the founder of the sect of the Montanists, appeared as a teacher of new doctrine at the village of Ardahan, on the borders of Phrygia, about the middle of the second century. At that time the church was suffering under bloody persecutions from without and distracting heresies from within. In his burning desire to cheer and enlighten her, Montanus began to imagine himself to be the passive instrument in the hands of God for dispensing new revelations. He foretold the near approach of those judgments that would sweep all persecutors from the earth, of the second advent of Christ, and of the commencement of the blessed millennium. With such a prospect at hand he admonished all Christians to live soberly and righteously, and more especially to risk all for the martyr's crown. At such startling announcements many scoffed; but others, including two females of fortune, Maximilla and Priscilla, became converts, and fell immediately into ecstasies of exhortation and prophesying. Stimulated by this success, the delirious imagination of Montanus began to create more portentous delusions. He fancied himself to be an inspired prophet sent to the entire church to complete the code of moral duties, to extinguish all heresies by new light from on high, and to prepare the church for the coming of her Lord. He even pointed out a paltry Phrygian village, called Pepuza, as the future site of the New Jerusalem.

Such presumptuous ravings, in order to merit the name even of heresy, required a systematic arrangement which the crazed brain of Montanus was too weak to execute. This arrangement was afterwards effected by Tertullian, the greatest of the Montanists, and may be represented in the following outline:—Christianity, like all the other works of God, undergoes a gradual development, and is constantly approaching perfection. This developing process may be distinctly seen running through the successive ages of the patriarchs, the prophets, and the teachers of the New Testament. But in the last of these periods it had not attained perfection; for Christ explicitly foretold the coming of a Comforter who should elucidate all the mysteries of the truth; and even after the death of the apostles there remained pagan practices to be condemned, heresies to be refuted, and obscure passages in the Scripture to be explained. It therefore stands to reason that the Spirit of God, the same in all ages, should descend with restless influence in these latter times, as in the days of the Hebrew prophets and at Pentecost, and should fill certain chosen vessels with that supernatural illumination which is to light the church on to perfection. Accordingly Montanus, like the Apostles, became the passive recipient of the Holy Ghost. Nor was the supernatural gift restricted to the priests, who claimed to be successors of the Apostles. Christians of every grade fell into divine rhapsodies, and even women, as Joel had foretold, began to prophesy.

The precepts with which these enthusiastic teachers checked out the moral code were, as might have been anticipated, full of severe asceticism and a stoical contempt of pain. The old fasts were prolonged, and new fasts were added. Those who were guilty of the more deadly crimes were excluded from the church for ever. Martyrdom was held up as the great object of ambition, and to attempt to shun this kind of death, or to wish for any other, was denounced as a sin. Those believers who wished to become superior channels for the stream of revelation passing from heaven to earth, were required to remain in celibacy. Marriage was defined to be a bond, not merely bodily and temporal, but also spiritual and eternal; and therefore they who married a second time were treated as adulterers. A denunciation also fell upon all usages and all arts and sciences that arose during the reign of heathenism.

The followers of Montanus, in the midst of much controversy and persecution, continued to increase under the several names of Montanists, Catachrygians, and Perpetuans; they were found in Asia, Africa, and a part of Europe. They still existed in the time of Augustine and Jerome. (See Neander's History of the Church.)