2,000 Years of Christ's Power Vol. 1: The Age of the Early Church Fathers

by Nick R. Needham

The crisis of identity created by the Gnostics about who were the true Christians was made even sharper by the rise of another movement called Montanism. Montanus, a young convert to Christianity, came on the scene in the region of Asia Minor known as Phrygia in about AD 170, when he started to prophesy. He was joined by two prophetesses, Priscilla and Maximilla. They claimed that the Holy Spirit (or the “Paraclete”, as they preferred to call Him) was speaking in a new way to the Church directly through them, and that this was the fulfilment of Christ’s promise in John 14:16, “I will pray to the Father, and He will give you another Helper [in Greek, Paracletos], that He may remain with you for ever,” and John 16:12-13, “I have many more things to say to you, but now you cannot bear them. However, when the Spirit of Truth has come, He will guide you into all truth.” The Paraclete, the Spirit of Truth, had now come to the Church in Montanus, Priscilla and Maximilla (they claimed), and was now leading believers into the promised fulness of truth. Montanists referred to their movement as “the New Prophecy”. In fact, the Montanist prophets offered no new doctrinal revelations. Their main message was the nearness of the second coming of Christ; as Maximilla prophesied, “After me, there will be no more prophecy, but the End.” In the light of this imminent return of the Lord, Montanists taught a severe moral code: among the distinctive teachings of the New Prophecy were an absolut...