Prophetic Amnesia: An Effect of Early Jewish and Christian Prophecy And Its                             Suppression as False Prophecy During the Montanist Crisis

I. Introduction

Both in ancient and modern times the relationship of sanity and insanity to prophets and the prophetic spirit has been a subject of interest and debate.  A prophet could be called “a madman” in both positive and negative terms because of the way in which he behaved during the prophetic event.  Simon B. Parker and David E. Aune were two of the earliest biblical scholars to make use of the researches into altered states of consciousness from the groundbreaking works of Erika Bourguignon and Ioan M. Lewis as a means to inform our understanding of Hebrew, early Jewish, and early Christian prophecy.^[i]   The phrases “possession trance” and “vision trance,” coined by Bourguignon, entered into the nomenclature of the study of Hebrew and early Christian prophecy via Parker’s work and Aune’s still-unsurpassed work.^[ii]   Scholars have since followed the leads of Parker and Aune by using the works of Bourguignon and Lewis, as well as the work of Bourguignon’s student, Felicitas Goodman, in order to study the visionary and possession experiences that were recorded among early Christians.^[iii]

Aune utilized Bourguignon’s research by distinguishing between a possession trance as a trance during which time a spirit communicates a message to a third party through a temporarily entranced person, and a vision trance as a trance during which time the person so entranced “sees” images and scenes of the spirit world and its inhabitants, such as an angel that may communicate a message.^[iv]   In the case of possession trance, Aune, following Lewis and Bourguignon, distinguished between voluntary possession as “controlled” and involuntary possession as “uncontrolled.”  The former is divine possession for the purposes of divine communication and the latter falls into the class of demonic possession when a spirit takes control of the person against his or her will.^[v]

Bourguignon’s phrases suggest that a trance of some sort accompanies both possession and visionary experiences.  The word “trance” (from French transe) implies that something is transported from one place to another.  But as to what is actually “transported” from out of a person during the trance state is not always clear in Greek texts.  Amnesiac effects subsequent to some trance states suggest that either the “mind” (nou/j) or the “reasoning faculties” (logismo,j) of the person is suspended during these trance states (as Philo suggests in Heir of Divine Things 263–65) or else the human spirit itself is temporarily transported from out of the body (suggested in the contrast of one who is either “in the body” or “out of the body” in 2 Cor 12:2).  Even though trance can accompany possession, there are a number of other different causes of trance besides spirit possession.^[vi]

In both possession and vision trance, the person might be either fully out-of-body or partially out-of-body.  The various gradations of a trance state are not at all unique to modern categories, for antiquity, too, distinguished between a part trance whereby a person is partially out-of-body, and a deep trance whereby a person is fully out-of-body.^[vii]   But oftentimes it is difficult to gauge between partially and fully out-of-body simply on the basis of the occurrence of the term “ecstasy” in a text.

In the case of vision trances, the person can be either partially out-of-body (akin to the clairvoyant necromanceress who “sees” the spirit Samuel in 1 Samuel 28) or fully out-of-body in the presence of the spirit himself in the spirit world (as in the case of John and the angel in the Book of Revelation, evgeno,mhn evn pneu,mati, “I became in spirit”).  Fully out-of-body experiences did not suppress the visionary’s memory of the vision experience, for in vision trance the visionary was meant to remember the experience in order to communicate what he saw and/or heard to his community, as in the case of John.

Likewise, in the case of possession trance, a person could be either partially out-of-body and thereby aware of the possessing spirit present within him or her, or fully out-of-body and completely unaware of the possessing spirit within him or her.  In his Conferences, John Cassian (ca. fourth century–ca. fifth century) records these two degrees of possession trance by describing those who “are affected by them [demons] in such a way as to have not the slightest conception of what they do and say, while others know and afterwards recollect” (1.12; NPNF, ser. 2, 11. 366).  If I may modify Bourguignon’s phrase “possession trance” in order to accommodate the nuances that Cassian gives here, the former describes a possession deep trance (fully out-of-body), with subsequent amnesia, and the latter describes a possession part trance (partially out-of-body) whereby the person is conscious of the possessing spirit speaking and working through him or her.^[viii]

In contexts of divine communication, we can discriminate between possession trance and vision trance based on the location of the communicating spirit: in possession trance the spirit is present within the person whose faculties have been temporarily “transported” out of the body (to a certain degree) so that the spirit can take over partially or completely and communicate using the vocal organs; in vision trance the person sees the spirit or spirits outside of himself.

Among early Christians, both possession trance and vision trance include the majors ways in which messages were received from holy spirits.  Visions partially or fully out-of-body do not seem to have been accompanied by amnesia.  The amnesiac effect that accompanied possession deep trances, however, was not always a welcome sign of the holy spirit because the effect resembled a state of “dumbness,” “madness” and “insanity.”  At times amnesia was described by both Jews and Christians as a legitimate effect of prophetic activity.  At other times, however, this effect was evidence of a “disturbed mind” caused by the presence of spirits of error or demons.  The fact that amnesia could be either ridiculed as madness or praised as an effect of true prophecy has been recently explained by Laura Nasrallah as the result of the different taxonomies given to the terms “madness” and “ecstasy” by Plato, Philo, Tertullian, and Epiphanius.^[ix]   The different categories for “madness” and “ecstasy” ranged anywhere from “a blessing”(Plato) and “best of all” (Philo) to that of “folly” and “maniacal” (Epiphanius).

The English word “madness” has a negative tone reminiscent of a psychotic aberration illustrated in a Norman Bates-type persona from the 1963 film Psycho.  But in Greek antiquity, the Greek term from which English “madness” is derived, mani,a (whose transliteration into English creates the excessively pejorative word maniac), had a much broader semantic range that included positive meanings.  Nasrallah isolates the Platonic taxonomy for “madness” in the Phaedrus as the philosophical backdrop to the later first-century C.E. taxonomies of “ecstasy” in Philo and the second- and third-century C.E. debates over proper and improper prophetic ecstasy during the Montanist crisis.  Plato gives four forms of “madness”: 1) a mantic madness which leads to prophecies from gods through divine possession as exhibited at the oracles of Delphi and Dodona or in the words of the Sybil (244A–D); 2) a madness that provides a way of release for those in need during a crisis (244D–E); 3) a poetic madness that comes from the inspiration of the Muses (245A); and 4) the madness of the soul in its attempt to ascend to the divine (245C–249D).  The first three forms of madness are those that Plato asserts are the results of “inspired madness” (mani,aj gignome,nhj avpo. qew/n).

So in the context of prophecy, madness was an effect that occurs during inspiration; an effect that was a part of prophetic behavior for “in reality the greatest blessings come to us through madness, when it is sent as a gift of the gods” (Phaedrus 244A).  Plato’s use of “madness” for prophecy is akin to the way the word “ecstasy” was used for prophecy by Philo as a “standing out of one’s self” state in order that a divine spirit might take full control (ecstasy = evx, “out of” + i[sthmi, “to stand,” so, “to stand outside of” yourself).  The word “ecstasy,” used for prophetic behavior, could also be used to denote “amazement” or somebody who is thrown into a state of surprise or fear.  It is translated as such in Mark 5:42, Luke 5:26, and Acts 3:10.  Any alteration of the “normal” condition could be described by the word “ecstasy” including prophetic behavior, and sometimes ecstasy was observed by third parties to have physical effects.  Plato’s phrase mani,aj gignome,nhj avpo. qew/n might literally mean, “out-of-body states produced by gods (spirits).”  But since Plato contrasted this “madness” with swfrosu,nh, “right mindedness” or “sober mindedness,” one could potentially confuse the “blessing” of prophetic madness with a negative psychotic state wherein one is “disturbed” or no longer in his “right mind.”  Josef Pieper explained,

If we consider all aspects of mania which Plato mentions, we shall have to say that he uses the word to mean, primarily, a being-beside-oneself, a loss of command over oneself, . . . a state in which we are not active, but passive.  French scholars, . . ., speak of transport, that is, a condition of being carried away out of the center of one’s own being.  But all these alternatives convey only one element of what Plato means: the element of weakness or, if we will, of sickness and ‘derangement.’  Yet it is also conceivable that this being-beside-oneself may not be caused by mental disturbance, not by poison or drugs, but by a divine power.  The Deity is the truly active source . . . In the middle of the Phaedrus, Socrates speaks of a man thus possessed by mania.  ‘The multitude,’ he says, ‘regard him as being out of his wits, for they know not that he is full of a god [enthousiazon].  (English “enthusiasm” comes from the Greek evnqousiasmo,j, “possessed by a god,” the generic term of which was evnqeoj, “within is a god”).^[x]

The psychological effects that spirits have on persons, suggested by the term “madness,” is initially witnessed through the bodily effects produced by the presence of spirits.^[xi]   Ann Taves notes that Anglo-American Protestants pondered such a relationship during the awakening in the early eighteenth century: “Psychological theorizing about enthusiasm started with the simple observation that, when frightened by natural phenomena, such as earthquakes, people often experienced bodily effects much like those seen in religious contexts.  Theorizing began, in other words, with comparison.”^[xii]   We also see the relationship between prophetic madness and bodily effects in antiquity where priests, priestesses, and prophets are described in a state of madness while twitching, whirling of the eyes, and foaming at the mouth.^[xiii]   In the Hebrew Bible prophets are sometimes described as being “drunken stupors” (see Isa 28:7; 19:14; Hos 4:11; Hab 2:5; Prov 20:1; and Joel 3:3) as were those affected by holy spirits in Acts 2:1–4 who appeared to outsiders to be drunk.

