著者

草生 久嗣

出版者

公益財団法人 史学会

雑誌

史学雑誌 (ISSN:00182478)

巻号頁・発行日

vol.109, no.7, pp.1297-1318,1429-, 2000-07-20 (Released:2017-11-30)

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Several attempts have been made by scholars to interpret the Bogomils. J.Gouillard(1965)and A.Rigo(1989)have regarded them as members of Byzantine mysticism. H.G.Beck(1993)explained them as ordinary men who led a life with holy modesty and with an attitude of passive resistance against the extravagant Orthodox church. However, many scholars have thought them to be one type of dualist heretic or a revival of the Manichaeans, following St.Runciman(1947), D.Angelov(1947)and D.Obolensky(1948). The author believes that the Bogomils were not only a group of intellectuals, but also an expression of contemporary theological and social problems in 12th century Byzantine History. However, if we presuppose the Bogomils to have been like a school of thought, dualists or mystics or whatever, we cannot understand the real Bogomils on the historical scene. When we examine a social problem regarding"heresy", we have to understand first the reasons why contemporaries treated someone as a heretic. The author, focusing on this way of understanding and treating the Bogomils, surveys them in trials held during the first half of the 1100's in Constantinople. In so doing, this article shows several points that differ from the views of former theses. First, 12^<th> Century contemporaries were unaware of the two precedent sources, the Presbyter Cosmas's Discourse against the Heresy of Bogomil and the Euthymius of Acmonia's Contra Phundagiagites. Secondly, the name"Bogomils"is just one of the criminal labels, which the Orthodox-Byzantines could apply to non-conformers arbitrarily. Thirdly, for the Byzantines, Gnostical cosmology or demonology was not an essential element of the teaching of the Bogomils. There is no identity with thought, theology, moral-code, sectarian movement under the label of Bogomils. On the other hand, in the trials at Constantinople, we find that all of the accused Bogomils equally respected monastic life. The Bogomil-problem first appeared on the official documents after the 10^<th> century. From that time, the power of the monasteries rose, and the number of monks increased. From antiquity, Monks had been very popular in the Byzantine Empire. There were some deviational monks prior to this period, but the subsequent increase in"bonafide"monks also brought its faire share of deviants. This caused growing concern for the Orthodox Church, and in particular regarding their non-controlled activities. If some of them preached heterodoxical sermons to the people, heresy could be easily spread. The insecurity of the Church can be seen clearly in contemporary sources. In conclusion, Byzantines constructed a new type framework for understanding heresy, namely"the Bogomils". They thought deviational monks should be controlled under the heretical label of"Bogomils"as a tool for moral control. In the Constantinople in the 1100's, they were not considered to be dualists. The Bogomils were an indicator of the existence of behavioral problem in those days.