Priscillian

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Priscillian (Latin Priscillianus , German also Priscillian ; * around 340 probably in the province of Lusitania ; † 385 in Augusta Treverorum ) was a theologian from the Roman province of Hispana Tarraconensis and bishop of Ávila . He founded a religious movement that advocated strict asceticism for priests and lay people, a renewal of the Church by the Holy Spirit , the abolition of slavery and gender equality . Condemned as alleged heretics - probably for political reasons - Priscillian and some of his followers were the first Christians to be punished by other Christians for heresy with death . Despite severe persecution, his movement persisted in Hispania and Gaul until the middle of the 6th century, and in Galicia even into the 7th century.

Life

Priscillian was a wealthy layman from a noble family who had devoted his life to study. As an ascetic mystic , he viewed the Christian life as a constant conversation with God. A quote from the apostle Paul "Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit?" ( 1 Cor 6:19 a  EU ) became the guiding principle of his theology, which, in addition to the Christian faith and the works of love, renounces marriage and demanded earthly honors and strict asceticism so that man could become the dwelling place of God. It was, on the one hand, the question of celibacy in marriage, if not celibacy, that brought him into conflict with the clergy of northern Spain and southern Gaul, and on the other hand, the threat to the authority of the Church, which his influence and the growing number of his followers represented.

It is not always possible to separate Priscillian's own statements from those attributed to him by his opponents, nor from those that the groups called "Priscillianists" later developed. Priscillian ideas influenced later mystical communities in northern Spain and southern France, which the Catholic Church regarded as heretical.

Teaching

Some of Priscillian's writings were banned and burned, while others were recognized as "Orthodox". For example, he divided the Pauline Letters ( including the Letter to the Hebrews ) into sections of text according to their theological content and wrote an introduction to each section. This version of the Corpus Paulinum survived in the form of the edition of Peregrinus ( Vincent of Lerinum ). These letters call for a life of personal piety and asceticism, including celibacy and strict abstinence from meat and wine. Slavery was abolished by Jesus of Nazareth , and gender equality was commanded. These were thoughts that could not be generally accepted in late antique Christianity.

After Hans Lietzmann , Priscillian is the author of a number of tracts . A compilation of 92 canons represent the Pauline central ideas, which for him led to an ascetic radicalism. The division of the letters into continuous sections is still preserved today. Priscillian read Cyprian and Hilarius, but did not reflect on them theologically.

Priscillian and his followers accepted women on an equal footing who were organized as spiritales and abstinent women , as was the case with the Cathars in later times, and thus rejected the then already dominant ecclesiastical teaching, which, with reference to Eve, considered women weak and subordinate to men. According to Priscillian, studying the scriptures was compulsory for Christians. He placed considerable emphasis on writings that are now counted among the Apocrypha . Priscillian apparently lived consistently according to his own teaching, because at least two bishops, Instantius and Salvian, joined his community early on, impressed by his way of life. Later, Hyginus of Cordova added, and Symposius of Astorga was the movement of at least sympathetic to.

The quarrel over Priscillian

The allegations of “ sorcery ” and “indecent orgies ” were basically absurd in view of Priscillian's teachings, but they were part of the usual repertoire of internal Christian disputes. It was different with the Gnostic dualism he (allegedly) advocated and condemned by the Church . In addition, many bishops, who since the Christianization of the empire came more and more often from the upper class and led an aristocratic life, obviously felt provoked by the ascetic way of life of the Priscillians. The allegations were based on charges brought by Bishop Ydacius of Merida. The resolutions of the Synod of Saragossa ( Caesarea Augusta ) of October 4th, 380 have been preserved. Among the lesser known of Priscillian's friends were two bishops, Instantius and Salvianus , and Hyginus of Cordoba ; she and other leading followers of Priscillian were summoned to appear before the synod of Hispanic and Aquitaine bishops in Saragossa in October 380 and excommunicated there at the instigation of Ithacius of Ossonoba when they did not appear there.

After Priscillian was elected Bishop of Ávila, Bishop Ithacius of Ossonoba also brought charges against him of heresy and heretical atrocities. However, the Priscillian accusers were of bad repute. Ithacius was (so Lietzmann) described as a “shameless and morally depraved babbler”. Ydacius was charged by his own presbytery for his lavish lifestyle. Nevertheless, the Priscillian bishops were removed from their offices by Roman provincial officials on the basis of Emperor Gratian's Manichaeic edict and moved to Italy to seek support from Damasus and Ambrose of Milan . But this was not granted to them; rather, the aristocrat Ambrose in particular opposed Priscillian's ascetic teaching. In Macedonius, Gratian's magister officiorum , Priscillian and his followers found a powerful supporter who annulled the state measures against them so that they could return to their offices and Ithacius even had to flee to Gaul on charges of disturbing the peace of the Church from where he continued his fight against Priscillian.

After the assassination of Gratian and the seizure of power by the usurper Magnus Maximus in 383, the tide turned again. Since Priscillian could be denounced as a partisan of the overthrown emperor because of his relationship with Macedonius, his enemies within the church saw their chance, and a new investigation against Priscillian was ordered at the synod in Bordeaux. Priscillian evaded the process and appealed directly to Maximus, who was provisionally recognized at that time by the Eastern Emperor Theodosius I. The proceedings continued in Trier, where Maximus resided. It was created by Hydatius of Emeritia , Rufus of Metz and Britto von Trier against Priscillian charge of Manichaeism collected and heresy. ( Similar accusations were made against Hieronymus because of his conversations on the sordes nuptiarum , whereupon he withdrew to Bethlehem to avoid conviction.)

