Neander says[224] the Paulicians wholy rejected the outward observance
of the Sacraments and maintained that by multiplication of external
rites and ceremonies in the dominant church the true life of religion
had declined. That it was not Christ's intention to institute water
baptism as a perpetual ordinance and that by baptism he meant only
baptism of the Holy Spirit and that he communicates himself by the
living waters for the thorough cleansing of the whole human nature; that
eating the flesh and drinking the blood of Christ consists in coming
into vital union with him.

In the ninth century one hundred thousand Paulicians were martyred at
once in Armenia, accused of heresy and denying the Sacraments.[225]

For the same offence untold numbers were put to death during previous
and subsequent centuries and in widely distant countries.[226]

Their enemies represent that these Paulicians were loving, spiritual and
peaceful, and diligent in reading and circulating the Scriptures, but
they were heretics and not worthy to live.

Were not these dissenting martyrs a remnant or seed of the living church
and their baptized enemies the real heretics?

The history of these inhuman persecutions reveals a sad condition of the
dominant church and its ruling clergy of the ninth century.

Some Ecclesiastics who presided over a flourishing theological
institution at Orleans, claimed to have been awakened by the writings of
St. Augustine and St. Paul, particularly the later. Many of the nobility
and others of eminent piety and benevolence became their adherents.[227]