248 Darwinism and Other Essays. 



ful persecution was inaugurated that the inhabit- 

 ants in great numbers sought the shelter which 

 the Bulgarian Czar Simeon was both able and 

 willing to give. " From this period onward," 

 says Mr. Evans, " the Paulician heresy may be 

 said to change its nationality, and to become 

 Slavonic." It also acquired a new name. In 

 their Slavonic home these heretics were called 

 Bogomiles, from the Bulgarian Bog z 1 milui, or 

 " God have mercy," in allusion to their peculiar 

 devotion to prayer. The sect now became very 

 powerful, as the czars, in their struggle for su- 

 premacy with the Byzantine overlords, could not 

 afford to incur the displeasure of such a consider- 

 able body of their subjects. Bogomilian apostles, 

 in keen rivalry with the orthodox missionaries, 

 carried their Manichgean doctrines westward all 

 over Serbia. After another hundred years the 

 catastrophe which had driven this heresy from 

 Asia into Europe was curiously repeated in its 

 new home. After the power of the Bulgarian 

 czars had been finally broken down by Basil II., 

 the orthodox emperors began once more to roast 

 the obnoxious Paulicians. A fierce persecution 

 under Alexius Comnenus set up a current of Bo- 

 gomilian migration into Serbia, and as these im- 

 migrants found no favour in the eyes of the ortho- 



