DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.63447#0100
84
THE HISTORICAL PAST OF ITALY.
of Zoroaster, became the great object of persecution in
the East, and subsequently in the Western world.
The apostle of this sect, Constantine Sylvanus, a
native of Samosata in Syria, had alighted on the topic
which gave rise to such bitter schisms, by apparent
chance. He had received a copy of the New Testament
from a deacon, who, returning from captivity about the
year 660, was hospitably entertained at his house.
This gift became his only study ; and the “ Epistles of
St. Paul ” the object of his most profound attention.
Constantine and his companions assumed the names of
the followers of the Apostle ; and the appellations of the
primitive Church were revived amongst the congregations
they established in Armenia and in Cappadocia.
These sectarians, sometimes called Paulicians, some-
times Manichaeans (as they had adopted many of the
doctrines of that heresy), employed themselves with the
study of Christianity at its fountain head. They acknow-
ledged two creative principles in the universe, an evil and
a good. To the former belonged the visible world—to the
latter, the superior or eternal. Visions were condemned
by most of the Manichaeans ; they believed in the eternity
of spirit and of matter; they drew a strong line of demar-
cation between the Old and the New Testaments—the
former being, they imagined, the record of the Spirit of
Evil; the latter, of the Spirit of Grace.
They could not reconcile the crimes, the bloodshed, the
iniquities narrated in the Old Testament, and committed
by the Jews, as the “ People of God,” with the doctrine
of Divine Benevolence; nor could they succeed in tracing
the idealism of the Christian dispensation in the ferocious,
stiff-necked intolerance of the Jewish law. They could
recognize no traces in the latter, for the foundation of the
lofty moral purity, and all-embracing charity of the
religion of Christ.
They excluded images, pictures, relics, and the “ medi-
ation of saints ” from their faith ; and looked for light in
the Gospel and its simple rule.
Believing in the rationality of the Christian dispensa-
THE HISTORICAL PAST OF ITALY.
of Zoroaster, became the great object of persecution in
the East, and subsequently in the Western world.
The apostle of this sect, Constantine Sylvanus, a
native of Samosata in Syria, had alighted on the topic
which gave rise to such bitter schisms, by apparent
chance. He had received a copy of the New Testament
from a deacon, who, returning from captivity about the
year 660, was hospitably entertained at his house.
This gift became his only study ; and the “ Epistles of
St. Paul ” the object of his most profound attention.
Constantine and his companions assumed the names of
the followers of the Apostle ; and the appellations of the
primitive Church were revived amongst the congregations
they established in Armenia and in Cappadocia.
These sectarians, sometimes called Paulicians, some-
times Manichaeans (as they had adopted many of the
doctrines of that heresy), employed themselves with the
study of Christianity at its fountain head. They acknow-
ledged two creative principles in the universe, an evil and
a good. To the former belonged the visible world—to the
latter, the superior or eternal. Visions were condemned
by most of the Manichaeans ; they believed in the eternity
of spirit and of matter; they drew a strong line of demar-
cation between the Old and the New Testaments—the
former being, they imagined, the record of the Spirit of
Evil; the latter, of the Spirit of Grace.
They could not reconcile the crimes, the bloodshed, the
iniquities narrated in the Old Testament, and committed
by the Jews, as the “ People of God,” with the doctrine
of Divine Benevolence; nor could they succeed in tracing
the idealism of the Christian dispensation in the ferocious,
stiff-necked intolerance of the Jewish law. They could
recognize no traces in the latter, for the foundation of the
lofty moral purity, and all-embracing charity of the
religion of Christ.
They excluded images, pictures, relics, and the “ medi-
ation of saints ” from their faith ; and looked for light in
the Gospel and its simple rule.
Believing in the rationality of the Christian dispensa-