Priscillian

“ But most of the Bishops absolutely condemned the infliction of the death penalty for heresy, even if the heresy was incidentally the cause of social disturbances. Such was the view of St. Augustine, [1] St. Martin, St. Ambrose, many Spanish bishops, and a bishop of Gaul named Theognitus; [2] in a word, of all who disapproved of the condemnation of Priscillian. As a rule, they protested in the name of Christian charity; they voiced the new spirit of the Gospel of Christ. At the other extremity of the Catholic world, St. John Chrysostom re-echoes their teaching. ”

“ Syricius and Ambrose, in Conjunction with the Catholic Bishops of Spain, alarmed at the wonderful Progress the Doctrine of Priscillian had made in so short a Time, left nothing unattempted they could think of to put a Stop to the growing Evil. But all to no Purpose; in spite of their utmost Efforts, in defiance of the most severe 250Laws, that were enacted against them, especially by the Emperors Honorius, and Theodosius the younger, their Numbers increased daily, and their Doctrine grew daily more popular ”

“ We think it important to give Lea's resume of this period. It will show how a writer, although trying to be impartial, may distort the facts: "It was only sixty-two years after the slaughter of Priscillian and his followers had excited so much horror, that Leo I, when the heresy seemed to be reviving, in 447, not only justified the act, but declared that if the followers of heresy so damnable were allowed to live, there would be an end to human and divine law. The final step had been taken, and the Church was definitely pledged to the suppression of heresy at whatever cost. ”

“ Priscillian himself and six other persons were executed with tortures at the instigation of Ithacius, [1] bishop of Sossuba, and Idacius, bishop of Merida, in spite of the protests of Martin of Tours and others. The heresy itself, however, was not thus stamped out, and continued in Spain until long after the Gothic conquest.
There is some reason for supposing that at the time of the Gothic invasion Spain was still in great part Pagan, and that it continued to be so during the whole period of Gothic domination. ”

“ Accordingly, Ithacius then resolved, although his affairs were in a ticklish state, to wait the arrival of the new emperor; and that, in the meantime, no step should on his part be taken. When therefore Maximus, as victor, entered the town of the Treveri, he poured forth entreaties full of ill-will and accusations against Priscillian and his confederates. The emperor influenced by these statements sent letters to the prefect of Gaul and to the lieutenant in Spain, ordering that all whom that disgraceful [3] heresy had affected should be brought to a Synod at Bordeaux. ”

“ So also a layman.” To this particular canon Hefele is disposed to assign a very early date. ↑ Compare canon 64 of the (supposed) fourth synod of Carthage: “He who fasts on Sunday is not accounted a Catholic” (Hefele, ii. 415) . ↑ Priscillian, whose widespread heresy evoked from the synod of Saragossa (418) the canon, “No one shall fast on Sunday, nor may any one absent himself from church during Lent and hold a festival of his own,” appears, on the question of fasting, not to have differed from the Encratites and various other sects of Manichean tendency (c. 406) . ”

“ She it was who had sent the Morrisons, father and son, to drive Priscilla from the churchyard before Fritzing had joined her, without which driving she would never have met Augustus. She it was who had used the trifling circumstance of a mislaid sermon-book to take the vicar and Robin into the church at an unaccustomed time, without which sermon-book they would never have met Priscilla in the churchyard and driven her out of it. Thus are all our doings ruled by Chance; and it is a pleasant pastime for an idle hour to trace back big events to their original and sometimes absurd beginnings. ”

“ Priscilla, meanwhile, was wandering up the bridle-track with Reuben Gaunt, and the little, plain-featured man with the wild eyes was talking to her—talk being his prime work in life—and telling her of the countries he had seen, the busy streets, the things remote from Garth’s quiet highroad, and Garth’s quiet hill-slopes where the work of farming life was done.
Like cloud-land drifting before a merry wind, the old life went receding from Priscilla of the Good Intent. ”

“ Does one let one's life go? One's hope of salvation go? One's little precious minute of perfect happiness go? When I'm well again I shall be just as dull and stupid as ever, just such a shy fool, not able to speak—"
"But it's a gracious state"—stammered poor Priscilla.
"Loving you? Loving you?"
"No, no—not being able to speak. It's always best—"
"It isn't. It's best to be true to one's self, to show honestly what one feels, as I am now—as I am now—" And he fell to kissing her hands again.
"Tussie, this isn't being honest," said Lady Shuttleworth sternly, "it's being feverish." ”

