ance; but it was for God alone to pardon; man might not.
We refer to our art. TERTULLIAN for other doctrines which, though advocated by Tertullian in his Montanist days, we do not feel ourselves entitled to set down as Montanistic, in the absence of evidence that Tertullian had learned them from Montanus, or that they were held by Eastern Montanists. The bulk of what Tertullian taught as a Montanist he probably would equally have taught if Montanus had never lived; but owing to the place which Montanism ascribed to visions and revelations as means of obtaining a knowledge of the truth, his belief in his opinions was converted into assurance when they were echoed by prophetesses who in their visions gave utterance to opinions imbibed from their master in their waking hours.
VI. Later History of Montanism.—We gather from Tertullian's language (adv. Prax.) that it was some time before his persistent advocacy of Montanism drew excommunication on himself. To this interval we refer the Acts of Perpetua and Felicitas, in the editor of which we may perhaps recognize Tertullian himself. Both martyrs and martyrologist had clearly been under Montanist influences: great importance is attached to visions and revelations, and the editor justifies the composition of new Acts, intended for church reading, on the grounds that the "last days" in which he lived had witnessed, as had been prophesied, new visions, new prophecies, new exhibitions of the mighty working of God's Spirit, as great as or greater than in any preceding age. Yet the martyrs are evidently in full communion with the church. The schism which soon afterwards took place appears to have been of little importance either in numbers or duration. We hear nothing of Montanists in the writings of Cyprian, whose veneration for Tertullian would scarcely have been so great if his church were still suffering from a schism which Tertullian originated. In the next cent. Optatus (i. 9) speaks of Montanism as an extinct heresy, which it were slaying the slain to refute. Yet there were some who called themselves after Tertullian in the 4th cent. Augustine (Haer. 86) at Carthage heard that a well-known church which formerly belonged to the Tertullianists had been surrendered to the Catholics when the last of them returned to the church. He had evidently heard no tradition as to their tenets, and set himself to search in Tertullian's writings for heresies which they presumably may have held. Elsewhere in the West Montanism entirely disappears.
In the East, we have already mentioned the councils of Iconium and of Synnada. There is a mention of Montanism in the Acts of Achatius (Ruinart, p. 152). Though these Acts lack external attestation, internal evidence strongly favours their authenticity. Their scene is uncertain; the time is the Decian persecution a.d. 250. The magistrate, urging Achatius to sacrifice, presses him with the example of the Cataphrygians, "homines antiquae religionis," who had already conformed. Sozomen (ii. 32) ascribes the extinction of the Montanists, as well as of other heretical sects, to the edict of Constantine depriving them of their places of worship and forbidding their religious meetings. Till then, being confounded by heathen rulers with other Christians, they could meet for worship, and, even when few in number, keep together; but Constantine's edict killed all the weaker sects, and among them the Montanists, everywhere except in Phrygia and neighbouring districts, where they were still numerous in Sozomen's time. He says (vii. 18) that, unlike Scythia, where one bishop ruled over the whole province, among these Phrygian heretics every village had its bishop. At last the orthodox zeal of Justinian took measures to crush out the remains of the sect in Phrygia, and the Montanists in despair gathered with wives and children into their places of worship, set them on fire, and there perished (Procop. Hist. Arc. 11). In connexion with this may be taken what is told of John of Ephesus in the same reign of Justinian (Assemani, Bibl. Or. ii. 88), that a.d. 550 he had the bones dug up and burned of Montanus and of his prophetesses Carata, Prisca, and Maximilla. What is disguised under the name Carata we cannot tell. It is hardly likely that Montanism survived the persecution of Justinian. Besides Cataphrygians they were often called from their headquarters, Pepuzans, which Epiphanius counts as a distinct heresy. The best monograph on Montanism is by Bonwetsch (Erlangen, 1881). See also Zahn, Forschanger zur Gesch. des N. T. Kanons, etc. (1893), v. 3 ff., on the chronology of Montanism.
[G.S.]
Montanus (3), bp. of Toledo, c. 523–c. 531.
Authorities.—(1) His Life by Ildefonsus (de Vir. Ill. c. 3). (2) Two letters printed by Loaysa (Conc Hisp. p. 88), Aguirre (Coll. Max. Conc. Hisp. ii. 159), and Florez (Esp. Sagr. v, 409, 415). (3) The Acts of the second council of Toledo (Tejada y Ramiro, Coll. de Can. de la Igl. Esp. ii. 701).
His Life.—The facts related by Ildefonsus are meagre. We are told that Montanus was the successor of Celsus in the "prima sedes" of the province of Carthaginensis; that he defended and maintained his office; that he wrote two letters on points of church discipline, one to the inhabitants of Palencia, the other to a certain Turibius, a "religious"; and that he rebutted a scandalous accusation by the help of a miracle wrought in his favour. These Acts of the second council of Toledo are curious and important, and have been suspected of at least containing interpolations, if not of being altogether supposititious, but there seems no sufficient reason for doubting their genuineness. The council opened on May 17 in the 5th year of Amalaric (a.d. 527) according to the reckoning generally adopted since Florez's day, 531 according to the older reckoning. The bishops began by expressing their intention of adding to the Codex Canonum certain provisions not already contained in the ancient canons on the one hand, and of reviving such prescriptions as had fallen into disuse on the other. The material of these canons is common to most of the various Spanish councils of the first half of 6th cent. It is the concluding passage of the Acts which makes the council of special interest in Spanish ecclesiastical history. "According to the decrees of ancient canons, we declare that,
