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Was Priscillian a Modalist Monarchian?1

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 November 2014

Tarmo Toom*
Affiliation:
Catholic University of America

Extract

As the first Christian bishop executed by his Christian episcopal opponents through a secular court, Priscillian of Avila has stirred the interest and imagination of many scholars. A well-known problem with reconstructing both Priscillian's life and theology is that, apart from some authentic treatises, most of the information about him comes from the polemical statements of his sworn enemies, such as Ithacius of Ossonuba. Sulpicius Severus contended that Ithacius was a “worthless . . . bold, loquacious, impudent, and extravagant man,” and yet he “poured forth entreaties full of ill-will and accusations against Priscillian.” Although Ithacius's book is lost, writers such as Filaster, Sulpicius Severus, Orosius, Jerome, Consentius, Augustine, Leo the Great, Vincent of Lérins, Prosper of Aquitaine, Hydatius, and Isidore of Seville received their information about Priscillian mostly from Ithacius's book or from the readers of his book. Later perceptions of Priscillian (and Priscillianists) have, no doubt, been influenced by what these prominent figures reiterated following Ithacius.

Type
Articles
Copyright
Copyright © President and Fellows of Harvard College 2014 

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Footnotes

1

“Modalist monarchianism” is a modern designation. The opponents of Priscillian preferred to call him “Sabellian” after a 3rd-cent. figure Sabellius. Sabellius allegedly taught that the distinction between the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit is only nominal (Epiphanius, Pan. 62). Heresiological categories—some ancient, others modern—have been part of the anti-Priscillianist rhetoric as well as of the counter-accusations that Priscillian himself employed against his opponents (see, e.g., Tract. 1.357–79; 2.94–109 in Priscillian of Avila: The Complete Works [ed. and trans. Marco Conti; Oxford Early Christian Texts; Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010] 54–55, 74–75).

References

2 An almost thirty-page multilingual bibliography can be found in Andrés Guillem, Olivares, Prisciliano a través del tiempo. Historia de los estudios sobre el priscilianismo (Galicia hisórica; Madrid: Fundación Pedro Barrié de la Maza, 2004) 265–91Google Scholar. One should also consult Sylvain Jean Gabriel Sanchez's fascinating “L’historiographie du priscillianisme (1559–2012)” and “Bibliographie chronologique des études scientifiques sur le priscillianisme,” accessed July 12, 2012, at http://sjgsanchez.free.fr/historiogsanchez.pdf and http://sjgsanchez.free.fr/bibliogchrono.pdf, respectively.

3 Babut, Ernest-Charles, Priscillien et le Priscillianisme (Paris: H. Champion, 1909) 3356Google Scholar, but see the analysis in Burrus, Virginia, The Making of a Heretic: Gender, Authority, and the Priscillianist Controversy (The Transformation of the Classical Heritage 24; Berkeley: University of California Press, 1995) 126–59Google Scholar.

4 Sulpicius Severus, Chron. 2.49–50.

5 Filaster of Brescia, Div. her. 61 and 84; Sulpicius Severus, Chron. 2.46–51; Orosius, Comm.; among other loci and if he knew Ithacius's book at all, Jerome, Vir. ill. 121 (122–23) (Jerome was Pope Damasus's secretary at the time of Priscillian's visits to Rome); Consentius, Ep. 11* and 12*; Augustine, Priscill. and Haer. 70 (the bishop of Hippo says explicitly, “Now that I hear from you [i.e., Orosius] what they hold . . .” [Priscill. 1.1]); Leo the Great, Ep. 15; Vincent of Lérins, Comm. 24–25; Prosper of Aquitaine, Chronicon 734 (and 736); Hydatius, Chronicon 13b, 16, 32 (not to be confused with Hydatius of Mérida); and Isidore of Seville, Vir. ill. 15. For details, see Guillem, Prisciliano a través del tiempo, 38–71 and Jean, SylvainSanchez, Gabriel, Priscillien, un chrétien non conformiste. Doctrine et pratique du priscillianisme du IVe au VIe siècle (ThH 120; Paris: Beauchesne, 2009) 88131Google Scholar.

