Montani, Giovanni-Giuseppe, an Italian theolo- gian, was born at Pesaro about 1685. He was descend- ■ ed from a noble family; joined the Society of Jesus at Eome, and taught in the schools of that order moral the-
MONTANISM
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MONTAXISTS
ology with so much success that persons came from dis- tant parts to consult him. He revised and corrected a work of P. Pelizzari, made many additions to it, which he drew mostly from the decrees of the sacred conprej^a- tion and frora'the bulls of Benedict XIV, and published it under tlie title Tractatus <le Monialibus (Rome, 1755, 4to; 2(1 ed. Venice, 17t31). He died in 1760. See Rich- ard et Giraud, Bibliotheque Sacree. — Hoefer, Xouv. Bio</. Generate, s. v.
Montanism. See Montaxists.
Montanists, a Christian sect, is now generally be- lieved to have arisen in Asia Minor, about the middle of the 2d century after Christ. But little if anything is known of their earliest history. It is apparent, how- ever, that as a sect they embodied all the ascetic and rigoristic elements of the Ciuirch of the 2d century.
As Christianity had gradually become settled in hu- manity, "its supernatural principle being naturalized on earth," prophecy and miraculous manifestations were be- lieved to be past. The Montanists, however, came for- ward to declare a continuance of the miraculous gifts of the apostolic Church, and proclaimed that the age of the Holj' Ghost and the millcmiial reign had been estab- lished in the village of Pepuza, in Western Phrygia (Epi- phan. De Ilceres. xlviii, 14), which they termed the New Jerusalem. Those who followed the Holy Ghost, speak- ing through these new prophets, were held to be the only genuine Christians, and were to form the Church. They were the pnenmatici, the spiritually -minded; and all the opponents of these new revelations were ihepsi/chi- ci, the carnally -minded. As a sect they condemned secon<l marriages, considering wedlock a spiritual union, sanctilied by Christ, and intended to be renewed beyond the grave. They expelled from the Church all that were guilty of notorious crimes, imposed rigid fasts, ad- vocated celibacy, encouraged martyrdom, allowed of di- vorce, and held it unlawful to fly in time of persecution. Such wore their notions of their own sanctity that, while they did not directly separate from the rest of the Church, they esteemed others very imperfect Christians, and deemed themselves a spiritual Church within flie carnal Church. The Christian life was by them not merely referred to a miraculous beginning, the interven- tion in history of a reparative and saving power, in- augurating a new and final historical development. No, there must be nothing less than a perpetual miracle ; everything would be lost if the concurrence of natural activity, of patient labor, were for a moment admitted, if tlie conditions of a slowly progressive development were in any degree recognised. The Montanists thus conceived religion as a process of development, which they illustrated by the analogy of organic growth in nature, distinguishing in this process four stages: (1.) natural religion, or the innate idea of God ; (2.) the le- gal religion of the Old Testament; (3.) the Gospel dur- ing the earthly life of Christ; and (4.) the revelation of the Paraclete; that is, the spiritual religion of the Montanists, and accordingly they called themselves the TTVivfiartKoi, or the spiritual Church, in distinction from the psychical Catholic Church. This is the tirst in- stance of a theory of development which assumes an advance beyond the New Testament and the Christian- ity of the apostles; misapiilying the parables of the mustard seed and the leaven, and Paul's doctrine of the growth of the Church in Christ and his Word, not be- yond them. In such a light, " the religion of the Spir- it," says Pressensti aptly, therefore " is not a new sun which has arisen on the horizon of humanity, and which is to run its regular course after the primary miracle of its ai)pe.arance ; it is to retain ever the brilliancy of its lightning; it is to be one long flashing storm, rather than the quiet shining of the sun. The divine does not harmonize with the human element ; it always de- scends upon it as on its prey, overcoming and subvert- ing" (J/insi/ ami Chnstiini Doctr. p. 105). Sucli was the fundamental error of Montanism ; it did not recog-
nise the supernatural as taking possession of the natural order, penetrating and transforming it ; it marked out the two domains as in direct and constant opposition. The Montanists, then, believed in the constancy of supranatural phenomena vithin the Church. The mi- raculous element, particularly the prophetic ecstasy, was not removed ; on the contrary, the necessity for it was greater than ever, and they considered those only to be true or perfect Christians who possessed the inward prophetic illumination of the Holy Spirit — they, indeed, were the true Church ; and the more highly gifted were to be looked upon as the genuine successors of the apos- tles. They thus asserted a claim to universal validity, which the Catholic Church was compelled, for her own interest, to reject; since she left the effort after extraor- dinary holiness to the comparatively small circle of as- cetics and priests, and sought rather to lighten Chris- tianity, than add to its weight, for the great mass of its professors.