ic and Manichaean
system; and this vain philosophy, which had been transported from
Egypt to Spain, was ill adapted to the grosser spirits of the West.
The obscure disciples of Priscillian suffered languished, and gradually
disappeared: his tenets were rejected by the clergy and people, but his
death was the subject of a long and vehement controversy; while some
arraigned, and others applauded, the justice of his sentence. It is
with pleasure that we can observe the humane inconsistency of the most
illustrious saints and bishops, Ambrose of Milan, [57] and Martin of
Tours, [58] who, on this occasion, asserted the cause of toleration.
They pitied the unhappy men, who had been executed at Treves; they
refused to hold communion with their episcopal murderers; and if Martin
deviated from that generous resolution, his motives were laudable, and
his repentance was exemplary. The bishops of Tours and Milan pronounced,
without hesitation, the eternal damnation of heretics; but they were
surprised, and shocked, by the bloody image of their temporal death,
and the honest feelings of nature resisted the artificial prejudices
of theology. The humanity of Ambrose and Martin was confirmed by the
scandalous irregularity of the proceedings against Priscillian and his
adherents. The civil and ecclesiastical ministers had transgressed the
limits of their respective provinces. The secular judge had presumed to
receive an appeal, and to pronounce a definitive sentence, in a
matter of faith, and episcopal jurisdiction. The bishops had disgraced
themselves, by exercising the functions of accusers in a criminal
prosecution. The cruelty of Ithacius, [59] who beheld the tortures, and
solicited the death, of the heretics, provoked the just indignation
of mankind; and the vices of that profligate bishop were admitted as a
proof, that his zeal was instigated by the sordid motives of interest.
Since the death of Priscillian, the rude attempts of persecution have
been refined and methodized in the holy office, which assigns their
distinct parts to the ecclesiastical and secular powers. The devoted
victim is regularly delivered by the priest to the magistrate, and by
the magistrate to the executioner; and the inexorable sentence of the
church, which declares the spiritual guilt of the offender, is expressed
in the mild language of pity and intercession.

[Footnote 51: See the Sacred History of Sulpicius Severus, (l. ii. p.
437-452, edit. Ludg. Bat. 1