Section: 2D3A - Montanus.
Number of quotes: 262
2000 Years of Charismatic Christianity
Eddie L. Hyatt
Book ID: 3 Page: 27
Section: 2D3A
Several regional councils or synods held in the latter half of the second century censured Montanus and his followers. This calling of church councils, however, merely highlights the impact that Montanism was having throughout the church. In their book Christian Initiation and Baptism in the Holy Spirit, Kilian McDonnell and George Montague point out that these were the first councils in the history of the church except for the Jerusalem council of Acts 15, and that “neither the threat of gnosticism, nor Marcionism had ever pressed the Church into calling councils”. {13}
Quote ID: 16
Time Periods: 2
2000 Years of Charismatic Christianity
Eddie L. Hyatt
Book ID: 3 Page: 28
Section: 2D3A
In North Africa, the Montanists were defended by Tertullian, who joined the movement around the year A.D. 200. In Against Praxeas, Tertullian says that the bishop of Rome initially “acknowledged the prophetic gifts of Montanus, Prisca and Maximilla” and “bestowed his peace” upon the Montanist churches of Asia and Phrygia.{16} McDonnell points out that peace was a synonym for personal and ecclesial communion, and for the bishop to send letters of peace to the Montanist churches was to say, “We belong to the same communion; we celebrate the same Eucharist; we hold the same faith.” {17}A complication, however, arose through Praxeas, who taught a doctrine called monarchianism, declaring that the Father, Son and Holy Spirit are one and the same. He successfully influenced the Roman bishop against the new prophets, and the letters of peace were withdrawn. Tertullian says that Praxeas did a twofold service for the devil at Rome. “He drove away prophecy, and he brought in heresy; he put to flight the Paraclete, and he crucified the Father.” {18} Tertullian also wrote seven books defending ecstatic prophecy, all of which were either lost or destroyed.
Quote ID: 17
Time Periods: 23
2000 Years of Charismatic Christianity
Eddie L. Hyatt
Book ID: 3 Page: 29
Section: 2D3A
After reading this book, Wesley wrote the following response in his Journal on August 15, 1750:I was fully convinced of what I had once suspected: 1) That the Montanist, in the second and third centuries, were real Scriptural Christians; and 2) That the grand reason why the miraculous gifts were so soon withdrawn was not only that faith and holiness were well nigh lost, but that dry, formal, orthodox men began even then to ridicule whatever gifts they had not themselves, and to decry them all as either madness or imposture. {20}
In summation, it is probably safe to say that Montanism was the first Charismatic Renewal within the church and that it sought to bring revival to a rapidly hardening ecclesiasticism. The institutional church obviously overreacted to the movement and accelerated a trend of disregard and disdain toward spiritual gifts. It also began a trend, as Philip Schaff has pointed out, wherein a sharp line was drawn “between the age of the apostles, in which there had been direct supernatural revelations, and the later age, in which such revelations had disappeared.” {23} McDonnell says, “The Church never really recovered its balance after it rejected Montanism.” {24}
Pastor John notes: Wow!
Quote ID: 18
Time Periods: 23
2000 Years of Charismatic Christianity
Eddie L. Hyatt
Book ID: 3 Page: 30
Section: 2D3A
This institutional trend brought a sharp division in the church between clergy and laity, a division unknown in the New Testament Church. The criteria for teaching and leading ceased to be the calling or gifting of the Spirit, but was instead, ordination by ecclesiastical officials. Bultman points out that the gift of the Spirit to teach and lead, “which was originally given by the Spirit to the person, is now understood as an office--charisma conveyed by ordination.” {26} The clergy thus assumed all the ministerial responsibilities of the church, and a distinct priesthood parallel to that of the Old Testament emerged {27}The church’s reaction to Montanism contributed to the now rapid disappearance of spiritual gifts. By the third century, Origen would state explicitly that “these sign have diminished.”{28} The freedom of the Spirit was being replaced by ceremonial ritual and ecclesiastical order. The final blow to the charismatic character of the church would come with the conversion of Constantine and the church’s acquisition of earthly affluence and power.
Quote ID: 19
Time Periods: 234
A Historical Record of Speaking in Tongues (Glossolalia)
https://19acts.tumblr.com/post/125954670797/historical-record-speaking-tongues-harry-peyton-doctrine
Book ID: 425 Page: 28
Section: 2D3A,2D3B
AD 395, Catholic Bishop Jerome: Glossolalia Ceased in Catholicism, But Reveals the Oneness Montanists Still Practice It: According to the New Catholic Encyclopedia:----
As regards the passages brought together from the gospel of John with which a certain votary of Montanus has assailed you, passages in which our Savior promises that He will go to the Father, and that He will send the Paraclete.... The Holy Spirit came down, and the tongues of the believers were cloven, so that each spoke every language.... If, then, the apostle Peter, upon whom the Lord has founded the Church, has expressly said that the prophecy and promise of the Lord were then and there fulfilled, how can we claim another fulfillment for ourselves....{77}
[Footnote: 77] - NPNF2, Vol 6, Jerome, Letter XLI.1-3.
Quote ID: 8665
Time Periods: 45
A Historical Record of Speaking in Tongues (Glossolalia)
https://19acts.tumblr.com/post/125954670797/historical-record-speaking-tongues-harry-peyton-doctrine
Book ID: 425 Page: 29
Section: 2D3A
The importance of the sect [Montanism] during the early centuries may be judged by the attention it received from ancient [Catholic] Christian writers.... The energetic opposition of Pope Innocent 1 (401-417) and the laws of the Emperor Honorius 1 against [the so-called] heresy (Feb. 22, 407). {78}[Footnote 78] - New Catholic Encyclopedia, vol 9, pg 1079.
Quote ID: 8666
Time Periods: 25
Abandoned to Lust: Sexual Slander and Ancient Christianity
Jennifer Wright Knust
Book ID: 457 Page: 4
Section: 2D3A
Christianity was once nothing but a novel, deadly superstition, or so its detractors claimed. But Christians were accused of even worse: from incest to orgies, nocturnal religious rites, and the ceremonial murder of an infant, the followers of Jesus of Nazareth were said to pursue “a religion of lust” that venerates genitalia, tricks initiates into ritualized cannibalism, and serves as a cover for the indiscriminate sating of desire.{17}
Quote ID: 8968
Time Periods: 1247
Abandoned to Lust: Sexual Slander and Ancient Christianity
Jennifer Wright Knust
Book ID: 457 Page: 5
Section: 2D3A
The practice of charging one’s intended victim with sexual misbehavior can be read as part of a rhetorical tradition extending back as least as far as fourth-century Athens.
Quote ID: 8971
Time Periods: 1247
Abandoned to Lust: Sexual Slander and Ancient Christianity
Jennifer Wright Knust
Book ID: 457 Page: 6
Section: 2D3A
Sexual slander, therefore, was a widespread practice in ancient polemics, and similar charges were deployed both against Christians and by Christians. Still, however widespread and stereotypical, charges of sexual misbehavior were hardly “mere rhetoric.” Intended to malign and defame, these accusations were deployed in fierce struggles for identity, prestige, and power.
Quote ID: 8972
Time Periods: 1247
Abandoned to Lust: Sexual Slander and Ancient Christianity
Jennifer Wright Knust
Book ID: 457 Page: 6
Section: 2D3A
These accusations do not offer straightforward evidence of sexual practice; rather, they indicate a conflict between the author and those whom he maligned.
Quote ID: 8973
Time Periods: 1247
Abandoned to Lust: Sexual Slander and Ancient Christianity
Jennifer Wright Knust
Book ID: 457 Page: 7
Section: 2D3A
…accusations of sexual immorality lodged by Romans against one another were central to the “agonistic rituals of Roman political life.”{34}
Quote ID: 8974
Time Periods: 1247
Abandoned to Lust: Sexual Slander and Ancient Christianity
Jennifer Wright Knust
Book ID: 457 Page: 13
Section: 2D3A
To conclude, the early Christian authors under consideration here operated within their particular cultural and rhetorical contexts, employing tools of rhetoric they shared with their neighbors in ways that served their own persuasive projects.
Quote ID: 8976
Time Periods: 1247
Asterius Urbanus, ANF Vol. 7, Fathers of the Third and Fourth Centuries
Alexander Roberts, D.D. and James Donaldson, LL.D.
Book ID: 366 Page: 335
Section: 2D3A
I. "...against this heresy that bears the name Miltiades..."II. And this person was carried away in spirit;{13} and suddenly being seized with a kind of frenzy and ecstasy, he raved, and began to speak and to utter strange things, and to prophesy in a manner contrary to the custom of the Church, as handed down from early times and preserved thenceforward in a continuous succession. And among those who were present on that occasion, and heard those spurious utterances, there were some who were indignant, and rebuked him as one frenzied, and under the power of demons, and possessed by the spirit of delusion, and agitating the multitude, and debarred him from speaking any more;
COPIED
Quote ID: 401
Time Periods: 23
Asterius Urbanus, ANF Vol. 7, Fathers of the Third and Fourth Centuries
Alexander Roberts, D.D. and James Donaldson, LL.D.
Book ID: 366 Page: 336
Section: 2D3A
And those few who were thus deluded were Phrygians. But the same arrogant spirit taught them to revile the Church universal under heaven, because that false spirit of prophecy found neither honour from it nor entrance into it.. . . .
they were in consequence of that expelled from the Church and debarred from communion.{5}
COPIED
Quote ID: 402
Time Periods: 2
Asterius Urbanus, ANF Vol. 7, Fathers of the Third and Fourth Centuries
Alexander Roberts, D.D. and James Donaldson, LL.D.
Book ID: 366 Page: 336
Section: 2D3A
And let not the spirit of Maximilla say (as it is found in the same book of Asterius Urbanus {14}), “I am chased like a wolf from the sheep; I am no wolf. I am word, and spirit, and power.”COPIED
Quote ID: 403
Time Periods: 2
Asterius Urbanus, ANF Vol. 7, Fathers of the Third and Fourth Centuries
Alexander Roberts, D.D. and James Donaldson, LL.D.
Book ID: 366 Page: 337
Section: 2D3A
Alcibiades,{3} in which he proves the impropriety of a prophet’s speaking in ecstasy, I made an abridgment of that work.IX.
But the false prophet falls into a spurious ecstasy, which is accompanied by a want of all shame and fear. For beginning with a voluntary (designed) rudeness, he ends with an involuntary madness of soul, as has been already stated. But they will never be able to show that any one of the Old Testament prophets, or any one of the New, was carried away in spirit after this fashion.
COPIED
Quote ID: 404
Time Periods: 2
Asterius Urbanus, ANF Vol. 7, Fathers of the Third and Fourth Centuries
Alexander Roberts, D.D. and James Donaldson, LL.D.
Book ID: 366 Page: 337
Section: 2D3A
For if, after Quadratus and the woman Ammia in Philadelphia, as they say, the women who attached themselves to Montanus succeeded to the gift of prophecy, let them show us which of them thus succeeded Montanus and his women. For the apostle deems that the gift of prophecy should abide in all the Church up to the time of the final advent. But they will not be able to show the gift to be in their possession even at the present time, which is the fourteenth year only from the death of Maximilla.{4}COPIED
Quote ID: 405
Time Periods: 2
Athanasius, NPNF2 Vol. 4, Athanasius: Select Works and Letters
Edited by Philip Schaff
Book ID: 661 Page: 419
Section: 2D3A
“The Phrygians say that the Prophets and the other ministers of the Word know neither what they do nor concerning what they announce.”
PJ footnote reference: Athanasius, Four Discourses against the Arians, III.xiii.47.
Quote ID: 9487
Time Periods: 24
Athanasius, NPNF2 Vol. 4, Athanasius: Select Works and Letters
Edited by Philip Schaff
Book ID: 661 Page: 452
Section: 2D3A
“. . . the extravagance of the Phrygians, and say with them, ‘To us first was revealed,’ and ‘from us dates the Faith of Christians.’”
PJ footnote reference: Athanasius, De Synodis, I.4.
Quote ID: 9488
Time Periods: 2
Augustine, NPNF1 Vol. 4, Augustine: The Writings Against the Manichaeans and Against the Donatists
Edited by Philip Schaff
Book ID: 654 Page: 338
Section: 2D3A
“In the same way, the Cataphrygians said that they had received the promised Paraclete; and so they fell away from the Catholic faith, forbidding what Paul allowed, and condemning second marriages [after widowhood], which he made lawful. They turned to their own use the words spoken of the Spirit, “He shall lead you into all truth,” as if, forsooth, Paul and the other apostles had not taught all the truth, but had left room for the Paraclete of the Cataphrygians. The same meaning they forced from the words of Paul: “We know in part, and we prophesy in part; but when that which is perfect is come, then that which is in part shall be done away;” making out that the apostle knew and prophesied in part, when he said, “Let him do what he will; if he marries he sinneth not,” and that this is done away by the perfection of the Phrygian Paraclete.”PJ book footnote reference: Augustine, Letter XXXII.17.
Quote ID: 9439
Time Periods: 24
Augustine, The Works of Saint Augustine. Letter 237.2.
Translated by Roland Teske, S.J.
Book ID: 637 Page: ?
Section: 2D3A
“Those heretics who are called Cataphrygians also do this, saying that the Holy Spirit, whom the Lord promised he would send, came in the person of some crazy people, namely Montanus and Priscilla.” p. 137
Quote ID: 9395
Time Periods: 24
Augustus to Constantine
Robert M. Grant
Book ID: 34 Page: 133
Section: 4B,2D3A
we may proceed to see in Montanism a reaction against any attempt to correlate Christianity with the life of the Graeco-Roman world.The anonymous author to whom we have referred ascribes Montanism to a recently baptized Christian named Montanus, who at the village of Ardabau on the Mysian-Phrygian border began to go into trances and “utter strange sounds.”
COPIED
Quote ID: 625
Time Periods: 2
Augustus to Constantine
Robert M. Grant
Book ID: 34 Page: 134
Section: 2D3A
Behold, man is like a lyre and I hover over him like a plectrum. Man sleeps, while I awake. Behold, it is the Lord who makes men’s hearts ecstatic and gives new hearts to men.It is I, the Lord God Almighty, who am present in a man. I am neither an angel nor an emissary; I, the Lord God the Father, have come.
I am driven from the sheep like a wolf. I am not a wolf; I am word and spirit and power.
Quote ID: 626
Time Periods: 2
Augustus to Constantine
Robert M. Grant
Book ID: 34 Page: 135
Section: 2D3A
The reaction of the Christian leaders of Asia Minor, like the Montanist Movement itself, seems to have crystallized only after a considerable lapse of time.The most vigorous critic of the movement seems to have been Apollinaris, bishop of Hierapolis.
Quote ID: 627
Time Periods: 2
Augustus to Constantine
Robert M. Grant
Book ID: 34 Page: 135
Section: 2D3A
This is actually page 136.Irenaeus could not condemn the “new prophecy”. Indeed, in writing against heresies he criticized the anti-Montanists for opposing both the gospel and the prophetic Spirit and argued that they were driving prophetic grace out of the church.
Quote ID: 629
Time Periods: 23
Augustus to Constantine
Robert M. Grant
Book ID: 34 Page: 141
Section: 2D3A
. . . the larger cities were fairly free of Montanists, chiefly because in them the organized episcopate was strong. Ultimately the problem was settled - in so far as any historical problem is settled - not so much by argument as by the changed situation of the church in the reign of Constantine. An edict which he issued in the year 331 ordered the public “houses of prayer” maintained by heretics, including Montanists, transferred to the Catholic Church, while their private meeting places were simply confiscated by the state.{17}[Footnote 17] Eusebius, Vita Constantini 3, 64-65.
John, bishop of Ephesus, struck a fatal blow at the movement not only by burning its temples to the ground but also by digging up and burning the bones of Montanus, Maximilla, and Prisca.{18}
The movement had already lost its future; John deprived it of its ties with the past.
[Footnote 18] P. de Labriolle, Les sources de l’histoire du montanisme (Paris, 1913), 238 (no. 195).
COPIED
Quote ID: 630
Time Periods: 234
Augustus to Constantine
Robert M. Grant
Book ID: 34 Page: 142
Section: 2D3A,4A
Christian leaders had taken great pains to argue that the revelation was in harmony with philosophy at its best because philosophers had in part been inspired by the Logos.What underlay the symptoms, however, was the Montanists’ basic concern. They were reviving the apocalyptic eschatology, based on Jewish and Jewish-Christian documents, from which the churches had gradually been turning away. Their revival of primitive Christian concerns was basically irrelevant for the leaders of late second-century Christianity and for their followers as well. The church was now coming to terms with Graeco-Roman culture and finding a place for itself in the world.
COPIED
Quote ID: 631
Time Periods: 234
Augustus to Constantine
Robert M. Grant
Book ID: 34 Page: 143
Section: 2D3A
It is fairly obvious that the Montanist movement was fairly close to Jewish Christianity, which in essence it attempted to revive. By the time when the movement arose, however, Christianity had already moved far away from its origins. The cumulative effect of the decisions made by Christian leaders was to bring the church into the world and to multiply its numbers until it could win the world to Christian allegiance.COPIED
Quote ID: 632
Time Periods: 2
Augustus to Constantine
Robert M. Grant
Book ID: 34 Page: 249
Section: 2D3A
(Montanists) All public meetinghouses were to be surrendered to the Catholic Church, while private houses used for meetings were to be confiscated by the state.{44} The unity of the Christian movement was to be maintained by the power of the empire.[Footnote 44] Eusebius, V. C. 3, 64-65. This letter presumably preceded an edict of 326 according to which Novatianists were allowed to keep their buildings (Cod. Theod. 16, 5, 2); cf. Dorries, op. Cit., 82-84. Lactantius (Div. Inst. 4, 30, 10) gives an identical list, except that he has “Anthropiani” (cf. Cyprian, Ep. 73, 4) for “Paulianists”.
COPIED
Quote ID: 660
Time Periods: 2
Augustus to Constantine
Robert M. Grant
Book ID: 34 Page: 276
Section: 2D3A
When Tertullian became a Montanist he insisted the only “the church of the Spirit” could forgive such sins, and like Hippolytus of Rome he was deeply offended by the claims of bishops like Callistus to do so.COPIED
Quote ID: 662
Time Periods: 23
Azusa St. Mission and Revival: The Birth of the Global Pentecostal Movement, The
Cecil M. Robeck, Jr.
Book ID: 447 Page: 9
Section: 2D3A
…they distract the affrighted atmosphere with a bewildering jargon of babbling tongues of all grades—dried, boiled, and smoked; they rant and dance and roll in a disgusting amalgamation of African voudou superstition and Caucasian insanity, and will pass away like the hysterical nightmares that they are.
Quote ID: 8839
Time Periods: 2
Caesar and Christ: The Story of Civilization
Will Durant
Book ID: 43 Page: 599
Section: 2D3A
On that dies Domini, or Lord’s Day, the Christians assembled for their weekly ritual. Their clergy read from the Scriptures, led them in prayer, and preached sermons of doctrinal instruction, moral exhortation, and sectarian controversy. In the early days members of the congregation, especially women, were allowed to “prophesy” - e.g., to “speak forth,” in trance or ecstasy, words to which meaning could be given only by pious interpretation. When these performances conducted to ritual fever and theological chaos, the Church discouraged and finally suppressed them. At every step the clergy found itself obliged not to generate superstition, but to control it.
Quote ID: 7970
Time Periods: 234567
Caesar and Christ: The Story of Civilization
Will Durant
Book ID: 43 Page: 605
Section: 2D3A
About 156 Montanus denounced the increasing worldliness of Christians and the growing autocracy of bishops in the Church; he demanded a return to primitive Christian simplicity and austerity, and a restored right of prophecy, or inspired speech, to the members of the congregations. Two women, Priscilla and Maximilla, took him at his word and fell into religious trances; and their utterances became the living oracles of the sect. Montanus himself prophesied with such eloquent ecstasy that his Phrygian followers-with the same religious enthusiasm that had once begotten Dionysus-hailed him as the Paraclete promised by Christ. He announced that the Kingdom of Heaven was at hand, and that the New Jerusalem of the Apocalypse would soon descend from heaven upon a neighboring plain. To the predestined spot he led so large a host that some towns were depopulated. As in early Christian days, marriage and parentage were neglected, goods were communistically shared, and an absorbed asceticism anxiously prepared the soul for Christ.{39} When, about 190, the Roman proconsul Antonius persecuted Christianity in Asia Minor, hundreds of Montanists, eager for paradise, crowded before his tribunal and asked for martyrdom. He could not accommodate them all; some he executed; but most of them he dismissed with the words: “Miserable creatures! If you wish to die are there not ropes and precipices?”{40} The Church banned Montanism as a heresy, and in the sixth century Justinian ordered the extinction of the sect. Some Montanists gathered in their churches, set fire to them, and let themselves be burned alive. {41}Used in Chapter 1
Quote ID: 909
Time Periods: 26
Caesar and Christ: The Story of Civilization
Will Durant
Book ID: 43 Page: 613
Section: 2D3A
Sinking into a morose puritanism, Tertullian in his fifty-eighth year rejected the orthodox Church as too sullied with worldly ways, and embraced Montanism as a more outright application of the teachings of Christ. He condemned all Christians who became soldiers, artists, or state officials; all parents who did not veil their daughters; all bishops who restored repentant sinners to communion; finally he called the pope pastor moechorum-“shepherd of adulterers.”{59}COPIED
Quote ID: 910
Time Periods: 23
Christian Initiation and Baptism in the Holy Spirit: Evidence from the First Eight Centuries
Kilian McDonnell and George T. Montague
Book ID: 53 Page: 117
Section: 2D3A
Judged by the Catholic norms of the last decade of the second century, it was not inherently heretical, nor was it necessarily always heretical, even though later it was consistently treated as such.
