8. Let the Cataphrygians Phrygians, or
Cataphrygians (οἱ
κατὰ
φρύγας) was the name given
to the followers of the Phrygian Montanus. See the account of
Montanism in Eusebius, Hist. Eccl. V. xvi., and the note there
in this Series. also be thy abhorrence, and Montanus, their
ringleader in evil, and his two so-called prophetesses, Maximilla and
Priscilla. For this Montanus, who was out of his mind and really
mad (for he would not have said such things, had he not been mad),
dared to say that he was himself the Holy Ghost,—he, miserable
man, and filled with all uncleanness and lasciviousness; for it
suffices but to hint at this, out of respect for the women who are
present. And having taken possession of Pepuza, a very small
hamlet of Phrygia, he falsely named it Jerusalem; and cutting the
throats of wretched little children, and chopping them up into unholy
food, for the purpose of their so-called mysteries The charges of lust
and cruelty brought against the Montanists by Cyril and Epiphanius
(Hær 48) seem to rest on no trustworthy evidence,
and are not mentioned by Eusebius, a bitter foe to the sect.,—(wherefore till but lately in the
time of persecution we were suspected of doing this, because these
Montanists were called, falsely indeed, by the common name of
Christians;)—yet he dared to call himself the Holy Ghost, filled
as he was with all impiety and inhuman cruelty, and condemned by an
irrevocable sentence.