n.
Heretical Christian movement founded in AD 156 by Montanus.
Having converted to Christianity, Montanus fell into a trance and began to prophesy. Others joined him, and the movement spread through Asia Minor. The Montanists held that the Holy Spirit was speaking through Montanus and that the Second Coming was imminent. The bishops of Asia Minor excommunicated the Montanists ( 0441; 177), but the movement continued in the East as a separate sect; it also flourished in Carthage, where its most illustrious convert was Tertullian . It had almost died out by the 5th6th century, though some remnants survived into the 9th century.