The Josephines (Latin Josephini or Josepini) were Christian heretics condemned by Pope Lucius III's decree Ad abolendam in 1184 with the support of the Emperor Frederick I.
They were "subject to a perpetual anathema" along with the Cathars and Patarenes, Humiliati, Poor Men of Lyon, Passagians and Arnaldists.
[2] They are mentioned, again alongside the Passagians, who practised circumcision, in a bull of Pope Gregory IX in 1231 and in charters of Emperor Frederick II in 1239.
He connects them to a seventh-century Paulician sect claiming descent from Josephus Epaphroditus, already recognised as a spurious figure by Peter of Sicily and Pseudo-Photius in the ninth century.
He thus traced the western Josephines, whom he placed in Lombardy and Provence, to the Paulicians resettled in Europe in the eighth century.