[dangus]

I was a little flummoxed that this was re-posted. As the Key of Truth makes plain, the Paulicians were not Gnostics in that they did not believe in Satanic beliefs such as the demi-urge. But they were not Christians, and they certainly were not Baptists. I frankly learned a lot about them from discussing Conybeare.

They did have adult Baptisms, but not because they were credobaptists, but because they were Adoptionists, who believed that at 30 years old (yes, THIRTY, not the age of reason) a soul was capable of being attaining the spiritual enlightenment that led Jesus to become a god. They also believed that it was OK to lie about their faith, and to pretend to be Catholic, including to receive the Catholic sacraments, even though they held the sacraments to be worthless. This may account for both some appearance of orthodoxy as well as some extrapolation of their heresies. It is even possible that the “Key of Truth” represents the beliefs of Paulicians who moved somewhat closer to Christianity than those Photius, et al refer to, much in the same way that today’s Mormons sound far more Christian than Joseph Smith’s Mormons did; one has to expect that by remaining so thoroughly assimilated into orthodox churches that as to continue to receive the sacraments may well have led to them moving close to Catholicism theologically. The “Key of Truth” dates ONE THOUSAND YEARS after the Paulician movement was suppressed.

If the point of calling the Paulicians “Baptists” is to assert that certain Baptist doctrines existed before the Reformation, one might do so, since the Paulicians rejected baptizing infants and the necessity of sacraments. If the point of calling them Baptists, however, is to establish that there existed since the age of the Apostles a Christian church which fits the Baptists’ notion of what Christian is apart from the Catholic church, then the person making such an argument is a fool.

(Herein, I use the term “Catholic” to include Eastern Orthodoxy, as much of what I refer to predates the Great Schism.)

[markomalley]

I've heard from several Baptists (certainly not all) that they considered themselves to be descendants of the first century Church rather than descended from the so-called reformation (the "Baptist Perpetuity" viewpoint). I'd always regarded it as an attempt to provide themselves some legitimacy, as the restorationists do, but the tiny bit of research shows that a large part of them were exiled to Thrace under Constantine V and so on.

The point is, if this is true, is it possible that this crypto-Marcionite heresy (if one chooses to accept the traditional view of Paulcianism) or crypto-Arian heresy (if one chooses to accept Conybeare's research) has managed to survive and flourish?