Questions for 'Homework'

Priscillian's teaching on "Prophesying"

As I remarked in an earlier post, there is a similarity between the reaction to Priscillian and his teaching and the early teaching of John Wesley. I have traced the 'famous' comment by the Bishop of Bristol to John Wesley - usually reported as "enthusiasm Mr. Wesley is a nasty, nasty thing".
In fact during   " a series of meetings between Butler and John Wesley in August 1739, at one of which Butler said to Wesley, ‘Sir, the pretending to extraordinary revelations and gifts of the Holy Ghost is a horrid thing, a very horrid thing’  " (1)


This makes it all the more pertinent to the story of Priscillian who insisted that  "we do not despair of speaking about him either, because without preventing or stopping the spirit of anybody he concluded with the certain end of prophecy, but in order that all those who believe in him might speak of him freely,  . . . . " and  . . " he who trusts in Christ God may have no despair of prophesying about God, in what he had promised his faithful." (2)

The Questions

 There is a general recognition, amongst scholars and writers on Priscillian, that the Würzburg Tractates contain nothing that could be described as 'heretical'. However, those who have condemned him as a heretic have been definite that either the Tractates were not written by him - naming Bishop Instantius as the author, or that Priscillian was lying - a habitual occurrence in a Manichee!

Question 1- "Were Tractates I and II written by Priscillian ?"

Question 2 - "Was Priscillian telling the truth about his beliefs or was he lying in his teeth?"

The answers to these two questions would indicate to us whether or no Priscillan was a heresiarch. (the instigator or leader of a heresy)

Other questions are based around the practical out-workings of Priscillianism.

Question 3 - "On what basis were the Priscillianist churches organised? Hierarchical or Familial?" (3)

Question 4 - "What was Priscillian's attitude to ordaining clergy (bishops?) with an itinerant ministry?" (i.e. not having a defined 'See') (4)


I am taking a short time off from blogging to catch up on reading, so leave the questions with you as "homework"!

Footnotes
(1) H. Rack, Reasonable Enthusiast, 2nd edn, 1992, 209. Quoted in Oxford Dictionary of National Biography,
(2)  Tractate I . 545 and 555: Marco Conti. Priscillian of Ávila - The Complete Works. Oxford Early Christian Texts 2010 (1st Edition) pp. 65 - 66 This new book (2010) contains the Latin text of the Würzburg Tractates I - XI : the Canons on the Letters of the Apostle Paul : the Fragment Quoted in Orosius' Commonitorium and spurious works attributed to Priscillian. There is a translation into English on facing pages and at the end a commentary by Conti.

(3) This question is asked byVirginia Burrus:-  "Was the church a "political" community in which relationships between individuals were sharply delineated by the hierarchical ranks of office and gender? Or was it a "familiar" social body in which relationships were ordered by the more fluid hierarchies of birth, material resources, experience, education, or personal gifts of insight or eloquence?" 
 Virginia Burrus. "The Making of a Heretic. Gender, Authority, and the Priscillianist Controversy". UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA PRESS 1995. available here:-

http://publishing.cdlib.org/ucpressebooks/view?docId=ft009nb09t;brand=ucpress

(4) By the time of the Council of Toledo (A.D. 400) there appears to have been a number of Galician 'bishops' ordained by Priscillianists who have no recorded sees. - See for example - Chadwick pp.170 - 188

For those interested in primary sources see Amazon link below. There is the opportunity to look inside the book.
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Priscillian-Avila-Complete-Oxford-Christian/dp/0199567379/ref=sr_1_5?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1379769289&sr=1-5&keywords=Marco+Conti