Introduction
1. P. Henry, "Why Is Contemporary Scholarship So Enamored of Ancient Heretics?" Studia Patristica 17.1 (1982): 123-26.
2. E.g., Patricia Cox Miller, "'Words With an Alien Voice': Gnostics, Scripture, and Canon," Journal of the American Academy of Religion 57 (1989): 459-83.
3. For an account of the discovery and its significance, see James M. Robinson, "Introduction," The Nag Hammadi Library , 3rd ed. (San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1988), pp. 1-26. While the scholarship devoted to the interpretation of the Nag Hammadi documents is already vast, less attention has been given to the reassessment of the heresiological sources. The most significant work in this area is Alain Le Boulluec, La Notion d'hérésie dans la littérature grecque, II e -III e siècles (Paris: Études augustiniennes, 1985). See also the earlier study of Frederick Wisse, "The Nag Hammadi Library and the Heresiologists," Vigiliae Christianae 25 (1971): 205-23.
4. Complete lists of possible "Priscillianist" texts, "anti-Priscillianist" texts, and other (generally hostile) sources that may contain references to Priscillian or his movement can be found in Benedikt Vollman, Studien zum Priszillianismus: Die Forschung, die Quellen, der fünfzehnte Brief Papst Leos des Grossen (St. Ottilien: EOS Verlag der Erzabtei, 1965), pp. 51-85, and José E. Lopez Pereira, ''Prisciliano de Avila y el Priscilianismo desde el siglo IV a nuestros días: Rutas bibliográficas," Cuadernos Abulenses 3 (1985): 26-38, 56-77.
5. Sulpicius Severus, Chron. 2.46-51.
6. According to Severus' Chronicle , many in Spain still honored priscillian's memory circa 403 (2.51). The minutes of the Council of Toledo (400) record that some of the bishops in Galicia who had formerly honored Priscillian agreed, under pressure, to conform to the standards of orthodoxy imposed by the council. It is difficult to trace the history of "Priscillianist" Christianity after this point. The chronicler Hydatius remarks upon the confused elections and resulting shameful state of ecclesiastical order in mid-fifth-century Galicia: "deformem ecclesiastici ordinis statum creationibus indiscretis" ( Chron. pref. 7). The barbarian invasions that began in the second decade of the fifth century were doubtless the primary cause of this confusion. In addition, it appears that Galicia had never had a strong and clearly defined ecclesiastical hierarchy, due both to the relatively late establishment of Christianity in the province and to the particular social organization of fourth-century Galicia; see Alain Tranoy, La Galice romaine (Paris: Diffusion de Boccard, 1981), pp. 409-34. Perhaps a distinctive Priscillianist Christianity both contributed to and profited from this chaotic state of affairs. Alternatively, charges of "Priscillianism" may reflect, not the existence of a sect, but simply the need to invoke lables in order to mediate conflicts caused by the disordered or ill-defined social conditions of Galician Christianity. Raymond Van Dam suggests that "in some respects Priscillianism seems to have replaced Manichaeism in Spain and southern Gaul as a homebred idiom of heresy with which people articulated unacceptable aspects of their communities'' ( Leadership and Community in Late Antique Gaul [Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1985], p. 108).
7. The earliest use of the term "Priscillianist" of which I am aware is in the Galician Orosius' Commonitorium de errore Priscillianistarum et Origenistarum (414). Orosius is probably the source for Augustine's subsequent use of the term in Ep. 36.12 (post 414), Ep. 166.3, 7 (415), Ad Orosium contra Priscillianistas et Origenistas (415), De natura et origine animae 3.7 (419), Contra mendacium (420), Ep. 237.1-3 (date uncertain), and De haeresibus 70 (c. 429). Orosius may also be the source for Consentius' use of the term in Ep. 11* to Augustine (419), if Van Dam is right in suggesting that Orosius is the visitor to whom Consentius refers in Ep. 12*.9 ("'Sheep in Wolves' Clothing': The Letters of Consentius to Augustine," Journal of Ecclesiastical History 37 [1986]: 528-30). The label seems to have become commonplace in mid-fifth-century Galician writings, e.g., the anti-Priscillianist Regula fidei falsely attributed to the Council of Toledo I (400), and the Commonitorium and Libellus submitted by Turribius of Astorga to Leo (preserved in Leo, Ep. 15). Orosius, the Regula fidei , and Turribius also associate the "Priscillianists" with gnosticism, Manichaeism and astrology, and trinitarian errors; this plurality of heretical associations is taken up in the sixth-century anti-Priscillianist professions of the Galician Councils of Braga I (561) and II (572). As argued in Chapter 5 of this work, Sulpicius Severus and Jerome seem to represent a separate stream of tradition, in which Priscillian is identified simply as a gnostic seducer.
