In order to explain, we must look at the historical setting. Even before the last of the Apostles, John the beloved, was dead, prophecies by Peter (II Pe 2:1) and Paul (Acts 20:29) stating that heresies would attack the true church of Jesus Christ (called Catholic because of its universality), started to come to pass. Men who otherwise taught many orthodox truths were beginning to bring in doctrines that were completely in opposition to the commands of the Lord Jesus Christ.

He had clearly instructed that men should be taught to obey all things He had instructed His apostles. One false teaching was that, in order to repel the heresy that was starting to attack the Church, ruling or monarchical bishops were needed to safeguard the flock and keep it pure.

In actual fact, the antidote was the poison. In instituting a hierarchy (a rule of priests), the leaders were rejecting the Lordship of Christ, and it would prove to be the first of many steps down from the purity of the Gospel of Christ.

The first to promote this heresy was Ignatius of Antioch (50-107). Ignatius was held in high esteem, because it was rumored that he was the child Jesus had picked up in Mark 9:36 to illustrate the necessity of child-like faith. He is said to have been appointed Bishop of Antioch by Peter himself. He, and Irenaeus after him both promoted this heresy of hierarchy, which Roman Catholic scholars say was in seed form in the New Testament, but was, in fact, a direct disobedience to Christ's command of Matthew 20:25. Just as the rebellion of man in Genesis 11:4 had opened the world to the paganism associated with the Tower of Babel, this disobedience became Satan's lever to introduce, through these elevated men, a practical denial of the Lordship of Christ and a beginning of many heretical practices.

We know this was not of New Testament origin because the very term used, hierarchy, denotes the rule of priests, and the word "hierus" was never used for a Christian minister in the New Testament. In fact, it is possible that neither Ignatius nor Irenaeus actually used this word, as it was probably used first by Cyprian in the third century as a designation of the presiding officer at the Lord's Table.

By the time of Montanus we can see the beginning of a rift, indiscernible to man but known by God. This rift was to eventually place, on either side of a chasm, two religious ideologies that would be totally exclusive to one another. The factor that separated them was one of authority .

On one side were those who saw final authority in the Lord Jesus Christ, and eventually in the written Word that had already been circulated among true churches, and was everywhere recognized as the Word of the Living God. The commands of Jesus Christ were revered as the only important edicts to be obeyed.

On the other hand were men groping for authority. First this authority was to be placed in the hands of ruling bishops (who were not synonymous with the New Testament bishop of I Timothy 3:1), but higher authority would be needed, so this would be sought in the coming centuries and finally placed in the hands of the Chief Bishop, the Bishop of Rome, who would be called the Pope. But even while this ultimate earthly authority was being prepared, the Words of God stood out in stark contrast. The New Catholic Dictionary admits that the greatest danger of the doctrines of Montanism was that they "tended to overrule the authority of the bishops" (page 648).

God had said that His Church was not to be ruled as the Gentile kingdoms, with great men in authority. His was a Kingdom not of this world, and could not be recognized by the world's standards. God had also dictated (John 14:26; 15:26,27; 16:7-14) Who was to be the One Who would become the earthly substitute (Vicar) of the Lord Jesus Christ. This office fell upon the only One Who could completely fulfill it - the Holy Spirit.

For the Vicar of Christ must be infallible , impeccable, inerrant and totally accessible - none of which qualities has even been demonstrated by the one who became the anti-Vicar (now called the Pope of Rome).

Montanus, in around the year 156, began the preaching of what the Roman Catholic Church calls heresy. Many claims of doctrinal impurity are heaped upon Montanus, but, in the long run, it seems to be basically a fight concerning authority - the budding authority of the hierarchy or the Word of God, as revealed by the Holy Spirit.

Montanism spread all over the Roman Empire, and was the first great challenge to the development of Roman Catholicism. The New Catholic Dictionary says, "Some critics consider that the Montanistic controversy made the Church the Catholic Church; one would better say that Montanism brought out the innate Catholicity, the unanimity of the Church."

We will examine the Roman Catholic statements about both the Montanists and Tertullian in order to try to deduce the extent of their heresy, and then turn to Christian writers to get their assessment.

Montanus was a Phrygian who was possibly a priest of Cybele, but was converted around 150. Markoe says of him, "he began to fall into fits of ecstasy and to utter `prophecies.' He was joined by two women of wealth and high social position, Maximilla and Priscilla, who deserted their husbands and became `prophetesses.' Expelled from the Church, Montanus (organized) a body of preachers." Eusebius Pamphilius says that he died miserably by hanging himself.

The charges of heresy against the Montanists contained in the 1983 Catholic Almanac (page 132) are as follows: "an imminent second coming of Christ, denial of the divine nature of the Church and its power to forgive sin, excessively rigorous morality."

Most Christians would agree with the imminent return of Christ; in fact it is truly recorded of first century Christians that they were continually on the lookout for the returning Christ. The Montanists simply extended this into the second century. The "Church" to which the Catholic Almanac refers is the developing Roman Catholic system, and all Christians would agree that the power to forgive sins is resident in the person of the Lord Jesus Christ and not in the Church. "Excessively rigorous morality" might have meant that they were against the use of alcoholic beverages.

