CHAPTER 8
THE MONTANISTS.
In historic times Phrygia comprised the greater part of Asia
Minor. “Montanism” appeared there about the middle of the second century.
Montanism enrolled its hosts and was one of the greatest Christian
influences throughout .the early Christian centuries. As there was at the time,
when Montanism arose, no essential departure from the faith in the action, the
subjects of Baptism, church government or doctrine, the Montanists, on these
points, were Baptists.
Of the Montanists, Armitage says: “Tertullian and the Montanists
denied that baptism was the channel of grace.”1
Kurtz says: “Its leading characteristics were a new order of
ecstatic prophets, with somnambulistic visions and new relations; a grossly
literal interpretation of scriptural predictions; a fanatical millenarianism; a
self-confident asceticism; an excessive rigor in ecclesiastical discipline.
Thus, without dissenting from the doctrinal statements of the church, Montanism
sought to reform its practice. In opposition to the false universalism of the
Gnostics, the Montanists insisted that Christianity alone, and not heathenism,
contained the truth.”2
Schaff says: “ Montanism was not originally a departure from the
faith, but a morbid overestimating of the practical morality of the early
church.”3
1
Armltage's Hist. of the Bap., p. 177.
2
Kurtz's Ch. Hist. vol. 1, p. 131.
3
Schaff's Hist. Chr. Ch.vol. 1, p. 302.
Kurtz further says: “Still their moral earnestness and zeal
against worldliness and hierarchism and false spiritualism rendered important
service to the church, both in the way of admonition and warning.”1
Wadington concedes: “Another cause of the temporary fame of the
Montanists was the severity of the morality inculcated by them.”2
Dorner says of the Montanists: “This is a form of vigor and widely
influential significance. In it the original Christian feeling, the Christian
people, the democratic basis of the church predominated against the Gnostic and
against the hierarchal element.” Against “Gnostocism, Montanism was the shyest
and most self-sufficient.”3 Gnostocism was, at that time, the great
and dangerous enemy of true Christianity.
Another well-known historian says: “Among those hostile to the
Alexandrian school, is to be numbered Montanus. His aim evidently was to
maintain or to restore the scriptural simplicity, nature and character of the
religion of the New Testament with a constant reliance on the promise of the
Holy Spirit.” Guericke's crediting the statement, that the Montanists did not
believe in any visible church, is refuted by Tertullian's statements on baptism
and by their well known character. It is discredited by Schaff and other
historians.4 Thus Schaff says of the Montanists: “Infant baptism
only it seems to have rejected.Ӡ
† Let this refute the statement of Augustine and Palagius, so
often quoted, that infant baptism was universal in the early churches.
l
Idem, p. 131.
2
Wadington's Ch. Hist., p. 78.
3
Dorner's Person of Christ, vol. l, p. 256.
4
See Schaff's Hist. Chr. Ch. vol. l, pp. 364, 365; Armiltage's Bap. Hist. p.176.
Guericke concedes that “they received the general truths of
Christianity, as understood by the universal church.”1
Admit that the Montanists did have women teachers among them, and
that some of them practiced trine immersion, since the position of women in the
New Testament Church is a disputed point, and since both it and trine immersion
are only an irregularity, neither of which is as bad as open communion, feet
washing and non-cooperation in missions, they cannot invalidate those churches
as New Testament churches. [Here read in Chapter IV of this book.] Their
millenarian views, while they may have been extravagant, could but class them
with the church of Thessalonica.2
Schaff charges the Montanists with believing in the celibacy of
the clergy. But he admits they had no law or rule that forbade the marriage of
ministers; and then concedes there are two sides to even the charge of discouraging
their marriage. The explanation probably is: as owing to the persecutions of
the Christians, Paul, in his letter to the Corinthians, rather favored celibacy
as a temporary thing, so did the Montanists as to their ministers.
The charge of believing in the continuance of inspiration, of
ecstacies, inward experiences and that their leader claimed to be the Holy
Spirit, are much what Campbellites charge against the Baptists of our age.
