A church dictionary

by Walter Farquhar Hook

The author of this sect was Theodore, bishop of Pharan in Arabia, in 626, who first started the question, and maintained that the manhood in Christ was so united to the Word, that, though it had its faculties, it did not act by itself, but the whole act was to be ascribed to the Word, which gave it the motion. Thus, he said, it was the manhood of Christ that suffered hunger, thirst, and pain; but the hunger, thirst, and pain were to be ascribed to the Word. In short, the Word was the sole author and mover of all the operations and wills in Christ.

Sergius, patriarch of Constantinople, was of the same sentiment; and the emperor Heraclius embraced the party so much the more willingly, as he thought it a means of reconciling some other heretics to the Church.

Pope Martin I. called a council at Rome in 649, upon the question about the two operations and two wills. In this council, at which were present 105 Italian bishops, the doctrine of the Monothelites was generally condemned. The emperor Constans, who looked upon this condemnation as a kind of rebellion, caused Pope Martin to be violently carried away from Rome, and, after most cruel usage, banished him to Chersona.

However, this heresy was finally condemned in the sixth general council, held at Constantinople, under Constantine Pogonatus, in the year 680.

MONTANISTS. Christian heretics, who sprung up about the year 171, in the reign of the emperor Marcus Aurelius. They were so called from their leader, the heresiarch Montanus, a Phrygian by birth, whence they are sometimes styled Phrygians and Cataphrygians.

Montanus, it is said, embraced Christianity in hopes of rising to the dignities of the Church. He pretended to inspiration, and gave out that the Holy Ghost had instructed him in several points which had not been revealed to the apostles. Priscilla and Maximilla, two enthusiastic women of Phrygia, presently became his disciples, and in a short time he had a great number of followers. The bishops of Asia, being assembled together, condemned his prophecies, and excommunicated those who dispersed them. Afterwards, they wrote an account of what had passed to the Western Churches, where the pretended prophecies of Montanus and his followers were likewise condemned.

The Montanists, finding themselves exposed to the censure of the whole Church, formed a schism, and set up a distinct society, under the direction of those who called themselves prophets. Montanus, in conjunction with Priscilla and Maximilla, was at the head of the sect.

These sectaries made no alteration in the creed. They only held that the Holy Spirit made Montanus his organ for delivering a more perfect form of discipline than that which was delivered by the apostles. They refused communion for ever to those who were guilty of notorious crimes, and believed that the bishops had no authority to reconcile them. They held it unlawful to fly in time of persecution. They condemned second marriages, allowed the dissolution of marriage, and observed three Lents.

The Montanists became separated into two branches, one of which were the disciples of Proclus, and the other of Æschines. The latter are charged with following the heterodoxy of Praxeas and Sabellius concerning the Trinity. The celebrated Tertullian was a Montanist.

MONUMENT. The memorial placed over the body of a Christian, after his burial in consecrated ground.