Priscillianist Asceticism

In the 370s a Spanish layman named Priscillian began teaching a severe ascetic Christianity in the western provinces — fasting, celibacy, retreat to the countryside for study and prayer, lay men and women reading Scripture together outside the bishops' supervision. And it spread fast enough to alarm the Spanish and Gallic bishops, who condemned the movement at a council in Saragossa around 380. His supporters responded by making him bishop of Ávila; his opponents accused him of Manichaeism and sorcery and carried the case to the imperial court. Around 385, at Trier, the usurping emperor Magnus Maximus had Priscillian and several companions tried and put to death. So far as anyone can tell, the first time a Christian state executed Christians over belief. It shocked people at the time: Martin of Tours and Ambrose of Milan both objected to churchmen taking a doctrinal quarrel to an executioner, and the bishops who had pressed the charges were disgraced for it.