Bad Advertisement?
Are you a Christian?
Online Store:Visit Our Store
| The Extant Writings of Asterius Urbanus
PREVIOUS SECTION - NEXT SECTION - HELP 
bold; text-transform:uppercase; " id="v.ii-p1.1">The Extant Writings of Asterius Urbanus2158
i. the exordium.
Having now for a very long and surely a very sufficient period had the charge pressed upon me by thee, my dear Avircius2159
Marcellus, to write some sort of treatise against the heresy that bears the name of Miltiades,2160
I have somehow been very doubtfully disposed toward the task up till now; not that I felt any difficulty in refuting the falsehood, and in bearing my testimony to the truth, but that I was apprehensive and fearful lest I should appear to any to be adding some new word or precept2161
| 2161
ἐπισυγγράφειν ἢ επιδιατάσσεσθαι. | to the doctrine of the Gospel of the New Testament, with respect to which indeed it is not possible for one who has chosen to have his manner of life in accordance with the Gospel itself, either to add anything to it or to take away anything from it. Being recently, however, at Ancyra, a town of Galatia, and finding the church in Pontus2162
greatly agitated2163
| 2163
διατεθρυλλημένην, “ringing with it,” “deafened by it.” | by this new prophecy, as they call it, but which should rather be called this false prophecy, as shall be shown presently, I discoursed to the best of my ability, with the help of God, for many days in the church, both on these subjects and on various others2164
| 2164
ἒκαστά τε. Others propose ἐκάστοτε, “constantly,” “daily.” | which were brought under my notice by them. And this I did in such manner that the church rejoiced and was strengthened in the truth, while the adversaries2165
| 2165
ἀντιθέτους. Others read ἀντιθέους, “the enemies of God.” | were forthwith routed, and the opponents put to grief. And the presbyters of the place accordingly requested us to leave behind us some memorandum of the things which we alleged in opposition to the adversaries of the truth, there being present also our fellow-presbyter Zoticus Otrenus.2166
This, however, we did not; but we promised, if the Lord gave us opportunity, to write down the matters here, and send them to them with all speed.
ii. from book i.
Now the attitude of opposition2167
which they have assumed, and this new heresy of theirs which puts them in a position of separation from the Church, had their origin in the following manner. There is said to be a certain village called Ardaba2168
| 2168
Ἀρδαβαυ̑. One codex makes it Ἀρδαβα̑β | in the Mysia, which touches Phrygia.2169
| 2169
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. | There, they say, one of those who had been but recently converted to the faith, a person of the name of Montanus, when Gratus was proconsul of Asia, gave the adversary entrance against himself by the excessive lust of his soul after taking the lead. And this person was carried away in spirit;2170
and suddenly being seized with a kind of frenzy and ecstasy, he raved, and began to speak and to utter strange things, and to prophesy in a manner contrary to the custom of the Church, as handed down from early times and preserved thenceforward in a continuous succession. And among those who were present on that occasion, and heard those spurious utterances, there were some who were indignant, and rebuked him as one frenzied, and under the power of demons, and possessed by the spirit of delusion, and agitating the multitude, and debarred him from speaking any more; for they were mindful of the Lord’s distinction2171
and threatening, whereby He warned them to be on their guard vigilantly against the coming of the false prophets. But there were others too, who, as if elated by the Holy Spirit and the prophetic gift, and not a little puffed up, and forgetting entirely the Lord’s distinction, challenged the maddening and insidious and seductive spirit, being themselves cajoled and misled by him, so that there was no longer any checking him to silence.2172
| 2172
εἰς τὸ μηκέτι κωλύεσθαι σιωπα̑ν. | And thus by a kind of artifice, or rather by such a process of craft, the devil having devised destruction against those who were disobedient to the Lord’s warning, and being unworthily honoured by them, secretly excited and inflamed their minds that had already left the faith which is according to truth, in order to play the harlot with error.2173
| 2173
τὴν ἀποκεκοιμημένην, etc; the verb being used literally of the wife who proves false to her marriage vow. | For he stirred up two others also, women, and filled them with the spurious spirit, so that they too spoke in a frenzy and unseasonably, and in a strange manner, like the person already mentioned, while the spirit called them happy as they rejoiced and exulted proudly at his working, and puffed them up by the magnitude of his promises; while, on the other hand, at times also he condemned them skilfully and plausibly, in order that he might seem to them also to have the power of reproof.2174
And those few who were thus deluded were Phrygians. But the same arrogant spirit taught them to revile the Church universal under heaven, because that false spirit of prophecy found neither honour from it nor entrance into it. For when the faithful throughout Asia met together often and in many places of Asia for deliberation on this subject, and subjected those novel doctrines to examination, and declared them to be spurious, and rejected them as heretical, they were in consequence of that expelled from the Church and debarred from communion.2175
iii. from book ii.