Quote ID: 1165
Time Periods: 2
Christian Initiation and Baptism in the Holy Spirit: Evidence from the First Eight Centuries
Kilian McDonnell and George T. Montague
Book ID: 53 Page: 118/119
Section: 2D3A
The first councils or synods in the history of the church (be it noted, including laity) were held in Asia Minor to deal with the strong reaction to the new movement.{8} The problems the New Prophecy, as it was called, raised in Asia must have been considerable. Neither the threat of gnosticism, nor Marcionism had ever pressed the church into calling councils. Montanism was threat enough to institute the first council since Jerusalem (Acts 15);COPIED
….
Nonetheless Tertullian wrote of a bishop of Rome, most likely Pope Victor, Eleutherius’ successor, who had decided in favor of the New Prophecy. According to Tertullian this pope, though he knew of the prophecies of Montanus, Prisca, and Maximilla, had “bestowed his peace (inferentem pacem) on the churches of Asia and Phrygia,” and this by writing “letters of peace” (litteras pacis).{9} The pope could not have given his peace unless the prophecies of the three prophets, as he knew them, were within the bounds of orthodoxy.
….
However, Praxeas, a traveler from Asia and a heretic in his own right (he introduced Patripassian Monarchianism into Rome), succeeded in turning the pope against the Montanists. The pope reluctantly recalled the letters he had already sent, put them on hold, and withdrew his intention of recognizing the charisms.{13}
….
If Montanism reached Rome in 177, and the condemnation by the hesitant Zepherinus came about twenty-three years later, then Rome did not panic into condemnation. In part the hesitancy must have been due to the recognition that prophecy belonged to the apostolic witness. If the church is built upon “the foundation of the apostles and prophets” (Eph. 2:20), the charismatic-prophetic element belongs to the church in some constitutive sense.{14}
Quote ID: 1166
Time Periods: 23
Christian Initiation and Baptism in the Holy Spirit: Evidence from the First Eight Centuries
Kilian McDonnell and George T. Montague
Book ID: 53 Page: 121
Section: 2D3A
{21} The condemnation of a movement in which the charisms played a large role made it difficult to support prayer for charisms within the rite of initiation. This was true even though it was recognized that the charismatic element belonged to the nature of the church.
Quote ID: 1168
Time Periods: 2
Christian Initiation and Baptism in the Holy Spirit: Evidence from the First Eight Centuries
Kilian McDonnell and George T. Montague
Book ID: 53 Page: 126
Section: 2D3A
Tertullian was not just another ecclesiastical scribbler. By any standards he was, Augustine excepted, “the most important and original ecclesiastical author in Latin.”{56}COPIED
Quote ID: 1170
Time Periods: 23
Christian Initiation and Baptism in the Holy Spirit: Evidence from the First Eight Centuries
Kilian McDonnell and George T. Montague
Book ID: 53 Page: 132
Section: 2D3A
Why would the mention of the charisms within the rite of initiation disappear? The reaction to Montanism and to Tertullian, the Montanist, was stronger than to either gnosticism or Marcionism, as is seen in the calling of the first council since that recorded in Acts 15.….
Because the charisms were identified with Montanism, the charisms themselves, by contagion, probably became suspect. Would one promote at the heart of the rites of initiation the very charisms, especially the prophetic, which the Montanists championed, which had proved so problematic?
Quote ID: 1174
Time Periods: 23
Christian Initiation and Baptism in the Holy Spirit: Evidence from the First Eight Centuries
Kilian McDonnell and George T. Montague
Book ID: 53 Page: 159
Section: 2D3A
Very likely Hilary knew Tertullian’s Against Praxeas in which Tertullian recounted Rome’s original favorable reception of the charismatic outbreak in Phrygia, which later became known as Montanism.{21}
Quote ID: 1180
Time Periods: 234
Christian Initiation and Baptism in the Holy Spirit: Evidence from the First Eight Centuries
Kilian McDonnell and George T. Montague
Book ID: 53 Page: 167/168
Section: 2D3A
The first occurs in Book II to Constantius, written in 359, quite possibly in Constantinople just before Hilary returned to Gaul. Hilary asked the Emperor permission to return home in order to debate Saturninus of Arles who had been responsible for Hilary’s unjust condemnation. The reference here is hardly flattering: “Montanus defended another Paraclete through his insane women.”{82}
Quote ID: 1184
Time Periods: 24
Christian Initiation and Baptism in the Holy Spirit: Evidence from the First Eight Centuries
Kilian McDonnell and George T. Montague
Book ID: 53 Page: 168
Section: 2D3A
In a passing allusion in a somewhat corrupted text Hilary reproached Constantius for exiling the holy Paulinus of Trier to Phrygia because he would not sign the condemnation of Athanasius; in Phrygia Paulinus’ situation was aggravated because he “could obtain food neither from the Emperor’s granary, nor from the supplies belonging to Montanus and Maximilla.”{83}For one who had some acquaintance with Phrygia, and possibly with Montanism, Hilary showed almost no interest in the threat which the movement was believed to pose.
Pastor John’s note: the threat over?
PJ note: Hilary of Portiers (c. 310 – c. 367)
COPIED
Quote ID: 1185
Time Periods: 234
Christian Initiation and Baptism in the Holy Spirit: Evidence from the First Eight Centuries
Kilian McDonnell and George T. Montague
Book ID: 53 Page: 169
Section: 2D3A
This enthusiastic charismatic movement, sometimes called “the New Prophecy,” was often treated as a heresy. Hippolytus says that “the Montanists are thought to be orthodox about the beginning, and the fashioning of all (the doctrine of creation), and they do not accept unorthodox teachings with regard to Christ.”{92} Even the relentless heresy hunter, Epiphanius (c. 315-403), witnessed that the Montanists were in agreement with the great church in matters of dogma.{93} Epiphanius, born about the same time as Hilary and Cyril, and a compatriot of Cyril of Jerusalem (he came from Gaza), recognized that Montanism taught the correct trinitarian doctrine, but included Montanism in his Panarion, a massive index of heresies, because it was still a threat.{94}COPIED
Quote ID: 1186
Time Periods: 234
Christian Initiation and Baptism in the Holy Spirit: Evidence from the First Eight Centuries
Kilian McDonnell and George T. Montague
Book ID: 53 Page: 170
Section: 2D3A
Far from being a dead heresy in the fourth century, it was, on the contrary, “still very strong . . . indeed flourishing” in parts of the empire.{97} Eusebius devoted four chapters of the fifth book of his Ecclesiastical History to Montanism and made other scattered references.{98} Didymus the Blind (c.313-98), after saying that many heresies would not be referred to because they were then academic relics, went out of his way to treat of Montanism in several chapters, because the dangers were real and the faithful needed to be warned.{99} Jerome (c.342-420) saw Montanist communities in Ancyra (the modern Ankara) when he was traveling through Galatia in 373.{100} Though flourishing, the Montanists were not numerous in the great cities because of the presence of the monarchical bishops.COPIED
Quote ID: 1187
Time Periods: 24
Christian Initiation and Baptism in the Holy Spirit: Evidence from the First Eight Centuries
Kilian McDonnell and George T. Montague
Book ID: 53 Page: 179
Section: 2D3A,2D3B
Protesting that charisms are not just adornments, Hilary [PJ: of Portiers? c. 310 – c. 367] insists they are “profitable gifts” (per quas dationum utilitates).{43} Then he details how the charisms are profitable: when the words of life are spoken; or when there is understanding of divine knowledge (which divides us from animals); when by faith we stand inside the gospel; when healings and miracles are performed; when by prophecy we are taught of God;{44} when spirits, holy or evil, are discerned; when sermons in foreign languages are signs that the Holy Spirit is active; when interpretation makes intelligible the sermons in foreign languages.{45} In all of these gifts the presence of the Spirit is manifested in concrete effects.{46} In short, the gifts make a difference; they are profitable.
Quote ID: 1192
Time Periods: 4
Christian Initiation and Baptism in the Holy Spirit: Evidence from the First Eight Centuries
Kilian McDonnell and George T. Montague
Book ID: 53 Page: 180/181
Section: 2D3A,2D3B
No evidence can be found in the text to support the supposition that Hilary was proposing something new and unheard of. The impression is given that Hilary was handing on something important and traditional. No enthusiastic group at enmity with their bishops is going to drive out the charisms given at Christian baptism, an icon of Jesus’ baptism in the Jordan.
Quote ID: 1193
Time Periods: 4
Christian Initiation and Baptism in the Holy Spirit: Evidence from the First Eight Centuries
Kilian McDonnell and George T. Montague
Book ID: 53 Page: 183
Section: 2D3A,2D3B
Hilary further specifies the nature of this river. “The Holy Spirit is called a river. When we receive the Holy Spirit, we are made drunk. Because out of us, as a source, various streams of grace flow, the prophet prays that the Lord will inebriate us. The prophet wants the same persons to be made drunk, and filled to all fullness with the divine gifts, so that their generations may be multiplied.
Quote ID: 1194
Time Periods: 4
Christians as the Romans Saw Them, The
Robert L. Wilken
Book ID: 201 Page: 49
Section: 2D3A,2D3B
Tacitus describes the execution of the Christians, but he makes it clear that it is not for their “incendiarism” that they are being killed, but because of their “antisocial tendencies” (literally, “hatred of mankind”) and the savagery of Nero.
Quote ID: 4540
Time Periods: 12
Constantine and Eusebius
Timothy D. Barnes
Book ID: 64 Page: 224
Section: 2D3A,3C
The Christianity which now constituted the established religion of the Roman Empire was of an exclusive type. From 312, Constantine confined his largess and fiscal privileges to Christians belonging to the Catholic church. {1} Further, when the Donatists finally refused to acknowledge a Catholic bishop of Carthage vindicated by councils of bishops and by the emperor himself, Constantine treated their schism as a crime and confiscated their property. {2} The victory of 324 permitted Constantine to make the principle underlying this decision explicit and universal. He legislated an end to all heretical sects. A letter explicitly addressed “to heretics” was publicly displayed. In it Constantine insulted Novatianists, Valentinians, Marcionites, Paulianists, Montanists, and all other heretics and declared their conduct intolerable. He ordained that they no longer meet, even in private houses, that their houses of prayer be surrendered to the Catholic church, and that any other real property they owned be confiscated. {3}
Quote ID: 1632
Time Periods: ?
Constantine’s Bible
David L. Dungan
Book ID: 67 Page: 90
Section: 2D3A
The orthodox bishops in the region banded together and sent letters of warning out to their brethren in their region (Hist. eccl. 5.19). In short, claims to inspiration, no matter how extravagant, were of no avail unless what was inspired coincided with received orthodoxy.
Quote ID: 1797
Time Periods: 23
Conversion
A.D. Nock
Book ID: 70 Page: 83
Section: 2D3A,2D3B
Celsus tells of many prophets who went about in Syria and Palestine begging and moved as in prophecy.‘It is easy and usual for each to say, I am God, or the son of God, or a divine spirit. I have come, for the world is already perishing and you, O men, are going to destruction because of iniquities. I wish to save you, and you shall see me coming again with heavenly power. Blessed is he who has worshipped me now; on every one else, on cities and lands, I shall cast everlasting fire. And men who do not know the penalties which they incur will in vain repent and groan; but those who have obeyed me I shall keep in eternity’.
Quote ID: 1940
Time Periods: 2
Councils: First Seven Ecumenical Councils (325-787): Their History and Theology, The
Leo Donald Davis
Book ID: 224 Page: 22
Section: 2D3A
In the face of the increasing institutionalization of the Christian Church, Montanus taught the apocalyptic outpouring of the Holy Spirit….COPIED
Quote ID: 5625
Time Periods: 2
Councils: First Seven Ecumenical Councils (325-787): Their History and Theology, The
Leo Donald Davis
Book ID: 224 Page: 22
Section: 2D3A
In 175 the earliest known council of bishops and laymen was called to deal with the problem of Montanism and by 200 a series of Asiatic councils had condemned the sect.COPIED
Quote ID: 5626
Time Periods: 2
Councils: Seven Ecumenical Councils, NPNF2 Vol. 14, The Seven Ecumenical Councils
Philip Schaff, Editor.
Book ID: 677 Page: 185
Section: 2D3A,3C1
“But Eunomians, who are baptized with only one immersion, and Montanists, who are here called Phrygians, and Sabellians, who teach the identity of Father and Son, and do sundry other mischievous things, and [the partisans of] all other heresies—for there are many such here, particularly among those who come from the country of the Galatians:—all these, when they desire to turn to orthodoxy, we receive as heathen.”PJ footnote reference: Canons of the One Hundred and Fifty Fathers who assembled at Constantinople, Canon VII.
Quote ID: 9717
Time Periods: 24
Councils: Seven Ecumenical Councils, NPNF2 Vol. 14, The Seven Ecumenical Councils
Philip Schaff, Editor.
Book ID: 677 Page: 405
Section: 2A1,2D3A
But concerning the Paulianists it has been determined by the Catholic Church that they shall by all means be rebaptized. The Eunomeans also, who baptize with one immersion; and the Montanists, who here are called Phrygians; and the Sabellians, who consider the Son to be the same as the Father, and are guilty in certain other grave matters, and all the other heresies—for there are many heretics here, especially those who come from the region of the Galatians—all of their number who are desirous of coming to the Orthodox faith, we receive as Gentiles. And on the first day we make them Christians, on the second Catechu- mens, then on the third day we exorcise them, at the same time also breathing thrice upon their faces and ears; and thus we initiate them, and we make them spend time in church and hear the Scriptures; and then we baptize them.”
PJ footnote reference: Council of Trullo, Canon XCV.
Quote ID: 9719
Time Periods: 27
Cults of the Roman Empire, The
Robert Turcan
Book ID: 209 Page: 45
Section: 2D3A
In fact, it is known that the disciples of Montanus claimed to prophesy in the name of the Paraclete, but their fasts and hallucinatory ecstasies were somewhat akin to Mother-cult practices. It was not by chance that this heresy was playing havoc in the Church (and as far as Lyon) at the very time when, in paganism, the cult of Attis was enjoying its greatest success.COPIED
Quote ID: 5140
Time Periods: 234
Cyprian, ANF Vol. 5, Fathers of the Third Century
Edited by Philip Schaff
Book ID: 666 Page: 391
Section: 2D3A
6. But that they who are at Rome do not observe those things in all cases which are handed down from the beginning, and vainly pretend the authority of the apostles;{3} any one may know also from the fact, that concerning the celebration of Easter, and concerning many other sacraments of divine matters, he may see that there are some diversities among them, and that all things are not observed among them alike, which are observed at Jerusalem, just as in very many other provinces also many things are varied because of the difference of the places and names.{4}
PJ footnote: Cyprian, Epistle LXXIV.6
Quote ID: 9505
Time Periods: 3
Cyprian, ANF Vol. 5, Fathers of the Third Century
Edited by Philip Schaff
Book ID: 666 Page: 392
Section: 2D3A,2D3B
“Assuredly it is but natural that these should agree in having a baptism which is unreal, in the same way as they agree in repudiating the truth of the divinity. Of whom, since
it is tedious to reply to their several statements, either wicked or foolish, sufficient shortly to say in sum, that they who do not hold the true Lord the Father cannot hold the truth either of the Son or of the Holy Spirit; according to which also they who are called Cataphrygians, and endeavor to claim to themselves new prophecies, can have neither the Father, nor the Son, nor the Holy Spirit, of whom, if we ask what Christ they announce, they will reply that they preach Him who sent the Spirit that speaks by Montanus and Prisca.
PJ footnote: Cyprian, Epistle LXXIV.7.
Quote ID: 9506
Time Periods: 3
Cyril of Jerusalem, NPNF2 Vol. 7, Cyril of Jerusalem, Gregory Nazianzen
Edited by Philip Schaff
Book ID: 667 Page: 117
Section: 2D3A
“Let the Cataphrygians also be your abhorrence, and Montanus, their ringleader in evil, and his two so-called prophetesses, Maximilla and Priscilla. For this Montanus, who was out of his mind and really mad (for he would not have said such things, had he not been mad), dared to say that he was himself the Holy Ghost — he, miserable man, and filled with all uncleanness and lasciviousness; for it suffices but to hint at this, out of respect for the women who are present. And having taken possession of Pepuza, a very small hamlet of Phrygia, he falsely named it Jerusalem; and cutting the throats of wretched little children, and chopping them up into unholy food, for the purpose of their so-called mysteries —(wherefore till but lately in the time of persecution we were suspected of doing this, because these Montanists were called, falsely indeed, by the common name of Christians;)— yet he dared to call himself the Holy Ghost, filled as he was with all impiety and inhuman cruelty, and condemned by an irrevocable sentence.”PJ footnote reference: Cyril of Jerusalem, Catechetical Lectures, Lecture XVI.8.
Quote ID: 9511
Time Periods: 4
Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, Vol. 1, 15.3, The
Edward Gibbon
Book ID: 649 Page: 522/523
Section: 2D3A,2D3B
“And yet, since every friend to revelation is persuaded of the reality, and every reasonable man is convinced of the cessation, of miraculous powers, it is evident that there must have been some period in which they were either suddenly or gradually withdrawn from the Christian church. Whatever aera is chosen for that purpose, the death of the apostles, the conversion of the Roman empire, or the extinction of the Arian heresy, [82] the insensibility of the Christians who lived at that time will equally afford a just matter of surprise. They still supported their pretensions after they had lost their power. Credulity performed the office of faith; fanaticism was permitted to assume the language of inspiration, and the effects of accident or contrivance were ascribed to supernatural causes. The recent experience of genuine miracles should have instructed the Christian world in the ways of Providence and habituated their eye (if we may use a very inadequate expression) to the style of the divine artist. Should the most skillful painter of modern Italy presume to decorate his feeble imitations with the name of Raphael or of Correggio, the insolent fraud would be soon discovered, and indignantly rejected.”
Quote ID: 9407
Time Periods: 234
Didache: Text, Translation, Analysis, and Commentary, The
Aaron Milavec
Book ID: 211 Page: 29
Section: 2D3A,2D3B
11:7 A And every prophet speaking in Spirityou should not put on trial and not judge;
for every sin will be forgiven
but this sin will not be forgiven.
Quote ID: 5214
Time Periods: 12
Didache: Text, Translation, Analysis, and Commentary, The
Aaron Milavec
Book ID: 211 Page: ix
Section: 2D3A,2D3B
Didache represents the preserved oral tradition whereby mid-first-century house churches detailed step-by-step transformation by which Gentile converts were to be prepared for full active participation in their assemblies.In fact, the Didache was created at the time of Paul’s mission to the gentiles, but it shows not the slightest awareness of that mission or of the theology that undergirded it.
Quote ID: 5203
Time Periods: 12
Earliest Christian Heretics – Readings from Their Opponents, The
Edited By Arland J. Hultgren and Steven A. Haggmark
Book ID: 213 Page: 127
Section: 2D3A
The Montanist movement arose in an environment where a decline in the intensity of Christian charismatic experience corresponded with an increasing turn toward a structured episcopate.. . . .
He and his two principal followers (both women) were reported to speak in strange sounds with angels and sometimes with Jesus himself.
Quote ID: 5242
Time Periods: 2
Early Christian Church, The
J.G. Davies
Book ID: 214 Page: 90
Section: 2D3A
Montanism was condemned by the Church because it claimed to supersede the revelation contained in the gospels, because its doctrine of the Holy Spirit was extravagant and because it was a disruptive force at a time when there was a desperate need for unity.COPIED
Quote ID: 5271
Time Periods: 2
Early Christian Church, The
J.G. Davies
Book ID: 214 Page: 91
Section: 2D3A
Imperial laws were promulgated against them after the days of Constantine and although they disappeared some two hundred years after their foundation, their attitude continued to live on under other forms and names: faith in revelations of the Holy Spirit in the persons of men and women specially endowed with grace, passionate contempt for the world and complete surrender to the expectation of the Second Advent.COPIED
Quote ID: 5272
Time Periods: 245
Early Christian Church, The
J.G. Davies
Book ID: 214 Page: 121
Section: 2D3A
The pioneer in the creation of ecclesiastical Latin was Tertullian. Born c. 160 at Carthage, son of a centurion of the proconsular cohort, he practised law in Rome, . . .His [Tertullian] On Baptism (c. 200) attacks heretical baptism but at the same time describes contemporary catholic practice being the sole pre-Nicene treatis on any of the sacraments.
On Modesty, after his conversion to Montanism, he goes so far as to regard certain sins as unpardonable.
