Collyridians

A Dictionary of Early Christian Biography

Collyridians. Under this name Epiphanius (Haer. 79) assails certain women who had brought from Thrace into Arabia the practice of performing on certain days rites in honour of the Blessed Virgin the chief being the offering of a cake (κολλυρίς) and the partaking of it by the worshippers. Epiphanius condemns their conduct because (a) women ought not to offer sacrifice and (b) Mary is to be honoured God only to be worshipped. The name Collyris (or kindred forms) is to be found in the LXX translation of Lev_7:12; Lev_8:26; 2Sa_6:19 and the word passed thence into the Latin versions.

[G.S.]

Cyclopedia of Biblical, Theological and Ecclesiastical Literature

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.