In this work he also
quotes Miltiades as a writer, inasmuch as he himself wrote a treatise against
the above-mentioned heresy. After quoting some of their phrases, he continues,
saying: ‘I discovered this in a work of theirs written in opposition to a work
of Alcibiades the brother, in which he gives proof on the fact that a prophet
need not speak in ecstasy, and I made a summary of it.’ Going on in the same
work, he makes a list of those who have prophesied in the New Testament, and
among these he numbers a certain Ammia and Quadratus, speaking thus: ‘But the
false prophet speaks in ecstasy, which is accompanied by ease and freedom from
fear, beginning with voluntary ignorance, but turning into involuntary madness
of soul, as has already been said. But they will not be able to show that any
prophet of those in the Old Testament or of these in the New was inspired in
this manner; they will boast neither of Agabus, nor of Judas, nor of Silas, nor
of the daughters of Philip, nor of Ammia in Philadelphia, nor of Quadratus, nor
of any others who do not belong to them.’ And again, after brief remarks, he
speaks as follows: ‘For, if the Montanist woman received the prophetic gift
after Quadratus and Ammia in Philadelphia, let them show who among them
succeeded the followers of Montanus and the women; for the Apostle held that
the gift of prophecy must exist in all the Church until the final coming. But
they would not be able to show this anywhere today, the fourteenth year after
the death of Maximilla.’ (Eusebius, Ecclesiastical History,
5.17 in Ecclesiastical History, Books 1-5 [trans. Roy Joseph
Deferrari; The Fathers of the Church 19; Washington, D.C.: The Catholic
University of America Press, 1953], 320-21)
