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A Clash Between Paideia and Pneuma? Ecstatic Women Prophets and Theological Education in the Second-century Church
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 21 May 2021
Abstract
The second half of the second century saw the development of a more hierarchical institutionalized church and of a theology of the Holy Spirit (Pneuma) reflecting this development. A driver of this development was a higher educational level among church leaders and Christians participating in theological discourse. In fact, ‘higher education’ (paideia) became a guiding value of Christian living, including for the study and interpretation of Scripture and for theology and church leadership. Yet the same period also saw a new wave of ‘inspired’, ‘pneumatic prophecy’, later known as ‘Montanism’, which was perceived as a threat in an increasingly institutionalized church and attacked and suppressed. This article sees a paradox here, and asks how Pneuma could be promoted as a source of Christian leadership under the banner of paideia, when the Spirit (Pneuma) at work in the ‘New Prophecy’ was perceived as such a threat. One area of investigation which may provide answers to this question is the controversial role women played both as educated participants in theological discourse and leading figures in the Montanist movement.
- Type
- Research Article
- Information
- Studies in Church History , Volume 57: INSPIRATION AND INSTITUTION IN CHRISTIAN HISTORY , June 2021 , pp. 32 - 53
- Copyright
- Copyright © The Author(s), 2021. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of Ecclesiastical History Society
References
1 Eusebius, Chronicle, s.aa. 2187–8 (171–2 CE) (GCS 47, 206): ‘pseudoprofetia, quae kata frygas nominator, accepit exordium auctore Montano et Priscilla Maximillaque insanis uatibus’; s.a. 171; ‘Tatianus haereticus agnoscitur, a quo Encratitae’: s.a. 172. All translations in this article are my own.
2 The earliest known mention of οἱ Μοντανοί occurs in Cyril of Jerusalem, Catecheses 16.8.6 (Cyrilli Hierosolymorum archiepiscopi opera quae supersunt omnia, 2 vols, ed. W. C. Reischl and J. Rupp [Munich, 1860], 2: 214), where Montanus is called ἔξαρχος τῶν κακῶν and Priscilla and Maximilla προφήτιδες αὐτοῦ. The context is the Montanists’ belief (rejected by Cyril as false) that the millenarian Jerusalem will at the end of time descend over Pepouza. Didymus refers to οἱ Μοντανισταί: De trinitate 3.18, 23, 41 (PG 39, 881B, 924C, 984B). Although Didymus does not refer explicitly to the Montanists as heretics, he ascribes to them a heretical position, namely a ‘Sabellian-like’ identification of ‘the Father-Son and the Paraclete’ (τὸν αὐτὸν υἱοπατέρα ὁμοῦ καὶ παράκλητον νοοῦντας). For further details and background on Montanism, see Christoph Markschies, ‘Montanismus’, Reallexikon für Antike und Christentum 24 (Stuttgart, 2012), 1197–1220, at 1197–8; also, still, William Tabbernee, Prophets and Gravestones: An Imaginative History of Montanists and other Early Christians (Peabody, MA, 2009).
3 Cf. Eusebius, Ecclesiastical History 5.16.4 (GCS 9, 460.14–17): ‘τῆς νέας … , ὡς αὐτοὶ φάσιν, προφητείας’; 5.16.18 (GCS 9, 466.27).
4 Ibid. 5.16.7 (GCS 9, 462–3). There is otherwise no evidence for this name. But it has been suggested that he could fill existing gaps in the proconsular lists for the years 169–70 or, more likely, 171–2; for further discussion and literature, see Markschies, ‘Montanismus’, 1205.
5 See the discussion in Markschies, Christoph, Christian Theology and its Institutions in the Early Roman Empire: Prolegomena to a History of Early Christian Theology (Waco, TX, 2015), 92 n. 310Google Scholar.
6 See n. 2 above (Didymus's view).
7 For Montanus as an ecstatic prophet, see Eusebius, Ecclesiastical History 5.16.7 (GCS 9, 462.10–15). A third leading woman prophet, Quintilla, is mentioned in Epiphanius, Panarion 49.1.2 (GCS NF 13, 241.23–242.8). On her role, see also Tabbernee, William, ‘Recognizing the Spirit: Second-Generation Montanist Oracles’, SP 40 (2006), 521–6Google Scholar, at 522–3.