Sulpicius Severus came from a poor family and later acquired a great reputation with Martin von Tours, the Bishop of Tours and Paulinus von Nola. Severus worked as a lawyer, married into a consular family and, after the death of his wife, turned to a life as a monk. His thinking was mainly shaped by Martin von Tours. In the proceedings that Magnus Maximus led against Priscillian and his followers, he sided, presumably influenced by Martin, on the side of Priscillian. Martin von Tours initially successfully campaigned for the accused, but then, in Martin von Tours' absence, the momentous death sentences were carried out, which were carried out in 385 - this was the first time that Christian clerics were executed at the urging of other Christians. The following application of the Theodosian law against heretics was approved by the Synod of Trier in the same year; This opened the door to state persecution of the Priscillians. Ambrosius of Milan and Martin of Tours are said to have ensured that the persecution was limited.

In some research, the opinion is expressed that the strong protests raised by Ambrosius , Martin and Pope Siricius against the execution of their inner-church opponent Priscillian were primarily directed only against the precedent created by this, that an inner-church case is not only negotiated before a secular tribunal (This had also happened earlier), but that the defendants were tried as criminals after the guilty verdict. Up to this point in time the highest church punishment had been excommunication; henceforth "heretics" threatened torture and death.

The teaching of Priscillian after his death

Regardless of the harsh measures taken against them, the alleged heresy continued to spread in Spain and Gaul, although it is not always clear whether certain individuals were rightly called Priscillians. In 412, Lazarus , Bishop of Aix-en-Provence and Herod , Bishop of Arles , were deposed on charges of Manichaeism and Priscillianism, respectively. Proculus , the Metropolitan of Marseilles and the Metropolitans of Vienne and Narbonensis II are also said to have been among the followers of the doctrine for which Priscillian was executed.

Decades later, two synods were held to combat Priscillianism ; one 446 by Turibius of Astorga , the other 447 in Toledo . Once again the teaching of Priscillian was declared heresy by the second synod of Braga in 563, an indication that the Priscillian heresy also existed for a long time among the Visigoths .

The long prevailing judgment of Priscillian as a heretic and Manichaean relied on Augustine of Hippo , Turibius of Astorga , Leo the Great, and Paul Orosius , who cited a fragment of a letter from Priscillian, although referring to the Council of Toledo in 400, as his case was reopened with the Toletan Creed , revealed that the most serious accusation against him was based on a linguistic misunderstanding: he had been convicted, among other things, for having used the word innascibilis (for example, "not producible") in a certain context; but this context was not taken into account. Nevertheless, a number of Priscillian bishops broke away from him under pressure in order not to endanger church unity.

For a long time, research assumed that all of Priscillian's writings had disappeared, until in 1885 Georg Schepss discovered eleven original writings in Würzburg , which were then published in the Vienna Corpus . Although they have Priscillian's name, they could also have been written by one of his followers. “They contain nothing that is not orthodox or commonplace, nothing that Jerome could not have written.” So Schepps assumed that Priscillian was in truth no heretic, and further wrote, exaggerating the act as such, that he was Priscillian hence "the first martyr to be burned by the Spanish Inquisition ". Interested historians and folk tradition have also established the black legend of alleged Spanish fanaticism on the basis of this case .

Priscillian was venerated as a martyr for a long time, especially in Gallaecia (present-day northern Portugal, Galicia, Asturias and the north of the province of León) . Some researchers claim that the relics found in the 8th century in today's pilgrimage site of Santiago de Compostela are in truth the bones of Priscillian. Santa Eulalia de Bóveda (Lugo), the Iglesia Románica de San Vicente (Avila), the Monasterio de San Dictinio (Astorga) and the Iglesia Santa Cruz in Cangas de Onís (Asturias) are other possible places for the whereabouts of Priscillian's relics. called.

literature

Overview representations

Investigations

  • Virginia Burrus: The Making of a Heretic: Gender, Authority, and the Priscillianist Controversy . University of California, Berkeley 1995 ( online )
  • Henry Chadwick : Priscillian of Avila. The Occult and the Charismatic in the Early Church. Clarendon, Oxford 1997.
  • Klaus Martin Girardet : The fate of Priscillian and his followers 380 in Saragossa, 384 in Bordeaux and 385 in Trier. Volume 49, (2020) Annuarium Historiae Conciliorum, ISNN 0003-5157

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Detlef Liebs : The right of the Romans and the Christians: Collected essays in a revised version. Mohr Siebeck, Tübingen 2015, ISBN 978-3-1615-4031-8 , pp. 186–200, here p. 186.
  2. ↑ Peter Brown : Treasure in Heaven. The rise of Christianity and the fall of the Roman Empire. Klett-Cotta, Stuttgart 2017, ISBN 978-3-608-94849-3 , pp. 325-332.
  3. ^ Hans Lietzmann : History of the old church 4. History of the church fathers. Walter de Gruyter, Berlin 1961
  4. ^ Karl Christ : History of the Roman Empire. CH Beck, 1995, ISBN 3-406-36316-4
  5. ↑ Ralf Pochadt : Priscillian's legacy on the Star Trail Bad Honnef 2017
personal data
SURNAME Priscillian
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Spanish theologian
DATE OF BIRTH at 340
DATE OF DEATH 385
Place of death Augusta Treverorum ( Trier )