<HTML><FONT FACE=arial,helvetica><FONT SIZE=2>In a message dated 1/2/02 5:17:26 PM US Eastern Standard Time, preston_pittmanaHOTMAIL.COM writes:<BR>
<BR>
<BLOCKQUOTE TYPE=CITE style="BORDER-LEFT: #0000ff 2px solid; MARGIN-LEFT: 5px; MARGIN-RIGHT: 0px; PADDING-LEFT: 5px"><<In the very early middle ages a major heresy arose in Galicia around the<BR>
mysterious figure Priscillian of Avila. He was a Bishop accused of allowing<BR>
women equal opportunity and voice in the Church. He even allowed women to<BR>
participate in the liturgy. When the conservative Church officials couldn't<BR>
get him to stop, they had him accused of magic and witchcraft and brought<BR>
before a Council in Germany. He was condemned as a heretic and was the<BR>
first person the Church executed for heresy.>></BLOCKQUOTE><BR>
<BR>
Priscillian is a fascinating figure in church history; it's good to see his name come up! Nevertheless, I'm not sure that characterizing him as a martyr to women's rights within the early church is accurate, though obviously he didn't deserve beheading in any case. Priscillianism was actually a complex doctrine that departed from Christian orthodoxy in all kinds of ways; I'm pasting a description below, because it's quite interesting (or at least I think so!)<BR>
<BR>
Happy reading!<BR>
<BR>
Christopher Weimer<BR>
<BR>
****************8<BR>
The foundation of the doctrines of the Priscillianists was Gnostic-Manichaean Dualism, a belief in the existence of two kingdoms, one of Light and one of Darkness. Angels and the souls of men were said to be severed from the substance of the Deity. Human souls were intended to conquer the Kingdom of Darkness, but fell and were imprisoned in material bodies. Thus both kingdoms were represented in man, and hence a conflict symbolized on the side of Light by the Twelve Patriarchs, heavenly spirits, who corresponded to certain of man's powers, and, on the side of Darkness, by the Signs of the Zodiac, the symbols of matter and the lower kingdom. The salvation of man consists in liberation from the domination of matter. The twelve heavenly spirits having failed to accomplish their release, the Saviour came in a heavenly body which appeared to be like that of other men, and through His doctrine and His apparent death released the souls of the men from the influence of the material.!
These doctrines could be harmonized with the teaching of Scripture only by a strange system of exegesis, in which the literal sense was entirely rejected, and an equally strange theory of personal inspiration. The Old Testament was received, but the narrative of creation was rejected. Several of the apocryphal Scriptures were acknowledged to be genuine and inspired. The ethical side of the Dualism of Priscillian with its low concept of nature gave rise to an indecent system of asceticism as well as to some peculiar liturgical observances, such as fasting on Sundays and on Christmas Day. Because their doctrines were esoteric and exoteric, and because it was believed that men in general could not understand the higher paths, the Priscillianists, or at least those of them who were enlightened, were permitted to tell lies for the sake of a holy end. It was because this doctrine was likely to be a scandal even to the faithful that Augustine wrote his famous work, "De mendacio".<!
/FONT></HTML>