“ Who knows," said Fritzing with a great show of bright belief in his own prophecy, the while his heart was a stone, "who knows but what you are now on the very threshold of it?"
"Oh," murmured Priscilla, too beaten to do anything but droop her head.
"It is insisting on the commonplace to remind you, ma'am, that the darkest hour comes before dawn. Yet it is a well-known natural phenomenon." ”

“ Priscilla never dreamed of wavering. She, most poetic of princesses, made apparently of ivory and amber, outwardly so cool and serene and gentle, was inwardly on fire. The fire, I should add, burnt with a very white flame. Nothing in the shape of a young man had ever had the stoking of it. It was that whitest of flames that leaps highest at the thought of abstractions—freedom, beauty of life, simplicity, and the rest. This, I would remark, is a most rare light to find burning in a woman's breast. What she was, however, Fritzing had made her. ”

“ For myself I know that the larger lines of my life were laid down once for all by—but what has this to do with Priscilla? Thus, I say, are all our doings ruled by Chance, who loves to use small means for the working of great wonders. ”

“ We who are nestling for the moment like Priscilla beneath the warm wing of Good Fortune can dare to make what the children call a face at her grey sister as she limps scowling past. Shall we not too one day in our turn feel her claws? ”

“ I’ll hear your news another time, Priscilla; but don’t you be turned with the vanities of the world, Priscilla. Life’s but a passing day: you mind that when you’re young, and it won’t come on you as a shock when you are old. I’m glad the cashmere has worn well—ay, that I am, Prissie. But don’t put it on in the morning, my love, for it’s a sin to wear through beautiful fine stuff like that. And, even if the colour is gone a bit round the hem, the stuff itself isn’t worn, and looks don’t signify. ”

“ Jimmy Kinsella was some distance astern heading for Craggeen. He appeared to be quite out of earshot. Nevertheless Priscilla lowered her voice to a whisper.
“We’re on an errand of mercy,” she said.
“Oh,” said Miss Rutherford, “not vengeance. I’m disappointed.”
“Mercy is a much nicer thing,” said Priscilla, “besides being more Christian.”
“All the same,” said Miss Rutherford, “I’m disappointed. Vengeance is far more exciting.”
“To a certain extent,” said Priscilla, “we’re taking vengeance too. At least Frank is, on account of his ankle you know. So you needn’t be disappointed.” ”

“ She sat looking at him, wondering how he could possibly even for an instant forget the actual and the present.
"'Xerxes went forth, Xerxes perished, Xerxes mismanaged all things in the depths of the sea—'" declaimed Fritzing.
"He must have been like us," murmured Priscilla.
"'O for Darius the scatheless, the protector! No woman ever mourned for deed of his—'"
"What a nice man," sighed Priscilla. "'O for Darius!'"
"Ma'am, if you interrupt how can I read? And it is a most beautiful passage."
"But we do want a Darius badly," moaned Priscilla. ”

“ When Priscilla died there turned up from somewhere a far-removed cousin—a stern, middle-aged woman, who looked at the world through smoked glasses; and no doubt the world looked grey to her. She had no tears, no smiles, no sentiments, only the hardness of middle life, which has left the softness of youth behind and not yet reached the softness of age. She was a business-like person, and ordered everything and everybody as if she had lived all her life in Priscilla’s house. The people wondered if she would get Priscilla’s box of treasure ”

“ The soul he had so carefully tended and helped to grow was now grown stronger than his own; for there was added to its natural strength the tremendous daring of absolute inexperience. What can be more inexperienced than a carefully guarded young princess? Priscilla's ignorance of the outside world was pathetic. ”

“ Never was sick woman so much comforted as Mrs. Jones. She who had been disinclined to speak above a whisper when Priscilla went in was able at the end of the visit to pour forth conversation in streams, and quite loud conversation, and even interspersed with chuckles. All Friday Priscilla had tried to help in the arranging of her cottage, and had made herself and Fritzing so tired over it that on Saturday she let him go up alone and decided that she would, for her part, now begin to do good to the people in the village. ”