One of the most important works of the twentieth century that dealt with the physical behavior of the “development of mediums” for the purpose of spirit communication was written by Johannes Greber in which he described phenomenon of bodily effects of otherwise normal individuals and the presence of spirits.  Those who do not know that the bodily effects are due to spirits might be alarmed by the physical behavior of one undergoing the development of becoming a medium and misconstrue this behavior as “pathological” or “psychological.”  Greber stated as follows:

One of his brothers announced that he could no longer attend our meetings because he found that he could not keep his head still and that it was continually being turned from side to side against his will.  He had done his best to control this tendency, but without success.  I, too, had noticed this motion of his head, and so had his mother who looked at me questioningly and in alarm. [It was then explained to Greber why the boy could not keep his head still].  The other medium who had not yet entered into activity is in the first stage of preparation. . . . the boy who could not keep his head still at your last meeting and who was frightened in consequence.  He will become a ‘speaking medium’; his own spirit will be expelled from his body and the latter will be occupied by another spirit which will speak through it.  This state is called a ‘trance.’  There are various gradations of trances, according to whether the spirit of the medium is completely or only partly expelled from the body.  The development of a ‘full trance’ or a ‘deep trance’ medium is not a pleasant sight, . . . In order that the medium’s mother may not be frightened unnecessarily by what takes place, it will be best for her to keep away from the meetings for the time being. . . the aspect of his (the ‘speaking medium’) physical condition on these occasions was often alarm-inspiring.  I was therefore glad that I had been warned of this beforehand, since otherwise I might not have had the courage to persist to the end.^[xiv]         

Notice that Greber describes the reaction to the medium’s bodily effects as “alarming” and “frightening” and that even he would have ceased because of the appearance of these bodily effects if he had not be told that such effects were normal for the preparation of mediums.  Greber’s personal observations of spirits and their effects on persons have given way to modern Psychiatric interpretations that do not allow for the reality of spirits.

In the modern era, the relationship between erratic physical behavior of a person and the presence of spirits who will speak through that person was sometimes construed as a state of neurosis, more inline with an illness or disease than with the influence and presence of spirits.^[xv]   Ancient texts about spirits are often reread through the prism of modern Psychiatry that dismisses, a priori, the reality of spirits, the very agents that were believed to be the source of prophecy or some other spirit influence.^[xvi]   The effects that spirits are said to have on persons in ancient and modern texts are similar to the effects that appear in modern psychiatric diagnoses.  The similarity might be easy enough for many trained Psychiatrists to discount “spirits” as archaic and unscientific while maintaining the reality of their effects, such as amnesia, convulsions, or paralysis.  While these effects are attributed to “spirits” in ancient texts they are now understood by Psychiatrists to originate in an organic aberration.  The ancients simply did not know any better when they invoked the terms “spirits” or “demons” as the cause of certain neuroses.^[xvii]

When a healthy person exhibits such behavior, the spirit hypothesis gives way to the hypothesis that the origin of such behavior is that of the subconscious.  In the latter decades of the nineteenth century, researchers such as J. M. Charcot, Alfred Binet, and Pierre Janet developed the idea that fragments of the personality might split off and secretly develop within the person’s subconscious, the “second self,” and, over time, manifest as a reasoning, planning, and thinking entity that can dissociate itself from the person’s normal conscious self.  Janet called this view “subconscious fixed ideas” and explained the phenomenon of possession as an example of being controlled by a subconscious fixed idea that had developed into its own personality.  Mediumship and other spiritistic phenomena were explained by Janet as examples of “psychological automatism,” that is, the manifestation of hidden material from the subconscious without the conscious participation of the person.^[xviii]   What is construed as an intrusion from without, i.e., the spirit hypothesis, is really the manifestation of one of a multiplicity of consciousnesses within an individual that is mistaken for possession by a spirit. Such an explanation might be quite reasonable if evidence for “spirits” is lacking.  Nevertheless, there is no hard empirical data to support this theory as an adequate explanation for possession.

But those who know that the physio-psychological behavior is really due to the heightened presence of a spirit or spirits near the person and not to some neurosis or the action of the subconscious, a distinction that Plato makes in the Phaedrus by contrasting those who think that the possessed person is “out of his wits” do not know that he is really possessed by a god, shows that the bodily effects have a daemonic, transcendental meaning; in other words, the source of the bodily effects is exogenic rather than endogenic.^[xix]   Despite the similarities between true psychoses and neuroses, whose origin is in a physical aberration, e.g., permanent dementia, and the effects of spirits that mimic certain psychoses and neuroses, both physically and mentally, we must be sensitive to the reality of spirits in ancient taxonomies and debates on “madness” and “ecstasy,” which brings us to the present study.^[xx]     

Throughout the ancient Mediterranean world and Greco-Roman antiquity, spirits were believed to communicate with humankind by entering into a human subject who was in an “ecstasy” in order to use the subject’s vocal organs.  If the possession trance state was such that it rendered the person temporarily unconscious, then the person, upon awakening from the trance state, had no recall of the event.  I have decided to call this phenomenon “prophetic amnesia.”  The consistency with which we find this phenomenon in Mesopotamian, Greek, Jewish, and Christian texts seems to indicate a reliable and longstanding belief across many centuries and spanning different cultures. 

Many scholars claim that early Christian prophecy had nothing in common with the ecstatic prophecy in the ancient Mediterranean world and Greco-Roman antiquity.^[xxi]   A few argue partly on the basis that Hellenistic terms for prophetic possession, e.g., e;kstasij, evnqousiamo,j, and e;nqeoj, are not used for New Testament prophecy.^[xxii]   Others argue that “canonical prophecy,” exhibited in the literary prophets in the Hebrew Bible, is the only legitimate comparison for prophecy in the New Testament.^[xxiii]   But Aune has shown that this “Greek ecstasy” and “Hebrew– early Christian non-ecstasy” contrast for prophecy is misguided.^[xxiv]   Since “early Jewish pneumatology provides a context in which early Christian pneumatic experience may be understood,”^[xxv] we will see that both Jews and Christians believed that the speech of a spirit through an entranced prophet, known as a “prophetic utterance,” was oftentimes accompanied by amnesia.  Amnesia was simply an effect of a possession deep-trance state; an effect that was sometimes ridiculed because it resembled a maddening neurosis–a form of ecstasy that would come to serve as a criterion for false prophecy during the Montanist crisis of the second and third centuries C.E. as Nasrallah has elegantly demonstrated.^[xxvi]  

My purpose here then is threefold: 1) chronicle prophetic amnesia among early Jews and Christians (with background in Mesopotamian, Platonic, and Neo-Platonic texts in order to show it as a longstanding phenomenon); 2) show that this ecstatic effect was described by first-century Jews and second-century Christians as occurring during the presence of “divine” and “holy” spirits, thus prophetic amnesia was a legitimate ecstatic effect; and 3) show that the derision of ecstasy out-of-mind and prophetic amnesia as a sign of “false prophecy” among opponents of the Montanists came about through a shift in the criteria for the discernment of spirits that erroneously incorporated prophetic amnesia as a sign of “false prophecy” and the presence of spirits of error only.

