In
Aduersus Praxean 1, Tertullian tells us how a bishop
of Rome changed his mind about the new prophetic movement
in the churches of Asia and Phrygia, and refused to
recognise their charismata. As a consequence, nos
quidem postea agnitio Paracleti atque defensto disiunxit
a psychicis.1 The general opinion of the nature of
this disiunctio was expressed by Duchesne:2 “it was
necessary to choose between communion with the Church
and belief in the new prophesying.” If such a formal
schism existed, then we must suppose the ecclesia
spiritus and the ecclesia numerus episcoporum3 to
have been two separate institutions, each with its
bishops, clergy and gatherings for worship, as in
the case of the almost contemporary Theodotian heresy
at Rome.4
Such
a thesis is difficult to reconcile with Tertullian’s
language. Let us consider his denunciation of the
episcopal edict on penance:
O
edictum cui adscribi non poterit bonum factum. Et
ubi proponetur liberalitas ista? Ibidem, opinor, in
ipsis libidinum ianuis, sub ipsis libidinum titulis...
Sec hoc in ecclesia legitur, et in ecclesia pronuntiatur,
et uirgo est. Absit, absit a sponsa Christi tale praeconium.5
The
edict was undoubtedly read in the ecclesia numerus
episcoporum; but how could she be still uirgo and
sponsa Christi to a formally schismatic Tertullian,
who had disjoined himself not only from the psychics,
but from the Church which they had shamed and disfigured?
It
could be replied that Tertullian had a notable gift
of irony, and that what he means is “in a Church which
you still insist is uirgo and sponsa Christi, though
of course she has now ceased to be anything of the
sort”. We must then interpret on the same lines De
monogamia 11,2, where even |p34 psychic digamists
(including presumably ille uester Utinensis) are married
in a virgin Church — et coniungent uos in ecclesia
uirgine, unius Christi unica sponsa. It would still
be noteworthy that though twice the ecclesia numerus
episcoporum is uirgo et sponsa Christi, nowhere in
his writings does he drop the supposed irony and tell
her bluntly that she is nothing of the sort. To explain
all in terms of Tertullian’s irony is even more difficult
when we examine his use of frater in De exhortatione
castitatis. Against the digamist claim that second
marriage is for mutual society, help and comfort,
and not for procreation, he argues that man proposes,
God (or nature) disposes, and quotes a case in point:
Scimus
denique quendam ex fratribus, cum propter filiam suam
secundo matrimonio sterilem captasset uxorem, tam
iterum patrem factum quam et iterum maritum.6
This
digamist can hardly have been a schismatic Montanist,
yet he is quidam ex fratribus. Indeed, the whole argument
of this tract, designed to warn against digamy a frater
whose wife has died, implies that both author and
recipient belong to one institution, in which (despite
irregular digamist bishops) clerical monogamia is
the recognised rule, and lay monogamia a discipline
of the New Prophecy which any can accept without a
change of ecclesiastical allegiance. The case seems
even clearer in De uirginibus uelandis. He admits7
that until recently both the veiling and the non-veiling
of unmarried girls were customs allowable apud nos.
The New Prophecy has revealed that Truth which over-rides
custom, and has backed it with a vision settling even
the length of veils. The psychics disdain not only
the New Prophecy, but even that law written by nature
on the hearts of the heathen, and thus
A
nobis nec naturalia observantur, quasi alius sit Deus
naturae quam noster.8
When
he turns to those to whom the rule will apply (most
of them still within the power of the family), there
is no suggestion that they must leave the Episcopal
Church in which they have grown up, and join a Church
of the Montanists. Veiled, they will belong to the
same institution and go on Sundays to the same assembly-place
as unveiled, though listening to the prophetic Spirit
rather than to bishops adjudicating on customs:
Superest
etiam ut ad ipsas conuertamur, quo libentius ista
suscipiant. Oro te, siue mater siue soror siue filia
uirgo, secundum annorum nomina dixerim, uela caput.9
Is
it possible that these three tracts predate both the
disiunctio of Adu. |p35 Praxean and the ecclesiae
of De pudicitia, and refer to conditions before a
crisis of formal schism? The chronological arrangement
of Tertullian’s writings is indeed a matter of considerable
dispute — and this is itself not without significance:
a formal schism should have left unambiguous traces
in polemical writings which deal with the very matters
at issue. There is, however, a consideration which
seems weighty enough to decide the immediate question:
the role of the Paraclete in discipline. How could
Tertullian have drawn his distinction between disciplina
and potestas in the way he does in De pudicitia,10
had he already formulated his belief in the New Prophecy
as not only totius sacramenti praedicatio11 but also
noua disciplina and Paracleti administratio ?12 .
To
posit a formal schism, we should have to ask: In which
Church was the penitential edict read? In the ecclesia
spiritus? God forbid. In the ecclesia numerus episcoporum?
Then she is no longer uirgo, but the very image of
ipsae libidinum ianuae. Is it not more reasonable
to suppose that the question never occurred to Tertullian,
that the edict was read simply in ecclesia? The ecclesia
spiritus and the ecclesia numerus episcoporum are
not then two opposed institutions, but one institution
interpreted according to two divergent conceptions
of authority (a position familiar enough to any Anglican).
Quid nunc et ad ecclesiam, et quidem tuam, psychice13
need mean no more than “the power given to Peter was
a personal gift, and has nothing to do with the Church,
certainly not with the Church as you conceive it;
if with the Church at all, then with the Spirit in
the Church, not with the bishops”.14
Similarly,
digami praesident apud uos15 need mean no more than
that |p36 Montanists will have nothing to do with
the (exceptional) digamist bishop. It is true that
in De pudicitia 10,12, where the Shepherd of Hermas
has been put inter apocrypha et falsa ab omni concilio
ecclesiarum, etiam uestrarum, we might have expected
nostrorum = African; but the councils were presumably
episcopal ones, and the African bishops were to Tertullian
psychics. There may perhaps have been some of them
who looked kindly on the New Prophecy: Old Testament
warnings are given et populo et episcopis, etiam spiritalibus.16
The last phrase can hardly be Tertullian’s sole reference
to a schismatic Montanist episcopate; though it may
of course be simply a gibe at bishops who claim a
spiritual power.
The
Roman decision, as reported by Tertullian, involved
no general anathema on the New Prophecy, simply a
refusal to recognise the charismata; the withdrawn
letters of peace concerned only the churches of Asia
and Phrygia. But was a formal anathema subsequently
pronounced?
Nouitatem
igitur obiectant, de cuius inlicito praescribant aut
haeresim iudicandum, si humana praesumptio est, aut
pseudoprophetiam pronuntiandam, si spiritalis indictio
est, dum quaque ex parte anathema audiamus, qui aliter
adnuntiamus.17
It
is not inconceivable that the Church of Africa could
have offered the Almighty this choice between two
alternative charges; nor impossible that some African
bishops had condemned the New Prophecy on the one
count, others on the other. Nevertheless, this aut
... aut phraseology suggests a popular accusation
rather than an official ecclesiastical sentence. If
there is no unambiguous statement of the excommunication
of the Tertullianists by the Church, no more is there
one of excommunication of the Church by the Tertullianists.
