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
will 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 disturbed by indiscreet
separations. They enjoyed, or recommended, a total abstinence from all
anima food; and their continual prayers, fasts, and vigils, inculcated
a rule of strict and perfect devotion. The speculative tenets of the
sect, concerning the person of Christ, and the nature of the human
soul, were derived from the Gnostic and Manichæan 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 suffered languished, and gradually disappeared: his
tenets were rejected by the clergy and people, but his death was the
subject of a long and vehement controversy; while some arraigned, and
others applauded, the justice of his sentence. It is with pleasure
that we can observe the humane inconsistency of the most illustrious
saints and bishops, Ambrose of Milan, and Martin of Tours, who, on
this occasion, asserted the cause of toleration. They pitied the
unhappy men, who had been executed at Treves; they refused to hold
communion with their episcopal murderers; and if Martin deviated from
that generous resolution, his motives were laudable, and his
repentance was exemplary. The bishops of Tours and Milan pronounced,
without hesitation, the eternal damnation of heretics; but they were
surprised, and shocked, by the bloody image of their temporal death,
and the honest feelings of nature resisted the artificial prejudices