II. Prophetic Amnesia: Mesopotamia, (the Old Testament ?), and Plato    

It is possible, with some measure of cogency, to claim that prophetic amnesia was a long-standing, pan-Mediterranean phenomenon.  Prophetic amnesia can be chronicled as early as the Zimri-Lim period (ca. 1750–1700 B.C.E.) in the figure of the mahhû.  The figure of the mahhû (feminine muhhûtu) is rarely found in ancient Near Eastern texts, but it is known from the earliest periods, Ur III, Old Akkadian (muhhû), Old Babylonian (mahhû), as well as Middle Assyrian and Neo-Assyrian.  It is a figure found in the Mari texts that stem from the Zimri-Lim period.  The mahhû provides us with a very early example of prophetic amnesia.^[xxvii]

Evidence for prophetic amnesia in the Old Testament does not seem to occur.  Peter Michaelsen suggested, “If possession trance is always attended by amnesia, it is in principle impossible to prove it in the prophetic books of the Old Testament, inasmuch as these books originate from or pretend to originate from the prophets themselves”^[xxviii]   But this does not mean that prophetic amnesia was absent in ancient Israel.  In Old Testament texts that refer to the indwelling of spirits who communicate with an audience, it is quite possible that this communication was attended by amnesia.  See Lev 20:27, 1 Kgs 22:23, 1 Chr 12:19, 2 Chr 24:20, and the instances in 1 Samuel 10–19 that refer to “a spirit leaping upon” a person or “a spirit” coming upon someone who then “prophesies.”

Plato provides early Greek evidence for prophetic amnesia.  In the Platonic text Ion 534C–D a god “takes away the mind of these men . . . in order that we who hear them may know that it is not they who utter these words . . . when they are out of their wits, but that it is the god itself who speaks and addresses us through him.”  In Ion 533D–534E poets compose only when they are “possessed” (e;nqeoj), “out of their minds” (e;kfrwn), and when their “mind is no longer in them” (o` nou/j mhke,ti evn auvtw/| evnh/|).  Plato mentions in Apology 22C and Meno 99C that these inspired poets do not know what they are saying.  Prophetic amnesia is also explicitly found from the first century C.E. onwards.

III. Prophetic Amnesia among Jewish Authors of the First Century CE: Josephus, Philo, and Pseudo-Philo

Josephus (37–ca. 100 C.E.), the first-century Jewish historian known for his works Antiquitates Judaicae and Bellum Judaicum while a client with an imperial (Roman) pension, describes in the portion of his rewritten Bible of the Balaam narrative, Num 22:2–20, the effects of the presence of the spirit of God as effects that produce “unconsciousness.”  In A.J. 4.6.5 §118, Josephus describes the way in which Balaam delivered an oracle, “Such was the inspired utterance of one who was no longer master of himself but was overruled by the divine spirit to deliver it.”  The phrase “one who was not in himself” (ouvk w;n evn e`autw/|) describes the psychic condition at the moment of inspiration and suggests that Balaam was “out of himself” or in an ecstasy out-of-mind state.

In A.J. 4.6.5 §119, Josephus uses similar language to describe Balaam’s ecstatic experience: “For that spirit gives utterance to such language and words as it wills, whereof we are all unconscious.”  Josephus says here that while the spirit is operating through Balaam, Balaam is otherwise, “unconscious” (ouvde.n h`mw/n eivdo,twn).  This, too, suggests a state subsequent to which Balaam awakens without any memory of what the spirit said through him.  Sometimes scholars identify ecstatic speech with unintelligible or “frenzied” speech (see nn. 8–10 above).  But despite Balaam’s ecstasy out-of-mind state, Balaam’s utterance, i.e., that of the spirit speaking through him, is completely intelligible.

In A.J.  4.6.5 §121, Josephus describes the effect of the entry of the divine spirit into Balaam as an experience that puts the spirit in complete control of Balaam: “For nothing within us, once he [the divine spirit] has gained prior entry, is any more our own.”  Again, Josephus suggests with his language that Balaam is not conscious of what he does or says once the divine spirit has gained control, or “has gained prior entry,” for nothing within Balaam, i.e., his mind or consciousness, remains his own.        

Philo (ca. 20 B.C.E.–ca. 50 C.E.), a Hellenistic Jew of the Alexandrian diaspora,  provides two texts that describe the entry of a spirit into a prophet who has lapsed into a deep-trance state by the onset of the spirit entering into his body.  In Who is the Heir 265, Philo describes the invisible operations of a spirit who speaks through a prophet: “For indeed the prophet, even when he seems to be speaking, really holds his peace, and his organs of speech, mouth and tongue, are wholly in the employ of another, to show forth what he wills.”  We see here that to all outward appearances the prophet speaks, i.e., “seems to be speaking,”  but he is really not speaking; another spirit is activating his vocal organs, an activity that Philo says is “unseen by us” or “invisible” (avora,tw|) (Heir 265).

In On the Special Laws 4.49, Philo provides us with a description of a prophet who is unaware of what he does during the prophetic experience:

For no pronouncement of a prophet is ever his own; he is an interpreter prompted by Another [spirit] in all his utterances, when knowing not what he does he is filled with inspiration, as the reason withdraws and surrenders the citadel of the soul to a new visitor and tenant, the divine spirit who plays upon the vocal organism and dictates words which clearly express its prophetic message.

 Philo’s detail comes very close to the kind of experience seen earlier in the mahhû in n. 14 above.  Compare the Akkadian text, “like a mahhu, I bring (speak) forth what I do not know,” with Philo, Spec. Laws 1.65 where the prophet “has no power of apprehension when he speaks but serves as the channel for the insistent words of another’s [a spirit’s] prompting.”  In both cases, “not knowing what one says” during the prophetic experience points to the amnesia that follows once the spirit leaves the prophet’s body and the prophet rouses back to consciousness.  This, too, is described by Philo in Heir 265: “This is what regularly befalls the fellowship of the prophets.  The mind is evicted at the arrival of the divine spirit, but when that departs the mind returns to its tenancy.”  The deep-trance state is indicative of the total suppression of the mind during which time a divine spirit speaks through the prophet.  In order for the spirit to fully express itself through the prophet, the prophet has to “step out of the way” and this is characterized by the descriptions above where the “mind” of the prophet leaves or by the term “ecstasy.”

Like Philo, the author known as Pseudo-Philo gives evidence for prophetic amnesia.  We find this evidence in Liber antiquitatum biblicarum (L.A.B.), a Latin text that was transmitted along with the Latin translations of Philo’s works.  Liber antiquitatum biblicarum is rewritten Bible, specifically a history of Israel from Adam to David with imaginative expansions.  Two texts in L.A.B. give us clear evidence for prophetic amnesia in Jewish thought, one dealing with Kenaz and the other with Saul.

The Kenaz cycle is found in L.A.B. 25–28.  Liber antiquitatum biblicarum 28.6,10a describes an inspiration event similar to those seen in Philo: “And when they had sat down, a holy spirit came down upon Kenaz and dwelled in him and put him in ecstasy, and he began to prophesy, saying.”^[xxix]   The inspiration event concludes in L.A.B. 10a, “And when Kenaz had spoken these words, he was awakened, and his senses came back to him.  But he did not know what he had said or what he had seen.”  The inability to recall the inspiration event is evidence for a state of unconsciousness with subsequent amnesia.  The L.A.B. phrase “his senses came back to him” reflects the description in Philo’s Heir 265, “but when that [the spirit] departs, the mind returns to it tenancy.”

Liber antiquitatum biblicarum 62.2 is a retelling of Saul’s prophetic experience among Samuel’s guild of prophets in 1 Sam 19:20–24.  The first and last lines of this text describe prophetic amnesia induced by a prophesying spirit who has temporarily taken up residence in Saul’s body: “And a spirit abided in Saul, and he prophesied saying, ‘. . . . . .’ And Saul went away and did not know what he had prophesied.”^[xxx]

IV. Prophetic Amnesia: Aelius Aristides and Iamblichus

The texts in Philo and Pseudo-Philo give us detail for prophetic amnesia that we find elsewhere.  The second-century C.E. Greek rhetorician Aelius Aristides describes the priestesses of Zeus as having no knowledge of Zeus’ oracles prior to his communication through them, “nor afterwards do they know anything which they have said, but all inquirers understand it better than they.”^[xxxi]

The Neo-Platonist Iamblichus preserves descriptions of prophetic amnesia in his writings on spirit communication and theurgy known as On the Mysteries.  In his descriptions of the effects of those who are truly possessed by the gods, Iamblichus states that one of the characteristic signs for this is the prophet’s unconsciousness: “they neither act according to sensation nor are they awake in the manner of those who have their senses aroused. . . . they are not even conscious of themselves.”^[xxxii]   Elsewhere, Iamblichus describes the effects of the presence of the god as it makes use of the oracle at Colophon with similar language.  The god “uses the prophet as an instrument while he [the prophet] is neither himself nor has any consciousness of what he says or where on the earth he is, so that even after prophesying, he sometimes scarcely gets control of himself.”^[xxxiii]   The description of “not knowing what one says” during the prophetic event matches the same concept that we have seen in Mesopotamian, Platonic, and Jewish texts thus far.  Did Christians experience prophetic amnesia?  We now turn to that prospect.

