Could Acts be a Montanist work?

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davidbrainerd
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Could Acts be a Montanist work?

Post by davidbrainerd »

Today on a forum I saw someone using this to argue the personhood of the Holy Spirit. Acts 13:2 "As they ministered to the Lord, and fasted, the Holy Ghost said, Separate me Barnabas and Saul for the work whereunto I have called them."

And my thought was: I have always read this much like Kenneth Copeland saying the Holy Spirit spoke to him, i.e. that someone had a subjective impression they interpreted as the Holy Spirit speaking to them. The similarity to the looniness of the modern charismatic movement is too uncanny.

Then I began wondering if Acts isnt perhaps a Montanist text, the charismatics of ancient times. Justin Martyr seems unaware of Acts, Marcion doesnt use it, but Tertullian loves it. Yes, that has explanatory power.

Anyone know of any articles or books suggesting such a theory? I found on google a theory the Western text of Acts is Montanist, but why not the book itself?
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Ben C. Smith
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Re: Could Acts be a Montanist work?

Post by Ben C. Smith »

davidbrainerd wrote: Thu Jul 13, 2017 2:43 pmThen I began wondering if Acts isnt perhaps a Montanist text, the charismatics of ancient times. Justin Martyr seems unaware of Acts, Marcion doesnt use it, but Tertullian loves it. Yes, that has explanatory power.
To be fair, Irenaeus loves Acts too.
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MrMacSon
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Re: Could Acts be a Montanist work?

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davidbrainerd wrote: Thu Jul 13, 2017 2:43 pm Justin Martyr seems unaware of Acts, Marcion doesnt use it, but Tertullian loves it. Yes, that has explanatory power.
Ben C. Smith wrote: Thu Jul 13, 2017 2:56 pm To be fair, Irenaeus loves Acts too.
I have wondered if Irenaeus and Tertullian could have been 'centralizers' of disparate texts: if they funnelled texts from various sects into a more central stream (or they represent that; or represent an early 'text gateway').
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Re: Could Acts be a Montanist work?

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Yes. Are the MSS of Tertullian to be dated from an 'orthodox to Montanist conversion' or was Tertullian always a Montanist and just copying out various texts from different authors who happened to have higher and lower Montanist tendencies? Was there really a sharp divide between 'Montanist' and 'orthodox' believers in the Holy Spirit in the second and early centuries? At some point Montanus became a dividing line. Maybe the news reached Carthage later.
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MrMacSon
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Re: Could Acts be a Montanist work?

Post by MrMacSon »

Secret Alias wrote: Thu Jul 13, 2017 8:58 pm Are the MSS of Tertullian to be dated from an 'orthodox to Montanist conversion'? or. was Tertullian always a Montanist and just copying out various texts from different authors who happened to have higher and lower Montanist tendencies? Was there really a sharp divide between 'Montanist' and 'orthodox' believers in the Holy Spirit in the second and early centuries? At some point Montanus became a dividing line...
Was saying 'Tertullian was initially a Christian' merely a way of retrospectively laying down the perception there had previous been an orthodox Christianity?

(eta: I wonder if the same applies to Origen: his Hexapla suggests he was as much or more enamoured with Judiaism, and mainstream Judaism at that)
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MrMacSon
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Re: Could Acts be a Montanist work?

Post by MrMacSon »

I know davidbrainerd is referring to 'Acts of the Apostles', but it seems other Acts have ties to other characters described as Montanist

Roger Pearce has refered to Martinianus and Processus, two soldiers said to have guarded Peter in prison, according to the Acts of Linus1 thus
The cult of these saints is already recorded in the 4th century work Praedestinatus, book 1, ch. 86, where the "Tertullianist" minister (in the period before Theodosius I) claimed that they had been Montanists...

http://bcharchive.org/2/thearchives/sho ... l?t=315605
There are Acts of Martinianus and Processus which Roger has translated a portion of -



1 Acts of Linus -
appears to be based on the Acts of Peter, which is known primarily in a Latin version (the so-called Actus Vercellenses) and, for the martyrdom itself, in Greek ... The Greek text is translated in Hennecke-Schneemelcher, New Testament Apocrypha (rev.), 2: 311-17 (see 2: 321 n. 153).

http://www.tertullian.org/fathers/linus_01_peter.htm
andrewcriddle
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Re: Could Acts be a Montanist work?

