MONTANUS, second-century Christian schismatic. For information on the life of Montanus we are dependent on statements made by the Christian controversialists of the time, as transmitted by the fathers of the church. Only a few utterances of Montanus himself have come down to us: "I am the Father and I am the Son and I am the Paraclete," as in the Dialogue between a Montanist and an Orthodox Christian (J. Ficker, 1905, pp. 447ff.) and according to Didymus of Alexandria (De Trinitate 3.41) and Epiphanius (Panarion 48.11.1). "The Paraclete" is sometimes replaced by "the Spirit" or "the Holy Spirit" or some expanded form of this. Man is like a lyre, and Montanus is described as the plectrum that sweeps across the strings. Extraordinary promises are made to the faithful, but no concrete indications are given of Montanus's teaching or ethical demands in any of the extant sources concerning him.

Montanus reportedly...