Monday, November 1, 2021

Apollinarius on the Continuation of the Charism of Prophecy (as recorded by Eusebius)

  

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)