A History of the Baptists - Preface (Ecumenical)

In attempting to write a history of the Baptists no one is more aware of the embarrassments surrounding the subject than the author. These embarrassments arise from many sources. We are far removed from many of the circumstances under survey; the representations of the Baptists were often made by enemies who did not scruple, when such a course suited their purpose, to blacken character; and hence the testimony from such sources must be received with discrimination and much allowance made for many statements; in some instances vigilant and sustained attempts were made to destroy every document relating to these people; the material that remains is scattered through many libraries and archives, in many lands and not always readily accessible; often, on account of persecutions, the Baptists were far more interested in hiding than they were in giving an account of themselves or their whereabouts; they were scattered through many countries, in city and cave, as they could find a place of concealment; and frequently they were called by different names by their enemies, which is confusing. Yet it is a right royal history they have. It is well worth the telling and the preserving.

It must be borne in mind that there are many sources of Church History. Broadly speaking we have Eastern and Western; and a want of discrimination in these sources, and frequently an effort to treat Eastern and Western churches as identical, has caused much confusion. A right understanding of these sources will clear up many dark corners. For example it is undoubtedly true that the Waldenses originated in the West and the Paulicans in the East, and that they had a different history. In later centuries they came in contact one with the other, but in origin they were diverse. Any effort to treat them as one and the same people is misleading. In my judgment both parties were Baptists. The above distinction will account for many minor differences, and even today these sources will be found coloring Baptist history.

It may be thought by some that on account of its length the chapter on “The Episode of John Smyth” is out of proportion with the rest of the hook. It must be remembered, however, that any information in regard to the complicated history of the Nonconformists of that period is welcome. As a matter of fact, several subjects are here grouped; and as all of them require notice it is believed that unity of thought, as well as length of discussion, is preserved by the method here adopted. Many questions were then raised for the first time among English Baptists which find expression today among all schools of Baptists.

The question has often been asked: “Were all of the ancient parties mentioned in these pages in absolute or substantial accord with all of the doctrines and customs of modern Baptists?” The question can be answered with unerring accuracy: certainly not. Nor is there anything strange in the reply. It is well known that Baptists, Mennonites, and Quakers in their history have much in common, but while they agree in many particulars there are essential differences. There are marked differences among modern Baptists. Even a superficial examination of the views and customs of Russian, English and American Baptists would reveal to an observer this fact. We need not go beyond the history of American Baptists for a convincing example. At first, Arminian doctrines largely prevailed in this country; at a later date, Calvinistic principles prevailed. Oftentimes the same persons have changed their opinion. Many of the Baptists in Virginia were Arminians, but after passing over to Kentucky some of them became rigid Calvinists. Inside the Baptist denomination today there are persons, and doubtless churches, who are Arminian, and there are other persons and churches who are Calvinists. There are also Unitarians and Higher Critics, as well as Evangelicals among Baptists. One who has a mind for such things could magnify these differences to an indefinite extent.

Adequate reasons might be assigned for all of this. Baptists have never had a common creed, and it is equally true that they have never recognized any authoritative creed. They desire no such standard. Their attitude toward free speech and liberty of conscience has permitted and encouraged the largest latitude in opinions. Yet none of us would care to increase these differences or make more acute the variations.

One who stops here would have only a superficial understanding of the history and polity of Baptists. Their ties of organization are so slender, their government so democratic in nature, and their hardy independence so universal, that it has been a wonder to some historians and a mystery inexplicable to those who have not understood their genius, how they have retained their homogeneity and solidarity. But holding as they have ever done the absolute and unconditional authority of the New Testament as the sole rule of faith and practice in religious matters, they have had with them from the beginning a powerful preventive to error, and a specific corrective when there has been an aberration from the truth.

All of these things, and more, must be taken into account when we come to consider the various parties and persons discussed in the pages of this history. These parties were persecuted, scattered and often segregated. They lived in different lands and frequently had no opportunity to compare notes. There were great controversies, and frequently new roads were to be blazed out, intricate doctrinal problems to be solved, and complicated questions to be adjusted. In the insistence upon some great doctrine, it may have happened that some other doctrine of equal or relative importance did not sustain its proper position for a time. Wrong views were sometimes maintained, false doctrines introduced and defended. Much allowance must always be made, especially in considering the doctrinal views of Baptists, for the fact we are frequently indebted to a zealous and prejudiced enemy for much of our information. It is not safe without support to trust such testimony.

Many examples might be introduced to show that some of these parties might not be recognized by some Baptists now-a-days. The Montanists, the Novatians, and the Donatists held diverse opinions, not only from each other, but from the teachings of the New Testament; but they stressed tremendously the purity of the church. It is possible that the Paulicians were Adoptionists. There have always been different views in regard to the birth of Jesus. Some of the Anabaptists held that Jesus was a man, and that he did not derive his manhood from Mary, but passed through her as a channel. The Adoptionists held that Jesus was endowed with divinity at his baptism. Most modern Baptists hold that Jesus became incarnate at his birth. There were some Baptists who held the vagaries of Hofmann and other Baptists who followed the more sane and rational course of Hubmaier. No effort is here attempted to minimize, or to dismiss as trivial, these variations. Perhaps absolute and unconditional uniformity is unattainable. Such uniformity was never, perhaps, more vigorously pressed than it was by Archbishop Laud, with a dismal failure and the tragic death to the prelate as the result.

