Journal of Early Christian Studies

As the subtitle indicates, Mader’s monograph on Montanist Oracles and Ecclesiastical Opposition focuses on the theological conflict between two proto-Catholic forms of Christianity as exemplified by some of the logia (“sayings”) of the so-called Phrygian “New Prophets” and a treatise by a late second-century “orthodox” churchman. The “New Prophets” were Montanus, Maximilla, and Priscilla, the founders of a “charismatic” renewal movement which originated ca. 165 c.e. in a region within what is now western Turkey but then comprised that part of the Roman province of Asia that had once been the independent kingdom of Phrygia. Later referred to as “Montanism,” the “New Prophecy” movement was eventually condemned as heresy by what became mainstream Christianity. The early anti-Montanist treatise under discussion in Mader’s book has survived, although only in part, by being plagiarized extensively by Epiphanius of Salamis as the main section (48.1.4–48.13.8) of his own treatment of the “Cataphrygian” (sic) heresy and its subsects (48.1.1–49.3.4) in his famous Panarion omnium haeresium (Medicine Chest against All Heresies).

Taking a diachronic approach and employing source-critical methodologies, including numerous Thesaurus Linguae Graecae (TLG) comparative word searches, Mader confirms and strengthens the case made by earlier scholars such as Lipsius (1865), Voigt (1891), and Nasrallah (2003) that the anonymous treatise utilized by Epiphanius indeed reflects the precise theological concepts and language prevalent in mainstream Christianity during the latter part of the second century c.e. She argues convincingly that Epiphanius’s source—which she cites as Q.E. (Quelle des Epiphanius)—predates two other, better known, partially extant anti-Montanist treatises; i.e., those utilized by Eusebius of Caeasarea in his Historia ecclesiastica (the Anonymous: 5.16–17; Apollonius: 5.18). Mader dates Q.E. to [End Page 495] within a few years after the death of Maximilla (died ca. 179/80), the last of the original “New Prophets,” and claims Q.E. as the earliest anti-Montanist polemic.

Mader may well be correct in her claim, especially if a related claim made by her should also prove to be correct, namely that the elsewhere attested anti-Montanist apologist Miltiades (e.g., Eusebius, Hist. eccl. 5.17.5; 5.28.4) is to be identified as the author of this polemic. While not the first scholar to suggest this identification, Mader has made the best case thus far—not only by narrowing the chronological parameters within which Q.E. was written to coincide exactly with the dates when the apologist is known to have been operative (ca. 177–181), but also by offering (as one of four legitimate options) a new translation of Eusebius, Hist. eccl. 5.16.3. This translation reverses the traditional interpretation of this text as referring to a different Miltiades who, according to earlier translations, was allegedly a second-generation Montanist leader (Mader, 120–23).

Regardless of whether one is convinced of the identification of the apologist Miltiades as the author of Q.E., the insights that Mader brings to our understanding of this (at least extremely) early anti-Montanist polemic to the logia of Montanus and Maximilla (Q.E. does not quote or cite the oracles of Priscilla), and to the theological and ecclesial differences that separated late second-century mainstream Christians from “Montanists” are invaluable. After a brief introduction (Chapter One), Mader (Chapter Two) provides an excellent annotated overview of previous literary criticism of Panarion 48.1–15, including a very helpful, succinct overview of the structure and content of this section of Epiphanius’s heresiology showing how Q.E. fits into this structure. Chapter Three analyzes Q.E., showing how it reveals a clash between two radically different theological positions on prophetic charismata within early Phrygian Christianity. This clash of theologies is explored more fully in Chapter Four in the context of comparing Q.E. with the evidence provided by the Anonymous quoted by Eusebius and by examining what is known about Miltiades and his opposition to the Phrygian prophetic movement. Her carefully nuanced analysis avoids any anachronistic contrasting of “orthodox church” and “Montanist heresy” but argues that, at this early stage of the conflict, “schism” must be understood as intra-congregational divisions within the same geographical region. These divisions stemmed from contrasting covenantal theologies: that represented by Q.E. looking back to the apostolic age for its authority; that articulated by the “New Prophets” looking forward to the imminent new age of the Paraclete as authorized by the teachings of the Holy Spirit communicated by their oracles. As noted already, Mader concludes that Miltiades is, indeed, the author of Q.E. She also concludes that Asia Minor, but not Phrygia itself, is the provenance of Q.E.

Through the first-published, close examination of the vastly different exegetical lenses by which the “New Prophets” and the author of Q.E. viewed the biblical texts that underlay the logia/sayings/oracles of Maximilla and Montanus preserved in the Q.E.—and one of Maximilla’s oracles preserved in the Anonymous—(Chapter Five), Mader is able to go beyond earlier scholarship by providing a personal theological profile of each of these founders of the Phrygian “New Prophecy” movement. Maximilla emerges as the first-known female exegetical theologian in the Pauline tradition who creatively shapes that tradition by [End Page 496] merging Paul’s charismatic and covenantal theologies in the context of her own historical and geographic situation. Montanus is shown, by comparison, to be influenced much more by the prophetic texts of the Hebrew Bible as translated in the Septuagint, by the philosophical/exegetical interpretation of at least Gen 2.21–24 of Philo of Alexandria, and by the book of Revelation. Both prophets, nonetheless, according to Mader, share a view of the role of the prophet as a “passive instrument” and oracular prophecy as a sign of the immanent eschaton and of the fulfillment of a new covenantal theology.

Mader’s book not only contributes substantially to scholarship on Montanism but is also a model for all who wish to undertake a diachronic approach to the critical study of ancient texts utilizing the TLG.