the case, from my own examination of Cedrenus, who, I now find, has, with scarce any variation, borrowed his statement from Photius) the self-contradicting calumnies of Photius and Peter, my reading of the Pamphlet has proved highly satisfactory; because it convinces me, that both my own principle of weighing evidence and my own view of the evidence before me were thoroughly correct.

But it is time that I should notice the single circumstance in Photius, which might be deemed of some evidential importance.

Both Photius and Peter tells us that the Paulicians openly professed an utter abhorrence of Manichèism; that they openly declared their full assent and consent to every Catholic Doctrine; that they openly anathematised all who believed not in the Godhead of the Father and the Son and the Holy Ghost; and that they openly confessed the birth of Christ from the Virgin Mary. But then they further tell us that, whatever these same Paulicians might openly pretend to believe, they secretly, among themselves, explained away every Catholic Doctrine to which they had given their outward adhesion, and substituted in stead thereof the odious and impious speculations of Manichèism.

Now, in reply to such an accusation, it is very natural to adopt the pertinent question of Tertullian; which, when a charge of most curiously similarly quality was brought against the Primitive Christians, he propounded to their malignant slanderers.

Dicimur sceleratissimi, de sacramento infanticidii, et pabulo crudæ, et post convivium incesto, quod eversores luminum canes, lenones scilicet, tenebrarum et libidinum impiarum, inverecundia procurent.- Si semper latemus, quando proditum est quod admittimus? Imo a quibus prodi potuit ?-Si ergo non ipsi proditores sui, sequitur ut extranei et unde extraneis notitia? Tertull. Apol. adv. Gent. Oper. p. 820, 821.

In like manner, we may reasonably ask: How and where did Photius and Peter learn, what, by the very terms of their own statement, the Paulicians did secretly and among themselves?

Here Mr. Dowling will promptly reply; that Photius speaks of a confession of prior Manichèism having been actually

made to himself by converts from Paulicianism who had renounced and washed away the pollution of the apostasy with the tears of repentance: and he will add; that even the very form of renunciation, by which the errors of Manichèism were publicly abjured, is still fortunately extant. Lect. on the Paulic.

p. 24, 25, 35–39.

I sincerely pity the man, who has no better evidence to bring in support of Bossuet's speculations and, verily, this is the sole evidence, with which Photius will accommodate him, in addition to the valueless inculpatory testimony of Peter the Sicilian.

Whenever an unlucky Paulician was caught, unless he confessed and renounced the alleged Doctrines of his Communion, he was forthwith consigned to the flames. Petr. Sic. Hist. p. 36, 37, 40. Under such circumstances, if a person shrank from martyrdom, the confession, recorded by Photius, would be the obvious result: and, when the poor trembling wretch was reconciled to the Church, he would, no doubt, be required to make his public abjuration in terms corresponding with his already made private confession.

Such is the amount of the evidence produced by Mr. Dowling but, in regard to the last particular, the form of public abjuration I mean, his probate is so extraordinary that it requires some further notice.

From Cotelerius and Tollius, he produces the very formula in which (says he) the PAULICIAN renounced his errors when he applied for admission into the Church. Now the formula, according to his own citation from his own authorities, was the form in which the converted MANICHEAN anathematised his heresy when he came over to the Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church of God. Letter on the Paulic. p. 35, 36. Therefore, according to Mr. Dowling, the PAULICIANS were indubitably

MANICHEANS.

To bring out such a conclusion, Mr. Dowling ought to have shewn that the abjuration, drawn up for MANICHEANS, was that which was offered to and specially intended for PAULICIANS. It might, or it might not. Very probably it was. But still Mr. Dowling most illogically argues from a pure gratuitous assumption of his own. We have no produced authority

but his, for saying that the abjuration, prepared for real MANICHEANS, by whom, at the time of Peter's visit, the whole town of Mananalis was inhabited after the seceding PAULICIANS had removed to Tibrica, was the abjuration which the PAULICIANS specially were required to make. And yet, upon this gross assumption, he founds an argument: which argument, even if he could establish its premises, would still, as I have shewn above, be absolutely worth nothing. It would prove, indeed, what required no proof, that the enemies of the Paulicians were determined to view them as Manichèans, and that they compelled them to confess a previous adherence to Manichèism preparatory to their final abjuration of it: but, assuredly, it would prove nothing more; it would not prove, that the Paulicians were Manichèans. The form of abjuration, no doubt, sets forth the Manichèan Peculiarities which were ascribed to the Paulicians: but this, I submit, is no proof of their actual Manichièsm. When at liberty, they always professed their horror of the Manichèism, which they had, long since, under the preaching of Constantine, openly renounced: and a confession of Manichèism, under the fear of a painful death, is no very cogent evidence of its reality. Should Mr. Dowling allege, that Photius does not describe their confession as compulsory, but that he simply mentions it as a confession which he had heard, the answer is obvious: he understood his trade far too well to be guilty of any such flagrant absurdity. His contemporary Peter, however, lets it out, that death or abjuration was the proffered alternative and abjuration, associated with the equally recorded prayer of the officiating Priest, involved confession. Pet. Sic. Hist. p. 37. Letter on Paulic. p. 37. note.

