Montanism

“ A Church which absolutely refused to retain or readmit any who committed a cardinal sin or lapsed during persecution—saying they might be saved by God’s grace, but must not be allowed human forgiveness—was doomed to the background. But Montanism, appealing as it did to an ideal of holiness which the average Christian dared not repudiate, influenced the main body, especially through the writings of such a valued polemist as Tertullian, who taunted them with being inferior even to many pagans in the matter of chastity and monogamy. ”

“ If indifferent things can contribute to the perfection of revelation, there may be endless revelations; and the last always more perfect, as having new indifferent things. It was not about things of a moral nature that there were divisions in the primitive times, and that Montanism spread itself over a great part of the Christian world; the followers of Montanus, as Eusebius writes, boasting that he was the Paraclet, and that Priscilla and Maximilla his companions were his prophetesses? ”

“ Footnotes ↑ Montanism must not be looked upon as a heresy in the ordinary sense of the term. The movement lay in the sphere of life and discipline rather than in that of theology. Its fundamental proposition was the continuance of divine revelation which was begun under the old Dispensation, was carried on in the time of Christ and his apostles, and reached its highest development under the dispensation of the Paraclete, which opened with the activity of Montanus. ”

“ It is interesting again to trace the association between the Phrygian-Christian heresy of Montanism and the older Phrygian paganism; and we have noted that Montanus, its founder, the champion of celibacy, is reported to have been in his unconverted days a priest of Cybele.
Again, the baptismal rite is a form of purification of world-wide prevalence, as has been already intimated. The washing of the new-born has been generally interpreted as a purgation of dangerous and evil influence among the lower as well as the higher races. ”

“ The Montanist prophecy did not enrich or expand but only maintained and established against the heretics, the system of Christian doctrine already exclusively revealed in the times of Christ. Montanism regarded as its special task a reformation of Christian life and Church discipline highly necessary in view of the approaching Parousia. The defects that had been borne with during the earlier stages of revelation were to be repaired or removed by the Mandata of the Paraclete. The following are some of the chief of these prescriptions: Second marriage is adultery ”

“ Martyrdom should be courted, to withdraw in any way from persecution is apostasy and denial of the faith; Virgins should take part in the worship of God only when veiled; Women generally must put away all finery and ornaments; secular science and art, all worldly enjoyments, even those that seem innocent, are only snares of the devil, etc. An anti-hierarchical tendency early showed itself in Montanism from the circumstance that it arrogated to itself a new and high authority to which the hierarchical organs of the church refused to submit themselves. ”

“ Gnosticism, which permeated Christendom in the second century, declared that the body is the seat of evil and hence that it must be abused in order to purify the soul within. [202:2] Montanism advocated an excessive puritanism, and prescribed numerous fasts and severities, which paved the way for asceticism. Other groups of Christian philosophers exercised similar influences. [202:3] The Church itself commended fasting and other practices for the cultivation of [203] spiritual benefit. Celibacy of the clergy gradually became the rule. ”

“ But, under the guise of a restoration on conservative lines, Ultramontanism—notwithstanding the totally different conditions which now obtain—girds itself to work for an ideal of religion and culture in vogue during the middle ages, and at the same time holds itself justified in adopting the extreme point of view with respect to all questions which we have mentioned. ”

“ He multiplied fasts, forbade second marriages, did not permit churches to give absolution to those who had fallen into great sin, forbade all female ornaments, required virgins to be veiled. Jerome wrote against the Montanists, who continued till about the 6th century. ”

“ Merely to live, merely to muse over this spectacle of the world, simply to feel, even if the thing felt be agony, and to reflect on the pain, and on how it may best be borne—this is enough for Montaigne. This is his philosophy, reconciling in a way the maxims of the schools that divided the older worlds, the theories of the Stoic and wiser Epicurean. To make each moment yield all that it has of experience, and of reflection on that experience, is his system of existence. Acting on this idea, all contrasts of great and petty, mean and divine, in human nature do not sadden, but delight him. ”

“ MONTAIGNE.—Montaigne, less grave and stoical, a far better writer, and one of the two or three greatest masters of prose France ever produced, possessed excellent sense sharpened with wit and enriched with a charming imagination. According to his humour—now stoic, next epicurean, then sceptic—always wise and refined and also always the sincere admirer of greatness of soul and of courage, he is the best of advisers and of companions through life, and of him more than of anyone else it ought to be said: "To have found pleasure in him is to have profited by him." ”

“ By that time people were beginning to realise the wisdom of Montaigne's counsel, written at the commencement of the witch epidemic:—
"How much more natural and more likely do I find it that two men should lie than one in twelve hours should pass with the winds from east to west? How much more natural that our understanding may, by the volubility of our loose, capering mind, be transported from its place than one of us should, flesh and bones as we are, by a strange spirit be carried upon a broom through a tunnel or a chimney." ”

“ He would tell Messer Montano, with his sweet, frank eyes arraigning that crabbed philosopher's soul, how this unstained first-born of Nature, this sinless heir of love, this wise and pitying Christ, moved by an infinite compassion to see the wounded souls of his brothers—those few who had not made their backward flight too difficult—come, soiled and earth-cloyed, to seek their reincarnation in the spring, had descended, himself, upon earth at last, sacrificing his birthright of divinity, that he might teach men how to live. ”

“ Oh, for a Humane Society in France to prevent such monstrous cruelty, taking for their motto the sentiment of her own Montaigne: “even theology enjoins kindness to brute animals; and considering that the same Master has given us our dwelling-place with them, and that they like ourselves are of his family, we should have a fellow feeling for them!” ”

