Agostino contro i priscillianisti 'manichaeorum simillimi'

In the spring of 415, in a letter to Jerome, Augustine writes that he had never heard of Priscillianists until just a year before, when the Spaniard Orosius asked him to reply against this dangerous heresy. For the period of his episcopate Augustine was occasionally engaged with Priscillian and Priscillianists, that he always describes as a shoot of the Manicheans. In this paper the Author analyzes the Augustinian texts dealing with Priscillianism, considering at first the texts whose dating is certain, later those for which the date is doubtful or prior to 414, and tries, whenever possible, to put forward some assumptions about their chronological position in the literary production of Augustine.