Tertullian says indeed Quae igitur hic duritia nostra,
si non facientibus uoluntatem Dei renuntiamus?18 The
English translators rendered this as “renounce communion
with”; but Tertullian continues Quae haeresis, si
secundas nuptias ut illicitas iuxta adulterium iudicamus?
and the context is Deut. 30,15:19 so that the more
probable interpretation is “renounce the majority
opinion of those weaker brethren who know not how
to choose the good and refuse the evil — no heresy
in this”. Mutual accusations of heresy undoubtedly
formed part of the repudiation of the former societas
sententiae;20 but there is no hint |p37 that this
involved also a repudiation of the communio sanctorum
and a denial that the psychics were in the true Church
at all.
This
does not mean that the Montanists remained a collection
of disgruntled individuals, bound together only by
community of spirit. De anima21 refers to group meetings,
probably before the Roman judgement:
Est
hodie soror apud nos reuelationum charismata sortita,
quas in ecclesia inter dominica sollemnia per ecstasin
in spiritu patitur... Post transacta sollemnia dismissa
plebe, quo usu solet nobis renuntiare quae uiderit...
Such
group meetings presumably continued. After the rejection
of the New Discipline as a normative rule for the
African Church, it would have been easy, perhaps inevitable,
for such a Holy Club to have adopted as a body voluntary
submission to the Discipline, until such time as there
was a further reform of the African Church according
to the prophetic Word of God. On such lines could
be interpreted nos infamantes Paracletum disciplinae
enormitate digamos foris sistimus.22 It is possible
that there were open-air gatherings. The Greek concilia
to which Tertullian refers with admiration were hardly
deliberative councils of bishops in the Cyprianic
sense.23 They are rather devotional gatherings, probably
in the open air, additional to the normal liturgical
worship, and akin rather to the ‘retreats’ of the
early Priscillianists before Epiphany and in Lent,
to the memorial-feasts of the martyrs (especially
that “open-air assemblage of the Church” described
by Gregory of Nyssa in the epistle to Flavian), and
perhaps to the Puritan prophesyings in Elizabethan
England. There is no evidence that in this form they
were introduced into Africa, but the example was there.
All
this is a question of what Tertullian’s language could
mean, depending upon one’s assumptions as to the Sitz
im Leben. To ask what it must mean, is to ask for
some clear and unambiguous statement of the situation,
and that Tertullian does not provide. Nowhere does
he refer to Montanist bishops, nowhere does he deny
that the African bishops were genuinely bishops, nowhere
does he say that the ecclesia numerus episcoporum
is no true Church, that the unius Christi unica sponsa
is to be found only with those who accept the New
Prophecy. Nowhere does he say that |p38 Montanists
have been cast out, driven from the Churches, condemned
by the definitive sentence of bishops; that they refuse
the catholic eucharist and refuse to meet with psychici
in common assembly. Lightfoot said of Hippolytus and
his disiunctio from Callistus “His very vagueness
is the refutation to the solution of a rival papacy”;24
we may similarly say of Tertullian that his very ambiguity
is the refutation of any theory of a formal schism
from the African Church.
There
is an equally significant silence from elsewhere.
What we find in the Passio Perpetuae is no more than
evidence for two factions within the African Church.25
Cyprian’s regard for Tertullian is witnessed not only
by Jerome on good authority,26 but by an examination
of Cyprian’s own works. De Labriolle qualified this
with a much-repeated observation:
St
Cyprian has indeed well-studied Tertullian. He follows
him closely in many of his treatises. But not a single
time does he name him.27
This
would be significant did Cyprian ever name, quote
or refer directly to any writer at all. Since he does
not, the omission of even Tertullian’s name is evidence
for nothing but Cyprian’s didactic style, and we are
left to ask whether Cyprian could have regarded Tertullian
as his master if Tertullian had been a notorious schismatic.
Since no ancient writer was more definite (if not
indeed fanatical) on this subject of schism than Cyprian,
the question must surely be answered in the negative.
Therefore, although in the time of Augustine the Tertullianists
certainly formed a schismatic sect with its own church-buildings,28
we have no real evidence as to when the formal schism
occurred.
Originally,
we would suggest, the Tertullianistae formed, not
a schismatic body, but an ecclesiola in ecclesia —
not, indeed, content to be such, but prepared to be
such while they strove still to secure the official
recognition of that New Prophecy which they themselves
obeyed. There |p39 are plentiful analogies in ecclesiastical
history — the Gemeinschaften set up by Bucer in Strasburg
after the council had refused the new discipline of
Von der wahren Seelsorge; the Puritan classes when
the Elizabethan Church of England refused to receive
the presbyterian discipline; perhaps also the early
Methodist societies. But we need not jump thirteen
hundred years to find an analogy. In the days when
Leontius was the only bishop of Antioch, Diodore and
Flavian were in a position not very different from
that which we have supposed for Tertullian: accepting
a newly-defined trinitarian orthodoxy despite episcopal
non-recognition, not separating themselves from the
Great Church, but gathering their supporters for additional
devotions in the cemeteries. The Novatianist schism
had indeed dissolved the Cyprianic glue of the bishops:
but one could still refrain from forming a Little
Church so long as bishop was not set up against bishop,
and so long as non-recognition did not advance to
condemnation. In the 360s, however, the world groaned
to find itself involuntarily Arian, the reaction produced
a new rigorism against all deviationist groups, and
the army of heresy-hunters was led into battle by
Epiphanius of Salamis.29 We ought not to read this
situation back into the early third century. Callistus
did not recognise or accept the Logos-theology of
Hippolytus, but there is no suggestion that he ever
excommunicated him; and I have argued elsewhere that
there is no evidence that Hippolytus ever excommunicated
himself.30
To
all this, however, there is the obvious rejoinder
that Montanism did not have to wait for Epiphanius
— it appears already in the lists of the 3rd century
heresiologists, Hippolytus and Pseudo-Tertullian.
To this point we must now direct our attention.
Hippolytus31
deals with the matter after a chapter on Quartodecimans,
whose classification as heretics was doubted at least
by Irenaeus. His specific objections are three-fold:
“regulations concerning novel and strange fasts”;
“they magnify these wretched women (Priscilla and
Maximilla) above the apostles and every charisma,
so that some of them presume to assert that there
is in them something superior to Christ”; and |p40
the fact that some of them are Noetian. Of these accusations,
only the first could apply to Tertullian.
Pseudo-Tertullian
improves upon Hippolytus. The Noetians are the ‘Kata
Aeschinem’, who must be distinguished from the ‘Secundum
Phrygas’. What they have in common is that
in
apostolis quidem dicant spiritum sanctum fuisse, paracletum
non fuisse, et dicant paracletum plum in Montano dixisse
quam Christum in euangelium protulisse, nec tantum
plum, sed etiam meliora et maiora.32
These
specific accusations of theological error, however,
cannot apply to the earliest stages of the movement.