The wonder, however, is not that there were variations in these diverse conditions, but that there could be any homogeneity or unity. Through all of the variations, however, there has been an insistence upon some great fundamental truths. There has ever appeared the vital necessity of a regenerated life; a church pure and separate from the ungodly; believers’ baptism; a simple form of church government; the right of free speech and soul liberty; and the permanent and paramount authority of the New Testament. Whatever may have been the variations in any or all of these parties, on the above or kindred subjects, the voice of the Baptists has rung out clear and distinct.

The testimony here recorded has been taken from many sources. I doubt not that diligent search would reveal further facts of the highest value. As a matter of fact I have a great accumulation of material which would extend into several volumes. In my judgment a Commission should he appointed with ample means to make a thorough search in the Archives of Europe.

I am well aware of the imperfections of this book, but it presents much data never before found in a Baptist history. I have throughout pursued the scientific method of investigation, and I have let the facts speak for themselves. I have no question in my own mind that there has been a historical succession of Baptists from the days of Christ to the present time It must be remembered that the Baptists were found in almost every corner of Europe. When I found a connection between one body and another that fact is stated, but when no relationship was apparent I have not tried to manufacture one. Straight-forward honesty is the only course to pursue. Fortunately, however, every additional fact discovered only goes to make such connections probable in all instances.

I have an expectant attitude toward the future. I heartily welcome every investigation, for truth has nothing to fear from the light.

Here’s what Philip Schaff, a sectarian Protestant, writes of them, in “History of the Christian Church.” (His words are echoed from Wikipedia to the Catholic Encyclopedia.)

The doctrines and practices of the Paulicians are known to us only from the reports of the orthodox opponents and a few fragments of the epistles of Sergius. They were a strange mixture of dualism, demiurgism, docetism, mysticism and pseudo-Paulinism, and resemble in many respects the Gnostic system of Marcion.

There are two problems with your use of Schaff as a source for history of the Paulicians.

1) Schaff rather uncritically used sources which were openly and polemically hostile to the Paulicians - these primarily being the anti-heretical works of the Late Empire/Early Byzantine Greek writers Photius and Petrus Siceliotes, and by derivation, later Catholic writers who relied upon them (and who were just as polemical).

Generally it is not good historical practice to rely solely upon the enemies of a group when trying to define an accurate description of that group. Historians (generally, not just in this case) look upon this sort of evidence as being of very low quality and utility. This is especially so when there are other, contemporary, historians who contradict this evidence, as we will see.

2) Schaff died before information came to light which basically destroyed the information he repeated uncritically from these sources. Schaff died in 1893, but in 1898, Conybeare published the first edition of his translation of "The Key of Truth", based upon Armenian mss. he discovered on a survey trip to Armenia in 1891. The Key of Truth was a Paulician document - hence, it contained a record of what this group had to say for itself, rather than what its enemies had to say about it. Needless to say, this sort of evidence is weighted far more heavily by historians.

The Key of Truth paints a far different picture of the Paulicians than did the Greek polemicists. Basically, this documents shows that most everything the Greek and Catholic writers had to say about the Paulicians (including the information you posted from Schaff) was false. This should not be surprising, when we consider that it was programmatic for the "orthodox" anti-heresiarchs to make just the sort of claims about "heretical" groups as we see your sources making - they're "dualist", they're "docetist", they're "gnostic" (body=evil, soul=good), they reject the Old Testament, etc. Basically, taking traits from very early heresies from the 2nd-3rd centuries, and applying them unquestioningly to later groups who "need" to be depicted as "heretics." Frankly, I'm surprised that the Greek writers didn't also claim that they have orgies and share their wives in common, which was also a common programmatic claim about different groups.

Needless to say, the evidence you've presented is very weak, and quite susceptible to dismissal on the grounds that it is both purposefully polemical and verifiably falsified by later evidences.

(1) Dualism was their fundamental principle.758 The good God created the spiritual world; the bad God or demiurge created the sensual world. The former is worshipped by the Paulicians, i.e. the true Christians, the latter by the “Romans” or Catholics.

Aside from the Greek polemicists, there is no evidence to support this assertion. While the Paulicians did reject the communion of other churches, there is no evidence from their own writings that they did so on the basis of any "good" and "evil" gods. This claim is simply an attempt by their enemies to attribute a "gnostic" belief to them that was wholly foreign to what they actually believed (i.e. one of the programmatic Catholic/Greek polemical tendencies). Indeed, Gibbon, when he addresses the Paulicians, states just the opposite - that the Paulicians who fled to France and became known as Albigenses, opposed gnostic theologies, apparently thinking they'd found them in Roman doctrines (c.f. Gibbon, Vol. 5, p. 398).

(2) Contempt of matter. The body is the seat of evil desire, and is itself impure. It holds the divine soul as in a prison.

Again, nothing in their own writings seems to suggest this. Now, they DID practice departure from the world in the sense of trying to live holy, moral, and pious lives. Gerard, Bishop of Cambray and Arras, at the Synod of Arras in 1025 questioned a condemned Paulician named Gundulphus about his beliefs, and recorded the following,

"The law and discipline we have received from our Master will not appear contrary either to the Gospel or apostolic institutions if carefully looked into. This discipline consists in leaving the world, in bridling carnal concupiscence, in providing a livelihood by the labor of our hands, in hurting nobody, and affording our charity to all who are zealous in the prosecution of this our design."

Probably, the claim of "contempt of matter" originates from the polemicists as a misunderstanding of the desire to keep oneself apart from the sins of the flesh.

(3) Docetism. Christ descended from heaven in an ethereal body, passed through the womb of Mary as through a channel, suffered in appearance, but not in reality, and began the process of redemption of the spirit from the chains of matter.

