# Montanism · The Cult Dossier · The Atlas · The Congregation of Tomorrow

Source: https://congregationoftomorrow.org/atlas/library/cults/012-montanism/ · The Congregation of Tomorrow · the Atlas · language: en
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The Cult Dossier · No. 012 · Christian-Derived
Montanism
THE NEW PROPHECY — what they called themselves. 'Montanism', 'the Phrygian Heresy' and 'Cataphrygians' are all their opponents' names for them
c.157 – 6th c. CE · Phrygia (Anatolia), North Africa, Rome
I. ANTIQUITY — THE MYSTERY CULTS
Fully religious — charismatic Christian sect
### Who led it
### What it worshipped and taught
### Who was in it
### How it ended, or where it stands
### The dead
### Of note
### Its timeline
- c.157 or 172 CE Montanus begins prophesying in Phrygia.
- c.177 CE Synods in Asia Minor condemn the movement — among the earliest recorded church councils, convened specifically to handle it.
- c.207 CE Tertullian converts, attacking the mainstream church as the church of a number of bishops.
- 550 CE Justinian orders the destruction of the Pepuza shrine — the tombs of MONTANUS, PRISCILLA AND MAXIMILLA. THE EXPEDITION WAS LED BY JOHN OF EPHESUS, a monophysite bishop working for Justinian, who destroyed the holy places and the grave of Montanus personally. THE MASS SELF-IMMOLATION THAT ALLEGEDLY FOLLOWED — Montanists gathering with their wives and children into their places of worship, setting them alight and perishing — RESTS ON A SINGLE SOURCE: PROCOPIUS, SECRET HISTORY 11. THAT MATTERS. The Secret History is a bitter polemic that Procopius did not publish in his lifetime, written to portray Justinian's reign as monstrous; it is among the most contested sources in Byzantine history. ITS BIAS HERE IS UNUSUAL FOR THIS DOSSIER — it runs AGAINST THE EMPEROR, not against the sect, which gives it every motive to dramatise a mass death caused by imperial policy. The episode may well have happened. IT SHOULD NOT BE STATED AS SETTLED ON ONE HOSTILE-TO-JUSTINIAN WITNESS.
### Its people
### Montanus
—
Founder, the New Prophecy · fl. c.157–177 CE · active c.157–c.177 CE
Before the law. Condemned as a heretic by multiple synods.
Where things stand. Deceased, date unknown. Movement extinct by the 6th century.
- c.157 or 172 CE Begins prophesying in Phrygia.
- c.177 CE Condemned by synods in Asia Minor.
- c.207 CE Tertullian, the leading Latin theologian of the age, joins the movement.
- 550 CE Justinian destroys the shrine at Pepuza; remaining Montanists reportedly burn themselves alive.
Checked
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