Neither the Anonymous writer nor Apollonius make any
such accusation, and Schepelern has emphasized the
significance of this:33
Keiner
von ihnen erhebt die Beschuldigung gegen sie, die
in den Augen ihrer Zeitgenossen der beste Beweis für
den dämonischen Charakter ihrer Inspiration gewesen
ware: die Beschuldigung wegen Ketzerei. Und was mehr
ist: wir können ruhig davon ausgehen, dass auch die
verlorenen Parteien der zwei antimontanistischen Schriften
so das nicht besprochen haben; Eusebius wurde in dem
Fall nicht unterlassen haben, es zu erwähnen.
Similarly,
he holds that the distinction between a Holy Spirit
and a Paraclete is not part of the original Montanism:
the original wording of the Trinitarian formula in
oracle 1 must have been ‘Holy Spirit’, not ‘Paraclete’,34
Tertullian neither distinguished between a Holy Spirit
given to the apostles and a Paraclete given to Montanus,
nor denies that the Holy Spirit was a plenary gift
to the apostles.35 His argument is quite different:
Nihil
novi Paracletus inducit.36
Hac lege fidei manente cetera iam disciplinae et conversationis
admittunt novitatem correctionis.37
Paracletum restitutorem potius sentias eius, quam
institutorem.38
We
should note also that the term ‘Montanism’ does not
appear before the 4th century.39 The movement called
itself ‘The New Prophecy’, and its opponents referred
to it as oi9 kata_ fru&gaj. Hippolytus takes this
to the |p41 length of suggesting that all its members
were Phrygian by race;40 if he knew of Tertullianists
in Africa, he cannot have classed them as Cataphrygians.
We
must resist, therefore, the temptation to suppose
that anything which was at any time alleged against
‘Montanism’ can be predicated of the New Prophecy
as it was taught by the great prophetic trio, Montanus,
Priscilla and Maximilla. Of every piece of information
we must ask more carefully “where, when and by whom?”,
even if thereby we see disappearing, one after another,
the more popular criteria for distinguishing Montanism
from non-Montanism.41 If this is done, then two conclusions
seem to me to emerge: first, that Tertullian knew
nothing of ‘Montanism’, but only the original New
Prophecy, and from this his departures were minimal;
secondly, that the development of the New Prophecy
into ‘Montanism’ was a Phrygian phenomenon without
any known repercussions in the West, and that the
key to this transformation is not the growing influence
of the Cybele-cult, but a radical shift from the quite
orthodox eschatology of the New Prophecy.
II
For
the original appearance of the New Prophecy in Phrygia,
Eusebius’ date of 172 is clearly to be preferred,
and Epiphanius’ date of 156—7 can be disregarded.42
This is the period of the original Montanist trio,
|p42 Montanus, Priscilla and Maximilla. When the Anonymous
was writing, the last of the trio, Maximilla, had
died thirteen years before,43 and since then there
had been no prophet in the party.44 The most likely
dating for these thirteen years is the reign of Commodus,
180—192; which would imply that the Anonymous was
writing in 192, and that Maximilla died in 179.
According
to Eusebius, Apollonius wrote on Montanism in the
fortieth year after Montanus began prophesying, that
is, according to the Eusebian dating, c.212. Much
of his attack clearly covers the first period of Montanism,
but he also speaks of seeing the prophetess possessed
of gold and silver and costly apparel. Does this imply
a second period of the movement, the revival of the
prophetic gift after a silence? Two other interpretations
are possible, though they have not commended themselves
to many: first, that we are wrong about the thirteen
years, that when Apollonius wrote Priscilla was still
alive, and that we have been misled by the Eusebian
order into, assuming the priority of the Anonymous;
secondly, the thesis of de Labriolle that the prophetess
belonged to the past, and that Apollonius is simply
engaged in vivid reporting. Neither of these are in
themselves very plausible,45 while there is the great
objection that if half the allegations of Apollonius
are true, then the Montanism he was describing was
far from ascetic. The Anonymous says nothing (at any
rate in the extracts given by Eusebius) of these charges
of riotous and |p43 luxurious living, and Tertullian
in his extant works appears to be unaware of them,
and unaware of any necessity to refute them, any need
to deny that Priscilla and Maximilla dyed their hair
and painted their eyelids. Though the matter falls
short of conclusive demonstration, it is highly probable
that Apollonius is describing a revival of prophecy
after a period of silence, and a revival on a lower
plane. It is certainly inadmissible to assume that
his charges refer to the original period of Montanism.
There
is, moreover, in Eusebius no trace of the further
extravaganoes listed by Epiphanius and Jerome. Since
it is too much to suppose that Eusebius would have
foregone altogether such tit-bits had he found them
in his sources, we must assume that neither the Anonymous
nor Apollonius knew of all this, and that it belongs
to a third and later stage.
We
must go further than this. W. Schneemelcher has pointed
out46 that “specifically apocalyptic notions do not
appear in the forefront of the Sayings”, and finds
only two that are relevant. Only one of these can
with certainty be attributed to the original Trio,
and that must have come at the very end of their prophetic
career; Saying 12, from Maximilla: “After me there
will be no more prophets, but the sunte/leia."
None of the sayings attributed to Montanus, and none
of those attributed by Tertullian to Priscilla contain
any hint of the imminent parousia; while Saying 847
in retailing the alternatives to martyrdom leaves
no room for a remaining alive until the Coming of
the Lord. We must therefore ask whether the New Prophecy,
in its original form, did more than share general
late 2nd. century beliefs concerning the eventual
descent of the New Jesusalem at a parousia expected
but not imminent, for which martyrdom provided the
antecedent tribulation; and that the imminent parousia
appears only at the very end of the first stage of
the movement, when the failure of the prophetic succession
raised questions as to what was to happen now. Once
stated, it raised a problem for later devotees when
the expected parousia did not materialise.
The
second Saying, 11, occurs in a chapter48 devoted by
Epiphanius to the Quintilliani, Pepuziani, Priscilliani
or Artoturitai, whom he clearly |p44 regards as a
subdivision of the Cataphrygians to whom he had devoted
the previous chapter. He himself is not sure whether
the vision came to Priscilla or to an otherwise unknown
prophetess named Quintilla.49 We can advance the following
reasons for preferring Quintilla:
a) There is point in giving added weight to the vision
of a later prophetess by attributing it to one of
the founders of the movement, but none in reversing
the process.
b) Apollonius’ relates that Montanus “named Pepuza
and Tymion (small towns in Phrygia) Jerusalem, in
his desire to gather to them people from all quarters”.50
He can hardly have expected the New Jerusalem to come
down in the Last Days on two towns at once, while,
if Apollonius had mentioned the New Jerusalem, that
ardent anti-Chiliast, Eusebius, would surely have
seized on it, especially in H.E. 5,18,14. Weizsächer
was surely right,51 that these two towns were named
not in the context of the heavenly Jerusalem, but
rather in that of the Jerusalem of Acts — the re-creation
of the highly organised but Spirit-directed primitive
Church.
c) Tertullian shared with most of his Catholic contemporaries
a belief in the eschatological descent of the New
Jerusalem, confirmed by “the word of the new prophecy”;
but this will be in Judaea, and he knows nothing of
Pepuza.52 The same association of Jerusalem with Judaea
and not Pepuza is found in the ecstatic prophetess
mentioned by Firmilian of Caesarea.53 For this reason
de Labriolle refused to regard this prophetess as
Montanist (thus assuming that the Saying in question
provided a norm and a criterion for Montanism in general).
