§ 40.1. =Montanism in Asia Minor.=--According to Epiphanius as early as A.D. 156, according to Eusebius in A.D. 172, according to Jerome in A.D. 171, a certain Montanus appeared as a prophet and church reformer at Pepuza in Phrygia. He was formerly a heathen priest and was only shortly before known as a Christian. He had visions, preached while unconscious in ecstasy of the immediate coming again of Christ (_Parousia_), fulminated against the advancing secularisation of the church, and, as the supposed organ of the _Paraclete_ promised by Christ (John xiv. 16) presented in their most vigorous form the church’s demands in respect of morals and discipline. A couple of excited women _Prisca_ and _Maximilla_ were affected by the same extravagant spirit by which he was animated, fell into a somnambulistic condition and prophesied as he had done. On the death of Maximilla about A.D. 180, Montanus and Prisca having died before this, the supposed prophetic gift among them seems to have been quenched. At least an anonymous writer quoted in Eusebius (according to Jerome it was Rhodon, § 27, 12), in his controversial treatise published thirteen years afterwards, states that the voices of the prophets were then silent. So indeed she herself had declared: Μεθ’ ἐμὲ προφῆτης οὐκέτι ἔσται, ἀλλὰ συντέλεια. The Montanist prophecies occasioned a mighty commotion in the whole church of Asia Minor. Many earnest Christians threw themselves eagerly into the movement. Even among the bishops they found here and there favour or else mild criticism, while others combated them passionately, some going so far as to regard the prophesying women as possessed ones and calling exorcism to their aid. By the end of the year 170 several synods, the first synods regularly convened, had been held against them, the final result of which was their exclusion from the catholic church. Montanus now organized his followers into an independent community. After his death, his most zealous follower, Alcibiades, undertook its direction. It was also not without literary defenders. Themison, Alcibiades’ successor, issued “in imitation of the Apostle” (John?) a Καθολικὴ ἐπιστολή, and the utterances of the prophets were collected and circulated as holy scripture. On the other hand during this same year 170 they were attacked by the eminent apologists Claudius Apollinaris and Miltiades (§ 36, 9) probably also by Melito. Their radical opponents were the so-called _Alogi_ (§ 33, 2). Among their later antagonists, who assumed more and more a passionately embittered tone, the most important according to Eusebius were one Apollinaris, whom Tertullian combats in the VII. Bk. of his work, _De ecstasi_, and Serapion. At a Synod at Iconium about the middle of the 3rd century at which also Firmilian of Cæsarea (§ 35, 5) was present and voted, the baptism of the Montanists,