Page "Bogomilism" Paragraph 20

They held the " Lord's Prayer " in high respect as the most potent weapon against Satan, and had a number of conjurations against " evil spirits.

" Each community had its own twelve " apostles ," and women could be raised to the rank of " elect.

" The Bogomils wore garments like mendicant friars and were known as keen missionaries, traveling far and wide to propagate their doctrines.

Healing the sick and exorcising the evil spirit, they traversed different countries and spread their apocryphal literature along with some of the books of the Old Testament, deeply influencing the religious spirit of the nations, and preparing them for the Reformation.

They accepted the four Gospels, fourteen Epistles of Paul, the three Epistles of John, James, Jude, and an Epistle to the Laodiceans, which they professed to have.

They sowed the seeds of a rich, popular religious literature in the East as well as the West.

The Historiated Bible, the Letter from Heaven, the Wanderings through Heaven and Hell, the numerous Adam and Cross legends, the religious poems of the " Kaliki perehozhie " and other similar productions owe their dissemination to a large extent to the activity of the Bogomils of Bulgaria, and their successors in other lands.