LOL, this is a ridiculous claim. As Conybeare notes (though he readily admitted this to be inferential, and said the idea comes from the emphasis on adult baptism among this group), if there is any heresy to which the Paulicians might have been guilty, it was Adoptionism - which is completely opposite to the docetism you describe in that is would DEMAND that Christ have had a literal, fleshly body.

(4) The Virgin Mary was not “the mother of God,” and has a purely external connection with Jesus. Peter the Sicilian says, that they did not even allow her a place among the good and virtuous women. The true theotokos is the heavenly Jerusalem, from which Christ came out and to which he returned.

This claim may have truth to it - and it's not surprising that the Greek writers (who would also have been Marian in theology, along with their Western Catholic counterparts) would have found this offensive and heretical. L.P. Brockett, in his history of the Bogomils (another Paulician group that emigrated from Armenia to Bulgaria in 9th-10th centuries), notes that this group did indeed reject veneration of Mary, as well as rejecting paedobaptism, rejecting church hierarchy, and affirming freedom of conscience.

(5) They rejected the Old Testament as the work of the Demiurge, and the Epistles of Peter. They regarded Peter as a false apostle, because he denied his master, preached Judaism rather than Christianity, was the enemy of Paul (Gal. 2:11) and the pillar of the Catholic hierarchy. They accepted the four Gospels, the Acts, fourteen Epistles of Paul, and the Epistles of James, John and Jude. At a later period, however, they seem to have confined themselves, like Marcion, to the writings of Paul and Luke, adding to them probably the Gospel of John. They claimed also to possess an Epistle to the Laodiceans; but this was probably identical with the Epistle to the Ephesians. Their method of exposition was allegorical.

The evidence from the KoT itself refutes this, as the Paulicians made constant use of both Testaments, and do not seem to have excluded any of the commonly accepted books of the NT.

(6) They rejected the priesthood, the sacraments, the worship of saints and relics, the sign of the cross (except in cases of serious illness), and all externals in religion. Baptism means only the baptism of the Spirit; the communion with the body and blood of Christ is only a communion with his word and doctrine.

In the place of priests (iJerei’” and presbuvteroi) the Paulicians had teachers and pastors (didavskaloi and poimevne”), companions or itinerant missionaries (sunevkdhmoi), and scribes (nwtavrioi). In the place of churches they had meeting-houses called “oratories” (proseucaiv); but the founders and leaders were esteemed as “apostles” and “prophets.” There is no trace of the Manichaean distinction between two classes of the electi and credentes.

This claim also likely has some truth to it, but some falsehood too. The Paulicians, by several accounts, did reject the superstitious elements of Catholic worship (relics, veneration of the cross, transubstantiation, etc.), but as far as baptism is concerned, numerous writers of all persuasions, as well as a number of ancient sources, agree in affirming that the Paulicians practiced literal, immersive adult baptism, after a convert had made a profession of repentance and faith. Hence, their baptism certainly wasn't "spirit only."

Further, the Paulicians do seem to have eschewed "official" buildings in place of smaller meeting-houses (though this might have been a function of persecution, rather than by choice), and they did indeed reject hierarchy (i.e. Nicolaitanism) in the churches. It's interesting, the mention of "apostles" (and one area where I would say the Paulicians were off on their doctrine) - the Paulicians apparently also believed in the necessity of apostolic succession - they just thought they had it, instead of Catholicism.

(7) Their morals were ascetic. They aimed to emancipate the spirit from the power of the material body, without, however, condemning marriage and the eating of flesh; but the Baanites ran into the opposite extreme of an antinomian abuse of the flesh, and reveled in licentiousness, even incest. In both extremes they resembled the Gnostic sects. According to Photius, the Paulicians were also utterly deficient in veracity, and denied their faith without scruple on the principle that falsehood is justifiable for a good end.

Again, none of this really has any basis in fact, outside of the polemical claims of the Greek writers. Indeed, Photius claim that the Paulicians were liars makes complete sense, when viewed from the perspective of a narrow-minded religious bigot - naturally, anyone who affirms a different theology isn't just wrong, they're a "liar", since they "know what is true" but refuse to accept it as such, and hence lie against the truth. The Muslims generally hold the same view of those who disagree with Islam.

Nevertheless, the claim, in the main, fails for the same reasons that several of the other gnostically-related claims fall - they don't have any supporting evidence from the actual source document that the Paulicians themselves wrote, and hence, most later historians after Schaff (besides Catholic historians, of course) don't give these reports much credit.

I’m glad you have now stated a case.

You’re quite right that Photius was not accurate when he called them Manicheans, which is why I didn’t repeat that claim. Surely, you are quite unfair to Schaff to figure he unquestioningly repeated whatever Photius wrote. But Photius can hardly be dismissed as purely lying; he wrote much against my own Catholic Church, but what he wrote did have a basis in truth. We certainly do use unleavened bread, and we do say the “filioque.” It’s his characterizations that are the problem, and his [Photius’] claim that the Paulicians were Manicheans has to be viewed in the same sense as when I accuse the DaVinci code of being Gnostic: He’s finding many of the same errors, but not meaning to ascribe each and every error of the Manicheans to the Paulicians.

Certainly, Conybeare’s discovery of “The Key” is significant, but Conybeare himself concedes many of the claims that Schaff and which you cite him [Conybeare] as dismissing would echo are true. (I learned that just from reading the introduction in Conybeare’s translation!) But subsequent researchers have not even concurred with the refutations of Photius that Conybeare asserts.

