MONTANISM

A schismatic movement that originated in Phrygia about the middle of the 2d century, spread rapidly and widely through the East and West, and almost completely disappeared during the 5th and 6th centuries. Montanism was a manifestation of a recurring phenomenon in the Church that, for want of a better term, is called "illuminism" or "enthusiasm" and is characterized by a conviction on the part of its devotees that (1) they are a spiritual elite called to restore the Church to its primitive simplicity, (2) they are under the direct guidance of the Holy Spirit, and (3) in their circle are renewed the charismatic gifts common during the period of the Church's first fervor.

Montanus. Montanus, the founder of the sect, was a convert from paganism. Shortly after his conversion he became the leader of a group of illuminati at Ardabau, and later at Pepuza, in Phrygia. He and certain of his followers, notably the women Priscilla (or Prisca) and Maximilla, were seized by religious raptures and, in the course of ecstasy, spoke in strange tongues and uttered prophecies that the sectaries regarded as oracles of the Holy Spirit.

Stories of mysterious apparitions of Christ and the Paraclete were spread abroad, and in the meetings of the Montanists, trances, convulsions, and mass hysteria occurred similar to the bizarre experiences of the Camisards, the Shakers, and the 17th-century visionaries of Paris who danced in the cemetery of Saint-Médard. Phrygia was traditionally the home of frenzy and fanaticism, and it is probably the irrationality and extravagance of Montanism that led opponents to call its adherents Phrygians or Cataphrygians.

Doctrine. During its earliest stages, Montanism was less concerned with doctrine than with the outpouring of the Holy Spirit that the Montanists saw in the transports of their prophets. Some points of discipline were inculcated; certain fasts were introduced; virginity was praised in exaggerated terms; husbands and wives were advised to separate or to live in continence; there were warnings of imminent catastrophes; and true believers were summoned to assemble at Pepuza to await the descent of the new Jerusalem and the coming of the millennium.

Montanists of the second and third generations developed the primitive asceticism of the sect into a doctrinal and disciplinary system that is described in considerable detail by tertullian, the most famous of its converts. In his Montanist treatises he condemns all second marriages as adultery. He insists that there are some sins that are so serious that the Church cannot or should not forgive them. Flight during time of persecution is a kind of apostasy; relatively mild fasts of the orthodox Church were to be replaced by frequent and prolonged xerophagies or dry fasts. The antihierarchical and anti-institutional prejudices characteristic of Pentecostal groups appear in Tertullian's views on the priesthood of all believers, and in the opposition that he sets up between the internal Church of the Spirit and the external Church of the bishops.

St. jerome, in describing Montanism, lists the errors already mentioned and says that members of the sect were infected with sabellianism. The claim that the utterances of the new prophets add to or supersede the revelation delivered to the Apostles and handed down in the apostolic churches remained a basic point at issue between Montanists and Catholics.

Importance. The importance of the sect during the early centuries may be judged by the attention it received from ancient Christian writers and ecclesiastics. Clement of Alexandria, Origen, St. Jerome, Sozomen, and, most particularly, Eusebius of Caesarea and Epiphanius furnish information on its historical development and describe the principal tenets of the sect. According to Eusebius the earliest anti-Montanist writings are those of Apollonius (c. 197); the apologists Miltiades, Melito, and Apollinaris of Hierapolis; the Roman Caius; and an anonymous bishop of Asia Minor who composed an influential three-volume work on the subject, c. 192–193 (Hist. Eccl. 5.16–19), Popes Soter (c. 166–175) and Eleutherius (c. 175–189) condemned the movement shortly after its appearance in the Church. The energetic opposition of Pope innocent i (401–417) and the laws of the Emperor honorius i against heresy (Feb. 22, 407) contributed substantially to the decline of Montanism in the West, and some 150 years later the severe anti-Montanist legislation of the Emperor justinian i all but destroyed it in the East.

As the movement lost its formal identity, its members either returned to the Church or went over to other Pneumocentric groups such as the Priscillianists and Cathari. However, evidence of the tenacity of some of its adherents and of the sect's stubborn will to live may be seen in a letter of gregory the great (June or July 601) to the bishops of Spain on the invalidity of Montanist baptism. And again as late as the 9th century, according to Ignatius of Nicaea, Nicephorus, Patriarch of Constantinople, urged the emperor to take restrictive measures against the Phrygian heretics.

Bibliography: p. de labriolle, La Crise montaniste (Paris 1913); ed., Les Sources de l'histoire du montanisme (Fribourg 1910). h. von campenhausen, Kirchliches Amt und geistliche Vollmacht in den ersten drei Jahrhunderten (Tübingen 1953). r. a. knox, Enthusiasm (New York 1950) 25–49. b. altaner, Patrology tr. h. graef from 5th German ed. (New York 1960) 138–139. k. aland, Zeitschrifte für die neutestamentliche Wissen- schaft und die Kunde der alteren Kirche 46 (1955) 109–116. h. bacht, Lexikon für Theologie und Kirche, ed. j. hofer and k. rahner, 10 v. (2d new ed. Freiburg 1957–65) 7:578–580.

[w. le saint]