Priscillian of Avila: Heretic or Early Reformer?

Priscillian of Avila (d. ca. 385) is often described as the first Christian to be executed for heresy. In the latter half of the fourth century, he led a popular ascetic movement in Spain, but his rivals accused him of heresy. He was ultimately convicted by sorcery by the usurper Magnus Maximus and, with several of his followers, sentenced to death. The true nature of Priscillian’s heresy is ambiguous, and his defenders maintained his beliefs were generally orthodox. The nature and history of Priscillian’s movement has been discussed in depth (e.g., Babut 1909, Chadwick 1976, Burrus 1995), but less attention has been given to Priscillian’s defenders, and, just as notably, the ambivalence of many of his critics the nature of his condemnation. Many prominent bishops believed that Priscillian’s accusers were tainted by his death, and the objection to his persecution briefly led to a schism in Gaul: some prominent bishops refused to hold communion with his chief accuser, Ithacius of Ossonuba, as well as any bishops ordained by him. Priscillian’s case holds a complex position in the history of capital punishment and religious persecution. In this paper, I examine the ambivalent aftermath of Priscillian’s execution, looking both at his supporters and his critics who attacked accused and accuser alike. In particular, I will draw on the Chronicle and Dialogues of Sulpicius Severus, with additional reference to the acts of the synods and councils relevant to the Priscillianist movement, Ambrose’s letters, and Jerome’s assorted references to Priscillian. Paper presented at the Second Conference of the International Society for Heresy Studies, New York, June 1-3, 2016.

A.C. Geljon & R. Roukema, Violence in Ancient Christianity. Victims and Perpetrators, Leiden: Brill: pp. 132-150, 2014

Brill Encyclopedia of Early Christianity, 2024

It seems likely that these new laws served the accusers well in provoking the state to act decisively. Consequently, some 70 years after the end of → persecution of Christians, Priscillian became the first Christian → bishop to be executed by his Christian episcopal opponents scandalously through a secular court in Trier. (In Can. 46, Priscillian thought that apostle Paul prohibited such practice, but ironically, he also believed that to execute Manicheans through secular courts was perfectly fine; Tract. 2.361-362.) The followers of Priscillian regarded him a holy martyr (Sulp. Chron. 51.4).

Vigiliae Christianae 68/1 (2014): 60-81

This article studies the two earliest witnesses to the Apostles' Creed which have often been regarded with suspicion because they were written by "heretical" bishop-theologians Marcellus of Ancyra and Priscillian of Avila. Assessing the thought of Marcellus and Priscillian in the light of their authentic treatises, it is contended that their respective understandings of Trinitarian theology cannot be identified with modalist monarchianism. Consequently, their creeds should not be regarded as smoke screen for their allegedly deviant doctrines. Rather, these should be regarded as the first extant evidence for the declaratory Apostles' Creed.

Cécile Conduché has reviewed my edition of Priscian's Ars b. XVIII and her text has been accepted by the very influential journal The Classical Review. I am very surprised because, while the tone of the review is rather provocative, the remarks it contains seem to me very weak and in some way deceptive; nevertheless, I think it is worthwhile to comment upon C.'s observations (unfortunately CR's policy does not permit responses to be published) in order to allow her (and superficial readers, possibly misguided by her) to better understand content and features of Priscian's edition. Reasonably C. states that «editing Priscian remains intimidating», but, she explains, «because it is a challenge to do better than the previous editor»: this, at the very beginning, sounds irritating. Hertz worked at his best, but his challenge was not so much appreciated by contemporaries (see for instance Vahlen, Ennianae poesis reliquiae, Lipsiae 1903, p. CXL) and later scholars (De Nonno in Baratin-Colombat-Holtz (eds), Priscien, Turnhout 2009, pp. 269-270); his apparatus criticus was crowded of variants (often just orthographical slips), partly collected from second-hand collations, without any attempt at order or thoroughness; his criteria in choosing the right reading were often vitiated by prejudice (R being at any rate the optimus codex); this is very well known, and Hertz's edition is not intimidating for its merits: it is the large number of manuscripts, contamination, changing of models and manipulation of the text already in the first Carolingian witnesses that has prevented scholars from planning a new edition. (By the way, I do not think, as C. says, that editing the whole of Priscian's Ars will be my own life-task: I just wanted to open a path, that will certainly be continued, by me and other scholars, in the CGL collection.)

The final entry on my blog into my reading and research about Priscillian, Bishop of Avila

Harvard Theological Review (November 2014): 470-84

Pylon , 2022