Note (return) — Chapter III

2. The so-called Montanist reaction193 was itself subjected to a similar change, in accordance with the advancing ecclesiastical development of Christendom. It was originally the violent undertaking of a Christian prophet, Montanus, who, supported by prophetesses, felt called upon to realise the promises held forth in the Fourth Gospel. He explained these by the Apocalypse, and declared that he himself was the Paraclete whom Christ had promised—that Paraclete in whom Jesus Christ himself, nay, even God the Father Almighty, comes to his own to guide them to all truth, to gather those that are dispersed, and to bring them into one flock. His main effort therefore was to make Christians give up the local and civil relations in which they lived, to collect them, and create a new undivided Christian commonwealth, which, separated from the world, should prepare itself for the descent of the Jerusalem from above.194