Who were they? Who were those that came after the
church in Jerusalem? Can they be identified? If so,
how can they be identified? Are they still around
today? All these are very important questions that
come to mind when in a study of Church History.
Many are named by Church Historians, but are the
historians correct or are they biased by their own
philosophies and beliefs? Who and what are we to
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believe when many of these writers have been dead
for centuries and we can no longer seem to verify
their assertions and statements? In this Presentation,
I would like to explore the answers to these questions
and others. History is very important. There is an
axiom that those who ignore history are doomed to
repeat it. There is much truth in that. We need to
know our history, whether personal or church.
The Paulicians
In Chapter Ten, Dr. Carroll named several of the
groups that were heavily persecuted during the
Inquisition and other local persecutions. The first
named were the Paulicians. They were not
necessarily the first group to feel the heavy hand of
persecution, but their history goes back to the 600’s.
They lived in a time when any opposition to the
“Church”, meaning the Catholic Church, meant that
persecution could be depended on to happen.
Much about what is written concerning the
Paulicians is by their enemies, which of course, call
them heretics. But were they really, or can we safely
call them part of our Missionary Baptist Heritage? To
answer that we must rely upon writers that we know
can be followed and trusted. Are there any of those?
Yes, there are.
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The following information came from a message
preached by Pastor K. David Oldfield, pastor of the
Calvary Baptist Church located in Post Falls, Idaho.
The message was taken from the church’s website.
My…purpose in selecting this text is to be found
in the areas to which Christianity had recently
spread. “Peter, an apostle of Jesus Christ, to the
strangers scattered throughout Pontus, Galatia,
Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia.” Please try
to picture today’s country of Turkey. Pontus and
Bithynia were districts within today’s Turkey,
bordering on the shore of the Black Sea. Asia,
Galatia and Cappadocia were essentially the rest
Turkey, extending all the way from the Aegean Sea
east toward Iran, Iraq and the Caspian Sea. As we see
in the Book of Acts, the gospel of Christ rapidly
moved north, as well as other directions. From
Jerusalem it went to Samaria. Saul of Tarsus was
saved trying to persecute Christians in Damascus,
Syria, north of Israel and Samaria. Then he became
one of the leaders of the church in Antioch even
farther
to
the
north. Beyond
Antioch
was
Cappadocia – or as parts of it were later known
– “Armenia.” Without a doubt Cappadocia and
Armenia were evangelized, and gospel
churches were planted there.
Now, if you have your copy of “The Trail of
Blood… please turn to the chart inside the back
cover. Notice on the left side of the lower half of the
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chart we have various names. Beginning in the
middle of 3rd century, about 250 AD, we read the
names “Montanists” and “Novatians.” These
were groups of saints, one beginning in Africa and
other in Italy, which retained the original doctrines
of Christ and the Apostles. They were true
churches, used by the Lord to maintain His
promise of church perpetuity and purity. Before the beginning of the 4th century you will see the
name “Donatists” extending for several centuries.
Some of those names are hard to read, because they
are spread out trying to show how long they existed.
There are a few other names in those early centuries
which we may address later. But there beginning
with the grey area, denoting the “Dark Ages” you
will see another name – “Paulicians.”
It is to these Paulicians that we refer…
Once again, most of the information we have on
these people comes from the writings of their
enemies. The Catholic church hated the Paulicians
and therefore wrote some of the most awful things
about them. But time has brought to light one
particular Paulician document, and honest secular
historians from among both the Baptists and
Protestants have been able to separate the historical
wheat from the chaff.
In Armenia, about the year 660 AD there was
a young gnostic thinker named “Constantine.” He
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is not to be confused with the emperor with that
name. The man was an heretic, a follower of the
Persian prophet Mani, or Manes, the creator
of “Manichaeism.” Manichaeism combined the
religions of Zoroaster, and Gnosticism with bit
of corrupted Christianity. It basically taught that in
creation there is a battle between two equals – light
and darkness; good and evil. It denies the deity of
Christ,
the omnipotence of
Jehovah,
the inerrancy of the Word of God and just about
every other doctrine which we hold dear.