However, both the Paulicians and the modern Russians teach that their more distinct doctrines should not be openly professed. Further, the Russians had been in a society whose Christianity had been dominated by Orthodox / Catholic Christians for a THOUSAND years since Photius wrote of them. Therefore, it is quite reasonable to assume that the modern Russian “Protestants” had drifted far towards (small “o”) orthodox Christianity since the days of Photius. I might make a comparison between the Mormons and the Paulicians, wherein the Mormons, through promoting assimilation and downplaying their more controversial doctrines, now seem far more like conventional Christians than did the Mormons of the 1830s. And even saying that much is far more than can be said of the Russian Protestants, who do not even claim to be Paulicians.

In fact, your very argument relating the Paulicians to the Albi(gensians) confirms this: The Albi plainly did believe in the demiurge, exotic sexual mores, etc. IN fact, I would hesitate to link the Paulicians to the Albi precisely because there is not historical record of the Paulicians having gone nearly as heretical / pagan as the Albi. (The Albi divided their believers into two classes, because the more enlightened class would otherwise die out due to their sexual and asthetic ethics.) I’d suppose (with poor historical sourcing) that once the Albi and Bulgars were introduced to Gnosticism, they recognized certain similarities to the Paulician beliefs they had been taught, and supposed Gnosticism to be a still more primitive Christianity???

You also lump in as inherently false the Sergian texts, which Schaff did have, and are not comprised solely of polemics against Paulicians.

I’m glad you have now stated a case.

I was able to do so after you provided more than just assertion.

If you will notice, I did not address Photius’ statement that they were Manicheans for the simple fact that it is obviously wrong.

Instead, what I addressed were the specific claims – repeated from Schaff, who in his turn repeated them from the Greek writers who discussed the Paulicians – that you had listed. I do not think I’m being in the least unfair to Schaff, and indeed, would not blame Schaff for repeating what, at his time, was pretty much the only source of information available to him on the subject of the Paulicians. The point is, however, that Schaff – as well as the Greek sources – were simply wrong on many of their claims about the Paulicians, including many of the ones you listed in your effort to cast the Paulicians as Marcionite gnostic dualists.

Again, we should note that the Greek evidences, especially the polemical writers, while not being spurious, are also not accurate – and therein lies the problem. The Armenian sources, which scholars readily admit are in contradiction to the Greek sources (e.g. N.A Garsoian, The Paulician Heresy, p. 26) refute many of the claims about the Paulicians by the Greeks, and which are repeated by later scholars like Schaff. Indeed, Garsoian notes that a lot of the reason why scholars continue to give undue weight to the Greek evidences is because the Armenian evidences are not as accessible to them.

Further, your argument about Photius is illogical since his merely getting some of his facts right about the Catholic religion does not necessarily imply that he got his facts, or all of them at least, right about other groups. This is especially true since Photius was well-placed to be very familiar with the differences between Constantinople and Rome (especially since he helped to aggravate those differences), while his knowledge of the Paulicians was at best second-hand.

The reason we know the Greeks (and therefore Schaff, etc.) were wrong is because we have the testimony of more trustworthy evidences. We have the Armenian evidences: a scattering of writings and statements by Armenian ecclesiastics, as well as a primary source document that purports to have been the work of the Paulicians themselves – not something somebody heard somebody else say about them that they were ready to believe since they didn’t like the Paulicians anyhow. The Greek writers are simply not that weighty of evidence, the Armenian evidence is much more so, despite being underappreciated by scholars who hold to the “party line”, so to speak.

Then, with all due respect, you need to go back and read it again, because Conybeare’s introduction flatly contradicts the claims you made in your original post as well as in your subsequent post in which you cite Schaff as your source.

Conybeare does agree that in some places, the Greek sources do seem to be in fundamental agreement with the evidences provided in the Armenian. However – and this is key – in many claims about Paulician doctrine, including the claims you made, the Greek sources fundamentally disagree with the source documents themselves. Again, some agreement does not imply ALL agreement.

So, does Conybeare really “concede many of the claims that Schaff….are true,” as this applies to the actual claims in question? Let’s see:

1) Schaff (and yourself) state that the Paulicians were Dualists. Conybeare, on the other hand, said,

“Nevertheless, there are ascribed to the Paulicians in both sets of sources opinions of which we find little or no hint in the Key. First among these is a Manichean dualism according to which the visible universe was created by the devil.

“Now firstly the Key, p. 48, asserts just the contrary. In it Satan is indeed frequently alluded to as the adversary of God himself, and the latter is usually characterized as the heavenly God or God in heaven. But there is no indication that the Paulicians went beyond the well-marked dualism of the New Testament itself, according to which (John xii. 31 and xiv. 30) Satan is the ruler of this world, or even as Paul expressed it (2 Cor. iv. 4), the God of this world.” (p. xliv)

Hence, to the extent that there is “dualism” in the Paulician beliefs, it is a “dualism” which is readily found in the NT itself (and, hence, which is theoretically there in Catholicism and Protestantism as well). There certainly is no hint in the Key of Truth that the Paulicians believed Satan created the world – indeed, there are a number of statements exactly to the contrary, where God is specifically credited with creation of the heavens and the earth.

