* I am very grateful to Augustana College for the summer grant (1979) which enabled me to complete this article and to Mr. Robert Grant for his constructive criticism of my argument.

1. For Paul, Saint, see Wayne Meeks, “The Image of Androgyne: Some Uses of a Symbol in Earliest Christianity,” History of Religions 13 (02 1974): 165–208.Google Scholar For Saint Jerome and Saint Augustine, see Reuther, Rosemary Radford, “Misogynism and Virginal Feminism in the Fathers of the Church,” in Religion and Sexism, Reuther, Rosemary Radford, ed. (New York, 1974), pp. 150–183.Google Scholar

2. An important source for Montanist oracles is Epiphanius, bishop of Cyprus about 375. His knowledge of Montanism was dependent on a lost work (Syntagma) by Hippolytus, a Roman presbyter who wrote against Montanists about 215, and on “hear-say” () of those who had contact with Asia Minor Montanists of the fourth century. See Epiphanius, , Panarion 1.1.2; 48.15.1; 49.2. 3–4Google Scholar (hereafter cited as Pan.) and Labriolle, Pierre De, Les sources de l'histoire du Montanisme (Paris, 1913), pp. xxxvii–xlvii.Google Scholar Epiphanius says that in Montanism there were female presbyters and bishops (Pan. 49.2.1–5). The point in question is whether this reflects fourth-century polity or the polity of original Montanism in Asia Minor. Part of the burden of this essay is to establish that such a polity does indeed go back to the origins of Montanism. All translations of Greek and Latin texts into English in this paper are mine.

3. The word Montanism was not coined until the fourth century. It appears first in the writings of Cyril of Jerusalem (Catecheses, 16.8; see Labriolle, , Les sources, p. 89Google Scholar). For the term “the New Prophecy,” see the Anonymous, a source written by an unknown contemporary of the first generation of the New Prophecy, and the testimony of Serapion, bishop of Antioch (192–202). Both sources are utilized by Eusebius in his Historia Ecclesia (hereafter cited as HE); see HE 5.16.4; 5.19.2. For the date of the New Prophecy, see Barnes, Timothy D., “The Chronology of Montanism,” Journal of Theological Studies 21, no. 2 (1970): 403–408.CrossRefGoogle Scholar For a description of traits of the New Prophecy, see the Anonymous, HE 5.16.7, 9, 12. For the above oracles, see Epiphanius, Pan. 48.11.1, 9; 48.4.1; and the Anonymous, HE 5.16.17.

4. Pan. 48.13.1.

5. HE 5.3.4; 5.4.1–2. I am convinced by Pierre Nautin's argument in his Lettres et écrivains chrétiens des ii^e et iii^e siècles (Paris, 1961), pp. 56–59Google Scholar, that Irenaeus is the author of the letter.

6. Tertullian, , Adversus Praxean 1.5.The identity of Praxeas is not known; Tertullian describes him as a confessor from Asia. Some scholars doubt the reliability of Tertullian's testimony about this Roman attitude. It seems to me that what Tertullian describes is historically plausible.Google Scholar

7. Pan. 49.1.3. Maximilla had predicted that the end (συντέλει∂) would follow after her own death (Pan. 48.2.4).

8. Tertullian, , De Fuga 9.4. Tertullian does not indicate which leader of the New Prophecy spoke these oracles.Google Scholar

9. Trajan to Pliny, , Letters of Pliny 10.97.2.Google Scholar

10. Melito, bishop of Sardis in Lydia, wrote an Apology (HE 4.26.5) about 175 in which he expressed shock and disbelief over the new decrees (καιν⋯δóγματα) which were permitting provincials to openly (φανερ⋯ѕ) plunder and kill Christians throughout Asia. For the date of the Apology, see Grant, Robert M., Augustus to Constantine (New York, 1970), pp. 90–92.Google Scholar

