Horrenda Secta: Untersuchungen zum frühchristlichen Montanismus und seinen Verbindungen zur paganen Religion Phrygiens (review)

No longer can it be said that Montanism was unaffected by the pagan cults of Phrygia or even that only late Montanism was so affected. Hirschmann demonstrates that from its very beginnings Montanism exhibited characteristics which are more compatible with aspects of pagan religions prominent in Phrygia at the time Montanism was founded than with contemporary traditional Christianity.

Although only the later sources explicitly refer to Montanus as "the priest of an idol" (Didymus, Trin. 3.41.3), "a castrated half-man" (Jerome, ep. 41.3), or the "priest of Apollo" (Dialogue between a Montanist and an Orthodox), Hirschmann argues persuasively that these designations are not figments of fourth-century polemicists but more precise descriptions, with respect to Montanus, of information already present in the earliest sources.

Hirschmann re-examines the earliest sources regarding Montanism, including the oracles of the founders (Montanus, Maximilla, and Priscilla) and data provided by Tertullian, to identify the major distinctive characteristics of Montanism, comparing these with the characteristics of Phrygian cults active in the same region where Montanism originated.

The author's professional expertise as an ancient historian specializing in classical religions enables her to bring the pagan-religious context into play as she tries to resolve the origins of the distinctive characteristic features of Montanism. She provides a very helpful summary of the Apollo and Cybele cults in Phrygia and their connection to other "divinities" as well as to each other. She demonstrates that in Phrygia it was common for there to be joint veneration of Apollo and Cybele at shrines such as that of Apollo-Lairbenos near Hierapolis. Consequently, there is no necessary contradiction between Jerome's description of Montanus as "a castrated half-man" and the author of the Dialogue's reference to him as a "priest of Apollo"—which may also be what Didymus intended to convey.

Hirschmann's most compelling argument is that the ecstasy exhibited by Montanus, Maximilla, and Priscilla is the kind of prophesying typical of the pagan prophets and prophetesses of the Phrygian cults rather than that of the Jewish prophets of the Hebrew Scriptures or the early Christian prophets and prophetesses of the New Testament or immediate post–New Testament periods. Neither pagan mantic divination practices nor Christian glossolalia is, according to Hirschmann, at the root of Montanist ecstatic prophesying—and she provides many parallels from paganism to support her view.

Hirschmann also provides numerous examples of other parallels between early Montanism and Phrygian pagan cults with respect to the likely origins of characteristic traits. These parallels include well known features such as rigoristic practices (e.g., as related to penance), the "Bread and Cheese" (or more correctly "Bread and Milk") Eucharists of the Artotyrites (a possible Montanist sub-sect), and the charges that Montanists pricked infants with copper needles to extract blood to mix with flour to make Eucharistic bread (an allusion to pagan-influenced tattooing?). She also presents new insights regarding the ways in which there may have been pagan influences on the significant role women played in Montanism and upon the titles and responsibilities of Montanist functionaries, for example, those with the designation mystes or koinonos.

An important component of Hirschmann's argument is the view that the potentiality of pagan influences on the formation of Montanism in Phrygia is already evident in extant sources from the immediate pre-Montanist period, such as The Martyrdom of Polycarp. She crafts this component carefully, avoiding calling Quintus, the Phrygian (abortive) voluntary martyr of M.Pol. 4, a Montanist while arguing that Quintus exemplified a readiness in Phrygia for the type of Christianity which the New Prophecy introduced.

Hirschmann refers to Callistus as the bishop of Carthage rather than of Rome (36) and, inadvertently, gives 175 CE as the date of Apollonius's work instead of that of Apollinarius (43), but apart from these the only mistakes are a few typographical errors (e.g., 24 n.8; 32 n...