But there are clearly two other possibilities: that
the Saying was never accepted by more than one subsection
of Montanists, or that it dates later than A.D. 256.
In either case, it cannot have come from one of the
original founders of the movement. |p45
These
general arguments are confirmed by a more detailed
examination of the Saying. It is given in oratio obliqua,
which is in itself significant. Schepelern has rightly
pointed out that whereas the oracles attributed to
the great Trio were regarded as authoritative pronouncements,
and appeared usually in the ‘I-form’ (the prophet
giving tongue as the direct voice of God), visions
and revelations attributed to other inspired persons
(for example, the young woman of De anima 9) were
submitted to a “testing of the spirits”.54 The fact,
therefore, that this particular Saying is the only
named saying which reports a vision in oratio obliqua
in itself casts doubts upon its attribution to one
of the Trio.
But
a further accidental result is that the crucial passage
is framed in ambiguous accusatives and infinitives:
e0n
i0dea, fhsi\, gunaiko_j e0sxhmatisme/noj e0n stolh~|
lampra~| h]lqe pro&j me Xristo&j, kai\ e0ne/balen
e0n e0moi\ th_n sofi/an, kai\ a0peka&luye/ moi
toutoni\ to_n to&pon ei]nai a3gion, kai\ w[de
th_n 9Ierousalh_m e0k tou~ ou0ranou~ katie/nai.
‘There’
Schneemelcher translated “dass dieser Ort heilig sei
und Jerusalem aus dem Himmel hierher herabkommen werde”;55
but H.B. Swete “that this place is holy, and that
here Jerusalem comes down from heaven”.56 There is
no grammatical reason for distinction between these
two present infinitives — “is holy ... will come down”.
We distinguish only because we know Montanus already
to have reckoned Pepuza holy, and the second century
in general to have expected a future descent of the
heavenly Jerusalem. But it is not impossible that
the Quintillianists, having changed the site of such
a descent, changed also the time. Did they expect
at Pepuza some future descent? Or did they, on the
contrary, believe that since Pepuza, and indeed Tymion
as well,57 were already Jerusalem, they constituted
a kind of Montanist Bethel, and the heavenly Jerusalem
was already present to those whose eyes were opened.
De Labriolle explained Eus. H.E. 5,18,2 by suggesting
that the expected descent on Pepuza led to its being
named Jerusalem: the opposite is more probable — that
its |p46 being named Jerusalem led to the expectation
of descent. If we adopt the Swete translation, then
we have an eschatology radically different from the
apocalyptic futurism usually ascribed to the Montanists
— an eschatology largely realised in a present spiritual
experience for the more visionary Elect.
The
possibility is shocking, but it should be examined.
In this vision Christ appears in the very strange
form of a woman clothed in a bright robe. Schepelern58
dealt with this by invoking the sacred marriage; how
can this be, when Christ comes as a woman to a woman?
Since there is no obvious borrowing from the cult
of Cybele, we must ask whether the original significance
was not the appearance of Christ as the Church Above,
the ‘woman clothed with the sun’ of Rev. 12, the gunh_
presbu~tij of Hermas’ first vision:59 in other words,
Jerusalem above even now coming down in the Spirit?
The seven lamp-bearing virgins who prophesy and move
the congregation to repentance, and who must surely
owe something to the five wise virgins of Matt. 25,
may merely be acting out a parable of preparation
for an imminent parousia; but since prophetesses are
now those who have slept where Quintilla slept and
have seen her vision,60 they could also be a Montanist
Elect, enwisdomed virgins who are even now going into
the marriage-feast. If as has been conjectured, they
are numbered seven to accord with the seven spirits
before the throne and the seven candlesticks of Rev.
1, this interpretation would be strengthened.
Should
we not examine also the riot of ritual and liturgical
innovation, unmentioned by the Anonymous and Apollonius,
still less by Tertullian? Neander in 1827 began the
popular custom of finding the root of Montanist extravagances
in the Phrygian cult of Cybele. Later historians have
conducted a continuous retreat from his position.
Harnack, Bonwetsch and de Labriolle in succession
reduced the role of the Phrygian influence, |p47 and
finally Schepelern, in a massive study of all the
available material, has removed the cult of Cybele
from any connection with the origins and early development
of the movement:
Aus
einem Erdboden getränkt vom Blut — nicht dem der rasenden
Verschnittenen des Kybelekultes, sondern dem christlicher
Märtyrer spross der Montanismus empor. Und in einer
Atmosphäre gesättigt, nicht mit phrygischen Mysterienideen,
sondern mit den apokalyptischen Vorstellungen des
Judentums und des Christentums ist er emporgewachsen.61
The
more highly-coloured accusations of the heresiologists
— particularly the child pierced with needles and
its blood mingled with the offerings62 he regarded
as simply a particular example of the general attempt
to shift to so-called Christians the wide-spread accusations
of child-sacrifice made against all Christians. He
was nevertheless prepared to allow a limited Cybele-influence
on some of the later developments, and saw in the
seven virgins of Epiphanius 49,2 a certain congruity
with the maidens who wept over the fate of Attis at
the Phrygian spring festival.63 But this rested on
the assumption that the Montanist virgins were lamenting
the sufferings and death of Christ — of which there
is no trace in Epiphanius. What they were lamenting
was the life of men, and their sins, for the stirring
of their hearers to repentance. Again, the offerings
of bread and cheese he assumes to have been originally
offerings to Cybele, though evidence for any special
connection of cheese with Cybele is lacking. In Passio
Perpetuae 4, Perpetua accepts cheese from the white-haired
Shepherd: but this is in the first vision, and is
not on earth but in heaven. It is no doubt conceivable
that this represents the sublimation of a Phrygian
custom already transported to Africa: but de Labriolle
thought it perfectly natural: “Le Christ s’est montré
a Perpetua sous forme d’un Pasteur ... Quoi d’étonnant
a ce qu’il l’ait réconfortée du lait de ces brebis,
ou du fromage fait avec ce lait?”64 He supposed no
connection between the vision and the custom: but
why should not the vision in fact have been the origin
of the custom — what is seen to have happened in heaven
brought down and sacramentalised upon earth? In this
same vision of Perpetua there is a clear reminiscence
of Eve, to whom the Quintillianists give a particular
place.65 I have spoken of the possibility of Pepuza
as a Montanist Bethel: |p48 the reference to Genesis
28 is clearly there in the first vision of Perpetua,
uideo scalam aeream mirae magnitudinis pertingenteni
usque ad caelum. The female bishops and presbyters
of this chapter of Epiphanius are justified by appeal
to Gal. 3, 28: however natural this application of
the text may seem to some 20th century Christians,
there is no patristic parallel for such a use: both
to Paul and the early Church it would more probably
have appeared as an unwarranted anticipation of the
eschaton.66
We
may sum this up in two points: first, apparent connections
between later Montanist ritual and the Cybele cult
dissolve on examination; secondly, the real connections
are between the later ritual and the earlier-visions.
