Priscillianism and Women

Abstract

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.