Proculus, the metropolitan of Marseille, and the metropolitans of Vienne and Narbonensis Secunda were also followers of the rigorist tradition for which Priscillian had died.

In the early 20th century, there was a theory according to which Priscillian of Ávila ( died 385 ) was the author of the Comma.

The ascetic Priscillian of Avila was martyred by the Catholic usurper Magnus Maximus in 385, who was trying to prove his correct religious credentials against heretics, before the Visigothic period, and the persecution continued in subsequent generations as " Priscillianist " heretics were rooted out.

At Treves in 385, Priscillian achieved the distinction of becoming the first Christian burned alive for heresy ( Manichaean in his case, see also Cathars, Camisards ).

Priscillian appealed to the Emperor, with the unexpected result that, with six of his companions, he was beheaded at Trier in 385, the first Christian heretics to be put to death by Christians.

The possibility that a cult of James was instituted to supplant the Galician cult of Priscillian ( executed in 385 ) who was widely venerated across the north of Iberia as a martyr at the hands of the bishops rather than as a heretic should not be overlooked.

Though Hydatius consistently characterizes Iberian heretics as Manichees, it is generally believed that he meant Priscillianists, followers of the ascetic bishop Priscillian, who had been condemned as a heretic by several church councils and executed as a magician by the emperor Magnus Maximus around 385.

In 385, this new legal situation resulted, in the first case of many to come, in the capital punishment of a heretic, namely Priscillian, condemned to death, with several of his followers, by a civil tribunal for the crime of magic.

In 385, Priscillian, a bishop in Spain, was the first Christian to be executed for heresy, though the most prominent church leaders rejected this verdict.

When the Spanish bishop and ascetic Priscillian, accused by his fellow bishops of heresy, was executed by the emperor Magnus Maximus under the charge of magic, Siricus — along with Ambrose of Milan and Martin of Tours — protested against this verdict.

It was on his orders that Priscillian and 6 companions became the first people in the history of Christianity to be executed for heresy, in this case of Priscillianism, by other Christians ( though the civil charges were for the practice of magic ), and their property was confiscated.

The tomb was found in a place used as a necropolis since the Late Roman Empire, so it is possible that the body belonged to a prominent person of the area: British historian Henry Chadwick hypothesized the tomb of Compostela actually hold the remains of Priscillian.

After a Priscillianist delegation to Hydatius was turned away, they appointed Priscillian bishop of Ávila, and the orthodox party found it necessary to appeal to the emperor Gratianus, who issued an edict threatening the sectarian leaders with banishment.

Latronianus, executed with Priscillian at Trier, was noted as a poet worthy of the ancients by Jerome.

Priscillian perished for insisting that it was such ".

The long prevalent estimation of Priscillian as a heretic and Manichaean rested upon Augustine, Turibius of Astorga, Leo the Great and Orosius ( who quotes a fragment of a letter of Priscillian's ), although at the Council of Toledo in 400, fifteen years after Priscillian's death, when his case was reviewed, the most serious charge that could be brought was the error of language involved in a misrendering of the word innascibilis (" unbegettable ").

Priscillian was long honored as a martyr, not heretic, especially in Gallaecia ( modern Galicia and northern Portugal ), where his body was reverentially returned from Trier.

This was cautiously raised by Henry Chadwick in his book on Priscillian ; it is not the traditional Roman Catholic view.

Priscillian was described as " a man of noble birth, of great riches, bold, restless, eloquent, learned through much reading, very ready at debate and discussion " ( Sulpicius Severus, " Histor.

In defiance Priscillian was ordained to the priesthood and appointed Bishop of Avila.

This decision was reported to the emperor, who killed Priscillian and several of his followers ; the property of others was confiscated and they were banished.

* Priscillian, Spanish bishop, is accused of Manichaeism and magic, and at Trier beheaded.

* Priscillian, Spanish bishop and theologian

* Hyginus of Cordova, bishop of present-day Cordoba, 4th-century opponent of Priscillian

Their complaint to Pope Damasus I ( also from Hispania ) resulted in a synod held at Zaragoza in 380, in the absence of Priscillian or any of his followers.

It is not always easy to separate the genuine assertions of Priscillian himself from those ascribed to him by his enemies, nor from the later developments taken by groups who were labelled Priscillianist.

Priscillianism is a Christian doctrine developed in the Iberian Peninsula ( the Roman Hispania ) in the 4th century by Priscillian, derived from the Gnostic-Manichaean doctrines taught by Marcus, an Egyptian from Memphis, and later considered a heresy by the both the Eastern Orthodox Church and the Roman Catholic Church.

Instantius, Salvianus and Priscillian proceeded to Rome to gain the aid of Pope Damasus I ( also from Iberia ) in having this sentence revoked.

The name of " Stone " or lapis itself is informed by early Christian allegory, such as Priscillian ( 4th century ), who stated Unicornis est Deus, nobis petra Christus, nobis lapis angularis Jesus, nobis hominum homo Christus.

Consequently, the three bishops, Instantius, Salvianus and Priscillian, went in person to Rome, to present their case before Damasus.

According to Raymond Brown's introduction of his edition Epistle of John, the source of the Comma Johanneum, a brief interpolation in the First Epistle of John, known since the fourth century, appears to be the Latin Liber Apologeticus by Priscillian.

Saunders, Tracy, Pilgrimage to Heresy ( iUniverse, 2007 )-in Spanish: Peregrinos de la Herejía ( Bóveda 2009 )-offers a fictionalised version of the events in Priscillian's story and furthers the suggestion put forth by Prof. Henry Chadwick that Priscillian may be the occupant in the tomb in Santiago de Compostela

Priscillian placed considerable weight on the deuterocanonical books of the Bible, not as being inspired but as helpful in discerning truth and error ; however several of the books were considered to be genuine and inspired.

According to Raymond Brown's Epistle of John, the source of the Comma Johanneum, appears to be the Latin book Liber Apologeticus by Priscillian.

The principal and almost contemporary source for the career of Priscillian is the Gallic chronicler Sulpicius Severus, who characterized him ( Chronica II. 46 ) as noble and rich, a layman who had devoted his life to study, vain of his classical pagan education, already being looked on with misgivings ( see Gregory of Tours ).

This insistence on celibacy explains the charge of Manichaeism some levelled against Priscillian ( even Jerome, for his talk of the sordes nuptiarum, had been similarly accused, and to escape popular indignation had retired to Bethlehem ).

There is no ground in the condemnation and death of Priscillian for the charge made against the Church of having invoked the civil authority to punish heretics.

This idea of a Priscillian origin for the Comma had a brief scholarship flourish but quickly lost support in textual circles.

Tractates by Priscillian and close followers, which had seemed certainly lost, were recovered in 1885 and published in 1889.

Priscillian and his sympathizers included many women, who were welcomed as equals of men.

Some writings by Priscillian were accounted orthodox and were not burned.

Some writings by Priscillian were accounted orthodox and were not burned.

The followers of Priscillian were deeply embedded in the culture of Iberia's northwest.