Against the possibility that the visions were founded
upon the ritual and not vice versa is the fact that
the visions appeared at a time when, according to
our evidence, the ritual was unknown. The most plausible
explanation appears to be that the Montanist gnosis67
was produced, not by borrowing from the Cybele-cult,
but by the transformation of a future eschatology
into a partly-realised one.
We
must therefore consider a sketch of the development
of Cataphrygianism notably different from that generally
accepted: the original prophecy simply shared the
eschatological expectations of Justin and Irenaeus,
and the decisive change comes with the death of the
last of the great Trio, the failure of the prophetic
succession, and her prophecy of the approaching sunte/leia.
A continuing Cataphrygianism, and especially one in
which prophecy had reappeared, would have to come
to terms with this last utterance of Maximilla. An
obvious solution — though not, I think, adopted by
all Cataphrygians — was to produce the only sunte/leia
possible, a spiritual Jerusalem descending wherever
Montanists gathered together. I doubt very much the
judgement of de Labriolle, that the sect always lived
on the same spiritual basis.68 What then, was the
relation between Tertullianism and Cataphrygianism?
We may dismiss at once the conjecture of Massingberd-Ford,
that they are mainly independent |p49 developments
from different though related types of Jewish Christianity.69
Tertullian’s repeated recognition of Montanus, Prisca
and Maximilla shows beyond all question that his Montanism
came froth Montanus, from Phrygia.
On
the other side there is the argument of de Labriolle,
that Tertullianism distinguished itself from Cataphrygianism
by conscious and deliberate choice.
Ce
qui prouve qu’il ne perdit a aucun moment de vue lea
vicissitudes de la secte en Orient, c’est que, en
riposte a l’ouvrage d’Apollonius, paru aux environs
de l’année 212, il annexa aux six livres de son De
Ecstasi an septième livre dirigé contre ce polemiste
(Jerome, de vir. ill. xl). On ne saúrait donc soutenir
serieusement que Tertullien n’ait connu qu’un Montanisme
d’exportation, systématiquement édulcoré. Il l'a connu
dans sa realité historique, et là où il en a modiflé
lea traits originels, c’est par une élaboration consciente
dont il est pleinement responsable.70
Tertullian,
however, appears to have known nothing of Maximilla’s
last prophecy. Before we assume that this is a case
of ‘conscious and deliberate modification’ we should
ask whether knowledge of Apollonius’ work necessarily
implies a continuing contact with Phrygia. The early
reports on Cataphrygianism had been favourably received
in the West, not only at Lyons but apparently also
at Rome.
Nam
idem tunc episcopum Romanum, agnoscentem iam prophetias
Montani, Priscae, Maximillae, et ex ea agnitione pacem
ecclesiis Asiae et Phrygiae inferentem, falsa de ipsis
prophetis et ecclesiis eorum adseruando et praecessorum
eius auctoritates defendendo coegit (Praxeas) et litteras
pacis reuocare iam emissas, et a proposito recipiendorum
charismatum concessare.71
Since
Tertullian ought naturally to have sought to refute
these falsa; since there is no attempt to do so in
any of his extant writings; and since the only place
where he is said to have done so is in the seventh
book of the De ecstasi, it is a reasonable conclusion
that the falsa of Praxeas either consisted of or were
founded upon the work of Apollonius, the gist of which
would thus be known in Rome and the West. Since in
his surviving works, he shews not the slightest realisation
that the morals of the New |p50 Prophecy need any
defence, we can assume that the falsa came as a surprise
to him, and that he did not believe them for a moment.
No continuous contact of Tertullian with Phrygia needs
to be postulated. Indeed, there is no suggestion in
his writings that it had ever existed. We must disagree
with de Labriolle: all the indications are that Tertullian
did receive a ‘Montanisme d’exportation’. Montanism
was a literary movement,72 and it is reasonable to
suppose that Tertullian obtained his knowledge of
it from Montanist writings — indeed, the sayings in
De resurr. carnis 10, De fuga 9 seem to imply quotation
from Montanist scripture. But it is necessary to suppose
neither that this ‘export Montanism’ was ‘systématiquement
édulcoré’, nor that everything said by Praxeas and
Apollonius was ‘falsa’, provided that one allows that
in forty years the Cataphrygian movement had changed.
We must ask whether, in order to produce a ‘Tertullianism’
substantially orthodox and tenable within the Catholic
Church of Africa, Tertullian needed to modify ‘les
traits originels’: whether more was needed than a
refusal to elaborate and extend them after the contemporary
Cataphrygian models.73
The
original Montanism, the Montanism of the great prophetic
Trio, shared with Justin and Irenaeus a future eschatology
and a belief in the descent of the heavenly Jerusalem;
but there is no reason to suppose that it taught an
imminent parousia. Its sole liturgical innovations
were “the novelties of fasts and feasts and meals
of parched food and repasts of radishes”,74 its organisational
innovation a financial scheme for |p51 regularising
offerings to the Church and apostolic maintenance
for preachers.75 The ‘loosing of marriages’76 seems
to be no more than an encouraging of inspired women
to separate from their husbands. Neither in this,
nor in the claim of visions, is there anything to
separate off Montanism from the orthodox asceticism
of the second century.
It
is not fasting that is at issue, but the claim to
lay down laws on fasting; not visions and revelations,
but the claim that these revelations are to be received
as the self-authenticating word of God. It would seem
from the arguments of Epiphanius’ oldest sourœ that
this, the nature of the pare/kstasij was the point
on which orthodox opinion really fastened, what the
Anonymous calls prophesying para_ to_ kata_ para&dosin
kai\ kata_ diadoxh_n a1nwqen th~j e0kklhsi/aj e1qoj.77
The main point of this can hardly have been an attack
on unintelligible glossalia (striking as this may
have been in the early enthusiasm of the movement),
since objection was taken to sayings of perfect clarity.
Schepelern argues that the real quarrel of the Montanist
prophets with the ecclesiastical hierarchy was not
over the question of penance, still less over the
growing organisationalism of the 2nd century Church,
but over the claim to control the discerning of spirits
by means of the tradition: “man reduzierte damit den
Pneumatiker zu einem Faktor zweiten Ranges in Gemeindeleben.”78
In contrast, he holds, the Montanists fell back upon
the Johannine Apocalypse — what is spoken is the Word
of God (17,17); he who hears is blessed (1,3; 22,7);
he who refuses it is cursed (22,8).
The
oldest source in Epiphanius argues at length that
Christian prophecy is concerned not with possession
and the ‘I-form’ of logion as it appears in the Montanist
logia 1—4, 15, but with reported visions where the
visionary remains conscious and aware of his spectator-role
(as in the visions of Hermas). Schepelern was unable
to produce any example of the I-form in Christian
use. The only example of its contemporary use, and
one which no doubt struck the Phrygian bishops, was
among the prophets of Palestine and Judaea referred
to by Celsus.79 But there is an obvious and significant
similarity between the Montanist Logion 4 and various
statements of the Apologists:
Behold,
man is a lyre, and I rush thereon like a plectrum.