V. Prophetic Amnesia: Some Earliest Christians

Not unlike humanity before them, early Christians communicated with spirits via entranced prophets.  We see this most especially in the use of the prepositional phrase evn pneu,mati, “with a spirit,” in 1 Cor 12:3, 14:2,16, and in Didache 11:7,8,12.  The prepositional phrase functions not unlike that seen in Mark 1:23 and 5:2 where the man evn pneu,mati avkaqa,rtw|, “with an unclean spirit,” is possessed by the spirit that speaks forth in the first person.^[xxxiv]   So, too, do we find this same phenomenon occurring by the entry of a holy spirit or a spirit of God into the body of a prophet in the phrases evn pneu,mati a[gion, “with a holy spirit,” and evn pneu,mati qeou/, “with a spirit of God,” in 1 Cor 12:3 and 14:2,16, or just evn pneu,mati, “with a spirit,” where the context in Didache 11:7,8,12 is either true or false prophets.^[xxxv]    On the one hand, unclean spirits possess persons involuntarily while, on the other hand, holy spirits only enter into persons who voluntarily allow the use of their vocal chords for the production of speech, or what is sometimes known as “a prophetic utterance.”^[xxxvi]

In John 11:51, Caiaphas is said to prophesy but “not from himself” (tou/to de. avf v e`autou/ ouvk ei-pen), a phrase that might imply that Caiaphas was not conscious while making the prophecy.  Although prophetic amnesia is never detailed in the New Testament, it is possible to deduce that amnesia did occur among some of the earliest Christians, both Jewish and Gentile, from the use of the prepositional phrases evn pneu,mati a[gion and evn pneu,mati qeou/ in 1 Cor 12:3, 14:2,16 in the context of prophecy.

Sometimes we find Christians describing prophetic amnesia in a Greco-Roman context.  For instance, Pseudo-Justin preserves two descriptions of the Sybil’s prophetic amnesia who cannot recall her statements made under inspiration: “As soon as the inspiration ceased, there ceased also the remembrance of all she had said,” and “. . . the prophetess having no remembrance of what she had said, after possession and inspiration ceased.”^[xxxvii]

VI. [Prophetic] Amnesia: Origen and the Effects of Good and Evil Spirits

Origen (ca. 185–ca. 254) believed that the presence of both evil spirits and good spirits produced certain effects in a person.  In his De Principiis (On First Principles) 3.3.4 he claims that “by many proofs, that while the soul of man exists in this body, it may admit different energies, i.e., operations, from a diversity of good and evil spirits.”  Origen then discusses these effects and argues that only evil spirits “possess” while good spirits influence persons from without.  In Princip. 3.3.4, Origen gives two kinds of influences that an evil spirit might have on a person.  The second kind is illustrated in the life of Judas who through “wicked suggestions of the devil” committed the crime of treason.  Good spirits likewise influence from without but their suggestions, unlike those of evil spirits, stir and incite persons to do good and inspire heavenly and divine things (Princip. 3.3.4).

But unlike good spirits, wicked spirits may also enter into persons, an influence that Origen identifies with the demon possessed in the gospels whom Origen says “to have been cured by the Savior.”  The effects of demonic possession rob the reasoning faculties of the person so possessed as Origen explains,

When they [the wicked spirits] either take complete and entire possession of the mind (penitus ex integro), so as to allow their captives the power neither of understanding nor feeling; as, for instance, is the case with those commonly called possessed (energumenos), whom we see to be deprived of reason, and insane, . . .^[xxxviii]

Notice here that the effect of demonic possession (as also in Cassian’s Conferences 1.12 above) is the same effect of holy and divine spirits described in the first century by Philo and Pseudo-Philo.  By the time of Origen, however, good spirits were believed not to possess and drive out the reasoning faculties of the person:

It is seen how the soul is moved by the presence of a better spirit, i.e., if it encounter no perturbation or alienation of mind whatever from the impending inspiration, nor lose the free control of its will; as, for instance, is the case with all, whether prophets or apostles, who ministered to the divine responses without any perturbation of mind.^[xxxix]

According to Origen then, good spirits neither deprived the mind nor the control of free will of the person as is the case with a spirit who has entered into the body and controls it as it sees fit.  Prophets were not affected in the way that evil spirits effected the “possessed” (energumenos) by the “perturbation of mind.”  Origen then would have probably felt that prophetic amnesia was not a part of the legitimate prophetic experience of Christian prophets. Only through a possession deep trance, which Origen identified with the demon possessed, can subsequent amnesia result. 

VII. Prophetic Amnesia: Tertullian, the Anonymous, and Montanism

But do we see Christian prophecy ever described as a phenomenon accompanied by amnesia?  The answer is, Yes.  The evidence for it is found in the writings of the eminent church father Tertullian who was a proponent of Montanism, a second-century Christian group named after Montanus, a Phrygian “pagan” convert to Christianity.^[xl]   Prophecy as it occurred in Montanism was not unlike that which we have seen thus far, that of spirits speaking out of prophets in the first person.  An explicit example of direct engagement with a spirit through its medium is found in Eusebius, Eccl. Hist. 5.16.17, where it is reported that two Catholic bishops, Zoticus of Cumana and Julian of Apamea, attempt to converse with a spirit that spoke through the Montanist prophetess Maximilla: they “tried to refute the spirit that was in Maximilla” (pepeira/sqai me.n to. evn th/| Maximi,llh| pneu/ma diele,gxai), and they were “present for the purpose of testing and conversing with the spirit as it spoke” (paro,ntaj eivj to. dokima,sai kai. dialegqh/nai tw/| pneu,mati lalou/nti).  The condemnation of Montanism was, initially, not a condemnation of the idea of a spirit speaking through a passive, entranced prophet.  As Tabbernee states,

The early church had been quite used to hearing prophets speak ecstatically ‘in the Spirit.’  Passivity on the part of a prophet resulting in oracular utterance was not unusual.  Montanus was neither novel nor blasphemous when he claimed that the divine [spirit] spoke through him. . . . When Montanus explained, ‘Behold a human being is like a lyre and I hover like a plectrum.  The human being sleeps [koima/tai] but I [the spirit] remain awake. . . .’ [Epiphanius, Heresies 48.4] he was merely using the same musical analogy as Justin Martyr (Dialogue with Trypho 7), Athenagoras (Plea for Christians, 9), Theophilus of Antioch (ad Autol. 2.9.10) and others employed to illustrate the passive role of the prophet as the instrument of God.^[xli]

The verb koima/tai, “sleeps,” denotes the possession deep trance state.  The spirit, who is “awake,” speaks.^[xlii]   Thus, anti-Montanists who accused Montanus of calling himself the holy spirit misunderstood the way in which prophecy functioned.^[xliii]

Second-century C.E. “catholics” accepted that Montanus was a medium through whom a spirit spoke.  When they condemned his utterances, they did so based on the content of such utterances, i.e., the “bastard utterances” (no,qwn evkfwnhma,twn, Eccl. Hist. 5.16.8).  The notion that a spirit spoke such content that “blasphemed the whole catholic church throughout the world” (th.n de. kaqo,lou kai. pa/san th.n u`po. to.n ouvrano.n evkklhsivan blasfhmei/n, Eccl. Hist. 5.16.9)  through the instrument of a passive medium added legitimacy to the condemnation of that spirit and, eventually, to the ecstatic state itself during which time such utterances were made against the church.  It was not before too long that some Christians felt threatened by spirits speaking through passive prophets, for such spirits “blasphemed” against the “catholic church” (kaqo,lou evkklhsi,an).  So, actions were made to nullify speaking in the trance state by creating the impression that speaking in trance, or in “ecstasy,” was something that only false prophets did.  The Anonymous in Eusebius (so-called for Eusebius’ lack of actually naming this anti-Montanist source from which he quotes) was convinced of the “impropriety of a prophet speaking in ecstasy” (peri. tou/ mh. dei/n profh,thn evn evksta,sei lalei/n, Eccl. Hist. 5.17.1) and further claimed that,

The false prophet speaks in ecstasy. . . . But they cannot show  that any prophet, either of those in the Old Testament or of those in the New was inspired [pneumatoforhqe,nta, literally, ‘moved by a spirit’] in this way,” and, “But a false prophet, indeed, is the one in extraordinary ecstasy (evn pare,kstasei) in which state the prophet speaks without restraint and without fear, beginning with voluntary ignorance and resulting in voluntary madness of soul.^[xliv]