6 The earliest use of the designation “Priscillianista” is found in the title of Orosius's Commonitorium (414 c.e.).

7 “Chaque polémiste a repris les accusations de ses prédécesseurs, sans se soucier d’en vérifier la crédibilité” (Each polemist repeated the accusations of his predecessors, without bothering to check the credibility [of these accusations]) (Sanchez, Priscillien, 179).

8 Modalist monarchianism is an early Trinitarian view that attempted to rescue Christian monotheism by refusing to posit a separate divine being besides God the Father either from eternity or from the time of creation. The names “Father,” “Son,” and “Spirit” were believed to refer only to the temporary modes of God's economic activity (Hippolytus[?], Noet.; Haer. 9; Tertullian, Prax.). Patripassianism, a variant of modalist monarchianism, taught that God the Father was born, suffered, and died (Tertullian, Praescr. 7).

9 Among more recent authors, Escribano does not attempt to distinguish between the writings of Priscillian and Priscillianists (Escribano, M. Victoria, “Heresy and Orthodoxy in Fourth-Century Hispania: Arianism and Priscillianism,” in Hispania in Late Antiquity [ed. and trans. Kim Bowes and Michael Kulikowski; The Medieval and Early Modern Iberian World 24; Leiden: Brill, 2005] 121–49Google Scholar). Sanchez makes a distinction between the original, first-generation Priscillians (les priscilliens) and later Priscillianists (les priscillianistes) (Priscillien, 14) and thus considers all Würzburg Tractates together as the earliest extant writings of Priscillians. This article, however, operates with the distinction between Priscillian's authentic writings and the writings of Priscillians/Priscillianists (see n. 22).

10 In one of the most recent comprehensive assessments of Priscillian (see n. 5), Sanchez argues that although Priscillian undoubtedly demonstrated his interest in and knowledge of esoteric teachings, he was neither a gnostic nor a Manichaean. These were primarily his ascetic practices, combined with a certain dualism that caused the accusation of Manichaeism.

11 For the Council of Saragossa Sanchez prefers the date 379 c.e. (Priscillien, 32–35).

12 Priscillian, Tract. 2.28–29; see also 2.111, 125–26, and 180–81. The fact that Priscillian could easily continue his episcopal duties in Spain after he was reinstated by Macedonius adds credence to the possibility that he was not officially condemned and deposed in the first place.

13 Sulpicius Severus, Chron. 2.47.

14 Felix Rodríguez, “Concilio I de Zaragoza. Texto crítico,” in I Concilio Caesaraugustano. MDC aniversario (ed. Guillermo Fatás Cabeza; Zaragoza, Spain: Institución Fernando el Católico, 1981) 9–25. It is not known whether any specific accusations of heresy were made at the Council of Bordeaux (384 c.e.[?]). The acts of this council are not extant and Sulpicius Severus does not mention any theological issues in connection with this council either (Chron. 2.49).

15 Chadwick, Henry, Priscillian of Avila: The Occult and the Charismatic in the Early Church (Oxford: Clarendon, 1976) 23Google Scholar.

16 Conti, Priscillian of Avila, 9–13.

17 Ibid., 7. Burrus has argued earlier that although the content of the extant works of Priscillian might be theologically ambiguous, “blatant Gnostic, Manichean, or monarchian errors are elusive, if not altogether absent” (The Making of a Heretic, 3).

18 Some of the creedal clauses (incarnation, crucifixion, death, resurrection, ascension) are also listed in the given order in Priscillian, Tract. 1.41–43. Another partial mini-creed is found in Tract. 3.98–101.

19 Hahn, Georg Ludwig, Bibliothek der Symbole und Glaubensregeln der alten Kirche (Breslau: Morgenstern, 1897Google Scholar; repr., Hildesheim: Olms, 1962) 64 n. 129. The page number is taken from the reprinted edition.

20 Priscilliani quae supersunt. Maximam partem nuper detexit adiectisque commentariis criticis et indicibus primus (ed. Georg Schepss; CSEL 18; Prague: Tempsky, 1889]).