[Tertullian]. . .combining Punic fervour with Roman practical sense; in theological thought he laid the basis of both the later Trinitarian and Christological formulations,..
COPIED
Quote ID: 5285
Time Periods: 23
Early Christian Church, The
J.G. Davies
Book ID: 214 Page: 135
Section: 2D3A
The first councils or synods known to history were the result of the Montanist controversy. Synods met in Asia and in Thrace to condemn these enthusiasts.COPIED
Quote ID: 5292
Time Periods: 23
Early Christian Church, The
J.G. Davies
Book ID: 214 Page: 144
Section: 2C,2D3A
But upon his conversion to Montanism, he changed his ground, asserting that the Church is composed exclusively of spiritual men and that the episcopate was irrelevant.
Quote ID: 5299
Time Periods: 23
Early Church, The
Henry Chadwick
Book ID: 215 Page: 30
Section: 2D3A
Moreover, the conviction that martyrdom granted immediate admission to paradise and conferred a victor’s crown, combined with a somber evaluation of the Roman empire as a political institution, led to a tendency towards acts of provocation on the part of over-enthusiastic believers, especially among the Montanists (below p. 52) who were especially prone to identify reticence with cowardice and moral compromise. Hotheads who provoked the authorities were soon censured by the church as mere suicides deserving no recognition.COPIED
Quote ID: 5367
Time Periods: 2
Early Church, The
Henry Chadwick
Book ID: 215 Page: 52
Section: 2D3A
A Phrygian named Montanus was seized by the Spirit and, together with two women, Prisca and Maximilla, delivered utterances of the Paraclete in a state of ‘ecstasy’, i.e. not being in possession of his faculties. It was the peculiar form of these utterances to which other Christians objected: this kind of ecstatic prophecy was not like that of the biblical prophets, delivered in the third person, but was direct speech by the Spirit himself using the prophet’s mouth as his instrument.PJ Note: Seriously? The prophets did not speak in the first person?
Copied
Quote ID: 5370
Time Periods: 2
Early Church, The
Henry Chadwick
Book ID: 215 Page: 52/53
Section: 2D3A
its puritanism and revivalist ethics won for it a notable convert in the brilliant African orator Tertullian, who died fulminating against his former Catholic brethren because they imagined that the Church was constituted by bishops rather than spiritual men.The orthodox reply, as formulated by Hippolytus of Rome, was unerringly directed against Montanism’s weakest point, namely its divisiveness: the quest for miraculous gifts is well (he thought), but the supreme miracle is conversion and therefore every believer alike has the gifts of the Spirit;
COPIED
Quote ID: 5371
Time Periods: 23
Early Church, The
Henry Chadwick
Book ID: 215 Page: 53
Section: 2D3A
The chief effect of Montanism on the Catholic Church was greatly to reinforce the conviction that revelation had come to an end with the apostolic age, and so to foster the creation of a closed canon of the New Testament. Irenaeus is the last writer who can still think of himself as belonging to the eschatological age of miracle and revelation.COPIED
Quote ID: 5372
Time Periods: 23
Epiphanius, The Panarion, Vol. 2
Translated by Frank Williams
Book ID: 448 Page: 6
Section: 2D3A
Against those who are called Phrygians or Montanists{1} or, also Tascodrugians. Number 28, but 48 of the series.For reference: Panarion of Epiphanius of Salamis 2nd. rev. ed. bks. 2&3. De Fide, The
Quote ID: 8840
Time Periods: 2
Epiphanius, The Panarion, Vol. 2
Translated by Frank Williams
Book ID: 448 Page: 6
Section: 2D3A
48.1.2 For the Montanists had their beginning about the nineteenth year of Hadrian’s successor Antoninus Pius{2}…
Quote ID: 8841
Time Periods: 2
Epiphanius, The Panarion, Vol. 2
Translated by Frank Williams
Book ID: 448 Page: 6/7
Section: 2D3A
48.1.3-4 These Phrygians too, as we call them, accept every scripture of the Old and the New Testaments and likewise affirm the resurrection of the dead. But they boast of having one Montanus as a prophet, and Priscilla and Maximilla as prophetesses, and by paying heed to them lost their wits. (4) They agree with the holy catholic church about the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit,{3} but have separated themselves by “giving heed to seducing spirits and doctrines of devils”{4} and saying “We must receive the gifts of grace as well.”
Quote ID: 8842
Time Periods: 2
Epiphanius, The Panarion, Vol. 2
Translated by Frank Williams
Book ID: 448 Page: 7
Section: 2D3A
48.1.7 The Phrygians are truly not “of” the saints themselves. They “went out” by their contentiousness, and “gave heed” to spirits of error and fictitious stories.
Quote ID: 8843
Time Periods: 2
Epiphanius, The Panarion, Vol. 2
Translated by Frank Williams
Book ID: 448 Page: 7
Section: 2D3A
48.2.1 If we must receive gifts of grace, and if there must be gifts of grace in the church, why do they have no more prophets after Montanus, Priscilla and Maximilla?{7}
Quote ID: 8844
Time Periods: 2
Epiphanius, The Panarion, Vol. 2
Translated by Frank Williams
Book ID: 448 Page: 7
Section: 2D3A
48.2.3 Maximilla and her like will be proved false prophets, since they dared to receive inspiration after the end of the prophetic gifts—not from the Holy Spirit but from devils’ imposture—and delude her audience.
Quote ID: 8845
Time Periods: 2
Epiphanius, The Panarion, Vol. 2
Translated by Frank Williams
Book ID: 448 Page: 8
Section: 2D3A
48.2.4 And see how they can be refuted from the very things they say! Their so-called prophetess, Maximilla, says, “After me there will be no prophet more, but the consummation.”
Quote ID: 8846
Time Periods: 2
Epiphanius, The Panarion, Vol. 2
Translated by Frank Williams
Book ID: 448 Page: 8
Section: 2D3A
48.2.5 Everything the prophets have said, they also said rationally and with understanding; and the things they said have come true and are still coming true.
Quote ID: 8847
Time Periods: 2
Epiphanius, The Panarion, Vol. 2
Translated by Frank Williams
Book ID: 448 Page: 8
Section: 2D3A
48.2.8 Accusations. have estranged themselves from the truth
. surrendered themselves to destruction and
. to being caught outside the fold and dragged off
. deserted the truth and
. hazarded themselves in shipwreck
48.3.1
. gone astray
.The Lord has set his seal on the church
Quote ID: 8848
Time Periods: 2
Epiphanius, The Panarion, Vol. 2
Translated by Frank Williams
Book ID: 448 Page: 8
Section: 2D3A
48.3.1 …the same saints, filled with the Holy Spirit, delivered all the prophecies for our benefit{11}—[delivered them] in the true Spirit, with sound mind and rational intellect….
Quote ID: 8849
Time Periods: 2
Epiphanius, The Panarion, Vol. 2
Translated by Frank Williams
Book ID: 448 Page: 8
Section: 2D3A
48.3.2 Accusations. false prophets
. ravening wolves?{13}
Quote ID: 8850
Time Periods: 2
Epiphanius, The Panarion, Vol. 2
Translated by Frank Williams
Book ID: 448 Page: 9
Section: 2D3A
48.3.4 A prophet always spoke with composure and understanding, and delivered his oracles by the Holy Spirit’s inspiration.{14} He said everything with a sound mind….
Quote ID: 8851
Time Periods: 2
Epiphanius, The Panarion, Vol. 2
Translated by Frank Williams
Book ID: 448 Page: 9
Section: 2D3A
48.3.4 A prophet always spoke with composure and understanding, and delivered his oracles by the Holy Spirit’s inspiration.{14} He said everything with a sound mind….
Quote ID: 8852
Time Periods: 2
Epiphanius, The Panarion, Vol. 2
Translated by Frank Williams
Book ID: 448 Page: 10
Section: 2D3A
48.3.11 But when the Phrygians profess to prophesy, it is plain that they are not sound of mind and rational. Their words are ambiguous and odd, with nothing right about them. (4.1) Montanus, for instance, says, “Lo, the man is as a lyre, and I fly over him as a pick. The man sleepeth, while I watch. Lo, it is the Lord that distracteth the hearts of men, and that giveth the heart to man.{20}
Quote ID: 8853
Time Periods: 2
Epiphanius, The Panarion, Vol. 2
Translated by Frank Williams
Book ID: 448 Page: 10
Section: 2D3A
48.4.2 Accusations. false religion
Quote ID: 8854
Time Periods: 2
Epiphanius, The Panarion, Vol. 2
Translated by Frank Williams
Book ID: 448 Page: 10
Section: 2D3A
48.4.4 Accusations. Phrygians are undertaking to combine falsehood with truth
. they pile up{21} texts to make a false case
Quote ID: 8856
Time Periods: 2
Epiphanius, The Panarion, Vol. 2
Translated by Frank Williams
Book ID: 448 Page: 10
Section: 2D3A
48.4.4 …say that certain scriptures bear a resemblance to it , the holy scripture has said, “God sent an ‘ecstasy’ upon Adam, and he slept.”{22}
Quote ID: 8857
Time Periods: 2
Epiphanius, The Panarion, Vol. 2
Translated by Frank Williams
Book ID: 448 Page: 10
Section: 2D3A
48.4.3 For the Holy Spirit never spoke in him. Such expressions as “I fly,” and “strike,” and “watch,” and “The Lord distracteth men’s hearts,” are the utterances of an ecstatic. They are not the words of a rational man, but of someone from a different stamp from the Holy Spirit who spoke in the prophets.
Quote ID: 8932
Time Periods: 2
Epiphanius, The Panarion, Vol. 2
Translated by Frank Williams
Book ID: 448 Page: 11
Section: 2D3A
48.5.1 For it is indeed plain that the sacred scripture was right to call this ecstasy. When someone is asleep, all his senses leave him and take a rest. Though the sense of sight is there, for example, it does not see; the eye is closed, and the mover in the man, the spirit of soul, is at rest.….
48.6.1 Beloved, I have needed to gather all this material the various kinds of ecstasy because of the text, “The Lord sent an ecstasy upon Adam, and he slept.”
….
48.6.3 In Adam’s case, however, God further called it ecstasy because it made him insensitive to pain for a time, because of the side God meant to take from him and make into his wife.
Quote ID: 8933
Time Periods: 2
Epiphanius, The Panarion, Vol. 2
Translated by Frank Williams
Book ID: 448 Page: 12
Section: 2D3A
48.7.1 But if I also have to speak of “I said in my ecstasy, all men are liars,”{27}the meaning of this, again, is different. These are not the words of a madman and an ecstatic―far from it!—(2) but of someone who is very surprised, and is taking more notice than usual things that are fit to be said and done. For since the prophet was astonished, he also speaks with astonishment here.
Quote ID: 8934
Time Periods: 2
Epiphanius, The Panarion, Vol. 2
Translated by Frank Williams
Book ID: 448 Page: 12
Section: 2D3A
48.7.3 The prophets fell into trances, not into distraction. Peter too was in an “ecstasy,”{28} not because he was irrational but because he saw things other than what men usually see in the everyday world.
Quote ID: 8935
Time Periods: 2
Epiphanius, The Panarion, Vol. 2
Translated by Frank Williams
Book ID: 448 Page: 13
Section: 2D3A
48.8.1 But even though they choose to reply, “The former gifts are not like the latter,”{35} how can they prove it? The holy prophets and the holy apostles prophesied alike.
Quote ID: 8936
Time Periods: 2
Epiphanius, The Panarion, Vol. 2
Translated by Frank Williams
Book ID: 448 Page: 14/15
Section: 2D3A
48.9.6 But if, from frailty, someone needs to contract a second marriage after the death of his wife, the rule of the truth does not prohibit this—that is, provided he is not a priest.But these people do forbid it—“forbidding to marry,”{44} as scripture says.
Quote ID: 8858
Time Periods: 2
Epiphanius, The Panarion, Vol. 2
Translated by Frank Williams
Book ID: 448 Page: 14
Section: 2D3A
48.9.3 For I have said before—as has just been said by the most holy apostles and I shall now repeat—that it was to make us secure and distinguish the character of the holy catholic church from the imposture of the sects, that Paul said how arrogantly the sects which forbid matrimony and prescribe abstinence from foods prohibit God’s good ordinances by law.
Quote ID: 8937
Time Periods: 2
Epiphanius, The Panarion, Vol. 2
Translated by Frank Williams
Book ID: 448 Page: 15
Section: 2D3A
48.9.6 Accusations. They expel anyone who has contracted a second marriage….
Quote ID: 8859
Time Periods: 2
Epiphanius, The Panarion, Vol. 2
Translated by Frank Williams
Book ID: 448 Page: 15
Section: 2D3A
48.10.1 We find then that every prophet, whether in the Old Testament or in the New, prophesies with understanding….
Quote ID: 8860
Time Periods: 2
Epiphanius, The Panarion, Vol. 2
Translated by Frank Williams
Book ID: 448 Page: 15/16
Section: 2D3A
48.10.3 But this Montanus, who has deceived his victims with his boast of being a prophet, describes things which are not consistent with sacred scripture. For in his so-called prophecy he says, “Why sayest thou, [Only] he that is more than man can be saved?{49} For the righteous shall shine an hundredfold brighter than the sun; and the least of you that are saved, an hundredfold brighter than the moon.”48.10.6 …says that the faces of the righteous will shine as the sun, how can Montanus promise a hundred times more? (7) Only if he is like the one who promised Adam, “Ye shall be as gods,”{51}….
Quote ID: 8861
Time Periods: 2
Epiphanius, The Panarion, Vol. 2
Translated by Frank Williams
Book ID: 448 Page: 16
Section: 2D3A
48.11.1 This same Montanus goes on to add, “I am the Lord God, the Almighty, dwelling in a man.”….
48.11.4 Montanus is thus in total disagreement with the sacred scriptures, as any attentive reader can see. And since he is in disagreement, < he himself >, and the sect which like him boasts of having prophets and gifts, are strangers to the holy catholic church. He did not receive these gifts; he departed from them.
Quote ID: 8862
Time Periods: 2
Epiphanius, The Panarion, Vol. 2
Translated by Frank Williams
Book ID: 448 Page: 16/17
Section: 2D3A
Accusations. 48.11.5 deceivers
. 48.11.6 And in fact it is plain that the holy apostles glorified the Lord after receiving the
Paraclete Spirit, while this Montanus glorifies himself
. 48.11.6 Montanus, however, glorifies only himself, and says that he is the Father almighty, and that < the deceitful spirit* > which dwells in him < is the Paraclete* >--proof positive that he is not the Father, was not sent by the Father, and has received nothing from the Father.
….
(8) But Montanus intruded himself by saying that he was somebody, proof that he is not Christ, was not sent by Christ, and has received nothing from Christ.
Quote ID: 8938
Time Periods: 2
Epiphanius, The Panarion, Vol. 2
Translated by Frank Williams
Book ID: 448 Page: 17
Section: 2D3A
48.11.9 For the actual true Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, showed that he was a Son; but Montanus even says that he is the Father.
Quote ID: 8865
Time Periods: 2
Epiphanius, The Panarion, Vol. 2
Translated by Frank Williams
Book ID: 448 Page: 17
Section: 2D3A
48.12.1 AccusationsWhen you Phrygians say you left the church over gifts of grace{59} how can we believe you? Even though you are disguised with the title of “Christian,” you have launched another enemy attack on us. You have taken up the barbarians’ quarrel and mimicked the enmity of the Trojans, who were also Phrygians!
Quote ID: 8866
Time Periods: 2
Epiphanius, The Panarion, Vol. 2
Translated by Frank Williams
Book ID: 448 Page: 17
Section: 2D3A
Accusations48.12.3 And in turn, you introduce us to—Maximilla! Even your names are different and scary, with nothing pleasant and melodious about them….
Quote ID: 8867
Time Periods: 2
Epiphanius, The Panarion, Vol. 2
Translated by Frank Williams
Book ID: 448 Page: 17/18
Section: 2D3A
48.12.4 At once this Maximilla, who belongs to these so-called Phrygians—listen to what she says, children of Christ! “Hearken not unto me, but hearken unto Christ!{60}12.5 Even where she seemed to be glorifying Christ, she was wrong.
….
12.6 But in the act of lying she is telling the truth, even against her will. She is right to say not to listen to her, but to Christ. Unclean spirits are often forced to denounce themselves…
….
12.8 Now how can those who have heard this from her and believed her care to listen to her—when they have learned from her not to listen to her, but to the Lord! In fact if they had any sense they shouldn’t listen to her, since her oracles are of the earth.
Quote ID: 8868
Time Periods: 2
Epiphanius, The Panarion, Vol. 2
Translated by Frank Williams
Book ID: 448 Page: 17
Section: 2D3A
48.11.9 This pathetic little nobody, Montanus, says in turn, “Neither angel nor messenger, but I the Lord, God the Father, have come.”{57} In so saying he will be exposed as a heretic, for he is not glorifying Christ, whom every regular gift which has been given in the holy church truly glorified.
Quote ID: 8939
Time Periods: 2
Epiphanius, The Panarion, Vol. 2
Translated by Frank Williams
Book ID: 448 Page: 17
Section: 2D3A
48.11.10 For we shall find that Montanus is outside the body of the church and the Head of all, and “does not hold the Head, from whom the whole body, knit together, increaseth,”{58} as scripture says, For the actual true Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, showed that he was a Son; but Montanus even says that he is the Father.
Quote ID: 8940
Time Periods: 2
Epiphanius, The Panarion, Vol. 2
Translated by Frank Williams
Book ID: 448 Page: 17
Section: 2D3A
48.12.2 Things that are different from gifts and—as your own prophets say—not the same kind that the Lord promises, cannot be gifts.
Quote ID: 8941
Time Periods: 2
Epiphanius, The Panarion, Vol. 2
Translated by Frank Williams
Book ID: 448 Page: 18
Section: 2D3A
Accusations48.12.11 The blindness of deceit is stone blind
Quote ID: 8869
Time Periods: 2
Epiphanius, The Panarion, Vol. 2
Translated by Frank Williams
Book ID: 448 Page: 19
Section: 2D3A
48.13.1 In turn the same Maximilla—this “rational knowledge and teaching,” if I may be sarcastic—says, “The Lord hath sent me perforce, willing and not willing, to be votary, herald and interpreter of this burden and covenant and promise, to impart the knowledge of God.”{68}
Quote ID: 8870
Time Periods: 2
Epiphanius, The Panarion, Vol. 2
Translated by Frank Williams
Book ID: 448 Page: 20
Section: 2D3A
Accusations48.13.7 For Maximilla also said that she compelled the willing and the unwilling [to know God]—so that her very words make her a liar. She neither taught the knowledge of God—which she did not know—to the willing, nor compelled the unwilling [to learn it].
48.14.1 Phrygians also venerate a deserted spot in Phrygia, a town once called Pepuza though it is now leveled, and say that the heavenly Jerusalem will descend there.{73}
48.14.2 And so they resort there, celebrate certain mysteries{74} on the site, and, as they suppose, sanctify < themselves >. For this breed is also to be found in Cappadocia and Galatia—and in Phrygia as I said, which is why the sect is called the Phrygian. But they are in Cilicia too and, for the most part, in Constantinople.
48.14.3 But to omit nothing that bears on the name of every sect I have discussed, I shall also speak, in its turn, of the Tascodrugians’. For this name is used either in this sect itself, or the one after it, which is called the sect of the Quintillianists—for this name too originates with these people themselves.
48.14.4
They are called Tascodrugians for the following reason. Their word for “peg” is “tascus,” and “drungus” is their word for “nostril” or “snout.” And since they put their licking finger, as we call it, on their nostril when they pray, for dejection, if you please, and would-be righteousness, some people have given them the name Tascodrugians, or “nose-pickers.”{75}
Quote ID: 8871
Time Periods: 2
Epiphanius, The Panarion, Vol. 2
Translated by Frank Williams
Book ID: 448 Page: 20/21
Section: 2D3A
48.14.6 At a certain festival they pierce a child—just a little baby—all over its body with bronze needles and get its blood for sacrifice, if you please.{76}
Quote ID: 8872
Time Periods: 2
Epiphanius, The Panarion, Vol. 2
Translated by Frank Williams
Book ID: 448 Page: 21
Section: 2D3A
48.15.1 I promised to withhold nothing about any sect I know, but to disclose what I have learned by word of mouth, and from treatises, documents, and persons who truly confirmed my notion. (2) Thus, by writing no more than I know, I will < not > appear to be guilty of inventing my own false charges against people….
Quote ID: 8873
Time Periods: 2
Epiphanius, The Panarion, Vol. 2
Translated by Frank Williams
Book ID: 448 Page: 21
Section: 2D3A
48.15.3 I give all the facts, as I said, with accuracy, about each sect, and make these shocking disclosures for the readers’ correction.
Quote ID: 8874
Time Periods: 2
Epiphanius, The Panarion, Vol. 2
Translated by Frank Williams
Book ID: 448 Page: 21
Section: 2D3A
48.15.6 I have crushed its poison, and the venom on its hooked fangs, with the cudgel of the truth of the cross.
Quote ID: 8875
Time Periods: 2
Epiphanius, The Panarion, Vol. 2
Translated by Frank Williams
Book ID: 448 Page: 21
Section: 2D3A
48.15.7 For this sect and the sect of Quintillianists do the same thing. They stab the body of an innocent child and get its blood to drink, and delude their victims by < pretending* >, if you please, that this is initiation in the name of Christ.