On the opposition against Montanism concerning speaking in ecstasy (‘in the spirit’), Tertullian was either not privy to the “bastard utterances” or was simply not convinced by the opposition.  He claimed that “ecstasy is the holy spirit’s operative virtue of prophecy,” and, using Adam in Gen 2:21 as an example, “God infused into him the ecstasy, or spiritual quality, in which prophecy consists.”^[xlv]   In his treatise Against Marcion (ca. 208/9), Tertullian asserts that speaking in a trance state is in full compliance with the way that “a spirit of God” communicates:

Let Marcion, then exhibit, as gifts of his god, some prophets, such as have not spoken by human sense, but with the spirit of God, such as have both predicted things to come, and have made  manifest the secrets of the heart; let him produce a psalm, a vision, a prayer—only let it be by a spirit (in spiritu), in an ecstasy (in ecstasi), that is, in a trance state (in amentia), whenever an interpretation of tongues has occurred to him. . . . . Now all of these signs (of spiritual gifts) are forthcoming from my side without any difficulty, and they agree, too, with the rules, and the dispensations, and the instructions of the Creator (Against Marcion 5.8; ANF 3.447).

Here we see that the Latin prepositional phrases in spiritu, in ecstasi, and in amentia are identified with one another in a string, thereby indicating the state in which a spirit speaks through an entranced prophet.  The Latin term amentia, that can have the negative valuation of “madness” as Tertullian is himself aware,^[xlvi] is here identified with prophecy and ecstasy in a positive sense.  In the same treatise, Tertullian explained that the ecstatic manner of Montanist prophesying was not only valid but also was necessary for true communication from the holy spirits and the human instrument through whom they communicated:

When someone is in the state of being ‘in the Spirit’ (= Greek evn pneu,mati), especially when beholding the glory of God or when God speaks through that person, the person concerned has, of necessity, to be deprived of the human faculty of perceiving because that person is manifestly overshadowed by the power of God (Against Marcion 4.22.5; ANF 3. 383).

Tertullian records that the phenomenon of “prophetic amnesia” was one of the hallmarks of Christian prophecy.  Tertullian makes this clear: “And therefore, because it was ‘in the Spirit’ that he had now spoken, and not in his natural senses, he could not know what he had said” (Against Marcion 4.22.5; ANF 3.383).  In Tertullian, the phrase “in the spirit” functions as a sort of double entendre that indicates 1) the person’s spirit has left his body (fully out-of-body) and has entered into the spirit world while 2) another spirit temporarily takes possession of the “emptied” body in order to speak through it.  On the one hand the person’s spirit is “in the spirit” world.  On the other hand the person speaks “in the spirit” of another spirit.  We saw that the identical phrase in Greek, evn pneu,mati, in 1 Corinthians 12:3, 14:2,16 and Didache 11:7,8,9 meant “with a spirit,” not unlike its meaning in Mark 1:23 and 5:2.  Tertullian describes the same phenomenon here in Latin as the manner of Montanist “in-the-spirit” prophecy.  Amnesia or “not knowing what one says” is the subsequent effect.  We are given evidence in Jerome, On Illustrious Men 24, that Tertullian defended Christian ecstatic prophecy in a seven-volume work, De Ecstasi, or On Ecstasy, now lost.

VIII. Prophetic Amnesia: Epiphanius’ Derision of Prophetic Amnesia as the Ecstasy of Folly

Despite Tertullian’s approval of Christian possession deep-trance prophecy, Epiphanius of Salamis (ca. 310–403) followed the discrimination of the anti-Montanists on the point of ecstasy as a gauge for true and false prophecy.  He does not use the term “Montanists.”  Instead, he refers to Montanists by the geographical origin of Montanus, Phrygia, as “Phrygians” (as does Eusebius, Eccl. Hist. 5.16.1, kata. Fru,gaj ai[resin, “Cataphrygian heresy”).  Epiphanius’ arguments are more nuanced than those mere assertions of the Anonymous against ecstasy.  In his Panarion: Heresies 48, Epiphanius contrasts how a spirit speaks through Montanus with how the Holy Spirit should speak through a prophet.  The Montanist oracle that Epiphanius cites describes the relationship between a person and the spirit that speaks through him by using a simile of a musical instrument: “Lo, the man is as a lyre, and I fly over him as a pick.  The man is asleep, but I am awake.  Lo, it is the Lord that takes away the hearts of men, and that gives the heart to men.”^[xlvii]   These words, says Epiphanius, are the words of an ecstatic, for “they are not the words of a rational man, but of someone of a different stamp from the Holy Spirit who spoke in the prophets.”^[xlviii]   The Montanist oracle describes one who prophesies without his reasoning faculties; one whose senses have departed in a state of possession deep trance.  The Holy Spirit does not communicate under these conditions.

While berating the ecstasies of the Montanists, Epiphanius takes care to explain that not all “ecstasy” requires condemnation, for even Adam, the [Hebrew] prophets, Abraham, Peter, and Paul experienced ecstasies.^[xlix]   Epiphanius seems to have distinguished among three types of ecstasy in his taxonomies for ecstasy: e;kstasij fre,nw/n, e;kstasij di’ u`perbolh/n qau,matoj, e;kstasij u[pnou (an ecstasy out-of-mind, an ecstasy through extreme amazement, and an ecstasy of sleep).<sup>[l]</sup>   Epiphanius draws a sharp distinction between the ecstasies of biblical figures and the ecstasies of Montanus: Gego,nasi de. evn evksta,sei oi` profh,tai, ouvk evn ekvsta,sei logismw/n, “the [Hebrew] prophets fell into trances (ecstasies), [but] not in trances (ecstasies) of the reasoning faculties,”^[li] i.e., not by the jettisoning of the mind in the way that the Montanist musical instrument simile for prophecy describes.  Epiphanius argues that, while it is true that the patriarch Adam experienced ecstasy, the Montanists cannot legitimately cite Adam’s ecstasy in order to justify their ecstatic experiences as those affected by a holy spirit:

When the Phrygians are out to combine falsehood with truth . . . they collect heaps of texts to make a false case for their imposture and , say that certain scriptures bear a resemblance to it. , the holy scriptures has said, ‘God sent an ecstasy upon Adam, and he slept.’  But Adam’s sleep was nothing like theirs [the Montanists]. . . . God brought unconsciousness of sleep upon Adam, not distraction of mind.^[lii]

Like Tertullian, Epiphanius cites Gen 2:21 as a source text used by Montanists to support their experience of ecstasy.  But unlike Tertullian Epiphanius asserts that Montatnists misunderstand the type of ecstasy that Adam experiences; no such analogy exists between the ecstasy of Adam and the ecstasy of Montanus.  Epiphanius elaborates this position through his taxonomy of ecstasy, listed above, and contrasts one type of ecstasy, Adam’s ecstasy of sleep, with another type of ecstasy, Montanus’ ecstasy out-of-mind.^[liii]   The last line preserves this contrast as the reason why Montanists cannot claim the ecstasy of the great biblical patriarch Adam as their own.  The line shows a contrast between two types of ecstasy that we saw earlier in the contrast between the ecstasies of the [Hebrew] prophets and of the Montanists: tw/|  vAda.m evph,nejke th.n e;kstasin tou/ u[pnou, ou,k e;kstasin frenw/n, “[God] brought upon Adam the ecstasy of sleep, not an ecstasy of the intelligence.”^[liv]   Epiphanius asserts that the latter kind of ecstasy jettisons the reasoning faculties to the point to where one does not know what one is saying.  Epiphanius compares this type of ecstasy with “a madman, or an ecstatic in a transport” and calls it “the ecstasy of folly”; therefore, not the kind of ecstasy experienced by Adam, the prophets, Abraham, Peter, or Paul.^[lv]   The ecstasies of the biblical figures, however, were ones that either allowed them to see things other than what men usually see in the everyday world (as in the case of Peter) or simply an ecstasy that all persons experience during sleep that allows one’s senses to be temporarily withdrawn from the body and be present elsewhere during the rest of sleep (as in the case of Adam).^[lvi]

Epiphanius asserts that “every prophet, whether in the Old Testament or in the New, prophesies with understanding (parakolou,qhn).”^[lvii]   Epiphanius hearkens back to the Anonymous in Eusebius who stated, “the false prophet speaks in ecstasy . . . But they cannot show that any prophet, either of those in the Old Testament or those of the New was inspired in this way” (Eccl. Hist. 5.17.2–3).  The Anonymous here identifies speaking evn pareksta,sei, “in [an extraordinary] ecstasy,”^[lviii] with pneumatoforhqe,nta, “inspired” or better, “moved by a spirit [to speak].”  These two terms indeed describe the manner of Montanist prophecy, a description that is reinforced by the simile of a musical instrument that we saw earlier for Montanist prophecy.  Epiphanius claims that Adam, Abraham, Peter, and Paul had not experienced ecstasy out-of-mind; therefore, “not knowing” was not a legitimate form of ecstasy that should be practiced in the Church.

