Montanus and Montanism

MONTANUS AND MONTANISM. - Montanus is the founder of Montanism, an enthusiastic and rigorist sect that began in Phrygia around 172 and was therefore called the "heresy of the Phrygians"; by its own adherents, however, it was called the "new prophecy," on account of the supposed revelations of the Paraclete.

The followers of Montanism were also called "Cataphrygians" (from the Greek οἱ κατὰ ὄψεγες) or Pepuzians (from the holy city of the movement); according to the leaders of the various groups they were divided into Proclians, Aeschinists, Tertullianists, Priscillianists, and Quintillianists (the last two take their name from the prophetesses Priscilla and Quintilla). With the exception of the writings of Tertullian, the rest of the not abundant Montanist literature has been lost; only from the collection of prophetic sayings of Montanus and his two first female adherents are 14 oracles preserved (6 attributed to Montanus, 3 to Priscilla, 5 to Maximilla). To these must be added 4 others handed down by Tertullian as utterances of the Paraclete. Our knowledge of Montanism is therefore based on the anti-Montanists and the heresiologists.

I. THE ORIGINS OF MONTANISM

Little is known about the person of M. Before his conversion to the Christian faith he had perhaps been a priest of the fanatical cult of Cybele. Nor is it even certain when the movement began; according to Epiphanius (Haeres., 48: PG 41, 856) it would have originated around 156-57; according to Eusebius, on the other hand (Chrom., II: PG 19, 563), in the years 172-73. This second date is more probable (the intervention of the Martyrs of Lyons, the earliest fact that can be established independently of the two disputed dates, falls only in the year 177, and the first pope consulted on the question of Montanism is Eleutherius [v.], 174-80). According to the oldest sources, M. proclaimed himself the organ of the Paraclete who, announced in the Fourth Gospel, had not yet descended upon the Apostles on the day of Pentecost, but was to manifest himself later through him, in order to lead the Church into all truth. Two women, Priscilla (or Prisca) and Maximilla, were the first disciples won over to the new doctrine; having themselves become partakers of the prophetic gift, they were soon venerated alongside M. himself.

The prophecy announced itself as new, especially because of its ecstatic form (contrary to the Catholic concept of prophecy as set forth by St. Paul: 1 Cor. 14). The prophets of Montanism fell into violent ecstasies, and in a state of rapture and abstraction from the senses uttered the "effata" of the Paraclete. In this characteristic ecstatic violence one usually recognizes the particular contribution of the Phrygian region, a homeland of intense religious emotions, as of the orgiastic cult of Cybele. As regards content, the prophecy announced the imminent parousia of Christ and the descent of the heavenly Jerusalem onto the Phrygian plain, between the small towns of Pepuza and Tymion, where M. wished to gather all Christendom. Against the background of such ardent expectation of the imminent parousia, the moral demands of primitive Montanism must be understood. The faithful had to prepare themselves for a detachment far more radical than had been practiced until then in the Christian communities. An intense asceticism was preached, given concrete form in the total renunciation of marriage (the prohibition of second marriages, with the implicit authorization of the first marriage, must be considered a later mitigation of the original demand), and in the prescription of more prolonged and austere fasts. Later, various periods of fasting were established in the sect; M. himself probably required that the whole life of the faithful, until the return of the Lord, be a continuous fast. A third original demand required absolute readiness for martyrdom (cf. the two effata of the Paraclete cited by Tertullian, De fuga, 9: PL 2, 133). Particularly harsh was the position of Montanism on the penitential question, characterized by the following effatum of the Paraclete: "Potest Ecclesia donare delicta, sed non faciam, ne et alii delinquant" (Tertullian, De pudicitia, 21: PL 2, 1078). The obscure utterance, in its strong antithesis evidently a reply to the adversaries of M., foreshadows, even in the remission of post-baptismal sins, a new rigorism, wholly in keeping with the other demands of the movement. To the original heritage belong finally the promises of special rewards for faithful followers and the Quartodeciman practice in the celebration of Easter. In opposition to Gnosis (v.), the other great danger of the Church of the 2nd century, Montanism revealed itself to be of a purely intra-Christian origin. The doctrine of the faith and Scripture were not touched. But with its appeal to the Paraclete who was to complete the work of Christ in him, M. in fact radically altered the Catholic concept of the Church. Not the bishops, but the new prophets, the true "spiritual" men, represented the authority of the Church; this conclusion was later deduced with all clarity by Tertullian: "Et ideo Ecclesia quidem delicta donabit; sed Ecclesia spiritus per spiritalem hominem, non ecclesia numerus episcoporum" (De pudicitia, 21: PL 2, 1080). M. himself, a spirit not speculative but fervently enthusiastic, does not seem to have been equally aware of the revolutionary character of his own work, which at its birth appeared rather as a movement of spiritual renewal within the Church itself, something that must have greatly favored its spread.

