Page:History of Heresies (Liguori).djvu/110

102 demned in a council, held in 387, by Flavian, Bishop of Antioch, and also in another council, held about the same time by St. Amphilochius, Bishop of Iconium, the Metropolis of Pamphilia. They were finally condemned in the first Council of Ephesus, especially in the seventh session, and they were proscribed by the Emperor Theodosius, in the year 428. It was a long time before this heresy was finally extinct in the East, and in 1018, during the reign of the Emperor Alexius Comnenus, another heresy sprung out of it, the followers of which were called Bonomilists, which signifies, in the Bulgarian language, the beloved of God. Their founder was Basil, a physician, or monk, who, after practising his errors for fifty-two years, and deluding a great number, was burned alive, with all his followers, by order of the Emperor. This unfortunate man promulgated many blasphemous opinions, principally taken from the Messalians and Manicheans; he said that we should use no prayer, except the "Our Father," and rejected every other prayer but that, which, he said, was the true Eucharist; that we ought to pray to the devil even, that he might not injure us, and that we should never pray in churches, for our Lord says: "When you pray, enter into your chamber;" he denied the books of Moses, and the existence of the Trinity, and it was not, he said, the Son of God, who became incarnate, but the Archangel Michael. He published many other like opinions, so that there is little doubt but that he lost, not alone the faith, but his senses likewise.

82. About the year 380, the heresy of the Priscillianists first appeared in the East. The founder of this sect was an Egyptian of Memphis, of the name of Mark; he went to Spain, and his first disciples were, a lady of the name of Agapa, and Elpidius, a rhetorician, invited to join him by the lady. These two next wheedled Priscillian to join them, and from him the sect took its name. Priscillian was both noble and rich; he had a great facility of speech, but was unsettled, vain, and proud of his knowledge of profane literature. By his affable manners he gained a great number of followers, both noble and plebeian, and had a great number of women, especially, adherents, and soon the heresy spread like a plague over great part of Spain, and even some bishops, as Instantius and Salvianus, were infected by it. The foundation of this doctrine was Manicheism, but mixed up with the Gnostic, and other heresies. The soul, they said, was of the substance of God himself, and of its own will came on earth, passing through the seven heavens, to combat the evil principle, which was sown in the body of the flesh. They taught that we depended altogether on the stars, which decided our fate, and that our bodies depended on the signs of the zodiac, the ram presiding over the head, the bull