2) Schaff (and yourself) state that the Paulicians reject Old Testament, rejected Peter’s epistles, and basically held only to the letters of Paul and Luke, and (tentatively) John (i.e. evidence of Marcionism). Further, it was claimed that the Paulicians “rejected Peter” as being a false apostle. Conybeare, on the other hand, says,

“Their canon included the whole of the New Testament except perhaps the Apocalypse, which is not mentioned or cited….The Old Testament is not rejected; and althought rarely cited, is nevertheless, when it is, called the God-inspired book, Astoudsashountch, which in Armenian answers to our phrase ‘Holy Scripture’ or ‘Bible.” (p. xxxvii)

“There is no rejection of the Epistles of Peter, nor is any disrespect shown to that apostle. It is merely affirmed, p. 93, that the Church does not rest on him alone, but on all the apostles, including Paul. In the Election Service, p. 107, the bishop formally confers upon the candidate the ritual name of Peter, in token of the authority to loose and bind now bestowed on him.” (p. xxxix)

So, contra Schaff, we see that the Paulicians held to the entirety of the NT, with the possible exception of Revelation. However, two things should be considered which mitigate even this possibility. One, Revelation was not generally accepted into the Armenian canon until around the beginning of the 13th century, nearly four centuries after Conybeare dates the origin of the Key. It is quite possible that the Paulicians simply didn’t have access to Bibles and manuscripts that had the book in it, quite regardless of what they would have thought about the canonicity of it. Two, they accepted other of John’s writings, so if they’d had access, they likely would have accepted Revelation as well. Probably, the reason why they didn’t cite this book is merely because they actual subjects addressed in the Key don’t really need to draw upon Revelation as a source.

Again, we see also that the Paulicians didn’t reject the OT. Indeed, at one point, the Key calls Moses “the great prophet” (something a Marcionite definitely wouldn’t have done), and refers to the creation account (specifically found in the Jewish Torah) in a positive light. None of this would have even been conceivable to a Marcionite. The reason why the Key of Truth rarely cites the OT? Probably because the Key is largely a manual of order and ritual for New Testament churches – and the primary place you’ll find material pertaining to that is in the Gospels and in Acts (which are the primary books cited in the Key). You simply don’t find baptism, church organization, etc. in the OT, so why cite the OT extensively in a book about those topics?

And Peter - as we see, he’s not rejected as a “false apostle from the devil.” Indeed, at least twice, the Key calls him a “member of the holy universal and apostolic church” as it cites his epistles – the same formula, incidentally, which the Key uses in referring to John and Paul.

Schaff (and yourself) state that the Paulicians were Docetists – an early heresy which said that Jesus’ body was immaterial and an illusion, that He only “seemed” to have a body, and did not really “die.” Conybeare, on the other hand, says,

“There is no trace of Docetism in the Key, nor any denial of the real character of the Passion. Christ’s sufferings indeed are declared to have been insupportable.”

Indeed, the great lengths to which the Key of Truth goes to establish Christ as the New Adam and to which it speaks of His body would seem to positively rule out any idea that they were docetists on the part of anyone who’d actually read the Key.

It should be noted that the Armenian ecclesiastics, even the “orthodox” ones, did not ascribe these heresies to the Paulicians. This is likely because the Armenians had the Paulicians in their presence and knew better, while the Greeks did not, and didn’t know what they were talking about.

Hence, we see the three major claims about the Paulicians which I had disputed – if we will recall, I didn’t dispute the ones about their rejection of relics, saints, Marianism, rejection of hierarchy, etc. – which Conybeare positively states his disagreement with Schaff and yourself. As it would bear on the actual topics of discussion here, what exactly makes you think Conybeare “concedes” any of these assertions from Schaff?

Conybeare spent considerable time in Armenia and Russia, and learned much of the Paulicians not from historical artifacts, but from presuming the similarity of Paulicians to “Eastern Protestants” who were historically influenced by the Paulicians. Such modern Russians denied many of the heresies Photius ascribed to the Paulicians, and Conybeare readily accepted that if a certain heresy was explicitly taught in “The Key” it should be considered refuted, given the modern Russians’ denials of those heresies, a fact which alone should suggest that they saw huge errors among the Paulicians which they dropped, if indeed they can be said to be more than somewhat influenced by Paulicians. However, both the Paulicians and the modern Russians teach that their more distinct doctrines should not be openly professed. Further, the Russians had been in a society whose Christianity had been dominated by Orthodox / Catholic Christians for a THOUSAND years since Photius wrote of them. Therefore, it is quite reasonable to assume that the modern Russian “Protestants” had drifted far towards (small “o”) orthodox Christianity since the days of Photius. I might make a comparison between the Mormons and the Paulicians, wherein the Mormons, through promoting assimilation and downplaying their more controversial doctrines, now seem far more like conventional Christians than did the Mormons of the 1830s. And even saying that much is far more than can be said of the Russian Protestants, who do not even claim to be Paulicians.

I’m going to have ask you for your source(s) for your claims that Conybeare spent considerable amounts of time in Armenia and Russia, and that modern Russian sects played a role in shaping his views on the Paulicians.

I ask because the only work that Conybeare wrote about Russian religious sects (Russian Dissenters, 1921) barely references the Paulicians, mentioning them three times, and each time incidentally. Further, he states in the Preface to this work that,

“It is not a work of original research. I have only read a number of Russian authorities and freely exploited them….”

This, plus the listing of his sources that follows seems to suggest that, far from having some sort of direct contact with anyone in Russian, but merely through literary works. Further, in his introduction to the Key of Truth, Conybeare states about his discovery of the Key of Truth,

“In the autumn of the year 1891, I went to Armenia for a second time….” (p. v)

His trip in which he found the Key was his second trip – hardly indicative of his spending massive portions of his lifetime in Armenia, conferring about the Paulicians with modern “heretics.”

