IN THE LAND OF THE BORA. 213 



and wine. Their duty it was, when a blow was 

 struck at their commune, to " turn the other 

 cheek," which does not appear to have prevented 

 some less perfected number from returning the 

 blow. They preached also against the bearing 

 of arms and against war, but neither did this 

 prevent their flock striking forcible blows against 

 both Papists and "orthodox" when they got the 

 chance. 



Every believer was obliged to be received at 

 least once in his life into the ranks of the 

 "perfected," by a solemn rite resembling marriage. 

 But this ceremony freed him from repentance at 

 the last. 



These and other decidedly opportunist doc- 

 trines account for the rapidity with which the 

 tenets of Bogumil spread. Almost equi-distant 

 from Rome and Byzantium, Bulgaria, like the 

 rest of the Balkan peninsula, was at that time 

 dominated by a spirit of unrest which had pre- 

 pared the way for a new religious movement. 

 Little time, however, elapsed before persecution 

 began. To shorten the story of years of struggle, 

 it may briefly be said that the Bogumilites, 

 suspected, sought out, and persecuted everywhere, 

 gradually fell back into the mountains of the 

 Herzegovina and Bosnia. For the first century 

 of their existence in Bosnia they seem to have 

 been but little troubled ; but later on, as the 



