154 THE DECLINE AND FALL widow of the orator Delphidius.^-^ Two bishops, who had em- braced the sentiments of Priscillian, were condemned to a distant and dreary exile ; •^'" and some indulgence was shown to the meaner criminals who assumed the merit of an early repent- ance. If any credit could be allowed to confessions extorted by fear or pain, and to vague reports, the offspring of malice and credulity, the heresy of the Priscillianists would be found to include the various abominations of magic, of impiety, and of lewdness.^' Priscillian, who Avandered about the world in the company of his spiritual sisters, was accused of praying stark- naked in the midst of the congregation ; and it was confidently asserted that the effects of his criminal intercourse with the daughter of Euchrocia had been suppressed by means still more odious and criminal. But an accurate, or rather a candid, inquiry Avill discover that, if the Priscillianists violated the laws of nature, it was not by the licentiousness, but by the austerity, of their lives. They absolutely condemned the use of the marriage-bed ; and the peace of families was often dis- turbed by indiscreet separations. They enjoined, or recom- mended, a total abstinence from all animal food ; and their continual prayers, fasts, and vigils inculcated a rule of strict and perfect devotion. The speculative tenets of the sect, con- cerning the person of Christ and the nature of the human soul, were derived from the Clnostic and Manichaean system ; and this vain philosophy, which had been transported from Egypt to Spain, was ill adapted to the grosser spirits of the West. The obscure disciples of Priscillian suft'ered, languished, and gradually disappeared : his tenets were rejected by the clergy and people, but his death was the subject of a long and vehement controvei*sy ; while some arraigned, and others ap- plauded, the justice of his sentence. It is with pleasure that we can observe the humane inconsistency of the most illustrious saints and bishops, Ambros>e of Milan,"* and Martin of Tours ; ^^ '5 Exprobabatur mulieri viduje nimia religio, et diligentiusculta divinitas (Pacat. in Panegyr. Vet. xii. 29). Such was the idea of a humane, though ignorant, polytheist. 56 One of them was sent in Syllinam insulam qune ultra Britanniam est. What must have been the ancient condition of the rocks cf Scilly (Cambden's Britannia, voL ii. p. 1519)?
- " The scandalous calumnies of Augustin, Pope Leo, &c., which Tillemont
swallows like a child, and Lardner refutes like a man, may suggest some candid suspicions in favoiu" of the older Gnostics. ^ Ambros. torn. ii. epist. xxiv. p. 891. ^8 In the Sacred History, and the Life of St. Martin, Sulpicius Severus uses some caution ; but he declares himself more freely in the Dialogues (iii. 15). Martin was reproved, however, by his own conscience, and by an angel ; nor could he afterwards perform miracles with so much ease.
