RELIGIOUS ENCYCLOPEDIA
Montanus Monte Cassino
declared that prophecy ended with John the Baptist and was sealed by the passion of Christ, also urging the words of Christ and the apostles against false prophets (Matt. vii. 15; II Thess. ii. 9; I John iv. 1-3; and especially I Tim. iv. 1-3). The doctrine that the Paraclete had not come until now was an insult to the apostles; the legalistic requirements of the Montanists destroyed Christian freedom, and directly contravened such passages of the Bible as Isa. lviii. 4-5; Ps. Ii. 16; Jer. viii. 4; Ezek. xviii. 23; Mark vii. 15; and Matt. xi. 19.
About 177 the confessors and the church at Lyons sought, without sharing Montanistic views, to plead for a certain recognition of the pro- 5. Decline phetic gift and to effect a peaceable of the understanding, writing both to the System, churches in Asia Minor and to Eleutherus at Rome. Nevertheless, the latter (or possibly Victor) seems to have decided adversely to Montanism; yet the slow exclusion of the sect from the Catholic Church is clear from the fact that about 192 the church at Ancyra was filled with the new prophecy, while forty years after the appearance of Montanus Apollonius had to battle against his teachings, and about 200 Serapion of Antioch had to demonstrate the untenability of Montanistic doctrines. About 230 the Synod of Iconium refused to recognize Montanistic baptism; yet they themselves declared that the Christian faith had arisen with them, and in the eyes of outsiders they were the " Christians of the ancient faith." The Montanists deviated from the Catholic Church in several other respects. They reckoned Easter by the sun and celebrated it on the eighth before the ides of April or on the following Sunday; women might be deacons (on the basis of I Tim. iii. 11), or even priests and deacons (appealing to Gal. iii. 28); they had either three or four seasons of fasting; their doctrine of eight heavens and their accounts of the tortures of the damned point to the use of apocalyptic writings among them. Beginning with the reign of Constantine imperial edicts were issued against them, though these were at first dead letters, at least in Phrygia and its vicinity. Finally, however, Montanism could preserve its existence only in secret. [It is reported that in 550 John of Ephesus had the remains of Montanus and three prophetesses exhumed and burned (J. S. Assemani, Bibliotheca orientalis, ii. 88, 3 vols., Rome, 1719-28)].
Though primarily a phenomenon of the Church of Asia Minor, Montanism spread to the West with a suppression of its ecstatic features and emphasis on its ethical requirements. In Rome 6. Western it was represented by Proclus, who de- Montanism; bated with Caius between 200 and 215. Tertullian. But the great Montanist of the West was Tertullian (q.v.). Led on by its moral earnestness, and predisposed against any conformity with the world, Tertullian saw in the new prophecy the divine seal of his endeavors. In his Passio Perpetuce Montanistic tendencies may already be recognized, and are more strongly expressed in his De corona and De fuga. As a Montanist he was the protagonist of the Church against Gnosticism; and in his De ecstasi he definitely de-
fended the Montanistic revelations, polemizing in part directly against Apollonius. Tertullian's final though gradual, break with the Church seems to have resulted primarily from its opposition to Callixtus, exemplified in his indignant rejection, in the De pudicitia, of the declaration of the pontiff regarding the return to the Church of those guilty of carnal sins, since Tertullian affirmed that only the Spirit in the " pneumatic " could decide in matters of discipline. In his De monogamia and De jejunio he combated the Catholics as harshly as the " psychics " for their rejection of the things of the Spirit. How ineffectual was the suppression of all revelations by the rejection of Montanism is evident from the case of Cyprian. The followers of Tertullian were won back to the Church by Augustine, although an attempt was made to found a Tertullianistic community at Rome (Prsedestinatus, Hcer., Ixxxvi.). (N. Bonwetsch.)
Bibliography: The prophetic utterances of the founders of Montanism are collected in F. M (inter, Effata et oracula Montanistarum, Copenhagen, 1829; in G. N. Bonwetsch, Die Geschichte des Montanismus, Erlangen, 1881; and in A. Hilgenfeld, Die Ketzergeschichte des Urchristenthums, Leipsic, 1884. Further sources are: the Montanistic writings of Tertullian (Eng. transl. in ANF, vol. iii.); lrena:ust Hcer, III., xi. 9, IV., xxxiii. 6-7; Epiphanius, Hcer, xlviii.-xlix.; and the passages in Eusebius named in the text. The best single work is that of Bonwetsch, named above. Consult further: C. W. F. Walch, Historie der Ketzereien, i. 611-666, Leipsic, 1762; A. Schwegler, Der Montanismus, Tubingen, 1841; A. Short, The Heresies of Montanus, Pelagius, etc., Oxford, 1846; A. Hilgenfeld, Glossolalie in der alten Kirche, pp. 115 sqq., Leipsic, 1850; A. Ritschl, Entstehung der altkatholischen Kirche, pp. 402- 550, Bonn, 1857; A. Reville, in Nouvelle revue de theologie, 1858, and in Revue des deux mondes, Nov., 1864; F. C. Baur, Geschichte der christlichen Kirche, i. 235-245, 288- 295, Leipsic, 1863; E. Strohlin, Essai sur le montanisme, Strasburg, 1870; J. de Soyres, Montanism, and the Primitive Church, Cambridge, 1878; W. Cunningham, The Churches of Asia, London, 1880; W. Belck, Geschichte des Montanismus, Leipsic, 1883; H. Weinel, Die Wirkungen des Geistes und der Geister im nachapostolischen Zeitalter, Freiburg, 1899; E. C. Selwyn, The Christian Prophets and the Prophetical Apocalypse, London, 1900; Harnack, Dogma, vols., i.-iii.; idem, Litteratur, ii. 363 sqq.; idem, Expansion of Christianity, 2 vols., London, 1904-05; Neander, Christian Church, i. 206, 508-527, 715, et passim; Schaff, Christian Church, ii. chap, x.; DCB, iii. 935- 945; KL, vii. 252-268; and the literature under Tektullian.
MONTE CASSINO: The mother house of the Benedictine order (50 m. n.w. of Naples). For the story of the foundation see Benedict op Nuhsia, I., § 3. Though repeatedly disturbed by barbarian hordes during the rule of the three abbots following Benedict (d. 543) — Constantius, Simplicius, and Vitalis — it was first destroyed by the Lombards in 589, when Bonitus was abbot. The monks escaped to Rome, and Pelagius II. permitted them to build a monastery beside the Lateran, where they remained almost a century and a half, enjoying the special favor of Gregory the Great. Meanwhile only a few hermits remained at Monte Cassino, and about 653 it was alleged that the bones of Benedict and his sister Scolastica had been translated to Fleury in France (hence called St. Benoit sur Loire) by Aigulf and his companions. A long controversy consequently arose between the monks of the restored monastery of Monte Cassino and those of Fleury, and a bull of Pope Zacharias implies that the bones in question were in their original grave at Monte
Monte Cassino Montfaucon