Anonymous Anti-Montanist: Essential Insights and Best Practices

Chapter 1

J. B. Lightfoot writes: When I still supposed, as was then the universal opinion, that the Abercius of the epitaph was bishop of Hierapolis on the Maeander, I ventured to identify him, as others had done, with the Avircius Marcellus to whom an anonymous writer addresses a treatise in an early stage of the Montanist controversy. This identification becomes still more probable now that he has been shown to belong to Hieropolis of Lesser Phrygia; for this anonymous writer mentions one Zoticus of Otrous as his fellow-presbyter, and Otrous was only two miles from this Hierapolis. Starting from this identification, Duchesne places the date of this Montanist treatise at about A.D. 211. This date is founded on the statement of the anonymous author, that more than thirteen years had elapsed since the death of Maximilla, during which there had been no war in the world either partial or general, and even the Christians had enjoyed continuous peace. With Bonwetsch, he calculates these thirteen years from A.D. 198, the year of Severus’ Parthian victories, onward. But I do not see how a contemporary could possibly have spoken of A.D. 199-211 as a period of continuous peace either to the world or to the Church. The Eastern war was not ended in A.D. 198. A fierce war too was waged in Britain from A.D. 207-210, which demanded the emperor’s own presence, and he died at York early in the next year (A.D. 211). This war could not have been overlooked or ignored. Meanwhile, the Christians suffered severely, as the Acts of Perpetua and Felicitas show. The alternative is the period which was roughly coextensive with the reign of Commodus (A.D. 180-192); and I agree with Hilgenfeld, Keim, Volter, and Gorres, in regarding this as a far more probable solution. After the first year or two of this reign the Christians had almost continuous quiet. The empire also was at peace. There were indeed insignificant conflicts in A.D. 184, and the struggle in Britain afforded the emperor an excuse for assuming the name Britannicus, but it was wholly incomparable in magnitude or duration with the British war of Severus. The Antimontanist treatise therefore with which we are concerned would be written about the close of the reign of Commodus; and this must be somewhere about the date which Eusebius assigns to it, from the place which it occupies in his narrative. In this treatise the writer addresses Avircius Marcellus as a person of authority and states that Avircius had urged him a very long time ago to write on the subject. The mode of address is quite consistent with his being a bishop, though he is not so styled. Thus Avircius Marcellus would have flourished during the reign of M. Aurelius, and might well have gone to Rome about the time (A.D. 163) mentioned by the legend. Thus, this anti-Montanist work was written in 193 CE.

Chapter 2

Some Contemporary Texts: Talmud (188-217 A.D.), Victor I (189-199 A.D.), Pantaenus (190-210 A.D.), Second Discourse of Great Seth (190-230 A.D.), Anonymous Anti-Montanist (193 A.D.), Inscription of Abercius (193-216 A.D.), Tertullian (197-220 A.D.), Serapion of Antioch (200-210 A.D.), Apollonius (200-210 A.D.)