8 There can be no doubt that gender is a central issue in the Montanist controversy. However, there are nuances in the way it is, or can be, treated in modern scholarship. For instance, Trevett, Christine, Montanism: Gender, Authority and the New Prophecy (Cambridge, 1996), 159–62CrossRefGoogle Scholar, has argued that Jensen, Anne, Gottes selbstbewußte Töchter. Frauenemanzipation im frühen Christentum (Freiburg im Breisgau, 1992), 268–326Google Scholar, may have gone too far by arguing that Montanus was falsely named as auctor and that precedence is due to Priscilla and Maximilla in every respect, as prophets and founders; cf. also Jensen, Anne, ‘Prisca-Maximilla-Montanus: Who was the Founder of “Montanism”?’, SP 26 (1993), 146–50Google Scholar. Trevett, however, sees no reason why heresiologists should have invented the role of Montanus, who was himself ‘feminized’ and denigrated because of his ecstatic prophecy, and ultimately superseded in impact and influence by the two women prophets, Priscilla and Maximilla. Moreover, the two women were also hierarchically graded: Priscilla seems to be given precedence in the sources over Maximilla. But Trevett agrees with Jensen in emphasizing the fact that the women were not dependent on Montanus and that over time they emerged as leaders in their own right: Montanism, 162.
9 See, most recently, Nesselrath, Heinz-Günther, Gegen falsche Götter und falsche Bildung. Tatian, Rede an die Griechen, SAPERE 28 (Tübingen, 2016)Google Scholar; Jörg Trelenberg, Tatianos: Oratio ad Graecos / Rede an die Griechen, Beiträge zur historischen Theologie 165 (Tübingen, 2012); Whittaker, Molly, Tatian: Oratio ad Graecos and Fragments (Oxford, 1982)Google Scholar. On Tatian's authorship of the Diatessaron, see most recently Crawford, Matthew R. and Zola, Nicholas J., eds, The Gospel of Tatian: Exploring the Nature and Text of the Diatessaron (London, 2019)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
10 For the date, see Lössl, Josef, ‘Date and Location of Tatian's Oratio ad Graecos. Some Old and New Thoughts’, SP 74 (2016), 43–56Google Scholar.
11 Irenaeus, Against Heresies 1.28.1 (SC 264, 354–6; cited in Eusebius, Ecclesiastical History 4.29.2–3 [GCS 9, 390.6–20]), 3.23.8 (SC 211, 466–9).
12 Clement of Alexandria, Stromateis 3.12.80–1 (GCS 15, 232–3).
13 There is a tendency today to see those charges as trumped up by heresiologists; see, for example, Naomi Koltun-Fromm, ‘Re-Imagining Tatian: The Damaging Effect of Polemical Rhetoric’, JECS 16 (2008), 1–30; but compare Crawford, Matthew R., ‘The Problemata of Tatian: Recovering the Fragments of a Second-Century Intellectual’, Journal of Theological Studies 67 (2016), 542–75Google Scholar, who argues that Tatian's own inconsistency may have contributed to his being accused of various heresies.
14 For Tatian's views in the context of early Christian Encratism more generally, see Chadwick, Henry, ‘Enkrateia’, Reallexikon für Antike und Christentum 5 (Stuttgart, 1962), 343–65Google Scholar, at 352–3.
15 Origen, Commentarium in epistolam ad Titum apud Pamphilum (PG 14/1, 1306A–B), cited in Markschies, Christian Theology, 111 n. 423.
16 ‘De hoc loco haeresim suam Tatianus, Encratitarum princeps, struere nititur, uinum asserens non bibendum, cum et in lege praeceptum sit, ne Nazaraei bibant uinum, et nunc accusentur a propheta, qui propinent Nazaraeis uinum’: Jerome, Commentary on Amos 1.2 (CChr.SL 76, 354), on Amos 2: 12, which in Jerome reads: ‘et propinabatis Nazaraeis uino et prophetis mandabatis dicentes non prophetetis’.
17 See now Markus Vinzent, Offener Anfang. Die Entstehung des Christentums im zweiten Jahrhundert (Freiburg im Breisgau, 2019), 265–6.
18 Tertullian, On Fasting, against the Psychics 8 (CSEL 20, 284.9), praises Paul's extreme asceticism as attested in 2 Cor. 11: 27 (frequent night vigils, hunger, thirst, cold and nakedness); but refutes ‘those who order the abstinence of food’ (1 Tim. 4: 3): ibid. 15 (CSEL 20, 293). Such people, says Tertullian, are ‘with Marcion and with Tatian … but not with the Paraclete’.
