relation of Covenanters to Cameronians, or that of Corsican villagers to the banditti. They assiduously propagated their protestant teaching throughout Thrace; they also sent to Bulgaria missionaries, who were very successful in winning over many of the recent converts of the Greek missionaries. The Paulicians in Thrace were allowed a measure of home rule in return for their services in defence of the empire. They held the city of Philippopolis and occupied a line of villages and castles in Macedonia and Epirus, and the orthodox inhabitants were dominated by them. During the Norman war in the reign of Alexius Comnenus, 2,500 of them deserted. But they were afterwards subdued and punished. Alexius wintered at Philippopolis and devoted himself to arguing with them.[1] So successful was he—according to his daughter—that she styled him "the Thirteenth Apostle." Philippopolis was beautified with gardens for the benefit of those who had succumbed to the arguments of the imperial controversialist; but while they were permitted to remain there, they had lost all power. We must not make too much of the admiring princess' testimony in this matter. Undoubtedly there were many stubborn heretics who could not be persuaded even by an emperor's apostolic eloquence, and probably these people joined the new sects that were now springing up.
One of these sects consisted of the later Euchites, who have been associated with the Paulicians as continuators of the hated heresy. They were scattered over the same districts of Thrace in which the Paulicians had been planted. All that we know of them is dependent on a treatise written by an opponent,[2] who was probably the very man whom the Byzantine government had sent to Thrace to suppress them. We cannot therefore expect an unbiased opinion from such a source. The Euchites were
- ↑ Anna Comnena, Alexias, xv. 9.
- ↑ Διάλογος περὶ ἐνεργείας δαιμόνων by Michael Psellus. He was a teacher of philosophy of Constantinople, of wide knowledge on a variety of subjects. His bunk is a storehouse of information concerning contemporary information. He died a.d. 1105.
