Marcus the Heretic

Marcus The Heretic (sometimes confounded with MARCUS THE HERESIARCH), a native of Memphis, in Egypt, flourished in the 4th century. He is said by Isidore of Seville, and Sulpicius Severus in Hist. Sacra, to have been a skillful magician — a Manichaean, perhaps personally a disciple of Manes, and the originator of the doctrine of the Priscillianists. SEE PRISCILLIANISTS. He traveled to Spain, and is said to have disclosed his doctrines to Elpidius, a rhetorician, and to his wife Agape; from them the doctrines were communicated to Priscillian, SEE PRISCILLIAN, who, by embodying them in systematic form and giving them spread, became the founder of the sect. — Smith, Dict. of Greek and Roman Biog. and Mythol. s.v.; Neander, Ch. Hist. 2:710.