19 The comprehensive comparative overview on fasting and marriage in Trevett, Montanism, 105–14, also gives the impression that Encratites and Montanists had much in common in these areas.
20 The expression ‘false prophecy’ is also used in the Armenian version of Eusebius's chronicle (GCS 20, 222).
21 Hans von Campenhausen, Ecclesiastical Authority and Spiritual Power in the Church of the First Three Centuries (London, 1969).
22 See n. 2 above.
23 The Armenian version (n. 6) omits Tatian and dates the beginning of Montanism to 172.
24 Epiphanius, Panarion 48.1.2 (GCS NF 13, 219).
25 Paschal Chronicle, s.a. 182 (Chronicon Paschale, vol. 1, ed. L. Dindorfius, Corpus Scriptorum Historiae Byzantinae 16 [Bonn, 1832], 490.17–20).
26 For a date in the 140s, see Ilaria Ramelli, ‘Tracce di Montanismo nel Peregrinus di Luciano?’, Aevum 79 (2005), 79–94; for recent epigraphic discoveries, Heidrun Elisabeth Mader, Montanistische Orakel und kirchliche Opposition. Der frühe Streit zwischen den phrygischen ‘neuen Propheten’ und dem Autor der vorepiphanischen Quelle als biblische Wirkungsgeschichte des 2. Jh. n.Chr., Novum Testamentum et Orbis Antiquus / Studien zur Umwelt des Neuen Testaments 97 (Göttingen, 2012); Stephen Mitchell, ‘An Epigraphic Probe into the Origins of Montanism’, in Peter Thonemann, ed., Roman Phrygia: Culture and Society (Cambridge, 2013), 168–97, at 191–2.
27 Paraphrased according to Rudolf Helm, introduction to Eusebius, Chronicon (GCS 47, xlv), and following Vinzent, Offener Anfang, 69–70.
28 In Helm's edition it is listed under the year 108 CE: GCS 47, 194. But this date has proved awkward for those who would like to relate Ignatius to contemporaries, especially in the context of his letter corpus. Modern researchers have therefore tended to date Ignatius's death towards the end of Trajan's reign, which is permissible according to Helm's understanding of the chronology.
29 See Eusebius, Chronicle, s.aa. 124–9 (GCS 47, 199); and, generally, Helm's introduction (ibid., xliv).
30 Eusebius, Ecclesiastical History 3.37.1 (GCS 20, 280). The fragment of Quadratus's Apology cited by Eusebius has therefore traditionally been included among the writings of the Apostolic Fathers.
31 According to the anti-Montanist Anonymous, paraphrased in Eusebius, Ecclesiastical History 5.16.18–19 (GCS 9, 466.27–468.6), 5.17.4 (ibid. 470.18–472.4).
32 Trevett, Montanism, 14.
33 See n. 1 above.
34 See n. 2 above.
35 See n. 8 above; generally, Trevett, Montanism, 151–98.
36 George Salmon, ‘Montanus’, in William Smith and Henry Wace, eds, A Dictionary of Christian Biography, vol. 3 (London, 1880), 935–45, at 941, cited in Trevett, Montanism, 151.
37 Eusebius, Ecclesiastical History 5.16.7 (GCS 9, 462.10–15), cited in Markschies, Christian Theology, 100 n. 349.
38 Eusebius, Ecclesiastical History 5.16.9 (GCS 9, 462.28–464.3), cited in Markschies, Christian Theology, 100 n. 350.
39 Hans von Campenhausen, The Formation of the Christian Bible (Philadelphia, PA, 1972), 233, cited in Trevett, Montanism, 3.
40 Karl Froehlich, ‘Montanism and Gnosis’, in David Neimann and Margaret Schatkin, eds, The Heritage of the Early Church: Essays in Honor of the Very Reverend Georges Vasilievich Florovsky (Rome, 1973), 91–114, discussed by Markschies, Christian Theology, 101.
41 Cf. Markschies, Christian Theology, 91; note also Sheila E. McGinn, ‘The “Montanist” Oracles and Prophetic Theology’, SP 31 (1997), 128–35; for Tertullian's use of Montanist oracles, see also Tabbernee, ‘Recognizing the Spirit’, 523–5.