21 Conti, Priscillian of Avila, 17.

22 Ibid., 15–17, 268, 278, and 300. Morin attributes Tract. 2 to Priscillian's friend Instantius, but his proposal has not found general acceptance (Germain Morin, “Pro Instantio. Contre l’Attribution à Priscillien des opuscules du manuscrit de Würzburg,” RBén 30 [1913] 153–73). In Vir. ill. 121, Jerome says that Priscillian authored “many short writings” (multa opuscula) (see Priscillian, Tract. 1.4–5), but among the extant works attributed to him, only a few treatises in the Würzburg Manuscript (i.e., Tract. 1–3 and 11—Tract. 4–10 being by anonymous Priscillianist author[s]—his Canones in an edited version, and an obscure fragment of his letter in Orosius's Commonitorium) are arguably genuine.

23 Priscillian, Tract. 2.194. Sulpicius Severus agrees that Priscillian and his companions “set out for Rome in order that before Damasus . . . they might clear themselves of the charges brought against them” (Chron. 2.48).

24 Priscillian, Tract. 2.47–67. The Latin text and references are taken from Conti, Priscillian of Avila, 70–72. I have added the reference to Acts 1:9 in line 6.

25 “(Believing) in one God, the Father Almighty, and in one Lord, Jesus Christ, who was born of the Virgin Mary through the Holy Spirit, who suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, buried, on the third day arose again, ascended into the heavens, is seated on the right hand of God, the Father Almighty, whence he will come and judge the living and the dead, (believing) the holy church, the Holy Spirit, the saving baptism, (believing) in the remission of sins, (believing) in the resurrection of the flesh.”

26 See Sanchez, Priscillien, 265–69.

27 The way Priscillian combines his creed with Scripture is rather interesting. He uses the beginnings of the independent clauses of 1 Cor 8:6 as the first two articles of his creed, adds the phrase “sicut scribtum est,” and then quotes the rest of these clauses. The resulting statement is: “Believing in one God, the Father Almighty, ‘from whom’—as it is written—‘all things are and we through him,’ and in one Lord, Jesus Christ, ‘through whom’—as it is written—‘all things are and we through him’ (Credentes ‘unum Deum Patrem Omnipotentem,’sicut scribtum est: ‘ex quo omnia et nos per ipsum,’ et unum Dominum Iesum Christum,’ sicut scribtum est, ‘per quem omnia et nos per ipsum’)” (I have added the emphases in Latin in order to highlight the words of 1 Cor 8:6).

28 Among other Latin authors, Anon. Exp. sym. 5; Augustine, Symb. 1, s. 212.2; Niceta of Remesiana, Symb. 34; Rufinus, Exp. sym. 18; and Quodvultdeus, Symb. 1.4.7, 2.1.1.

29 Priscillian, Tract. 3.101.

30 The designation “private creed” is often used to speak about the creeds by which theologically suspect people, or even quite “orthodox” ones, confessed their faith. See the long list of the so-called Privat-Symbole in Hahn, Bibliothek der Symbole, 253–363.

31 Chadwick, Priscillian of Avila, 87. Kinzig and Vincent point out that, in connection with creeds, the word “author” has to be used in a loose sense anyway (Kinzig, Wolfram and Vincent, Markus, “Recent Research on the Origin of the Creed,” JTS 50 [1999] 535–59, at 556CrossRefGoogle Scholar).

32 E.g., Norman, JohnKelly, Davidson, The Early Christian Creeds (3rd ed.; London: Longman, 1972) 361Google Scholar. Sanchez, however, wisely does not want to be entangled in the unhelpful categories of heterodoxy/orthodoxy at all as he analyzes Priscillian's theology (Priscillien, 13, 426–37). Indeed, such retrospective categories are not particularly beneficial, because Trinitarian controversies continued long after the Council of Constantinople (381 c.e.) and thus, it was not entirely certain what the “orthodoxy” would eventually be. For this reason, I have used polemical designations, such as “modalist” or “pro–Nicene,” merely to identify certain ancient theological positions without making an additional claim that any of these positions should be taken as absolutely normative.

