zealots hailed the appearance of the Paraclete in Phrygia, and surrendered themselves to his guidance. In so doing, however, they had to withdraw from the Church, to be known as “Montanists,” or “Kataphrygians,” and thus to assume the character of the sect. Their enthusiasm and their prophesyings were denounced as demoniacal; their expectation of a glorious earthly kingdom of Christ was stigmatized as Jewish, their passion for martyrdom as vainglorious and their whole conduct as hypocritical. Nor did they escape the more serious imputation of heresy on important articles of faith; indeed, there was a disposition to put them on the same level with the Gnostics. The effect on themselves was what usually follows in such circumstances. After their separation from the Church, they became narrower and pettier in their conception of Christianity. Their asceticism degenerated into legalism, their claim to a monopoly of pure Christianity made them arrogant. As for the popular religion of the larger Church, they scorned it as an adulterated, manipulated Christianity. But these views found very little acceptance in the 3rd century, and in the course of the 4th they died out.
2. Such is, in brief, the position occupied by Montanism in the history of the ancient Church. The rise and progress of the movement were as follows.
At the close of the reign of Antoninus Pius—probably in the year 156 (Epiphanius)—Montanus appeared at Ardabau in Mysia, near the Phrygian border, bringing revelations of the “Spirit” to Christendom. Montanus claimed to have a prophetic calling in the very same sense as Agabus, Judas, Silas, the daughters of Philip, Quadratus and Ammia, or as Hermas at Rome. At a later time, when the validity of the Montanistic prophecy was called in question, the adherents of the new movement appealed explicitly to a sort of prophetic succession, in which their prophets had received the same gift which the daughters of Philip, for example, had exercised in that very country of Phrygia. The burden of the new prophecy seems to have been a new standard of moral obligations, especially with regard to marriage, fasting and martyrdom. But Montanus had larger schemes in view. He wished to organize a special community of true Christians to wait for the coming of their Lord. The small Phrygian towns of Pepuza and Tymion were selected as the headquarters of his church. Funds were raised for the new organization, and from these the leader and missionaries, who were to have nothing to do with worldly life, drew their pay. Only two women, Prisca and Maximilla, were moved by the Spirit; like Montanus, they uttered in a state of frenzy the commands of the Spirit, which urged men to a strict and holy life. This does not mean that visions and significant dreams may not have been of frequent occurrence in Montanistic circles.[1]
For twenty years this agitation appears to have been confined to Phrygia and the neighbouring provinces. But after the year 177 a persecution of Christians broke out simultaneously in many provinces of the Empire. Like every other persecution it was regarded as the beginning of the end. It would seem that before this time Montanus had disappeared from the scene; but Maximilla, and probably also Prisca, were working with redoubled energy. And now, throughout the provinces of Asia Minor, in Rome, and even in Gaul, amidst the raging of persecution, attention was attracted to this remarkable movement. The desire for a sharper exercise of discipline, and a more decided renunciation of the world, combined with a craving for some plain indication of the Divine will in these last critical times, had prepared many minds for an eager acceptance of the tidings from Phrygia. And thus, within the large congregations where there was so much that was open to censure in doctrine and constitution and morals, conventicles were formed in order that Christians might prepare themselves by strict discipline for the day of the Lord.
Meanwhile in Phrygia and its neighbourhood—especially in Galatia, and also in Thrace—a controversy was raging between the adherents and the opponents of the new prophecy. Between 150 and 176 the authority of the episcopate had been immensely strengthened, and along with it a settled order had been introduced into the Churches. As a rule, the bishops were resolute enemies of the Montanistic enthusiasm. It disturbed the peace and order of the congregations, and threatened their safety. Moreover, it made demands on individual Christians such as very few could comply with. But the disputation which Bishops Zoticus of Cumana and Julian of Apamea arranged with Maximilla and her following turned out disastrously for its promoters. The “spirit” of Maximilla gained a signal victory, a certain Themiso in particular having reduced the bishops to silence. Sotas bishop of Anchialus attempted to refute Prisca, but with no better success (Eusebius, Hist. eccl. v. 19). These proceedings were never forgotten in Asia Minor, and the report of them spread far and wide. In after times the only way in which the discomfiture of the bishops could be explained was by asserting that they had been silenced by fraud or violence. This was the commencement of the excommunication or secession of the Montanists in Asia Minor. Not only did an extreme party arise in Asia Minor rejecting all prophecy and the Apocalypse of John along with it, but the majority of the Churches and bishops in that district appear (c. 178) to have broken off all fellowship with the new prophets, while books were written to show that the very form of the Montanistic prophecy was sufficient proof of its spuriousness.[2] In Gaul and Rome the prospects of Montanism seemed for a while more favourable. The confessors of the Gallican Church at Lyons were of opinion that communion ought to be maintained with the zealots of Asia and Phrygia; and they addressed a letter to this effect to the Roman bishop, Eleutherus. There was a momentary vacillation even in Rome. Nor is this to be wondered at. The events in Phrygia could not appear new and unprecedented to the Roman Church. If we may believe Tertullian, it was Praxeas of Asia Minor, the relentless foe of Montanism, who succeeded in persuading the Roman bishop to withhold his letters of conciliation.[3]
Early in the last decade of the 2nd century two considerable works[4] appeared in Asia Minor against the Kataphrygians. The first, by a bishop or presbyter whose name is not known, is addressed to Abircius bishop of Hierapolis, and was written in the fourteenth year after the death of Maximilla—i.e. apparently about the year 193. The other was written by a certain Apollonius forty years after the appearance of Montanus, consequently about 196. From these treatises we learn that the adherents of the new prophecy were very numerous in Phrygia, Asia and Galatia (Ancyra), that they had tried to defend themselves in writing from the charges brought against them (by Miltiades), that they possessed a fully developed independent organization, that they boasted of many martyrs, and that they were still formidable to the Church in Asia Minor. Many of the small congregations had gone completely over to Montanism, although in large towns, like Ephesus, the opposite party maintained the ascendancy. Every bond of intercourse was broken, and in the Catholic Churches the worst calumnies were retailed about the deceased prophets and the leaders of the societies they had founded. In many Churches outside of Asia Minor a different state of matters prevailed. Those who accepted the message of the new prophecy did not at once leave the Catholic Church in a body. They simply formed small conventicles within the Church. Such, for example, appears to have been the case in Carthage (if we may judge from the Acts of the martyrs Perpetua and Felicitas) at the commencement of the persecution of Septimius Severus about the year 202. But even here it was impossible that an open rupture
- ↑ Theodotus, “the first steward of the New Prophecy,” was a fellow-worker with Montanus, and almost certainly a prophet. Later on, Firmilian, writing to Cyprian, mentions a prophetess who appeared in Cappadocia about A.D. 236, and Epiphanius (Haer. 49) tells of another called Quintilla.—(Ed.)
- ↑ Miltiades, περὶ τοῦ μὴ δεῖν προφήτην ἐν ἐκστάσει λαλεῖν. At the same time as Miltiades, if not earlier, Apollinaris of Hierapolis also wrote against the Montanists.
- ↑ It was Zephyrinus in A.D. 202 who took the decisive step of refusing to communicate with the Asiatic Montanists.—(Ed.)
- ↑ Quoted in Eusebius, Hist. Eccl. v. 16–18.