The biblical example that Epiphanius gives for prophesying with the senses intact comes from the experiences described of John in the book of Revelation.  Epiphanius makes use of the phrase, “thus saith the Lord,” in order to claim that the prophet himself is saying this as an introduction to what was revealed to the prophet by the Lord: “The person who said this was of sound mind and understanding—see how , ‘Thus saith the Lord,’ and ‘the vision which he saw.’”^[lix]

At this point, Epiphanius returns to the case of Montanus, but instead of comparing Montanus’ ecstasy with the experiences of John in the book of Revelation, he asserts that Montanus’ sayings are not consistent with qei,aj grafa.j, “sacred scripture.”  Epiphanius deduces from this that Montanus and his sect, who although boast of having prophets and [spiritual] gifts “are strangers to the holy catholic church (a`gi,aj kaqolikh/j evkklhsi,aj)” and that Montanus “did not receive these gifts; he departed from them (evk tou,twn avpe,sth).”^[lx]   Like others before him, Epiphanius believed that those Montanist sayings that read as if Montanus was calling himself “the Holy Spirit” or “God” or “the Lord” showed that his gifts were not of “the Holy Spirit” but rather were derived from a deceitful spirit:

the holy apostles glorified the Lord after receiving the Paraclete Spirit, while this Montanus glorifies himself. . . . Montanus glorifies only himself, and says the he is the Father almighty and that that dwells in him —proof positive that he is not the Father, was not sent by the Father, and has received nothing from the Father.^[lxi]                          

We see here a continuation of two charges found in other church fathers, such as Cyril of Jerusalem (see n. 31 above), that of Montanus’ claim to be the Holy Spirit himself and, that in reality, a deceitful spirit was at work through him.  Epiphanius’ derision of the ecstasy of Montanus is a reaction to the extreme form of ecstasy during which time a spirit takes control of the vocal organs in order to speak, a state that Epiphanius claims can only be that of an evkstatiko.n a;nqrwpon, “a madman.”^[lxii]

Others besides Epiphanius shared similar views on Montanists.  According to S. A. Mousalimas, Didymus of Alexandria emphasized the same point in his Exposition on the Acts of the Apostles when he referred to the Montanists as “silly” (oi` hvli,qioi) and “deranged” (oi` parapai,ontej) because they were not “cognizant of their own thoughts” during ecstasy.  Like Epiphanius, Didymus contrasted Montanists with Peter’s ecstasy in Acts 10:10: “Nay Peter, in his trance, was strictly cognizant (gou/n o` e;kstaj Pe,troj parakolou,qei), so as to report what he had seen and heard, and to be sensible to what the things shown were symbolic.”^[lxiii]

IX. Prophetic Amnesia: Was it Really Non-Christian?

To sum up here, Epiphanius draws a contrast between speaking evn evksta,sei and speaking evn a`gi,w| pneu,mati; only “true prophets” speak “in a holy spirit” but not “in an ecstasy.”  In an argument for this contrast, he uses, as an example, the prophet Ezekiel,

When the prophet Ezekiel heard the Lord say, ‘Bake thee bread on human dung,’ he said, ‘Not so, Lord; nothing common or unclean hath at any time come into my mouth’ (Ezek 4:4).  Because he understood the threat the Lord had addressed to him he did not go ahead and do [it] as though he were out of his senses (Epiphanius’ Greek text = evn evksta,sei, “in ecstasy”).  Since his mind was sound and rational he prayed and said, ‘Not so Lord.’  These—both the teaching and the discussion—are marks of true prophets, whose minds are sound in the holy spirit (Epiphanius’ Greek text = evn a`gi,w| pneu,mati).”^[lxiv]

Epiphanius’ anti-Montanist (really, “anti-Phrygian”) rhetoric compares and contrasts different kinds of prophetic activity, that of visions or auditions (biblical, cognizant, and thus normative) and that of ecstatic prophetic utterance (Montanist, out-of-mind, and folly).  In so doing, Epiphanius favors one kind of experience over that of another but, in point of fact, such discriminating favoritism was neither expressed among the earliest Christians nor even among some church fathers.^[lxv]   Many Christians before Epiphanius never discriminated between speaking “in ecstasy” and speaking “in a holy spirit,” for the two occurred in tandem.

In the visionary and auditory experiences of some biblical prophets, such as Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Ezekiel, the ability to recall the visions was believed to indicate that the there was no departing of the senses, i.e. a state of “madness,” during the experience.  But this is not accurate.  During fully out-of-body visionary experiences the person loses consciousness.  Peter’s and Paul’s ecstatic visionary experiences were similar.  In Acts 10:10, Peter has a vision that is initiated when evge,neto evp v auvto.n e;kstasij, “a trance came upon him,” yet he was able to recall the vision in Acts 10:28.  Paul’s vision in Acts 22:17 begins when he gene,sqai me evn evksta,sei, “happened to fall into a trance,” subsequently “seeing” (ivdei/n) and conversing with the Lord in a vision whose contents were apparently remembered as recorded by Luke.  The degree or intensity of the ecstasy here is difficult to gauge from the texts alone: are Peter and Paul partially out-of-body or fully out-of-body?  If partially out-of-body, then the vision was a clairvoyant episode with no loss of consciousness, not unlike the necromanceress who sees the spirit of Samuel in 1 Samual 28 in real time while reporting it to Saul.  But In 2 Cor 12:2, Paul records a fully out-of-body experience by contrasting being either evn sw,mati, “in the body,” or evkto.j tou/ sw,matoj,, “out of the body.”  The ascent to the “third heaven” was experienced “out of body,” but Paul was able to recollect it fourteen years later.^[lxvi]

Visions and auditions were not the only legitimate forms of divine communication. Epiphanius, however, seems to think otherwise.  He was correct that Peter, Paul, and John experienced ecstasies as the Greek New Testament indicates.  Epiphanius’ comparison and contrast of both Ezekiel’s and John’s revelatory experiences of visions with that of the manner of Montanist ecstatic prophecy whereby one speaks in ecstasy suggests that only visions are legitimate forms of divine communication.^[lxvii]   It seems, in fact, that some visionary experiences required a rational state, the kind that Epiphanius seems to prefer.  Plato makes a distinction between an inspiration ecstasy out-of-mind and visions seen with a cognizant mind:

No man achieves true and inspired divination when in his rational mind, but only when the power of his intelligence is fettered in sleep or when it is distraught by disease or by reason of some divine inspiration.  But it belongs to a man when in his right mind to recollect and ponder both the things spoken in a dream or waking vision by the divining and inspired nature, and all the visionary forms that were seen, and by means of reasoning to discern about them all wherein they are significant and for whom they portend evil or good in the future, the past, or the present.^[lxviii]

Plato does not discriminate between these two forms of divine communication as one good, the other bad, but simply describes the differences in which a person experiences them.  It is clear that Epiphanius favors the visionary experience for its use of the mind and reasoning faculties instead of the displacement of them.  But Plato assures us that any such discrimination is unwarranted: “All these noble results of inspired madness I can mention, and many more.  Therefore let us not be afraid on that point, and let no one disturb and frighten us by saying that the reasonable friend should be preferred to him who is in a frenzy.”^[lxix]

Tertullian records that Montanists, too, had visionary experiences that did not require the extreme form of ecstasy so often identified with Montanist prophecy.  Tertullian describes the experiences of a certain “Montanist sister”:

After the people are dismissed at the conclusion of the sacred services, she is in the regular habit of reporting to us whatever things she may have seen in vision. . . . ‘Amongst other things,’ says she, ‘there has been shown to me a soul in bodily shape, and a spirit has been in the habit of appearing to me; not, however, a void and empty illusion, but such as would offer itself to be even grasped by the hand, soft and transparent and of an etherial colour, and in form resembling that of a human being in every respect.’  This was her vision, and for her witness there was God; and the apostle most assuredly foretold that there were to be ‘spiritual gifts’ in the church.^[lxx]     

The discriminating factor among earliest Christians was not so much the kind of prophetic experience one had, as Epiphanius likes to argue, but rather the kind of spirit that was present during the visionary or prophetic event.^[lxxi]   During the earliest Christian period, speaking in ecstasy was not a criterion for distinguishing false prophecy from true prophecy among Christians.  Instead, criteria for earliest Christian prophecy centered around 1) the utterances of a spirit through a prophet and 2) the character of the prophet through whom the spirit spoke.  If a spirit declared through a prophet that “Jesus is Lord” or “Jesus Christ has come in the flesh,” then that spirit was “a holy spirit,” “a spirit of God” (1 Cor 12:3), or “a spirit that is from God” (1 John 4:2); the criterion here is christological.  The “life of the prophet” was another important gauge for discernment of the spirits that communicated through him.  Thus in Didache 11:8 we see that “not everyone who speaks in a spirit is a [true] prophet, but only if he exhibits the ways of the Lord (avll v eva.n e;ch| tou.j tro,pouj kuri,ou)”; and in the Shepherd of Hermas, Mand. 11.16: “You now have descriptions of the life of both kinds of prophets.  Therefore test by his life and his actions (doki,maze ou-n avpo. tw/n e;rgwn kai. th/j zwh/j) the person who claims that he is moved [to speak] by a spirit (pneumato,foron).”

