by What follows is an extract from a paper entitled ‘Romanism: An Antichristian System’ by G.T. Melville.
For the following insights and opinions, I am wholly indebted to Professor Duff, who devotes a fascinating chapter[1] of his history of the early history to the sect of Montanus, and reflects on its effects on the direction and character of the Church as a whole. I present that information here in a highly condensed form.
Some time between the middle of the second century, or possibly around 170 A.D., a convert called Montanus, formerly a pagan priest of Cybele, rose to fame at the village of Pepuza, Syria. According to some, Montanus believed himself to be the Παράκλητος, the Paraklētos whom the Lord said to the disciples that He would send from the Father.[2] Others say that Montanus merely believed himself to be the most powerful organ of the Paraclete, favoured with divine revelations which were delivered to him while in a state of ecstasy.
While Montanus claimed special revelations, and expounded them to his followers, he is not claimed to have advanced any teaching which was opposed to the orthodoxy of the catholic Church, despite some peculiar notions, such as that the New Jerusalem would come down from heaven to Pepuza. Rather, he claimed the ground of a religious reformer, holding that the Church must be raised to a higher degree of perfection, and its members held by stricter principles and way of life, expecting, as he did, the imminent return to the Lord Jesus. They practised what they preached: they fasted frequently, recommended celibacy, and forbade second marriages, and were fearless in the face of persecution and martyrdom. The state of the Church at the time – the worldliness and luxury into which the believers had apparently by that time fallen – stirred Montanus and his followers to issue sharp rebukes. In particularly, they used the scriptural principle of the priesthood of all believers to attack the existing organisation of the Church, and especially the bishops.
In response to the disruptive influence of Montanus and his pronouncements, the first synods were convened. These conventions of the ordines majores, the bishops, presbyters and deacons,[3] to discuss the matter must, if we are to accept Kurtz’s view, place the phenomenon of Montanism late in the 2nd century, as before the reign of Commodus (188-200) persecution would have prevented such an open assembly of Christians[4]. The Montanists were, in due course, excommunicated, and the sect disintegrated into various sub-sects which, in their turn faded away or returned to the mother Church.
However, the extravagances of the Montanists (which space
does not permit me to fully reproduce here) coupled with their extreme position
on the priesthood of all believers produced an opposite and equally extreme
reaction in the Church. The rejection of
Montanism and the expulsion of the Montanists from the Church seems to have
gone along with the throwing out of the principle of universal priesthood, and
a closer adherence to the growing and advancing prominence of the
episcopacy. Additionally, the
Montanists’ insistence of the holiness of the Church depending on the moral
strictness of its members was met by an equal insistence within the body of the
Church that holiness depended on possession of the sacraments. Thus, together with a growing dependence on
the authority of apostolic tradition – tradition transmitted through the
apostolic and episcopal succession – the power of the hierarchy as the
personnel who alone could administer the sacraments grew in equal measure.
[1] David Duff, The Early Church: A History of Christianity in the First Six Centuries, c. xxi
[2] But when the Παράκλητος is come, whom I will send to you from the Father, the Spirit of truth who goes forth from with the Father, he shall bear witness concerning me” – John 15 v 26
[3] This practice continued until the Council of Nice (325) when attendance at synods was restricted to bishops alone, and the laity actively discouraged from attendance
[4] Johann H. Kurtz, History of the Christian Church, A.D. 1-1517, First Section, c. iii, div. 51, pp. 113-114