Open AccessPriscillianism and Women
Author(s) -
Virginia Burrus
Publication year - 2021
Publication title -
gerión
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
eISSN - 1698-2444
pISSN - 0213-0181
DOI - 10.5209/geri.78117
Subject(s) - virginity test , false accusation , promiscuity , saint , agape , genealogy , philosophy , sociology , art , history , gender studies , psychology , political science , law , theology , art history , psychoanalysis
Several names of women who were supporters of Priscillian are known, such as Euchrotia, Procula, Urbica, Hedibia, and Agape, but they are to us no more than shadowy figures. To proceed further than what prosopography has to offer, we must depend on ambiguous evidence: the accusation of magical practices and sexual promiscuity in the Council of Saragossa, the debated female authorship of two anonymous letters preserved in a single, possibly Gallic manuscript, and lastly the Life of Saint Helia, where the issue of virginity is prominent but whose links with Priscillianism are at best tenuous.