MONTA'NUS, a celebated heresiarch of the early Christian church, was a Phrygian by birth, and made his first public appearance shout 160 A.D., in the village of Ardabar, on the confines of Pbrygia and Mysia. He was brought up in heathenism, but embraced Christianity with all the fanatical enthusiasm for which his countrymen were noted.
Montanus's standpoint was. in theory, the exact opposite of that occupied by the Gnostic sects; yet, in practice, it led to a similar exclusiveness and sectarianism, He believed in the constancy of supernatural phenomena within the church. The miracu lous clement, particularly the prophetic ecstasy, was not removed; on the contrary, the necessity for it was greater than ever. He considered those only to be true or perfect Christians who possessed the inward prophetic illumnination of the Holy Spirit—they were the true church; and the more highly gifted were to be looked upon as the genuine successors of the apostles, in preference to the mere outwardly consecrated bishops. Thus, they form a religious aristocracy, as arrogant as the Gnostics: the difference between the two simply being that the Montanists prided themselves on a kind of inflamed inspirltion, anti the Gnostics on a calm and,s,erene illumination of the reason. Neither party lizasIetto reeede sfrasif 4he. Catholic. churn, but rather to.e x ist as an esoteric body within its pale. It was pcisecution, caused, no doubt, by their own insolent obstinacy, that forced them into a sectarian course. Montanus did not meddle directly with the creed of the church; in fact, he was not a thinker, nor a man of almost any impor tance intellectually. His efforts were confined to stirring up the Christians generally to
fresh religious life—to a belief in a fresh outpouring of the Holy Ghost I At first, Mon tanus contented himself with predicting fresh persecutions, exhorting men to greater strictness and holiness of life, and announcing judgments to come upon the persecutors; but his idea of his own mission afterwards became more exalted, and he claimed to be in a very special sense a prophet of God—the organ chosen by the Holy Ghost to purify, enlighten, and advance the church. Among the things on which the Montanists laid stress was an ascetic mode of life, scorn oepersecution, and love of martyrdom; con nected with these, and, indeed, flowing from them, was an aversion to second marriages. and to the restoration of the LAPSED (q.v.). Like other enthusiasts, they also were firm believers in the near approach of the millennium (q.v.) and in the personal advent of Christ. Two "prophetesses," Priscilla and Maximilla, were associated with Montanus in his work. A decree for the expulsion of Montanus and his followers from the com munion of the Catholic church was issued by Eleutherus, bishop of Rome. The Mon tanists at once proceeded to organize themselves as a distinct sect. They found a singularly able apologist in Tertullian (who became a Montanist about 200 A.D.), and continued to exist till the 6th century.