42 Eusebius, Ecclesiastical History 5.18.13 (GCS 9, 478.10–14); cf. 5.16.17 (ibid. 466.24–6), where in addition to Zoticus, Julian of Apamea is mentioned as a church leader who tried to ‘exorcize’ Maximilla by exposing the spirit speaking through her as a demon, which would have made it easier for her enemies to justify the banishment of herself and her followers.
43 Markschies, Christian Theology, 101–2. Note also that in the context of the encounter with Zoticus (n. 42 above), Eusebius, Ecclesiastical History 5.16.17 (GCS 9, 466.19–20), cites Maximilla (or the spirit speaking through her) as follows: ‘διώκομαι ὡς λύκος ἐκ προβάτων· οὐκ εἰμὶ λύκος, ῥῆμά εἰμι καὶ πνεῦμα καὶ δύναμις’ (‘I am persecuted like a wolf among sheep; [but] I am not a wolf. I am “a word that is spoken” and spirit and power’). The implication here may also be that a spirit that is ῥῆμα is not an evil spirit. An evil spirit (a ‘wolf among sheep’) would cause muteness (cf. Matt. 9: 32–3). But also, by linking ῥῆμα and δύναμις, Maximilla claims her voice as a woman. Here the implication might be that those who want to deny her that voice do so less for theological than for cultural reasons. See also Laura McClure, Spoken like a Woman: Speech and Gender in Athenian Drama (Princeton, NJ, 1999), 37, who notes that in classical Athenian drama women's public speech is depicted as dangerous because of a ‘pervasive equation between speech and power’. The instinct therefore was to suppress women speaking in public. For a famous response to that tendency in classical and Hellenistic culture, see the case of Hipparchia of Maroneia below.
44 Text in Ronald E. Heine, The Montanist Oracles and Testimonia (Macon, GA, 1989), 124; see also Ross Shepard Kraemer, Women's Religions in the Greco-Roman World: A Sourcebook (Oxford, 2004), 93–4.
45 Trevett, Montanism, 185–96.
46 Eusebius, Ecclesiastical History 5.18.4, 6, 11 (GCS 9, 474.7–9; 474.20–476.2; 476.24–478.6).
47 Jerome, Epistle 133.4 (CSEL 56, 248.5).
48 Eusebius speaks of Maximilla pretending to prophesy: Ecclesiastical History 5.18.13 (GCS 9, 478.11–12).
49 See nn. 37, 38 above. I have explored this aspect further in Josef Lössl, ‘Between Hipparchian Cynicism and Priscillian Montanism: Some Notes on Tatian, or. 3.6’, VChr 74 (2020), 84–107, at 99–106.
50 Epiphanius, Panarion 48.4.1 (GCS NF 13, 224.22–225.2). In Panarion 48.11.1 (GCS NF 13, 233.18–19) God (or Christ) is cited as follows (with a view to Montanus): ‘ἐγὼ κύριος ὁ θεὸς ὁ παντοκράτωρ καταγινόμενος ἐν ἀνθρώπῳ’ (‘I the Lord God Omnipotent am one who is indwelling in a human being’). Montanus's claim is comparable to that of Paul in Gal. 2: 20: ‘ζῶ δὲ οὐκέτι ἐγώ, ζῇ δὲ ἐν ἐμοὶ Χριστός’.
51 Epiphanius, Panarion 48.13.1 (GCS NF 13, 237.9–13).
52 ‘ὄργανον θεοῦ’: Philo, Who is the Heir? 259 (Philonis Alexandrini Opera quae supersunt, vol. 3, ed. L. Cohn and P. Wendland [Berlin, 1897], 59.15–16), cited by Markschies, Christian Theology, 95 n. 321.
53 Clement of Alexandria, Paedagogus 2.41.4 (GCS 12, 182.22–3).
54 See, for example, Tatian, Oration 7.1, 13.5 (Nesselrath, Gegen falsche Götter und falsche Bildung, 49; 63).
55 See n. 51 above.
56 ‘[W]omen among us, who philosophize’: Tatian, Oration 33.4 (Nesselrath, Gegen falsche Götter und falsche Bildung, 98).
57 Tatian, Oration 33.5 (Nesselrath, Gegen falsche Götter und falsche Bildung, 98).
58 Tatian, Oration 33.1 (Nesselrath, Gegen falsche Götter und falsche Bildung, 96).
59 Tatian, Oration 3.6 (Nesselrath, Gegen falsche Götter und falsche Bildung, 42); see the discussions in Lössl, ‘Between Hipparchian Cynicism and Priscillian Montanism’.
