Priscillian's Contemporary Following
Priscillian and his sympathizers included many women, who were welcomed as equals of men. They were organised into bands of spirituales and abstinentes. This insistence on celibacy explains the charge of Manichaeism some levelled against Priscillian (even Jerome, for his talk of the sordes nuptiarum, had been similarly accused, and to escape popular indignation had retired to Bethlehem). To this charge was added the accusation of magic and licentious orgies (a particularly preposterous charge, given the nature of Priscillian's doctrines). Latronianus, executed with Priscillian at Trier, was noted as a poet worthy of the ancients by Jerome.
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