Searching for Epiphanius' Collyridians : on a long and winding road from Thrace to Arabia

Abstract

This article proposes a new reading of the account on the heresy of the Collyridians, conveyed by Epiphanius of Salamis in the last quarter of the fourth century. As the heterodoxy of this cult has rarely been placed and analyzed in wider religious, cultural, and geographical contexts, this essay offers a new hypothesis as to the origin, the spread . and the raison d'etre of the Collyridians.Additionally, we have taken into account the 'forgotten' literature produced during the Baroque period of the mariology debates in Western Europe, providing largely unknown references to the Collyridians. Our main thesis - conspicuously missing from scholarship ever since Epiphanius' times - is that the Collyridians arrived in Arabia,' not far from Jerusalem, and when they settled there, they performed their pilgrimage. The purpose of their pilgrimage was to visit the most ancient locus sanctus pertaining to the Virgin Mary in Judea, known as Kathisma.