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 OF THE liOMAN EMi'lilE 123 filial con^egations of Italy and France."^ From that ara, a minute scrutiny might prolong and perpetuate the chain of tra- dition. At the end of the last age, the sect or colony still in- habited the valleys of mount Htemus, where their ignorance and jwverty were more frecjuently tormented by the (jreek clergy than by the Turkish government. The modem Paulicians have lost all memory of their origin ; and their religion is disgraced by the worship of the cross, and the practice of bloody sacrifice, which some cajjtives have imjKjrted from the wilds of Tartary.''* In the West, tiie first teachers of the Manicha-an tiieology neirin had been repulsed by the people, or suppressed by the prince. Stonl'iy The favour and success of the I'aulicians in the eleventh and*"^^"**^ twellth centuries must be imputed to the strong, though secret, discontent which armed the most pious Christians against the church of Rome. Her avarice was oppressive, her despotism odious ; less degenerate perhaps than the Greeks in the worship of saints and images, her innovations were more rapid and scandalous ; she had rigorously defined and imposed the doctrine of transubstantiation : the lives of the Latin clergy were more corrupt, and the Eastern bishops might pass for the successors of the apostles, if they were compared with the lordly jjrelates who wielded by turns the crosier, the sceptre, and the sword. Three different roads might introduce the I'aulicians into the heart of Europe. After the conversion of Hungary, the pilgrims who visited Jerusalem might safely follow the course of the Danube ; in their journey and return they passed through Philip- poj)olis ; and the sectaries, disguising their name and heresy, might accompany the French or German caravans to their re- spective countries. The trade and dominion of l^enice pervaded the coast of the Adriatic, arid the hospitable republic opened her bosom to foreigners of every climate and religion. Under the Byzantine standard, the Paulicians were often transported to the Greek provinces of Italy and Sicily ; in peace and war they freely conversed with strangers and natives, and their opinions were silently propagated in Rome, Milan, and the kingdoms be- yond the Alps.-^ It was soon discovered that many tljousand ^ Matt. Paris, Hist. Major, p. 267. This passage of our English historian is alleged by lAicange in an excellent note on Villehardouin (No. 208/, who found the Paulicians at Pbilippopolis the friends of the Bulgarians. -^See Marsigli, .Slato Militare dell' Impero Oitoiuano, p. 24. '■'The introduction of the Paulicians into Italy and France is amply discussed by Muratori (Antiquitat. Italia; medii Aivi, torn. v. dissert. Ix. p. 81-152) and Mosheim (p. 379-382, 419-422), Yet both liave overlooked a curious passage of