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222 their judges and then fled out of the empire and took refuge with the Saracens.

Under Michael the sect again enjoyed peace, and the influence of Sergius grew and spread. Photius ascribes to him terms of strange elation in saying, "I am the porter and the good shepherd and the leader of the body of Christ and the light of the house of God. I, too, am with you always, even unto the end of the world." But we must be always on our guard against the reports of an enemy, especially when he is also an ecclesiastic.

When the iconoclastic regime was broken, and the orthodox party came back into power under the Empress Theodora ( 842), there was no hope of a just treatment of heretics. Imperial commissioners were now sent into the suspected districts, and those who refused to submit to the Church were condemned to death by hanging, crucifixion, beheading, drowning. The deaths have been reckoned at from 10,000 to 100,000. Again the Paulicians were goaded to measures of retaliation. An officer in the imperial army of the East, named Carbeas, raised a rebellion, and was joined by 5,000 of the troops. He had the best excuse for his action, if civil war is ever permissible, for he had learned that his father had been impaled by the orthodox officials. This barbarous method of execution, which has been frequently practised by the Turks in their recent massacres of Christians, was here adopted by men who pretended to be Christians themselves and who professed to be acting in the interest of a holy Church and in defence of its creed. The maddened insurgents crossed the border of the empire, and with the permission of the caliph fortified the city of Thephrike, which became their headquarters. Thence they issued in raiding parties, with the co-operation of Omar the Emir of Melitene, and repeatedly ravaged the frontier of the empire. Petronas, the brother of Theodora, who was entrusted with the command of the imperial army, could not do more than stand on the defensive. At length Theodora's son, Michael