33 To assert that someone's “secret doctrinal deviance” is hidden “behind false appearances of conformity” (Burrus, Making of a Heretic, 16) is an age-old strategy in polemical put-downs. In Priscillian's case, this argument evidently began with Hydatius's and Ithacius's claim that Priscillian was a “closet” Manichaean (Priscillian, Tract. 2.141–45; Sulpicius Severus, Chron. 2.46). Augustine, in turn, contends that “none is comparable to them [i.e., Priscillianists] in deceitfulness” (Ep. 237.3).

34 Priscillian, Tract. 1.14–15 (“ostenderemus ore quod credebamus in corde”); cf. 2.10; 3.236–37. For what it is worth, Priscillian seems never to have understood himself as anything other than “orthodox” and always confessed the catholic faith (Tract. 1.5, 49; 2.68, 160, 170–71).

35 Rufinus, Exp. 2.

36 Priscillian, Tract. 2.176–78.

37 Arnobius the Younger, Confl. 2.32; Theodoret, Hist. eccl. 5.11.

38 Sanchez, too, judges that although Priscillian's Trinitarian theology lacks precision, it cannot be called “monarchian” or “Sabellian” (Priscillien, 160, 166, and 172). However, and despite stating that “Priscillien soit resté fidèle au Symbole des apôtres” (Priscillian remained faithful to the Apostles’ Creed), his analysis neither focuses on Priscillian's creed nor is limited to Priscillian's authentic treatises (ibid., 179).

39 1 Cor 8:6 is cited in Priscillian, Tract. 1.65–67; 2.47–49; see also Eph. 4:5–6 (“One Lord . . . one God and Father of all” [unus Dominus . . . unus Deus et Pater omnium]), which is cited partially in Priscillian, Tract. 1.29.

40 See Rufinus, Exp. 36.

41 See the comparative chart in Westra, Liuwe H., The Apostles’ Creed: Origin, History, and Some Early Commentaries (Instrumenta patristica et mediaevalia 43; Turnhout, Belgium: Brepols, 2002) 222–23CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

42 Already 1 Clem. 46.5 repeats the word “one” three times: “Have we not one [ἕνα] God, and one [ἕνα] Christ, and one [ἓν] Spirit of grace which has been poured upon us?”

43 See the comparative chart in Westra, Apostles’ Creed, 226–27, and 228 n. 472. It is plausible that Priscillian knew the Latin translation of the Nicene Creed, because it could be found in Hilary of Poitiers's Coll. antiar. B II 9.11.1 (356–357 c.e.), and then, in his Syn. 84 (358 c.e.). Priscillian had at least some knowledge of Hilary's writings (see n. 52).

44 Tertullian, Prax. 17.

45 Pricillian says nothing about the unshared attribute “paternity” though.

46 This would be the modalist position described in Hippolytus(?), Haer. 9.10.

47 Priscillian, Tract. 3.100; see also 1.247–48; as well as John 1:14 (“The Word was made flesh”) in Tract. 1.41 and 1 John 4:2 (“The one who denies that Christ came in the flesh is the anti-Christ”) in Tract. 1.74–75, 346–47, 512; and 3.162–63. When Priscillian uses his favorite phrase, “Christ God” (Christus Deus), in Tract. 2.107 (see Sanchez, Priscillien, 162–66), he adds an epexegetic “Son of God” (Dei Filius). Although Christ is God, he is not “God the Father” (Deus Pater) (e.g., the first clause of the creed and Tract. 1.65), but “the Son of God” (Filius Dei).

48 All extant early Spanish creeds, except that of Priscillian, include the word “unicum” (Westra, Apostles’ Creed, 226).

49 Exemp. prof. 28–29, 37, 55; see Orosius, Comm. 2; Hilary of Poitiers, Syn. 38 (Anathema 26).

50 See Hübner, Reinhard M., Der paradox Eine. Antignostischer Monarchianismus in zweiten Jahrhundert (VC Supplements, Texts and Studies of Early Christian Life and Language 50; Leiden: Brill, 1999) 6668Google Scholar.

51 Heteroousians contended that since the essence of God the Father was “unbegottenness,” the only-begotten Son could in no way be said to be coessential with the Father.

