In conclusion, St. Leo pretends to confirm the secret crimes of the
Manichæans by an argument which destroys them. "These execrable
mysteries," he says, "which the more impure they are, the more carefully
they are hid, are common to the Manichæans and to the Priscillianists.
There is in all respects the same sacrilege, the same obscenity, the
same turpitude. These crimes, these infamies, are the same which were
formerly discovered among the Priscillianists, and of which the whole
world is informed."
The Priscillianists were never guilty of the crimes for which they were
put to death. In the works of St. Augustine is contained the
instructional remarks which were transmitted to that father by Orosius,
and in which this Spanish priest protests that he has plucked out all
the plants of perdition which sprang up in the sect of the
Priscillianists; that he had not forgotten the smallest branch or root;
that he exposed to the surgeon all the diseases of the sect, in order
that he might labor in their cure. Orosius does not say a word of the
abominable mysteries of which Leo speaks; an unanswerable proof that he
had no doubt they were pure calumnies. St. Jerome also says that
Priscillian was oppressed by faction, and by the intrigues of the
bishops Ithacus and Idacus. Would a man be thus spoken of who was guilty
of profaning religion by the most infamous ceremonies? Nevertheless,
Orosius and St. Jerome could not be ignorant of crimes of which all the
world had been informed.
St. Martin of Tours, and St. Ambrosius, who were at Trier when
Priscillian was sentenced, would have been equally informed of them.
They, however, instantly solicited a pardon for him; and, not being able
to obtain it, they refused to hold intercourse with his accusers and
their faction. Sulpicius Severus relates the history of the misfortunes
of Priscillian. Latronian, Euphrosyne, widow of the poet Delphidius, his
daughter, and some other persons, were executed with him at Trier, by
order of the tyrant Maximus, and at the instigation of Ithacus and
Idacus, two wicked bishops, who, in reward for their injustice, died in
excommunication, loaded with the hatred of God and man.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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