Quote ID: 8876
Time Periods: 2
Epiphanius, The Panarion, Vol. 2
Translated by Frank Williams
Book ID: 448 Page: 22
Section: 2D3A
49.1.1 The Quintillianists in their turn, who are also called Pepuzians and known as Artotyrites and Priscillianists, are the same as the Phrygians and derive from them, but in a certain way are different. (2) For the Quintillianists or Priscillianists say that either Quintilla{2} or Priscilla—I cannot say for certain, but one of them, as I said, slept in Pepuza and, as the deluded woman said Christ came to her and slept beside her, thus: (3) “Christ came to me in the form of a woman,”{3} she said, “dressed in a white robe, imbued me wisdom, and revealed to me that this place is holy, and that Jerusalem will descend from heaven here.” (4) And so even to this day, they say, certain women—men too—are initiated there on the site, so that those women or men may await Christ and see him.{4} (5) (They have women they call prophetesses.{5} I am not sure, though, whether this custom is theirs or the Phrygians; they are associated and have the same ideas.)
Quote ID: 8877
Time Periods: 2
Epiphanius, The Panarion, Vol. 2
Translated by Frank Williams
Book ID: 448 Page: 22
Section: 2D3A
49.2.2 They cite many texts pointlessly, and give thanks to Eve because she was the first to eat from the tree of wisdom.{6} And as scriptural support for their ordination of women as clergy, they say that Moses’ sister was a prophetess.{7} What is more, they say, Philip had four daughters who prophesied.{8}
Quote ID: 8942
Time Periods: 2
Epiphanius, The Panarion, Vol. 2
Translated by Frank Williams
Book ID: 448 Page: 23
Section: 2D3A
49.2.3 In their church seven virgins often come in carrying lamps, if you please, dressed in white, to prophesy to the people. (4) They deceive the congregation with a show of some sort of inspiration and, as though urging them to the mourning of penitence,{9} get them all weeping, shedding tears and pretending to mourn for humankind.
Quote ID: 8879
Time Periods: 2
Epiphanius, The Panarion, Vol. 2
Translated by Frank Williams
Book ID: 448 Page: 23
Section: 2D3A
49.2.6 …they call them Artotyrites because they set forth bread and cheese in their mysteries and celebrate their mysteries with them.{12}
Quote ID: 8943
Time Periods: 2
Epiphanius, The Panarion, Vol. 2
Translated by Frank Williams
Book ID: 448 Page: 23
Section: 2D3A
49.3.1 But every human illusion deserting the right faith and opting for something impossible, and for various frenzies and secret rites.
Quote ID: 8944
Time Periods: 2
Epiphanius, The Panarion, Vol. 2
Translated by Frank Williams
Book ID: 448 Page: 23
Section: 2D3A
Quote ID: 8946
Time Periods: 2
Epiphanius, The Panarion, Vol. 2
Translated by Frank Williams
Book ID: 448 Page: 23
Section: 2D3A
49.3.3 And they have overlooked the apostle’s command, “I suffer not a woman to speak, or to have authority over a man,”{14}….
Quote ID: 8947
Time Periods: 2
Eusebius, Ecclesiastical History Books, LCL 153: Eusebius I, Books 1-5
Eusebius
Book ID: 141 Page: 183
Section: 2E1,2D3A
Book II chapter XXV. . . .the leader of the Montanists, {1} speaks as follows of the places where the sacred relics of the Apostles in question are deposited: “But I can point out the trophies of the Apostles, for if you will go to the Vatican or to the Ostian Way you will find the trophies of those who founded this Church.” {2}
Quote ID: 3077
Time Periods: 1234
Eusebius, Ecclesiastical History Books, LCL 153: Eusebius I, Books 1-5
Eusebius
Book ID: 141 Page: 443
Section: 2D3A
V.3.ivJust at that time the party of Montanus and Alcibiades and Theodotus in Phrygia, began first to engender among many their views concerning prophecy (for many other wonderful works of the grace of God which were still being wrought up to that time in divers churches produced the belief among many that they also were prophets), and when dissension arose about the persons mentioned the brethren in Gaul again formulated their own judgement, pious and most orthodox, concerning them. . .
Quote ID: 3094
Time Periods: 23
Eusebius, Ecclesiastical History Books, LCL 153: Eusebius I, Books 1-5
Eusebius
Book ID: 141 Page: 471
Section: 2D3A
Book V chapter XIV
Of these some like poisonous reptiles crawled over Asia and Phrygia, and boasted that Montanus was the Paraclete and that the women of his sect, Priscilla and Maximilla, were the prophetesses of Montanus.
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Quote ID: 3098
Time Periods: 2
Eusebius, Ecclesiastical History Books, LCL 153: Eusebius I, Books 1-5
Eusebius
Book ID: 141 Page: 471
Section: 2D3A
Book V chapter XVI
Against the so-called Cataphrygian {2} heresy the power which champions the truth raised up a powerful and invincible weapon at Hierapolis in Apolinarius, who has already been mentioned in this work, and with him many others of the learned men of that time, from whom abundant material for history has been left to us. One of these at the beginning of his treatise against the Montanists indicates that he had also taken part in oral controversy against them. He writes a preface in this way. . . .
. . . .But when I had just come to Ancyra in Galatia and perceived that the church in that place was torn in two by this new movement which is not, as they call it, prophecy, I disputed concerning these people themselves and their propositions so far as I could, with the Lord’s help, for many days continuously {2} in the church. Thus the church rejoiced and was strengthened in the truth, but our opponents were crushed for the moment and our adversaries were distressed.
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Quote ID: 3099
Time Periods: 23
Eusebius, Ecclesiastical History Books, LCL 153: Eusebius I, Books 1-5
Eusebius
Book ID: 141 Page: 479
Section: 2D3A
Book V chapter XVI
Again in the same book he says that the sacred bishops of that time tried to refute the spirit that was in Maximilla, but were prevented by others who plainly co-operated with the spirit, and he writes thus: “And let not the spirit which speaks through Maximilla say, in the same work according to Asterius Orbanus,{1} ‘I am driven away like a wolf from the sheep. I am not a wolf, I am word and spirit and power.’ But let him show clearly and prove the power in the spirit, and let him through the spirit force to recognize him those who were then present for the purpose of testing and conversing with the spirit as it spoke, - eminent men and bishops, Zoticus from the village Cumane, and Julian from Apamea, whose mouths the party of Themiso muzzled, and did not allow the false spirit which deceived the people to be refuted by them.”
In the same book, again, after other refutations of the false prophecies of Maximilla, in a single passage he both indicates he time at which he wrote this, and quotes her predictions, in which she foretold future wars and revolutions, and he corrects the falsehood of them as follows: “Has it not been made obvious already that this is another lie? For it is more than thirteen years to-day since the woman died, and there has been in the world neither local nor universal war, but rather by the mercy of God continuing peace even for Christians.” {2}
This is from his second book. And from the third I will also quote a few words in which he speaks as follows against those who boasted that they had had more martyrs. “So when they have been refuted in the whole discussion and have nothing to reply, they try to take refuge in martyrs, saying that they have many martyrs and that this is a trustworthy proof of the power of the alleged prophetic spirit among them. But his appears to be actually further from the truth than anything. For some of the other heresies have innumerable martyrs, but I do not suppose that we shall accept them for that reason.
Quote ID: 3101
Time Periods: 23
Eusebius, Ecclesiastical History Books, LCL 153: Eusebius I, Books 1-5
Eusebius
Book ID: 141 Page: 483
Section: 2D3A
Book V chapter XVI
And after a little he goes on as follows: “Wherefore whenever members of the church who have been called to martyrdom for the true faith meet any of the so-called martyrs of the Montanist heresy, they separate from them and die without communicating with them, because they refuse to agree with the spirit in Montanus and the women. And that this is true, and that it happened in our time in Apamea on the Meander, is shown by the case of those who were martyred with Gaius and Alexander of Eumeneia.”
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Quote ID: 3102
Time Periods: 234
Eusebius, Ecclesiastical History Books, LCL 153: Eusebius I, Books 1-5
Eusebius
Book ID: 141 Page: 483
Section: 2D3A
Book V chapter XVII
1. And in this work he also quotes Miltiades as a writer who had also himself written a treatise against the heresy mentioned. After quoting some of their sayings he continues as follows: “I have given this abstract of what I found in a work of theirs when they were attacking the work of Alcibiades {1} the Christian in which he shows that a prophet need not to speak in ecstasy.
2. And he goes on in the same work to give a catalogue of those who have been prophets of the New Testament, and among them he numbers a certain Ammia and Quadratus and says thus: “But
the false prophet speaks in ecstasy, after which follow ease and freedom from fear; he beings with voluntary ignorance, but turns to involuntary madness of soul, as has been said before. But they cannot show that any prophet, either of those in the Old Testament or those of in the New, was inspired in this way; they can boast neither of Agabus, nor of Judas, nor of Silas, nor of the daughters of Philip, nor of Ammia in Philadelphia, nor of Quadratus, nor of any others who do not belong to them.” And again after a little he goes on, “For if the Montanist women succeeded to Quadratus and Ammia in Philadelphia in the prophetic gift, let them show who among them succeeded the followers of Montanus and the women, for the apostle grants that the prophetic gift shall be in all the church until the final coming, but this they could not show, seeing that this is already the fourteenth year from the death of Maximilla.”
PJ Note: Remarkable how the way they prophesied became such a major point of criticism. Also, look at this quote about Montanus: The Early Church Page: 52
Quote ID: 3103
Time Periods: 234
Eusebius, Ecclesiastical History Books, LCL 153: Eusebius I, Books 1-5
Eusebius
Book ID: 141 Page: 487
Section: 2D3A
Book V chapter XVIII
1. Apollonius also, a writer of the church when the so-called Montanist heresy was still flourishing in Phrygia, composed a refutation and published it as a separate work against them, proving word by word that their alleged prophecies are false and showing the true character of the life of the leaders of the heresy. Listen to the actual words which he uses about Montanus.
2. “But the deeds and the teachings of this recent teacher show his character. It is he who taught the annulment of marriage, who enacted fasts, who gave the name of Jerusalem to Pepuza and Tymion, which are little towns in Phrygia, and wished to hold assemblies there from everywhere, who appointed collectors of money, who organized the receiving of gifts under the name of offerings, who provided salaries for those who preached his doctrine in order that its teaching might prevail through gluttony.”
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Quote ID: 3104
Time Periods: 2
Eusebius, Ecclesiastical History Books, LCL 153: Eusebius I, Books 1-5
Eusebius
Book ID: 141 Page: 487
Section: 2D3A,2E2
Book V chapter XVIII
So he says about Montanus. And a little further on he writes thus about the prophetesses. “Thus we prove that these first prophetesses themselves deserted their husbands from the moment that they were filled with the spirit. What a lie it is then for them to call Priscilla a virgin.” Then he goes on saying: “Does not all Scripture seem to you to forbid a prophet from receiving gifts and money? Therefore when I see that the prophetess has received gold and silver and expensive clothes, how should I refrain from blaming her?”
Then further on he says this about one of their confessors: “Moreover, Themiso too, who was garbed with specious covetousness, who did not endure the sign of confession but exchanged prison for wealth when he ought to have been humble-minded on this account, and boasted that he was a martyr, dared, in imitation of the apostle, to compose an epistle general, to instruct those whose faith was better than his, and to contend with empty sounding words and to blaspheme against the Lord and the apostles and the holy church.”
And again he writes thus about another of those who were honoured among them as martyrs: “But in order that we may not speak about more of them, let the prophetess {1} tell us the story of Alexander, who calls himself a martyr, with whom she joins in revels, to whom many pay reverence. We need not tell of his robberies and the other crimes for which he has been punished, but the record-house {2} has them. Which then forgives the other’s sins? Does the prophet absolve the martyr of robbery or the martyr forgive the prophet for avarice? For the Lord said, ‘Provide neither gold nor silver nor two coats’; but these, doing wholly otherwise, have transgressed by the acquisition of these forbidden things. For we will show that their so-called prophets and martyrs make gain not only from the rich but from the poor and from orphans and widows.
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Time Periods: 23
Eusebius, Ecclesiastical History Books, LCL 153: Eusebius I, Books 1-5
Eusebius
Book ID: 141 Page: 491
Section: 2D3A,2E2
Book V chapter XVIII
For it is necessary to test the fruits of the prophet, for from the fruits the tree is known. But, that that the story of Alexander may be known to those who wish, he was convicted by Aemilius Pompinus, proconsul in Ephesus, not for being a Christian but for his daring robberies, and he was an old offender. Then, by falsely claiming the name of the Lord he was released, having deceived the Christians there, and his own diocese from which he came would not receive him because he was a robber, and those who wish to learn his story have the public records of Asia at their disposition. {1} The prophet is ignorant about him though he lived with him for many years, but we have exposed him, and through him expose also the nature of the prophet. We can show the same in many instances, and, if they are, let them stand the test.”
PJ Note: Alexander must have been known as a Montanist.
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Time Periods: 2
Eusebius, Ecclesiastical History Books, LCL 153: Eusebius I, Books 1-5
Eusebius
Book ID: 141 Page: 491
Section: 2D3A,2E2
Book V chapter XVIII
And again in another part of the book he says this about their boasted prophets: “If they deny that their prophets have taken gifts let them admit this, that if they have been convicted, they are not true prophets, and we will give countless proofs of this. But it is necessary to test all the fruits of a prophet. Tell me, does a prophet dye his hair? Does he pencil his eyelids? Does he love ornaments? Does he gamble and dice? Does he lend money? Let them state whether these things are right or not, and I will show that they have been done among them.”
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Quote ID: 3107
Time Periods: 2
Eusebius, Ecclesiastical History Books, LCL 153: Eusebius I, Books 1-5
Eusebius
Book ID: 141 Page: 493
Section: 2D3A
Book V chapter XVIII
This same Apollonius in the same book says that it was forty years from the time when Montanus plotted his fictitious prophecy, to the time when he wrote his book. And again he says that Zoticus, whom the former writer mentioned, when Maximilla pretended to prophesy in Pepuza had tried in opposition to confute the spirit which worked in her, but was prevented by those who agreed with her. He also mentions a certain Thraseas {1} as one of the martyrs of that time. Moreover, he says, as though from tradition, that the Saviour ordered his apostles not to leave Jerusalem for twelve years. He also makes quotations from the Apocalypse of John and tells how by divine power a dead man was raised by John himself at Ephesus. And he says other things by which he demonstrated powerfully and completely the error of the heresy under discussion. So far says Apollonius.
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Quote ID: 3108
Time Periods: 2
Eusebius, NPNF2 Vol. 1, Eusebius Pamphilius: Church History, Life of Constantine, Oration in Praise of Constantine
Edited by Philip Schaff
Book ID: 668 Page: 169
Section: 2D3A
“Among those that were celebrated at that time was Quadratus, was renowned along with the daughters of Philip for his prophetical gifts.”Pastor John’s footnote reference: Eusebius, Church History, III.xxxvii.1.
Quote ID: 9528
Time Periods: 2
Eusebius, NPNF2 Vol. 1, Eusebius Pamphilius: Church History, Life of Constantine, Oration in Praise of Constantine
Edited by Philip Schaff
Book ID: 668 Page: 218
Section: 2D3A
“The followers of Montanus, Alcibiades, and Theodotus in Phrygia were now first giving wide circulation to their assumption in regard to prophecy,—for the many other miracles that, through the gift of God, were still wrought in the different churches caused their prophesying to be readily credited by many,—and as dissension arose concerning them, the brethren in Gaul set forth their own prudent and most orthodox judgment in the matter.”Pastor John’s footnote reference: Eusebius, Church History, V.iii.4.
Quote ID: 9529
Time Periods: 2
Eusebius, NPNF2 Vol. 1, Eusebius Pamphilius: Church History, Life of Constantine, Oration in Praise of Constantine
Edited by Philip Schaff
Book ID: 668 Page: 229
Section: 2D3A,3C2
They were quite orthodox, accepted fully the doctrinal teachings of the Catholic Church, and did not pretend to alter in any way the revelation given by Christ and his apostles.
Pastor John’s footnote reference: Eusebius, Church History, V.xvi.1.
Quote ID: 9531
Time Periods: 47
Eusebius, NPNF2 Vol. 1, Eusebius Pamphilius: Church History, Life of Constantine, Oration in Praise of Constantine
Edited by Philip Schaff
Book ID: 668 Page: 229
Section: 2D3A,3C2
Montanism must not be looked upon as a heresy in the ordinary sense of the word. . . . But although it failed and passed away, Montanism had a marked influence on the development of the Church. In the first place, it aroused a general distrust of prophecy, and the result was that the Church soon came to the conviction that prophecy had entirely ceased. In the second place, the Church was led to see the necessity of emphasizing the historical Christ and historical Christianity over against the Montanistic claims of a constantly developing revelation**, and thus to put great emphasis upon the Scripture canon. In the third place, the Church had to lay increased stress upon the organization—over against the claims of irregular prophets*** who might at any time arise as organs of the Spirit. The development of Christianity into a religion of the book and of the organization was thus greatly advanced, and the line began to be sharply drawn between the age of the apostles, in which there had been direct supernatural revelations, and the later age, in which such revelations had disappeared. We are, undoubtedly, to date from this time that exalted conception of the glory of the apostolic age, and of its absolute separation from all subsequent ages, which marks so strongly the Church of succeeding centuries and which led men to endeavor to gain apostolic authority for every advance in the constitution in the customs, and in the doctrine of the Church. . . . They were quite orthodox, accepted fully the doctrinal teachings of the Catholic Church, and did not pretend to alter in any way the revelation given by Christ and his apostles.
Pastor John’s footnote reference: NPNF2 Vol.1, 229. Church History, V.xvi.1, footnote 1.
** This is what Christians insist happened with Trinity doctrine, etc.
*** in other words, beyond the control of Xn rulers.
Quote ID: 9532
Time Periods: 47
Eusebius, NPNF2 Vol. 1, Eusebius Pamphilius: Church History, Life of Constantine, Oration in Praise of Constantine
Edited by Philip Schaff
Book ID: 668 Page: 231
Section: 2D3A
6. Having said this with other things, in the beginning of his work, he proceeds to state the cause of the above-mentioned heresy as follows:
“Their opposition and their recent heresy which has separated them from the Church arose to the following account.
7. There is said to be a certain village called Ardabau in that part of Mysia which borders upon Phrygia. There first, they say, when Gratus was proconsul of Asia, a recent convert, Montanus by name, through his unquenchable desire for leadership, gave the adversary opportunity against him. And he became beside himself, and being suddenly in a sort of frenzy and ecstasy, he raved, and began to babble and utter strange things, prophesying in a manner contrary to the constant custom of the Church handed down by tradition from the beginning.
8. Some of those who heard his spurious utterances at that time were indignant, and they rebuked him as one that was possessed, and that was under the control of a demon, and was led by a deceitful spirit, and was distracting the multitude; and they forbade him to talk, remembering the distinction drawn by the Lord and his warning to guard watchfully against the coming of false prophets. But others imagining themselves possessed of the Holy Spirit and of a prophetic gift, were elated and not a little puffed up; and forgetting the distinction of the Lord, they challenged the mad and insidious and seducing spirit, and were cheated and deceived by him. In consequence of this, he could no longer be held in check, so as to keep silence.
9. Thus by artifice, or rather by such a system of wicked craft, the devil, devising destruction for the disobedient, and being unworthily honored by them, secretly excited and inflamed their understandings which had already become estranged from the true faith. And he stirred up besides two women, and filled them with the false spirit, so that they talked wildly and unreasonably and strangely, like the person already mentioned. And the spirit pronounced them blessed as they rejoiced and gloried in him, and puffed them up by the magnitude of his promises. But sometimes he rebuked them openly in a wise and faithful manner, that he might seem to be a reprover. But those of the Phrygians that were deceived were few in number.
“And the arrogant spirit taught them to revile the entire universal Church under heaven, because the spirit of false prophecy received neither honor from it nor entrance into it. For the faithful in Asia met often in many places throughout Asia to consider this matter and examined the novel utterances and pronounced them profane, and rejected the heresy, and thus these persons were expelled from the Church and debarred from communion.”
Pastor John’s footnote reference: Eusebius, Church History, V.xvi.6–9.