“ Priscilla, then, wanted to run away. What is awful in a housemaid and in anybody's wife became in her case stupendous. The spirit that could resolve it, decide to do it without being dragged to it by such things as love or passion, calmly looking the risks and losses in the face, and daring everything to free itself, was, it must be conceded, at least worthy of respect. Fritzing thought it worthy of adoration; the divinest spirit that had ever burned within a woman. ”

“ Fritzing hastily put the plate and glass down on the floor, and catching up the hand hanging limply by her side passionately kissed it. "You are the noblest woman on earth," he said.
"Oh," said Priscilla, turning away her head and shutting her eyes for very weariness of such futile phrases.
"Ma'am, you are. I would swear it. But you are also a child, and so you are ready at the first reverse to suppose you have done with happiness for ever. ”

“ He handed them to Priscilla. The squall increased in violence. The whole sea grew white with foam. A sudden drift of fine spray, blown off the face of the water, swept over Inishbawn, stinging and soaking the watchers at the tents.
“Lord Torrington is on board all right,” said Priscilla, “but it’s not father who’s steering. It’s Peter Walsh.”
The Tortoise flew forward, dipping her bow so that once or twice the water lipped over it. She looked pitiful, like a frightened creature from whose swift flight all joy had departed. She reached the narrow passage between Ardilaun and Inishlean. ”

“ Morrison's and her own conscience's accusations, her soul much beaten and bent by winds of misgiving but still on its feet, still defiant, still sheltering itself when it could behind plain common sense which whispered at intervals that all that had happened was only bad luck. They walked miles that day; often in silence, sometimes in gusty talk—talk gusty with the swift changes of Priscilla's mood scudding across the leaden background of Fritzing's steadier despair—and they got back tired, hungry, their clothes splashed with mud, their minds no nearer light than when they started. ”

“ Sick at heart have I been, beyond the healing of friendship.
Oft in my lonely hours have I thought of the maiden Priscilla.
She is alone in the world; her father and mother and brother
Died in the winter together; I saw her going and coming,
Now to the grave of the dead, and now to the bed of the dying,
Patient, courageous, and strong, and said to myself, that if ever
There were angels on earth, as there are angels in heaven,
Two have I seen and known; and the angel whose name is Priscilla
Holds in my desolate life the place which the other abandoned. ”

“ Priscilla was overwhelmed by the difficulties of life. The world was too much with her, she felt, a very great deal too much. She sent the Shuttleworth carriage away at the entrance to the village and went in to sit with Mrs. Jones a little, so that her eyes might lose their redness before she faced Fritzing; and Mrs. Jones was so glad to see her, so full of praises of her unselfish goodness in coming in, that once again Priscilla was forced to be ashamed of herself and of everything she did.
"I'm not unselfish, and I'm not good," she said, smoothing the old lady's coverlet. ”

“ Don’t you?”
“It’s far and away the most merciful errand I ever heard of,” said Miss Rutherford. “But why don’t you hurry? At any moment now her father’s men may reach the shore.”
“We can’t,” said Priscilla, “hurry any more than we are. The wind’s dropping every minute. Luff her a little bit, Frank, or she won’t clear the point. The tide’s taking us down, and that point runs out a terrific distance.”
“The only thing I don’t quite see yet,” said Miss Rutherford, “is where the vengeance comes in.” ”

“ No fairer sight is to be seen than the glimpse of these grey walls and turrets rising out of a cloud of blossom to be had by him who shall stand in the market place of Kunitz and look eastward up the narrow street on a May morning; and if he who gazes is a dreamer he could easily imagine that where the setting of life is so lovely its days must of necessity be each like a jewel, of perfect brightness and beauty.
The Princess Priscilla, however, knew better. ”

“ Priscilla smiled, but with a reservation behind her smile that his sensitive spirit felt at once. She was alone, and there was no sign whatever either of her uncle or of preparations for the reading of Shakespeare.
"Is anything not quite right?" Tussie asked, his face falling at once to an anxious pucker.
Priscilla looked at him and smiled again, but this time the smile was real, in her eyes as well as on her lips, dancing in them together with the flickering firelight. "It's rather funny," she said. "It has never happened to me before. What do you think? I'm hungry." ”