Christian Love in Action - The Killing of Bishop Priscillian in 385 CE

by fulltimestudent 7 Replies latest jw friends

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  fulltimestudent

  Priscillian was the first Christian (that we know of) to be ex-communicated (disfellowshipped-hehe) permanently. What for? - The old excuse of heresy (apostacy).

  What did he do wrong? Priscillian did have rather extreme views - but they were views also held by others in the early Christian church and later.

  He was an ascetic mystic and regarded the Christian life as continual intercourse with God.

  His favourite idea was Saint Paul`s "Know ye not that ye are the temple of God?" (I Corinthians 6:19)

  He argued that to make himself a fit habitation for the divine a man must, besides holding the Catholic faith and doing works of love, renounce marriage and earthly honour, and practise a hard asceticism.

  His ascetic beliefs were not unusual - in roughly that period we can find Christians who lived their lives out on top of a pole. Others went to live in the desert and spent the day in prayer. Plenty of other Christians also thought they should be celibate, even if they were married.

  His concept of Christian life seems to have reached crisis point when a couple of other Bishops - Istantius and Salvian adopted his ascetic views.

  Two of his enemies, Bishops Hyginus and Hydatius, persauded Pope Damasus I to hold a synod (a sort of Judicial committee) to inquire into Priscillian's apostacy, the Synod was held in Zaragoza in 380 in the absence of Priscillian and his supporters, and they (predictably) were ex-communicated. Priscillian's friends then appointed him Bishop of Avila. Their enemies appealed to the Emperor (Gratianus-a Christian) who upheld the ex-communication decision. A delegation then went to Rome to try to persuade Pope Damasus to change his mind. They failed. The Emperor Gratianus was murdered at this point and in the legal and political shenanigans that followed a decison was obtained to execute Priscillian and six of his supporters. The killing (beheading) was carried out at Triers in 385.

  They were the first Christians to be executed by the Christian church. (I repeat, that we know of) And that occurred less than one hundred years after the end of persecution of the church by the Roman state.

  See any similarities to the way our former loving brothers and sisters operate?
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  Syme

  Very good historical note, fulltimestudent!

  At least your Priscillian had better luck than Hypatia a few years later. He was just beheaded. She was ...I don't want to describe, it frustrates me, but I tell you this: Priscillian was a LOT luckier that Hypatia.

  And while Priscillian was a delusional who thought about intercourse with God, like the mystics and 'Spirituals' of Middle Ages, Ypatia was a serious scientist that wasn't even Christian! She was pagan (just in the name, practically she wasn't religious at all) and she was a thinking woman, in a world that was in its twilight. Christianity was on the rise, on the march, and no logical thinking being, even more a woman, could stand in front of them.

  Why am I telling this? Christians did kill Christian heretics, sure, but they also killed other people. They killed, in general. It was like a habit. They stopped killing only when the worldly authorities did not allow them anymore to do so.

  So, yes, it reminds us of the present day JWs and their shunning practiced, but jws only do what they inherited from their spiritual ancestors, the killers of Hypatia and Priscillian.
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  Heaven

  Hypatia was flayed alive. In those days, a woman who wanted to be a scholar instead of marry and have babies was not acceptable.

  Christians need to become education about and understand their legacy. I don't understand how anyone can sign up for this or stay in it once this in known. The Chrisian legacy is a very bloody one.
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  designs

  Let's see- you have God having sex with a teenager to bring about his incarnation then you have this hybred God/Man threatening to whip out the human race if they don't genuflect to him.....what could possibly go wrong with his followers with those two examples.
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  Apognophos

  I think it's important to keep in mind that Hypatia was killed by a mob led by one minor religious figure, and that it was for supposedly causing a rift between religious leaders. It had nothing overt to do with her being a woman intellectual. How many men have been killed over similar religious disputes? Besides that, the events have possibly been distorted after the fact for polemical purposes.
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  fulltimestudent

  Posted:

  it's important to keep in mind that Hypatia was killed by a mob led by one minor religious figure.

  

  I guess that's Peter the lector (reader) directing the crazed mob of Christians. And I'm guessing the the reference to a minor figure is a way of saying that the senior figures of the church would not do such a thing.

  However, Syme in referring to Hypatia's vicious murder, was backing up the hypocrisy of the thought that Chrsitianity is all about love. However can the Alexandrian church escape without bloodguilt? Let's see what the sources say:

  Footnote: The above image is from the Smithsonian magazine, which has an excellent overview of this terrible murder. Check it out at: http://www.smithsonianmag.com/womens-history/hypatia-ancient-alexandrias-great-female-scholar-10942888/
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  fulltimestudent

  But first a modern dramatisation of her death, from a film called 'Agora.'

  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vyhL8FmNZHI

  Don't think I'd waste my money on the film - but that's just me.
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  fulltimestudent

  The account written by Socrates Scholasticus seems to be regarded as the best, but that's not to say that we can't learn anything from other accounts.

  So here's how he tells the story:

  The Murder of Hypatia (late 4th Cent.)

  from Ecclesiastical History,Bk VI: Chap. 15

  ---

  Of Hypatia the Female Philosopher.

  THERE was a woman at Alexandria named Hypatia, daughter of the philosopher Theon, who made such attainments in literature and science, as to far surpass all the philosophers of her own time. Having succeeded to the school of Plato and Plotinus, she explained the principles of philosophy to her auditors, many of whom came from a distance to receive her instructions.

  On account of the self-possession and ease of manner, which she had acquired in consequence of the cultivation of her mind, she not unfrequently appeared in public in presence of the magistrates. Neither did she feel abashed in coming to an assembly of men. For all men on account of her extraordinary dignity and virtue admired her the more. Yet even she fell a victim to the political jealousy which at that time prevailed. For as she had frequent interviews with Orestes, it was calumniously reported among the Christian populace, that it was she who prevented Orestes from being reconciled to the bishop. Some of them therefore, hurried away by a fierce and bigoted zeal, whose ringleader was a reader named Peter, waylaid her returning home, and dragging her from her carriage, they took her to the church called Caesareum, where they completely stripped her, and then murdered her with tiles. After tearing her body in pieces, they took her mangled limbs to a place called Cinaron, and there burnt them. This affair brought not the least opprobrium, not only upon Cyril, but also upon the whole Alexandrian church. And surely nothing can be farther from the spirit of Christianity than the allowance of massacres, fights, and transactions of that sort. This happened in the month of March during Lent, in the fourth year of Cyril's episcopate, under the tenth consulate of Honorius, and the sixth of Theodosius.

  Translation as in Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers

  Web reference: http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/source/hypatia.asp