unworthy leadership during the latter part of the eighth century, the Paulicians revived at the beginning of the ninth century under the leadership of the good and gifted Sergius. Like Silvanus, this man was led to a new way of life under the influence of the Gospels and the Epistles of Paul, to which he had been referred by a woman member of the sect. He now objected to the orthodox Church on account of its withdrawal of the Scriptures from the attention of the people. As we read this story of Sergius we seem to be anticipating the history of the Reformation, which took the same lines in regard to the Bible.
Sergius followed the curious example of earlier leaders of the sect and took a Pauline name, Tychicus, when he entered on a similar missionary career. He carried on his labours for thirty-four years, visiting almost every part of the central plateaus of Asia Minor. In one of his letters he wrote, "I have run from east to west, and from north to south, till my knees were weary, preaching the gospel of Christ."[1] Meanwhile, like his great predecessor St. Paul, he maintained himself by working with his own hands, his trade being that of a carpenter. This really promised to be a great religious revival. If the iconoclastic party of the government had joined heartily with the spiritual movement among the Paulicians we might have seen a reformation in the East anticipating the Reformation in the West by many centuries. But there was one fatal hindrance to this grand consummation. The methods of force pursued by the imperial government were not such as could effect a real reform of religion. The contamination of unscrupulous politics vitiated the hope of effective improvements and even led to a reversal of policy. Leo the Armenian, although an Iconoclast, endeavoured to strengthen his position by pleasing the Church party in permitting an attack on the Paulicians. It was a wicked course of action, and fatal to any statesmanlike improvement of the situation. So terrible was the persecution which now broke out, that some of the Paulicians murdered
- ↑ Photius, i. 22.
