The Making of a Heretic. Gender, Authority, and the Priscillianist Controversy (review)

Abstract

Reviewed by: The Making of a Heretic. Gender, Authority, and the Priscillianist Controversy Alberto Ferreiro Virginia Burrus. The Making of a Heretic. Gender, Authority, and the Priscillianist Controversy. Transformations of the Classical Heritage 24. Berkeley: University of California, 1995. Pp. xi + 252. $45.00 cloth. This study confirms that there continues to be no dearth of interest in Priscillianism by researchers. This book, however, holds the distinction of being one of two in the English language (the first by Henry Chadwick) and the first by a North American feminist scholar. The book overall is well written, carefully researched, and it draws richly from a wide variety of original sources and is fairly up to date in its consultation of modern scholarly studies. The major chapter headings of this book are: Chapter 1, A Strange Man: Opposition Emerges at the Council of Saragossa, which explores the earliest conciliar debate about Priscillianism. Chapter 2, Manichaean: Charge and Countercharge in Priscillian’s Tractates, makes skillful use of Priscillianist writings that are a defense against charges leveled at the sect. Chapter 3, Sorcerer: Alliances, Enmities, and the Death of Priscillian, studies the legal process against Priscillian which resulted in his own death and that of some of his followers. Chapter 4, Priscillianist: Heresy Inquisitions at Toledo and Tarragona, considers the subsequent detailed conciliar condemnation of Priscillianism. Finally, Chapter 5, Gnostic: Priscillian Reinterpreted by Sulpicius Severus and Jerome, is a fascinating exposition of the rhetorical language that was employed by two major Church Fathers to create a Gnostic portrait of Priscillian. As stated above, the author is a feminist scholar, and contrary to her own stated purpose that, “this study is ‘about,’ not women or gender, but rather the controversy over Priscillian” (x); she frequently reaches conclusions with a distinctly feminist interpretation. A telling example is found in the excellent chapter on Severus and Jerome entitled, Gnostic: Priscillian Reinterpreted by Sulpicius Severus and Jerome which elaborates the gnosticized portraits of Priscillian. In the end, however, she reduces their entire concern over Priscillian’s alleged gnosticism to, “developing a powerful rhetoric for the control of women” (163), and further insists upon how these texts reflect how Severus and Jerome present, “themselves as defenders of the boundaries of the public and private female spheres” (159). True as it may be that “heretical” women are a major concern here, “heretical” men are as much a target in the Gnostic portraits of Severus and Jerome. To focus on the women only is to view the material with one eye shut, as it were. Furthermore, the author mentions—in what comes across as merely gratuitous—the ascetic women Marcella, Paula, Eustochium who do not fit the submissive stereotype, but they are nevertheless quickly shuffled aside without any substantive commentary. Moreover, the author’s belief that Severus and Jerome were driven primarily to create a Gnostic portrait of Priscillian to develop, “a rhetoric for the control of women” (158) is reductionist and simply too tidy. Burrus, nevertheless, is quite correct to consider the Priscillianist controversy as a case study in which the [End Page 458] “public/private” roles of men and women, lay and clerical, were in the process of being defined by the emerging Magisterium. As fascinating as Severus and Jerome are in their portrayal of Priscillian, it would have been desirable by the author to discuss to what extent their writings had any influence in Hispania or elsewhere in shaping the anti-Priscillianist propaganda. The author also needs to explain to the reader whether the charges of sexual impropriety against the Priscillianists have any basis in truth or if they were all unsubstantiated rumors created to discredit Priscillian’s reputation. Another aspect of these sources left untouched by this study is the reliability of these and other texts in terms of their accurate portrayal of Priscillianism and its doctrines. Recent research on Priscillianism confirms the great ignorance about the sect especially in sources written outside of the Iberian Peninsula and more so dating from the late fifth century onward (Ferreiro, Revue des Études Augustiniennes 39.2 [1993]: 309–32 and Vigiliae Christianae 49.2 [1995]: 180–88). A discussion of Vincent of Lérins and more so Augustine would...