Man sleeps and I awake (Logion 4). |p52
The
Spirit from God, who moved the mouths of the prophets
like musical instruments... Moses, Isaiah, Jeremiah
and the other prophets, who, lifted in ecstasy above
the natural operations of their minds by the impulses
of the divine Spirit, uttered the things with which
they were inspired, the Spirit making use of them
as a flute-player breathes into a flute (Athenagoras,
Legatio 7,9).
The
divine plectrum itself, descending from heaven, and
using righteous men as an instrument like a harp or
lyre (Ps-Justin, Exhort, ad Gent. 8).
The
significance lies in the fact that the Apologists
are talking about past prophecy, the plenary inspiration
of the canonical Old Testament prophets. With the
canonisation of the apostolic writings as a New Testament
alongside the Old, “confirmatory utterances are found
both with the prophets and in the gospels, because
they all spoke inspired by one Spirit of God”.80
If
we ask why the Montanist phenomenon should have occurred
at the time when it did, the answer must surely be
that what reduced the pneumatic to a second-rate factor
in the life of the community was less the episcopal
claim to discern spirits81 than the canonisation of
the Apostolic Writings as a New Testament, with its
inevitable and final reduction of all non-apostolic
prophecy. The threat posed by Montanism, not to the
apostolic ministry but to the apostolic scriptures,
appears in both the Anonymous and Apollonius.82
The
Montanist utterances could nevertheless claim to confirm
and not to challenge the apostolic gospel, since their
innovations were concerned not with faith, but with
the perfecting of discipline. Therefore they could
and did hope for recognition by the Church. Nothing
could be further from the truth than the statement
by a recent writer: “Montanism laid claim to special
revelations of a new prophecy denied to the secularized
church.”83 On the contrary, in the words of a more
careful student of Montanism:
Loin
de s’exclure eux-mêmes de la catholicité, ils bornèrent
longtemps leur ambition a se faire reconnaître, non
par seulement des communautés d’Asie auxquelles ils
répétaient leur continuelle sommation Dei~ u(ma~j
ta_ xari/smata de/xesqai, mais aussi |p53 par les
lointaines églises.84
For
the Cataphrygians, the churches of Asia and Phrygia,
the final refusal of Rome to send them letters of
peace marked the end of such restraint. But, as we
have seen, the refusal of Rome to receive officially
the Montanist charismata, and thus make the New Prophecy
binding on the whole Church, did not involve a specific
condemnation of that Prophecy, and left the Tertullianists
free to continue the original Montanist strategy.
At
the end of De haeresibus 86, Augustine writes:
Non
ergo ideo (because of his views on the soul) est Tertullianus
factus haereticus: sed quia transiens ad Cataphrygas,
quos ante destruxerat, coepit etiam secundas nuptias
contra apostolicam doctrinam tanquam stupra damnare,
et postmodum etiam ab ipsis diuisus, sua conuenticula
propagauit.
The
statement has long been regarded with suspicion. Not
only in Tertullian’s writings is there no suggestion
of a split among the African followers of the New
Prophecy, there is nothing that can be regarded as
the possible build-up for a split, and it was long
ago suggested that ‘Tertullianistae’ was simply the
name for African Montanists.85 T.D. Barnes has suggested86
that the whole idea was an invention of Augustine
and Praedestinatus, based merely on inference from
the name Tertullianistae. But Augustine could be producing
the confused explanation of an authentic tradition.
The Tertullanistae had not been implicated automatically
in the Roman breach with the Cataphrygians, the churches
of Asia and Phrygia. Tertullian was indeed ab ipsis
diuisus — not by his own act as the result of a disagreement
over doctrine or discipline, but by the papal pronouncement
and the facts of geography.
Such
a division, however, must have enforced separate development,
intensified by the Greek/Latin language division which
from the beginning of the 3rd century drives an ever-broader
wedge between East and West. Whereas the Cataphrygians
were now freed (or abandoned) to elaborate their own
conceptions in their own way without any external
control, Tertullianism, if (as we maintain) it continued
as a group within the Catholic Church, would have
been thereby restrained and moderated; nor would this
have been a betrayal of the original convictions of
the New Prophecy, which had always intended to revitalise
the Church from within, not to desert it and set up
its own new vehicle of the Spirit. In that |p54 emphasis
upon the Spirit which we find in Cyprian and in his
heirs, both Donatist and Augustinian, we may perhaps
see the continuing influence of Tertullianism; and
it is there, rather than in the exotic fantasies of
Pepuza, that we should look for the real spirit of
the New Prophecy.
University
of Exeter, Department of Theology
Footnotes
originally appeared at the foot of each page.
1
Aduersus Praxean 1,7.
2
The Early History of the Church, I, 202.
3
De pudicitia 21,17.
4
Eusebius, Hist. Eccl. 5, 28.
5
De pudic. 1, 7- 8
6.
2, 6.
7.
3, 1-2.
8.
11, 6.
9.
16,3.
10.
De pud. 21,1. 6: Disciplina hominem gubernat, potestas
adsignat... Quod si disciplinae solius officia sortitus
es, nec imperio praesidere, sed ministerio, quis aut
quantus es indulgere.
11.
De resurrectione carnis 63,9.
12.
De mon. 2,1: Itaque monogamiae disciplinam in haeresim
exprobant, nec ulla magis ex causa Paracletum negare
coguntur, quam dum existimant novae disciplinae institutorem.
De exhort, cast. 6,2: donec novae disciplinae materia
proficeret. De uirg. uel. 1,5: Quae est ergo Paracleti
administratio, nisi haec, quod disciplina dirigitur.
See also the four stages of righteousness, De uirg.
uel. 1, and the preliminary sketch of this in De mon.
14.
13.
De pud. 21,16.
14.
"It must not be supposed that Tertullian is thinking
here of two distinct churches, with the Montanist
church conceived as a congregation organically separated
from the hierarchical church. Rather, within the external
church of the bishops there is an amorphous, internal
church of the Spirit.” W. P. Le Saint, Treatises on
Penance, Ancient Christian Writers xxviii (1959) note
667.
15.
De monog. 12,3.
16.
De ieiun. 16,3.
17.
De ieiun. 1,5.
18.
De monog. 15,1.
19.
Ecce, posui ante te bonum et malum.
20.
De pudic. 1,10.
21.
De anima 9,4.
22.
De pudic. 1,20.
23.
De ieiun. 13, 6-8: Aguntur praeterea per Graecias
illa certis in locis concilia ex universis ecclesiis,
per quae et altiora quaeque in commune tractantur,
et ipsa repraesentatio totius nominis Christiani magna
ueneratione celebratur... Conuentus autem illi stationibus
prius et ieiunationibus operati dolere cum dolentibus
et ita demum congaudere gaudentibus norunt.
24.
J.B. Lightfoot, The Apostolic Fathers 1890, I, 2,
431.
25.
