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We feel a special sense of connectedness when we discover a spiritual ancestor who looks like us. For example, those suffering for the faith today draw inspiration from the early martyrs. Others, longing for Spirit-filled worship and “charismatic” witness, find their attention drawn to the enthusiastic, second-century Christian movement called Montanism.

In this example, however, there lies a problem: Montanism, which on the surface looks like modern Pentecostalism, was widely rejected as heretical in the early church. Why?

Sometime around the year 157, in the Roman province of Asia Minor known as Phrygia, a professing Christian named Montanus began to prophesy ecstatically. Claiming the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, he was soon joined by two prophetesses, Maximilla and Priscilla (Prisca). They paid special attention to the biblical teachings about the Paraclete, and they claimed to be the last in a succession of prophets that included the daughters of Philip (Acts 21:8–9). They said they were called to summon all believers to righteous preparation for the heavenly descent of the New Jerusalem.

By the 170s, this “New Prophecy” movement, as it was known, spread. The heart of Montanist activity was always in Asia Minor, although converts were eventually won in missionary outposts such as Rome, Byzantium, and Carthage. What attracted scores of early Christians to Montanism? Perhaps the answer lies in three words: authority, vitality, and discipline.

Montanist prophets claimed direct revelations from God, and their utterances (“oracles”) were treasured and preserved as authoritative teaching by the faithful. Here was fresh truth, Spirit-given, for these last days!

Moreover, such revelations, springing as they did from a trancelike ecstasy, were electric experiences for prophet and congregation alike.

Finally, there was a renewed, rigorous emphasis on practical holiness, with prophetic teachings on issues like fasting, marriage, asceticism, and spiritual healing.

In his treatise On the Soul, Montanism’s most famous convert, Tertullian, illustrates the movement’s attraction:

“We have now amongst us a sister whose lot it has been to be favored with gifts of revelation, which she experiences in the Spirit by ecstatic vision amidst the sacred rites of the Lord’s Day in the church. She converses with angels and sometimes even with the Lord. She both sees and hears mysterious communications. Some men’s hearts she discerns, and she obtains directions for healing for such as need them. Whether it be in the reading of the Scriptures or in the chanting of psalms or in the preaching of sermons or in the offering up of prayers—in all these religious services, matter and opportunity are afforded her of seeing visions.…”

Not everyone was so enamored with the movement. In 192, Serapion, bishop of Antioch, declared that “the working of the lying organization called the New Prophesy is held in abomination by the whole brotherhood in the world.”

Another bishop, who wrote anonymously about the same time, spoke of regional synods in Asia Minor convened to address the controversy, resulting in Montanists’ being excommunicated. He was animated by a recent trip to Ancyra, in which the church was “ringing with the noise” of the New Prophecy.

He and other writers objected to Montanism on five main grounds:

1. "Abnormal ecstasy.” Montanus prophesied in a frenzy, without engaging the rational mind, “contrary to the manner which belongs to the tradition and succession of the church from the beginning.”

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