MONTANISM, Sylvester Hassell “The chief opposition to the Alexandrian School and to Gnosticism and to the substitution of philosophy was, in the second century, made by those called the Montanists, of whom Tertullian became in the third century, the ablest writer. They took their name from Montanus, a native of Phrygia in Asia Minor, and were hence also called Cataphrygians, and Pepuzians, from Pepuza in Phrygia. They sought to emphasize the great importance of the spirituality and purity of the church, and especially the absolute indispensability of the work of the Holy Ghost, and the dispensability of human philosophy. Tertullian calls the Greek philosophers the patriarchs of all heresies, and scornfully asks, ‘what has the academy to do with the church? What has Christ to do with Plato— Jerusalem with Athens?’ His theology revolves about the great Pauline antithesis of sin and grace, and break the road to the Latin anthropology and soteriology, and afterwards developed by his like-minded , but clearer, calmer and more considerate countryman Augustin.”—Schaff.
He recognized the universal priesthood and equality of believers, and he defended the right of all men to worship God according to the dictates of their own consciences. Neander traces the anti-Gnosticism of the Montanists to the influence of the Apostle John in Asia Minor. In their reaction against Catholic corruptions some of them wandered off into asceticism, celibacy, prophetic ecstacies, divination and millenarism.
They spread through most of the provinces of the Roman Empire, and were found as late as the sixth century. Their general doctrinal orthodoxy is distinctly affirmed by those writers called the Fathers. (Hassell’s History pg. 367)