In Didache 11:7,8 both true and false prophets spoke evn pneu,mati, “with a spirit,” suggesting that both true and false prophets were in a deep-trance state of unconsciousness during which time a spirit spoke through them.  We see in the Shepherd of Hermas that both true and false prophets were pneumato,foron, “moved by a spirit,” to speak (Mand. 11.16).  If prophetic amnesia occurred both in pre-Montanist Christian prophecy and Montanist prophecy, then it might be premature to deny that “early Christian prophecy was of the Montanist type” as Ronald Knox once did.^[lxxii]   The clarity of this position was recognized by Aune who stated, “This deliberate attempt by Christian heresiologists to paganize Montanus has led many modern scholars to agree that Montanist prophecy was an intrusion of pagan revelatory ecstasy into Christianity.  This view is completely false.  All of the major features of early Montanism, including the behavior associated with possession trance, are derived from early Christianity.”^[lxxiii]

The specific kind of prophetic experience in which occurs the leave of the senses, however, worried Epiphanius, for it bordered on what he thought was “madness” (evksta,tikon) and an unstable, unclear mind: “Everything was said in truth by the prophets, and by a sound mind (evn evrrwme,nh| dianoi,a|) and with sober reasoning (sw,froni logismw/|), and not in madness (evn paraplhxi,a|)” (Pan. 48.7.10).  Epiphanius preferred visions for their cognizance.  But recall that visions are sometimes experienced in a fully out-of-body state as well, as we have seen in Paul’s visionary experience in 2 Cor 12:2–4 (and possibly Acts 22:17).  Is a fully out-of-body vision experience the same as an ecstasy out-of-mind experience?  In his On Divination, Cicero describes visionary experiences that occur fully out-of-body:

Those then, whose souls (animi), spurning their bodies, take wings and fly abroad . . . these men, I say, certainly see the things which they foretell in their prophecies.  Such souls do not cling to the body and are kindled by many different influences. . . . the frenzied soul sees the future long in advance, . . . It is in this state of exaltation that many predictions have been made, . . .^[lxxiv]

In both vision trances and possession trances, the degree of the ecstasy can be fully out-of-body resulting in total loss of consciousness.  But whereas in vision trance there is total recall (Cicero never speaks of amnesia as an effect of the soul’s leaving the body for the purpose of “seeing” into the future), in possession deep trance there is no recall.  Why does amnesia seem to accompany only possession deep trance?  Does the presence of the spirit inside the person cause this amnesiac effect by somehow blocking out all neural traces of its presence while operating in the person?  To my knowledge at this writing, ancient speculations as to why prophetic amnesia ever occurred in the first place seem to be lacking.  Sometimes, amnesia was thought to be the effects of an evil spirit who was the cause of some illness or disease.^[lxxv]

Tertullian was not all bothered by the manner of Montanist prophecy, but simply understood that what some called “madness” in a negative sense was, in fact, a property of a form of legitimate prophetic experience, as he once stated, “This power we call ecstasy, in which the sensuous soul stands out of itself, in a way which even resembles madness (amentiae)”–it is this ecstasy “in which prophecy consists” and “which is the holy spirit’s operative virtue of prophecy.”^[lxxvi]   Tertullian’s assertion here is that ecstasy resembles madness, but this resemblance was understood by Epiphanius as identity to characterize ecstasy out-of-mind in a negative sense as the state of evkstatiko.n a;nqrwpon, “a madman.”

Tertullian’s understanding of prophecy is equal to that of first-century Jews who, likewise, did not consider ecstasy out-of-mind unusual or out of the ordinary in the presence of divine and holy spirits.  Like Epiphanius after him, Philo distinguished among several kinds of ecstasy in his taxonomies for ecstasy: an ecstasy that produces mental delusion brought on by old age or melancholy (maniw,dhj para,noian evmpoiou/sa), an ecstasy that produces surprise amazement (sfodra. kata,plhxij), and an ecstasy that brings on a peaceful state of mind akin to a passivity of mind (hvremi,a dianoi,aj).  A fourth kind of ecstasy Philo says is pasw/n avri,sth, “the best of all,” that of divine possession (e;nqeoj katokwch,) and inspiration (mani,a, “madness”) to which prophetic types (profhtiko,n) are subject.^[lxxvii]   In contrast to Epiphanius, Philo claims that the temporarily “mindless” state (evn avgnoi,a|) is not at all unusual but rather was a state experienced by prophets as a true sign of prophetic activity through which God communicated.  Tertullian was not alone in defending Christian ecstatic prophecy, for those church fathers who described prophecy with a musical instrument simile were describing prophecy as an ecstasy out-of-mind trance state.^[lxxviii]

X. Prophetic Madness: It Looks Too Much Like Crazy “Madness”

In the history of prophecy, certain prophetic behaviors were identical in outward appearance to illnesses or different kinds of pathological neuroses.  This appearance was sometimes used against prophets as a sign of their foolishness or unstable state of mind.  For instance, we see a similar position to that of Epiphanius in Hos 9:7, “the prophet is a fool, the man of the spirit is mad,” where the Hebrew participle [gvm, “is mad,” can either be used pejoratively, as it is here, or can be understood as resembling the effect of the prophetic experience as amentiae, “madness,” was understood by Tertullian and its relation to ecstasy.

In the Greek version of Hos 9:7, the prophet is described as parexesthkw.j, “in an extreme ecstasy,” and as a;nqrwpoj o` pneumatofo,roj, “a man carried away by a spirit.”  Here, both words are meant to express one who is “deranged” or “mad” as the Hebrew suggests.  Whereas the former term is used by the Anonymous to describe the manner of Montanist prophecy, the latter term is used to describe both true and false prophets in Hermas Mand. 11.16, suggesting that only in context were such words meant to express negative madness.

The participle [gvm is also used in a positive context in 2 Kgs 9:11 where the reference is to Elisha who sent one of the children of the prophets to Jehu.  This child is described as [gvmh, “a mad fellow,” but here it is not used in a pejorative sense.  The relationship that the child has to a prophet suggests that his being characterized by the participle [gvm has something to do with the child’s possibly developing into a prophet himself, or is already behaving like a prophet.  In Jer 29:26 the terms “madman” and “prophet” are linked, “madman ([gvm) who acts like a prophet (abntm).”  These descriptions of prophets in the Hebrew Bible precede Plato by several hundred years, yet they are very similar to Plato’s descriptions of prophetic mania.

