, derived originally from Manichaeism. The
origin of the name Paulician is obscure. Gibbon (Decline and Fall,
liv), says it means "Disciples of St. Paul" (Photius, op. cit., II, 11;
III, 10; VI, 4). Their special veneration for the Apostle, and their
habit of renaming their leaders after his disciples lend some colour to
this view. On the other hand, the form (Paulikianoi, not Paulianoi) is
curious; and the name seems to have been used only by their opponents,
who held that they were followers of Paul of Samosata (Conybeare, op.
cit., cv). The birthplace of their founder evidently suggested this;
but there is no connection between their doctrine and his. Photius
relates that a certain Manichee woman, named Kallinike sent her two
sons Paul and John to Armenia to propagate this heresy; the name is
corrupted from Pauloioannoi (Friedrich op. cit., I). The existence of
such persons is now generally denied. The latest authority,
Ter-Mkrttschian (Die Paulicianer, 63), says the name is an Armenian
diminutive and means "followers of little Paul", but does not explain
who little Paul may be. It occurs first in the Acts of the Armenian
Synod of Duin in 719, a canon of which forbids any one to spend the
night in the house of "the wicked heretics called Pollikian"
(Ter-Mkrttschian, 62).
I. DOCTRINE
The cardinal point of the Paulician heresy is a distinction between the
God who made and governs the material world and the God of heaven who
created souls, who alone should be adored. They thought all matter bad.
It seems therefore obvious to count them as one of the many
neo-Manichaean sects, in spite of their own denial and that of modern
writers (Ter-Mkrttschian, Conybeare, Adeney, loc. cit.; Harnack,
"Lehrbuch der Dogmengeschicte", Tubingen, 1909, II, 528). But there is
a strong Marcionite element too. They rejected the Old Testament; there
was no Incarnation, Christ was an angel sent into the world by God, his
real mother was the heavenly Jerusalem. His work consisted only in his
teaching; to believe in him saves men from judgment. The true baptism
and Eucharist consist in hearing his word, as in John, iv, 10. But many
Paulicians, nevertheless, let their children be baptized by the
Catholic clergy. They honoured not the Cross, but only the book of the
Gospel. They were Iconoclasts, rejecting all pictures. Their Bible was
a fragmentary New Testament. They rejected St. Peter's epistles because
he had denied Christ. They referred always to the "Gospel and Apostle",
apparently only St Luke and St. Paul; though they quoted other Gospels
in controversy.
The whole ecclesiastical hierarchy is bad, as also all Sacraments and
ritual. They had a special aversion to monks. Their own organization
consisted first of the founders of their sect in various places. These
were apostles and prophets. They took new names after people mentioned
by St. Paul, thus Constantine called himself Silvanus; apparently they
claimed to be these persons come to life again. Under the apostles and
prophets were "fellow-workers" (synechdemoi) who formed a council, and
"notaries" (notarioi), who looked after the holy books and kept order
at meetings. Their conventicles were called, not churches, but
"prayer-houses" (proseuchai). They maintained that it was lawful to
conceal or even deny their ideas for fear of persecution; many of them
lived exteriorly as Catholics. Their ideal was a purely spiritual
communion of faithful that should obliterate all distinctions of race.
Their enemies accuse them constantly of gross immorality, even at their
prayer-meetings. One of their chief leaders, Baanes, seems to have
acquired as a recognized surname the epithet "filthy" (ho ryproz). They
would recognize no other name for themselves than "Christians"; the
Catholics were "Romans (Romaioi), that is, people who obey the Roman
emperor, as the Monophysites called their opponents Melchites. Harnack
sums them up as "dualistic Puritans and Individualists and as "an
anti-hierarchic Christianity built up on the Gospel, and Apostle, with
emphatic rejection of Catholic Christianity" (Dogmengeschichte, II
528).
Since Gibbon the Paulicians have often been described as a survival of
early and pure Christianity, godly folk who clung to the Gospel,
rejecting later superstitions, who were grossly calumniated by their
opponents. Conybeare (op. cit.) thinks they were a continuation of the
Adoptionists. Dr. Adeney calls them "in many respects Protestants
before Protestantism" (The Greek and Eastern Churches, 219). This idea
accounts for the fact that the sect has met among modern writers with
more interest and certainly more sympathy than it deserves.
II. HISTORY
Constantine of Mananalis, calling himself Silvanus, founded what
appears to be the first Paulician community at Kibossa, near Colonia in
Armenia. He began to teach about 657. He wrote no books and taught that
the New Testament as he presented it (his "Gospel and Apostle") should
be the only text used by his followers (Georgios Monachos, ed.
Friedrich, 2). The other Paulician Apostles after Constantine were
Symeon (called Titus), sent by the emperor Constantine Pogonatus
(668-85) to put down the sect, but converted to it; then Gegnesius an
Armenian (Timothy); Joseph (Epaphroditus); Zachary, who was rejected by
many and called a hireling; Baanes; Sergius (Tychicus). They founded
six congregations in Armenia and Pontus, to which they gave the names
of Pauline Churches (Kibossa was "Macedonia", and so on).