Quote ID: 9533
Time Periods: 2
Eusebius, NPNF2 Vol. 1, Eusebius Pamphilius: Church History, Life of Constantine, Oration in Praise of Constantine
Edited by Philip Schaff
Book ID: 668 Page: 231
Section: 2D3A
The fault found by the church with Montanus’ prophecy was rather because of its form than because of its substance. It was admitted that the prophecies contained much that was true, but the soberer sense of the Church at large objected decidedly to the frenzied ecstasy in which they were delivered. That a change had come over the Church in this respect since the apostolic age is perfectly clear. In Paul’s time the speaking with tongues, which involved a similar kind of ecstasy, was very common; so too, at the time the Didache was written the prophets spoke in an ecstasy (iv nvevuati, which can mean nothing else: cf. Harnack’s edition, p. 122 sq.). But the early enthusiasm of the Church had largely passed away by the middle of the second century; and though there were still prophets (Justin, for instance, and even Clement of Alexandria knew of them), they were not in general characterized by the same ecstatic and frenzied utterance that marked their predecessors. To say that there were none such at this time would be rash; but it is plain that they had become so decidedly the exception that the revival of the Montanists of the old method on a large scale and in its extremest form could appear to the Church at large only a decided innovation. Prophecy in itself was nothing strange to them, but prophecy in this form they were not accustomed to, and did not realize that it was but a revival of the ancient form. . . . There was no other alternative in their minds.
Either the prophecies were from God or from Satan: not their content mainly, but the manner in which they were delivered aroused the suspicion of the bishops and other leaders of the Church. Add to that the fact that these prophets claimed supremacy over the constituted Church authorities, claimed that the Church must be guided by the revelations vouchsafed to women and apparently half-crazy enthusiasts and fanatics, and it will be seen at once that there was nothing left for the leaders of the Church but to condemn the movement, and pronounce its prophecy a fraud and a work of the Evil One. That all prophecy should, as a consequence, fall into discredit was natural. Origin, some decades later, is no longer acquainted with prophets, and denies that they existed even in the time of Celsus (see Contra Cels. VII. 11).
Pastor John’s footnote reference: NPNF2, Vol.1, 231. Church History, V.xvi.1, footnote 14.
Quote ID: 9534
Time Periods: 23
Eusebius, NPNF2 Vol. 1, Eusebius Pamphilius: Church History, Life of Constantine, Oration in Praise of Constantine
Edited by Philip Schaff
Book ID: 668 Page: 232
Section: 2D3A
He says again the same book that the holy bishops of that time attempted to refute the spirit in Maximilla, but were prevented by others who plainly co-operated with the spirit. He writes as follows:
“And let not the spirit, in the same work of Asterius Urbanus, say through Maximilla, ‘I am driven away from the sheep like a wolf. I am not a wolf. I am word and spirit and power.’ But let him show clearly and prove the power in the spirit. And by the spirit let him compel those to confess him who were then present for the purpose of proving and reasoning with the talkative spirit, --those eminent men and bishops, Zoticus, from the village Comana, and Julian, from Apamea, whose mouths the followers of Themiso muzzled, refusing to permit the false and seductive spirit to be refuted by them.”
Pastor John’s footnote reference: Eusebius, Church History, V.xvi.17.
Quote ID: 9535
Time Periods: 23
Eusebius, NPNF2 Vol. 1, Eusebius Pamphilius: Church History, Life of Constantine, Oration in Praise of Constantine
Edited by Philip Schaff
Book ID: 668 Page: 232
Section: 2D3A,3A2A
Cf. the complaint of Maximilla, quoted in 17, below. The words are employed, of course, only in the figurative sense to indicate the hostility of the Church toward the Montanists. The Church, of course, had at that time no power to put heretics to death, even if it had wished to do so. The first instance of the punishment of heresy by death occurred in 385, when the Spanish bishop Priscillian and six companions were executed at Treves.
Pastor John’s footnote reference: Eusebius, Church History, V.xvi.12.
Quote ID: 9536
Time Periods: 24
Eusebius, NPNF2 Vol. 1, Eusebius Pamphilius: Church History, Life of Constantine, Oration in Praise of Constantine
Edited by Philip Schaff
Book ID: 668 Page: 234
Section: 2D3A
A little further on in the same work he gives a list of those who prophesied under the new covenant, among whom he enumerates a certain Ammia and Quadratus, saying: “But the false prophet falls into an ecstasy, in which he is without shame or fear. Beginning with purposed ignorance, he passes on, as has been stated, to involuntary madness of soul. They cannot show that one of the old or one of the new prophets was thus carried away in spirit.
Pastor John’s footnote reference: Eusebius, Church History, V.xvii.2.
Quote ID: 9537
Time Periods: 2
Eusebius, NPNF2 Vol. 1, Eusebius Pamphilius: Church History, Life of Constantine, Oration in Praise of Constantine
Edited by Philip Schaff
Book ID: 668 Page: 235
Section: 2D3A
As the so-called Phrygian heresy was still flourishing in Phrygia in his time, Apollonius [PJ: of Ephesus fl.180–210] also, an ecclesiastical writer, undertook its refutation, and wrote a special work against it, correcting in detail the false prophecies current among them and reproving the life of the founders of the heresy.
Pastor John’s footnote reference: Eusebius, Church History, V.xviii.1.
Quote ID: 9538
Time Periods: 23
Eusebius, NPNF2 Vol. 1, Eusebius Pamphilius: Church History, Life of Constantine, Oration in Praise of Constantine
Edited by Philip Schaff
Book ID: 668 Page: 236
Section: 2D3A
At the same time, Apollonius is clearly as unprincipled and dishonest a writer as the anonymous, and hence little reliance can be placed upon any of his reports to the discredit of the Montanists.
Pastor John’s footnote reference: NPNF2, Vol.1, 236. Eusebius, Church History, V.xviii.6, footnote 13.
-Pg. 237 -2D3A/23-
Serapion, who, as report says, succeeded Maximus at that time as bishop of the church of Antioch, mentions the works of Apolinarius against the above-mentioned heresy. And he alludes to him in a private letter to Caricus and Pontius, in which he himself exposes the same heresy, and adds the following words:
“That you may see that the doings of this lying band of the new prophecy, so called, are an abomination to all the brotherhood throughout the world, I have sent you writings of the most blessed Claudius Apollinarius, bishop of Hierapolis in Asia.”
Pastor John’s footnote reference: Eusebius, Church History, V.xix.1.
Quote ID: 9539
Time Periods: 2
Gods and the One God
Robert M. Grant
Book ID: 426 Page: 147
Section: 2D3A
When the African church leader Tertullian became a Montanist he wrote seven books “on ecstasy” but none of them survive.
Quote ID: 8681
Time Periods: 23
Hippolytus, ANF Vol. 5, Fathers of the Third Century
Edited by Alexander Roberts and James Donaldson
Book ID: 407 Page: 123
Section: 2D3A
PJ Note: VIII.xii.…captivated by two wretched women, called a certain Priscilla and Maximilla, whom, they supposed (to be) prophetesses. And they assert that into these the Paraclete Spirit had departed, and antecedently to them, they in like manner consider Montanus as a prophet. And being in possession of an infinite number of their books…
From Hippolytus, The Refutation of All Heresies, ANF, Vol. 5, Book 8
Quote ID: 8534
Time Periods: 234567
Hippolytus, ANF Vol. 5, Fathers of the Third Century
Edited by Alexander Roberts and James Donaldson
Book ID: 407 Page: 123
Section: 2D3A
PJ Note: VIII.xii. But there are others who themselves are even more heretical in nature (than the foregoing), and are Phrygians by birth. These have been rendered victims of error from being previously captivated by (two) wretched women, called a certain Priscilla and Maximilla, whom they supposed (to be) prophetesses. And they assert that into these the Paraclete Spirit had departed; and antecedently to them, they in like manner consider Montanus as a prophet. And being in possession of an infinite number of their books, (the Phrygians) are overrun with delusion; and they do not judge whatever statements are made by them, according to (the criterion of) reason; nor do they give heed unto those who are competent to decide; but they are heedlessly swept onwards, by the reliance which they place on these (impostors). And they allege that they have learned something more through these, than from law, and prophets, and the Gospels. But they magnify these wretched women above the Apostles and every gift of Grace, so that some of them presume to assert that there is in them a something superior to Christ. These acknowledge God to be the Father of the universe, and Creator of all things, similarly with the Church, and (receive) as many things as the Gospel testifies concerning Christ. They introduce, however, the novelties of fasts, feasts, and meals of parched food, and repasts of radishes, alleging that they have been instructed by women. And some of these assent to the heresy of the Noetians, and affirm that the Father himself is the Son, and that this (one) came under generation, and suffering, and death. Concerning these I shall again offer an explanation, after a more minute manner; for the heresy of these has been an occasion of evils to many. We therefore are of opinion, that the statements made concerning these (heretics) are sufficient, when we shall have briefly proved to all that the majority of their books are silly, and their attempts (at reasoning) weak, and worthy of no consideration. But it is not necessary for those who possess a sound mind to pay attention (either to their volumes or their arguments).*John’s note: Next to nothing is known of him, and only Book 1 was known until the 1800’s, when the rest of “The Refutation of All Heresies” was found (if it is original at all).*
*John’s note: Myths and legends arose in time about him, since nothing was actually known about him, including when and where he was born.*
From Hippolytus, The Refutation of All Heresies, ANF, Vol. 5, Book 8
Quote ID: 8535
Time Periods: 2
Influence of Greek Ideas and Usages upon the Christian Church, The
Edwin Hatch
Book ID: 341 Page: 339
Section: 2D3A
It was against this whole tendency that Montanism was a rebellion—not only against the officialism of Christianity, but also against its worldliness.{1}
Quote ID: 7899
Time Periods: 2
Jerome, NPNF2 Vol. 3, Theodoret, Jerome, Gennadius,
Book ID: 672 Page: 373
Section: 2D3A
“I myself have seen a certain Paul an old man of Concordia, a town of Italy, who, while he himself was a very young man had been secretary to the blessed Cyprian who was already advanced in age. He said that he himself had seen how Cyprian was accustomed never to pass a day without reading Tertullian, and that he frequently said to him, “Give me the master,” meaning by this, Tertullian.”
PJ footnote: Jerome, Lives of Illustrious Men, LIII.
Quote ID: 9632
Time Periods: 23
Jerome, NPNF2 Vol. 6, Jerome: The Principal Works of St. Jerome
Edited by Philip Schaff
Book ID: 673 Page: 275
Section: 2D3A
Montanus, that mouthpiece of an unclean spirit, used two rich and high born ladies Prisca and Maximilla first to bribe and then to pervert many churches.{9} Leaving ancient history, I will pass to times nearer to our own.
Quote ID: 9652
Time Periods: 27
Jerome, NPNF2 Vol. 6, Jerome: The Principal Works of St. Jerome
Edited by Philip Schaff
Book ID: 673 Page: 420
Section: 2D3A
Just as other heretics maintain that the Paraclete came into Montanus.
Quote ID: 9642
Time Periods: 45
Jerome: Lives of Illustrious Men
Jerome and Gennadius/Translated by Ernest C. Richardson
Book ID: 331 Page: 30
Section: 2D3A
He said that he himself had seen how Cyprian was accustomed never to pass a day without reading Tertullian, and that he frequently said to him, “Give me the master,” meaning by this, Tertullian. He was presbyter of the church until middle life, afterwards driven by the envy and abuse of the clergy of the Roman church, he lapsed to the doctrine of Montanus, and mentions the new prophecy in many of his books.
Quote ID: 7805
Time Periods: 23
Justin Martyr, ANF Vol. 1, The Apostolic Fathers
Edited by Alexander Roberts and James Donaldson
Book ID: 674 Page: 167
Section: 2D3A
…we who valued above all things the acquisition of wealth and possessions, now bring what we have into a common stock, and communicate to every one in need….
PJ footnote: Justin Martyr, The First Apology of Justin, XIII.
Quote ID: 9660
Time Periods: 2
Justin Martyr, ANF Vol. 1, The Apostolic Fathers
Edited by Alexander Roberts and James Donaldson
Book ID: 674 Page: 175
Section: 2D3A
But when you hear the utterances of the prophets spoken as it were personally, you must not suppose that they are spoken by the inspired themselves, but by the Divine Word who moves them.
PJ footnote: Justin Martyr, The First Apology of Justin, XXXVI.
Quote ID: 9662
Time Periods: 2
Justin Martyr, ANF Vol. 1, The Apostolic Fathers
Edited by Alexander Roberts and James Donaldson
Book ID: 674 Page: 178
Section: 2D3A
And if you also read these words in a hostile spirit, ye can do no more, as I said before, than kill us; which indeed does no harm to us, but to you and all who unjustly hate us, and do not repent, brings eternal punishment by fire,
PJ footnote: Justin Martyr, The First Apology of Justin, XLV.
Quote ID: 9663
Time Periods: 2
Leo III, Byzantine Emperor
Walter Emil Kaegi
Book ID: 624 Page: ?
Section: 2D3A
In 722, Pope Leo III made a decree that all “Montanists” and Jews were to be forcibly baptized into the Roman Church.
Quote ID: 9382
Time Periods: 27
Lollards of the Chiltern Hills: Glimpses of English Dissent in the Middle Ages, The
W. H. Summers
Book ID: 248 Page: 51
Section: 2D3A,3A2A
The term ["laborer"] was often very vaguely used; and one remembers how, within the nineteenth century, that fine old relic of medievalism, Bishop Philpotts of Exeter, cited a newspaper editor before him as a “labourer.” Whatever his position, Morden had been abjured by Bishop Smith, who found that “he had used his Paternoster and Creed so much in English, that he had forgotten many words thereof in Latin.” The Bishop bade him for the future to say them in Latin only, and enjoined on him a pilgrimage twice a year to Lincoln.page of new book
Pastor John’s note: Good grief
Quote ID: 6238
Time Periods: 7
Lost Christianities: The Battles for Scripture and the Faiths We Never Knew
Bart D. Ehrman
Book ID: 420 Page: 254
Section: 2D3A
…as the idea that direct revelation from God could take precedence over the written Scriptures led to the condemnation of the Montanist movement.
Quote ID: 8612
Time Periods: 23
Macarius Magnes, The Apocriticus
Edited by Roger Pearse
Book ID: 640 Page: ?
Section: 2D3A
“And another is Montanus in Phrygia, who, bearing this name, underwent in the name of the Lord an ascetic and unnatural course of life, revealing himself as the abode of a baneful demon, and feeding on his error through all the land of Mysia as far as that of Asia. And so great was the power of the hidden demon which lurked within him, that he very nearly tainted the whole world with the poison of his error.”Pj footnote reference: Macarius Magnes, The Apocriticus, 4.15
Quote ID: 9398
Time Periods: 2
Making of Late Antiquity, The
Peter Brown
Book ID: 251 Page: 67/68
Section: 2D3A
For all his drastic claims, the Paraclete of the Montanists emerged as a fussy and old-fashioned martinet, ministering to the anxieties of small, puritanical groups who felt that they lived on the edge of a very slippery slope.COPIED
Quote ID: 6323
Time Periods: 2
Martyrdom and Persecution in the Early Church
A Study of a Conflict from the Maccabees to Donatus By W.H.C. Frend
Book ID: 316 Page: 16/17
Section: 2D3A,2D3B,3B
The question has often been debated as to the extent of Montanist influence among the Lyons Christians at this time.{131} The problem would, however, appear to be more one of parallel religious developments rather than allegiances.As we have seen, there were many links between the Churches in Gaul and those of Asia Minor in those years. Movements among the one might be expected to find an echo in the other. If the letter had been written from Asia Minor at this time, the emphatic references to prophecy as among the Apostolic charismata,{132} and the description of Vettius Epagathus, ‘the Paraclete of the Christians’, ‘boiling over with the Spirit’, and ‘having the Spirit in fuller measure than Zacharias’, would certainly suggest Montanist influence.{133} So too would the claim made on behalf of the confessors to be able to forgive sins,{134} and to ‘bind and loose’,{135} as these were claims explicitly made by the Montanist prophets.{136}
Quote ID: 7656
Time Periods: 2
Matter of this Sacrament, Question 74, The
Thomas Aquinas
Book ID: 622 Page: ?
Section: 2D3A
I answer that, Some have fallen into various errors about the matter of this sacrament. Some, known as the Artotyrytae, as Augustine says (De Haeres. xxviii), “offer bread and cheese in this sacrament, contending that oblations were celebrated by men in the first ages, from fruits of the earth and sheep.” Others, called Cataphrygae and Pepuziani, “are reputed to have made their Eucharistic bread with infants” blood drawn from tiny punctures over the entire body, and mixed with flour.” Others, styled Aquarii, under guise of sobriety, offer nothing but water in this sacrament.Excerpt from:
The Summa Theologiæ of St. Thomas Aquinas
Second and Revised Edition, 1920
Literally translated by Fathers of the English Dominican Province
Online Edition Copyright © 2017 by Kevin Knight
Quote ID: 9374
Time Periods: 27
Minucius Felix, Octavius, LCL 250: Tertullian, Minucius Felix
Minucius Felix
Book ID: 332 Page: 335/411/423/425/429/431
Section: 2D3A,4B
Pastor John’s note: Minicius Felix incidentally reveals elements of the true faith which still existed among believers of his time (early third century A.D.)
Caecilius’s accusation: Believers are the illiterate dregs of society. OctaviusVIII.4
Octavius’ answer: We do not take our place among the dregs of the people, because we reject your official titles and purples; we are not sectarian in spirit, if in quiet gatherings … we are of one mind for good. OctaviusXXXI.6
Octavius’ answer: If we Christians are compared with you, although in some cases our training falls short of yours, yet we shall be found on a much higher level than you. OctaviusXXXV.5
Octavius’ answer: Who can he be poor who is free from wants, who does not covet what is another’s, who is rich toward God? The poor man is he who, having much, craves for more. OctaviusXXXVI.4
Octavius’ answer: You may be deceived by the fact that men who know not God abound in riches, are loaded with honours and set in seats of authority. Unhappy they, who are raised to high place, that they may fall the lower! … We are all born equal; virtue alone gives distinction. OctaviusXXXVII.7
Quote ID: 7806
Time Periods: 23
Minucius Felix, Octavius, LCL 250: Tertullian, Minucius Felix
Minucius Felix
Book ID: 332 Page: 335
Section: 2D3A
Caecilius’s accusation: Believers meet in secret to avoid scrutiny and conceal their wickedness. OctaviusVIII.4
Quote ID: 7808
Time Periods: 23
Minucius Felix, Octavius, LCL 250: Tertullian, Minucius Felix
Minucius Felix
Book ID: 332 Page: 337/413
Section: 2D3A,4B
Caecilius’s accusation: Believers have secret signs and marks. OctaviusIX.2Octavius’ answer: We do in fact readily recognize one another, but not as you suppose by some token on the body, but by the sign manual of innocence and modesty; our bond, which you resent, consists in mutual love. OctaviusXXXI.8
Quote ID: 7809
Time Periods: 23
Minucius Felix, Octavius, LCL 250: Tertullian, Minucius Felix
Minucius Felix
Book ID: 332 Page: 337/338/407
Section: 2D3A,4B
Caecilius’s accusation: Believers encase an infant in dough and then trick a new member into slicing it, thinking it is a food dish. Believers lap up the blood of infants slain in their secret meetings, and then dismember and eat the infant’s dead body. After that cannibalistic banquet, believers extinguish the lights and indulge in the most despicable lusts. Octavius, IX.5–6.Octavius’ answer: None can believe such slander except those who are capable of it. You polytheists expose newborns, abort fetuses, sacrifice babies and adults, eat and drink of the animals from the arena who just killed and ate people, and your gods have eaten their own children. Octavius, XXIX.2–6.
Quote ID: 7813
Time Periods: 23
Minucius Felix, Octavius, LCL 250: Tertullian, Minucius Felix
Minucius Felix
Book ID: 332 Page: 339/409/411/413
Section: 2D3A,4B
Caecilius’s accusation: The religion of believers is a religion of lust, and in calling each other brother or sister, they make their immorality incestuous. Octavius IX.2, 6–7Octavius’ answer: That is false, but it is true about you polytheists. Persian law allows unions with mothers. Egyptian law and Athenian law allow marriage to sisters. The gods that you polytheists worship have committed incest with mothers, daughters, and sisters. Octavius XXXI.3
Octavius’ answer: We call ourselves ‘brethren’ to which you object, as members of one family in God, as partners in one faith, as joint heirs in hope. Octavius XXXI.8
Quote ID: 7810
Time Periods: 23
Montanism: Gender, Authority and the New Prophecy
Christine Trevett
Book ID: 475 Page: 99
Section: 2D3A
There is nothing in the early sources to suggest that the name ‘Jerusalem’ was adopted because its descent was expected at the site(s) of Pepuza and Tymion. Eusebius, suspicious of chiliasts, offered no such comment.
Quote ID: 9053
Time Periods: 2
Montanist Inscriptions and Testimonia
William Tabbernee
Book ID: 399 Page: 1
Section: 2D3A
Michael’s account illustrates dramatically the major issue confronting historians of Montanism, namely the paucity of sources. Much of the source material required for an accurate reconstruction of the history of the movement has been destroyed by ecclesiastical authorities who, in the post-Constantinian era, often carried out their anti-Montanist activities in concert with Christian emperors who feared that heresy and schism would cause the withdrawal of God’s favor.{1}[Footnote 1] The first of these emperors was Constantine himself, see Eus., v.C. 2.64-72, esp. 65; Socr., h.e. 1.9 and pp. 343-345 below.
