The New Prophecy & "New Visions": Evidence of Montanism in The Passion of Perpetua and Felicitas

Theological Studies, March, 2007 by Mary Ann Donovan

THE NEW PROPHECY & "NEW VISIONS": EVIDENCE OF MONTANISM IN THE PASSION OF PERPETUA AND FELICITAS. By Rex D. Butler. Patristic Monograph Series 18. Washington: Catholic University of America, 2006. Pp. xvii 211. $44.95.

From Augustine's day, if not Cyprian's, the Passion of Perpetua and Felicitas has been a bone of contention, claimed then by Catholics against the suspect Montanists, and--from its rediscovery in the 17th century--claimed with equal ardor by Catholics who continued to see it as orthodox and by Protestants who viewed it as Montanist. Rex Butler's presentation of the controversy betrays his sympathy with the Montanist/Protestant party, but his judgments, when he develops his own argument, are sound. His thorough textual analysis establishes that the Passion gives evidence of Montanist influence throughout all its sections. "Influence" is his word, and it is accurate (2, 127). The book's strength is in the detailed study of the work of each of the Passion's three writers: the editor, who B. agrees was most likely Tertullian; Perpetua, whose diary here incorporated is the earliest extant writing by a Christian woman; and the deacon Saturus. To illustrate from B.'s study of Perpetua, the Montanist elements he finds in her writing include prayer in tongues proper to her gift of prophecy, her sense that as a confessor she is in a privileged position to pray for others, her leadership role supported by the egalitarian emphases in Montanism, and her images of the life to come. What is finally most significant is B.'s recognition that "in Carthage, the new prophets were still a church within a church, but the tension was present" (94). B.'s comparison of the Gallic and North African churches, using the Letter of the Churches of Lyons and Vienne, is a creative feature of this useful book.

MARY ANN DONOVAN, S.C.

Jesuit School of Theology at Berkeley