Note 77 — BOOK VIII THE DOCETAE, MONOIMUS, AND OTHERS

This heresy of the “Phrygians” is, of course, that generally called the Montanist, which seems to have broken out about the year 180. For some time it was not violently opposed by the orthodox, and Tertullian himself became a convert to it and probably died in its confession. Later it came to be looked upon as an enemy only one degree less prejudicial to the Catholic Church than Gnosticism, and therefore one to be stamped out by excommunication in pre-Constantinian times, and by persecution afterwards. Its tenets are sufficiently summarised in our text for a general understanding of them and their connection with later forms of Patripassianism; but any one wishing to go further into the subject is recommended to read Dr. Salmon’s able article on “Montanus” in D.C.B., which will give him all that is really known as to the sect and its tendencies. Its centre seems to have been always Asia Minor.