The Rise of Montanism

Against the so-called Phrygian heresy, the power that champions the truth raised up a strong and invincible weapon at Hierapolis, Apollinaris, whom we have mentioned before, and with him many other learned men of that time. From them a great deal of material for our history has been left to us. [a] One of these men, at the beginning of his treatise against them, first points out that he had also gone after them in spoken refutations. [b]

He begins in this way: “For a very long and quite sufficient time, my dear Avircius Marcellus, you have charged me to write some treatise against the heresy of those named after Miltiades, and until now I have rather held back. It was not for lack of ability to refute the falsehood and bear witness to the truth, but from fear and caution, lest I seem to some to be adding to the writing or the commands of the word of the gospel of the new covenant, to which no one who has chosen to live by the gospel itself can add anything or take anything away. [c] But being recently at Ancyra in Galatia, I found the church there ringing with this new thing, which is not prophecy, as they call it, but far rather, as will be shown, false prophecy. So, as far as we could, with the Lord’s help, we held discussions for many days in the church about these people and about each point they put forward, so that the church rejoiced and was strengthened in the truth, while those on the other side were beaten back for the present and our opponents were grieved. [d] The presbyters there asked us to leave some written record of what had been said against those who oppose the word of the truth; our fellow presbyter Zoticus of Otrous was present too. We did not do this then, but we promised to write it out here, if the Lord allowed, and to send it to them quickly.” [e]

After saying this and other things at the beginning of his work, he goes on to tell the cause of the heresy in question, as follows: “Their opposition, then, and their recent heresy of separation from the Church had the following cause. There is said to be a village called Ardabau in the part of Mysia toward Phrygia. There, they say, first of all, in the time of Gratus, proconsul of Asia, a recent convert named Montanus, in the measureless craving of his soul for first place, gave the adversary a way into himself. He was carried away by a spirit, and suddenly falling into a kind of possession and ecstasy, he went into a frenzy and began to babble and utter strange sounds, supposedly prophesying in a way contrary to the custom of the church handed down by tradition and by succession from the beginning. [f] Of those who heard his spurious utterances at that time, some were angry with him as with a man under a demon’s power, possessed, in the grip of a spirit of error and throwing the crowds into confusion. They rebuked him and tried to stop him talking, remembering the Lord’s distinction and his warning to keep careful watch against the coming of false prophets. But others, elated as though by the Holy Spirit and a prophetic gift, and not a little puffed up, forgot the Lord’s distinction and called forth the mind-harming, flattering, people-deceiving spirit, being charmed and led astray by it, so that he could no longer be made to keep silent. [g]

By some art, or rather by such a method of wicked craft, the devil devised destruction for the disobedient, and, honored by them beyond his worth, he secretly stirred up and inflamed their minds, which had fallen asleep away from the true faith. So he raised up two other women as well and filled them with the spurious spirit, so that they spoke wildly, out of season and strangely, like the man already mentioned. The spirit called them blessed as they rejoiced and swelled with pride in him, and puffed them up by the greatness of its promises; yet at times it would also condemn them to their face, shrewdly and plausibly, so as to seem to be a reprover too. (But those of the Phrygians who were deceived were few.) The arrogant spirit taught them to blaspheme the whole universal Church under heaven, because the spirit of false prophecy received neither honor from it nor entrance into it. [h] For the faithful in Asia met often, and in many places in Asia, for this purpose. They examined the new sayings, declared them profane and rejected the heresy. In this way these people were thrust out of the Church and shut out from its fellowship.”

Having related these things at the start, and having carried the refutation of their error through his whole treatise, he says this in the second book about the end of those we have spoken of: “Since, then, they also called us prophet-killers, because we did not receive their prophets, who talk without measure — for they say these are the ones the Lord promised to send to the people — let them answer us before God. Is there anyone, my good friends, of those who began to talk, from Montanus and the women on, who was persecuted by Jews or killed by lawless men? Not one. Or was any of them seized and crucified for the Name? Certainly not. Or was any of the women ever whipped in the synagogues of the Jews, or stoned? Never anywhere. [i] It is by another kind of death that Montanus and Maximilla are said to have died. The story is that a mind-harming spirit drove each of them to hang themselves, not together but each at the time of their own death, as much talk has it. And so they died and ended their lives like Judas the traitor. So too a common story tells of that remarkable man, the first steward, so to speak, of their so-called prophecy, one Theodotus: that he was once lifted up and taken into the heavens, fell into a trance and entrusted himself to the spirit of deceit, and was hurled down like a discus and died miserably. [j] At any rate, they say it happened this way. But let us not suppose we know any such thing without having seen it, my blessed friend. Perhaps it was so, perhaps not, that Montanus and Theodotus and the woman just mentioned died.”

Again, in the same book, he says that the holy bishops of that time tried to refute the spirit in Maximilla, but were prevented by others who were plainly working with the spirit. He writes as follows: “And do not let the spirit that speaks through Maximilla say, in the same book according to Asterius Urbanus, ‘I am driven away like a wolf from the sheep. I am not a wolf. I am word and spirit and power.’ Let it show the power in the spirit plainly and prove it, and by the spirit let it compel to confess it those who were present then to test the spirit as it spoke and to reason with it: approved men and bishops, Zoticus from the village of Cumane and Julian from Apamea. Themiso’s people muzzled their mouths and would not allow the lying, people-deceiving spirit to be refuted by them.” [k]

Again in the same book, after saying other things in between to refute the false prophecies of Maximilla, he indicates the time at which he was writing this, and he mentions her predictions in which she foretold wars and upheavals, and exposes their falsehood, saying: “And how has this lie too not already become obvious? It is more than thirteen years to this day since the woman died, and there has been neither a local nor a general war in the world; rather, by God’s mercy, there has been lasting peace, even for the Christians.” That is from the second book. [l]

From the third book I will also set down short passages, in which he says this against those who boasted that many of their own people too had borne witness as martyrs: “So when they have been refuted in everything they have said and are at a loss, they try to take refuge in their martyrs, saying that they have many martyrs and that this is sure evidence of the power of what they call the prophetic spirit among them. But this, it seems, is anything but true. For some of the other heresies too have a great many martyrs, yet surely we will not agree with them on that account or confess that they have the truth. First of all, those called Marcianists, from the heresy of Marcion, say that they have a great many martyrs of Christ, yet they do not truly confess Christ himself.” A little further on he goes on to say: [m] “That is why, whenever those from the Church who have been called to martyrdom for the true faith find themselves with any of the so-called martyrs of the Phrygian heresy, they quarrel with them and are perfected without sharing fellowship with them, because they do not want to give assent to the spirit that speaks through Montanus and the women. And that this is true, and happened in our own times at Apamea on the Maeander among those who were martyred with Gaius and Alexander of Eumenia, is well known.” [n]