The Collaborative International Dictionary
Montanist \Mon"ta*nist\, n. (Eccl. Hist.) A follower of Mintanus, a Phrygian enthusiast of the second century, who claimed that the Holy Spirit, the Paraclete, dwelt in him, and employed him as an instrument for purifying and guiding men in the Christian life. -- Mon`ta*nis"tic, Mon`ta*nis"tic*al, a.
Douglas Harper's Etymology Dictionary
mid-15c., millenarian and severely ascetic sect that believed in continual direct inspiration of the spirit and offered prominent church roles to women, from Montanus, Christian-inspired prophet in the wilds of Phrygia c.160 C.E. The heresy persisted into the 6c. and helped bring prophecy into disrepute in the established Church. Related: Montanism.
Usage examples of "montanist".
Even in the third century the Montanist congregations of the Empire must still have doubted whether the Apostles had possessed this Paraclete or not, or at least whether this had been the case in the full sense.
It is generally agreed that Tertullian became a Montanist about the year 200: his work, de Corona Militis, appears to have been written, at the earliest about the year 202 before the persecution of Severus: it may be maintained, then, that it is subsequent to the Montanism of the author.
At the end of four hundred years, the Montanists of Phrygia ^85 still breathed the wild enthusiasm of perfection and prophecy which they had imbibed from their male and female apostles, the special organs of the Paraclete.
It is generally agreed that Tertullian became a Montanist about the year 200: his work, de Corona Militis, appears to have been written, at the earliest about the year 202 before the persecution of Severus: it may be maintained, then, that it is subsequent to the Montanism of the author.