Priscillian

Spanish theologian and heresiarch. Regarding Christian life as a continual intercourse with God, he agreed that a man must hold a Catholic faith and perform acts of charity; but he also maintained that none could be a ‘fit temple of God’ without asceticism and abstention from worldly honours and from marriage. It was this attitude to marriage that brought him into conflict with the Church. In 380, when he was bishop of Avila, his chief followers were excommunicated at Zaragoza, Spain. Four years later his friend Bishop Instantius was deposed by a synod held at Bordeaux, France. Priscillian appealed to the Emperor Maximus; with the result that he and six of his companions were burned to death at Trier, Germany, the earliest victims of a criminal prosecution for heresy. The sect founded by Priscillian lasted until about 560.