Mosheim took up these charges and credited Montanus, their great
leader, with calling himself the Comforter. But his translator, in a foot note,
corrects him and says: “Those are undoubtedly mistaken who have asserted that
Montanus gave himself out that he was…
1
Guericke's Ch Hist., vol. 1, pp. 191-93.
2
See 2 Thess. 2:2, 3.
…the Holy Ghost.”1 Hase says of Tertullian, one of the
great Montanist leaders: “He placed a high estimate upon that consciousness of
God, which he contended might be found in the depths of every soul, but he was
fond of contrasting with proud irony the foolishness of the gospel with the
wordly wisdom of his contemporaries, and the incredibility of the divine
miracles with ordinary understanding of the world. His writings are partly
controversial…and partly devotional. They are, however, so written that the
devotional element constantly appears in the former, and the polemic in the
latter, in behalf of strict morality and discipline.”2 Hase says of
Tertullian's writings: “The Montanistic spirit is perceptible in them all, but
in the earliest of them it holds up the simple, noble nature of Christian
morality in opposition merely to an effeminate form of civilization, gradually it proceeds to
severer demands, and shows an increasing consciousness of its pneumatic nature
in opposition to those who were merely physical Christians; and, finally it was
especially hostile to the Romish Church, in proportion as the latter ceased to
favor Montanism. For it was not so much Tertullian as the Roman bishop who changed
his views with reference to that system… Tertullian, to whom the Paraclete was
rather a restorer of apostolic order than an innovator, and religious ecstasy
was rather a theory than a principle, became so prominent that he was looked
upon as the model for Latin theology. This theology was rather disinclined to
philosophical theories respecting divine things; it spoke of Athens and the
Academy as irreconcilable with Jerusalem and the church and turned its…
1
McLean's Note, p. 188, vol. l, of Mosheim's Ch. Hist.
2
Hase's Hist. Chr. Ch., p. 88.
…whole attention to questions respecting the condition of the
church, and things essential to salvation.”1
Of Tertullian, Moller says: “To him the very substance of the
church was the Holy Spirit and by no means the Episcopacy whose right to wield
the power of the keys he rejected.”2 Thus, in Church Government they were Baptists. In the following,
we have this yet more explained: Says Neander: “Montanism set up a church of
the Spirit, consisting of spirateles homines in opposition to the
prevailing outward view of that institution. Tertullian says: ‘The church, in
the proper and prominent and sense, is the Holy Spirit in which the Three are
One, — and next, the whole community of those who are agreed in this faith
(that God, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost are One,) is called after
its founder and consecrator, (the Holy Spirit,) the church. † The Catholic
point of view, expresses itself in this — viz., that the idea of the church is
put first, and by this very position of it, made outward; next, the agency of
the Holy Spirit is represented as conditioned by it, and hence derived through
this mediation. Montanism, on the other hand, like Protestantism, places the
Holy Spirit first, and considers the Holy Spirit first, and considers the
church as that which is only derived*… The gifts of the Spirit were to be
dispensed to Christians of every condition and sex, without distinction… They
were thus led to give prominence once more to the idea of the dignity of the
universal Christian calling, of the priestly…
* Christian
reader; decide which of these. In the light of the Bible, Is the
true church!
t Nam et ecclesia proprie et principaliter ipse est Spiritis, in quo est trinitas unius divinitatis. Illam ecclesiam congregat, quam Dominus in tribus posuit, (where two or three are gathered together in his name) atque ita exiude etiam numerus, qui in hanc fidem conspiraverint ecclisae ab auctore et conscratore consetur. L. C.
1
P.701.
2
Schaff-Herzog Ency., vol. 2, p. 1562.
…dignity of all Christians, which had been in a measure
suppressed.”1
Tertullian defines the ecstatic condition thus: “In spiritu homo
constitutus, praesertim cum gloriam Dei conspicit, vel cum per ipsum Deus
loquitor, necesse est excidat sensu, obumbratus scilicit virtute divina” —
probably meaning only what David meant, when he said: “my cup runneth over;”
or, as the poet, in describing the ecstasy of the young convert — “on the wings
of a dove I was carried above.”
