After the earlier studies of Benedikt Vollmann, Henry Chadwick and Virginia Burrus,[1] Priscillian of Avila and his movement have been the object of renewed scholarly interest in the last two decades, to which one might add the important work of Marco Conti, Sylvain Jean Gabriel Sanchez and Maria Veronese.[2] The author of this study, which was translated from Spanish into English, has already published a monograph in Spanish on the archaeology and prosopography of the Priscillianist movement.[3] The exact relation between the two books is not indicated; suffice it to observe that the monograph under review is not a simple translation of the earlier study.
After a preface, the prologue evokes with some rhetorical flourish the unexpected survival of Priscillian’s memory (XI–XII). An introduction sketches “Late Antiquity” (defined as the period between Diocletian and the spread of Islam in the 7th century) as the historical background to Priscillian’s life. The portrait is rather unambitious and focuses on the actions and legislation of Constantine and his successors.
The monograph continues with four chapters closely following the timeline of the life and career of Priscillian from his birth in the middle of the 4th century to his execution in Trier in 385 CE. A fifth chapter deals with the immediate aftermath of his death and speculates on the possible burial place of Priscillian, who came to be venerated as a martyr. A concluding chapter focuses on the Priscillianist movement in the aftermath of Priscillian’s death. There follows an appendix which offers two maps designed by the author that are regrettably quite unreadable without a good magnifying glass (probably not the fault of the author), a timeline, a list of important personalities, a list of the sources for the nineteen images displayed in the main text, a commendably polyglot bibliographyand a general index.
The author seems to aim at reconstructing the gripping story of the career and cruel end of Priscillian on the basis of the extant sources. He is not much interested in the writings that are attributed to Priscillian or his followers—he seems to consider all eleven Würzburg tractates genuine works of Priscillian (65) [4]—nor does he have much to say about Priscillian’s spirituality, theology or biblical exegesis or about the legal background of Priscillian’s execution. His narrative is interspersed with much information about the political history of the Late Roman Empire, in particular the actions of emperors and would-be emperors. Some of it is clearly relevant to Priscillian and his story, as, for example, the sections dealing with the “usurper” Maximus (104–108); some of it less so, as, for example, the accounts of the deaths of the emperors Valentinian II and Theodosius I (157–159).
Sources are liberally quoted with text and translation)—which is certainly useful—but receive too little or no sustained analysis. For example, Piay Augusto mentions that Sulpicius Severus, Chronica 2.46.2–3 designates a certain Marcus of Memphis as the ultimate origin of Priscillian’s heresy (45), but there is no attempt to analyse this remark, which is probably dependent on the anti-priscillianist treatise of Ithacius of Ossonuba and its creative heresiology.[5] Again, on pp. 136–139, dealing with the conflict between Martin of Tours and other Gallic bishops about the execution of Priscillian, Piay Augusto offers a lengthy quotation of Sulpicius Severus, Dialogus 3.11–13 in translation,[6] accompanied by only five lines of commentary.
There is much speculation to fill in the many gaps left by the few sources. This is particularly true for the chapter dealing with Priscillian’s origin and education (“The Nazarene’s Call”, 23–48), about which we know next to nothing. On the basis of a remark in Prosper of Aquitaine, Chronica 1171,[7] Piay Augusto postulates a “Galician origin” for Priscillian (24); he exploits the same remark to confirm that Priscillian was a “Bishop of Gallaecia” (64), more precisely of Avila. He also adds some observations on the possible worldview of Priscillian’s generation:
Children of Priscillian’s generation, born in the middle of the fourth century, grew up with a very different worldview than that of their parents and grandparents. Constantine’s pro-Christian position had undoubtedly produced one of the greatest social alterations in society imaginable. Every aspect of life, public and private, had been affected, and education was no exception.
The exaggerations of this sweeping generalization—not the only one—are fortunately qualified as Piay Augusto continues:
However, the gradual progress of Christianity across the empire did not kill the traditional study of the classics, rather gave their analysis a Christian tinge. (30)
Sulpicius Severus mentions that on his journey to Rome Priscillian was expelled from the city of Bordeaux by the local bishop Delphinus. Priscillian then spent some time in the vicinity, on the estate of Euchrotia and her daughter Procula (Chronica 2.48.2). Piay Augusto speculates that this may indicate an adolescence of Priscillian in Bordeaux (35) and that during his studies there he may have acquired the rhetorical education that is evinced by the Würzburg tractates (38). Moreover, on the basis of Symmachus, ep. 8.5, a short letter addressed to a certain Priscillian, he seems to assume that Priscillian of Avila was a personal acquaintance of Symmachus; this is “mere conjecture” as Piay Augusto himself readily admits (36)—and not a very likely one at that.[8] Piay Augusto tries to bolster his hypothesis by pointing out that Marinianus, vicarius Hispaniarum and a correspondent of Symmachus, was—as he claims with reference to Sulpicius Severus, Chronica 2.49.3—an “intercedent on behalf of Priscillianus and his family” (37). No such role, however, can be safely inferred from the short remark of Sulpicius Severus, which at best gives us a glimpse of a complex hinterland of political machinations and calculations.[9] Piay Augusto completes his speculations about possible connections of Priscillian with Bordeaux by identifying the female follower of Priscillian who, according to Prosper of Aquitaine, Chronicon 1187,[10] was stoned to death in Bordeaux in 385 CE and whose name was Urbica, with Pomponia Urbica, the mother of Thalassius, the son-in-law of the famous rhetor Ausonius (35). Recent scholarship has considered this claim a possibility, but no more.[11]
The chapter on Priscillian’s travel to Rome (73–101) is mostly devoted to a hypothetical reconstruction of Priscillian’s itinerary, drawing on ancient sources, some of them contemporary or near contemporary. Much of this must remain inspired guesswork, as the author readily concedes (92). Piay Augusto postulates a first stay in Milan in April 382, which is not mentioned by our main source for the journey, Sulpicius Severus, who in Chronica 2.48.4 relates that Priscillian tried to approach Ambrose in Milan on his return from Rome (90). The only reason given for this hypothesis is that “Priscillian’s Book to Damaso [sic; this is the second of the Würzburg tractates] seem [sic] to suggest that he was there before he came to Rome.” Unfortunately, no further details are supplied.
