Page:Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire vol 6 (1897).djvu/134

 114 THE DECLINE AND FALL They hold the two principles of the Ma- rians and Manichseans were as strongly guarded by habit and aversion as by the silence of St. Paul and the evangelists. The objects which had been transformed by the magic of superstition appeared to the eyes of the Paulicians in their genuine and naked colours. An image made without hands was the common workmanship of a mortal artist, to whose skill alone the wood and canvas must be in- debted for their merit or value. The miraculous relics were an heap of bones and ashes, destitute of life or virtue, or of any relation, perhaps, with the person to whom they were ascribed. The true and vivifying cross was a piece of sound or rotten timber ; the body and blood of Christ, a loaf of bread and a cup of wine, the gifts of nature and the symbols of grace. The mother of God was degraded from her celestial honours and immaculate virginity ; and the saints and angels were no longer solicited to exercise the laborious office of mediation in heaven and ministry upon earth. In the practice, or at least in the theory, of the sacraments, the Paulicians were inclined to abolish all visible objects of worship, and the words of the gospel were, in their judgment, the baptism and communion of the faithful. They indulged a convenient latitude for the interpretation of scripture ; and, as often as they were pressed b}' the literal sense, they could escape to the intricate mazes of figure and allegory. Their utmost diligence must have been employed to dissolve the connexion between the Old and the New Testament ; since they adored the latter as the oracles of God, and abhorred the former as the fabulous and absurd invention of men or daemons. We cannot be surprised that they should have found in the gospel the orthodox mystery of the Trinity ; but, instead of confessing the human nature and substantial sufferings of Christ, they amused their fancy with a celestial body that passed through the virgin like water through a pipe ; with a fantastic crucifixion that eluded the vain and impotent malice of the Jews. A creed thus simple and spiritual Avas not adapted to the genius of the times ; ^^ and the rational Christian, who might have been con- tented with the light yoke and easy burthen of Jesus and his apostles, was justly offended that the Paulicians should dare to violate the unity of God, the first article of natural and revealed 1' The six capital errors of the Paulicians are defined by Peter Siculus (p. 756 [c. 10, p. 1253, 1256-7, ed. Mignel) with much prejudice and passion. [In the following order : (i) The two principles ; (2) the exclusion of the Virgin Mary from the number of " Good Folk " (cp. the Perfect of the Pjogomils ; see Appendix 6) ; and the doctrine that Christ's body came down from Heaven ; (3) the rejection of the Sacrament and (4) the Cross, and (5) the Old Testament, &c. ; (6) the rejec- tion of the elders of the Church.]