Paulicians: Early Baptists, Other Denomination, or...?

Can you help me understand the Baptist fondnesss for the Paulicians?

The Paulicians (ca. 600-1200AD) have been described on this board as biblical enough, and as a remnant who hold to the Word of God. 19th century Baptist historians William Jones, G.H. Orchard, Samuel H. Ford, and John T. Christian cite them approvingly as early Christians.

Considering what the Paulicians said about themselves in The Key of Truth, however, how can this be? The Paulicians were adoptionist. They believed in baptismal regeneration and transubstantiation; and that a person can't be saved without receiving the Lord's Supper. Also, they did not believe in original sin.

According to the Schaff-Herzog article on this group, "In seeking to reach a just conclusion respecting the doctrines and practices of the Paulicians considerable weight should be accorded to The Key of Truth... http://www.ccel.org/ccel/schaff/encyc08/Page_418.html ."

The great benefit of The Key of Truth is that, unlike the "hostile witness" testimony of Photius and Petrus Siculus, The Key was written by the Paulicians. Thus, it is the ultimate primary source. It tells us about the Paulicians in their own words.

On what basis can it be maintained that the Paulicians should be considered a positive chapter in Baptist history?

Below I posted A Summary of Paulician Tenants. It is an extract from the Introduction (pages xxxiii to xl) to The Key of Truth: A Manual of the Paulician Church of Armenia by Fred C. Conybeare (Oxford, at the Clarendon Press, 1898).

Thanks for your insight.

CA

 

Pardon the long post, but there was no web link available.

Part 1 of 2 parts.

Extract from the Introduction (pages xxxiii to xl) to The Key of Truth: A Manual of the Paulician Church of Armenia by Fred C. Conybeare (Oxford, at the Clarendon Press, 1898). A Summary of Paulician Tenants.

(1) The writer and reader of the Key did not call themselves Paulicians, still less Thonraketzi. They were the ‘holy, universal, and apostolic Church,’ founded by Jesus Christ and his apostles. In describing themselves the words catholic and orthodox are sometimes, but less often, added; perhaps because they shrank from the use of titles so closely identified with their persecutors.

(2) The church consists of all baptized persons, and preserves the apostolic tradition which Christ revealed to the apostles and they to the Church, which has handed it on by unbroken transmission from the first.

(3) The sacraments are three which are requisite to salvation, to wit, Repentance, Baptism, and the Body and Blood of Christ. Marriage, ordination, confirmation, extreme unction are not necessary to salvation.

(4) All true baptism in accordance with the precepts of Christ, especially Mark xvi. 16, must be preceded by repentance and faith.

(5) Consequently infant baptism is invalid; and, in admitting it, the Latins, Greeks, and Armenians have lost their Christianity, lost the sacraments, forfeited their orders, and have become a mere Satanic mimicry of the true faith. If any of them, even their patriarchs, would rejoin the true Church, they must be baptized.

(6) The catechumen or candidate for baptism must be of mature age, as was Jesus of Nazareth, in order that he may be able to understand, recognize, and repent of his sin, which is twofold, viz.: original and operative.

(7) Baptism is only to be performed by an elect or ordained member of the Church, and in answer to the personal demand of the person who seeks to be admitted into the Church.

(8) On the eighth day from birth the elect one shall solemnly confer a name on the new-born child, using a prescribed form of prayer. But he shall not allow any mythical or superstitious names.

(9) In doctrine the Paulicians were Adoptionist, and held that Jesus the Messiah was born a man, though a new man, of the Virgin Mary; and that, having fulfilled all righteousness and having come to John for baptism, he received in reward for his struggles the Lordship of all things in heaven and earth, the grace of the divine spirit, whereby he was anointed and became the Messiah, and was elected or chosen to be the eternal only-born Son, mediator of God and man, and intercessor.

(10) They may also be called Unitarians, in so far as they believed that Jesus Christ was not creator but created, man, made and not maker. He was never God at all, but only the new-created Adam.

(11) Jesus was born without original sin.

(12) The Holy Ghost enters the catechumen immediately after baptism (to exclude evil spirits), when a third handful of water is, in his honor, poured out over the catechumen’s head. He is also breathed into the elect one by the bishop at the close of the ordination service.

(13) The word Trinity is nowhere used, and was almost certainly rejected as being unscriptural. In baptism, however, three separate handfuls of water were poured over the head in the name of the father, in the name of the Son, and in the name of the Holy Spirit. Two or three words are erased in the baptismal formula, which would have explained more clearly the significance they attach to the proceeding, but it was clearly heretical or they would not have been erased. A ‘figure’ follows in the text, p. 98, shadowing forth the meaning. The king, we learn, releases certain rulers from the prison of sin; the Son calls them to himself and comforts and gives them hope; and then the Holy Spirit at once crowns them and dwells in them for ever and ever. This figure is also meant to exhibit the significance of genuine baptism.

(14) The Virgin Mary lost her virginity at the birth of Jesus, and is not ‘ever virgin.’ She was a virgin, however, till the new Adam was born. She cannot intercede for us, for Christ, our only intercessor, expressly denied blessedness to her because of her unbelief.

(15) There is no intercession of the saints, for the dead rather need the prayers of the living than the living of the lead.

(16) The idea of Purgatory is false and vain. There is but one last judgment for all, for which the quick and the dead (including saints) wait.

(17) Images, pictures, holy crosses, springs, incense, candles are all to be condemned as idolatrous and unnecessary, and alien to the teaching of Christ.

(18) The Paulicians are not dualists in any other sense than the New Testament is itself dualistic. Satan is simply the adversary of man and God, and owing to the fall of Adam held all, even patriarchs and prophets, in his bonds before the advent of Christ.