60 See Christopher Forbes, Prophecy and Inspired Speech in Early Christianity and its Hellenistic Environment, Wissenschaftliche Untersuchungen zum Neuen Testament, 2nd series 75 (Tübingen, 1995), 141 n. 43.
61 Iamblichus, On the Mysteries 3.8 (Iamblichi de mysteriis liber, ed. G. Parthey [Berlin, 1897], 322).
62 Epiphanius, Panarion 49.1.2 (GCS NF 13, 241.23–242.8).
63 See, for example, Frank Williams, The Panarion of Epiphanius of Salamis, Books II and III. De Fide, Nag Hammadi and Manichaean Studies 79, 2nd edn (Leiden, 2013), 22: ‘slept beside her … imbued me with wisdom’.
64 To mention just two somewhat obscure but nevertheless significant examples: in the late thirteenth century, a small group of Milanese Christians held that a recently deceased saintly woman believed to be Guglielma, daughter of King Ottokar I of Bohemia, was the Holy Spirit incarnate. They were led by an aristocratic nun, Maifreda da Pirovano, who claimed for herself the position of vicaria (understood at the time as a claim to the papacy) and performed priestly functions. The theological implications, which show a number of similarities to topics discussed in the present article, are explained excellently by Luisa Muraro, Guglielma e Maifreda. Storia di un'eresia femminista (Milan, 1985). The more recent study by Barbara Newman, ‘The Heretic Saint: Guglielma of Bohemia, Milan, and Brunate’, ChH 74 (2005), 1–38, focuses more on the later veneration of Guglielma as a saint. In the early to mid-nineteenth century, the Roman convent of Sant'Ambrogio became the centre of a scandal when the founder, Maria Agnese Firrao, and (after her death in 1854) her successor as mater vicaria (master of novices), Maria Luisa, claimed for themselves visionary experiences involving Christ, Mary and the Holy Spirit. Although discredited by a number of investigations on grounds of (among other things) sexual misconduct and conspiracy to murder, the remarkable ‘theological accuracy’ of the visions was noted at the time, especially since the women were known to have lacked any higher theological education. The visions also provided a basis for the spiritual authority wielded by Maria Agnese and Maria Luisa within, but also beyond, their convent: see the magisterial study by Hubert Wolf, The Nuns of Sant'Ambrogio: The True Story of a Convent Scandal (Oxford, 2015), especially 121–65, 291–310.
65 See n. 36 above; Trevett, Montanism, 151.
66 See the examples cited in nn. 39–40 above.
67 See n. 42 above.
68 See nn. 57–8 above.
69 See n. 44 above.
70 See, for example, n. 43 above.
71 Irenaeus, Against Heresies 1.28.1, in Eusebius, Ecclesiastical History 4.29.2–3 (GCS 9, 390.14–16), emphasizes that Tatian's leaving the church (‘ἀποστὰς τῆς ἐκκλησίας’) was linked with his claim to be a teacher (‘οἰήματι διδασκάλου ἐπαρθεὶς καὶ τυφωθείς’), whose teaching had a distinct character of its own (‘ἴδιον χαρακτῆρα διδασκαλείου συνεστήσατο’).
72 Miguel Herrero de Jáuregui, ‘Tatian Theodidaktos on Mimetic Knowledge’, in H. Gregory Snyder, ed., Christian Teachers in Second-Century Rome: Schools and Students in the Ancient City, VChr Supplements 159 (Leiden, 2020), 158–82, interprets this reference in terms of Tatian's rejection of conventional forms of education. In classical antiquity such a rejection might have implied the promotion of autodidacticism. But Tatian rejected that as well (Oration 3.1).
73 ‘μὴ χλευάζητε τὰς πάρ᾽ἡμῖν φιλοσοφούσας’: Tatian, Oration 33.4. For the ambiguity of Tatian's references to women philosophizing in his community, see nn. 56–8 above. Still, when Tatian writes that the philosophizing of ‘his’ (παρ᾽ ἡμῖν) women is more serious than that of the pagan women (σπουδαιότερον) he targets the entire Greek philosophical tradition; cf. in ibid. 2.1 the sarcastic reference to classical philosophers as ‘τῶν πάνυ σπουδαίων’ (‘O so serious’).
74 ‘τὰ κατὰ θεὸν λαλοῦσιν ἐκφωνήματα σπουδαιότερον’: ibid. 33.5.
75 For the possibility of such a development, see n. 62 above.
76 See n. 71 above.