WHAT DID THE MONTANISTS READ?

Abstract

Could the Montanists have included any of the Nag Hammadi writings among the “infinite number” of writings that Hippolytus of Rome reports they considered authoritative?Hippolytus, Haer. 8.19 (ed. Marcovich, 338). Heresiological sources give us little information regarding what might have been included within a Montanist canon. We know from the Church Fathers that the New Prophecy possessed its own inspired writings.Eusebius, Hist. eccl. 6.20.3 (SC 41:120); Didymus, Trin. 3.41 (PG 39:84); and later, Jerome, Ep. 41(“Ad Marcellam”); Pacian of Barcelona, Ep. 1 ad Symp. 2. Indeed, in the fourth century Eusebius charges them with having created “new scriptures”Eusebius, Hist. eccl. 6.20.3 (SC 41:120); see also 5.18.5 in which Apollonius reports that the Montanist Themiso composed a new “catholic” epistle. In 5.16.17 Eusebius's anonymous source refers to “a work according to Asterius Urbanus” to introduce an oracle.—presumably the collections of oracular statements that Hippolytus claims circulated under the names of Montanus, Prisca and Maximilla, and about which the bishop of Rome complains that “they allege that they have learned more from these than from the law, and the prophets and the Gospels.”Hippolytus, Haer. 8.19; see also Epiphanius, Pan. 48.7 on the Montanists' mistaken theological interpretations of the scriptures. On the other hand, Eusebius's late contemporary, Epiphanius, makes it clear that members of the New Prophecy did not reject more traditional scriptures.See Epiphanius, Pan. 48.7 and Eusebius, Hist. eccl. 5.17.3 on the Montanist use of the Hebrew Scriptures, including Gen 2:21, Num 12:7, Isa 1:2 and 6:1, and Ezek 4:8–12—all passages that justify ecstatic prophecy. The Christian canon was not yet fixed before the fourth century, making the categories of “canonical” versus “non-canonical” unhelpful here. Christine Trevett, Montanism: Gender, Authority and the New Prophecy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996) 132, suggests that the Montanists most likely knew and used the popular Shepherd of Hermas—part of many early canons although rejected as too recent a composition by the Muratorian Canon—as well as the non-canonical Apocalypse of Peter. For their barbs against their theological opponents, they adopted Matthew's castigation of “prophet-slayers”;Compare, for instance, Eusebius, Hist. eccl. 5.16.12 with Matt 23:34. The Anonymous also quotes Matt 7:15; Apollonius quotes Matt 10:9–10 and 12:33. they also certainly favored Paul, upon whom they appeared to have drawn to justify their stance on prophecy, and—certainly by the fourth century—the Gospel of John, for their notion that Montanus himself was the Paraclete or “Spirit of God.”An overview of the subject can be found in F. E. Vokes, “The Use of Scripture in the Montanist Controversy,” in Studia Evangelica: Papers Presented to the International Congress of the Four Gospels in 1957 (Berlin: Akademie Verlag, 1959) 317–20. For a refutation of the widely-held assumption that the Montanists drew upon the Gospel of John to assert that Montanus was the Paraclete, see Ronald E. Heine, “The Role of the Gospel of John in the Montanist Controversy,” SecCent 6 (1987) 1–19. See also Trevett, Montanism, 129–31, who remains uncommitted as to whether or not the Montanists used the Fourth Gospel, but who emphasizes the importance of Paul. Their use of the Book of Revelation has been widely debated, but seems likely.Trevett, Montanism, 130ff. The argument for the primacy of Revelation in Montanist circles was first made by Hans von Campenhausen in Ecclesiastical Authority and Spiritual Power (trans. J. A. Baker; Palo Alto: Stanford University Press, 1969) 47–48; see also W. M. Calder, “Philadelphia and Montanism,” BJRL 7 (1923) 309–54. But could the Montanists have read—and considered authoritative—any of the writings now preserved in the Nag Hammadi Library?