Re: De deportaties van de Paulicianen naar de Balkan
Geiserik
The Paulicians increased greatly in numbers under Sergius Tychicus and
they were found chiefly among the hardy mountain people of the Taurus.
Scott says that
alike as defenders of the empire and as objects of imperial
persecution, they showed the greatest stubbornness and courage (ibid.,
p. 697).
They were protected by Constantine Copronymous (741-775) and invited to
settle in Thrace. Nicephorus (802-811) employed them in the protection
of the empire on its eastern frontier. Michael and Leo V ruthlessly
persecuted them.
But the Paulicians were too numerous, too warlike, and too well
organised to be dragooned into orthodoxy. They resisted, revolted, and
even retaliated by raiding Asia Minor from their mountain fastness.
After twenty years of comparative tranquillity they were exposed to
still more violent persecution under Theodora (842-857), which under
Basil developed into a war of extermination (see Krumbacher, p. 1075).
The Paulicians were driven into the arms of the Saracens, and with some
assistance from them, under the leadership of an able ruler
Chrysocheir, they not only successfully resisted the imperial forces
but forced them back and pillaged Asia Minor up to its western shores
(Scott, ibid.).
This demonstrates two aspects of the Paulicians. Firstly they used arms
and secondly the Muslims regarded them as a separate group to
Trinitarian Christians and rendered them assistance and protection.
This protection was not confined to Asia Minor, but also extended into
Spain. The distinction between the groups was known and preserved in
the Koran.
The comment by Christ against the Pergamum Church, which might be
identified with this sect, is thus made more intelligible when he says
in Revelation 2:16, that he will fight against [those holding false
doctrines among them] with the sword of his mouth.
Scott records that a second deportation of Paulicians, on a large
scale, from Armenia to Thrace, was carried out by John Tzimiskes (970)
(ibib.). Latin crusaders found the sect in Syria in the eleventh
century and Lady Mary Montagu, found them in the neighbourhood of
Philippopolis, in the eighteenth century (Scott, op. Cit.).
In Europe they developed into or amalgamated with the Bogomils (q.v.),
and their views and influences were propagated throughout the Middle
Ages by various anti-Catholic sects - e.g., Cathari, Albigenses - whose
filiation with the Paulicians is probable, though difficult to trace.
Their name, like 'Manichaean,' became in turn a generic description of
any of these movements which opposed the development of Catholic
hierarchy and doctrine (Scott, ibid.).