8. The Würzburg tractates were first published by their discoverer Georg Schepss in CSEL 18 (1889) and have been reprinted in PL suppl. 2 (1961), cols. 1413-83, with additional textual annotations and the retention of the CSEL pagination. On the question of authorship, see Henry Chadwick, Priscillian of Avila: The Occult and the Charismatic in the Early Church (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1976), pp. 62-69. Priscillian is not named in the manuscript, but there is broad consensus based on internal evidence that the tractates stem from his circle. I concur with Chadwick that "it is not unreasonable to think Priscillian himself the principal author of the tractates" (p. 69). Since it is furthermore unnecessary in most cases to distinguish between the views of Priscillian and those of his close associates, I shall henceforth simply refer to Priscillian as the author. Because Priscillian's personal authorship of the first and second tractates is relevant to my argument in Chapter 2, a more careful defense of his authorship of those tractates will be found in that chapter.
9. Van Dam points out the significance of this metaphor in Priscillian's first two tractates: "For Priscillian, life was an iter , a road or a journey" ( Leadership and Community , p. 95).
10. Tract. 7, 82.6-7.
11. Priscillian opens his Liber ad Damasum Episcopum with a reference to the "road of the creed" ( symboli iter ); later in the same work he recites and explicates that creed at some length ( Tract. 2, 34.3, 36.13-37.17). The creed is explicitly connected with baptism in the Liber apologeticus ( Tract. 1, 31.28-32.6).
12. Tract. 3, passim. See also Virginia Burrus, "Canonical References to Extra-Canonical 'Texts': Priscillian's Defense of the Apocrypha," Society of Biblical Literature Seminar Papers (1990): 60-67.
13. Priscillian explicitly denounces the Manichaeans in the first two tractates ( Tract. 1, 22.13-23.4; Tract . 2, 39.8-13).
14. Priscillian's correction of heretical interpretations of creation in the Tractatus Genesis appears to be aimed against the Manichaeans, whom he criticizes both for ascribing the creation of the body to the devil and for divinizing material creation; he complains that these heretics fail to understand that the visible world is the finite and temporary creation of the infinite and eternal God ( Tract. 5, 63.9-64.20). In the same anti-Manichean context, Priscillian remarks that God devised "the nature of what was made" ( facturae naturam ) in such a way that the divisions of temporal existence "would offer a habitation [ habitaculum ] for the human being who labored in the work of Christ"; here he implies that temporal existence has a positive function in God's plan ( Tract. 5, 64.12-16).
15. In the Tractatus Exodi , Priscillian develops the theme that scripture urges Christians to purify the "dwelling place" ( habitaculum ) of the body for divine habitation. Thus, for example, Priscillian interprets the divine injunction to smear the doorposts of the home with the blood of the paschal lamb as a command to make the "doorposts and thresholds of the animated body" ( animati corporis ) suitable for "the entrance of the divine word," noting that our body is the "house of God'' ( domus dei )( Tract. 6, 79.10-28).
16. R .P. C. Hanson provides a helpful overview of the often neglected western Nicene party ( The Search for the Christian Doctrine of God: The Arian Controversy, 318-381 [Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1988], pp. 459-556). Henry Chadwick's study of the teachings of the Priscillianist tractates highlights, on the one hand, the extent to which Priscillian's trinitarian thought conforms to that of the western Nicene theologian Hilary of Poitiers and, on the other hand, the comparative lack of anti-Arian polemic or even anti-Arian awareness in Priscillian's writings ( Priscillian of Avila , pp. 85-89).
