Page:The Greek and Eastern churches.djvu/243

This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.

THE PAULICIANS

217

of the teachings and practices of these much maligned people.^[1]

Beyond the Taurus mountains in the south-east of Armenia there lived during the eighth and ninth centuries a community of Christians cherishing their own discipline, rites, and doctrines apart from the main body of the Eastern Church and all its later developments. These people, who came to be known in the outside world as Paulicians, and who afterwards accepted the title for themselves, owe their original separateness to their geographical seclusion. Therefore it is quite arguable that they should be regarded as representing the survival of a more primitive type of Christianity rather than as the followers of a heresy which sprang up nearer the time when they emerged into the daylight of history, and Mr. Conybeare connects them with the primitive Adoptionists, whose views can be traced back to very early times.^[2] The ideas of these people are now to be seen in The Key of Truth, which is a book of the Throuraketyi, or Paulicians of Thouraki, composed about

↑ The origin of the name "Paulician" is somewhat obscure. There is no foundation for the notion of ninth century polemical writers, that it is to be traced to a Manichæan of the fourth century named Paul, since the Paulicians were certainly not of Manichæan origin. The writer in Smith's Dictionary of Christian Biography regards it as a reference to the Apostle Paul. Like the Marcionites, the Paulicians made much of St. Paul's Epistles, and Photius says that they themselves derived their name from the apostle (Photius, ii. 11; iii. 10; vi. 4). Mr. Conybeare derives it from Paul of Samosata, quoting the Armenian writer Gregory Magistros, who says, "Here then you see the Paulicians who got their poison from Paul of Samosata" (Key of Truth, p. cv.). In the 19th Canon of Nicæa the followers of Paul of Samosata are called Pauliani; Pauliciani is the Armenian form of this name, the "ic" or "ik" being a diminutive introduced in contempt. They did not at first call themselves by the title, but simply designated themselves "Christians." It may have been flung at them by opponents to connect them with the heretic Paul, and subsequently interpreted by them in a new meaning to refer to the apostle and so throw off the libel.
↑ Adoptionism is found in the Shepherd of Hermas and other early Church writings, perhaps also in the New Testament, in the discourses of St. Peter (e.g. Acts v. 31), which represent the primitive Christology, preceding (1) the miraculous birth idea expressed in the infancy narratives of the first and third Gospels, especially in Luke i. 35, and (2) the still more developed conception of the pre-existent Son of God becoming incarnate, in St. Paul and St. John (e.g. Gal. iv. 4; John i. 14).

[1] The origin of the name "Paulician" is somewhat obscure. There is no foundation for the notion of ninth century polemical writers, that it is to be traced to a Manichæan of the fourth century named Paul, since the Paulicians were certainly not of Manichæan origin. The writer in Smith's Dictionary of Christian Biography regards it as a reference to the Apostle Paul. Like the Marcionites, the Paulicians made much of St. Paul's Epistles, and Photius says that they themselves derived their name from the apostle (Photius, ii. 11; iii. 10; vi. 4). Mr. Conybeare derives it from Paul of Samosata, quoting the Armenian writer Gregory Magistros, who says, "Here then you see the Paulicians who got their poison from Paul of Samosata" (Key of Truth, p. cv.). In the 19th Canon of Nicæa the followers of Paul of Samosata are called Pauliani; Pauliciani is the Armenian form of this name, the "ic" or "ik" being a diminutive introduced in contempt. They did not at first call themselves by the title, but simply designated themselves "Christians." It may have been flung at them by opponents to connect them with the heretic Paul, and subsequently interpreted by them in a new meaning to refer to the apostle and so throw off the libel.

[2] Adoptionism is found in the Shepherd of Hermas and other early Church writings, perhaps also in the New Testament, in the discourses of St. Peter (e.g. Acts v. 31), which represent the primitive Christology, preceding (1) the miraculous birth idea expressed in the infancy narratives of the first and third Gospels, especially in Luke i. 35, and (2) the still more developed conception of the pre-existent Son of God becoming incarnate, in St. Paul and St. John (e.g. Gal. iv. 4; John i. 14).

[1]

[2]