4. Catholic Opposition

The precise date of the formal organization of the Montanists as a distinct sect is uncertain. The adherents of the new prophecy sought to remain members of the Catholic Church, and the Church hesitated long before she definitely decided against them. There was much in common in Catholic and

Montanist teaching-the ethical ideals of marital life, fasting, martyrdom, and the expectation of the last day-while a hasty rejection of prophecy was regarded as sin against the Holy Ghost (Di

dache, xi. 7). Nevertheless, sharp opposition to the new prophecy soon arse, first headed by Apollonius

(q.v., 2), and attempts were also made to exorcise both Prisca and Maximilla. Various synods of

Asia Minor discussed the problem, filled with a vague dread of the new movement. The ecstatic aspect of the sect seems first to have aroused sus picion, and was attacked in a special polemic by

Miltiades (q.v.), while the Alogi (q.v.) went to the extreme of denying the authenticity of all the Johan nine writings because of the Montanist appeal to the

Apocalypse and to the promise of the Paraclete in the Gospel of John. Yet even the antagonists of the Alogi assumed a position of hostility toward the new prophecy, and by the seventh decade of the second century the opposition to Montanism was evidently general. In the lifetime of Maximilla the antagonism had become intense, for she makes the

Spirit lament that he was driven away like a wolf.

For the ecstasy of the prophets the Montanists ap pealed to Gen. ii. 7 sqq.; Ps. cxvi. 11; and Acts x. 10, as well as to the prophecies recorded in Acts xv. 32, xxi. 11; and I Cor. xii. 28, and to John, the daughter of Philip, Ammia, and Quadratus, while they based the right of prophetesses on Miriam and Deborah. Their opponents, on the other hand,

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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. li. 16; Jer. viii. 4; Ezek. xviii. 23; Mark vii. 15; and Matt. xi. 19