Montanistische Orakel und kirchliche Opposition: Der frühe Streit zwischen den phrygischen “neuen Propheten” und dem Autor der vorepiphanischen Quelle als biblische Wirkungsgeschichte des 2. Jh. n.Chr by Heidrun Elisabeth Mader

Abstract

Taking a diachronic approach and employing source-critical methodologies, including numerous Thesaurus Linguae Graecae (TLG) comparative word searches, Mader confirms and strengthens the case made by earlier scholars such as Lipsius (1865), Voigt (1891), and Nasrallah (2003) that the anonymous treatise utilized by Epiphanius indeed reflects the precise theological concepts and language prevalent in mainstream Christianity during the latter part of the second century c.e. She argues convincingly that Epiphanius’s source—which she cites as Q.E. (Quelle des Epiphanius)—predates two other, better known, partially extant anti-Montanist treatises; i.e., those utilized by Eusebius of Caeasarea in his Historia ecclesiastica (the Anonymous: 5.16–17; Apollonius: 5.18). [...]of whether one is convinced of the identification of the apologist Miltiades as the author of Q.E., the insights that Mader brings to our understanding of this (at least extremely) early anti-Montanist polemic to the logia of Montanus and Maximilla (Q.E. does not quote or cite the oracles of Priscilla), and to the theological and ecclesial differences that separated late second-century mainstream Christians from “Montanists” are invaluable. Maximilla emerges as the first-known female exegetical theologian in the Pauline tradition who creatively shapes that tradition by merging Paul’s charismatic and covenantal theologies in the context of her own historical and geographic situation.