Collyridians
Collyridians [1]
a sect of heretics which arose towards the close of the fourth century, so named from a small cake of a cylindrical form ( κολλυρίδες, collyridae) which they offered to the Virgin Mary with libations and sacrifices. They were chiefly Arabian women, who rendered divine honors to the Virgin Mary as a goddess. It is conjectured by Neander that the cake-offering was a transfer of the oblations of the Lord's Supper to the worship of the Virgin, the whole taking the shape of a pagan ceremony; the truth probably being that the corruption was introduced from the pagan worship of Ceres, and that the customary breadofferings at the heathen feast of the harvest, in honor of Ceres, had been changed for such offerings in honor of Mary. — See Epiphanius, Haer. 78; Mosheim, Church History, 1:311; Neander, Church History (Torrey's transl.), 2:339.