Priest Markoe states, "The novelty of Montanus' teaching was not so much in the things themselves as his prescribing them under obedience to a new express revelation."

One wonders how a Roman Catholic priest could write that with a straight face, when he must realize that, in his own religion, there have been multitudinous additions to the primitive faith of the New Testament. The condemnation of Montanus could be extended to fall upon the head of the Roman Catholic Church, the Great Innovator.

Also, it is very possible that this "new express revelation" which Markoe described was only a desire to stick to the Word of God while the institutional church was quickly leaving it. For one to reject the very questionable authority structure of the Roman church today would not be biblically defined as heresy.

Tertullian's conversion was in 197, and he joined the Montanists ten to twelve years later. Roman Catholic statements about him are astounding. In Founded On A Rock, Louis de Wohl calls him a "fierce and irascible defender of Christianity against pagan critics, whose magnificent Apologeticus is a classic, but who was led astray by his own enthusiasm and ardour." Markoe admits that "he is famous for many works, apologetic, doctrinal and ethicopractical, and is considered the most fecund, original and powerful genius in all the history of Christian Latin literature." But, according to Markoe, his over-severe austerity (preaching against certain socially acceptable practices today would be considered by Catholics to be over-severe austerity) caused him to break with the church authorities, and he fell into the errors of Montanism.

His "errors" are then cited, and we would wonder if it was indeed anything of doctrinal error that caused him to be called a heretic, or was it because of his reticence to bow to "church" authority. His errors were:

1. Tertullian did not believe that the Church could absolve adulterers;

2. He believed that those who married a second time were adulterers;

3. He felt that it was not lawful to fly from persecution.

In the light of these pitifully picayune charges, we would begin to wonder if Montanus and Tertullian were really heretics. While we cannot claim infallibility of the Christian historian, we would hope that their writings would be a bit more objective, and we quote from several to give you, as Paul Harvey would say, "the rest of the story."

Henry Vedder, A Short History Of The Baptists, pp. 58,62: "169 (The Montanists) clearly apprehended the truth that a Church of Christ should consist of the regenerated only. Of course the Montanists immersed - no other baptism , so far as we know, was practiced by anybody in the second century. There is no evidence that they baptized infants, and their principle of a regenerated Church membership would naturally require the Baptism of Believers only."

Robert Rainy, The Ancient Catholic Church, p. 170: "Montanism is best understood as a reaction against a condition of the Church and of the Christian life, which seemed to the Montanists to be pitched too low and also to have decayed from an earlier and purer standard."

Thomas Armitage, History Of The Baptists, p. 176: "History has not yet relieved the Montanists of the distortion and obliquity which long held them as enemies of Christ; while in fact they honestly, but in some respects erroneously, labored to restore that Christ-likeness to the Churches which had so largely departed." On p. 177: "Tertullian and the Montanists denied that baptism was the channel of grace."

W.A. Jarrell, Baptist Church Perpetuity, p. 69: "In historic times, Phrygia comprised the greater part of Asia Minor. `Montanism' appeared there about the middle of the second century (150 A.D.). Montanism enrolled its hosts and was one of the greatest Christian influences throughout the early Christian centuries. As there was, at the time when the Montanists arose, no essential departure from the faith in the action, the subjects of Baptism, Church Government and doctrine, the Montanists, on these points, were Baptists."

I.A. Dorner, The Person Of Christ, Volume I, page 398: "If now Montanism implicitly reproached the Church with hitherto possessing too little of the Holy Ghost, it is evident that, dogmatically viewed, the charge implies, that however much the Church might have spoken concerning the Son, or the Logos, and the Father, the doctrine of the Holy Spirit had been hitherto kept in the background."

Arthur McGiffert, A History Of Christian Thought, Volume I, page 168: "The Montanists were entirely orthodox in their theology. The truth is their interests were not theological but practical."

They were thoroughly conservative in their attitude, reproducing in a remarkable degree the spirit of the primitive days which had largely disappeared."

William R. Williams, in Lectures On Baptist History quotes Comte de Champagny, a thoroughly orthodox Catholic, "it was hard to find any doctrinal errors in (Montanist) views; they were rather like the Jansenists or Methodists in their high views of religious emotion and experience. They were accused of claiming inspiration, when they intended, probably only, like the early followers of Cameron among the Covenanters, or Wesley among the English Methodists, the true experience of God's work in the individual soul."

Ernest William Moller, in his article, Montanism from Schaff-Herzog's Encyclopedia Of Religious Knowledge, Volume II, page 1562, speaking of Tertullian states, "To him the very substance of the Church was the Holy Spirit and by no means the Episcopacy whose right to wield the power of the keys he rejected." He further states, "Montanism was, nevertheless, not a new form of Christianity; nor were the Montanists a new sect. On the contrary, Montanism was simply a reaction of the old, the primitive church, against the obvious tendency of the day, to strike a bargain with the world and arrange herself comfortably in it."

We will close this section on the Montanists with an incisive quote from Eusebius, and then leave you to come to a conclusion. Eusebius Pamphilius, in Ecclesiastical History, page 229, says, "Montanism continued for centuries and finally became known under other names."

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