Constantine-Silvanus, after having preached for twenty-seven years and
having spread his sect into the Western part of Asia Minor, was
arrested by the Imperial authorities (by Symeon), tried for heresy and
stoned to death. In 690 Symeon-Titus himself, having become a
Paulician, was also executed with many others. The history of these
people is divided between their persecutions and their own quarrels. An
Armenian Paul (thought by some to have given his name to the sect) set
up congregation at Episparis in the (Armenian) district Phanaroea (d.
c. 715). His two sons Gegnesius-Timothy and Theodore quarreIled about
his succession. Gegnesius went to Constantinople in 717 and persuaded
the emperor Leo III and the patriarch Germanus I that he was orthodox.
Armed with an imperial safe-conduct he came to Mananalis and succeeded
in crushing Theodore's opposition. After his death his son Zachary (the
"hireling") and his son-in-law, Joseph-Epaphroditus, again quarrelled
and formed parties as to which should succeed. Zachary's party went
under; many of them were destroyed by the Saracens.
Joseph (d. 775) founded communities all over Asia Minor. Then came
Baanes (Vahan; d. 801). Under him the sect decreased in numbers and
influence. But a certain Sergius-Tychicus, who made a new schism,
reformed and strengthened the movement in his party. The Paulicians
were now either Baanites (the old party), or Sergites (the reformed
sect). Sergius was a zealous propagator of the heresy; he boasted that
he had spread his Gospel "from East to West. from North to South"
(Petrus Siculus, "Historia Manichaeorum", op. cit., 45). The Sergites
meanwhile fought against their rivals and nearly exterminated them.
>From the Imperial government the Paulicians met with alternate
protection and persecution. Constantine IV, and still more Justinian
II, persecuted them cruelly. The first Iconoclast emperors (Leo III and
his successors) protected them; Conybeare counts these emperors as
practically Paulicians themselves (op. cit.). Nicephorus I tolerated
them in return for their service as soldiers in Phrygia and Lycaonia.
Michael I began to persecute again and his successor Leo V, though an
Iconoclast, tried to refute the accusation that he was a Paulician by
persecuting them furiously. A great number of them at this time
rebelled and fled to the Saracens. Sergius was killed in 835. Theodora,
regent for her son Michael III, continued the persecution; hence a
second rebellion under one Karbeas, who again led many of his followers
across the frontiers.
These Paulicians, now bitter enemies of the empire, were encouraged by
the khalifa. They fortified a place called Tephrike and made it their
headquarters. From Tephrike they made continual raids into the empire;
so that from this time they form a political power, to be counted among
the enemies of Rome. We hear continually of wars against the Saracens,
Armenians, and Paulicians. Under Basil I the Paulician army invaded
Asia Minor as far as Ephesus, and almost to the coast opposite
Constantinople. But they were defeated, and Basil destroyed Tephrike in
871. This eliminated the sect as a military power. Meanwhile other
Paulicians, heretics but not rebels, lived in groups throughout the
empire. Constantine V had already transferred large numbers of them to
Thrace; John I Tzimiskes sent many more to the same part to defend it
against the Slavs. They founded a new centre at Philippopolis, from
which they terrorized their neighbours. During the ninth and tenth
centuries these heretics in Armenia, Asia Minor, and Thrace constantly
occupied the attention of the government and the Church. The
"Selicians" converted by the Patriarch Methodius I (842-46), were
Paulicians. Photius wrote against them and boasts in his Encyclical
(866) that he has converted a great number. In Armenia the sect
continued in the "Thonraketzi" founded by a certain Smbat in the ninth
century. Conybeare attributes to this Smbat a work, "The Key of Truth",
which he has edited. It accepts the Old Testament and the Sacraments of
Baptism. Penance, and the Eucharist. This work especially has persuaded
many writers that the Paulicians were much maligned people. But in any
case it represents a very late stage of their history, and it is
disputed whether it is really Paulician at all. Constantine IX
persuaded or forced many thousands to renounce their errors.
The emperor Alexius Comnenus is credited with having put an end to the
heresy. During a residence at Philippopolis, he argued with them and
converted all, or nearly all, back to the Church (so his daughter:
"Alexias", XV, 9). From this time the Paulicians practically disappear
from history. But they left traces of their heresy. In Bulgaria the
Bogomile sect, which lasted through the Middle Ages and spread to the
West in the form of Cathari, Albigenses, and other Manichaean heresies,
is a continuation of Paulicianism. In Armenia, too, similar sects,
derived from them, continue till our own time.
There were Paulician communities in the part of Armenia occupied by
Russia after the war of 1828-29. Conybeare publishes very curious
documents of their professions of faith and disputations with the
Gregorian bishop about 1837 (Key of Truth, xxiii-xxviii). It is from
these disputations and "The Key of Truth" that he draws his picture of
the Paulicianis as simple, godly folk who had kept an earlier (sc.