11. The Martyrdom of Polycarp (4.1) depicts the problem of the voluntary martyr in the figure of Quintus and passes harsh judgment on such action. More than likely, Quintus is an anti–Montanist interpolation of the late second or early third century. See Campenhausen, Hans von, Bearbeitungen und Interpolationen der Polycarpmartyriums (Heidelberg, 1957), p. 20.Google Scholar

12. According to the Anonymous (HE 5.16.9), the success of the New Prophecy was due to “the greatness of the promises” which the leaders made to the faithful—promises which certainly had to do with participation in divine glory and power by either confession-martyrdom or the saving experience of heavenly ascent through ecstasy. According to Montanus (Pan. 48.10.3), “the one who is saved transcends a human … and will shine one hundred times brighter than the sun.” Theodotus, the first treasurer of the New Prophecy, experienced heavenly ascent through ecstasy (the Anonymous, HE 5.16.14); and Priscilla, who had been extolled as a virgin, said that sexual purity allows one to “see visions and … hear distinct voices which are as saving [salutares] as they are mysterious [occultas].” See Tertullian, , De Exhortatione Castitatis 10.5.Google Scholar

The New Prophecy was rejected because the form (ecstasy) of the message was irrational, and as such, an expression of a mind-deceiving spirit. Ecstasy per se was demonic. But why? The probable answer is that the form (ecstasy) of the New Prophecy had become inseparable from its substance (voluntary martyrdom), and the opponents of the New Prophecy judged voluntary martyrdom to be irrational and insane. (Compare the Anonymous, HE 5.16.12–13, 20–21; 5.17.2–3).

13. Hippolytus, , Apostolic Tradition 10.1.Google Scholar Hippolytus's account of Callistus's rise to the Roman episcopate reflects chagrin over Callistus's acquisition of presbyter rank by claiming to have been imprisoned on account of the name rather than the real reason (according to Hippolytus) which was the crime of embezzlement. This happened in the episcopate of Victor (189–199); see Hippolytus, , Refutatio Omnium Haeresium 9.12.1–13.Google Scholar

14. See n. 5; the quotation is from HE 5.3.4. Presumably the martyrdoms took place in the same year that the letter was written.

15. HE 5.2.2–3.

16. HE 5.2.6.

17. HE 5.1.45; 5.2.7. The italics are mine.

18. The Anonymous, HE 5.16.16–17; Apollonius, HE 5.18.5–10. Evidently on the same occasion, Zoticus of Cumane debated both Maximilla and “the party of Themiso” (οì περìθεμίσωνα). Alexander cannot be dated, but he is described by Apollonius, who was writing forty years after the appearance of Montanus.

19. Irenaeus says of the confessor-martyrs: “They were releasing [ἄλνον] all [of the lapsed] and binding [έδέσμευον] no one” (HE 5.2.5). On the other hand, among the original leaders of the New Prophecy the power of the keys was utilized to bind sin rather than to loose it. This is how I construe the oracle which Tertullian cites as the word of the Spirit through the New Prophecy: “The church is able to forgive sins; but I will not, lest they also commit others” (Tertullian, De Pudicitia 21.7). I assume that all of the oracles which Tertullian cites go back to either Montanus, Priscilla or Maximilla. Hence, this oracle may be used as evidence for the views of the New Prophecy of Asia Minor.

20. See n. 13.

21. See HE 5.4.2.

22. For Latin text and English translation, see Musurillo, Herbert, ed., The Acts of the Christian Martyrs (Oxford, 1972), pp. 106–131.Google Scholar For the dating of the martyrdom of St. Perpetua, see Barnes, Timothy D., “Pre-Decian Acta Martyrum,” Journal of Theological Studies 19 (1968): 521–525.Google Scholar Both Barnes (p. 521) and Robinson, J. Armitage (The Passion of S. Perpetua [Cambridge, 1891], pp. 43–47)Google Scholar think that the difference in style of sections 3–10 and 11–13 from the rest of the martyr act confirms the author's statement about their diary accounts. See Passio SS. Perpetuae et Felicitatis 2.