52 Some of the Trinitarian theology found in the Würzburg Manuscript could be coming from Hilary of Poitiers's De Trinitate (see CSEL 18, 168). For a much more cautious revision of the given references see Veronese, Maria, “Le citazioni del ‘De Trinitate’ di Ilario nella raccolta attributa a Priscilliano,” Vetera Christianorum 40 (2003) 133–57Google Scholar (a proposed new index is on pages 155–57). In Trin. 4.33, Hilary, who certainly made a distinction between unbegottenness and begottenness, reserves the designation “innascibilitas” exclusively to God the Father (see also 3.3 and 9.31). Priscillian, however, does not use the word “innascibilitas” in his extant authentic writings.

53 Chadwick, Priscillian of Avila, 88–89.

54 It is difficult to say whom exactly the generic term “Arrianae” denotes. I have not used quotation marks for this term in my translation, because it is the designation that Priscillian actually uses (e.g., Tract. 1.374; 2.81).

55 Chadwick, Priscillian of Avila, 88.

56 See Escribano, “Heresy and Orthodoxy in Fourth-Century Hispania,” 121–49, who looks at Priscillianism as a continuation of the Arian controversy under a different name. That is, Escribano depicts Priscillianists as rigorist anti-Arians.

57 Priscillian, Tract. 2.81–85; see also 1.374.

58 Tract. 1.31–33; also 2.12; 3.103–5.

59 Tract. 3.99. Consider the eight scriptural proof texts in Tract. 1.29–40, which constitute the theological starting point for a convinced monotheist Priscillian.

60 E.g., Tract. 1.510–11; 2.169–70; and 3.164–65.

61 Tract. 1.409–10; see also Tract. 2.107–9; Priscillian(ist) Tract. 5.91–92. A modification that Priscillian introduces to Rev 19:10—instead of “Worship God!” one reads “Worship God Jesus!”—is arguably about Jesus's divinity as well, rather than teaching modalist monarchianism (Priscillian, Tract. 1.524). In Sanchez's assessment Priscillian “propose une vision égalitaire des personnes divines, tout en affirmant la concentration de la Trinité entière dans le personne du Christ” (offers an egalitarian hindsight of the divine persons, while affirming the concentration of the whole Trinity in the person of Christ) (Priscillen, 158–59).

62 1 John 2:23, cited in Priscillian, Tract. 1.77–78.

63 Priscillian's emphasis on Christ's divinity fits well with his condemnation of Photinus, who is blamed for not recognizing God in Jesus Christ (Tract. 2.85–89). In Tract. 1.375, Priscillian condemns certain Homuncionites for the same reason.

64 Conti, Priscillian of Avila, 301. After all, Priscillian does not employ the persona-language (see Heine, Ronald. E., “The Christology of Callistus,” JTS 49 [1998] 5691, esp. 72–74CrossRefGoogle Scholar). Nevertheless, following the self-perpetuating scholarly consensus, Conti asserts that by condemning Arianism and the theology of the Binionites, Priscillian “is actually proclaiming his own monarchianism” (Conti, Priscillian of Avila, 270; see also 300). True, Conti qualifies his assertion by saying that Priscillian's monarchianism “appears to be substantially moderate,” but he does not explain what this “substantially moderate” monarachianism amounts to. He only juxtaposes it to a “rigid and extreme form of monarchianism” associated with Photinus (Conti, Priscillian of Avila, 271; see also 288). I find it odd that even when that which heresiologists have said is denounced as hostile and not always trustworthy, their classification of Priscillian as a modalist monarchian still secretly guides the attempts at critical reconstruction of his theology.

65 Since pro-Nicene theology is not a monolithic phenomenon, it would be better to emphasize “family resemblance” (Wittgenstein) and say “pro-Nicene theologies.”

66 Chadwick, Priscillian of Avila, 68.

67 Conti, Priscillian of Avila, 300.

68 Priscillian, Tract. 11.10–11 as compared to John 14:11 (“I am in the Father and the Father is in me”). Parallel passages, such as John 10:30 (“I and the Father are one”) and 17:21 (“Father, just as you are in me and I am in you”), are cited in Priscillian, Tract. 1.59–60.