II. EXPANSION OF MONTANISM

Religious enthusiasm, esteem for charismatic gifts, ardent eschatological expectation, and orthodoxy of doctrine must have given Montanism a particular power of attraction in the Church of the 2nd century. The founders died early: Maximilla around 179, M. and Priscilla even earlier, but the new prophecy had already crossed the boundaries of the region where it was born (Ardabau, Pepuza, Tymion); from Phrygia it had spread like a fire throughout all of Asia Minor (thus the Church of Thyatira in Lydia had passed over entirely to the following of M.) and from there it had radiated into Syria and Thrace. The West, too, was soon affected. The letters that the adherents of Montanism sent to the centers of Western Christianity to win them over to their cause have not been preserved. But from Eusebius (Hist. eccl., V, 3: PG 20, 437) it is known that the famous letter of the Churches of Lyons and Vienne in Gaul to the brethren of Asia and Phrygia, written in the year 177, also contained a judgment on the prophetic activity of M. and his companions, an opinion that Eusebius judged "pious and orthodox." Furthermore, from Lyons were also sent letters written by the martyrs, before their death, to the brethren of Asia and to Pope Eleutherius "pro pace Ecclesiarum" (ibid.). It seems therefore that the attitude in the principal Church of Gaul was one of prudent reserve: while Montanism was in its infancy, counsels of peace were given, without thereby favoring the new prophecy. At Rome, Pope Eleutherius, to whom St. Irenaeus brought the missive of the Martyrs of Lyons, had certainly already been informed of Montanism through other channels. The scarcity of sources does not allow us to re-establish with certainty the attitude taken by the Pope. It is probable that he did not formally condemn the Phrygian movement but issued a declaration unfavorable to it: this is deduced from a notice of Tertullian (Adv. Praxeam, 1: PL 2, 178 ff.): Praxeas, a leader of the patripassians, having come from Asia to Rome, would have induced the Pope (supposed to be Victor I, 189-98, or, according to De Labriolle and Ehrhard, more probably Zephyrinus: 198-217) to withdraw the letters of communion already issued in favor of the Montanists, appealing to the official declarations of his predecessors ("praecessorum auctoritates"). These declarations of the predecessors of Zephyrinus (Eleutherius and Victor I), without constituting a true condemnation (otherwise the initial sympathy of Zephyrinus for Montanism would hardly be explained), must nevertheless have been unfavorable to the new prophecy. The popes, therefore, not having then yet clearly grasped the true character of the movement, which in the West also presented itself with greater sobriety, remained reserved, partly because of the high esteem that then surrounded charismatic gifts, as well as because the Montanists made a show of being orthodox in dogma. It seems that the sect already in this period of first expansion had fallen from its original level, which had undoubtedly been high. Anti-Montanist literature rises up against the avarice of the prophets, against the crimes of a certain Alexander who passed himself off as a martyr; the primitive postulates concerning marriage and fasting were abandoned, and a certain power of forgiving sins was granted to prophets and martyrs (cf. the excerpta of the anti-Montanist Apollonius in Eusebius, Hist. eccl., V, 18). More firmly maintained, on the other hand, was the enthusiasm for martyrdom, and the Montanists could appeal to the great number of their martyrs. Dogma, too, was affected. At Rome one part of the Montanist community, headed by Aeschines, allied itself with the modalistic monarchianism (v.) of Noetus (cf. Hippolytus, Refutatio omnium haeres., VIII, 19: ed. P. Wendland in CB, 26, p. 238), while another faction under Proclus maintained the Trinitarian faith of the Church.

Scanty is the information on the constitutional aspect of Montanism in this period. It seems that the Montanist communities of Asia had a charismatic organization, whose members were prophets, martyrs, and prophetesses; among these, after Priscilla and Maximilla, Quintilla was preeminent, whose followers were called precisely Quintillians (cf. St. Epiphanius, Haeres., 49: PG 41, 880).

III. THE MONTANISM OF TERTULLIAN

In Africa the new prophecy had in Tertullian (v.) its best-known and most active adherent. Of his writings (31) that survive, 11 belong to the Montanist period (204-206; 222-23). A personality of very strong individualistic tendencies, Tertullian was drawn to Montanism by the fact that in orthodoxy it stood apart from every heresy, particularly from Gnosticism; and also because it wonderfully answered his own Christian ideal, steeped in the most radical ethical rigorism, and allowed him to override the opposition of the ecclesiastical hierarchy with the higher authority of the Paraclete. When the hope of having the new prophecy accepted by the community of Carthage proved vain (cf. the first two Montanist writings: De virginibus velandis; De exhortatione castitatis, of the years 205-206), Tertullian broke openly with the Church (at the latest in 207), turning against it with growing harshness (characteristic is the designation of the Church of the "psychics," as the lower class of men was called in Gnostic systems).

