Now against the so-called heresy of the Phrygians, the power that champions the truth raised up at Hierapolis a strong and invincible weapon, Apolinarius—of whom this work has already made mention—and with him many others of the learned men of that time, from whom a most abundant subject for our history has been left.
At any rate, one of the aforesaid men, in beginning his writing against them, first indicates that he had also engaged them in unwritten, oral refutations. He prefaces it, then, in this manner:
「For a very long and ample time, my dear Avircius Marcellus, I have been urged by you to compose some treatise against the heresy of those called after Miltiades; yet until now I was somewhat reluctant, not from any inability to refute the lie and bear witness to the truth, but fearing and scrupling lest I should seem to some to be adding to, or making further ordinances upon, the word of the new covenant of the gospel—to which it is possible neither to add nor to take away for one who has chosen to live according to the gospel itself.」
「But having lately come to Ancyra in Galatia, and finding the church there in Pontus deafened by this new movement—not prophecy, as they call it, but much rather, as shall be shown, false prophecy—I disputed, so far as I was able, the Lord granting it, concerning these very people and the matters they put forward, point by point, for many days in the church; so that the church rejoiced and was strengthened toward the truth, while our opponents were for the moment beaten back, and the adversaries of God were grieved.」
「Therefore, when the presbyters of the place asked that we should leave some memorandum of what had been said against those who set themselves in opposition to the word of the truth—Zoticus of Otrous, our fellow-presbyter, being also present—we did not indeed do so, but we promised, when we had written it here, the Lord granting, to send it to them with all speed.」
Having said this and other like things at the beginning of his work, he goes on to relate in this manner the cause of the heresy referred to: 「Their opposition, then, and their recent heresy of schism against the church, had the following origin.」
「There is said to be a certain village in Mysia, in the region of Phrygia, called by the name Ardabav. There, they say, one of the recent converts, Montanus by name, in the time when Gratus was proconsul of Asia, in the unbounded lust of his soul for pre-eminence, gave the adversary access into himself, and became carried away by a spirit; and suddenly, falling into a kind of possession and ecstasy, he grew frenzied and began to speak and to utter strange things, prophesying contrary to the custom which belongs to the tradition and succession of the church from the beginning.」
「Of those who at that time heard these bastard utterances, some were vexed, regarding him as one possessed and demon-driven, in the grip of a spirit of error and disturbing the crowds; and they rebuked him and forbade him to speak, remembering the Lord's distinction and his warning to guard watchfully against the coming of the false prophets. But others, as though elevated by a Holy Spirit and a prophetic gift, and not a little puffed up, and forgetting the Lord's distinction, provoked the mind-injuring and flattering and people-deceiving spirit, being charmed and led astray by it, so that it could no longer be restrained to keep silent.」
「By a certain art, or rather by such a method of evil contrivance, the devil, having engineered destruction for the disobedient, and being honoured by them beyond his desert, secretly roused and further inflamed their understanding, which had been lulled asleep away from the true faith; so that he raised up also two other women and filled them with the bastard spirit, so that they too spoke madly and unseasonably and in alien fashion, like the aforesaid man. And the spirit blessed those who rejoiced and were puffed up over him, and inflated them by the greatness of its promises; yet sometimes it also flatly condemned them with shrewdness and seeming credibility, that it might appear to be discerning—though few of the Phrygians were these who were deceived—but the insolent spirit taught them to blaspheme the whole catholic church under heaven, because the spirit of false prophecy received from her neither honour nor entrance.」
「For when the faithful throughout Asia had assembled for this purpose many times and in many parts of Asia, and had examined the recent utterances and pronounced them profane and rejected the heresy, then at last they were thrust out from the church and shut off from communion.」
Having related these things at the outset, and having carried through the refutation of their error throughout the whole work, in the second book he speaks thus concerning the end of the persons already indicated:
「Since, then, they called us slayers of the prophets, because we did not receive their loud-voiced prophets (for these, they say, are those whom the Lord promised to send to the people), let them answer us before God: Is there anyone, good people, among those who began to speak with Montanus and the women, who was persecuted by Jews or killed by lawless men? Not one. Nor was any of them seized and crucified for the Name. No, indeed. Nor again was any of the women ever scourged in the synagogues of the Jews or stoned. Nowhere, by no means.」
By a different death are Montanus and Maximilla said to have ended their lives. For the report goes that each of them, urged on by a mind-injuring spirit, hanged himself—not together, but at the time of the death of each there was much rumour—and thus they died and brought their lives to an end after the manner of Judas the traitor.
Just so, a widespread report holds concerning that wonderful Theodotus, the first, as it were, steward of their so-called prophecy: that once, being lifted up and taken up into the heavens, he fell into ecstasy and entrusted himself to the spirit of deceit, and being hurled down like a discus, came to a wretched end.
「At least they say that it happened thus. But not having seen it ourselves, we do not claim to know anything of such matters, my dear friend. For perhaps thus, and perhaps not thus, did Montanus and Theodotus and the aforesaid woman come to their end.」
Again, in the same book he says that the holy bishops of that time tried to refute the spirit that was in Maximilla, but were prevented by others who were plainly cooperating with the spirit.
He writes thus: 「And let not the spirit which speaks through Maximilla say, in the same work according to Asterius Urbanus, ‘I am driven away like a wolf from the sheep; I am no wolf; I am word and spirit and power.’ But let it show clearly and prove the power that is in the spirit, and let it compel, through the spirit, those who were then present to acknowledge it—men approved and bishops, namely Zoticus from the village of Cumane and Julian from Apamea—whose mouths the party of Themiso muzzled, and would not allow the false and people-deceiving spirit to be refuted by them.」
In the same book again, after saying other things in between by way of refutation of Maximilla's false prophecies, he at once indicates the time at which he was writing this, and recalls her predictions, by which she foretold that there would be wars and revolutions; the falsehood of which he also corrects, speaking thus:
「And how has not this also already been made manifest to be a lie? For it is more than thirteen years to this day since the woman died, and there has been in the world neither a partial nor a universal war, but rather, by the mercy of God, even for the Christians an abiding peace.」 And this too is from his second book.
And from the third book I will also adduce a few brief expressions, by which, against those who boasted that many among them too had been martyred, he speaks thus: 「When, therefore, having been refuted in all the things that have been said, they are at a loss, they try to take refuge in the martyrs, saying that they have many martyrs, and that this is a trustworthy proof of the power of the prophetic spirit said to be among them. But this, as it appears, is more than anything not true.」
「For some of the other heresies, too, have ever so many martyrs; yet surely we shall not on that account agree with them, nor confess that they have the truth. And first, indeed, those of the heresy of Marcion, called Marcionites, say that they have ever so many martyrs of Christ; yet Christ himself they do not confess according to the truth.」 And after a little he adds to these the following, saying:
「Hence, too, whenever those who have been called from the church to the martyrdom of the true faith happen to be together with some of the so-called martyrs of the heresy of the Phrygians, they part company with them, and are perfected without communicating with them, because they are unwilling to consent to the spirit that is through Montanus and the women.」 And that this is true, and came to pass in our own times at Apamea on the Maeander, is plain in the case of those who suffered martyrdom with Gaius and Alexander of Eumenea.