Steven Avery
Administrator
Jerome would surely know Priscillian's use of the heavenly witnesses verse.
All of these writers can be checked as to how they discuss the verse.
==============================
Virginia Burrus
https://users.drew.edu/vburrus/
The Making of a Heretic: Gender, Authority, and the Priscillianist Controversy (1995)
Virginia Burrus
https://books.google.com/books?id=Cm2x3DK_C3MC&pg=PA138
ALL TEXT
https://publishing.cdlib.org/ucpres...toc.depth=1&brand=ucpress&anchor.id=d0e1739#X
Jerome must have read Severus' dazzling narrative by 414 or 415,
when he penned his letter to Ctesiphon, a Palestinian supporter of Pela-
gius, at that point Jerome's primary theological rival. He had also received
a visit from the Galician Orosius, who had supplied Jerome with further
information concerning the Spanish heresy.73 In his letter to Ctesiphon, Je-
rome twice mentions Priscillian, using his name for almost the first time
since his initial reference in 392.74 In the first of the two passages, he iden-
tifies "Priscillian in Spain, who shares in Manichaeus' immorality," as Pe-
lagius' forerunner, along with Evagrius and Origen: both Priscillian and
Pelagius call their followers to perfection and knowledge, he claims, while
masking their true moral depravity:
[Priscillian's] followers greatly admire [Pelagius], rashly claiming the
word of perfection and knowledge for themselves. They shut themselves
up alone with little women and sing this to them between intercourse and
embraces: "Then the almighty father, Heaven, descends with fruitful
showers into the womb of his fertile wife, and the great one, mingled with
her great body, nourishes all offspring."75 Indeed, they also have a share
of the gnostic heresy that derives from the impiety of Basilides—whence
[the Pelagians] too claim that those who are without knowledge of the
law cannot avoid sin. Why do I speak of Priscillian, who was condemned
by both the secular sword and the authority of the whole world?76
In the second part of this passage, elements of Jerome's earlier presenta-
tions of Priscillian recur: he associates Priscillian with the gnostic Basilides
and repeats a line he had used in 406 in his work against Vigilantius: "he
was condemned by the authority of the whole world."77 The opening
lines, however, seem to betray evidence not only of Jerome's preoccupa-
tion with the Pelagian controversy but also of his recent encounters with
Orosius, as he both links Priscillian more closely with Mani and recalls the
Priscillianists' supposed use of a Manichaean myth. Orosius writes to Au-
gustine that one of the apocryphal books used by the Priscillianists tells of
a "prince of wetness" and a "prince of fire."
For it says that there is a certain virgin light, whom god, when he wants
to give rain to humanity, shows to the prince of wetness. The prince of
wetness desires to grasp her, and in his excitement he sweats profusely
and makes rain; when he is forsaken by her, he produces thunder from
his groaning.78
73. Priscillian, Tract. 1, 15.1-6 (cf. Pss. 80.13 and 91.13); 1, 18.7-8 (cf. Rev. 13.1).
74. Nag Hammadi Codex II 1, pp. 10, 11, 24; English trans., F. Wisse, in Nag Hammadi Library , pp. 110, 111, 118. We know that the Apocryphon of John circulated in various versions; both a long and a short version are extant in Coptic translations of Greek originals, and Irenaeus seems to have known a work similar to, but not identical with any of, these versions (F. Wisse, "Introduction to the Apocryphon of John," in The Nag Hammadi Library in English , 3d ed., ed. J. M. Robinson [San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1988], pp. 104-5). That Latin translations may have circulated is not out of the question, especially if they were used by the Manichaeans as well.
75. Priscillian, Tract. 1, 10.24; 13.20-21.
76. Ibid., 14.5-14.
77. Ibid., 16.9-26.
78. Commonitorium de errore Priscillianistarum et Origenistarum 2. It is not certain whether the fragment of Priscillian's letter is authentic, whether Orosius quotes it fairly in context, or whether the system outlined in the fragment and in Orosius' supplementary description would have been considered particularly reprehensible by most of Priscillian's Christian contemporaries (Chadwick, Priscillian of Avila , pp. 191-202).