Adoptionistic) form of Christianity (ibid., introduction).
III. SOURCES
There are four chief documents: (1) Photius, Four books against the
Paulicians(Diegesis peri tes ton neophanton manichaion anablasteseos),
in P.G., CII, 15-264. (2) Euthymius Zigabenus, in his "Panoplia", XXIV
[P.G., CXXX, 1189, sqq., separate edition of the part about the
Paulicians, ed. Gieseler (Gottingen, 1841)]. (3) Peter the Abbot,
"Concerning the Paulicians and Manichees", ed. Gieseler (Gottingen,
1849), who idlentifies the author with Petrus Siculus, who wrote a
"Historia Manichaeorum qui Pauliciani dicuntur", first published by
Rader (Ingolstadt, 1604), of which work Gieseler considers "Concerning
the Paulicians" to be merely an excerpt. (4) George Monachos,
"Chronikon", ed. Muralt (St. Petersburg, 1853).
Of Photius's work only book I contains the history; the rest is a
collection of homilies against the heresy. There is interdependence
between these four sources. The present state of criticism (due chiefly
to Karapet Ter-Mkrttschian) is this: - Photius's account (book I)
falls into two parts. Chapters i-xiv are authentic, xv-xxvii a later
edition. The original source of all is lost. George Monachos used this.
Peter the Monk either copied George or used the original work. Photius
may have used Peter (so Ter-Mkrttschian) or perhaps the original.
Derived from these are Zigabenus and the spurious part of Photius's
book. Bonwetsch (Realencyklopädie für prot. Theol., 3rd ed., Leipzig
1904, XV, 50) represents (according to Friedrich and as probable only)
the order of derivation as: (1) An account contained in a MS. of the
tenth century (Cod. Scorial. I, phi, 1, fol. 164 sqq.) ed. Friedrich in
the "Sitzungsbericht der Münchener Akademie", (1896), 70-81; (2)
Photius, i-x; (3) George Monachos; (4) Peter the Abbot; (5) Zigabenus;
(6) Pseudo-Photius, x-xxvii; (7) Petrus Siculus.
Other sources are the Armenian bishop John Ozniensis [ed. by Aucher
(Venice, 1834) and used by Dollinger and Conybeare] and the "Key of
Truth" [Mrkttschian in "Zeitschrift für Kirchengeschichte", 1895, and
Conybeare's edition, Armenian and English, with introduction and notes
(Oxford, 1898)].
Geiserik
Nog iets over uw vraag i.v.m. de Paulikanen voor Constantin van
Mananalis. Het woord Paulikanen is Armeens en kan twee dingen
betekenen. Ofwel volgelingen van de één of andere verachterlijke
Paulus of gewoon viezerik. Omdat de Paulikanen vooral Paulus in ere
hielden dacht men dat de naam vooral het eerste zou betekenen. Petrus
Siculus dacht hetzelfde. Velen gaan er van uit dat Petrus Siculus de
voorgeschiedenis van de Paulikanen probeerde te linken aan andere
ketterijen, met name de ketterij van Paulus van Samosata en die van de
Manichese ketters. Vandaar de voorgeschiedenis. Anderen denken dat die
linken echt zijn. De link met Paulus van Samosata stelt ons voor
problemen. Als de Paulikanen volgelingen van deze bisschop van
Antiochië waren, hoe komt het dan dat zij dualistisch waren? Paulus'
opvattingen waren adoptianistisch, terwijl die van de Paulikanen het
tegenovergestelde, docetisch, waren. Er is als antwoord geopperd dat de
Paulikanen geen dualisten waren maar dat ze alleen maar zo benoemd
werden door hun vijanden. Ze waren dan maar adoptionisten en hadden
niets te zien met de dualisten in het westen, ik spreek over
bijvoorbeeld de Bogomilen. Deze mening stuit echter weer op problemen,
want de Griekse bronnen tonen wel duidelijk aan dat de Paulikanen
dualistisch waren. Dus, zo werd door weer een ander geopperd ontstond
er in de tijd van Sergius een schisma onder de Paulikanen, één groep
bleef hetzelfde, een andere groep evolueerde naar het dualisme. De
Thondrakiërs zouden dan een overblijfsel van die eerste groep zijn en
de Paulikanen in Balkan een overblijfsel van die tweede groep. Knap
gevonden oplossing, maar ondertussen zijn er alweer talrijke bezwaren
tegen ingebracht en lijkt de oplossing dus ontkracht te zijn. Het
onderwerp vergt een zeer verregaande bestudering
Geiserik
kenners vaak naar refereren en waar ook de eerste referentie naar de
Bogomielen in Constantinopel in zou staan
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THE ALEXIAD
INTRODUCTION, by E.A. Dawes
PREFACE