Admitting the Montanists did run to the extreme as to visions and
prophecies does not affect the validity of their churches, for Neander,
describing the visions of one of their prophets, says: “The matter of her
visions corresponded to what she had just heard read out of the Holy
Scriptures, what was said in the Psalms that had been sung, the prayers that
had been offered;” there are things, in our best churches, more harmful than
that extreme. ††
Gieseler admits that “the Montanists had not an uninterrupted
series of prophets.”2 Thus, whatever was this extreme, it was not
permanent or continuous.
Armitage: “The one prime idea held by the Montanists in common
with Baptists, and in distinction to the churches of the third century was,
that the membership of the churches should be confined to purely regenerate
persons; and that a spiritual life and discipline should be maintained without
any affiliation with the authority of the State. Exterior church organization
and the efficacy…
†† Tertulllan thus narrates
this: “Jam vero prouet scrlpturae leguntur, aut Psalmi canuntur, aut
allocutiones proferuntur, aut petitiones delegantur, ita inde materiae
visionibus subministrantur.” Translated; But truly according as the Scriptures
are read, or Psalms are sung, or addresses are delivered, or prayers are
offered, thence, from that medium are materials by which we are assisted by
visions.
1 Neander's
Hist. Chr. Ch., vol. 1, pp. 518.61B.
2 Gleseler's
Bed. Hist., vol. 1, p. 141.
…of the ordinances did not meet their idea of Gospel church existence
without the indwelling Spirit of Christ, not in the bishops alone, but in all
Christians. For this reason Montanus
was charged with assuming to be the Holy Spirit, which was simply a slander.” Yet,
from superficial examination, Armitage gives too much importance to the charge
of “visions” and “revelations” against them.
The sum of these answers I give in the words of one of the highest
authorities in church history:
Says Wm. E. Williams, D. D.: “The Comte de Champagny, who has
written, though an ultramontane Catholic, so eloquently and eruditely on the
early history of Christianity and the collision of it with Judaism on the one
side and Paganism on the other side, has said of the Montanists, that it was
hard to find any doctrinal errors in their views; that they were rather like
Jansenists or Methodists in their high views of religious emotion, and
experience. They were accused of claiming inspiration, when they intended,
probably only, like the early followers of Cameron among the Covenanters, or
Wesley among the English Methodists, the true experience of God’s work in the
individual soul.”2
Again, says Dr. Williams, of the Montanists: “They insisted much
upon the power of the Spirit, as the great conservator and guardian of the life
of the Christian church. Now, as far back as the days of Montanism, this was
offensive to Christian churches, which became, under the power of wealth and
fashion, secularized and corrupted.”3
1 Hist. Bap., p.
175.
2 Williams'
Lect. Bap. Hist., p. 129.
3 Idem, pp.
118,129.
Says Dr. Dorner: “Montanism may be styled a democratic reaction on
the part of the members of the church, asserting their universal prophetic and
priestly rank against the concentration of ecclesiastical dignities and rights
in the episcopate.” “In this aspect, Montanism was a reaction of the
substantial, real principle against the formal unity of the episcopate, which
entrusted to the unworthy, and those who were destitute of the Spirit, power
over those who were filled with the Spirit.”1
Again, says Dorner: “If now Montanism implicitly reproached the
church with hitherto possessing too little of the Holy Ghost, it is evident
that, dogmatically viewed, the charge implies, that however much the church
might have spoken concerning the Son, or the Logos, and the Father, the
doctrine of the Holy Spirit had been hitherto kept in the background.''2
The central power of Montanism was — I am word and spirit and
power, which it represented as its conception of the Holy Spirit in His
relation to the church. The character of the Montanists and their being the
original church is thus clear.
Moller says: “But Montanism was, nevertheless, not a new form of
Christianity; nor were the Montanists a new sect. On the contrary, Montanism
was simply a reaction of the old, the primitive church, against the obvious
tendency of the day, to strike a bargain with the world and arrange herself
comfortably in it.”3
That the Montanist churches were Baptist churches is the only
legitimate conclusion from their comparison with the facts in this
chapter.
1
Dorner's Per. of Christ, vol. 1, p. 363.
2
Idem, p. 398.
3
Scbaff Herzog Ency., vol. 2, p. 1562.