III. It is really curious to observe the manner, in which the two witnesses, Peter and Photius, upon whom Mr. Dowling so confidently depends, perpetually exhibit their own flagrant inconsistency and the same remark, as I have abundantly shewn in my Work on the subject, equally applies to those miserable creatures, the tools of persecuting Rome, who, at a later period, similarly calumniated the blameless Albigenses. A few specimens, in addition to what has already been said, may here be not unaptly introduced.

1. The Paulicians, in semblance, we are assured, renounced Manichèism, BECAUSE they found it in very evil odour throughout the whole neighbourhood.

Yet there is not the slightest appearance, that they ever thought of renouncing it, either really or simulatively, until they had become acquainted with the four unadulterated Gospels and the fourteen unadulterated Pauline Epistles. Then, indeed, when they were directed by Constantine to the exclusive study of these confessedly uncorrupted Volumes, they, either actually as I believe, or hypocritically as Mr. Dowling believes, renounced the Manichèism of their fathers.

Accordingly, notwithstanding the pretended CAUSE of the simulated renunciation, the ancient Heresy was not renounced by all the Manichèans of Mananalis: for, after the seceding Paulicians had themselves removed to Tibrica, Mananalis, at the end of two full centuries, still continued, down to the time of Peter's visit, to be inhabited by openly professed and wholly undistinguished Manichèans.

Now, if the general bad repute of Manichèism was the CAUSE of its simulative renunciation by the Paulicians, why did not all the Manichèans of Mananalis renounce it, and why did a large body of them still continue to inhabit the town of the reformer Constantine down even to the latter part of the ninth century?

We hear nothing of any renunciation by any Manichean being so much as thought of, until the Gospels and the Pauline Epistles were received: and then, under the teaching of Constantine from those Sacred Books, we, for the first time, hear of an extensive, though not an universal, renunciation.

Hence it is tolerably evident, that the real CAUSE of the renunciation was the exclusive perusal of the uncorrupted Gospels and Epistles; the converts having previously been acquainted with nothing better, than the garbled and interpolated and mutilated Gospels of the old Gnostic and Manichèan School: and so important did they deem the sincere Word of God which they had now received, that they ever afterward diligently inculcated the perusal of it both upon the Clergy and the Laity, strongly reprobating the practice of the dominant Priesthood in their wicked attempt to confine it to themselves.

2. They extracted, however, a more plausible, though not a less real, form of Manichèism, out of the New Testament, not by garbling the text, but by perverting the sense.

This absurd and inconsistent allegation, even to say nothing of the perfectly intelligible specimens of their asserted perversion, stands self-refuted by the acknowledged FACT; a FACT, confirmed by Cedrenus three whole centuries later than Photius and Peter: that, unlike the real Manichèans, they never mutilated or interpolated the Sacred Text; and that, to the uncorrupted Holy Volume alone, they always, both Clergy and Laity, resorted for their theological instruction.

3. But, tricksy as were Constantine and the leading teachers of the Paulicians in thus saying one thing and meaning another; nevertheless, the whole entire body of the Paulicians themselves, at the time of Peter's visit, were completely ignorant of this same tricksiness. Whence, in real good earnest, little suspecting either their founders or themselves to have been still concealed Manichèans after they had openly renounced Manichèism, they heartily reprobated both Manes and all the chiefs of the Manichean Heresy.

Adeo ut, quotquot nunc sunt Manichæi, technam istam et artificium ignorantes, Scythianum et Buddam et Manetem ipsum, qui totius sectæ principes fuerunt, promptis animis respuant et detestentur.

Here we have the practised impudence of determined falsehood stamped upon the very face of an unprincipled allegation.

(1.) If all the Paulicians themselves, or, as Peter is pleased to style them, Manichèans, were, in the ninth century, confessedly ignorant of the tricksiness of their founders and teachers in the seventh century; whom, while they anathematised Manes, they venerated, as both Peter and Photius assure us, under the aspect of faithful apostles of Christ : how came Peter to be so intimately acquainted with this same ancient tricksiness, which, by his own shewing, occurred two hundred years before his visit, and which, as a known fact though unknown to all the Paulicians, he propounds with such intrepid confidence?

(2.) And again: if the Paulicians, when Peter visited them, were themselves universally quite ignorant of the old tricksiness of a pretended abjuration of Manichèism and a real retention of