There is a flat contradiction between this passage and §21, below, where it is admitted by this same author that the Montanists have had their martyrs. The sweeping statements here, considered in the light of the admission made in the other passage, furnish us with a criterion of the trustworthiness and honesty of the reports of our anonymous author. It is plain that, in his hostility to Montanism, he has no regard whatever for the truth; that his aim is to paint the heretics as black as possible, even if he is obliged to misrepresent the facts. We might, from the general tone of the fragment which Eusebius has preserved, imagine this to be so: the present passage proves it. We know, indeed, that the Montanists had many martyrs and that their principles were such as to lead them to martyrdom, even when the Catholics avoided it (cf. Tertullian’s De fuga in persecutione).