69 Orosius, Comm. 2. Orosius's information does not match what one finds in the extant authentic treatises of Priscillian. However, since he does cite a fragment of an authentic letter, which is otherwise unknown, Orosius may have had access to documents about which we know nothing.

70 Priscillian, Tract. 11.14, as compared to John 5:17, 19 (“My Father is always at his work to this very day, and I, too, am working. . . . The Son can do . . . only what he sees his Father doing”).

71 E.g., Hilary of Poitiers, Trin. 2.28; 4.21; 6.34; 7.21, 26, 36; 8.31; 9.17. The argument is that the divine work of the Son and the Spirit imply their divinity.

72 Cited in Priscillian, Tract. 2.70–71, 108–9.

73 Tract. 1.420; 3.108.

74 Chadwick, Priscillian of Avila, 101, who arguably bases it on Priscillian, Tract. 1.235 and on the Priscillianist Trin. f. cath. 384–85.

75 Hilary, Trin. 1.27; 2.1; 5.38; 7.9, 7.12; see Toom, Tarmo, “Hilary of Poitiers’ De Trinitate and the Name(s) of God,” VC 64 (2010) 456–79Google Scholar.

76 See Sanchez, Priscillien, 163.

77 See Barnes, Michel René, The Power of God: Δύναμις in Gregory of Nyssa's Trinitarian Theology (Washington, D.C.: Catholic University of America Press, 2001Google Scholar).

78 Cited in Priscillian, Tract. 1.475. In Tract. 5.59, one finds the phrase “when the Word of the divine power [Conti: virtue] appeared” (cum enim uerbum diuinae uirtutis apparuit), which suggests that “uirtus” is synonymous with “Deus.”

79 E.g., Hilary, Trin. 5.4, 8.32, 9.1, and 9.12.

80 Priscillian, Tract. 2.72; see also Marius Victorinus, Adv. Ar. 1.50 and 56; Augustine, Ord. 2.5.16.

81 “And there are three who testify in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Spirit, and these three are one in Jesus Christ.”

82 This is found neither in (late) Greek textual variants (manuscripts 61, 88, 629, and 635) nor in Greek Trinitarian theology, where the Father is always the principle of the unity within the Trinity.

83 According to Orosius, Priscillianists taught that “this Father, Son, Holy Spirit—with the ‘and’ removed—is Christ alone” (Comm. 2; but the Priscillianist Trin. f. cath. 337–38 has all the “ands” that one wants).

84 Priscillian, Tract. 1.235.

85 The Priscillianist Tract. 6.109; 7.12–13, as compared to Rev 22:13 (“I am . . . the first and the last”). A Latin rendering of John 8:25, too, calls the Son “principium”; see Tertullian, Herm. 19–20.

86 The Priscillianist Tract. 6.42.

87 Tract. 6.43. Referring to the Son (i.e., the eternal Word), Hilary, for example, says, “He was already with God without a beginning, who was before beginning” (Iam sine principio est apud Deum, quod erat ante principium) (Trin 2.14).

88 Several anti-Nicene theologians argued that to call the Son consubstantial (homoousios) with the Father was to introduce two first principles into the Godhead.

89 Hilary, Trin. 2.1 and 2.6. First Corinthians 8:6 has “Deus Pater ex quo omnia.”

90 Perhaps the phrase in Tract. 6.42 “[Christ is] the origin of all” (origo omnium) can also be understood in the sense that Christ as God is the “origin” of what came to exist; see also Tract. 1.40–41.

91 Tract. 11.4–5. The monarchy of the Father is a doctrine that understands the Father as the source of everything that exists (monos [“only” or “single”] + archē [“principle”]).

92 This is a neat term used by Williams, Daniel H., “Monarchianism and Photinus of Sirmium as the Persistent Heretical Face of the Fourth Century,” HTR 99 (2006) 187206, at 196CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

93 Hippolytus(?), Noet. 8. Hübner contends that monarchiansim was, in fact, the original anti-gnostic “orthodoxy” (Paradox Eine, 95–129, 207–40).