17. The classic statement of this position is A. Hilgenfeld, "Priscillianus und seine neuentdeckten Schriften," Zeitschrift für wissenschaftliche Theologie 35 (1892): 1-85. In "Les Origenes du Priscillianisme et l'orthodoxie de Priscillien," Bulletin d'ancienne littérature et d'archéologie chrétiennes 2 (1912): 81-95, 161-213, A. Puech presents a more moderate and nuanced argument for Priscillian's doctrinal heresy. A similar position is taken by Adhémar D'Alès S.J., Priscillien et l'Espagne chrétienne à la fin du IV e siècle (Paris: Gabriel Beauchesne et ses fils, 1936).
18. Jerome, Ep. 133.3.
19. Peter Brown's brief reflections on fifth-century christology suggest the resonance of the late-ancient Christian emphasis on theological transcendence with the experience of autocratic rule ( Power and Persuasion in Late Antiquity: Towards a Christian Empire [Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1992], pp. 152-58). Brown's broader interest in this work lies with power, or rather the control of power, as viewed from the point of view of the upper-class subjects of late Roman emperors; his discussion of the impact of autocracy on elite men and women who could hope only to mitigate the violent effects of absolute imperial power seems to me fruitfully juxtaposed with Elizabeth Clark's recent highlighting of the centrality and theological seriousness of the issues of determinism and freedom raised in the Origenist as well as Pelagian controversies of the late fourth and early fifth centuries ( The Origenist Controversy: The Cultural Construction of an Early Christian Debate [Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1992]).
20. Georges Duby, "Foreword," A History of Private Life , 1: From Pagan Rome to Byzantium , ed. Paul Veyne, trans. A. Goldhammer (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1987), p. viii.
21. Jean Bethke Elshtain, Public Man, Private Woman: Women in Social and Political Thought (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1981), xiv.
22. While "cultural universals" are no longer particularly fashionable in anthropological circles, I am aware that there are many who would find it helpful to approach the public-private distinction as a cross-cultural phenomenon. Particularly revealing of some of the issues here at stake is an early discussion among feminist anthropologists initiated by the groundbreaking essay in which Michelle Zimbalist Rosaldo suggested that the public-private distinction is a universal--although "nonnecessary"--aspect of culture and society ("Woman, Culture, and Society: A Theoretical Overview," in Woman, Culture, and Society , ed. Michelle Z. Rosaldo and Louise Lamphere [Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1974], pp. 17-42). In an incisive review article, Rayna Rapp subsequently questioned the value of a universal model to explain historically distinct phenomena ("Review Essay: Anthropology," Signs 4 [1979]: 497-510); Rosaldo responded with a follow-up essay in the same journal ("The Use and Abuse of Anthropology: Reflections on Feminism and Cross-Cultural Understanding,'' Signs 5 [1980]: 389-417). The field of political philosophy likewise wrestles with the question of ''universals" and "particulars" in its analysis of the public-private distinction, with feminist thinkers again demonstrating a distinctive commitment to a highly contextualized approach to the history of ideas, while still insisting on a universalized understanding of "patriarchy"; see, e.g., Elshtain, Public Man, Private Woman , and Linda J. Nicholson, Gender and History: The Limits of Social Theory in the Age of the Family (New York: Columbia University Press, 1986). A more eclectic theoretical approach is represented by the essays in the volume Public and Private in Social Life , ed. S. I. Benn and G. F. Gauss (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1983).
23. Aristotle, Pol. 1.2.1252b-1253a. The ancient discussion of the separation and interrelation of the public and private spheres spans the disciplines of "politics," "economics" (i.e., household management), and ''ethics," but it is most frequently and clearly discussed in the context of household management. David Balch argues persuasively for a high degree of continuity within the tradition, suggesting that ideas of how a household was to be run remained remarkably stable from classical Greece through the hellenistic and Roman periods ( Let Wives Be Submissive: The Domestic Code in 1 Peter [Chico, Calif.: Scholars Press, 1981], pp. 21-62).