This Constantine was a Manichean, in the same
what that Saul was once an unsaved Pharisaic Jew.
In
the
year
660 Constantine
sheltered
a
Christian who
was fleeing
Mohammedan
captivity in Syria. In gratitude to his host, the man
gave to Constantine a copy of the four gospels and
the epistles of Paul. Gibbon, the author of “The Rise
and Fall of Roman Empire” wrote: “These books
became the measure of his studies and the rule of his
faith; And the Catholics, who dispute his
interpretation, acknowledge that his text was
genuine and sincere. In the Gospels and the Epistles
of St. Paul, his faithful follower investigated the
creed of the primitive Christianity, and whatever
maybe the success, a Protestant reader will applaud
the spirit of the inquiry.” In essence, this secular
historian with his Protestant background, says
that Constantine went back to the original doctrines
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and practices of Biblical Christianity. Gibbon and
others often used the word “reformer” when
speaking about this Constantine, and in a sense this
was
true, but
as
the
Lutheran
historian Mosheim says, the churches which are
identified with this man restored the pure apostolic
doctrines
and
churches. He
says
that
Constantine picked
up
the
seeds
of
Bible
Christianity which were planted in Armenia in the
beginning of the Christian era.
In some ways eastern Turkey and her mountains is
like central Europe and the Alps. The remote valleys
provided a place for God’s truth to be sheltered and
protected. John Christian wrote: “The Paulician
churches were of apostolic origin, and were planted
in Armenia in the first century.” Then he
quotes Gibbon, “Through Antioch and Palmyra the
faith must have spread into Mesopotamia and
Persia; and in those regions become the basis of the
faith as it is spread in the Taurus mountains as far as
Ararat. This was the primitive form of Christianity.
The churches in the Taurus range of mountains
formed a huge recess or circular dam into which
flowed the early Paulician faith to be caught and
maintained for centuries, as it were, a backwater
from the main for centuries.”
One of the peculiarities of the Paulicians was
their especial love of Paul and his epistles. This was
the basis for the name which was applied to them.
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Often, as new churches were established, they
weren’t
called “Calvary
Baptist” or “First
Baptist,” they took up New Testament names
like “Ephesus,”
“Thessalonica,”
“Sardis,” and “Philippi.” And quite often new
converts changed their names to Paul’s companions
– “Titus,” “Timothy” and “Lydia.” Their love of
Pauline doctrine provided their enemy with a
name for the movement.
Because Constantine was becoming popular and
powerful, teaching doctrines which undermined the
growing Catholic doctrines and practices, both
Rome and Constantinople began a counter-
attack. And
because Constantine had
been
a Manichean, that was the charge used against
him. Do you suppose that Paul was ever described
as “that
renegade
Pharisee”? J.
M.
Cramp wrote; “Manichaiesm was looked upon as a
concentration of all that was outrageously bad in
religious opinion, and it became the fashion to
call ALL heretics Maniceans. Hence many excellent
men have been so stigmatized whose views and
practices
accorded
with
the
word
of
God.” The Paulicians, Donatists, Albigenses and
nearly every other Baptistic group have been
called “Manicheans” at some point or other by
Catholicism. One of their people, Bossuet wrote of
them: “This so hidden a sect, so abominable, so full
of seduction of superstition and hypocrisy, not
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withstanding imperial laws which condemned its
followers to death, yet maintained and diffused
itself.” In other words, it refused to be destroyed
despite all that Catholicism could do.
