The Collaborative International Dictionary
Paulician \Pau"li*cian\, n. [Etymol. uncertain.] (Eccl. Hist.) One of a sect of Christian dualists originating in Armenia in the seventh century. They rejected the Old Testament and the part of the New.
Usage examples of "paulician".
The Paulician teachers were distinguished only by their Scriptural names, by the modest title of Fellow-pilgrims, by the austerity of their lives, their zeal or knowledge, and the credit of some extraordinary gifts of the Holy Spirit.
Theodora, and the revolt of Carbeas, a valiant Paulician, who commanded the guards of the general of the East.
In the mountains between Siwas and Trebizond he founded or fortified the city of Tephrice, which is still occupied by a fierce or licentious people, and the neighboring hills were covered with the Paulician fugitives, who now reconciled the use of the Bible and the sword.
But if the Scriptures of the Paulicians were pure, they were not perfect.
The objects which had been transformed by the magic of superstition, appeared to the eyes of the Paulicians in their genuine and naked colors.
In the practice, or at least in the theory, of the sacraments, the Paulicians were inclined to abolish all visible objects of worship, and the words of the gospel were, in their judgment, the baptism and communion of the faithful.
Christian, who might have been contented with the light yoke and easy burden of Jesus and his apostles, was justly offended, that the Paulicians should dare to violate the unity of God, the first article of natural and revealed religion.
Paul may be found in the conversion of Simeon: like the apostle, he embraced the doctrine which he had been sent to persecute, renounced his honors and fortunes, and required among the Paulicians the fame of a missionary and a martyr.
Her inquisitors explored the cities and mountains of the Lesser Asia, and the flatterers of the empress have affirmed that, in a short reign, one hundred thousand Paulicians were extirpated by the sword, the gibbet, or the flames.
Such have been the Hussites of Bohemia and the Calvinists of France, and such, in the ninth century, were the Paulicians of Armenia and the adjacent provinces.
With Chrysocheir, the glory of the Paulicians faded and withered: on the second expedition of the emperor, the impregnable Tephrice was deserted by the heretics, who sued for mercy or escaped to the borders.
The city was ruined, but the spirit of independence survived in the mountains: the Paulicians defended, above a century, their religion and liberty, infested the Roman limits, and maintained their perpetual alliance with the enemies of the empire and the gospel.
About the middle of the eight century, Constantine, surnamed Copronymus by the worshippers of images, had made an expedition into Armenia, and found, in the cities of Melitene and Theodosiopolis, a great number of Paulicians, his kindred heretics.
The Paulicians of Thrace resisted the storms of persecution, maintained a secret correspondence with their Armenian brethren, and gave aid and comfort to their preachers, who solicited, not without success, the infant faith of the Bulgarians.
But the proud hope of eradicating the prejudices of a nation was speedily overturned by the invincible zeal of the Paulicians, who ceased to dissemble or refused to obey.