24. Elshtain, Public Man, Private Woman , pp. 15-16.
25. Thus Aristotle describes the relationships of the household in terms of political forms of government. While he is content to characterize the relationship of the male head of the household to his children and slaves as monarchical, he has more difficulty describing the relationship of male and female heads of household in political terms and thereby exposes the inadequacy of the political model. He concludes in a somewhat confused fashion that the husband rules his wife, not monarchically--which would imply the fundamental inequality of ruler and ruled--but by a modified constitutional rule--ordinarily shared among equals--which grants the male a permanent, if only nominal, superiority ( Pol. 1.12.1259b). Aristotle's contemporary Xenophon, on the other hand, is happy to describe the female head of household as a ruler, comparing her to the guardian of a state who oversees the carrying out of its laws, to the commander of a garrison inspecting his guards, to the Athenian Council scrutinizing the cavalry, and to a queen punishing and rewarding her subjects ( Oeconomicus 9.14-15).
26. The male speaker in Xenophon's dialogue on household management hastens to assure his audience that he maintains a respectable distance from household affairs: "I certainly do not spend my time indoors; for my wife is quite capable of managing the household affairs herself" ( Oeconomicus 7.3). While Xenophon's view of the female private sphere is relatively benign, other writers perceive it as not only alien but also inherently problematic and uncontrolled. Plato dreams of a utopian society in which the private sphere is not just subordinated but effectively eliminated (Elshtain, Public Man, Private Woman , pp. 29-41), while the Athenian dramatists create situations alternately nightmarish and comical in which unruly women transgress the boundaries of the private sphere and thereby threaten to destroy the basis of orderly social existence. Helen Foley argues that whereas a figure like Aeschylus' Clytemnestra might represent a simple inversion of the ideal of the subordinate and private woman, other transgressing females, such as Euripides' Medea and Aristophanes' Lysistrata, play a more complex role, intruding into the public realm in order to challenge or correct the failure of the male to observe his proper role as member of both household and state. Drama thus reveals an awareness that the essential complementarity and balance of public and private spheres can be threatened by men as well as women, by the demands of the public sphere as well as the private ("The Conception of Women in Athenian Drama," in Reflections of Women in Antiquity , ed. H. P. Foley [New York: Gordon & Breach Science Publishers, 1981], pp. 148-62).
27. See the discussion in Karen Torjesen, When Women Were Priests: Women's Leadership in the Early Church and the Scandal of Their Subordination in the Rise of Christianity (San Francisco: Harper, 1993), 53-87.
28. As has been recently highlighted and variously interpreted by Paul Veyne, Peter Brown, and Michel Foucault, among others; see the discussion of Averil Cameron, "Redrawing the Map: Early Christian Territory after Foucault," Journal of Roman Studies 75 (1986): 266-71.
29. Peter Brown's recent Power and Persuasion illumines this space wherein classical rhetoric still had some small but significant room to maneuver.
30. The centering of aristocratic identity and activity on private life in late antiquity has been argued by John Matthews, Western Aristocracies and the Imperial Court, A.D. 364-425 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1975), pp. 9-11.
31. Ibid., pp. 12-17. Note, however, that the decline in the involvement of the traditional senatorial aristocracy in government under Valentinian I was perhaps both less typical for the period and less pronounced than Matthews wants to admit. See, e.g., the discussion of Patrick Wormald, "The Decline of the Western Empire and the Survival of Its Aristocracy," Journal of Roman Studies 66 (1976): 217-26.
32. Matthews, Western Aristocracies , pp. 17-31.
33. Ibid., p. xi.
34. My own thinking about the various forms and functions of the ancient rhetoric of reluctance to assume the responsibilities of public office and power has been greatly enhanced by the work of Kate Cooper; see, e.g., her "Insinuations of Womanly Influence: An Aspect of the Christianization of the Roman Aristocracy," Journal of Roman Studies 82 (1992): 150-64.
