For a long time historians were chary of using the Greek sources for Paulician history with complete confidence, as they were uncertain which of the several similar accounts to consider as the most authentic and reliable. There are four synoptic descriptions of them:

1. (i) The History of the Manichaeans, by Peter of Sicily, who claimed to have visited the Paulician capital of Tephrice as an ambassador. It is given in Migne, Patrologia Graeca, vol. CIV.

2. (ii) A short tract by a certain Peter the Higumen, which was inserted at the head of the other Peter's work.

3. (iii) A treatise Against the Manichaeans, attributed, falsely in part, to Photius. It is published with Photius's works in Migne, Patrologia Graeca, vol. CII. The homilies in this treatise are doubtless Photius's own work. The first chapter is a repetition of (ii) and is certainly later.

4. (iv) A chapter interpolated into the Madrid MS. of Georgius Monachus, which again is a reproduction of (ii). It has been edited by Friedrich in the Sitzungsberichte der Bayr. Akademie, 1896, pp. 67 ff.

Georgius Monachus, Theophanes Continuatus, Euthymius Zigabenus and other Byzantine writers base their accounts on these last three.

I shall not go into the various theories that have been held about these sources. It has been left to Prof. Grégoire to sort them out definitively. See his Les Sources de l'Histoire des Pauliciens, in the Bulletin de l'Académie Royale de Belgique, Classe des Lettres, 1936, pp. 95–114, and his Autour des Pauliciens, in Byzantion, vol. XI, 1936, pp. 610ff. He shows conclusively that the account of Peter of Sicily is authentic and genuine and should be treated as the prime source.