Quote ID: 8490
Time Periods: 24567
Montanus in the Chronicle of Zuqnin
Roger Pearse
Book ID: 483 Page: 1
Section: 2D3A
Amir Harrak’s translation of parts 3 and 4 of the Chronicle of Zuqnin, which, for the section about Montanus, is based on John of Ephesus. Here it is (Harrak, 1999, p.124):“549-550 The year eight hundred and sixty-one: Concerning the flood of the river that runs in Tarsus of Cilicia.
….
“At this time, the corrupting heresy of Montanus—the story of which and how it emerged was written down for us at the time of the Apostles—was ridiculed and uprooted.[3] For through the exhortation of holy John, Bishop of Asia, the bones of Montanus—he who said about himself that he was the Spirit Paraclete—Cratius (his associate),[1] Maximilla and Priscilla, his prophetesses, were found. He set them on fire and razed their temples to their foundations.”
Quote ID: 9086
Time Periods: 2
Montanus in the Chronicle of Zuqnin
Roger Pearse
Book ID: 483 Page: 1
Section: 2D3A
More from this web site:3 Michael, IV 323-325 [II 269-272] provides more information. 1 Addition based on Michael
“Michael” is, of course, Michael the Syrian, and the numbers are the volumes of the Chabot edition; Syriac in vol. IV, French in vol. II. Here is the French, from book 9, chapter 33:
“In the country of Phrygia, there is a place called Pepouza where the Montanists had a bishop and clergy; they called it Jerusalem, and there they killed the Christians. John of Asia went and burned their synagogue, on the orders of the emperor. In this house there was found a large marble shrine, sealed with lead and bound with iron fittings. On the top was written: “Montanus and his wives”. We opened it and found Montanus and his two wives, Maximilla and Priscilla, who had gold leaf on their mouths. They were ashamed of seeing the fetid bones which they called “the Spirit”. They were told: “Aren’t you ashamed to be seduced by this shameless wretch, and to call him ‘the Spirit’? ‘A spirit hath not flesh or bones. ‘” And the bones were burned.—The Montanists were heard wailing and crying. “Now,” they said, “the world is ruined and will perish.” — Their disgraceful books were also found and burned. The house was cleansed and became a church.
“Previously, in the time of Justinianus I (Justin), some people had informed the emperor that Montanus, at the time of his death had ordered those who buried him to place him fifty cubits underground “because,” he said, “fire shall discover me, and devour the whole face of the earth”. His supporters, by the pernicious work of demons, falsely spread the rumor that his bones could cast out demons; they had bribed a few individuals who, for the bread in their mouths, claimed that he had healed them. — The Emperor wrote to the bishop of the place. He dug deep and removed the bones of Montanus and those of his wives, and burned them. Then the Montanists came to find the bishop during the night, and gave him five hundred darics of gold; they took away the bones and ensured that the bodies recovered belonged to others; and in the morning, without anyone realising it, the bishop burned the bones as those of Montanus and Crites (?) his associate. But then the archdeacon denounced the bishop who was sent into exile.
“Apollos, the companion of Paul, wrote that Montanus was the son of Simon Magus; that when his father died, by the prayer of Peter, he fled from Rome and began to disturb the world. Then Apollos (led) by the Spirit, went to where he was and saw him sitting and preaching the error. He began to curse him, saying: “O enemy of God, may the Lord punish you!” Montanus began to rebuke him, and said: “What is there between you and me, Apollos? If you prophesy: I do too; if you are an apostle: so am I; if you are a physician: so am I.” Apollos said: “Let your mouth be closed, in the name of the Lord!” He immediately fell silent and could never speak again. The people believed in our Lord and were baptized. They overthrew the seat of Montanus who fled and escaped.— This story is finished, like the other.”
Quote ID: 9169
Time Periods: 234
Montanus, Ancient & Medieval References to Montanism
Edited By Daniel R. Jennings, M.A.
Book ID: 628 Page: ?
Section: 2D3A
Vincent of Lerins (5th Century), Commonitory, 18:46“The case is the same with Tertullian. For as Origen holds by far the first place among the Greeks, so does Tertullian among the Latins. For who more learned than he, who more versed in knowledge whether divine or human? . . . This only I will add, that . . . by asserting the novel furies of Montanus which arose in the Church, and those mad dreams of new doctrine dreamed by mad women, to be true prophecies, he deservedly made both himself and his writings obnoxious.”
Quote ID: 9386
Time Periods: 247
Montanus, Ancient & Medieval References to Montanism
Edited By Daniel R. Jennings, M.A.
Book ID: 628 Page: ?
Section: 2D3A
John of Damascus (c. 676– c. 749), The Fount of Knowledge, “On Heresies”, 48.“The Cataphrygians, or Montanists, or Ascodrugites accept both the Old and New Testaments, but they also introduce other prophets of whom they make much ado about-a certain Montanus and a Priscilla.”
Quote ID: 9387
Time Periods: 247
Montanus, Ancient & Medieval References to Montanism
Edited By Daniel R. Jennings, M.A.
Book ID: 628 Page: ?
Section: 2D3A
Didymus the Blind, On the Trinity, 2:15.
“During their passage to Orthodoxy [from heresy], had they been peradventure already baptized, we baptize—we do not say “we rebaptized” since they have not had any true baptism—on one hand the Eunomians [are rebaptized], because they are reported as baptizing with only one immersion and only in the name of the Lord’s death. On the other side, the Phrygians [are rebaptized], because they do not baptize in the name of the three holy hypostases and [do this because they] believe that the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit are the same.”
Didymus the Blind, On the Trinity, 3:18.
“If this is so, there is no doubt (the Lord) spoke these words "I am" and "He who sent me" as having taken "the appearance of a slave,” because the Jews did not believe the Economy [= the Incarnation] and because he came into this world by the concurrent will of God the Father: and not only for this, but also to shame the Montanists, who are uneducated, thick in mind, who believe that the Father, Son and the Paraclete is the same (person), and with them Manes, etc..”
Didymus the Blind, On the Trinity, 3:41.
“The error of the Montanists consists in this:
I. First they prophesy that there is only one person of the three divine hypostases. Montanus, in effect, said, He said: "I am the Father, the Son and the Paraclete.” . . .
II. Secondly, when the Apostle wrote in First Corinthians: “The prophecies vanish, the languages cease, knowledge will be abolished, because we know imperfectly, and we prophesy imperfectly, but when perfection comes, then what is imperfect will be abolished,” they claim that Montanus is come and that he was the perfection of the Paraclete, that is, that of the Holy Spirit. . . .
"But,” they argue, “Christ said: “. . . “I will not leave you as orphans: I will come to you." He apparently came when Montanus (himself came) - No, thank you God [that this was not the case]! This is not the case because, despite their absurd reasoning, people were found before Montanus who possessed the Christ, and also the Apostles, who received God’s function, in which Christ himself spoke, in whom the Spirit of God dwelt; who, by the laying on of hands also communicated the Spirit to others according to his will; who taught in all honesty, were believed by all and were not disbelieved as Montanus is. . ..
III. Thirdly . . . Priscilla and Maximilla… have written for Montanus. They tell us: ‘You, you do not believe there are prophets since the first epiphany. But the Savior said: "Behold, I send you prophets, wise men, scribes, and you will kill some of them, and crucify them and some of them you will flog in your synagogues.’” But he speaks, contrary to the belief of Montanus, of the Apostles, who predicted many things about the future, the last times, and the kingdom of heaven. Among them some have been killed, as Stephen and James, or crucified as Peter, or flogged as Paul. Perhaps also he uses the terms “martyrs” and “wise men” to refer to bishop-martyrs. Concerning prophetesses, the Scripture knows the four daughters of Philip, Deborah, Mariam, the sister of Aaron and Mary, the mother of God, who said, according to the Gospel: "From now on all women and all races will call me blessed." But (the Scriptures) do not know books written under the name of any women. The Apostle has forbidden this when he wrote in first Timothy: "I do not permit women to teach" and again in First Corinthians: "Any woman who prays and prophesies without having her head covered dishonors her head." In other words, it is not permissible for women to shamelessly write and compose books and… to teach,which in so doing, she dishonors her head, that is to say, man. For "the head of woman is man, and the head of man is Christ." The reason why Paul silenced women is obvious. It is because the original teaching of the [first] woman caused much harm to the whole human race: "For it is not the man who was seduced,” says the apostle, “it was the woman.”
The conclusion is this: Montanus has neither known or possessed the Holy Spirit because he has had these [contrary] thoughts [regarding the role of women]. And it has been over a hundred years since the ascension of the Savior and the coming of the Holy Spirit, that this man, formerly a priest for an idol, introduced this blind heresy. (On The Trinity, 3:41)
Quote ID: 9394
Time Periods: 24
Montanus, Praedestinatus, 26
Edited By Daniel R. Jennings, M.A.
Book ID: 627 Page: ?
Section: 2D3A
Praedestinatus, 26:“The Cataphrygians started as the 26th heresy. They take their name from the province that they came from, not from their teachings. The authors were Montanus, Prisca, and Maximilla.
They claim that the arrival of Holy Spirit which the Lord promised [to send] is in themselves rather than the apostles. They deem remarriage [after widowhood] to be fornication and say that the reason which the Apostle Paul allowed them was because he only knew in part and only prophesied in part, for that which is perfect had not yet come. This perfection they insanely say has come in Montanus and in his prophetesses whom we have spoken of earlier.”
Praedestinatus, 26:
“Holy Soter, Pope of the City [of Rome], wrote a book against them, as did the leader, Apollonius of Ephesus. Tertullian of Carthage, a priest, wrote against these two. In every way he wrote well, wrote in a first-rate way and his writing skill was incomparable to anyone else’s. The only negative thing about him was that he defended Montanus, disobeying the command of Pope Soter of Rome as mentioned earlier, asserting that the talk of babies’ blood was false, asserting one God in trinity, penitence for the lapsed, one Easter with the same ceremonies as ours.
“This is the only way we differ,” he said, “in that we do not admit second marriages [after widowhood], and that we do not reject the prophecy of Montanus on the future judgment.”
Praedestinatus, 86:
“In spite of their having been reunited with the holy church, the Catholic church censures Tertullian who said that soul is begotten from soul, and defended Montanus, Prisca and Maximilla, against the catholic faith, and against Apollonius the eastern bishop, and against Pope Soter of Rome, as we mentioned earlier when we discussed the Cataphrygian heretics. It was these from whom he later split (this information is included for fear that the ordinary Montanist should see the name of Tertullian excluded) and he got rid of every vanity that the Phrygians had and set up his own congregations of Tertullianists. However, he changed nothing in matters of faith.
“He condemned second marriages [after widowhood], as we earlier mentioned, asserted that the soul is generated by the parents, and gave us catholics the name ‘psychics’. So, in whatever of Tertullian’s writings where you read the phrase ‘Against the Psychics,’ you should understand him to be writing ‘Against the Catholics’.”
Quote ID: 9385
Time Periods: 2
Montanus, Prophets and Gravestones
William Tabbernee
Book ID: 453 Page: 2
Section: 2D3A
“Care must be taken not to divide Tertullian artificially into a pre-Montanist and a Montanist. Much of what Tertullian believed in and practiced before 208 c.e. he believed and practiced after that year.”[used]*PJ footnote - William Tabbernee, Prophets and Gravestones, 3.*
Quote ID: 9744
Time Periods: 2
Montanus, Prophets and Gravestones
William Tabbernee
Book ID: 453 Page: 3
Section: 2D3A
“In this book, the use of words such as catholic and orthodox should not be taken as references to the institution of the Roman Catholic and Orthodox Churches that became more institutionally defined and developed after 325.” [used]*PJ footnote - William Tabbernee, Prophets and Gravestones, 3.*
Quote ID: 9745
Time Periods: 2
Montanus, Prophets and Gravestones
William Tabbernee
Book ID: 453 Page: 11
Section: 2D3A
Ardabau, Mysia, ca. 165 C.E.Montanus has a vision
Never in their whole lives have the villagers seen anything like this. The man writhing in front of them has changed, within minutes, from the rational, well-respected, leading citizen of their village into a raving madman. Before their very eyes he has suddenly fallen into a trance, throwing his arms and legs around wildly. His body is twisting in contortions. Drool dribbles from his mouth.
Then, as quickly as the frenzied activity commenced, it stops. The man once again stands upright and almost rigid. Strange sounds are coming from his mouth. He begins to babble incomprehensibly. Simultaneously horrified and fascinated, they watch, not daring to move. What are they to make of all this?
Suddenly the man, whose name is Montanus, stops babbling. Still in a trance, he looks intently at the small crowd of people and says audibly and distinctly:
Behold! A human being is like a lyre and I hover like a plectrum. The human being sleeps but I remain awake. Behold! The Lord is the one who stirs up the hearts of human beings and the one who strikes the heart in human beings.{1}
Quote ID: 8949
Time Periods: 2
Montanus, Prophets and Gravestones
William Tabbernee
Book ID: 453 Page: xiii
Section: 2D3A
“. . . stories of the Montanists who had lived and practiced their unique form of Christianity.” [used]*PJ footnote - William Tabbernee, Prophets and Gravestones, xiii.*
Quote ID: 9743
Time Periods: 2
Montanus, Prophets and Gravestones
William Tabbernee
Book ID: 453 Page: xxiii
Section: 2D3A
The book you hold in your hands is intended to be a history, not a story. More precisely, this work, as its subtitle states, is an imaginary history, not a fictional narrative, even though it is structured as a series of stories.
Quote ID: 8948
Time Periods: 2
Montanus: Early Montanism and Voluntary Martyrdom
William Tabbernee
Book ID: 618 Page: 36
Section: 2D3A
Montanist OraclesDid Montanists share their opponents’ low opinion of voluntary martyrdom or is it true that catholic exceptions or fanaticism was the norm for them? Montanists certainly had great respect for martyrs and used the existence of their own martyrs as proof that Montanist teachings were true and approved of by God (Eus., Hist eccl, 5.16.20; 5.18.5). But did Montanus exhort his followers to rush recklessly to their deaths? Two Montanist oracles are often quoted to indicate that he did.
The first of these oracles reveals that Montanus did encourage Montanists to desire martyrdom: Do not desire to die in bed, nor in delivery of children, nor in weakening fevers, but in martyrdom, so that he who suffered for you may be glorified.
Tertullian, who quotes this oracle in full in his De Fuga in Persecutione (9.4), elsewhere summarized the content of the oracle as part of his explanation of the ultimate destiny of the soul: ‘If you die on behalf of God as the Paraclete advises, it should not be in weakening fevers, nor in bed, but in martyrdom. [That is] if you take up your cross and follow the Lord as he commanded. Your blood holds all the keys to paradise’ (Anima, 55.5 [my italics]). Unlike some of the orthodox at Carthage who argued that all Christians, upon death, immediately ascended to paradise and that this distinguished them from pagans who went to hades, Tertullian argued that hades was the abode of the dead, including the abode of the majority of the Christian dead, who there awaited the return of Christ when the world would pass away and the gates of paradise be opened for them. The privilege of immediate entry to paradise was limited to those first class Christians who died as martyrs (ibid, 55.1-3). As part of his proof, Tertullian cited a vision reported in the Passion of Perpetua (see below) in which ‘the souls of martyrs’ were seen in paradise. He concluded by appealing to Montanus’ oracle which he took as indicating that the Paraclete, through Montanus, counselled ‘spiritual Christians’ to die as martyrs (ibid, 55.4-5).
The accuracy of Tertullian’s interpretation of this oracle is by no means certain. The oracle itself is no stronger than statements made by catholics on the desirability of martyrdom. In these cases, it is usually abundantly clear that the writers did not intend their readers to volunteer. Clement of Alexandria and Cyprian are good examples, because we have already noted their strong denunciation of voluntary martyrdom.
=============
Quote ID: 9364
Time Periods: 234
Montanus: Early Montanism and Voluntary Martyrdom
William Tabbernee
Book ID: 618 Page: 37/38
Section: 2D3A
Because we possess only one other oracle from Montanus on martyrdom, it is difficult to determine whether he also taught a distinction between desiring and provoking martyrdom, but it is at least consistent with the content of the second oracle to suggest that he did. This oracle encourages Montanists to accept martyrdom patiently when it comes. They are not to be dismayed but should rejoice in the benefits martyrdom bestows: You are publicly exposed; that is good for you, for you are not publicly exposed before men, but before the Lord. Don’t be perplexed; it is justice which brings you into the midst. What perplexes you about winning honour? Your authoritative power [potestas] arises whilst men gaze at you. (in Tert, Fug., 9.4)The one event of martyrdom is viewed here from a double perspective: whilst the martyr is being put to shame at a human level, a supranatural event of a far greater significance is taking place. The martyr is declaring his or her faith before Christ and, consequently, is being invested with spiritual potestas. The earthly prisoner is being elevated to the position of heavenly judge. Montanus presumably subscribed to the view, based on Rev 20:4-6, that martyrs would ultimately judge those who
Quote ID: 9365
Time Periods: 234
Montanus: Early Montanism and Voluntary Martyrdom
William Tabbernee
Book ID: 618 Page: 38
Section: 2D3A
persecuted them. Montanus’ theology of persecution, revealed by this oracle, is one of supreme confidence in the providence of God. Even when Christians are persecuted, God, not the earthly persecutor, is in control. Persecution is allowed by God as a means of testing the faith of Christians and it is for their own benefit through persecution Christians gain eternal honours and powers otherwise unavailable to them. Hence they should rejoice, rather than be dismayed, whenever persecution breaks out.Tertullian, as with the previous oracle, understood this one as virtually encouraging voluntary martyrdom. He commented, ‘It incites all almost to go and offer themselves in martyrdom’ (ibid.) and used it to bolster his argument that one ought not to flee from persecution. But, once again, Tertullian’s interpretation must be questioned. The oracle itself goes no further than encouraging those who had already been arrested (and by implication preparing others who one day may well be arrested) to endure to the end, by emphasizing the supranatural dimension of martyrdom.
Second-Century Montanist Martyrs
By the end of the second century a number of Montanists had been martyred but little information about them has survived. The Anonymous anti-Montanist quoted by Eusebius seems only to have had personal knowledge of those who, along with orthodox Christians, were executed at Apamea. Orthodox martyrs, such as Gaius and Alexander from Eumeneia who were put to death at the same time, refused to associate with them ‘because they did not wish to give assent to the spirit of Montanus and the women’ - not because of any reckless action on the part of the Montanists! (Hist eccl, 5.16.22).
The Anonymous’ slightly younger contemporary, Apollonius, records only ‘pseudo- Martyrs’ among the Montanists. In his opinion they are pseudo-martyrs, not because of their dubious Christianity, but because of their dubious martyrdom. In his discussion of two of them: Themiso and Alexander, he makes them as ridiculous and contemptible as possible and is prepared to level all sorts of charges. He does not, however, charge them with voluntary surrender. In fact, his charge that they obtained ‘release by bribery’ suggests the opposite (ibid, 5.18). Unfortunately Themiso and Alexander are the only second century ‘martyrs’ whose names we know and who are clearly identified as Montanists, hence it is difficult to determine how representative they were. The extant acta martyrum record the names of four others who have been claimed as Montanists by some scholars. All but one of these appear definitely to have been voluntary martyrs, but the adherence to Montanism of each is suspect.
Vettius Epagathus, and Alexander, a Phrygian doctor (not to be confused with the Alexander mentioned by Apollonius), were among those who died during a pogrom at Lyons in 177 A.D. After many of the Christians had been brought before the governor, Vettius Epagathus came forward to intercede on their behalf. The author of the contemporary letter describing the events explained that Epagathus could not endure the unreasonable judgement that was passed against us and he became highly indignant; indeed, he requested a hearing in order to speak in defence of the brethren, to the effect that they were innocent of atheism or impiety... The prefect dismissed the just request that he had put forward and merely asked him if he too were a Christian. When he admitted he was in the clearest tones, he also was accepted into the ranks of the martyrs (Mart Lyons, 1.9-10).
Quote ID: 9366
Time Periods: 234
Montanus: Early Montanism and Voluntary Martyrdom
William Tabbernee
Book ID: 618 Page: 39
Section: 2D3A
It is quite clear that Vettius Epagathus had not been arrested along with the others. By his action, in speaking up, he provoked his own arrest and subsequent execution. This makes Epagathus a voluntary martyr, but does it make him a Montanist. A number of scholars, commencing with the a priori assumption that Montanists rushed recklessly into martyrdom, have been willing to designate voluntary martyrs as Montanists whenever some supporting evidence hinting at Montanism can be found. In the present instance the supporting evidence is claimed to be contained in the description of Epagathus after his courageous act:Called the Christian’s paraclete (paraklêtos), he possessed the paraclete with him, the as he did to lay down his life in defence of his fellow Christians (Mart Lyons, 1.10).
==============
[Examples given of ppl said to be “Montanists” because they were willing martyrs.]
