tings, sought to live comfortably by conforming to the ways of
the world, necessarily sought to rid themselves of inconvenient
societies and inconvenient monitors;[213] and they could only do so by
reproaching the latter with heresy and unchristian assumptions.
Moreover, the followers of the new prophets could not permanently
recognise the Churches of the "Psychical,"[214] which rejected the
"Spirit" and extended their toleration so far as to retain even
whoremongers and adulterers within their pale.

In the East, that is, in Asia Minor, the breach between the Montanists
and the Church had in all probability broken out before the question of
Church discipline and the right of the bishops had yet been clearly
raised. In Rome and Carthage this question completed the rupture that
had already taken place between the conventicles and the Church (de
pudic. 1. 21). Here, by a peremptory edict, the bishop of Rome claimed
the right of forgiving sins as successor of the Apostles; and declared
that he would henceforth exercise this right in favour of repentant
adulterers. Among the Montanists this claim was violently contested both
in an abstract sense and in this application of it. The Spirit the
Apostles had received, they said, could not be transmitted; the Spirit
is given to the Church; he works in the prophets, but lastly and in the
highest measure in the new prophets. The latter, however, expressly
refused to readmit gross sinners, though recommending them to the grace
of God (see the saying of the Paraclete, de pud. 21; "potest ecclesia
donare delictum, sed non faciam"). Thus agreement was no longer
possible. The bishops were determined to assert the existing claims of
the Church, even at the cost of her Christian character, or to represent
the constitution of the Catholic Church as the guarantee of that
character. At the risk of their own claim to be Catholic, the Montanist
sects resisted in order to preserve the minimum legal requirements for a
Christian life. Thus the opposition culminated in an attack on the new
powers claimed by the bishops, and in consequence awakened old memories
as to the original state of things, when the clergy had possessed no
importance.[215] But the ultimate motive was the effort to stop the
continuous secularising of the Christian life and to preserve the
virginity of the Church as a holy community.[216] In his latest writings
Tertullian vigorously defended a position already lost, and carried