Ancient Church

I’ve tried to write about Montanism several times, and for one reason or another lost it every time. But am I one to take a hint? Of course not, because this is interesting stuff, believe it or not.

Background: Montanism doesn’t have anything to do with the wide open spaces of Montana, although it sounds like it. Instead, it was one of the earliest Christian heresies. It began in the middle part of the second century when Montanus (either a priest or an inexperienced convert, depending on your source) began making strange pronouncements, which he said were directly from the Holy Spirit. Pretty soon, two of his disciples, Priscilla and Maximilla, also began the same kind of thing. Essentially, they were speaking in tongues. Eusebius, the first great historian of the Church, quotes an unidentified source who described what was happening:

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….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.

Montanus eventually seemed to get a pretty inflated idea of who he was. Jaroslav Pelikan reports that Montanus himself said that “I am the Paraclete. (i.e., Holy Spirit)” There has also been found an inscription in a home excavated in Numidia which reads: “Flavius, grandsire of the household. In the name of the Father and the Son and of the Lord Muntanus. What he promised he performed.”

Beyond that type of dubious foolishness, the Montanists tended to focus on making moral pronouncements. They were upset at the idea of second marriages, and thought the Church too lax on matters such as fasting. They also predicted that the New Jerusalem would come out of the sky, and that the Second Coming was going to happen any second now. They probably would have remained a fairly minor bunch, except that in the early third century, Tertullian, known as the Father of Latin Christianity, converted to the sect. He was probably drawn more by the rigid moral code than the predictions of future events — in his writings you get the notion that he had a bee in his bonnet about second marriages. But for whatever reason, he became a Montanist, assuring the movement of a place in history. I don’t know if he is a saint in the west, but he is not in the East, thank-you-very-much, since he died in his heresy. Eventually, the Montanist movement died a natural death, and was heard of no more.

Until fairly recently, that is. Here is what is fascinating. Montanus has been picked up as a patron saint, of sorts, by Charismatics and Pentecostals. A small Google search found about a kazillion web pages declaring that Montanus was the first charismatic, but that he was persecuted by the Big Bad Church. For example, a person named Matthew Allen, with Crown of Life Ministries in Tampa, put it rather baldly:

In essence, the Montanists were the first charismatics. Frederick Bruner rightly called Montanism “the fountainhead of all the enthusiastic or pneumatic movements in Christian history.” Its basic tenets have been recycled throughout church history by ecstatic sects, including today’s charismatic movement. Bruner noted the following central characteristics of Montanism that recur in today’s charismatic movement:

Hence, Bruner declared Montanism to be “the prototype of almost everything Pentecostalism seeks to represent.”

Yet ultimately, charismatics face the same dilemma as their spiritual forebearers. It was obviously the belief of Montanus and his disciples that the world would end, and end very shortly. Yet 1800 years later, Montanus, Priscilla and Maximilla are all dead, and the world continues on. Clearly, whatever spirit was speaking to them was not the Paraclete. In the same fashion, modern charismatics prophesy and claim exclusive revelations, but like their ancestors, time passes and nothing happens.

At bottom, both Montanism and Charismatics share a passionate desire for personal revelation, and for a sense of spiritual and moral superiority. Ironically, the Church herself has never been bereft of astounding spiritual events. The long history of the Church teaches us, however, that such revelation is not easily obtained, and true purification takes labor and effort, not passion. And labor and effort tend to be precisely what most people have no interest in investing. Cool spiritual events that feel good are one thing. True purification and illumination are quite another.

Very odd. As a protestant minor clergy, I helped pastor a Church where I was the only adult present who did not speak in tongues. Every Sunday brought new prophecies about a great movement of the Lord which was gathering steam. Yet life went on, and nothing seemed to change. Surely the Lord works, but He doesn’t play games. And in the end, as well meaning as they likely were, the Montanists were simply playing games.