==============
Quote ID: 9367
Time Periods: 234
Montanus: Early Montanism and Voluntary Martyrdom
William Tabbernee
Book ID: 618 Page: 41
Section: 2D3A
In addition to the four named martyrs discussed above, an anonymous group of volunteers from the second century has occasionally been designated Montanist. Their story has been preserved by Tertullian who relates that ‘all the Christians of a particular city in Asia’, in one united band, presented themselves before Arrius Antoninus {Ad. Scap., 5.1), the proconsul of Asia c. 184/5 A.D. {PIR 2 1 (A) 1088). After ordering a few to be executed, the governor dismissed the rest exclaiming, ‘You wretches if you wish to die, you have precipices and ropes’. W. H. C. Frend refers to this event in the context of his discussion on the Montanist attitude to martyrdom and comments, ‘The spirit of Christian fanaticism was not easily quenched and here was the Montanist equivalent of the Donatisi Circumcellions two centuries later’. It is impossible to see what evidence Frend has for this statement, other than the a priori assumption that Montanists were voluntary martyrs, and the fact that it was Tertullian who preserved the story. Neither is sufficient to label these Asian volunteers as Montanists.==============
Quote ID: 9368
Time Periods: 234
Montanus: Early Montanism and Voluntary Martyrdom
William Tabbernee
Book ID: 618 Page: 43
Section: 2D3A
The Acts of Achatius, on the whole of doubtful quality, contains a passage which, in the light of the approach taken to induce Pionius to sacrifice, may well be based on reliable information. In this passage Achatius, an orthodox bishop, is told by an official named Marcianus: Look at the Cataphrygians. Their religion is ancient and yet they have abandoned their past and come to my sacrifices (4.8).Marcianus used the apostasy of some contemporary Montanists, whom he considered (erroneously) to belong to a religion as old as catholic Christianity, to counter Achatius’ argument that to sacrifice would be to betray the faith of the Fathers. These ‘Cataphrygians’ could hardly be thought of as voluntary martyrs. If anything, they were voluntary apostates!
Conclusion
Whether post-Decian Montanism may legitimately be described as a movement of reckless zealots in contrast to their more reserved and sensible catholic contemporaries remains to be seen. It is clear, however, that pre-Decian Montanism cannot be characterised in this way. Such evidence as exists for early Montanism suggests that, apart from Tertullian, the attitudes of Montanists to martyrdom did not differ substantially from those of their orthodox opponents. Notwithstanding Tertullian’s interpretation of them, Montanus’ oracles on the subject may never have been intended to convey anything other than that Christians should desire martyrdom and accept it with patience and courage when God, through a vision or the circumstance of unprovoked arrest, revealed that martyrdom was his will for a particular individual. There is no reason to suspect that Montanists disagreed with the generally accepted view that the danger of apostasy, the fact of apostasy and, possibly, military service provided the context for the only permissible exceptions to the rule against voluntary martyrdom. Whilst, occasionally, the limits of these ‘exceptions’ were transgressed by zealous individuals, it is significant that there is no evidence of even one genuinely attested early Montanist having done so.
Quote ID: 9369
Time Periods: 234
Orthodoxy and Heresy in Earliest Christianity
Walter Bauer
Book ID: 458 Page: 135
Section: 2D3A
Indeed, one can scarcely handle the maxim semper aliquid haeret [“something always sticks” (when mud is being thrown about)] more cynically than does this ecclesiastical protagonist, who really does not himself believe the truth of the rumors that he repeats. As we shall see, Apollonius, his comrade at arms, is in no way inferior to him in the defamation of opponents.*John’s note: “ecclesiastical protagonist” The Anonymous*
Quote ID: 8979
Time Periods: 1247
Orthodoxy and Heresy in Earliest Christianity
Walter Bauer
Book ID: 458 Page: 137
Section: 2D3A
Thus, like the matter of the dissolution of marriages mentioned above, something is condemned with language that can scarcely be surpassed and is exhibited in an ugly caricature, although when it takes place in the context of orthodoxy, it is worthy of the highest praise (see above, 121-124). For me, the silence of the older anonymous author indicates that the management of money by Montanus and his adherents cannot have taken the unedifying forms scorned by Apollonius.
Quote ID: 8980
Time Periods: 1247
Orthodoxy and Heresy in Earliest Christianity
Walter Bauer
Book ID: 458 Page: 141/142
Section: 2D3A
Taken as a whole, both of the books with which we have become acquainted here are hardly anything more than abusive satires. That of Apollonius merits the title to a higher degree than that of “the anonymous.” One must reject as biased all of the judgments found in these works, even if they are delivered in the costume of historical narrative, and let the facts speak for themselves. When such a procedure is followed, what is left over? Primarily this (in many cases as an unintentional confession): the prophetic movement appears to have caught on strongly, especially in Phrygia, men and funds flowed into it, and the rigorousness of the view of life prevailing among the Montanists caused many of them to become martyrs, whose blood insured an even more magnetic power. The magnitude of the ecclesiastical defense corresponds to, and attests to, the amount of success realized by the movement. This defense produces discussions in which, to say the least, the church does not always emerge victorious.
Quote ID: 8981
Time Periods: 247
Orthodoxy and Heresy in Earliest Christianity
Walter Bauer
Book ID: 458 Page: 144
Section: 2D3A,2D3B
…other forms of charismatic gifts have by no means disappeared from Christianity (EH 5.3.4).
Quote ID: 8982
Time Periods: 234
Orthodoxy and Heresy in Earliest Christianity
Walter Bauer
Book ID: 458 Page: 147
Section: 2D3A
The Montanist controversy of the second century has, to a certain extent, given us a glimpse of the actual causes, the forces at work, the tactics employed and the forms used in the ideological conflict within Christendom at the time.
Quote ID: 8983
Time Periods: 1247
Orthodoxy and Heresy in Earliest Christianity
Walter Bauer
Book ID: 458 Page: 177
Section: 2D3A
“The gospel is preached in such a manner{61} by the holy prophetess Prisca [Priscilla],” says Tertullian, “that only a holy servant would be qualified to serve holiness. ‘For purity,’ she says, ‘is the unifying bond; and they [i.e. the holy] see visions, and when they incline their face downward, they then hear a distinct voice’” (Exhortation to Chastity 10).
Quote ID: 8988
Time Periods: 2
Orthodoxy and Heresy in Earliest Christianity
Walter Bauer
Book ID: 458 Page: 180
Section: 2D3A
For Montanism, prophecy is something so characteristic that Tertullian calls the movement “the new prophecy,{69}….
Quote ID: 8989
Time Periods: 2
Pagan and Christian in an Age of Anxiety
E.R. Dodds
Book ID: 167 Page: 63/64
Section: 2D3A
A Phrygian by birth, Montanus is said to have been a priest either of Apollo or of Magna Mater before his conversion to Christianity; but it does not appear that his prophecy owed much to his Phrygian origins. {2} It was probably about the year 172 {3} that a voice, not his own, began to speak in the first person through Montanus. It said: ‘I am the Lord God Almighty dwelling at this moment within a man’; and again, ‘It is no angel that is here, nor a human spokesman, but the Lord, God the Father’. And the voice further explained how this could be: ‘Look,’ it said, ‘man is like a lyre, and I play upon him like the plectrum: while the human being sleeps, I am awake. Look, it is the Lord, who takes away the hearts of men and puts in them other hearts.’ {1} Montanus was not, of course, claiming to be God.PJ Note: Is that last sentence mine?
Quote ID: 3504
Time Periods: 2
Pagan and Christian in an Age of Anxiety
E.R. Dodds
Book ID: 167 Page: 66
Section: 2D3A
The Bishops, stung by Montanus’ criticism and reluctant to admit any further Testaments, responded by excommunicating him and attempting to exorcise the evil spirits which possessed his followers. But Montanism was not easily killed either by the Bishops or by the failure to keep the appointment at Pepuza. From Phrygia it spread throughout the East, and thence to Rome, to North Africa, and even to distant Spain.COPIED
Quote ID: 3505
Time Periods: 234
Pagan and Christian in an Age of Anxiety
E.R. Dodds
Book ID: 167 Page: 67
Section: 2D3A
After the triumph of Constantine such hopes appeared anachronistic, yet Montanism lingered on in its original strongholds throughout the fourth and fifth centuries. Arcadius ordered the Montanist books to be burnt and their assemblies suppressed; but it was not until the reign of Justinian that the last Montanists locked themselves into their churches and burned themselves to death rather than fall into the hands of their fellow-Christians. {1}The eventual defeat of Montanism was inevitable. It is already foreshadowed in the sage advice whispered by the Holy Spirit to Ignatius: ‘Do nothing without the Bishop.’ {2} In vain did Tertullian protest that the Church is not a collection of Bishops; in vain did Irenaeus plead against the expulsion of prophecy. {3} From the point of view of the hierarchy the Third Person of the Trinity had outlived his primitive function. {4} He was too deeply entrenched in the New Testament to be demoted, but he ceased in practice to play any audible part in the counsels of the Church. The old tradition of the inspired prophets who spoke what came to him was replaced by the more convenient idea of a continuous divine guidance which was granted, without their noticing it, to the principal Church dignitaries. Prophecy went underground, to reappear in the chiliastic manias of the later Middle Ages {1} and in many subsequent evangelical movements: John Wesley was to recognise a kindred spirit in Montanus, whom he judged to be ‘one of the holiest men in the second century’. {2} With that epitaph we may leave him.
Quote ID: 3506
Time Periods: 234567
Pagan Rome and the Early Christians
Stephen Benko
Book ID: 169 Page: 147
Section: 2D3A,4A
So Tertullian fulminated against heretics. No doubt many of the Christians whom he castigated would be considered church members in good standing today, but Tertullian sensed that the church was seeking a peaceful coexistence with, and a place in, Greco-Roman society. For him this meant an abandonment of primitive Christian values. He began to look toward the faction in which the memory of early Christianity was most assiduously cultivated, namely Montanism. More and more in his writings Tertullian advocated and approved of Montantist principles, he extolled martyrdom as the highest and most glorious deed, he urged Christians to abstain from taking part in the secular life and instead to wait for “the fast approaching advent of our Lord,” the second coming. {22} By 207 he was openly a Montanist, repudiating military service and attacking the laxity of the church and the evolution of new practices. Tertullian was convinced that his fight was for the truth; indeed the word veritas appears time after time in his polemics against heretics and pagans, people who in his judgment did not possess the truth. But Tertullian’s veritas was also judged heresy by the church, and his stubborn refusal to adjust his faith to the demands of the times was a rather annoying anachronism.
During Tertullian’s lifetime Clement (died ca. 215) used and adopted Greek philosophy in the pursuit of theology, and when his successor, Origen (died ca. 253-4), took over the Catechetical School not even the best educated pagan could call Christian philosophy substandard.
COPIED
Quote ID: 3671
Time Periods: 23
Pagans and Christians: Religion and the Religious Life from the Second to Fourth Century A.D.
Robin Lane Fox
Book ID: 173 Page: 407
Section: 2D3A
From one of Montanus’s critics, we can perhaps deduce his original argument.{16}COPIED
Quote ID: 3871
Time Periods: 2
Pagans and Christians: Religion and the Religious Life from the Second to Fourth Century A.D.
Robin Lane Fox
Book ID: 173 Page: 409
Section: 2D3A
Its rebuff closed one option in the Spirit’s future and, in its wake, the third person of the Trinity went further into retreat. Random ecstasy was no longer a possible source of authority in the Church. The Spirit became a silent guiding presence, granted at baptism to each Christian and present, but not so vociferous, in Christian life.COPIED
Quote ID: 3872
Time Periods: 234
Patronage in Early Christianity
Alan B. Wheatley
Book ID: 396 Page: 100
Section: 4B,2D3A
6. The Montanist phenomenon points strongly to a reaction increasing clerical dominance….
Quote ID: 8426
Time Periods: 2
Patronage in Early Christianity
Alan B. Wheatley
Book ID: 396 Page: 157
Section: 2D3A
Both enigmatic and highly influential, the leader and writer Tertullian flourished in the community at Carthage during a forty year period which closed the second century and opened the third.{3}….
…he rejected some of his contemporaries for not respecting the work of the Holy Spirit as he did, in what seems to have been Montanist view.
….
…his reputation seems solid in the ancient period until Gelasius ordered him declared a heretic in the fifth century.
Quote ID: 8437
Time Periods: 235
Pentecostals Fundamentalists the Backgrounds of Belief
Marjorie Hyer https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/lifestyle/1987/03/28/pentecostals-fundamentalists-the-backgrounds-of-belief/f1393204-a18b-414b-bc36-7f673b85cca3/
Book ID: 445 Page: 1
Section: 2D3A
Times don’t change much. Falwell once observed that present-day Christians who speak in tongues “are people who ate too much pizza last night.”
Quote ID: 8820
Time Periods: 2
Procopius, The Secret History, LCL 290: Procopius 6
Translated by H. B. Dewing
Book ID: 467 Page: 135
Section: 2D3A,3E
Now the shines of these heretics, as they are called, and particularly those who practised the Arian belief, contained wealth unheard-of. For neither the entire Senate nor any other major group of the Roman State could be compared with these sanctuaries in point of wealth.….
For they had treasures of gold and of silver and ornaments set with precious stones, beyond telling or counting, houses and villages in great numbers, and a large amount of land in all parts of the world, and every other form of wealth which exists and has a name among all mankind, since no man had ever reigned previously had ever disturbed them.
*John’s note: Not true*
Quote ID: 9026
Time Periods: 26
Procopius, The Secret History, LCL 290: Procopius 6
Translated by H. B. Dewing
Book ID: 467 Page: 137
Section: 2D3A
So then, while many of therm were being destroyed by the soldiers and many even made away with themselves, thinking in their folly that they were doing a most righteous thing, and while the majority of them, leaving their homelands, went into exile, the Montani, whose home was in Phrygia, shutting themselves up in their own sanctuaries, immediately set their churches on fire, so that they were destroyed together with the buildings in senseless fashion, and consequently the whole Roman Empire was filled with murder and with exiled men.PJ Note: Secret History, XI.23.
Quote ID: 9027
Time Periods: 26
Procopius, The Secret History, LCL 290: Procopius 6
Translated by H. B. Dewing
Book ID: 467 Page: 151
Section: 2D3A
And some of those who were present with the Emperor, at very late hours of the night presumably, and held conference with him, obviously in the Palace, men whose souls were pure, seemed to see a sort of phantom spirit unfamiliar to them in place of him. For one of these asserted that he would rise suddenly from the imperial throne and walk up and down there (indeed he was never accustomed to remain seated for long), and the head of Justinian would disappear suddenly, but the rest of his body seemed to keep making these same long circuits, while he himself, as if thinking he must have something the matter with his eyesight, stood there for a very long time distressed and perplexed. Later, however, when the head had returned to the body, he thought, to his surprise, that he could fill out that which a moment before had been lacking.
Quote ID: 9370
Time Periods: 23
Socrates Scholasticus, Church History, I.9. NPNF Series 2, Vol. 2
Edited by Philip Schaff and Henry Wace
Book ID: 686 Page: 34/35
Section: 2D3A,3C1
Arius’ Gruesome Death“It was then Saturday, and Arius was expecting to assemble with the church on the day following: but divine retribution overtook his daring criminalities. For going out of the imperial palace, attended by a crowd of Eusebian partisans like guards, he paraded proudly through the midst of the city, attracting the notice of all the people. As he approached the place called Constantine’s Forum, where the column of porphyry is erected, a terror arising from the remorse of conscience seized Arius, and with the terror a violent relaxation of the bowels: he therefore enquired whether there was a convenient place near, and being directed to the back of Constantine’s Forum, he hastened thither. Soon after a faintness came over him, and together with the evacuations his bowels protruded, followed by a copious hemorrhage, and the descent of the smaller intestines: moreover portions of his spleen and liver were brought off in the effusion of blood, so that he almost immediately died.”
Quote ID: 9779
Time Periods: 4
Socrates, NPNF2 Vol. 2, Socrates and Sozomenus Ecclesiastical Histories
adapted by AJW
Book ID: 682 Page: 13
Section: 2D3A,3C1
Wherefore we all worship one true God, and believe that he is. But in order that this might be done, by divine admonition I assembled at the city of Nicæa most of the bishops; with whom I myself also, who am but one of you, and who rejoice exceedingly in being your fellow-servant, undertook the investigation of the truth. Accordingly, all points which seemed in consequence of ambiguity to furnish any pretext for dissension, have been discussed and accurately examined.
And may the Divine Majesty pardon the fearful enormity of the blasphemies which some were shamelessly uttering concerning the mighty Saviour, our life and hope; declaring and confessing that they believe things contrary to the divinely inspired Scriptures. While more than three hundred bishops remarkable for their moderation and intellectual keenness, were unanimous in their confirmation of one and the same faith, which according to the truth and legitimate construction of the law of God can only be the faith; Arius alone beguiled by the subtlety of the devil, was discovered to be the sole disseminator of this mischief, first among you, and afterwards with unhallowed purposes among others also. Let us therefore embrace that doctrine which the Almighty has presented to us: let us return to our beloved brethren from whom an irreverent servant of the devil has separated us: let us go with all speed to the common body and our own natural members. For this is becoming your penetration, faith and sanctity; that since the
error has been proved to be due to him who is an enemy to the truth, ye should return to the divine favor.
Quote ID: 9761
Time Periods: 4
Sozomen, Ecclesiastical History, Address to the Emperor Theodosius
Sala-Minius Hermias Sozomen
Book ID: 631 Page: 92/93
Section: 2D3A
The Phrygians suffered the same treatment as the other heretics in all the Roman provinces except Phrygia and the neighboring regions for here they had, since the time of Montanus, existed in great numbers and do so to the present day.
Quote ID: 9389
Time Periods: 24
Spirit of Prophecy Defended, The
Edited by J. Ramsey Michaels
Book ID: 451 Page: 250
Section: 2D3A
Not only was it thus in Asia, but in the churches of Africa and Europe also; for there were vast numbers who called themselves all by the one common name of [GREEK], or the inspired, as those who had received the Holy Spirit: and they all with one accord consented to deny and quit every name, such as distinguished them by their leaders; whilst their opposers did in contempt fix upon them divers names derived from their leaders, such as Montanists, Alcibiadists Proclians, Ӕschinists, Priscillists, Lucians, Tertullianists, Artemonists, and the like, and also some other names….
Quote ID: 8896
Time Periods: 2
Spirit of Prophecy Defended, The
Edited by J. Ramsey Michaels
Book ID: 451 Page: 252
Section: 2D3A
…he was the first under an irreproachable character as to doctrine, and in respect to morality, that spake evidently by a Spirit upon him, and was known however to have a sentence pass upon him as possessed by an evil spirit, after ages did fix upon the prophetical or inspired teachers the name of Montanists.
Quote ID: 8897
Time Periods: 2
Spirit of Prophecy Defended, The
Edited by J. Ramsey Michaels
Book ID: 451 Page: 253
Section: 2D3A
…he, under the character of a prophet, as an order established in the church, appeared (without bringing any new doctrine) for reviving what was decayed, and reforming what might be amiss. Whereas others that had been judged for heretics were not only preachers of strange and monstrous opinions, but were utter enemies to all manner of discipline in the church.
Quote ID: 8898
Time Periods: 2
Spirit of Prophecy Defended, The
Edited by J. Ramsey Michaels
Book ID: 451 Page: 254
Section: 2D3A
‘…they and particularly Montanus, were condemned by the church for blasphemously assuming, each one to himself, the name and title of the Paraclete. But this seems to have been invented in latter times, lest he and they should appear to have been anathematized for heretics on little or no ground. But certainly, the greatest doctors of the church would never had been at such pains, and wrote so many learned books, in order to confute him, had he been really guilty of so gross and mad a blasphemy; neither is it to be thought, that he could have had, in those early times, so very near the Apostles, almost any followers at all, had he been either so wild an enthusiast, or such an open blasphemer against the Holy Ghost.….
…none of his contemporaries, nor any of his most professed adversaries, ever knew anything of it, or took the least notice, as surely they would have done, of so horrid a blasphemy. Wherefore it must needs have been a fictitious heresy imposed upon him, for the better colouring of the proceedings against him.’
Quote ID: 8899
Time Periods: 23
Spirit of Prophecy Defended, The
Edited by J. Ramsey Michaels
Book ID: 451 Page: 259
Section: 2D3A
Miltiades alleged against them, that neither the prophets of the Old or New Testament had such ecstasies and gestures when they delivered their prophecies; ergo, the Montanists were erroneous.
Quote ID: 8900
Time Periods: 2
Spirit of Prophecy Defended, The
Edited by J. Ramsey Michaels
Book ID: 451 Page: 262
Section: 2D3A
And nothing could be more absurd than some of the nick-names their accusers gave them about bread and cheese, and about putting a piece of wood into their nostrils for devotion, and about dancing around a great covered bottle in their assemblies, jovial and drunken as the heathen; which sort of stories furnished to the scornful unbelievers, an occasion of laughter, and to others occasions of reproach.
Quote ID: 8901
Time Periods: 2
Spirit of Prophecy Defended, The
Edited by J. Ramsey Michaels
Book ID: 451 Page: 263
Section: 2D3A
‘After these things, even in the time of the so-named Christian emperors, they, the Montanists, were driven out of their cities in a violent manner, and had their books burnt; whilst, on the contrary, their accusers were cried up for heroes and champions of the church….
