Page:Constantinople by Brodribb.djvu/131

 itself. The dangers of pictures, shrines, and images are always the same; and there are never wanting those who willingly give up the personal responsibilities of the Christian life, and accept in exchange the promises of men who, with images and pictures, bell and book, incense and vestments, assert for themselves supernatural powers, and claim to guard the gate of heaven.

The Paulicians were a kind of Byzantine Quakers, except that they were not meek. They would have no images. If they had priests at all, these did not form a special order of society; they refused to acknowledge the authority of a hierarchy. They came from Samosata, where their founder, one Constantine, had derived his simple system from the New Testament itself. They were driven by persecution to seek among the Saracens the toleration which the Christians would not concede. When Theodora had martyred ten thousand of this inoffensive people, they rose in revolt, joined the Moslems, and finally settled in a secluded country, difficult of access, where they maintained their independence.

A time of persecution for creed is not generally a time conspicuous for elevation of moral tone. This was a period in which all society seemed abandoned to the grossest vices. It would be only a vain repetition to tell of the murders, the mutilations, the tortures, of this reign. Theodora abandoned her son's education to her brother, Bardas, who gave his nephew opportunity for indulging his vices, encouraged him to order the execution of Theoktistus, his financial minister, forced Theodora and her daughters into a monastery, and joined the