As to the burial of the executed Priscillian, Piay Augusto speculates about a decisive role of bishop Symposius of Astorga, an early follower of Priscillian who retained his see despite the wave of anti-priscillianist persecution after 385 CE. Before the city walls of Astorga there must have existed a monastery possibly founded in the 5th century by a bishop of the city, Dictinius. Piay Augusto seems to suggest that the church attached to this monastery may have been the final resting place of Priscillian. It is outside the scope of this review to criticize the convoluted and entirely hypothetical speculations which are offered in support of this theory without any proper references to the sources summarized or paraphrased (149–154). As to the other, equally hypothetical, burial places mentioned in the literature, Piay Augusto is reluctant to dismiss them and considers it possible that “the body may have been moved several times, due to the pressures and persecutions suffered by Priscillianus’ followers” (153). Even the old but probably baseless theory that Priscillian may have been buried in Santiago de Compostela (and that his cult was replaced by that of Jacobus Maior) is supported by an ingenious and complicated onomastic argument (155). Clearly, this monograph misses some opportunities for exercising the historian’s virtue of scire nescire. The volume would certainly have profited from some more serious proofreading. There is a fair number of misprints and a reference has gone astray: the Latin text of p. 5, note 10 belongs to p. 8, note 11.
Notes
[1] B. Vollmann, “Priscillianus”, RE Supplement 14, Stuttgart 1974, 485–559; H. Chadwick, Priscillian of Avila: The Occult and the Charismatic in the Early Church, Oxford 1976 (reprint 1997); V. Burrus, The Making of a Heretic: Gender, Authority and the Priscillianist Controversy, Berkeley/Los Angeles/Oxford 1995.
[2] S. J. G. Sanchez, Priscillien, un chrétien non conformiste. Doctrine et pratique du priscillianisme, Paris 2009; M. Conti (ed. and transl.), Priscillian of Avila: The Complete Works, Oxford 2010; M. Veronese, Dilibatio et massa: La Scriptura nella raccolta di Würzburg attribuita a Priscilliano, Bari 2018.
[3] D. Piay Augusto, El priscilianismo: arqueología y prosopografía. Estudio de un movimiento aristocrático en la Gallaecia tardorromana, Rome 2018.
[4]The authorship of these tractates has been—and still is—sub lite, see, e.g. M.Conti, Priscillian of Avila, who assigns tractates I, II and III to Priscillian.
[5] See Chadwick, Priscillian of Avila, 21–22.
[6] The translation is not flawless. The Latin text of Dialogue 3.11.3 (ed. C. Halm) “Interea Martinus multis grauibusque laborantium causis ad comitatum ire conpulsus” is translated as “At the time Martinus restrained himself from going court because of many serious problems of people involved in suffering…” (136) – here the fault may lie with the English translation.
[7] Ea tempestate Priscillianus episcopus de Gallaecia, ex Manichaeorum et Gnosticorum dogmate, haeresim nominis sui condidit. See M. Becker and J.-M. Kötter (eds.), Prosper Tiro, Chronik. Laterculus Regum Vandalium et Alanorum, Paderborn 2016, 66 (text), 149 (commentary).
[8] See now the translation with commentary of book 8 of the correspondence of Symmachus by A. Ruta, Quinto Aurelio Simmaco, Epistularum liber VIII, Alessandria 2023, 41–42. Ruta suggests that letter 8.20 may have been addressed to the same Priscillian (84–85), who was possibly a notable based in Roman Africa.
[9] See Chadwick, Priscillian of Avila, 41.
[10] See Becker and Kötter, Prosper Tiro, 70.
[11] See, for example, L. Pietri and M. Heijmans, Prosopographie chrétienne du bas-empire, vol. 4.2, Paris 2013; D. Trout, Paulinus of Nola, Berkeley/Los Angeles/London 1999, 74. Trout considers an alternative possibility, namely that the Priscillianist Urbica was the daughter of the grammarian Urbicus, a colleague of Ausonius. See also A. Coskun, Die gens Ausonia an der Macht, Oxford 2002, 132 (note 65).