This aside, what you’ve written above is largely conjecture – and needless conjecture at that, for there is nothing that suggests a link between the Paulicians and modern Russian sects, such as the Raskol and others. At least nothing Conybeare seemed to feel was important enough to mention in his only book on the subject. Hence, it wouldn’t be surprising that modern Russian Protestants (or other dissenting, Protestant-like native sects) would not claim descent from the Paulicians – that argument’s never really been on the table anywise (i.e. straw man).

The Key of Truth was dated by Conybeare, and has generally been accepted, to around the middle of the 9th century, on textual critical and form critical grounds. The issue at hand is what the Paulicians believed – and we have a document dating to more than a millennium ago. What modern Russian sects believe is wholly irrelevant to this discussion.

Sorry, but no. These same arguments about the Albigenses are suspect for the same reasons as those about the Paulicians – the claims are often advanced by their bitter enemies, while there are contemporaneous evidences which refute the charges.

As Conybeare himself pointed out in his discussion of the Albi and the Cathars, the Lyon manuscript, an authentic source document from the Cathars themselves, refutes the charges that the Albi/Cathars were dualists, Manicheans, rejected the OT, etc. Specifically concerning the charge of dualism (in which a belief in the demiurge would be included), Conybeare states that we “should probably attach little weight to it” (p. cxlv). Further, both the Lyon MS and the evidence of contemporary Catholic clergymen suggests that far from having “exotic sexual mores”, the Cathars actually held celibacy to be the “higher state” (much like, you know, the Catholics).

You also lump in as inherently false the Sergian texts, which Schaff did have, and are not comprised solely of polemics against Paulicians.

The Sergian texts, to the extent that they would affirm the charges that Schaff (and yourself) make about the Paulicians, would still be factually wrong, regardless of how much they constitute a polemic.

Sorry, but no. The Paulicians were not dualistic, Marcionitic Gnostics with funny sexual practices and a hatred for two-thirds of the Word of God. To the extent that they were heretical, it would primarily revolve around the presumption of Adoptionism that Conybeare seems to find in the Key of Truth. I would add, however, that this is largely inferred from what words “should” have been present in lacunae or erasures rather than from what they actually said – reading the Key, one doesn’t get a sense of their Adoptionism so much as that they merely affirm the creation of Jesus’ body in the Virgin Mary and His assumption of glory at His baptism. In my last post, I incorrectly stated that the Paulicians rejected transubstantiation. In fact, they did affirm it, but with the important difference that they didn’t believe it imparted grace unto salvation – the Key repeated affirms that repentance and faith are first necessary for salvation before anything else matters. As such, the Paulicians would have been heretical in their support for transubstantiation as well.

But all the same – Docetists? Nope. Marcionites? No way. Dualists? Try again.

Ya know, I shouldn’t let myself get bogged down in minutiae; its done out of respect for your arguments, but it distracts from the general purpose we BOTH have in discussing this. But, truthfully, I am quite certainly inexpert in the study of Paulicians. I’ve never previously read Conybeare, and regard Schaff as a protestant polemicist. Not having read the entirety of Conybeare, I should have ceded any points regarding his conclusions of the Paulicians instantly, even if I am still unconvinced.
Regardless of whether Conybeare, Schaff, or even Photius are reliable, or how reliable our reading of them is, there is one major point which Conybeare, Schaff and Photius all agree. Perhaps Photius exaggerates or even slanders the Paulicians. Perhaps Conybeare makes ubsubstantiated leaps to defend the Paulicians orthodoxy on specific issues. Even Conybeare readily accepts that they are adoptionists.

Conybeare also calls them unitarians. This word could be as harmless as the nevertheless quite harmful heresy of Monophysitism: that Jesus had no human nature distinct from his divine nature. But Conybeare actually opposes certain of Photius’ suppositions which could justify the label Monophysite. No, Conybeare asserts, rather, that the Paulicians are unitarians because they deny the divine nature of Christ; they are adoptionists.

It’s a harmless sounding word, adoptionists, but what it really means is that the Paulicians do not accept that Jesus had a divine nature. According to adoptionism, Jesus was created, just like you or me, and he obtained divinity through a gift from God, who was separate from Jesus and who merely bequeathed a divinity, in a sense, to Jesus. Yes, according to adoptionism, God merely “adopted” Jesus. As such, Paulicians were not Christian.

Since Paulicians are not Christian, their existence is meaningless to demonstrate any support for the Baptist notion that a “remnant” of the true Church existed in the pre-reformation era. I suppose some baptists will at least suppose that certain external similarities between Baptists and Paulicians suggest that Paulicians echoed, albeit unfaithfully, some aspects of the primitive Church which Baptists asserts was much more Baptist than Catholic. I would submit, however, that had a similarly non-Christian group been found to practice a Catholic belief before it was promulgated as essential Catholic doctrine, the Baptists would use the non-Christian sect as proof that the Catholic church had adopted a pagan practice. And, in fact, Manichean and Gnostic groups were congregationalists, to the point where “catholic” became synonymous with “episcopal” in ancient texts.

Surely, the Baptists are also impressed with the Paulician practice of adult baptism. But the practice of adult baptism is not what the Baptists practice. It seems the Paulicians practice adult baptism because they are adoptionists, not primarily because they believe in credobaptism. Jesus was baptised at 30, they say, so they will not baptise themselves before 30. Now, they may surmise (I don’t know) that this is because those under 30 are incapable of full consent. But this would be like supposing God didn’t want the Jews not to eat pork out of concern for trichinosis; even if true, the Jews don’t eat well-cooked pork, so the supposition of why the commandment exists is secondary to the fact it exists. Contrast that with Baptists, who plainly profess adult baptism purely on the basis of credobaptists.

