MONTA'NUS (Lat., from Gk. Movrap..b., Eon tunos). A Phrygian convert to Christianity about 156. He is said to have been formerly a priest of Cybele (q.v.). lie undertook to restore the faith and-practice of the primitive Church, but was finally excluded from fellowship as a heretic. Montanus taught that direct divine revelation still continued, and that he himself was the mouthpiece of the Paraclete, promised in John xiv. 16. Hence his movement is often called the 'new prophecy.' He revived the primitive conception of the return of Christ to earth, to es tablish his kingdom, and the elect were sum moned to gather at the Phrygian village of Pepuza, there to await their Lord. In view of the immediate end of the present age, asceticism was their rule of life, and martyrdom was courted as a blessing and even a duty. Montanus in sisted upon strict ecclesiastical discipline, thus rebuking the alleged laxity and worldliness in the Church at large. Ile declared it wrong to grant forgiveness of mortal sin, and believed that the holiness of the Church could he preserved only by excluding all offenders from membership. He denied that the hierarchy possessed any right or power to restore holiness when it had been for feited through sin, and thus he took his stand against the theory of sacramental grace. Close ly associated with Montanus were two women, Prisca (or Priscilla ) and Maximilla, supposed to be endowed like himself with the spirit of ecstatic prophecy. Like the 'spiritual gifts' of the Apostolic age (cf. I. Cor. xii.),
the prophetic spirit might rest upon any one, and this divine equipment marked out the leaders of the Church. Revelation was imparted without any activity on the prophet's part; he was pas sive like the lyre when struck with the plectrum. Maximilla was held to be the last of the prophets. She died in 179. Montanus's death was earlier, but the exact year is unknown. The spread rapidly, and Asiatic synods were early held against them. They were known in Dome as early as the time of Soter (165.174), who pronounced an adverse judgment upon their claims, as did several of his successors. They were excluded from the Catholic Church, and or ganized as a separate body. Their most distin guished convert was Tertullian (q.v.), whose later writings arc the chief literary monuments of the Montanist movement. Excluded from the Catholic Church, the Montanists did not long survive in the West, but in the East they are found as late as the sixth century, when Justin ian finally suppressed them.
Consult the later writings of Tertullian, trans lated into English in The Ante-Nicene Fathers, edited by Roberts and Donaldson, American edi tion, vols. iii. and iv.; Bonwetseh, Geschichte des Montanisonns (Erlangen, 1881) ; Harnaek, His tory of Dogma, vol. ii. ( London, 1896 ) ; Smith and Waee, Dictionary of Christian Biography. article "Montanus" (London, 1877-871 ; Ening, The Ancient Catholic Church (New York, 1902).