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davidbrainerd wrote: Thu Jul 13, 2017 2:43 pm Today on a forum I saw someone using this to argue the personhood of the Holy Spirit. Acts 13:2 "As they ministered to the Lord, and fasted, the Holy Ghost said, Separate me Barnabas and Saul for the work whereunto I have called them."

And my thought was: I have always read this much like Kenneth Copeland saying the Holy Spirit spoke to him, i.e. that someone had a subjective impression they interpreted as the Holy Spirit speaking to them. The similarity to the looniness of the modern charismatic movement is too uncanny.

Then I began wondering if Acts isnt perhaps a Montanist text, the charismatics of ancient times. Justin Martyr seems unaware of Acts, Marcion doesnt use it, but Tertullian loves it. Yes, that has explanatory power.

Anyone know of any articles or books suggesting such a theory? I found on google a theory the Western text of Acts is Montanist, but why not the book itself?
Montanists in the strict sense are a group originating in the late 2nd century CE who emphasised the special gifts of the Holy Spirit at a time when this had become unfashionable in the Christian church as a whole.

The Book of Acts is almost certainly too early to be Montanist in this sense. The author of the Book of Acts might well have agreed with the Montanists (if he had known them) in important ways, but this is a different issue.

If the Western text of Acts was produced in the late 2nd century then the editor may possibly have been a Montanist in the strict sense, although I am not convinced. The Western text of Acts tends to emphasize distinctive Lukan themes in general, not just the ideas about the Holy Spirit.

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Re: Could Acts be a Montanist work?

Post by Stuart »

As I view Irenaeus as composite of materials from no earlier than the very end of the 2nd century -but probably early 3rd century- overlapped heavily with material from the end of the 3rd century (the heavily anti-Manichean elements for sure, and that seems to occupy a large chunks of AH) and also some material clearly from no earlier than the 4th century, I rather doubt he was in the least Montanist. The earlier layers I once saw somebody describe as those of a pissed off former Valentinian, an opinion I kind of agree with.

I must say I agree with Stephen on Tertullian, that there is not much daylight between the proto-orthodox of that era and the Montanists. But I also think there is some truth in Bart Erhman's observation that Luke was adoptionist. That does not align with Tertullian. Also Tertullian quotes more heavily from John and Matthew than from Luke in de Proescriptione Hoereticorum and Adversus Praxean (John the most, Matthew a lot, Luke barely at all). I suspect Stephen's fixation on Adversus Marcionem leads him to think he favors Luke, but that is not the case in other works.

Although I think the identification is off on Acts/Luke being Montanist per se, I do agree that the best way to understand the texts of the New Testament is to see which sects the theology most closely resembles. I admit a bias here for 2nd century authorship, thinking if a text seems to mimic a known 2nd century sect it is because it may have come from or been influenced by that 2nd century sect; there were IMO no such 1st century doppelganger Jesus communities -they academic simply inventions to support traditional dating- and are anyway unnecessary for identifying the writers, as we have known 2nd century sects their views align with (no need for naivety).

Just my opinion.
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neilgodfrey
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Re: Could Acts be a Montanist work?

Post by neilgodfrey »

Mogens Muller argues that Luke introduced a new format for the nature and activity of the holy spirit as a tool to enable him to join the work of the church (Acts) to the work of Jesus (Gospel of Luke). So the HS spoke this and that and directed servants to do certain things to demonstrate that the Church was the natural continuation of the work of Jesus who likewise began with a baptism followed by a miraculous demonstration of the holy spirit as the sign of God's authority.

If Acts were a Montanist work I would think we should expect to see the HS doing more than authorising a few high-ranking individuals who represented at first the authority of the church at Jerusalem and foreshadowed the authority of Rome. The HS in Acts does seem to be very selective and rank-conscious when it comes to those he wants to interact with, and in Acts he/it ends up authorising authority structures I suspect were alien to the Montanists.

There are many arguments indicating that Acts was written in response to Marcionism, otoh.
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