1 Earliest Rome

Pella, 3
7.6 Prophecy in the Roman empire
who was, as I said before, enormous and very lovely. He coiled this snake round his
neck, letting the tail, which was long, hang over his lap and pan of it trail onto the floor.
The only part he kept hidden was the head, under his arm, while he displayed the linen
head 4
on one side of its beard as if it belonged entirely to the creature that was visible.
1. See8.7a-c.
2. According to one mythological tradition, Coronis was the mother of Asklepios. Corone
is the Greek word for 'crow'; hence the pun which follows.
3. Earlier in the story (6-7), Alexander had bought a tame snake from Pella (in
Macedonia).
4. Chapter 12 describes this linen bead - of part-snake, part-human appearance, which
could be made to move its mouth and so appear to speak.
7.6b The prophecies of Montanus
Montanus (late second century A.D.) was the founder of a Christian movement
in Phrygia (Asia Minor). The Moncanists, who came to be seen as 'heretical' by
the 'orthodox' Church, claimed that God spoke to the Church through
prophets and prophetesses, whose authority should he greater than that of
bishops. The movement was resisted by the bishops of Asia Minor, but spread
to North Africa and Rome. Eusebius, the fourth-century Christian historian,
is the main source for the development of the movement; in this passage, he is
drawing on an eatlier writer whom he does not name.
See further: Vol. 1, 305-6; G. Salmon (1882); Labriolle (1913); Frend
(1984) 253-7*.
Eusebius, Ecclesiastical History V. 16.7—8
There is. it seems, a village called Ardabau, near the Phrygian border with Mvsia. It is
said that, in the proconsulate of Grams in Asia, 1
a recent convert called Montanus laid
himself open to the devil through his limitless ambition to succeed; he became filled with
spiritual exaltation and fell into a sort of trance or ecstatic state. He started chattering and
speaking strange words, prophesying in a manner quire inconsistent with the Church's
practice as handed down from generation to generation from the beginning. Some of
those who heard his bogus performances were angry and regarded him as possessed, a
demoniac in the power of a spirit of error, a disturber of the people. They assailed him
and tried to prevent his speaking, mindful of the division made by the Lord when he
warned against the coming of false prophets. But others were aroused as if bv the Spirit or
by a gift of prophecy, and became gripped with pride, forgetful of the Lord's warning.
They accepted a harmful, delusive, misleading spirit; they were so bewitched and
deluded, that they could no longer be kept quiet.
1. The exact date of Grams' o trice is unknown; it was probably in the 150s or 160s \.D. See
Barnes 0^70).
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