The, were an ancient religious sect which sprung up in Armenia in the seventh century. Their founder was one Constantine, an inhabitant of the village of Mananalis, in the neighbourhood of Samosata. This individual happening to receive a copy of the New Testament as a present, began to search the gospel record, and to extract from it a set of opinions peculiar to himself. He then preached his new doctrines with success in his native district, in Pontus, and in Galatia. A numerous band of followers gathered round him, who, forming themselves into a distinct sect, adopted a systematic creed. A certain part of their creed was merely a revival of some of the most flagrant errors of the early Christians. Thus they held, with the Gnostics, that the Old Testament was not canonical, and that the Creator of the world and the God of heaven were two distinct beings. They also held, with the Valentinians, that Christ's body was not a material body formed in the womb of the Virgin Mary, but an ethereal body brought along with him from heaven. Yet the greater part of their doctrine was a direct protest and a thorough-going polemic against the growing superstitions of the church. According to them, the holy cross was a piece of common or perhaps rotten wood; the wonder-working relics were a heap of offensive dust; the consecrated priesthood was a Jewish institution; the efficacious sacraments were mere symbols, the one denoting the baptism of the Spirit, and the other denoting the feeding upon the word of Christ; Mary, the mother of God, and the immaculate Virgin, was a frail mortal woman, and the parent of several mortal children; and even the great St Peter, the first bishop of Rome, was an unworthy apostle, whose two epistles ought to be expunged from the pages of the New Testament. This severely simple code of doctrine was accompanied by a severely simple rule of practice. It became the aim of the new sect to realize, even in the minutest accessories, the condition of the primitive church under St Paul. They listened to the precepts of the great apostle of the Gentiles as if he were speaking to them with a living voice, and they called themselves Paulicians, as if he were their founder and sole teacher. Their pastors were surmamed after the apostle's fellow-labourers, and their parishes were named after the apostle's congregations. The sharp reproof which the Paulicians thus gave to both the creed and government of the church soon roused a vindictive persecution. For one hundred and fifty years each successive emperor, whether an image-worshipper or an iconoclast, deemed it either his duty or his interest to endeavour to suppress the harmless Armenian sect. Their teachers were martyred, their faith was assailed both by argument and force, and they were proscribed in all the provinces of the empire. The Empress Theodora brought the persecution to a climax, and provoked the persecuted to retaliate. Aiming at the total extirpation of the Paulicians, she beheaded, hung, drowned, and burned no less than one hundred thousand. The remnant, finding a refuge and a home in that part of Armenia which belonged to the Saracens, formed a league with the khalif for the purpose of inflicting retribution upon their common enemy. One of their number, Carbas, a valiant soldier, was appointed to organize an expedition. At the head of an army composed of his fellow-sectaries and of Moslems, he invaded the provinces of the empire, and defeated the Emperor Paul under the walls of Samosata.

Still more victorious was his successor Chrysocheir. Sweeping before him all opposition, he overran the whole of Asia, and pillaged Nice and Nicomedia, Ancyra and Ephesus. In vain did the Emperor Basil, the Macedonian, try both arms and negotiation. It was not until Chrysocheir had been surprised and slain that the invaders were driven back into their own district, and forced to defend their independence among the mountains. The Paulicians, however, were destined to be placed in a scene of more prosperous activity. About the middle of the eighth century, the Emperor Constantine Copronymus transplanted a large body of them from Armenia to Thrace; in the tenth century the Emperor John Zimisces increased the colony by a fresh number of emigrants; and in a short time they had obtained a firm footing in Philippopolis, and other cities in that part of the empire. As they grew in power and importance, they grew also in proselytizing zeal. Travelling westward as far as Germany and France, their missionaries made many converts, and fostered that spirit of opposition to the corruptions of the church which ultimately issued in the Reformation. (Gibbon's Decline and Fall, Mosheim's Ecclesiastical History, and Neander's History of the Church.)

Paulinus, Meropius Pontius Anicius, Bishop of Nola, was born in Bourdeaux, or its neighbourhood, about 353. The career of the future ecclesiastic began amid bright prospects of worldly preferment. His parents left him a magnificent fortune; his opening taste for letters was fostered by the tuition of the poet Ausonius; he was raised to the rank of consul suffectus; and he won the hand of a wealthy and accomplished lady named Therasia. Yet the latter part of his life was characterized by an abandonment of all earthly cares and honours. In the course of a few years, his conversion to the truth of the gospel led him to distribute part of his possessions among the poor. Then a domestic affliction which he suffered while residing in Spain tended to increase this spirit of religious devotion. Becoming a presbyter in 393, he removed immediately to Campania to devote his remaining days to the duties of piety. He first spent nearly fifteen years in monk-like seclusion, practising acts of charity and self-mortification, and writing sacred poetry and theological treatises. At length, in 409, he entered upon the duties of the see of Nola, a post which he held till his death in 431. The works of Paulinus which have come down to us are fifty epistles, thirty-two poems, and a brief tract entitled Passio S. Genetii Arelatensis. They were first printed in an imperfect state by Badius, 8vo, Paris, 1516. The standard edition is that of Le Brun Desmarets, 4to, Paris, 1685.

Paulus Ægineta. See Ægineta.

Paulus Æmilius. See Æmilius, Paulus.

Paulus, Heinrich Eberhard Gottlob, a learned German divine, was born at Leonberg in Württemberg in 1761. The chief part of his attention during his educational course was directed to theology. He studied the oriental languages and the other branches of a divinity course at Tübingen and Göttingen, and then proceeding to England, completed his education at London and Oxford. On his return to his native country, Paulus entered upon a distinguished professorial and literary career. In 1789 he was appointed to the chair of oriental languages at Jena; in 1804 he became professor of theology at Würzburg, and in 1811 he began to teach exegesis and philosophy at the university of Heidelberg. At the same time, his pen was busily employed in theological literature. Among other works, he published Philologisch-kritischer Commentar über das Neue Testament, in 2 vols., Lübeck, 1800-5; Das Leben Jesu, in 2 vols., Heidelberg, 1828; and Exegetisches Handbuch über die drei ersten Evangelien, in 3 vols., Heidelberg, 1830-33. The death of Dr Paulus took place at Heidelberg in 1851.

Paulus, Julius, one of the most eminent of the Roman