Church History (Vol.1-3). J. H. Kurtz
radical opponents were the so-called Alogi (§ 33, 2). Among their later antagonists, who assumed more and more a passionately embittered tone, the most important according to Eusebius were one Apollinaris, whom Tertullian combats in the VII. Bk. of his work, De ecstasi, and Serapion. At a Synod at Iconium about the middle of the 3rd century at which also Firmilian of Cæsarea (§ 35, 5) was present and voted, the baptism of the Montanists, although their trinitarian orthodoxy could not be questioned, was pronounced to be like heretical baptism null, because administered extra ecclesiam, and a second baptism declared necessary on admission to the Catholic church. And although at the Council of Nicæa in A.D. 325 and of Constantinople in A.D. 381, the validity of heretics’ baptism was admitted if given orderly in the name of the Holy Trinity, the baptism of the Montanists was excluded because it was thought that the Paraclete of Montanism could not be recognised as the Holy Spirit of the church.—Already in the time of Constantine the Great the Montanists were spreading out from Phrygia over all the neighbouring provinces, and were called from the place where they originated Κατάφρυγες and Pepuziani. The Emperor now forbade them holding any public assemblies for worship and ordered that all places for public service should be taken from them and given over to the Catholic church. Far stricter laws than even these were enforced against them by later emperors down to the 5th century, e.g. prohibition of all Montanist writings, deprivation of almost all civil rights, banishment of their clergy to the mines, etc. Thus they could only prolong a miserable existence in secret, and by the beginning of the sixth century every trace of them had disappeared.
§ 40.2. Montanism at Rome.—The movement called forth by Montanism in the East spread by and by also into the West. When the first news reached Gaul of the synodal proceedings in Asia Minor that had rent the church, the Confessors imprisoned at Lyons and Vienne during the persecution of Marcus Aurelius, of whom more than one belonged to a colony that had emigrated from Phrygia to Gaul, were displeased, and, along with their report of the persecution they had endured (§ 32, 8), addressed a letter to those of Asia Minor, not given by Eusebius, but reckoned pious and orthodox, exhorting to peace and the preservation of unity. At the same time (A.D. 177) they sent the Presbyter Irenæus to Rome in order to win from Bishop Eleutherus (A.D. 174–189), who was opposed to Montanism, a mild and pacific sentence. Owing, however, to the arrival of Praxeas, a Confessor of Asia Minor and a bitter opponent of Montanism, a formal condemnation was at last obtained (§ 33, 4). Tertullian relates that the Roman bishop, at the instigation of Praxeas, revoked the letters of peace which had been already prepared in opposition to his predecessors. It is matter of controversy whether by this unnamed bishop Eleutherus is meant, who then was first inclined to a peaceable decision by Irenæus and thereafter by the picture of Montanist extravagances given by Praxeas was led again to form another opinion; or that it was, what seems from the chronological references most probable, his successor Victor (A.D. 189–199), in which case Eleutherus is represented as having hardened himself against Montanism in spite of the entreaties of Irenæus, while Victor was the first who for a season had been brought to think otherwise.—Yet even after their condemnation a small body of Montanists continued to exist in Rome, whose mouthpiece during the time of bishop Zephyrinus (A.D. 199–217) was Proclus, whom the Roman Caius (§ 31, 7) opposed by word and writing.