J. J. M. Roberts has shown that the symptoms of illness and those of prophetic behaviors are sometimes analogous in the ancient world.  Roberts states that the expression “hand of x” where x represents a divine name or some term for a god or entity, designates the “disastrous manifestation of the supernatural power.”^[lxxix]   He suggests that the Egyptian expression “man in the hand of a god” designated an insane person and resembled the activity found in the Akkadian verb namhû (from mahû) for Mari prophets and the Hebrew hithpael abnth used for the behavior of a madman and the ecstatic behavior of a prophet.  Roberts states that “the expression, ‘hand of Yahweh,’ was applied to the prophetic phenomenon precisely because that phenomenon bore a remarkable similarity to the symptoms of human illness normally designated by the expression.”^[lxxx]

XI. Prophetic Madness: A Part of the Prophetic Guild

The phenomenon of prophetic amnesia or “prophetic madness” was not necessarily meant to be taken in an exclusively negative way, although this could (and did) happen.  An old yet insightful work on the relationship between the prophetic spirit and madness argues that both true and false prophets might be described by the same terminology for psychical effects and disturbances:

The expressions, alienation of mind, aberration of mind, derangement, out of one’s senses, madness, and furor [are] attributed to prophets when under the influence of the Prophetic inspiration.  Now it is a remarkable circumstance that these very states are said to be also the characteristics of false prophets; and what is more, it is under the very same names that are designated the various forms of insanity in the present day.^[lxxxi]

The prophet’s expertise in achieving an ecstasy out-of-mind trance state was necessary for certain kinds of divine communication as the Greek philosophical treatises on divination and prophecy show (Plato, Cicero, Plutarch, Philo).  Therefore, a prophet who experienced ecstasy out-of-mind had to be healthy and sane in order to successfully serve as a channel for spirits of God.  Cicero likewise observed:

Aristotle thought that even the people who rave from the effects of sickness and are called ‘hypochondriacs’ (lit. ‘sufferers from black bile’ me,laina colh,) have within their souls some power of foresight and of prophecy.  But, for my part, I am inclined to think that such a power is not to be attributed either to a diseased stomach or to a disordered brain.  On the contrary, it is the healthy soul and not the sickly body that has the power of divination.^[lxxxii]

The techniques involved in achieving trance states may have been learned.  In the Hebrew Bible, “schools of the prophets” are casually mentioned as guilds where certain persons were instructed in the art of prophecy and becoming a prophet.^[lxxxiii]   Because of their resemblance to certain pathologies, deep-trance states might be used against the prophet for this reason, as it seems to be in Hos 9:7, and in places in the Hebrew Bible where false prophets are denounced as “drunken stupors” (Isa 28:7).  Epiphanius does not invoke strange bodily effects or drunken stupors in his rhetoric against Montanus.  But he does stress the “irrationality” of Montanist prophecy.

XII. Prophetic Amnesia: Why Condemned as a Sign of False Prophecy and Spirits of Error? 

If ecstasy was not a point of concern among the earliest Christians, then why did the opponents of Montanism make such a fuss over ecstasy?  Nasrallah seems to provide a cogent answer that early Christian arguments about rationality, madness, and spiritual gifts were attempts to negotiate authority and to define religious identity among the many competing forms of Christianity during the third and fourth centuries.  Whereas frenzy, drunkenness, and strange bodily effects of ecstasy might be used as rhetorical fodder against false prophets, Epiphanius does none of this.  While he accuses the Montanists (“Phrygians”) of experiencing irrational ecstasies out-of-mind, he distills his rhetoric against the manner of Montantist prophecy through several different, more sophisticated arguments: 1) by controlling the term “ecstasy” over against the Montanist use of it; and 2) by redefining ecstasy in a contrast between the ecstasy of biblical figures of the past and the ecstasy of Montanus that is characterized as an ecstasy of folly.^[lxxxiv]   Epiphanius stressed the pejorative use of ecstasy as “madness” to characterize Montanists.

The fact that ecstasy out-of-mind was targeted by the Anonymous and Epiphanius indicates that the discernment criteria for spirits and their prophecies gained a nuance that would eventually lead to the cessation of communicating with spirits through persons in a trance state.  If the practice of communicating with spirits via persons who spoke “in ecstasy” was outlawed as false prophecy, then there would be no “discernment of spirits” through prophets in the first place (1 Cor 12:10; 1 John 4:1-2; Didache 11:8; Herm. Mand. 11.16).  Such a discernment process suggests that one was never expected to be fully exempt from the possibility of being deceived by spirits whenever contact with spirits was initiated.  The impact of the Montanist situation, however, was so significant that once the spirits who were operating among the Montanists were charged as being spirits of error or demons, because of their “bastard utterances” and “blasphemy” through Montanists, it was an easy step for rivals of Montanus to identify the manner of Montanist prophecy with these kinds of spirits, despite the fact that ecstasy out-of-mind was no real indication that the spirit was good or evil as the Jewish evidence and the Christian evidence suggest.

The charge in Eusebius that the spirit speaking through Montanus “blasphemed” the ‘catholic’ church” is a good example of the kind of threat that the ‘catholic’ church of that time felt from Montanist prophecy.  If any manner of authority was going to be established, then blasphemers and competitors had to be rid.  In the case of Montanus, both the blaspheming spirit speaking through him and the ecstatic state during which time the spirit spoke came under the condemnation by an element of the church.  Ecstasy out-of-mind was identified as a form of prophecy that was said to be contrary to “true” prophecy.  Once this kind of ecstasy was “demonized,” as Montanus himself had been as one “possessed by a demon and by a spirit of error” (daimonw/nti kai. evn pla,nhj pneu,mati u`pa,rconti) (Eusebius, Eccl. Hist. 5.16.8), then it was not difficult to nullify ecstatic prophecy on the basis of Montanism as something that was not only a threat to the church, but also was not a sign of “the Holy Spirit.”

XIII. Conclusion

To summarize, prophetic amnesia seems to have been a pan-Mediterranean phenomenon that existed as early as the second-millennium Mesopotamia and continued during the first-century C.E. Palestine.  Occasionally, the position of the Anonymous in Eusebius is simply accepted by scholars who like to argue from such a source that the earliest Christians did not prophesy in an ecstasy out-of-mind.^[lxxxv]   But by not following, too blindly, the Anonymous, we see that there was Christian deep-trance prophecy and that this was simply one way in which spirits were believed to communicate with humanity.

During the Montanist debates, the condemnation of ecstasy out-of-mind was subsequent to the problems caused by the blasphemous content of Montanist prophetic speech.  If a spirit “blasphemes” the church through a person in an ecstasy out-of-mind prophetic state, then that prophetic state can be challenged: the link between ecstasy out-of-mind and blasphemy was too close.  Apparently, to speak in an ecstasy out-of-mind did not result in incoherent babble or “frenzied” unintelligible speech, for the content of Montanist prophecy was the very matter that was described as “blasphemy.”  The intelligibility of speaking in an ecstasy out-of-mind is also confirmed by the evidence in Josephus, Philo, Pseudo-Philo, Aristides, Iamblichus, and Tertullian.  Thus, Aune was correct in his observation that “ecstasy and rationality should not be regarded as two mutually exclusive states of consciousness.”^[lxxxvi]   This goes for speaking coherently in ecstasy as well.

In the light of 1 Corinthians 12 and 14, Didache 11, Hermas Mand. 11, and those church fathers, especially Tertullian, who accepted ecstasy out-of-mind as a legitimate state of prophecy, we can see that the lengths to which ecstatic prophecy was condemned by Epiphanius created an unreal dichotomy between speaking “in an ecstasy” as false prophecy only and speaking “in a holy spirit” as true prophecy only.

The derision of prophetic amnesia among some early “catholics” was further facilitated by the taxonomies that Epiphanius made for different kinds of ecstasy.  The basis of his discrimination hinged on whether the prophetic experience was accompanied by an ecstasy out-of-mind state or not.  This state seems to have easily lent itself to the kind of negative rhetoric that Epiphanius intended by calling it the state of “a madman” and a state “of folly.”  Visions won out as the only cognizant, and thus legitimate, form of prophetic experience for Epiphanius..

The fact that amnesia could accompany either demonic possession, as the evidence in Cassian shows, or divine possession, as the evidence in Josephus, Philo, Pseudo-Philo, and Tertullian shows, points to the fluidity with which one could either describe prophetic amnesia as an effect of holy spirits or condemn this effect in negative terms by restricting it, as did Origen, to demonic possession.  Prophetic amnesia’s resemblance to “madness” shows how easy it was to make use of it for ad hominem attacks, as in the attacks against Montanus.

Furthermore, we can say that since amnesia accompanied the presence of both holy spirits and demons, Origen and Epiphanius were incorrect to restrict amnesia to the activity of demonic possession and to the presence of spirits of error only.  At some point during the second century divine and demonic possession no longer coexisted as they once had among the earliest Christians.  The shift from possession as both divine and demonic to possession as exclusively demonic seems to occur as early as Origen.  It may also be the case that, at some point during the second century, the psychical effects of holy spirits were mistaken for those of demons, since both grades of spirits could produce the same effect, as Augustus Clissold once stated: “The Pseudo-prophetical spirit in the exercise of its Divination, resting merely in the imaginative faculty, seemed so exactly to imitate the Prophetical energy in this part of it, that indeed it hath been by weaker minds mistaken for it; though the wiser sort of the heathen have happily found out that lameness and delusiveness of it.”^[lxxxvii]