Passio 13: Et exiuimus, et uidimus ante fores Optatum
episcopum ad dexteram, et Aspasium presbyterum doctorem
ad sinistram, separatos et tristes. et miserunt se
ad pedes nobis, et dixerunt: Componite inter nos,
quia existis, et sic nos reliquistis. et diximus illis:
Non tu es papa noster, et tu presbyter? ut uos ad
pedes nobis mittatis? . . . et dum loquimur cum eis,
dixerunt illis angeli: Sinite illos refrigerent; et
si quas habetis inter uos dissensiones, dimittite
uobis inuicem. et conturbauerunt eos. et dixerunt
Optato: Corrige plebem tuam; quia sic ad te conueniunt
quasi de circo redeuntes, et defactionibus certantes.
et sic nobis uisum est quasi uellent claudere portas.
The last clause seems clearly to imply that a final
exclusion, however much desired by some, had not yet
taken place.
26.
De vir. illustr. 53.
27.
Pierre de Labriolle, La Crise Montaniste (1913) 471.
28.
Augustine, De haer. 86, speaks of the transfer of
their basilica to the catholics.
29.
In an unpublished thesis, Ascetic Conventicles of
the Fourth Century (1972), C.J. Garland has illustrated
the change in attitude by comparing the qualified
condemnations of the Council of Gangra in the 340s
with the harsher and more doctrinaire nature of the
treatment meted out by Amphilochius of Iconium to
the Apotactites.
30.
A paper, The Schism of Hippolytus, delivered at the
Sixth International Conference on Patristic Studies,
Oxford, 1971, and to be published with the proceedings
of that Conference.
31.
Refutationes 8,19; 10,25—26,
32.
Pseudo-Tertullian, Adv. omnes haereses 7.
33.
Wilhelm Schepelern, Der Montanismus und die Phrygischen
Kulte (Tübingen, 1929) 25.
34.
“I am the Father, and I am the Son, and I am the Paraclete.”
For convenience of reference I will cite the Montanist
Sayings according to the numbering of W. Schneemelcher,
in E. Hennecke, New Testament Apocrypha, English translation
(Lutterworth Press 1965) 686—7.
35.
De pudic. 12,1.
36.
De monog. 3,1.
37.
De uirg. ueland. 1,4.
38.
De monog. 4,1.
39.
Didymus, De trinitate 3,41: Montanistw~n h9 pla&nh.
40.
Refut. 8,19: 'Eteroi de\ kai\ autoi\ ai9retikw&teroi
th_n fu&sin, Fru&gej to_ ge/noj.
41.
J. Massingberd-Ford (Was Montanism a Jewish-Christian
heresy? Journ. Eccl. Hist. xvii 2, Oct. 1966) assumes
that Montanists used the solar calendar, thus indicating
their origins from heretical Jusaism; but his evidence
comes from Sozomen, Hist. Eccl. 7, 12, 18. The article
on “Montanism” in the Oxford Dictionary of the Christian
Church (1957), committed itself to the statement that
“Montanus himself ... proclaimed that the heavenly
Jerusalem would soon descend near Pepuza in Phrygia”.
Without going to these lengths, de Labriolle (op.
cit., 487) used the descent of the heavenly Jerusalem
on Pepuza as a criterion for rejecting as Montanist
the prophetess of Firmilian of Caesarea. But we shall
find reason to call into question even the criterion
advanced by G.Bonwetsch, Geschichte des Montanismus
(1881): “an effort to shape the entire life of the
Church in keeping with the expectation of the return
of Christ, immediately at hand.” See also V. C. De
Clerq (The expectation of the second coming of Christ
in Tertullian, Studia Patristica xi 2, 147): “His
writings do not bear witness to the sense of immediateness
and imminence regarding the Day of the Lord ... This
is all the more significant as, from c.207, he became
more and more committed to the tenets of Montanism,
one of which was the imminent return of Christ and
the establish ment of the millennium.”
42.
(a) Epiphanius’ chronology in Haer. 48 is even wilder
than usual. “More or less 290 years” from his date
of writing (375) would put Maximilla’s death in the
reign of Domitian, while he assumes that Justin died
in the reign of Hadrian. Is it possible that he was
working from the 19th year of the wrong Antoninus?
The 19th year of Antoninus Verus (Marcus Aurelius)
would be 177—8, according to Anon, a significant year
for Montanism, though the death of Maximilla and not
the first prophecy of Montanus. (b) In view of the
known affinities and connections between Asia and
Gaul, Eusebius’ date would give adequate time for
the martyrs of Lyons to hear of the first generous
stages of the New Prophecy. (c) The date of Thraseas’
martyrdom (Eus. H.E. 5,18,14) can be fixed as not
later than 165, only if the martyrology in H.E. 5,24,2—5
is arranged chronologically: but it is more probably
arranged topographically, going round the churches
of Asia. Was Polycarp also martyred before 165?
43.
Eusebius, Hist. Eccl. 5,16,19.
44.
lb. 17,4.
45.
The first of these interpretations was pronounced
by de Labriolle, op. cit., 585, to be hardly possible.
As to the second: it is difficult to interpret h(
profh~tij h(mi~n ei0pa&tw ta kata_ 'Alexandron
(18,6) as historic present in the absence of any quotation
from the written words of the prophetess. I also find
difficulty in translating 18,3 as " We shew therefore
that these prophetesses were the very first, from
the time when they were filled with the spirit, who
left their husbands”. For devout women to abandon
cohabitation was in no sense a Montanist innovation,
and all that Apollonius is endeavouring to prove is
that Priscilla had no right to the title of ‘virgin’.
A more natural translation would be “We shew therefore
that these first prophetesses themselves, from the
time when they were filled with the Spirit, had left
husbands” — which would imply other prophetesses after
‘these first’.
46.
W. Schneemelcher, in E. Hennecke, New Testament Apocrypha,
English trans. (Lutterworth Press 1965) II,688.
47.
“Desire not to die in bed, nor in delivery of children,
nor by enervating fevers, but in martyrdom, that he
may be glorified who has suffered for you.”
48.
Epiphanius, Haer. 49.
49.
Haer. 49,1: e0n th~| Pepou^zh| h~ Kui/ntillan h~ Pri/skillan,
ou0k e"xw a0lribw~j le/gein, mi/an de\ e0c au0tw~n,
w&j proei~pon e0n th~| Pepou&zh| kekaqhudhke/nai
. . .
50.
Eus. H.E. 5,18,2.
51.
Quoted by de Labriolle, op. cit., from Theologische
Literaturzeitung 1882; but I have been unable to verify
the reference.
52.
Adu. Marc. 3,24,3—4: Confitemur in terra nobis regnum
promissum, sed ante caelum, sed alio statu, utpote
post resurrectionem in mille annos in ciuitate diuini
operis Hierusalem caelo delatum ... Hanc et Ezechiel
nouit et apostolus loannes uidit et qui apud fidem
nostram est nouae prophetiae sermo testatur, ut etiam
effigiem ciuitatis ante repraesentationem eius conspectui
futuram in signum praedicarit. Denique proxime expunctum
est orientali expeditione. Constat enim ethnicis quoque
testibus in Iudaea per dies quadraginta matutinis
momentis ciuitatem de caelo pependisse, omni moeniorum
habitu euanescente de profectu diei, et alias de proximo
nullam.