§ 40.3. Montanism in Proconsular Africa.—When and how Montanism gained a footing in North Africa is unknown, but very probably it spread thither from Rome. The movement issuing therefrom first attracted attention when Tertullian, about A.D. 201 or 202, returned from Rome to Carthage, and with the whole energy of his character decided in its favour, and devoted his rich intellectual gifts to its advocacy. That the Montanist party in Africa at that time still continued in connection with the Catholic church is witnessed to by the Acts of the Martyrs Perpetua and Felicitas (§ 32, 8), composed some time after this, which bear upon them almost all the characteristic marks of Montanism, while a vision communicated there shows that division was already threatened. The bishop and clergy together with the majority of the membership were decided opponents of the new ecstatic-visionary prophecy already under ecclesiastical ban in Asia Minor. They had not yet, however, come to an open breach with it, which was probably brought about in A.D. 206 when quiet had been again restored after the cessation of the persecution begun about A.D. 202 by Septimius Severus. Tertullian had stood at the head of the sundered party as leader of their sectarian services, and defended their prophesyings and rigorism in numerous apologetico-polemical writings with excessive bitterness and passion, applying them with consistent stringency to all the relations of life, especially on the ethical side. From the high esteem in which, notwithstanding his Montanist eccentricities, Tertullian’s writings continued to be held in Africa, e.g. by Cyprian (§ 31, 11), and generally throughout the West, the tendency defended by him was not regarded in the church there as in the East as thoroughly heretical, but only as a separatistic overstraining of views allowed by the church. This mild estimate could all the easier win favour, since to all appearance the extravagant visionary prophesying, which caused most offence, had been in these parts very soon extinguished.—Augustine reports that a small body of “Tertullianists” continued in Carthage down to his time († 430), and had by him been induced to return to the Catholic church; and besides this, he also tells us that Tertullian had subsequently separated himself from the “Cataphrygians,” i.e. from the communion of the Montanists of Asia Minor, whose excesses were only then perhaps made known to him.
§ 40.4. The Fundamental Principle of Montanism.—Montanism arose out of a theory of a divinely educative revelation proceeding by advancing stages, not finding its conclusion in Christ and the Apostles, but in the age of the Paraclete which began with Montanus and in him reached its highest development. The times of the law and the prophets in the Old Covenant is the childhood of the kingdom of God; in the gospel it appears in its youth; and by the Montanist shedding forth of the Spirit it reaches the maturity of manhood. Its absolute perfection will be attained in the millennium introduced by the approaching Parousia and the descent of the heavenly Jerusalem at Pepuza (Rev. xx. 21). The Montanist prophecy did not enrich or expand but only maintained and established against the heretics, the system of Christian doctrine already exclusively revealed in the times of Christ. Montanism regarded as its special task a reformation of Christian life and Church discipline highly necessary in view of the approaching Parousia. The defects that had been borne with during the earlier stages of revelation were to be repaired or removed by the Mandata of the Paraclete. The following are some of the chief of these prescriptions: Second marriage is adultery; Fasting must be practised with greater strictness; On dies stationum (§ 37, 3) nothing should be eaten until evening, and twice a year for a whole week only water and bread (ξηροφαγίαι); The excommunicated must remain their whole lifetime in status pœnitentiæ; Martyrdom should be courted, to withdraw in any way from persecution is apostasy and denial of the faith; Virgins should take part in the worship of God only when veiled; Women generally must put away all finery and ornaments; secular science and art, all worldly enjoyments, even those that seem innocent, are only snares of the devil, etc. An anti-hierarchical tendency early showed itself in Montanism from the circumstance that it arrogated to itself a new and high authority to which the hierarchical organs of the church refused to submit themselves. Yet even Montanism, after repudiating it, for its own self-preservation was obliged to give itself an official congregational organization, which, according to Jerome, had as its head a patriarch resident at Pepuza, and, according to Epiphanius, founding on Gal. iii. 28, gave even women admission into ecclesiastical offices. Its worship was distinguished only by the space given to the prophesyings of its prophets and prophetesses. Epiphanius notes this as a special characteristic of the sect, that often in their assemblies seven white-robed virgins with torches made their appearance prophesying; evidently, as the number seven itself shows, as representatives of the seven spirits of God (Rev. iv. 5, etc.), and not of the ten virgins who wait for the coming of the Lord. According to Philaster they allowed even unbaptized persons to attend all their services and were in the habit of baptizing even the dead, as is elsewhere told also of certain Gnostic sects. Epiphanius too speaks of a Montanist party which celebrated the Lord’s Supper with bread and cheese, Artotyrites, according to Augustine, because the first men had presented offerings of the fruits of the earth and sheep.
§ 40.5. The Attitude of Montanism toward the Church.—The derivation of Montanism from