35. Priscillian, Tract. 1, 4.8-11, 5.2-4.
36. Ibid., 33.9-13.
37. This is the purpose of the Liber ad Damasum Episcopum ( Tract. 2), probably composed slightly later than the Liber apologeticus ( Tract. 1).
38. Peter Brown, "Sorcery, Demons, and the Rise of Christianity from Late Antiquity in the Middle Ages," in Witchcraft Confessions and Accusations , ed. Mary Douglas (London: Tavistock Publications, 1970), pp. 17-45, quotation at p. 22.
39. Cf. Brown, ibid., pp. 24-25, and Power and Persuasion , pp. 41-47.
40. Brown, "Sorcery, Demons, and the Rise of Christianity," p. 20.
41. Ibid., p. 21.
42. Ibid.
43. For example, Brown's discussion of fourth-century sorcery accusations hints at the "resentments and anomalous power on the edge of the court" emanating from those frustrated aristocrats for whom "the days of a 'senatorial opposition' . . . were gone forever" (ibid., p. 23).
44. Here again the work of Raymond Van Dam's Leadership and Community in Late Antique Gaul is particularly helpful in demonstrating the remarkable consistency of the roles of local leaders in the late-ancient west.
45. Brown, Power and Persuasion , p. 62.
46. Ibid., p. 63.
47. On the real and symbolic functions of the role of the philosopher in late-ancient political life, see most recently ibid., pp. 61-70. See also Garth Fowden, "The Pagan Holy Man in Late Antique Society," Journal of Hellenic Studies 102 (1982): 33-59, and, more recently, Robert Kirschner, "The Vocation of Holiness in Late Antiquity," Vigiliae Christianae 38 (1984): 105-24.
48. For the last, see Prudentius, Praef. 16-35.
49. Elizabeth Clark notes that "in many respects, the patristic assertion that ascetic women were 'virile' is based on an accurate representation of the concrete conditions of their lives, conditions that resembled the men's" ("Ascetic Renunciation and Feminine Advancement: A Paradox of Late Ancient Christianity," in Ascetic Piety and Women's Faith: Essays on Late Ancient Christianity [Lewiston, N.Y.: Edwin Mellen Press, 1986], p. 180; see also Clark, Jerome, Chrysostom, and Friends: Essays and Translations [Lewiston, N.Y.: Edwin Mellen Press, 1979], pp. 15, 19, 55-56). Kerstin Aspegren's posthumously published study of the ancient theme of virile femininity, tracked across eight centuries and across polytheistic, Jewish, and Christian sources, hints at the significance and complex function of this gendered paradox in ancient Mediterranean thought ( The Male Woman: A Feminine Ideal in the Early Church , ed. René Kieffer, Acta Universitatis Upsaliensis, Uppsala Women's Studies [Uppsala, 1990]).
50. Prior to the discovery of the Nag Hammadi documents, Walter Bauer had already challenged what he labeled a "Eusebian" view of heresies as deviations or perversions of a prior orthodox tradition, arguing instead that what we identify as "orthodoxy" was simply one of a number of simultaneously coexisting forms of early Christianity, a form that did not begin to dominate until the end of the second century ( Orthodoxy and Heresy in Earliest Christianity , English trans. of 2d German ed., ed. R. Kraft and G. Krodel [Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1971]). It is Alain Le Boulluec, working in the post-Nag Hammadi era, who has carried Bauer's critique further: whereas Bauer continued to use the terms ''orthodoxy" and "heresy" in a somewhat conventional, although perhaps ironical, manner, Le Boulluec explores the foundations of the concepts of ''orthodoxy" and "heresy," locating their birth not in Eusebius but in the earlier anti-gnostic works of Justin and Irenaeus and arguing that the very conception of "orthodoxy" was simultaneous with and dependent upon the negative conception of "heresy" ( Notion d'hérésie ).
51. See the careful discussion of Le Boulluec, Notion d'hérésie , 1: 39-91.
52. Ibid., pp. 157-86.
53. Virginia Burrus, "The Heretical Woman as Symbol in Alexander, Athanasius, Epiphanius, and Jerome," Harvard Theological Review 84 (1991): 229-48.
