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 MONTANISTS

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MONTANISTS

band. Martyrdom was valued so highly that flight from persecution was disapproved, and so was the buying off of piiiiisliiiK-nt. "You are made an out- law?" said Mimtanus, "it is good for you. For he who is not outlawed among men is outlawed in the Lord. Be not confounded. It is justice which hales you in public. Why are you confounded, when you are sowing praise? Power comes, when you are stared at by men." .And again: "Do not desire to depart this life in beds, in miscarriages, in soft fevers, but in martyrdoms, that He who suffered for you may be glorified" (TertuUian, "De fuga", ix; cf. "De anima", Iv). TertuUian says: "Those who receive the Paraclete, know neither to flee persecution nor to bribe" (De fuga, 14), but he is unable to cite any formal prohibition by Montanus.

So far, the most that can be said of these didactic utterances is that there was a slight tendency to extravagance. The people of Phrygia were accus- tomed to the orgiastic cult of Cybele. There were doubtless many Christians there. The contemporary accounts of Montani^m mention Christians in other- wise unknown villages: .-Vrdabau on the iNIysian bor- der, Pepuza, Tymion, as well as in Otrus, Apamea, Cumane, Eumenca. Early Christian inscriptions have been found at Otrus, Hieropolis, Pepuza (of 260), Trajanopolis (of 279), Eumenea (of 249) etc. (see Harnack, "E.xpansion of Christianity", II, 360). There was a council at Synnada in the third century. The "Acta Theodoti" represent the village of Malus near Ancyra as entu-ely Christian under Diocletian. Above all we must remember what crowds of Chris- tians were found in Pontus and Bithynia by Pliny in 112, not only in the cities but in country places. No doubt, therefore, there were numerous Christians in the Phrygian villages to be drawn by the astounding phenomena. Crowds came to Pepuza, it seems, and contradiction was provoked. In the very first days Apollinarius, a successor of St. Papias as Bishop of Hierapolis in the southwestern corner of the prov- ince, wrote against Montanus. Eusebius knew this letter from its being enclosed by Serapion of Antioch (about 191-212) in a letter addressed by him to the Christians of Caria and Pontus. Apolinarius related that ^lius Publius Julius of Debeltum (now Burgas) in Thrace, swore that "Solas the blessed who was in Anchialus [on the Thracian coast] had wished to cast out the demon from Priscilla; but the hypocrites would not allow it." Clearly Sotas was dead, and could not speak for himself. The anonymous writer tells us that some thought Montanus to be pos- sessed by an evil spirit, and a troubler of the people; they rebuked him and tried to stop his prophesy- ing; the faithful of Asia assembled in many places, and examining the prophecies declared them pro- fane, and condemned the heresy, so that the dis- ciples were thrust out of the Church and its com- munion.

It is difficult to say how soon this excommunication took place in Asia. Probably from the beginning some bishops excluded the followers of Montanus, and this severity was growing common before the death of Montanus; but it was hardly a general rule much be- fore the death of Maximilla in 179; condemnation of the prophets themselves, and mere disapproval of their disciples was the first stage. We hear of holy persons, including the bishops Zoticus of Cumana and Julian of Apamea, attempting to exorcize Maximilla at Pepuza, doubtless after the death of Montanus. But Themi.son prevented them (Eu.sebius, V, xvi, 17; xviii, 12). This personage was called a confessor but, according to the anonvmous writer, he had bought him.self off. He published "a catholic epistle, in imitation of the Apostle", in support of his part v. Another so-called martyr, called Alexander, was for many years a companion of Maximilla, who, though a prophetess, did not know that it was for robbery, and

not "for the Name", that he had been condemned by the proconsul ^iilmilius Frontinus (date imknown) in Ephesus; in proof of this the pulilii- archives of Asia are appealed to. Of another leader, .Mcihiades, noth- ing is known. The prophets are accused of taking gifts under the guise of offerings; Montanus sent out salaried preachers; the prophetesses painted their faces, dyed their eyelids with stibium, wore ornaments and played at dice. But these .lecusMtinris may be untrue. The great point was the m.-iniiejol' prcjphesy- ing. It was denounced as contrary to custom and to tradition. A Catholic writer, Miltiades, wrote a book to which the anonymous author refers, "How a prophet ought not to speak in ecstasy ". It was urged that the ])henoinena were t hose of possession, not those of the Old Testament jjrophets, or of New Testament prophets like Silas, Agabus, and the daughters of Philip the Deacon ; or of prophets recently known in Asia, Quadratus (Bishop of Athens) and Ammia, prophetess of Philadelphia, of whom the Montanist prophets boasted of being successors. To speak in the first person as the Father or the Paraclete ap- peared blasphemous. The older prophets had spoken "in the Spirit", as mouthpieces of the S])irit, but to have no free will, to be helpless in a state of madness, was not con.sonant with the text: "The spirits of the prophets are subject to the prophets." Montanus declared: "The Lord hath sent me as the chooser, the revealer, the interpreter of this labour, this prom- ise, and this covenant, being forced, willingly or un- willingly, to learn the gnosis of God." The Mon- tanists appealed to Gen., ii, 21: "The Lord sent an ecstasy [fKraa-if] upon Adam"; Ps. cxv, 2: "I said in my ecstasy"; Acts, x, 10: "There came upon him [Peter] an ecstasy"; but these texts proved neither that an ecstasy of excitement was iMdper to sanctity, nor that it was a right state in which to ])r(>pliesy.

A better argument was the declaration that the new prophecy was of a higher order than the old, and there- fore unlike it. It came to be thought higher than the Apostles, and even beyond the teaching of Christ. Priscilla went to sleep, she said, at Pepuza, and Christ came to her and slept by her side "in the form of a woman, clad in a bright garment, and put wisdom into me, and revealed to me that this place is holy, and that here Jerusalem above comes down". "Mys- teries" (sacraments?) were celebrated there publicly. In Epiphanius's time Pepuza was a desert, and the village was gone. Marcellina, surviving the other two, prophesied continual wars after her death — no other prophet, but the end.

It .seems on the whole that Montanus had no partic- ular doctrine, and that his prophetesses went further than he did. The extravagances of his sect were after the deaths of all three; but it is difficult to know how far we are to trust our authorities. The anonymous writer admits that he has only an uncertain report for the story that Montanus and Maximilla both hanged themselves, and that Themison was carried into the air by a devil, flung down, and so died. The sect gained much popularity in Asia. It would seem that some Churches were wholly Montanist. The anony- mous writer found the Church at Ancyra in 193 greatly disturbed about the new prophecy. Tertul- lian's lost writing "De Ecstasi", in defence of their trances, is said by Pra?destinatus to have been an an- swer to Pope Soter (Hier., xxvi, Ixxxvi), who had con- demned or disapproved them; but the authority is not a good one. He has presumably confouncled Soter with Sotas, Bishop of Anchialus. In 177 the Churches of Lyons and Vienne sent to the Churches of Asia, and Phrygia their celebrated account of the martyrdoms that had been taking place. Eusebius tells us that at the same time they enclosed letters which had been written in prison bv the martvrs on the question of the Montanists. They sent the same by Irena^us to Pope ICleutherius. Eusebius says only that they took