The sources
Known Through an Enemy
Almost everything we know about Constantine-Silvanus comes from Peter of Sicily, a Byzantine official who visited the Paulician stronghold of Tephrike around 869, nearly two centuries after Constantine's death, and wrote a history of the sect to warn the church against it. Peter wrote as an enemy. He called the Paulicians Manichaeans and told their founder's story to discredit him. Yet his account preserves details the Paulicians themselves remembered, and it is the only connected story we have. Every line of what follows should be read with that in mind (the Paulicians).
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