My main point is this: Paulicians were not Christian, and therefore any superficial similarities they have to Baptists are not significant to Baptists.

I apologise for not responding to your posts sooner, I've been unable to be consistently on FR for pretty much the entire weekend. For the sake of time this evening, I will defer responding to your other most recent post, since it seems to be largely superceded and/or answered by this one anywise.

I've read the Key of Truth (Conybeare's translation, of course, not in the original Armenian!) and it's very apparent that the Paulicians - whatever else they might have been - were most definitely not docetists, Marcionites, Manichaen-style dualists, etc. I accept this as true based on what they themselves had to say for themselves. Indeed, the adoptionism (or suspected) of the Paulicians, readily dismisses any notions of both docetism or dualism. If Christ was a mere man (as adoptionists say) then He obviously had a body - directly contrary to the illusion-mongering of the docetists. Likewise, if Christ had a real body (even if only a man), then this confutes the whole "matter = evil, spirit = good" dichotomy of most streams of dualism.

I know these seem like minutiae, but I really do think they are important to the discussion. Either the Paulicians were these things, or they were not. If they were not, based on their own writings about their own beliefs, then we reasonably can question why other writers would say these things about them. I've pursued the questions so tenaciously because I think they're important from a purely historical perspective, even if they don't directly bear on whether the Paulicians were "early Baptists" or not.

Regardless of whether Conybeare, Schaff, or even Photius are reliable, or how reliable our reading of them is, there is one major point which Conybeare, Schaff and Photius all agree. Perhaps Photius exaggerates or even slanders the Paulicians. Perhaps Conybeare makes ubsubstantiated leaps to defend the Paulicians orthodoxy on specific issues. Even Conybeare readily accepts that they are adoptionists.

Yes, I mentioned that on a couple of occasions, his belief that they were adoptionists. I feel sort of funny, having relied on Conybeare so heavily to make my points about the falsehood of these other doctrinal claims, only now to turn on him like a rabid dog and argue against his belief that the Paulicians were adoptionists.

Needless to say, I'm unconvinced of his thesis that the Paulicians were adoptionists, for reasons I will eludicate below. One thing I will note is that Conybeare appears to be under the impression that there was an adoptionist under every rock in the early churches - he even seems to suggest at one point that Patrick of Ireland might have been such. He also seemed to believe that the celebration of Christmas on Jan. 6 (still common in Eastern Orthodox countries like Russia) is evidence of the original adoptionism of the Eastern churches, who only later became trinitarians and switched to Dec. 25. Needless to say, I think a lot of his suppositions are a bit overblown. Conybeare does qualify much of his speculation along these lines as inferential, at best, however.

If the Paulicians were adoptionists, I readily agree that they were not Christians - any doctrine which denies the pre-existing Deity of Jesus Christ is what the Bible terms a "damnable heresy," meaning that it demonstrates the lack of salvation on the part of the one holding to it. Likewise for unitarianism, since that is necessarily a rejection of the Trinity.

However, I don't think that Key of Truth is adoptionist in its tenor as Conybeare seems to think. I think that Conybeare, in his turn, wanted to "read in" adoptionism, and did so by supplying words (originally effaced from the MS.) to restore an adoptionist reading, and then uses this circularly to interpret other things as adoptionist.

My reasons for disagreeing with his view that they were adoptionists revolve around the following:

1) In their catechism (p. 118), the KoT states that, according to the apostles (which they also purported to believe), in response to the question "What is Christ", they cite the apostolic statement "We have believed and know that thou art Christ, the Son of God, who was to come into the world."

This is mighty odd of them to use this particular statement from John's Gospel if they were adoptionists. If Christ were merely a man who was adopted as God's Son at His baptism by John the Baptist, then why state that Christ, the Son of God, was "to come into the world"? Christ would have already BEEN in the world, He just wasn't "the Son of God" yet. Their use of this verse seems to suggest a sense of the heavenly pre-existence of Christ.

2) On numerous occasions, the KoT describes Christ as "the only-born Son." If this is a reasonable translation of the Armenian on the part of Conybeare (and I have to assume it is, since he obviously knew more Armenian than I do!), then this term would seem to answer to the Greek term "monogenes" - which our English Bibles translate as "only-begotten", etc. Monogenes is a term that is intimately tied in with Trinitarian theology, and I doubt that it was any less so in the 8th century than it is now.

3) The Paulician methodology of baptism strikes me as quite Trinitarian. For some reason, Conybeare seems to believe that the triple pouring of water over the head of the one being baptised as they kneel in the font indicates the belief that the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit were completely different beings. Yet, the KoT itself indicates that the Elect (analogous to the pastor/bishop) initially pours water over the head of the novice and proclaims his/her baptism "in the name of the Father and Son and Holy Spirit" - singular name there (per Matthew 28:19). Immediately before this, the novice is to declare that he or she does "believe, serve, and worship God the Father, and the Son, mediator and intercessor, and the Holy Spirit, the dispenser of grace to us who believe." If they "worship" all three in the same contextual circumstances, it stands to reason that all three Persons were felt to be divine, and also equally worthy of contemporaneous worship.

Further, the triple baptism was a hallmark of orthodox, Trinitarian baptism in the early churches. Triple immersive baptism is said to be the standard mode by no less Trinitarian lights than Tertullian (Adv. Prax., 26), Jerome (Dial. Adv. Lucif., 8), Basil of Caesaria (Letters #236, to Amphilocius, 5 and Ad Spir. Sanc., 15 and 35), and Cyril of Jerusalem (Catechetical Lectures 20,5). Even Catholicism practices triple immersion and/or triple pouring for adult converts (Catechism of the Catholic Church, ppg. 1239), and the practice is also reportedly common among the Eastern Orthodox groups.

