cause of disturbances which threatened the stability of Church organization, and tolerance would have been subversive of all order and discipline. Among their numerous prophecies was an announcement of the speedy return of Christ. The heavenly Jerusalem was about to descend from above, and be set up on a plain in Phrygia, between the towns of Pepuza and Tymion. "Christ came to me in the likeness of a woman, clad in a bright robe, and He planted wisdom in me, and revealed that this place (Pepuza) is holy, and that here Jerusalem comes down from heaven." This announcement was readily was readily believed, and disorganization followed.

Numbers left their homes and came to this spot. In some places there was a complete exodus of all Christians; marriages were annulled while strict asceticism and community of goods were generally practised. The non-fulfilment of this expectation did much to calm the excitement which had been aroused; yet Pepuza came to be regarded as the "new Jerusalem," and was the centre of the movement for its adherents in Asia Minor. It is easy to see how on both its social and its religious sides Montanism was a menace to the general public life and to all duly constituted authority.

The martyrs and confessors at Lyons wrote both to their brethren in Asia and Phrygia, and also to Eleutherus, Bishop of Rome, in the interests of the peace of the Church. Irenaeus was the bearer of the letter to Eleutherus. The contents are unknown, but Eusebius describes it as "very pious and orthodox." Apparently the prophets had good reason to expect a favorable reception, but reports of their doings in Asia Minor were circulated in Rome, with the result that the Montanists were looked upon with suspicion. With the adoption of a policy of caution and hesitation, the prospect of a satisfactory settlement became more and more remote. If Eleutherus abstained from a direct condemnation of the movement, he certainly refused to give it public recognition. But matters could not be left in this unsatisfactory state, and separation, even if delayed, was seen to be inevitable. In the days of Victor (190–202) or

Zephyrinus (202-218), the final breach between the Church and the "new Prophesying" took place, and the schism in Asia Minor extended to the Western Church,

In the absence of exact dates in the original authorities, the actual sequence of events is somewhat uncertain. The late Dr. Salmon supposed that after the condemnation by the Asiatic Church the Montanists appealed to Rome. The Church party in Asia Minor then "solicited the good offices of their countrymen settled in Gaul, who wrote to Eleutherus representing the disturbance to the peace of the Churches. which would ensue if the Roman Church should approve what the Church on the spot had condemned." This was the letter of which Irenaeus was the bearer, and which Eusebius describes as very pious and orthodox." The letter was, then, written "to avert the possibility of the calamity of a breach between the Eastern and Western Churches." Eleutherus evidently approved the action of the Asiatic bishops. Later on in the episcopate of Zephyrinus Proclus, a Montanist teacher, came to Rome, and was about to be received into communion when he was exposed by the arrival of another Asiatic, Praxeas by name. This brought about the formal rejection of Montanism by the Roman Church. Dr. Salmon's theory has not secured wide acceptance, nor is it generally known. There is agreement among modern writers that martyrs of Lyons interceded on behalf of the Montanists. But the evidence is not conclusive. All that Tertullian tells us is that a Bishop of Rome towards the end of the second century was on the point of recognizing Montanus and his prophetesses, and sending letters of peace to the Montanistic Churches of Asia and Phrygia, when he was dissuaded by the heretic Praxeas, who thus in Tertullian's phrase "expelled Prophecy from Rome, and put the Paraclete to flight." No bishop is named, and either Eleutherus or Victor may be meant. Zephyrinus became Bishop of Rome in 202, so the allusion can hardly be to him, as Dr. Salmon seems to suppose. On the other hand, during the Episcopate of Zephyrinus, a public discussion took place in Rome

between Proclus, a Montanist teacher, and Caius, a Roman presbyter, which ended in the final discomfiture of the former and the condemnation of Montanism.