Wherefore, since they stigmatized us as slayers of the prophets2176
because we did not receive their loquacious2177
prophets,—for they say that these are they whom the Lord promised to send to the people,—let them answer us in the name of God, and tell us, O friends, whether there is any one among those who began to speak from Montanus and the women onward that was persecuted by the Jews or put to death by the wicked? There is not one. Not even one of them is there who was seized and crucified for the name2178
of Christ. No; certainly not. Neither assuredly was there one of these women who was ever scourged in the synagogues of the Jews, or stoned. No; never anywhere. It is indeed by another kind of death that Montanus and Maximilla are said to have met their end. For the report is, that by the instigation of that maddening spirit both of them hung themselves; not together indeed, but at the particular time of the death of each2179
| 2179
κατὰ δὲ τὸν ἑκαστου̑ τελευτη̑ς καιρόν. | as the common story goes. And thus they died, and finished their life like the traitor Judas. Thus, also, the general report gives it that Theodotus—that astonishing person who was, so to speak, the first procurator2180
of their so-called prophecy, and who, as if he were sometime taken up and received into the heavens, fell into spurious ecstasies,2181
and gave himself wholly over to the spirit of delusion—was at last tossed by him2182
| 2182
δισκευθέτα, “pitched like a quoit.” | into the air, and met his end miserably. People say then that this took place in the way we have stated. But as we did not see2183
| 2183
The text is, ἀλλὰ μὴν ἂνευ. But in various codices we have the more correct reading, ἀλλὰ μὴ ἂνευ. | them ourselves, we do not presume to think that we know any of these things with certainty. And it may therefore have been in this way perhaps, and perhaps in some other way, that Montanus and Theodotus and the woman mentioned above perished.
iv.
And let not the spirit of Maximilla say (as it is found in the same book of Asterius Urbanus2184
), “I am chased like a wolf from the sheep; I am no wolf. I am word, and spirit, and power.” But let him clearly exhibit and prove the power in the spirit. And by the spirit let him constrain to a confession those who were present at that time for the very purpose of trying and holding converse with the talkative spirit—those men so highly reputed as men and bishops—namely, Zoticus of the village of Comana2185
, and Julian of Apamea, whose mouths Themison2186
and his followers bridled, and prevented the false and seductive spirit from being confuted by them.
v.
And has not the falsity of this also been made manifest already? For it is now upwards of thirteen years since the woman died, and there has arisen neither a partial nor a universal war in the world. Nay, rather there has been steady and continued peace to the Christians by the mercy of God.
vi. from book iii.
But as they have been refuted in all their allegations, and are thus at a loss what to say, they try to take refuge in their martyrs. For they say that they have many martyrs, and that this is a sure proof of the power of their so-called prophetic spirit. But this allegation, as it seems, carries not a whit more truth with it than the others. For indeed some of the other heresies have also a great multitude of martyrs; but yet certainly we shall not on that account agree with them, neither shall we acknowledge that they have truth in them. And those first heretics, who from the heresy of Marcion are called Marcionites, allege that they have a great multitude of martyrs for Christ. But yet they do not confess Christ Himself according to truth.
vii.
Hence, also, whenever those who have been called to martyrdom for the true faith by the Church happen to fall in with any of those so-called martyrs of the Phrygian heresy, they always separate from them, and die without having fellowship with them, because they do not choose to give their assent to the spirit of Montanus and the women. And that this is truly the case, and that it has actually taken place in our own times at Apamea, a town on the Mæander, in the case of those who suffered martyrdom with Caius2187
| 2187
ἐν τοι̑ς περὶ Γάϊον … μαρτυρήσασι. It may be intended for, “In the case of the martyrs Caius and Alexander.” | and Alexander, natives of Eumenia, is clear to all.
viii.
As I found these things in a certain writing of theirs directed against the writing of our brother Alcibiades,2188
in which he proves the impropriety of a prophet’s speaking in ecstasy, I made an abridgment of that work.
ix.
But the false prophet falls into a spurious ecstasy, which is accompanied by a want of all shame and fear. For beginning with a voluntary (designed) rudeness, he ends with an involuntary madness of soul, as has been already stated. But they will never be able to show that any one of the Old Testament prophets, or any one of the New, was carried away in spirit after this fashion. Nor will they be able to boast that Agabus, or Judas, or Silas, or the daughters of Philip, or the woman Ammia in Philadelphia, or Quadratus, or indeed any of the others who do not in any respect belong to them, were moved in this way.
x.
For if, after Quadratus and the woman Ammia in Philadelphia, as they say, the women who attached themselves to Montanus succeeded to the gift of prophecy, let them show us which of them thus succeeded Montanus and his women. For the apostle deems that the gift of prophecy should abide in all the Church up to the time of the final advent. But they will not be able to show the gift to be in their possession even at the present time, which is the fourteenth year only from the death of Maximilla.2189
| 2189
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. |
general note.
The reader will do well to turn back to my Introductory Notice to the Epistle of Hermas,2190
| 2190
Vol. ii. p. 3, this series. | and also to the elucidations2191
which are appended to that Epistle. If any value attaches to this fragment, it must be found in its illustrations of Hermas and Tertullian. These, in turn, shed light on it.
E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
|
