What is "collyridianism"

Collyridianism was an Early Christian heretical movement in pre-Islamic Arabia whose adherents apparently worshipped the Virgin Mary, mother of Jesus, as a goddess. The main source of information about them comes from their strongest opponent, Epiphanius of Salamis, who wrote about them in his Panarion of about 375 AD. According to Epiphanius, certain women in then-largely- pagan Arabia syncretized indigenous beliefs with the worship of Mary, and offered little cakes or bread-rolls (Greek κολλυρις – a word occurring in the Septuagint) to her. Epiphanius states that Collyridianism originated in Thrace and Scythia, although it may have first travelled to those regions from Syria or Asia Minor. Little else is known.

In his book The Virgin, however, Geoffrey Ashe puts forward the hypothesis that the Collyridians represented a parallel Marian religion to Christianity, founded by first-generation followers of the Virgin Mary, whose doctrines were later subsumed by the Church at the Council of Ephesus in 431. Stephen Marley, in his novel "The Heresy", takes a similar view of the Collyridians as Ashe as well as providing additional evidence of the group surviving until the late Middle Ages. Averil Cameron has been more sceptical about whether the movement even existed, noting that Epiphanius is the only source for the group, and that later authors simply refer back to his text. Some women interested in feminist spirituality claim the Collyridians as precursors.