Tertullian, however, was too strong a personality not to impress his own stamp on Montanism; he took from the new prophecy its personal and local physiognomy (thus he is entirely silent about Pepuza, says little about the founders of the sect, appealing most of the time directly to the Paraclete); in compensation he gave Montanism a clear soteriological foundation when he proclaimed the activity of the Paraclete as the 4th and conclusive phase of the economy of salvation (after the initial state of "natura Deum metuens," after the infancy guarded "per legem et prophetas" and the youth nourished "per Evangelium," righteousness "nunc per Paracletum componitur in maturitatem"; De virg. velandis, 1: PL 2, 938). While he had accepted, against his own temperament, the ecstatic form of the new prophecy (he defends it in De exstasi, a treatise in 7 books, unfortunately lost), he distances himself from primitive Montanism in his judgment on the position of woman in the community; he energetically excludes her from every right to teach, to offer sacrifice, and all the more from every priestly function (De virg. velandis, 9: PL 2, 950). In the struggle against the Church, Tertullian treated all the main themes of Montanist rigorism: he branded shirking persecution as a denial of God's will (De fuga, from the year 211-12), composed a violent indictment against second marriages (De monogamia, ca. 217) and against the Church's indulgent practice in the matter of fasting (De ieiunio adversus psychicos), and reached the height of the polemic in the controversy over the "pax ecclesiastica," which he now, against his own earlier opinion, restricted to "leviora peccata" ("peccata in hominem") alone, while for grave sins he applied the principle: "Quis autem dimittit delicta, nisi solus Deus?" (De pudicitia, 21: PL 2, 1077). It cannot be denied, as Faggiotto wished to do (La diaspora cat. frigia, cited in the bibliography, p. 129), that Tertullian truly converted to Montanism; but it is also true that he did not so much place himself at the service of the new prophecy as rather place the latter at his own service. In the end he separated also from Montanism and, followed by a small group of faithful, founded the party of the Tertullianists, whose last remnants returned to the Church some time before 428 (cf. St. Augustine, De haeres., 86: PL 42, 46).

IV. THE STRUGGLE AGAINST MONTANISM

As against Gnosticism, so too against Montanism the Church waged a twofold struggle, theological and ecclesiastical. The theological polemic (Eusebius, Hist. eccl., V, 16-18, has preserved some excerpta from the so-called "anti-Montanist anonymous," a treatise in 3 books written by a Phrygian bishop or priest around 192, and from the writing that a certain Apollonius directed, 20 years later, against the prophecy and the life of the Montanists) sought above all to prove that the new prophecy was not the work of the Spirit of God and to reject its rigoristic postulates. Among the opponents of Montanism some extremists went too far. Already St. Irenaeus (Adv. Haeres., III, 11, 9: PG 7, 890 ff.) censured those who, in opposition to the pseudoprophets, rejected the Gospel of St. John because in it the Lord promises the Paraclete. From Eusebius (Hist. eccl., VI, 20) it is known that in the time of Pope Zephyrinus the Roman priest Caius (v.) rejected, in a polemical treatise in the form of a dialogue with the Montanist leader Proclus, also the Apocalypse as a source of the sect's chiliasm.

The properly ecclesiastical struggle against Montanism manifested itself first in Asia, where the danger, at a certain moment, must have been serious. Some bishops sought to convert the new prophets. Zoticus of Comana and Julian of Apamea went to Pepuza to drive out the demon of Maximilla, but were turned back by the followers of the prophetess (Eusebius, Hist. eccl., V, 16: PG 20, 472). The danger impelled the neighboring bishops to hold assemblies, in which Montanism was condemned. In those gatherings one may see the first provincial synods. Against Montanism is also directed the oldest known synodal letter, a writing of Bishop Serapion of Antioch, signed by several other bishops and accompanied by the refutation of Montanism written by Bishop Claudius Apollinaris of Hierapolis (Eusebius, Hist. eccl., V, 19: ibid., 481). The result of this twofold struggle was the expulsion of the new prophecy from Catholic communion and the organization of its followers into communities of their own. In it, in the 4th century, the patriarchs of Pepuza held the first place, then the xxxvovol (soci), and in third place finally the bishops (cf. St. Jerome, Ep. 41: PL 22, 476). In these communities Montanism survived for a good while longer. But the very grave danger that the sect had constituted at its rise was already overcome by the middle of the 3rd century. In the year 263-64 the community of Thyatira, Montanist for more than 90 years, returned to the Church; this was certainly not the only case of its kind. Nevertheless Montanism, at the end of the 4th century, was still strong in Phrygia, Galatia, Cappadocia and Cilicia, as well as in Constantinople. Despite the repressive measures of the Christian emperors the sect maintained itself in the East until the 8th century. There seem to have been no lack of cases where the Montanists burned themselves in their own churches, so as not to have to abandon them to the Catholics.

The importance of the victory over Montanism is to be sought in the renunciation of the eschatological enthusiasm proper to the early times of the Church, in the ever more decisive affirmation of the hierarchical organization, founded in the apostolic succession of the bishops, over the religious subjectivism and individualism of Phrygian prophetism, in the safeguarding of the universality of the Church, destined to win for Christ not merely a small group of exalted spirituals, but the whole world; in the bringing into evidence of one of the greatest powers of the Church, that of being for its members the mediator of the forgiveness of every sin.

Agostino Mayer