- .nun i named Macedonius, wl btained lor
them an imperial decree which allowed them to return
to Spain and take possession of their sees, and ordered Vblventius, vicar ot Spain, to examine further into the matter. Priscillian and [nstantius returned to Spain. as in triumph: and [thacius, now in turn accused as a disturber of the public peace, was driven out of
Spain. The latter was even on the very point of being
arrested in Treves, where he had established himself, and of being transported back to the peninsula tor trial, when things assumed, under the usurping emperor Maximus, a different aspect \s soon as this new Caesar arrived at Treves, Tthacius appeared before him againsl the Priscillianists. .Maximus. who desired the
whole matter to be disposed of as a purely ecclesiastical affair, ordered a synod to be held, in 384, al Bordeaux, to which the heresiarchs were summoned. Instantius was deposed by the vote of the assembly, and Priscil- lian. foreseeing a similar fate, tried to prevent it by ap- pealing to the emperor. This step was the cause Of his ruin. The emperor now took the matter in hand: Priscillian and his associates were brought to Treves, w hi re Maximus resided at t he time, and the most vio- lent adversaries oi the Beet, Idacius and [thacius, ap- ers. I be latter oi these two prelates, if ; is is to be trusted, suspected of Priscil- lianism any man whom he saw studying and fasting much: and. against all precedents, appeared as an im- i i accuser, before a worldly tribunal, in a relig-
ious affair. St. Martin, bishop of Tours, a truly pious man. also al the time at the imperial court, held it to be an unspiritual innovation that an ecclesiastical mat- ter Bhould be tried by a secular court— that heretics Bhould become liable to punishment with torture and death and besought thi emperor to have the affair in the bands of the bishop, or, al least, to decide it without bloodshed. As long as Martin was present, the trial Was delayed; On his departure. Maximus promised
there should be no bloodshed, but he was induced by
[thacius and tw her Spanish bishops, Rufus and
Magnus, to break bis word. The prefect who tried the case probably employed tortures to obtain avowals. Priscillian. the rich widow Euchrocia, and several oth- ers were accused of criminal disorders, and condemned not only as false teacher-, but also as violators of the civil law.-. Tiny were either beheaded or punished with confiscation and exile i 3G5 i.
... ution of Pri-cilliau Lv the sword, and of several of his associates, did not ruin the sect, but set nc d rather to give it new life and viu'or. The l'ris- cillianists ^..t possession of the bodies ..i their dead, and brought them to Spain, where Priscillian was honored as a martyr. People .-wore by hi- name. The most distinguished bishops, Martin of Tour-. St. Ambrose, rheognistus, and p. .p.- Siricius, sternly blamed the cruelty with which [thacius and his friend- had treated the heretics, and marked their abhorrence of the cruelty by separating from the communion of Ithacius and the other bishops who had approved the death penally for heresy in the Christian Church. Put the emperor Maximus went on until his death (387 i persecuting the Priscillianists as criminal Manichaeans, and was even on the point of sending to Spain a military commission with unlimited powers to pursue the accused and pun- ish the guilty with confiscation and death: and only abandoned this project by intercession oi St. Martin.
The gravity of the measures adopted for the punish- ment ol heresy at the time to which we here refer obliges us to turn aside to remark (1) that heresy was declared against by the State for the first time under Theodosius the Great, the tir-t emperor who was bap- tized in the Nicdie faith. lie was determined to put
an end to the Arian interregnum, and therefore pro- claimed the exclusive authority of the Nicem and at the same time enacted the tirst rigid penalties not only against the pagan idolatry, the practice of which was thenceforth a capital crime in the empire. but also against all Christian heresies and sects. The ruling principle of his public life was the unity of the empire and of I be orthodox Church. In the course of fifteen years this emperor issued at least lib. < n penal laws against heretics (comp. Cod. Theodos. xvi, tit. v.
leg. 6 33), by which he gradually deprived them of all right to the exercise of their religion, excluded them from all civil offices, and threatened them with tines.
fiscation, banishment, and in some cases (as the
Manichaeans, the Audians, and even the Quartodeci-
manians) with death. From Th losius, therefore.
date- the Stale-Church theory of the persecution of heretics and tin' embodiment of it in legislation. His primary design, it is true, was rather to terrify and con- vert than to punish the refractory subjects ( -,, Sozomen a— en-. Hist. Eccles. lib. vii, c 12). From the theory, however, to the practice was a single slip; and thi- step
hi- rival ami colleague, Maximus, took when he inflict- ed capital punishment on Priscillian and some of his
followers. This was the tir>t shedding of the hi 1 of
heretics by a Christian prince for religions opinions. (2.) We wish to note al-o that, while the execution of the Priscillianists is the only instance of the bloody