54. Hanson, Search for the Christian Doctrine of God , pp. 329-34.
55. Ibid., pp. 508-16, 519-26.
56. Jerome, Dialogus contra Luciferianos 1.
57. Hanson, Search for the Christian Doctrine of God , pp. 335-38.
58. Collectio Avellana 2.43-45.
59. Matthews highlights the distinctive "orthodoxy" of Theodosius and many of his court and explores "the possible contribution of their native environment to the formation of the Christian piety which they expressed so distinctively in distant parts of the Roman world" ( Western Aristocracies , p. 145; see also pp. 100, 121-44, 146-72). Matthews further emphasizes the similarities between the "pious soldiers" Theodosius and Magnus Maximus, noting that Maximus was "almost in every respect the double of Theodosius himself--and as events immediately proved, his equal in hostility to heresy" (p. 165) and raising the possibility that ''Maximus' suppression of Priscillianism was, in part at least, a calculated attempt to attract Theodosius' support for his regime, as the regime of a compatriot [they were both Spaniards] and fellow Catholic with a shared interest in the elimination of heresy'' (p. 170).
60. Priscillian is not only adamantly "orthodox" in his self-understanding but also presents himself as bearing witness under persecution. In the Liber apologeticus , he opens by noting that the bishops' attack provides him the opportunity to win great glory, since his faith, "when struck by diabolical detraction" will be "proven more where it is attacked" ( Tract. 1, 3.3-6). Galician Priscillianists honored Priscillian as a martyr after his death.
61. Anne-Marie Palmer, Prudentius on the Martyrs (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1989), p. 3. In the preface to his collected poems, Prudentius first of all exhorts his soul to "fight against heresies and expound the catholic faith" ( Praef. 39).
62. I concentrate here only on those works that have most strongly influenced my approach. For a comprehensive bibliography and history of scholarship, see Vollman, Studien , and the update in "Priscillianus," in Paulys Realenzyklopädie der classischen Altertumswissenschaft , suppl. 14 (Munich, 1974), cols. 485-559; Lopez Pereira's "Prisciliano de Avila" further updates the bibliography to 1985.
63. E.-Ch. Babut, Priscillien et le priscillianisme (Paris: Librairie Honoré Champion, 1909), pp. 60-78.
64. Ibid., p. 73.
65. Ibid., pp. 79-96.
66. See, e.g., Puech's incisive critique ("Les Origenes du Priscillianisme," pp. 82-95).
67. Willy Schatz, "Studien zur Geschichte und Vorstellungswelt des frühen abendländischen Mönchtums" (diss., Freiburg i. Br., 1957), pp. 98-259.
68. Schatz (ibid., p. 217) comments on the relative superficiality of Babut's interpretation: "Auf der anderen Seite hat man den Zusammenstoss mit dem spanischen Episkopat einfach allgemein als einen Gipfelpunkt jener anti-asketischen Welle fassen wollen, die das Vordringen der asketischen Bewegung und die Bestrengungen zur Verwirklichung des Ideals der Virginität im Abendland im letzten Viertel des 4. Jahrhunderts auslösten; man glaubte, gerade in ihm einen Beweis für die Heftigkeit der Reaktion sehen zu dürfen. Zwar wird ein Zusammenhang mit dieser umfassenderen anti-asketischen Strömung nicht bestritten werden können; trotz der entgegenstehenden, scheinbar einheitlichen Opposition darf aber die Verschiedenheit der einzelnen asketischen Erscheinungen des Abendlands nicht übersehen werden. Ein Erklärungsversuch nach der Art des obigen bleibt daher auch zu sehr an der Oberfläche der Dinge; er berücksichtigt weder die Eigenart der priscillianistischen Gemeinschaft, noch stösst er zu den tieferliegenden Motiven der Gegenseite vor."
69. Ibid., p. 228. Although he is primarily interested in western monasticism, parallels between eastern and western ascetic movements are important to Schatz's argument. He aligns the eastern "sects" of the Messalians, Eustathians, and "apotaktites" with the Priscillianists on the basis of a shared ascetic worldview as well as a common estrangement from mainstream ecclesiastical institutions (ibid., p. 228).
