Constantine, who styled himself Silvanus, addressed his first appeals to the inhabitants of a place called Cibossa in Armenia, whom he styled Macedonians. "I am Silvanus," he said, "you are Macedonians." There he fixed his residence and labored with untiring energy for nearly thirty years; he made many converts, both from the Catholic Church, and the Zoroastrian religion. At length, the sect having become sufficiently considerable to attract attention, the matter was reported to the Emperor, and an edict was issued A.D. 684 against Constantine and the Paulician congregations. The execution of the decree was entrusted to an officer of the imperial court, named Simeon. He had orders to put the teacher to death, and to distribute his followers among the clergy and in monasteries, with a view to their being reclaimed. The government, no doubt, ordered as directed by the church; as in the case of Ahab, "whom Jezebel his wife stirred up." (1 Kings 21:2525But there was none like unto Ahab, which did sell himself to work wickedness in the sight of the Lord, whom Jezebel his wife stirred up. (1 Kings 21:25).) But the Lord is above all, and He can make the wrath of man to praise Him.
Simeon placed Constantine—the chief object of the priests' revenge—before a large number of his companions, and commanded them to stone him. They refused, and, instead of obeying, all dropped the stones with which they were armed, excepting one young man; and Constantine was killed by a stone from the hand of that heartless youth—his own adopted son Justus. This ungrateful apostate has been extolled by the enemies of the Paulicians, as another David who with a stone slew another Goliath—the giant of heresy. But from the stoning of Constantine, as from the stoning of Stephen, a new leader was raised up in the person of his imperial murderer. Impressions were made on Simeon's mind by what he had seen and heard that he could not shake off. He entered into conversation with some of the sectaries, and the result was that he became their convert. He returned to the imperial court, but after spending three years at Constantinople in great uneasiness of mind, he fled, leaving all his property behind him, and took up his abode at Cibossa, where, under the name of Titus, he became the successor of Constantine Sylvanus.
About five years after the martyrdom of Constantine the same renegade Justus betrayed the Paulicians. He knew, like the traitor of old, the habits and movements of the community, and also where he would be rewarded for his treachery. He went to the bishop of Colonia, and reported the revival and spread of the so-called heresy. The bishop communicated his information to the Emperor Justinian II., and, in consequence, Simeon, and a large number of his followers were burnt to death in one large funeral pile. The cruel Justinian vainly thought to extinguish the name and memory of the Paulicians in a single conflagration, but the blood of the martyrs seemed only to multiply their numbers and strength. A succession of teachers and congregations arose from their ashes. The new sect spread over all the adjacent regions, Asia Minor, Pontus, the borders of Armenia and to the westward of the Euphrates. They bore, during many successive reigns, with christian patience, the intolerant wrath of the rulers through the instigation of the priests. But the prize for cruelty, as one observes, must doubtless be awarded to the sanguinary devotion of Theodora, who restored the images to the Oriental church.