[54] Two bishops who had embraced the sentiments of Priscillian, were condemned to a distant and dreary exile; [55] and some indulgence was shown to the meaner criminals, who assumed the merit of an early repentance.

If any credit could be allowed to confessions extorted by fear or pain, and to vague reports, the offspring of malice and credulity, the heresy of the Priscillianists would be found to include the various abominations of magic, of impiety, and of lewdness.

[56] Priscillian, who wandered about 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.