94 Noetus, Sabellius, Praxeas (if not a pseudonym), and Callistus may well have had their theological differences (Heine, “Christology of Callistus,” 56–91).

95 Hippolytus(?), Noet. 1.2; see also Hippolytus(?), Haer. 9.2–7; Tertullian, Prax. 1–2; Filaster, Div. her. 53–54; Augustine, Haer. 36 and 41.

96 Tertullian, Prax. 1. Slusser argues that patripassianism was history already in the middle of the third century (Slusser, Michael, “The Scope of Patripassianism,” StPatr 17 [1982] 169–75Google Scholar).

97 “Priscillian of Avila has been suspected of patripassianism, but none of the texts ascribed to him say that the Father suffered” (Slusser, “Scope of Patripassianism,” 173).

98 Veronese finds it suspicious that Priscillian does not refer to those parts of Hilary's De Trinitate (e.g., 1.16) where Sabellians are condemned. She thinks that Priscillian's occasional, selective quoting from Hilary's De Trinitate is simply part of the clever masquerading of his heretical doctrines (Veronese, “Le citazioni del ‘De Trinitate’ di Ilario nella raccolta attributa a Priscilliano,” 154–55). Yet, once again, there is no similarity between what is condemned in Hilary's Trin 1.16 and what Priscillian is teaching.

99 Priscillian, Tract. 2.89–91, which quotes John 3:36 (“Whoever believes in the Son has life”) and 1 John 5:12 (“He who has the Son has life”).

100 Priscillian, Tract. 2.91–94.

101 This is argued already by Hippolytus(?), Noet. 7.

102 Tract. 11.13–14. Again, one has to disagree with Conti, who thinks that the opening lines of the Priscillianist Trin. f. cath. reveal the author's “typically monarchian conception of the Trinity: the invisible God showed himself to human beings in the Son” (Priscillian of Avila, 308). The contention that God was seen in the incarnated Son is entirely biblical and appropriate. While most of the other early Latin creeds did not do this, the Creed of Aquileia added the words “inuisibilem et impassibilem” to the clause about the Father in the Old Roman Creed precisely because of modalist monarchians (Rufinus, Exp. 5). The bishop of Aquileia explained that, in order to avoid “doctrinal novelties,” local creeds provided certain additions that were not to be found in the creed of Rome (Exp. 3).

103 Priscillian, Tract. 1.535–36 (and 1.347–48).

104 Tract. 1.37; 2.83–84, as compared to Isa 45:21 (“I am God and there is no other who is just but me”), which is cited in Priscillian, Tract. 1.33–34.

105 Tract. 1.27. Compare the modalist monarchian view in Tertullian, Prax. 1: “[Praxeas] says that the Father himself came down into the Virgin, was himself born of her, himself suffered, indeed was himself Jesus Christ” (ipsum dicit Patrem descendisse in uirginem, ipsum ex ea natum, ipsum passum, denique ipsum esse Iesum Christum).

106 E.g., Priscillian, Tract. 1.470 and the Priscillian(ist) Tract. 4.74; 5.12; 6.31, 107.

107 Tract. 1.525–26. In creeds, the title “Lord” is associated with Jesus Christ.

108 The Latin text and an English translation are available in Conti, Priscillian of Avila, 212–49 and a comparison of this treatise with the Würzburg tractates in Morin, Germain, “Traité priscillianiste inédit sur la Trinité,” in Études, textes, découvertes. Contributions à la littérature et à l’histoire des douze premiers siècles (Anecdota Manichaeism 2/1; Paris: Picard, 1913) 151205Google Scholar.

109 In studying Priscillians and Priscillianists (see n. 9), Sanchez acknowledges the important change of doctrine and practice in about 400 C.E. (Priscillien, 14).

110 Chadwick, Priscillian of Avila, 57.

111 Priscillian, Tract. 3.

112 E.g., Tract. 1.81–375. Accusations in Manicheism and sorcery, to which Priscillian allegedly admitted while being tortured (Ambrose, Exp. Ps. 118.12.20; Sulpicius Severus, Chron. 2.50), were basically crimes that were known to get one executed (Chadwick, Priscillian of Avila, 138–44).