70. Ibid., p. 228 n. 1.
71. Ibid., p. 229. Here Schatz rightly modifies the interpretation of Babut, who suggests that Priscillian and his associates were explicitly and consciously in opposition to official authority.
72. Ibid., p. 254.
73. Ibid., pp. 254-55.
74. Rudolf Lorenz criticizes Schatz on this point, arguing that Priscillian's movement has no place in the evolution from early Christian asceticism to monasticism, but instead represents a separate and unorthodox tradition: "Das spanische Mönchtum wuchs neben Priszillian heran" ("Die Anfänge des abendländischen Mönchtums im 4. Jahrhundert," Zeitschrift für Kirchengeschichte 77 [1966]: 23). But Lorenz's inability to fit Priscillian's movement into any category of ''orthodox'' asceticism appears to be owing not so much to the deviant nature of Priscillian's movement as to the limits of a relatively simple typology for describing the diversity of fourth-century ascetic practices.
75. Schatz, Studien , pp. 127ff.
76. Note that Weber actually distinguishes among three ideal types of authority: rational or legal, traditional, and charismatic; see Talcott Parsons' analysis and translation in Max Weber, The Theory of Social and Economic Organization (New York: Oxford University Press, 1947), pp. 56-66, 324-63. The rational or legal authority of office corresponds closely to what I term "public-sphere authority," and indeed Weber himself suggests that the theoretical distinction between public and private spheres is typical of rational or legal authority (Parsons, p. 58), much as I argue that the rhetoric of public and private is essentially a "public" discourse. However, my "private-sphere authority" meshes less easily with the Weberian categories and may be closer to "traditional" than to the "charismatic" authority emphasized by Schatz. Although fourth-century Christians, especially in the east, proved ready to acknowledge the revolutionary "charismatic" authority of ascetic figures like Antony, one of the elements that distinguishes fourth-century western Christianity is the novel and significant presence of men and women who could lay claim to the "traditional" authority of aristocratic birth and/or culture. Elizabeth Clark provides an illuminating analysis of the social position of late-fourth-century ascetic women in terms of Weber's category of "traditional'' authority (''Authority and Humility: A Conflict of Values in Fourth-Century Female Monasticism," in Ascetic Piety and Women's Faith: Essays on Late Ancient Christianity [Lewiston, N.Y.: Edwin Mellen Press, 1986], pp. 209-28).
77. Vollman, Studien , pp. 40-42.
78. Vollman, "Priscillianus," cols. 485-559.
79. Abilio Barbero de Aguilera, "El priscilianismo: ¿ Herejía o movimiento social?" Cuadernos de historia de España 37-38 (1963): 5-41, esp. 16-25.
80. See, e.g., Van Dam's concise critique of Barbero de Aguilera's use of the rural-urban distinction ( Leadership , pp. 90-91).
81. Chadwick, Priscillian of Avila , pp. vii, 51-56, 54-55, 74, 82-84, 97.
82. Ibid., p. 99.
83. Ibid., pp. 70-100, 111-233.
84. See, e.g., Chadwick's discussion of the Saragossan council's prohibition of going barefoot and of Ithacius' charge that Priscillian took part in some sort of magical ritual (ibid., pp. 17-20, 51-56).
85. Chadwick's first chapter, which deals with events through the synod of Bordeaux, is entitled "The Sorcerer's Apprentice" (ibid., pp. 1-56).
86. Ibid., pp. 57-110.
87. Van Dam, Leadership , p. 92.
88. Ibid., pp. 64-69, 78-87.
89. Van Dam suggests that both the spread of the conflict beyond community boundaries and the fact that Priscillian was eventually killed point to the "failure" of the "mechanism" of accusations of Manichaeism (ibid., p. 104).
90. Ibid., pp. 70, 92-106.
91. Ibid., pp. 70-74.
92. Ibid., pp. 74-76. Quotation from p. 75.