23. In the preface of the document the author identifies his community as “we, who acknowledge and honor, as equally promised anew, new visions as well as [new] prophecies” (“;nos, qui sicut prophetias ita et visiones novas pariter repromissas et agnoscimus et honoramus”) 1.4. In her first vision Perpetua learned that Saturus would be privileged to be the first to ascend to heaven by martyrdom “because although he was not present when we were arrested, later on he, on our account, voluntarily handed himself over and strengthened us” (4.5). Here, the pre-eminence of the voluntary martyr is clear.

24. See Passio SS. Perpetuae et Felicitatis 7–8.Google Scholar The crucial sentence is “et feci pro illo orationem die et nocte gemens et lacrimans ut mihi donaretur” (7.10). Musurillo's translation (p. 117), “And I prayed for my brother day and night with tears and sighs that this favor might be granted me,” leaves open what, specifically, the favor was. Since the episode reveals that Perpetua prayed for her brother and that he was pardoned, my translation seeks to bring out the sense of “to pardon” in donare and assumes that the subject of the third person donaretur is he, which refers back to Dinocrates (illo).

25. HE 5.2.5–7.

26. Tertullian's catholic letter; To the Martyrs (Ad Martyras 1.6), demonstrates the view of Carthaginian catholics that imprisoned confessors did possess the power of the keys.

27. Passio SS. Perpetuae et Felicitatis 12–13.Google Scholar

28. Ibid., 13.1.

29. Certainly the view in this episode is not that a confessor can bestow peace only after becoming a martyr (i.e., by dying), for Carthaginian catholics assumed that imprisoned confessors could exercise the power of the keys (see n. 26). The reasonable view is that Perpetua and Saturus had departed by death before Aspasius and Optatus were able to approach them in order to receive peace. Thus, this situation compelled the bishop and presbyter to approach them through prayer after Perpetua and Saturus had died.

30. See Meeks, , “The Image of Androgyne,” p. 180.Google Scholar

31. Recall that in Priscilla's vision, Christ comes to her in the form of a woman. See n. 7. What a Freudian psychoanalyst would make of this is open to question; I take the vision to signify, at the very least, that the feminine dimension of God was not denied by members of the New Prophecy.

32. The Letter of Churches of Vienne and Lyons, HE 5.1.45; 5.2.6.

33. HE 5.1.41–42; 5.1.55.

34. Recall that Priscilla was extolled as a virgin by the New Prophecy. See n. 12 and Apollonius, HE 5.18.3.

35. At Carthage, Gaul and Rome, martyrdom was viewed as a second baptism. See Passio SS. Pereptuae et Felicitatis 21.2; The Letter of the Churches of Vienne and Lyons, HE 5.2.3 (the use of επισφραγίξειν with regard to martyrdom); Hermas, Similitudes 9.28.3–8; Hippolytus, Apost. Trad. 19.2.

This belief is significant for our argument if Meeks (“The Image of Androgyne,” pp. 180–182) is correct in his argument that Gal. 3.28 was a “baptismal re-unification formula” confessed in Pauline churches during the baptismal ceremony in which the catechumen came out of the water naked and put on a white gown symbolizing “being clothed with Christ” (Gal. 3.27). Meeks suggests that baptism meant taking on the form of Christ in which male and female were one. We have seen that the New Prophecy stressed the descent of the Spirit, being clothed with the form of Christ and martyrdom as a second baptism. It is indeed tempting to conclude that in the New Prophecy martyrdom underscored the unity of male and female in baptism and the ordination of women followed as a consequence. Or perhaps the rite of baptism and martyrdom as baptism were both instrumental in creating the vision of the unity of male and female in the New Prophecy. At any rate, Epiphanius does say that the right of women to be presbyters and bishops (in the New Prophecy) was based on Gal. 3.28. (See pan. 49.2.1–5).