usied itself with the
ancient theologies of Asia. From Armenia in the eighth century came the
Manichaean sect of Paulicians into Thrace, and for twenty generations
played a considerable part in the history of the Eastern Empire. In the
Bulgarian tongue they were known as Bogomilians, or men constant in
prayer. In Greek they were called Cathari, or "Puritans." They accepted
the New Testament, but set little store by the Old; they laughed at
transubstantiation, denied any mystical efficiency to baptism, frowned
upon image-worship as no better than idolatry, despised the intercession
of saints, and condemned the worship of the Virgin Mary. As for the
symbol of the cross, they scornfully asked, "If any man slew the son of
a king with a bit of wood, how could this piece of wood be dear to the
king?" Their ecclesiastical government was in the main presbyterian, and
in politics they showed a decided leaning toward democracy. They wore
long faces, looked askance at frivolous amusements, and were terribly in
earnest. Of the more obscure pages of mediaeval history, none are fuller
of interest than those in which we decipher the westward progress of
these sturdy heretics through the Balkan peninsula into Italy, and
thence into southern France, where toward the end of the twelfth century
we find their ideas coming to full blossom in the great Albigensian
heresy. It was no light affair to assault the church in the days of
Innocent III. The terrible crusade against the Albigenses, beginning in
1207, was the joint work of the most powerful of popes and one of the
most powerful of French kings. On the part of Innocent it was the
stamping out of a revolt that threatened the very existence of
the Catholic hierarchy; on the part of Philip Augustus it was the
suppression of those too independent vassals the Counts of Toulouse, and
the decisive subjection of the southern provinces to the government at
Paris. Nowhere in European history do we read a more frightful story
than that which tells of the blazing fires which consumed thousand after
thousand of the most intelligent and thrifty people in France. It was
now that the Holy Inquisition came into existence, and after forty years
of slaughter these Albigensian Cathari or Puritans seemed exterminated.
The practice of burning heretics, first enacted by statute in Aragon in
1197, was adopted in most parts of Europe during the thirteenth century,
but in England not until the beginning of the fif