A far more moderate form of Montanism prevailed in the West. There its most famous advocate was Tertullian, who was pre-eminently a controversialist, and an expert in the use of logic and satire when dealing with his opponents. In his work on" Ecstasy", which has been lost, he defended the Montanists, but the ecstasy which he approved was very different from the type found among the Phrygian prophets. He saw in Montanism the fulfilment of the prophecy in Joel, the days had come for the outpouring of God's spirit on all flesh. It was a sign of the progressive inspiration of mankind by the Spirit of God. But what characterizes Tertullian most of all is his rigid puritanism. Scandalized by the growing laxity within the Church, and the terms on which absolution was granted for mortal sin, he tried to introduce a rigorous asceticism. The forgiveness of post-baptismal sin was conditional upon a severe penance; obligatory fasts were increased, second marriages were forbidden, flight in time of persecution was contrary to the will of God, while martyrdom was man's highest glory. Tertullian's works contain a note of dogmatic positiveness, based on the Montanist claim to inspiration; those who oppose him are the enemies of the Paraclete. The disciples of the "New Prophecy" are described as the "spiritual" men, those who remain in the Church are referred to as "carnal," a distinction which fostered a Pharisaic self-righteousness and ministered to spiritual pride. These later developments are specially interesting as showing how a movement which originated in a claim for the freedom of the Spirit developed in the course of less than half a century into a rigorous asceticism, in which the legal element is far stronger than it is in Catholic Christianity.

Montanism had its better and nobler side. It bore witness to the presence and power of the Holy Ghost within the Church, and directed attention to the spiritual energies which were active in the Body of Christ. It was also a protest against lax and unworthy types of Christian conduct. Truths which are

familiar are often forgotten or neglected, and the movement occurring at a time when there was a danger of Christianity becoming formal and conventional, recalled the fact that the Church is an organism rather than an organization, and that the Spirit of God in the Church is the source of a divine supernatur life manifesting itself through external forms. According to Professor Gwatkin, "its strength lay in the vivid belief that the Holy Spirit was a power that had not ceased to work spiritual wonders in the Church;" but, he adds, " a restoration is always an exaggeration." The error lay in emphasizing this truth at the expense of relative and complimentary truths. Spiritual experience is too rich and varied a thing to be confined within narrow limits; and there was certainly no intention on the part of orthodox Christians to set limits to the free action of the Spirit of God. Not until the new prophets claimed for their utterance the force and authority of divine revelation did they become the objects of ecclesiastical censure. Yet the Church learned its lesson, for Montanism at least served to revive the consciousness of the Divine presence. Traditions, customs, organization, were all alike needful for a visible society, but it was clearly seen that their value depended, not upon the human elements, but upon the divine; upon the fact that God used these means as instruments for the bestowal of life and power. The tion and to the continuous inspiration of men by the Spirit of God; and it also showed that Christianity is primarily a life, having its source in God, but manifesting itself outwardly in the Christian community which is the "Body of Christ."

Africa and Asia Minor in the second century seem very far removed from Europe and England at the present day. Yet apart from the fanaticism and other forms of extravagance, there are important points of resemblance common both to Montanism and the religion of the Spirit as advocated in our own day. Below the surface there are the same unseen and underlying forces at work which are gradually weakening the foundation of organized Christianity. A movement of this nature will ultimately retard instead of hastening the coming of the Kingdom of God. When men's emotions are deeply stirred, there is

displayed the need for a higher and restraining influence to maintain the balance in human life, and it is just this function which is fulfilled in the Divine Society founded by Jesus Christ- the historic Church.

W. Escott Bloss, M. A.

"I have often been haunted with a fancy that the creeds of men might be paralleled and represented in their beverages. Wine might stand for genuine Catholicism and ale for genuine Protestantism; for these at least are real religions with comfort and strength in them. Clean, cold Agnosticism would be clean, cold water, an excellent thing, if you can get it. Most modern ethical and idealistic movements might be well represented by soda-water—which is a fuss about nothing. Mr. Bernard Shaw's philosophy is exactly like black coffee-it awakens but it does not really inspire. Modern hygienic materialism is very like cocoa; it would be impossible to express one's contempt for it in stronger terms than that. Sometimes, very rarely, one may come across something that may be honestly compared to milk, an ancient and heathen mildness, an earthly yet sustaining mercy the milk of human kindness. You can find it in a few pagan poets and a few old fables; but it is everywhere dying out a taste for spiritualism is very like a taste for spirits . In such psychic investigation there is excitement, but not affectional satisfaction; there is brandy, but no food." G. K. Chesterton.

The law of growth for the individual is this: That he should learn more and more to live as a part of a great whole; that he should consciously realize the life of membership, and contribute his appropriate share towards the completeness of the corporate unity; and that thus his expanding faculties should find their full play in the large and ever enlarging life of the One Man.

Armitage Robinson.