t societies of the Empire were
based. Here they sought for a narrow line between the Marcionite and
Encratite mode of life and the common church practice, and had no longer
the courage and the candour to proclaim the "e saeculo excedere." Sexual
purity and the renunciation of the enjoyments of life were the demands
of the new prophets. But it is hardly likely that they prescribed
precise "laws," for the primary matter was not asceticism, but the
realising of a promise. In later days it was therefore possible to
conceive the most extreme demands as regulations referring to none but
the prophets themselves, and to tone down the oracles in their
application to believers. It is said of Montanus himself (Euseb., H. E.
V. 18. 2): [Greek: ho didaxas lyseis gamon, ho nesteias nomothetesas];
Prisca was a [Greek: parthenos] (l.c. Sec. 3); Proculus, the chief of the
Roman Montanists, "virginis senectae" (Tert., adv. Val. 5). The oracle of
Prisca (No. 8) declares that sexual purity is the preliminary condition
for the oracles and visions of God; it is presupposed in the case of
every "sanctus minister." Finally, Origen tells us (in Titum, Opp. IV.
696) that the (older) Cataphrygians said: "ne accedas ad me, quoniam
mundus sum; non enim accepi uxorem, nec est sepulcrum patens guttur
menin, sed sum Nazarenus dei non bibens vinum sicut illi." But an
express legal direction to abolish marriage cannot have existed in the
collection of oracles possessed by Tertullian. But who can guarantee
that they were not already corrected? Such an assumption, however, is
not necessary.]

[Footnote 203: Euseb., V. 16. 9: V. 18. 5.]

[Footnote 204: It will not do simply to place Montanus and his two
female associates in the same category as the prophets of primitive
Christian Churches. The claim that the Spirit had descended upon them in
unique fashion must have been put forth by themselves with unmistakable
clearness. If we apply the principle laid down on p. 98, note 3, we will
find that--apart from the prophets' own utterances--this is still
clearly manifest from the works of Tertullian. A consideration of the
following facts will remove all doubt as to the claim of the new
prophets to the possession of an unique mission, (1) From the beginning
both opponents and followers constantly applied the title "New Prophecy"
to the phenomenon in question (Euseb., V. 16. 4: V. 19. 2; Clem., Strom.
IV. 13. 93; Tertull., monog. 14, ieiun. I, resurr. 63, Marc.