“ What Montaigne really does is to bring into the courts of philosophy and to heighten with the classic style of one who was "brought up upon Latin," the sheer, natural, incorrigible love of life, of such persons, rich or poor, as have the earth in their blood and the shrewd wisdom of the earth and the geniality of the earth, and the mischievous wantonness of the earth, and the old, sly chuckling malice of the earth, in their blood and in their soul. ”

“ What if the condition of man in America were that for which the Creator designed him? What if those omnipotent powers, law and custom, as at present constituted, were impudent usurpers, destined one day to decline under the influence of right reason, and to give place, if not to the original rule of beneficent Nature, at least to something essentially very different from the systems which now passed under their names? Montaigne puts these questions very pointedly. ”

“ Why interpret man and the world as the meeting-place of these tremendous contradictions? Why divide a single though exceeding complex process into a battle-ground between two wholly opposed forces? I confess that I should correct Montaigne, so far as he needs correction, by allowing more liberally for the nobler impulses of human nature—not by stripping man of all virtue and handing over the good to an inconceivable and inscrutable force. If you once begin by introducing an omnipotent struggling with a finite being, this may be the logical result ”

“ I may illustrate this double-facedness of the Renaissance by Montaigne (second half of sixteenth century) . His Essays make for rationalism, but contain frequent professions of orthodox Catholicism, in which he was perfectly sincere. There is no attempt to reconcile the two points of view; in fact, he takes the sceptical position that there is no bridge between reason and religion. The human intellect is incapable in the domain of theology, and religion must be placed aloft, out of reach and beyond the interference of reason; to be humbly accepted. ”

“ Montaigne himself,—who, if he did not possess as much innate benevolence, had nevertheless the faculty, and even felt the want of entering into his conscience, and examining it, so as to draw forth general notions,—says, "When I examine myself conscientiously, I find that my best sort of goodness has a vicious tint."
And he fears that even Plato, in his brightest virtue, had he analyzed it well, would have found some human admixture. And then he sums up by saying, "Man is made up of bits and oddities." ”

“ All things (saith Plato) are produced either by nature, by fortune, or by art. The greatest and fairest by one or other of the two first, the least and imperfect by the last. Those nations seeme therefore so barbarous unto me, because they have received very little fashion from humane wit, and are yet neere their originall naturalitie. The lawes of nature doe yet command them which are but little bastardized by ours, and that with such puritie, as I am sometimes grieved the knowledge of it came no sooner to light, at what time there were men that better than we could have judged of it. ”

“ The diversity, the undulancy, of human nature!—so deep a sense of it went with Montaigne always that himself too seemed to be ever changing colour sympathetically therewith. Those innumerable differences, mental and physical, of which men had always been aware, on which they had so largely fed their vanity, were ultimate. That the surface of humanity presented an infinite variety was the tritest of facts. ”

“ Nature, the great Mother of us all, reveals herself in a distinctively unique manner in every individual. Every human being has his forme maistresse, his ruling passion. It is this interest that accounts for Montaigne's own personal observations as well as for his thorough study of ancient literature. His enthusiasm for nature and his insight into the multiplicity of individual peculiarities cause him to revolt against all dogmatism, both the rationalistic and the theological. ”

“ We, for our part, are prepared, speaking more broadly than Pascal, to say that, to a somewhat numerous class of naturally dominant minds, Montaigne's "Essays," in spite of all that there is good in them,—nay, greatly because of so much good in them,—are, by their subtly insidious persuasion to evil, upon the whole quite the most powerfully pernicious book known to us in literature, either ancient or modern. ”

“ As Montaigne observes, "He who sets before him, as in a picture, this vast image of our mother Nature in her entire majesty; who reads in her aspect such universal and continual variety; who discerns himself therein, and not himself only but a whole kingdom, to be but a most delicate dot—he alone esteems things according to the just measure of their greatness." ”

“ But though we are natural conservers and causationists, and reject a sour, dumpish unbelief, the skeptical class, which Montaigne represents, have reason, and every man, at some time, belongs to it. Every superior mind will pass through this domain of equilibration,- I should rather say, will know how to avail himself of the checks and balances in nature, as a natural weapon against the exaggeration and formalism of bigots and blockheads. ”

“ Montaigne, the admirer of classic antiquity, says that serving the Commonwealth is the most honourable calling. [24] Acts without some splendour of freedom have, in his eyes, neither grace, nor do they merit being honoured. [25] But elsewhere [26] we come upon his other view, less imbued with the spirit of antiquity—namely, that 'man alone, without other help, armed only with his own weapons, and unprovided with the grace and knowledge of God, in which all his honour, his strength, and the whole ground of his being are contained,' is a sorry specimen of force indeed. ”

“ Truly it is to the honour of religion to have for its adversaries men so bereft of reason; their opposition, far from being formidable, bears testimony to its most distinguishing truths; for the great [pg 311] object of the Christian religion is to establish the corruption of our nature, and the redemption by Jesus Christ.15” Elsewhere he says of Montaigne, “He involves everything in such universal, unmingled scepticism, as to doubt of his very doubts. He was a pure Pyrrhonist. He ridicules all attempts at certainty in anything. ”

“ Monti may be excused that he joined in the common feeling of awe and admiration; while, afterwards, seeing how little good arose from the breaking up of the ancient tyrannies, and how the indomitable will of one man was enforced by means of treachery and slaughter, he might forget that he could ever have been so blinded, and fancy that acknowledged fear was the cause of an inspiration which really sprung from the slavish worship of success, which is too naturally inherent in human beings. ”