Montanus

the prophet Montanus arose in central Anatolia, in Phrygia, Asia Minor, in the 2nd century. He lived in Asia Minor, and, prior to his conversion, he was a priest in an Asiatic cult called Cybele. He claimed that he had the gift of prophecy, prophesying in an ecstatic state. Claiming a conversion to Christianity, in the Christian church in Phrygia, Montanus held similar views to those of the wider Christian Church touching on the basic tenets of Christian doctrine. Montanus preached and testified what he purported to be the Word of God as he traveled among the rural settlements of his native Phrygia and Asia Minor. In these travels he proclaimed the village of Pepuza as the site of the New Jerusalem. He declared that the Holy Spirit was giving new revelations to the church as equally authoritative and inspired as the Christian scriptures, and named himself and two women, Priscilla and Maximilla, as the principal prophets, although there were others. He claimed not only to have received a series of direct revelations from the Holy Spirit, but personally to be the incarnation of the paraclete. Montanus called for a reliance on the spontaneity of the Holy Spirit and a more conservative personal ethic, and began developing the tenets of a heretical millenarian and ascetic Christian sect that set great store by prophecy. But the Orthodox Christians regarded his teaching to be heretical for promoting belief in new prophetic revelations. It was labelled a heresy.

Eusebius cites an anonymous anti-Montanist writer who addressed his work to Abercius Marcellus, Bishop of Hieropolis, who died about 200. Maximilla had prophesied continual wars and troubles, yet no war, general or partial, had taken place, but on the contrary the Christians enjoyed permanent peace through the mercy of God, but this writer declared that he wrote more than thirteen years after her death ^[1].

Parallels have been drawn between Montanism and modern-day movements such as Pentecostalism and the charismatic movement.