IX Let this be sufficient about that miracle. I wished to expound the whole heresy of the Bogomils, but ‘modesty prevents me,’ as the beautiful Sappho says somewhere, for though a historian, I am a woman and the most honourable of the Porphyrogeniti and Alexius’ eldest scion, and what is the talk of the vulgar had better be passed over in silence. I am desirous of writing so as to set forth a full account of the Bogomilian heresy; but I will pass it over, as I do not wish to defile my tongue. And those who wish to understand the whole heresy of the Bogomils I will refer to the book entitled Dogmatic Panoply, which was compiled by my father’s order.
For there was a monk called Zygabenus, known to my mistress, my maternal grandmother, and to all the members of the priestly roll, who had pursued his grammatical studies very far, was not unversed in rhetoric, and was the best authority on ecclesiastical dogma; the Emperor sent for him and commissioned him to expound all the heresies, each separately, and to append to each the holy Fathers’ refutations of it; and amongst them too the heresy of the Bogomils, exactly as that impious Basil had interpreted it. TheEmperor named this book the Dogmatic Panoply, and that name the books have retained even to the present day. But now my story must return to Basil’s death.
Basil’s disciples and fellow mystics
The Emperor had summoned Basil’s disciples and fellow mystics from all over the world, especially the so-called twelve disciples and made trial of their opinions, and found that they were openly Basil’s followers. For the evil had gone deep even into very great houses and had affected a very large number. Consequently he condemned those aliens to be burnt, the leader of the chorus and the chorus too. When the Bogomils who had been discovered, were assembled, some clung to their heresy, while others recanted absolutely and resisted their accusers strongly and expressed their abhorrence of the Bogomihan heresy.
The Emperor was not inclined to believe them, and to prevent many a Christian being confounded with the Bogomils as being a Bogomil, and a Bogomil escaping as a Christian, he invented a new device for revealing clearly those who were really Christians. Accordingly the next day he took his seat on the imperial throne and many of the senate and the holy Synod were present and a chosen few of the monks who were learned men.
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