(19) Sin must be publicly confessed before God and the Church, which consists of the faithful.

(20) The elect ones alone have the power of binding and loosing given by Christ to the Apostles and by them transmitted to their universal and apostolic Church.

(21) Their canon included the whole of the New Testament except perhaps the Apocalypse, which is not mentioned or cited. The newly-elected one has given to him the Gospel and Apostolicon. The Old Testament is not rejected; and although rarely cited, is nevertheless, when it is cited, called the God-inspired book, “Astouadsashountch”, which in Armenian answers to our phrase ‘Holy Scripture’ or ‘Bible.’

 

Part 2 of 2 parts.

Extract from the Introduction (pages xxxiii to xl) to The Key of Truth: A Manual of the Paulician Church of Armenia by Fred C. Conybeare (Oxford, at the Clarendon Press, 1898). A Summary of Paulician Tenants.

(22) In the Eucharist the bread and wine are changed into the body and blood of Jesus Christ through the blessing invoked. Yet when he said to his followers” ‘My body is the true food and my blood the true drink,’ and again, ‘I am the bread of life which came down from heaven,’ he spoke in figures. However, in the last supper, when he blessed the elements, i.e. prayed the Lord that the bread might be truly changed into his body, it was verily so changed by the Holy Spirit, and Jesus “saw” that it was so and thanked the Almighty Father for the change of it into his body and blood.

(23) The false priests (of the orthodox Churches) either deceive the simple-minded with mere bread, or – what is worse – they change the elements into their own sinful bodies when they say ‘This is “my” body,’ instead of changing them into Christ’s.

(24) One unleavened loaf and wine are to be offered in the Eucharistic sacrifice.

(25) In baptism the catechumens pass naked into the middle of the water on their knees; but beside this immersion it was necessary to pour three handfuls of water over the head.

(26) Exorcism of the catechumen is performed by the elect one before baptism.

(27) The sponsors in the infant baptism of the heretics (i.e. the orthodox) churches are at best mere false witnesses.

(28) There is but a single grade of ecclesiastical authority, and this is that of the elect one. He bears the authority to bind and loose given by the Father to Jesus in the descent of the Holy Spirit in Jordan, handed on by Jesus to the apostles and by them to their successors.

(29) But although all authority is one and the same, the elect depository of it may have various titles; and according to the particular function he is fulfilling he is called in the Key, priest, elder, bishop, doctor, president, apostle, and chief.

(30) The word used to denote authority i s “ishkhan-uthiun.“ Hence is it probably that the “ishkhanq,” or rulers who choose out and present to the bishop a candidate for election, and in conjunction with the bishop lay hands on him in ordination, were themselves elect ones.

(31) The presbyters and arch-presbyter mentioned in the ordinal or Service of Election seem to be identical with these “ishkhanq,” or rulers. They seem to have the same duty of testing, choosing and presenting before the bishop the candidate for election. On p. 108 the parties present at that service are summed up thus: ‘The bishop, the newly-elected one, the rulers, archrulers, and congregation.’ A little before we read that the presbyters and arch-presbyters bring up the candidate to the bishop and pray him to ordain. It would seem then that the rulers and presbyters are the same people.

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

(33) The office of Reader is mentioned. In the Ordination Service he is the candidate for election.

(34) 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. There was a similar ritual among the Cathars of France.

(35) Sacrifice of animals (to expiate the sins of the dead) are condemned as contrary to Christ’s teaching.

(36) New-born children have neither original nor operative sin, and do not therefore need to be baptized.

(37) A strong prejudice against monks animates the Key. The devils favorite disguise is that of a monk.

(38) The scripture and a knowledge of divine truth are not to remain the exclusive possession of the orthodox priests.

(39) Rejection of the Logos doctrine as developed in the other Churches. There is indeed no explicit rejection of it in the Key, but it is ignored, and the doctrine that Jesus is a man and not God, leaves no room for it in Paulician theology.

(40) For the same reason they must have rejected the term “theotokos.”

(41) The elect one was an anointed one, a Christ, and the ordinal is a ritual for the election and anointing of a presbyter in the same way as Jesus was elected and anointed, namely by the Holy Spirit.

END

 

Jarthur001,

Thanks for getting the ball rolling. A review of the the Paulicians own writings (cf. Conybeare, The Key of Truth), however, would find differently...

RE They were dualistic.

Item (18) states, "The Paulicians are not dualists in any other sense than the New Testament is itself dualistic. Satan is simply the adversary of man and God, and owing to the fall of Adam held all, even patriarchs and prophets, in his bonds before the advent of Christ."

RE They rejected the OT all together.

Item (21) states, "The Old Testament is not rejected; and although rarely cited, is nevertheless, when it is cited, called the God-inspired book, “Astouadsashountch”, which in Armenian answers to our phrase ‘Holy Scripture’ or ‘Bible.’"

RE They rejected all of the gospels other then Luke. As a matter of fact...If I remember right, I think all they held to were the gospel of Luke and Pauls writings.

Item (21) states, " Their canon included the whole of the New Testament except perhaps the Apocalypse, which is not mentioned or cited. The newly-elected one has given to him the Gospel and Apostolicon."

RE They hated Peter because he denied Christ.

Item (34) states, "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.

CA

 

Which "pagan believers or the secular theologians," are you referring to?

CA

 

My only reference is to Fred C. Conybeare, the translator and editor of the book I cited above. Is he a pagan believer, or secular theologian?

CA

 

Hi DQuixote,

Do you have any thoughts on how the Baptist - Paulician connection came to be?

CA

 

Hardcover: 634 pages
Publisher: Augustus M Kelley Pubs (June 1965)
ISBN-10: 0678099510

I'll look it up. (Could take a while, though. Inter-library loan probably.)

Thanks.

CA