Quote ID: 8902
Time Periods: 2
Spirit of Prophecy Defended, The
Edited by J. Ramsey Michaels
Book ID: 451 Page: 263
Section: 2D3A
…there have been several before us, and those no obscure modern writers, that have publicly affirmed Montanus to have been inspired by the Holy Spirit, and not by a devil, as is greatly concluded.
Quote ID: 8903
Time Periods: 2
Spirit of Prophecy Defended, The
Edited by J. Ramsey Michaels
Book ID: 451 Page: 265/266
Section: 2D3A
Says the History of Montanism, ‘The reasons and principal grounds on which the Bishops of Asia went in their trial and condemnation of Montanus, Maximilla, and Theodotus….….
First, That the spirit of Montanus, and of his prophets could not be the Spirit of Christ, because it was not the spirit of the church.
….
Fourteenthly, The authority of that spirit could not be Divine which was for encouraging private persons to set up a new order of discipline in the church, how good and holy soever in itself, and thereby despising an authority in the rulers of it, which was certainly Divine.{1}
Quote ID: 8904
Time Periods: 2
Spirit of Prophecy Defended, The
Edited by J. Ramsey Michaels
Book ID: 451 Page: 268
Section: 2D3A
The conclusion of this article, ‘That the Spirit in a prophet cannot be true unless he is acknowledged by the existing church,’ I take to be a system of mere human invention, and utterly antiscriptural: for in the Old Testament there is nothing more remarkable than the complaint of the prophet himself, in being despised, hated reproached, rejected, and persecuted for the word of the Lord spoken by him….
Quote ID: 8905
Time Periods: 2
Spirit of Prophecy Defended, The
Edited by J. Ramsey Michaels
Book ID: 451 Page: 268/269
Section: 2D3A
And when the mother of harlots and revolters from Christ, or the great whore, distinguished from lesser ones, comes to be judged, in her will found the blood of prophets slain upon the earth (Rev. xviii. 24): so that “Babylon the Great” meaning an apostatized estate of the Christian church, there must be of necessity have been some prophets whose blood she is there charged to have shed.
Quote ID: 8906
Time Periods: 2
Spirit of Prophecy Defended, The
Edited by J. Ramsey Michaels
Book ID: 451 Page: 270
Section: 2D3A
There was also, probably, among the learned men and apologist writers for this cause, Miltiades, Alcibiades, and Theodotus. And indeed the writings of the orthodox in this controversy were generally but answers to what had been written in favour of the Phrygian prophets by some that were considerable among their followers. But of these we know nothing: the only Montanist author remaining to this day is Tertullian; and yet of his we have nothing left of what he wrote purposely on this subject.’ So far did the imperial edicts for burning all the books of the Montanists take place, to disarm them of a just defence, and rob future ages of the means of due information in this case.
Quote ID: 8907
Time Periods: 2
Spirit of Prophecy Defended, The
Edited by J. Ramsey Michaels
Book ID: 451 Page: 271
Section: 2D3A
When the Catholics, therefore, had condemned them, they pretended, in the establishment of their separate communion, they were not the innovators: wherefore, they appealed also to catholic prescription and the custom of the church, as if it were wholly on their side….
Quote ID: 8908
Time Periods: 2
Spirit of Prophecy Defended, The
Edited by J. Ramsey Michaels
Book ID: 451 Page: 272
Section: 2D3A
…Especially since Ireneus carry’d the Letters written by the Martyrs of Lyons [among whom who were several Prophets] to plead in Favor of Montanus with the Bishop of Rome.
Quote ID: 8909
Time Periods: 2
Spirit of Prophecy Defended, The
Edited by J. Ramsey Michaels
Book ID: 451 Page: 272
Section: 2D3A
‘In the trial of the extraordinary gifts,’ says Mr. Dodwell, ‘it was not performed by those who were without them; but the judgment was to be made by the extraordinary gifts themselves. And with respect to the call of ministers, it was committed to the Discerner of the thoughts and intentions of the heart, and so the spiritual man or prophet decided of it; and no man was admitted into the public offices of the church but who was so approved.’
Quote ID: 8910
Time Periods: 2
Spirit of Prophecy Defended, The
Edited by J. Ramsey Michaels
Book ID: 451 Page: 309
Section: 2D3A
…about the same time, or soon after, there was Alcibiades, Theodotus, and Montanus; and which of these also was the first in prophesying, we cannot tell….
Quote ID: 8911
Time Periods: 2
Spirit of Prophecy Defended, The
Edited by J. Ramsey Michaels
Book ID: 451 Page: 309
Section: 2D3A
…Montanus, who appeared distinguished in working signs and miracles. Concerning this man , the annalist supposes he might at first act by the operation of God; but whether it were so, or by that of the devil transformed, it was in such a manner that no body was able to discern, because both his life and doctrine were holy and blameless.
Quote ID: 8912
Time Periods: 2
Spirit of Prophecy Defended, The
Edited by J. Ramsey Michaels
Book ID: 451 Page: 316
Section: 2D3A
…the reproofs of the Spirit in Montanus were highly resented; because, though there was something of moral looseness connived at or indulged in those churches, the bishops could not allow to the Spirit a liberty of such reproof…….
…it is evident thence that there was in the judges of him a disposition to turn their backs on, and do despite to, the true testimony of Jesus, and therein to his authority.
Quote ID: 8913
Time Periods: 2
Spirit of Prophecy Defended, The
Edited by J. Ramsey Michaels
Book ID: 451 Page: 318
Section: 2D3A
…Miltiades asserted, That ‘all new revelation tendeth to break the unity of the church,’ which affixes an evil necessarily upon the Spirit of prophecy itself.….
The wilful contempt of the Spirit of prophecy, the testimony of Jesus, by the bishops of Asia, is Apparent.
Quote ID: 8914
Time Periods: 2
Spirit of Prophecy Defended, The
Edited by J. Ramsey Michaels
Book ID: 451 Page: 323
Section: 2D3A
And because now-a-days, through the long cessation of prophecy, or rather the Antichristian rejection of it, some may be so ignorant of the word of God as to think that there was in those ages no guilt in rejecting, or any moral obligation to submit to the Spirit of prophecy then existent.
Quote ID: 8915
Time Periods: 2
Tertullian, ANF Vol. 3, Latin Christianity: Its Founder, Tertullian
Edited by Philip Schaff and Alan Menzies
Book ID: 678 Page: 597
Section: 2D3A
For after the Bishop of Rome had acknowledged the prophetic gifts of Montanus, Prisca, and Maximilla, and, in consequence of the acknowledgment, had bestowed his peace on the churches of Asia and Phrygia, Praxeas, by importunately urging false accusations against the prophets themselves and their [assemblies], and insisting on the authority of the bishop’s predecessors in the see, compelled him to recall the pacific letter which he had issued, as well as to desist from his purpose ofPJ footnote reference: Tertullian, Against Praxeas, I.
Quote ID: 9731
Time Periods: 2
Tertullian, ANF Vol. 3, Latin Christianity: Its Founder, Tertullian
Edited by Philip Schaff and Alan Menzies
Book ID: 678 Page: 597
Section: 2D3A
“In various ways has the Devil rivaled and resisted the truth. Sometimes his aim has been to destroy the truth by defending it.”
PJ footnote reference: Tertullian, Against Praxeas, I.
Quote ID: 9732
Time Periods: 2
Tertullian, ANF Vol. 3, Latin Christianity: Its Founder, Tertullian
Edited by Philip Schaff and Alan Menzies
Book ID: 678 Page: 630
Section: 2D3A
(Concerning his reference to the bishop of Rome, in Against Praxeas, I.)“Probably Victor (AD 190. . . . This Victor “acknowledged the prophetic gifts of Montanus,” and kept up communion with the Phrygian churches that adopted them.”PJ footnote reference: Tertullian, Against Praxeas, Elucidations, II, 630.
Quote ID: 9729
Time Periods: 2
Tertullian, ANF Vol. 4, Fathers of the Third Century: Tertullian
Edited by Philip Schaff
Book ID: 679 Page: 56
Section: 2D3A
Again, through the holy prophetess Prisca the Gospel is thus preached: that “the holy minister knows how to minister sanctity.” “For purity, “ says she, “is harmonious, and they see visions; and, turning their face downward, they even hear manifest voices, as salutary as they are withal secret.”PJ footnote reference: Tertullian, Exhortation to Chastity, X.
Quote ID: 9738
Time Periods: ?
Tertullian, ANF Vol. 4, Fathers of the Third Century: Tertullian
Edited by Philip Schaff
Book ID: 679 Page: 102
Section: 2D3A
“What those adversaries are I will once for all mention: they are the exterior and interior botuli of the Psychics. It is these which raise controversy with the Paraclete; it is on this account that the New Prophecies are rejected: not that Montanus and Priscilla and Maximilla preach another God, nor that they disjoin Jesus Christ (from God), nor that they overturn any particular rule of faith or hope, but that they plainly teach more frequent fasting than marrying.”PJ footnote reference: Tertullian, On Fasting, I.
Quote ID: 9739
Time Periods: 2
Tertullian, ANF Vol. 4, Fathers of the Third Century: Tertullian
Edited by Philip Schaff
Book ID: 679 Page: 111
Section: 2D3A
“This is why they who preach sobriety are ‘false prophets’; this why they who practice it are ‘heretics!’ Why then hesitate to believe that the Paraclete, whom you deny in a Montanus, exists in an Apicius?”PJ footnote reference: Tertullian, On Fasting, XII.
Quote ID: 9740
Time Periods: 2
The Heretics of the Church and Recurring Heresies: Montanus
John S. Whale
Book ID: 692 Page: 496
Section: 2D3A
Mark Pattison said of satire that to be real it must exaggerate, but that it is always an exaggeration of known and recognized facts. Satire never creates the sentiment to which it appeals.Many classic heresies in Christian history are patient of a like interpretation. Appealing to truth held in common by all the faithful they place disproportionate emphasis on a part, and so distort the whole; heresy is exaggeration rather than innovation.
Quote ID: 9798
Time Periods: 27
The Heretics of the Church and Recurring Heresies: Montanus
John S. Whale
Book ID: 692 Page: 496
Section: 2D3A
… Montanism is the classic example of the sect-type destined to reappear constantly in the history of the Church from that day to this…
Quote ID: 9799
Time Periods: 27
The Heretics of the Church and Recurring Heresies: Montanus
John S. Whale
Book ID: 692 Page: 496
Section: 2D3A
… Montanism is rightly regarded as the prototype of those many religious revivals which have become separatist movements thanks to their disapproval of the Church as established, and their restless sense of the contrast between empirical and ideal Christianity.
Quote ID: 9800
Time Periods: 27
The Heretics of the Church and Recurring Heresies: Montanus
John S. Whale
Book ID: 692 Page: 497
Section: 2D3A
… dreaming of the lost Pentecostal springtime of the Church, visionary imaginations in all ages have gone the way of Montanists with their extravagant belief in the presence and activity of the Spirit, to whose action they have abandoned themselves in complete passivity like the violin vibrating under the bow, so emphasizing the continuance of prophecy with its spasmodic ecstasies, glossolalia, and kindred manifestations.
Quote ID: 9801
Time Periods: 27
The Heretics of the Church and Recurring Heresies: Montanus
John S. Whale
Book ID: 692 Page: 497
Section: 2D3A
… Montanism is the classic type of Schwärmerei….
Quote ID: 9802
Time Periods: 27
The Heretics of the Church and Recurring Heresies: Montanus
John S. Whale
Book ID: 692 Page: 497
Section: 2D3A
That this sect-type has always criticised, irritated, and menaced the official Church is understandable enough. Chronologically considered, the head and front of the offence is Montanism.
Quote ID: 9803
Time Periods: 27
The Heretics of the Church and Recurring Heresies: Montanus
John S. Whale
Book ID: 692 Page: 497
Section: 2D3A
… Montanism is of abiding interest because the issues which it represents are not dead. They are still with a modern Church required to take account of, say, a Group Movement with its ‘absolute’ standards and its confident appeal to the direct guidance of the individual and the group by the Holy Spirit.
Quote ID: 9804
Time Periods: 27
The Heretics of the Church and Recurring Heresies: Montanus
John S. Whale
Book ID: 692 Page: 498
Section: 2D3A
The movement originated with Montanus - perhaps a priest of Cybele before his conversion - who appeared in the village of Ardabau in Mysia probably in the year 156, claiming for his ecstatic prophesyings a direct, new, and final outpouring of the Spirit.….
Moreover, Montanus was the mouthpiece of the Paraclete in a unique sense.
….
What had hitherto been partial and imperfect now came to its full and final expression in the oracles of Montanus, Prisca, Maximilla, and Theodotus; their adherents were the true [Greek].
Quote ID: 9805
Time Periods: 27
The Heretics of the Church and Recurring Heresies: Montanus
John S. Whale
Book ID: 692 Page: 498
Section: 2D3A
Convinced of the imminent coming of the Lord, Montanus migrated with his followers across the Phrygian border to the two villages of Pepuza and Tymion, which became the holy city of the movement. In this new Jerusalem he organized and consolidated his new and growing community and expected that the faithful everywhere would assemble here rather than in the real Jerusalem for the Parousia.
Quote ID: 9806
Time Periods: 27
The Heretics of the Church and Recurring Heresies: Montanus
John S. Whale
Book ID: 692 Page: 498
Section: 2D3A
…it may be doubted whether Montanism in this its earliest and most distinctive phase was as severely ascetic as has been alleged With regard to marriage, fastings, and martyrdom these self-styled pneumatiko… seem to have been no more self-denying than the Catholic majority….
Quote ID: 9807
Time Periods: 27
The Heretics of the Church and Recurring Heresies: Montanus
John S. Whale
Book ID: 692 Page: 498
Section: 2D3A
The truth seems to be that Montanism proper was at once conservative and radical, an old and a new thing. In its antiquarian idealism, its exaltation of the function and the authority of prophets, its charismatic ministry of women, its dissolution of already existing marriages in the name of asceticism, it was in one sense a reaction.
Quote ID: 9808
Time Periods: 27
The Heretics of the Church and Recurring Heresies: Montanus
John S. Whale
Book ID: 692 Page: 498
Section: 2D3A
… in Montanism such primitive Christian enthusiasm surges up again, either as a revival or a survival, in protest against the naturalization: of the Church in the World.
Quote ID: 9809
Time Periods: 27
The Heretics of the Church and Recurring Heresies: Montanus
John S. Whale
Book ID: 692 Page: 499
Section: 2D3A
Such reactions against the current externalizing of religion, with their appeal to primitive simplicity, spontaneity, and purity, naturally evoke both sympathy and fierce opposition; and Phrygia itself seems to have been temperamentally ready for a protest against the fact that ‘apostles and prophets raised up by God were now giving place to Bishops and Elders appointed by men ... that the laity were putting off the royal dignity of the universal priesthood on officials.’{14}
Quote ID: 9810
Time Periods: 27
The Heretics of the Church and Recurring Heresies: Montanus
John S. Whale
Book ID: 692 Page: 499
Section: 2D3A
‘Montanus,’ says Ramsay,{15} ‘represented the old school of Phrygian Christianity as opposed to the organized and regulated hierarchical church which was making Christianity a power in the world ….
Quote ID: 9811
Time Periods: 27
The Heretics of the Church and Recurring Heresies: Montanus
John S. Whale
Book ID: 692 Page: 499
Section: 2D3A
It was more than a sudden indignant regression towards primitive Christian mentality, for this mentality had never died out in the Church and was familiar to all Christians of that time. Montanism expressed old facts in a new, revolutionary, and frightening way.
Quote ID: 9812
Time Periods: 27
The Heretics of the Church and Recurring Heresies: Montanus
John S. Whale
Book ID: 692 Page: 499
Section: 2D3A
Montanus was consciously inaugurating a new era. He preached not the Kingdom of Christ, but the reign of the Paraclete, to which the gospel had been an imperfect prologue.{17}
Quote ID: 9813
Time Periods: 27
The Heretics of the Church and Recurring Heresies: Montanus
John S. Whale
Book ID: 692 Page: 499
Section: 2D3A
It is important to notice that what brought about the repudiation and excommunication of Montanists was their unorthodoxy, not in belief, but in practice. Catholic opponents bear witness that Montanus did not deviate from received Church doctrine….
Quote ID: 9814
Time Periods: 27
The Heretics of the Church and Recurring Heresies: Montanus
John S. Whale
Book ID: 692 Page: 500
Section: 2D3A
That as a result of the Church’s deep distrust of the prophetic and the charismatic in all its forms, the third century was an age of disillusion, like the eighteenth century in England. Enthusiasm was suspect, the priest exalted, prophesyings despised and crushed, and the Spirit quenched.
Quote ID: 9815
Time Periods: 27
The Heretics of the Church and Recurring Heresies: Montanus
John S. Whale
Book ID: 692 Page: 500
Section: 2D3A
… the institutional and sacramental emphasis of the Mediæval Church externalized the interpretation of Christian experience and helped to obscure the abiding truth that the Spirit is alone primary, and all else, however important, secondary; the Bible, the Sacraments, the historical record of Jesus’ life on earth are all a channel of the Spirit; primary is the experienced fellowship of man’s spirit with the Lord the Spirit.
Quote ID: 9816
Time Periods: 27
The Heretics of the Church and Recurring Heresies: Montanus
John S. Whale
Book ID: 692 Page: 500
Section: 2D3A
That a contrast began to be drawn between the Apostolic Age with its ministry of gifts (now ended! The Law and the Prophets were only until John - an almost incredible abuse of Christ’s word in Mt 1113) and later times.
Quote ID: 9817
Time Periods: 27
The Heretics of the Church and Recurring Heresies: Montanus
John S. Whale
Book ID: 692 Page: 500
Section: 2D3A
‘The entire mediæval system from the Papacy downward is no more than a natural development of the unbelief which knows no working of the Spirit but One transmitted by outward ordinances from a distant past. To this development the failure of Montanism gave a greater impulse than the … conversion of Constantine.’
Quote ID: 9818
Time Periods: 27
The Heretics of the Church and Recurring Heresies: Montanus
John S. Whale
Book ID: 692 Page: 500
Section: 2D3A
… Tertullian whose deep conviction of the unceasing activity of the Holy Spirit was expressed with characteristic exaggeration and that command of sarcasm that has never been surpassed. Only imbecillitas aut desperatio fidei can pretend, he says, that the activity of the Spirit is shut up to the first age. Like Canute at the sea’s edge he asks whether the Catholics will fix boundary stakes for the divine activity. ‘Why not suppress God altogether? It is all that remains for you to do, such is your power!’
Quote ID: 9819
Time Periods: 27
The Heretics of the Church and Recurring Heresies: Montanus
John S. Whale
Book ID: 692 Page: 500
Section: 2D3A
Montanism failed. The function of the prophet ceased partly because the logic of ecclesiastical development made it inevitable….*John’s Note: John S. Whale, “The Heretics of the Church and Recurring Heresies: Montanus,” Expository Times 45, no. 11 (August 1934): 496-500.
The Heretics of the Church and Recurring Heresies.doc (earlychurch.org.uk)
(accessed May 6, 2024)*
Quote ID: 9820
Time Periods: 27
The Montanist Oracles and Testimonia
Ronald E. Heine
Book ID: 688 Page: 3/4/5
Section: 2D3A
Only a few sayings that are believably attributed to Montanus and his two best-known associates, Maximilla and Prisca, have survived. These are the sayings attributed to Montanus:“I am the Lord God, the Almighty dwelling in man.” (The Panarion, 48.11.1)
“I am neither an angel nor an emissary; I, the Lord God, the Father, have come.” (The Panarion, 48.4.1; 11.1; 11.9)
“Behold, man is like a lyre, and I flit about like a pick. Man sleeps, and I awaken him. Behold, the Lord is he who transforms the heart of men and gives men a heart.” (The Panarion, 48.4.1)
“Why do you say the greater man is saved? For the just man will shine a hundred times brighter than the sun, and the little ones among you who are saved will shine a hundred times brighter than the moon.” (The Panarion, 48.10.3)
Quote ID: 9781
Time Periods: 234
Vincent of Lerins, The Commonitory NPNF2, Vol. 11, 11.6
Edited by Philip Schaff and Henry Wace
Book ID: 689 Page: 132
Section: 2D3A
In the Catholic Church itself, all possible care must be taken that we hold that faith which has been believed everywhere, always, by all.
Quote ID: 9782
Time Periods: 4
Wesley: Wisdom of God’s Counsels - Sermon 68, The
John Wesley. Edited by Thomas Jackson
Book ID: 616 Page: ?
Section: 2D3A
(9) God always reserved a seed for himself; a few that worshipped him in spirit and in truth. I have often doubted, whether these were not the very persons whom the rich and honourable Christians, who will always have number as well as power on their side, did not stigmatize, from time to time, with the title of heretics. Perhaps it was chiefly by this artifice of the devil and his children, that, the good which was in them being evil spoken of, they were prevented from being so extensively useful as otherwise they might have been. Nay, I have doubted whether that arch-heretic, Montanus, was not one of the holiest men in the second century.
Quote ID: 9362
Time Periods: 2
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