All of these writers can be checked as to how they discuss the verse.
==============================
Virginia Burrus
https://users.drew.edu/vburrus/
The Making of a Heretic: Gender, Authority, and the Priscillianist Controversy (1995)
Virginia Burrus
https://books.google.com/books?id=Cm2x3DK_C3MC&pg=PA138
ALL TEXT
https://publishing.cdlib.org/ucpres...toc.depth=1&brand=ucpress&anchor.id=d0e1739#X
Jerome must have read Severus' dazzling narrative by 414 or 415,
when he penned his letter to Ctesiphon, a Palestinian supporter of Pela-
gius, at that point Jerome's primary theological rival. He had also received
a visit from the Galician Orosius, who had supplied Jerome with further
information concerning the Spanish heresy.73 In his letter to Ctesiphon, Je-
rome twice mentions Priscillian, using his name for almost the first time
since his initial reference in 392.74 In the first of the two passages, he iden-
tifies "Priscillian in Spain, who shares in Manichaeus' immorality," as Pe-
lagius' forerunner, along with Evagrius and Origen: both Priscillian and
Pelagius call their followers to perfection and knowledge, he claims, while
masking their true moral depravity:
[Priscillian's] followers greatly admire [Pelagius], rashly claiming the
word of perfection and knowledge for themselves. They shut themselves
up alone with little women and sing this to them between intercourse and
embraces: "Then the almighty father, Heaven, descends with fruitful
showers into the womb of his fertile wife, and the great one, mingled with
her great body, nourishes all offspring."75 Indeed, they also have a share
of the gnostic heresy that derives from the impiety of Basilides—whence
[the Pelagians] too claim that those who are without knowledge of the
law cannot avoid sin. Why do I speak of Priscillian, who was condemned
by both the secular sword and the authority of the whole world?76
In the second part of this passage, elements of Jerome's earlier presenta-
tions of Priscillian recur: he associates Priscillian with the gnostic Basilides
and repeats a line he had used in 406 in his work against Vigilantius: "he
was condemned by the authority of the whole world."77 The opening
lines, however, seem to betray evidence not only of Jerome's preoccupa-
tion with the Pelagian controversy but also of his recent encounters with
Orosius, as he both links Priscillian more closely with Mani and recalls the
Priscillianists' supposed use of a Manichaean myth. Orosius writes to Au-
gustine that one of the apocryphal books used by the Priscillianists tells of
a "prince of wetness" and a "prince of fire."
For it says that there is a certain virgin light, whom god, when he wants
to give rain to humanity, shows to the prince of wetness. The prince of
wetness desires to grasp her, and in his excitement he sweats profusely
and makes rain; when he is forsaken by her, he produces thunder from
his groaning.78
73. Priscillian, Tract. 1, 15.1-6 (cf. Pss. 80.13 and 91.13); 1, 18.7-8 (cf. Rev. 13.1).
74. Nag Hammadi Codex II 1, pp. 10, 11, 24; English trans., F. Wisse, in Nag Hammadi Library , pp. 110, 111, 118. We know that the Apocryphon of John circulated in various versions; both a long and a short version are extant in Coptic translations of Greek originals, and Irenaeus seems to have known a work similar to, but not identical with any of, these versions (F. Wisse, "Introduction to the Apocryphon of John," in The Nag Hammadi Library in English , 3d ed., ed. J. M. Robinson [San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1988], pp. 104-5). That Latin translations may have circulated is not out of the question, especially if they were used by the Manichaeans as well.
75. Priscillian, Tract. 1, 10.24; 13.20-21.
76. Ibid., 14.5-14.
77. Ibid., 16.9-26.
78. Commonitorium de errore Priscillianistarum et Origenistarum 2. It is not certain whether the fragment of Priscillian's letter is authentic, whether Orosius quotes it fairly in context, or whether the system outlined in the fragment and in Orosius' supplementary description would have been considered particularly reprehensible by most of Priscillian's Christian contemporaries (Chadwick, Priscillian of Avila , pp. 191-202).
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