Fragmentary material from an anti-Montanist writer describing prophetic controversy, church discernment, and the careers of Montanus and his associates as remembered by their opponents in late antiquity.
Author
Anonymous anti-Montanist writer
Traditional attribution
Asterius Urbanus
Date
Late 2nd–early 3rd century
Origin
Asia Minor (proposed)
Genre
Fragments
Eusebius preserves the anti-Montanist excerpts without securely naming their author; later editorial tradition associates them with Asterius Urbanus.
The manuscripts write the name Ἀουίρκιος, Avircius: but Nicephorus (book iv.) gives it as Ἀβέρκιος, Abercius.
3
Nicephorus adds ἴσον δ' εἰπεῖν Μοντανόν , which seems, however, to be but a scholium. It may appear difficult to account for the fact that the name of Miltiades rather than that of Montanus is associated with the heresy of the Cataphrygians, and some consequently have conjectured that we should read here Alcibiades, as that is a name mentioned in concert with Montanus and Theodotus in Euseb. v. 3. In the Muratorian fragment, however, as given above among the writings of Caius, we find again a Miltiades named among the heretics. [Vol. v. p. 604, this series.]
4
ἐπισυγγράφειν ἢ επιδιατάσσεσθαι.
5
κατὰ πόντον. But the Codex Regius reads κατὰ τόπον, the church of the place, i.e., the church of Ancyra itself. This reading is confirmed by Nicephorus, book iv. 23, and is adopted by the Latin interpreter.
6
διατεθρυλλημένην, “ringing with it,” “deafened by it.”
ἀντιθέτους. Others read ἀντιθέους, “the enemies of God.”
9
Ζωτικου̑ του̑ Ὀτρηνοῦ. Nicephorus reads Ὀστρηνου̑. [Compare p. 336, infra. This looks like a bishop or a presbyter attending Asterius (compare Cyprian, vol. v. p. 319, note 7, this series), and is a token that our author was a bishop.]
10
ἔνστασις.
11
Ἀρδαβαυ̑. One codex makes it Ἀρδαβα̑β
12
ἐν τη̑ κατὰ τὴν φρυγιαν Μυσία. Rufinus renders it, apud Phrygiam Mysiæ civitatem; others render it, apud Mysiam Phrygiæ; Migne takes it as defining this Mysia to be the Asiatic one, in distinction from the European territory, which the Latins called Mœsia, but the Greeks also Μυσία.
13
πνευματοφορηθη̑ναι.
14
διαστολη̑ς.
15
εἰς τὸ μηκέτι κωλύεσθαι σιωπα̑ν.
16
τὴν ἀποκεκοιμημένην, etc; the verb being used literally of the wife who proves false to her marriage vow.
17
ἐλεγκτικόν. Montanus, that is to say, or the demon that spake by Montanus, knew that it had been said of old by the Lord, that when the Spirit came He would convince or reprove the world of sin; and hence this false spirit, with the view of confirming his hearers in the belief that he was the true Spirit of God, sometimes rebuked and condemned them. See a passage in Ambrose’s Epistle to the Thessal., ch. v. (Migne).
αμετροφώνους. So Homer in the Iliad calls Thersites ἀμετροεπής, “unbridled of tongue,” and thus also mendacious.
21
του̑ ὀνόματος. Nicephorus reads του̑ νόμου, “for the law.” [Compare Tertullian, vol. iii. cap. 28, p. 624.]
22
κατὰ δὲ τὸν ἑκαστου̑ τελευτη̑ς καιρόν.
23
οἶον ἐπίτροπον. Rufinus renders it, “veluti primogenitum prophetiæ ipsorum.” Migne takes it as meaning steward, manager of a common fund established among the Montanists for the support of their prophets. Eusebius (v. 18) quotes Apollonius as saying of Montanus, that he established exactors of money, and provided salaries for those who preached his doctrine.
24
παρεκστη̑ναι.
25
δισκευθέτα, “pitched like a quoit.”
26
The text is, ἀλλὰ μὴν ἂνευ. But in various codices we have the more correct reading, ἀλλὰ μὴ ἂνευ.
27
These words are apparently a scholium, which Eusebius himself or some old commentator had written on the margin of his copy. We gather also from them that Asterius Urbanus was credited with the authorship of these three books, and not Apollinaris, as some have supposed.
28
Comana seems to have been a town of Pamphylia. At least a bishop of Comana is mentioned in the epistle of the bishops of Pamphylia to Leo Augustus, cited in the third part of the Council of Chalcedon, p. 391. [See p. 335, note 9, supra.]
29
Themison was a person of note among the Montanists, who boasted of himself as a confessor and martyr, and had the audacity to write a catholic epistle to the churches like an apostle, with the view of commending the new prophecy to them. See Euseb., v. 18.
30
ἐν τοι̑ς περὶ Γάϊον … μαρτυρήσασι. It may be intended for, “In the case of the martyrs Caius and Alexander.”
31
Migne is of opinion that there has been an interchange of names between this passage and the Exordium, and that we should read Miltiades here, and Alcibiades there. But see Exordium, note 3, p. 335. [And compare Eusebius, book v. cap. 3, where two of this name are mentioned; also Ibid., cap. 17.]
32
This seems to be the sense of the text, which appears to be imperfect here: ὰλλ' οὐκ ἂν ἒχοιεν σει̑ξαι τεσσαρεσκαιδέκατον ἤδη που του̑το ἐτος ἀπὸ τη̑ς Μαξιμίλλης τελευτη̑ς.