The effect of the Paulician doctrine was not
stopped by the name-calling. So the Emperor sent,
Simeon, one of his officers with a strong military
force
to Cibossa,
to
arrest
Constantine. Gibbon says, “by a refinement of
cruelty, they placed the unfortunate man before a
line of his disciples, who were commanded, as the
price of their pardon and proof of their repentance,
to massacre their spiritual Father. They turned aside
from the impious office; the stones dropped from
their filial hands, and of the whole number only one
executioner could be found, a new David, as he is
styled by the Catholics, who boldly overthrew the
giant
of
heresy.” However,
says
Gibbon,
this Simeon was so moved by Constantine and his
friends
that eventually he
was converted and
embraced the doctrines which he had been
commissioned to destroy. Thus, he became
a Paulician in more than one way.
Armitage says
that vast
number of
Catholics
were converted. In fact the influence of the
Paulicians
was so
strong that
it created
a
war between
Rome
and
Constantinople. The
Eastern branch of Catholicism became convinced,
for a time, that idol worship was sinful. In 726 Leo
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Church History Through the Trail of Blood
Isauricus, the Emperor, issued an edit prohibiting
idolatry. The Roman Pontiff saw this as an attack
upon his spiritual authority, and Catholic blood was
shed. Unfortunately, disorder was restored, and the
state church turned its swords again on the
Paulicians. In 832 the Empress Theodora instituted
an organized persecution which culminated in the
deaths
of
more
than one
hundred
thousand Paulicians in Armenia. And in a
real historical anomaly there was a time when
the Paulicians lived among the Muslims, the
Mussulmans, to save their people from total
extermination – genocide.
What did the Paulicians believe? Was it Baptist
doctrine?
As early as the 11th century mention was made of
a Paulician document called the “Key of Truth” but
up to that time it had never been found. Then in
1891, Frederick Conybeare, a fellow of the
University College, Oxford, no friend of the Baptists,
was making a study of the history of Armenia, and
the Lord led him to a copy of the “Key of Truth.” He
was able to obtain a copy from a library
in Edjmiatzin and eight years later he produced
a translation. For the first time the Paulicians were
able to defend their theology. And they openly
denied that they were Manicheans.
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J.T. Christian says, “Turning to the doctrines and
practices of the Paulicians we find that they made
constant use of the Old and New Testaments (and
nothing more) .. They had no orders in the clergy as
distinguished from laymen by their modes of living,
their dress, or other things; they had no councils or
similar institutions. Their teachers were of equal
rank. They strove diligently for the simplicity of the
apostolic life. They opposed all image worship which
was practiced in the Roman Catholic Church. The
miraculous relics were a heap of bones and ashes,
destitute of life and of virtue. They held to the
orthodox view of the Trinity; and to the human
nature and substantial sufferings of the Son of God.
Baptist views prevailed among the Paulicians. They
held that men must repent and believe, and then at a
mature age ask for baptism, which alone admitted
them into the church. ‘It is evident,’ observes
Mosheim, ‘they rejected the baptism of infants.’ They
baptized and rebaptized by immersion. They would
have been taken for downright Anabaptists.”
I. K. Cross summarized his study of the Paulicians
this way – They held tenaciously to the sacred
writings. They were especially concerned with the
writings of the apostle Paul, determined to build their
churches upon his teachings, and their ministers tried
to follow in his footsteps to the extent that they
adopted the name of his followers as their own.
They totally rejected all relics and image
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worship. They demanded a genuine experience of
salvation before admitting any for baptism. This is
what
is
commonly
called
today “believer’s
baptism.” Their churches were independent and
self-governing. They accepted only baptism and the
Lord’s Supper as ordinances of the church
and baptized by dipping or immersion. They
baptized those who came to them from other
communions, identifying them in the eyes of their
enemies as “anabaptists.” They believed they
were in succession from the churches of the
apostles. They believed, and practiced, purity of
church
discipline, causing
them
to
be
called “cathari.” They brought their faith across
Europe to the Reformation.
What was that last point? – “They brought their faith
across Europe to the Reformation.”
In
the year
970 the
Eastern Emperor
John
Tzimisces gave permission and support to a group of
Paulicians to move from Armenia to Thrace the
most
eastern