53.
Cyprian, Ep. 75, 10.
54.
Wilhelm Schepelern, op. cit., 15. He argues from the
phrase ut etiam probentur in De anima 9.
55.
E.Hennecke, Neutestamentliche Apokryphen (Tübingen
1964) II, 486.
56.
H.B. Swete, The Holy Spirit in the Ancient Church
(1912) 69. He does not, unfortunately, comment upon
his translation.
57.
The revelation is simply that “this place” is holy,
and that Jerusalem descends or will descend hither”;
Pepuza is not explicitly mentioned, though since the
vision occurred there and was apparently not repeated,
it is Pepuza alone which becomes associated with the
heavenly Jerusalem. I may perhaps add here that it
has also been suggested tome that w{de is itself ambiguous:
it could mean either ‘hither’ or ‘thus’ i.e., the
visionary Christ as the woman clothed in brightness.
58.
Op. cit., 144-45.
59.
Could this conceivably throw any light on the mysterious
remark in II Clem. 14,2: h[n ga_r pneumatikh_ (h(
e9kklhsi/a), w9j kai\ o9 'Ih~souj h9mw~n, e0fanerw&qh
de\ e0p' e0sxa&twn tw~n h9merw~n i3na h9ma~j sw&sh|.
Kirsopp Lake (The Apostolic Fathers [1912] 1,151)
translated “he was made manifest ... that he might
save us”, but commented: “The translation ‘she was
made ... that she might save us’ is grammatically
more probable, but seems to be excluded both by the
context and by the history of doctrine”. As to the
context, II Clem. continues “and the Church, which
is spiritual, was made manifest in the flesh of Christ”.
60.
Epiph. Haer. 49,1: Dio_ kai\ a1xri th~j deu~ro muou~sqai/
tinaj ou3tw gunaikaj e0keise e0n tw~| to&pw| kai\
a1ndraj, pro_j to_ e0pimeina&saj au0ta_j h2 au0tou_j
to_n Xristo_n qewrh~sai. Gunaikej ou]n par' au0toij
kalou~ntai profh&tidej.
61.
Op. cit., 162.
62.
Epiph. Haer. 48,14—15; cf. Filastrius, Haer. 49; Augustine,
De haer. 26.
63.
Op. cit., 127
64.
Op.cit.,344.
65.
In reference to the draco which endeavours to prevent
her ascent of the heavenly staircase et quasi primum
gradum calcarem calcaui illi caput, Pass Perp. 4.
Xa&rin dido&ntej th~| Eu1a|, o3ti prw&th
be/brwken a0po_ tou~ cu&lou th~j fronh&sewj,
Epiph. Haer. 49,2.
66.
We presume that the author of Gal. 3,28 also wrote
I Cor. 14, 34-35. The text was not much used in the
2nd and 3rd centuries, and the only comments upon
it m this period known to me are Clem. Alex. Protr.
11, where it is used to show that the same Logos is
in all the converted; and Paed. 6, where it is used
against the gnostic division into pneumatikoi and
psychikoi. For Clement, the perfect man may be a presbyter
of the celestial church, but this in itself gives
him no title to the presbyterate in the earthly church;
a fortiori of a perfected woman.
67.
By this I do not mean that they had borrowed from
the heretical Gnosticism of the second century, and
certainly not from its dualism; but simply that their
transformation of the eschatology had produced an
outlook with some similarities.
68.
Op. cit., 483.
69.
Massingberd-Ford, op. cit. Tertullian’s “type of Montanism
differs from the New Prophecy, especially in its lighter
emphasis on prophecy, the omission of the mention
of Pepuza, and the concomitant lack of interest in
an imminent parousia . . . We suggest that both the
New Prophecy in Phrygia and Tertullianism in Africa
developed from Jewish Christianity. This would account
for the similarities between the two. Their dissimilarities
can be attributed to the different types of Judaism
from which they sprang, in the one case a Babylonian
type of Judaism, in the other an African Judaism”.
70.
Op. cit., 299.
71.
Adu. Prax. 1,5.
72.
Eus. H.E. 5,17,1; 5,18,5; Hipp. Refut. 8,19.
73.
Only upon the question of penance is there reason
to suppose that Tertullian misread the Montanist Saying
6, and became more rigorist than his preceptors. So
de Labriolle, op. cit., 59—60: “A dire vrai, je ne
crois pas que Montan et sea acolytes, quelqu’animés
qu’ils fussent contre l’Eglise de leur temps, pour
lea faiblesses qu’ils notaient en cUe, comme pour
lea sevérités qu’elle déployait a leur égard, aient
jamais osé réserver le titre d’Eglise a la collectivité
moataniste. Us ne sont accuses nulle part d’un transfert
aussi audacieux, et qui n’eut guère cadre avec Ia
prudence relative de leur traditionalisme. Plus tard
seulement Ia secte se donnera une organisation distincte.
Montan reconnait, et il proclame, le droit de Ia hierarchic
a délier lea fautes. Mais se jugeant capable, lui
prophòte, de Ia même prerogative, il indique avec
fermeté qu’iI entend n’en user point et pour quelle
raison. C’est Tertullien, nous le verrons, qui, sollicitant
ce mot aver son astuce habituelle, lui donnera une
portée tout autrement lointaine et meurtrière."
De Labriolle argued from Eus. H.E. 5,18,7, as implying
Montanist forgiveness of sins; though Bernhard Poschmann
(Paenitentia Secunda [B onn 1940] 265) argued that
this passage need imply nothing concerning Montanist
Busspraxis, but could be simply a jibe of Apollonius
at the Montanist need for forgiveness. Tertullian’s
reading of this Saying, however, had far-reaching
consequences upon his doctrine of the ministry.
74.
Hipp. Refut. 8,19.
75.
Eus. H.E. 5,18,2.
76.
Ibid.
77.
lb. 16,7.
78.
Op. cit., 134.
79.
Origen, C. Cels. 7,2—11.
80.
Theophilus, Ad Autol. 3,12.
81.
I can in fact find no evidence for an explicit episcopal
claim to discern spirits, apart from the action of
the Asian episcopate against the New Prophecy. Didache
11,7 (and I take this to be a late 2nd century Montanist
compilation) denies the right so to discern, but in
quite general terms. Hermas 43 (Mand. 11,7ff) is couched
in equally general terms. It is not mentioned in the
listing of episcopal functions in Hipp., Apostolic
Tradition 3,4—S.
82.
Eus. H.E. 5,16,3; 5,18,5.
83.
Jaroslav Peikan, The Emergence of the Catholic Tradition
(U. of Chicago Press, 197 1) 68.
84.
Op. cit., 136.
85.
J. M. Fuller, Dictionary of Christian Biography (1887)
IV, 819.
86.
Tertullian: a historical and literary study (1971)
258.
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Bibliographic
& Copyright details
Douglas
POWELL, Tertullianists and Cataphrygians, Vigiliae
Christianae 29 (1975), 33-54; © Brill Academic Publishers,
1975. Reproduced by permission of the publisher. All
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