Seeing all this, I question why immersion with triple pouring of water over the head, when done by the Paulicians, suddenly constitutes evidence of their unitarianness and adoptionism.

4) To substantiate his thesis that the Paulicians were adoptionists, Conybeare relies upon his own reconstruction of words at certain key points where they have been effaced from the MS. He reconstructs these words almost always along an adoptionist line, whether or not this necessarily seems to fit the surrounding context.

5) Much of the theological argumentation for adoptionist Paulicians rests on their admitted emphasis on the humanity of Jesus and their insistence that it was at His baptism that His authority, high-priesthood, kingship, Lordship over things in heaven and earth, etc. Personally, I think they're misinterpreting Phil. 2:5-11, especially because they seem to have misunderstood the notion of Christ's voluntarily humility (i.e. He didn't resume these things until after His ascension, not His baptism).

Nevertheless, recognising that Christ's earthly body was a created object isn't necessarily a heretical thing. After all, it's what Scripture teaches (Hebrews 10:5), and the sense of the Greek "katartizo" (prepared) suggests it. Again, the Catholic Catechism (ppg. 476) recognises the finiteness, and therefore createdness, of Christ's earthly body.

Much of the Paulician doctrine about Christ's humanity rested on the idea of His being the "Second Adam", a scriptural idea that they may or may not have understood rightly. But it is just their exposition of this doctrine that helps to save them from the charge of adoptionism.

Their doctrine on this regard was pretty simple - the man Christ regained for mankind (as our mediator and intercessor) what the First Adam lost in the garden. Much confusion has been had because some of the things that they said Christ gained at His baptism include that "he was filled with the Godhead", that He entered into fellowship with God the Father, and that He was given kingship over all things in creation.

Seems pretty adoptionist, right?

Well, the KoT elsewhere says that when Adam and Eve sinned in the Garden, these were just the things that they lost - "the colour of light of the Godhead faded from their faces", they lost their kingship over creation, etc.

Now, I do not think that the Paulicians were teaching that Adam and Eve were originally Deity but lost it when they sinned. Likewise, though the Catholic Catechism definitely sounds (ppg. 460) like it is saying that Christ came so that we might become divinity, and even gods, I doubt it means this *literally*. In the same sense, I do not think the Key of Truth is saying that Christ the Second Adam "became" God when He received back what Adam the First Adam lost. It is merely explicating the Paulicians' view of the Second Adam restoring what the First Adam lost. Probably not theology we're necessarily used to hearing (though Paul does go into it at some length in various of his epistles), but I don't think it necessarily "proves" that they were adoptionists.

My interest in the Paulicians and other groups is more purely historical - from a Baptist perspective, they weren't necessarily orthodox on every doctrine (i.e. belief in transubstantiation, believe in the universal church, etc.) anywise, even if we dismiss the claims of adoptionism.

Were these groups and others remnants? Perhaps so, perhaps not. I, for one, do not believe in apostolic succession - not on do I not believe in it's existence in reality, I also disbelieve in the NEED for it. I believe that, to use a hypothetical, if you had a certain tribal village which had never heard of the name of Christ, but say a Bible in their language fell from an airplane and landed in their village, if they read it and believed on Christ, held to authentic Scriptural doctrine, called a pastor, and organised a local church, that this local church would be just as legitimate as was the first one in Jerusalem, and the pastor would have just as much scriptural and spiritual authority as Peter himself had when Christ established him as the head of the church in Jerusalem. Any church organised along scriptural NT lines, having scriptural NT faith, is a true church, regardless of whether it can "trace itself back to the apostles". Simply by believing the Bible, it has rested itself on the foundation of the apostles, insomuch as they were the vessels used under inspiration to reveal Christ's words to us.

So do I believe the Paulicians *have* to fit into some scheme whereby we trace Baptists all the way back to the 1st century? No. Do I believe that there have been baptistic groups that have stood essentially where today's Baptists stand, all throughout history? Yes, of course. Do they all have to fit into some successionary scheme? No, I don't believe so, and I find the idea to be Irenaean error more than anything else.

Have the Paulicians and others been some of these groups? I would say so, and I would say (and we've seen, I hope, conclusively for this particular group) that much of the hullabaloo about this or that group being "Marcionite, dualists, Manichaeans, docetists, etc." is laregely rubbish written about them by their enemies. About the Paulicians, I think the idea that they were adoptionists is definitely up for debate, and I and far from convinced of it - but this is so on the grounds of the full context of what they themselves say, without the circular reasoning of Conybeare in reconstructing words that support his thesis.

That the Paulicians were credobaptists is beyond doubt. They reiterate that baptism was something given AFTER faith was placed in Jesus Christ. Though they do mention that Christ was baptised when He was 30 years of age, their primary concern with adult baptism seems to be that an adult is at an age where they are "reasonable" (i.e. can understand the truth of their "original" and "operative" sin). The KoT's use of the term catechumenate - contextually one who is not "reasonable" or understanding of their sin - seems to apply to children primarily. Conybeare operates under the somewhat misleading dichotomy that "infant baptism = trinitarian and orthodox" while "adult baptism = adoptionist", which I (of course) find a bit specious. I think he reads too much into their affirmation of Christ's age in his effort to cast adult baptism as a necessary indicator of adoptionism.

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