Fate: Condemned at regional synods in Asia Minor (~160–170 AD). Tertullian (~160–220 AD) — the most important early Latin theologian — converted to Montanism, embarrassing the orthodox tradition permanently. Montanist communities survived in Phrygia into the 6th century, when Justinian ordered their meeting houses burned and survivors forcibly rebaptized; the community reportedly locked itself inside and set fire to the building. Montanist writings were ordered destroyed.

Montanus of Phrygia (~155 AD) proclaimed himself the vessel of the Paraclete — the Holy Spirit promised in John 14–16 — and began delivering prophecies in a state of ecstatic trance. Two women, Prisca and Maximilla, prophesied alongside him. Their central claims: the age of direct prophetic revelation had not closed with the apostles; the New Jerusalem would descend at Pepuza in Phrygia; Christians must prepare through rigorous fasting, celibacy, and willingness for martyrdom. Montanism is not theologically deviant on the Trinity or Christology — it is condemned primarily for its ecclesiology (ongoing prophecy challenges episcopal authority) and its rigorism (second repentance after post-baptismal sin is impossible). Its condemnation marks a decisive institutional closure: the church, not ongoing prophecy, is the locus of the Spirit.

What happens when a group is declared heretical: The process is rarely sudden. It typically begins with episcopal letters condemning a teaching, escalates to synodal condemnation at a regional council, and — after Constantine — can be ratified by an ecumenical council backed by imperial authority. Once condemned: (1) Leaders are excommunicated, exiled, or — in later centuries — handed to secular authorities for execution. (2) Writings are ordered burned; possession becomes a criminal offense. Eusebius records that after Nicaea, Constantine ordered Arian books destroyed under penalty of death. The same logic applied to Gnostic texts — which is why the Nag Hammadi library was buried in a sealed jar around 367 AD, the same year Athanasius’s Easter letter listed the NT canon and ordered non-canonical books removed from churches. (3) Communities are dissolved by force where state power reaches; in regions beyond imperial reach they survive for centuries. (4) Memory is controlled — the only surviving accounts of most heresies are hostile summaries by their opponents (Irenaeus, Tertullian, Epiphanius’s Panarion), meaning we are largely reading prosecution briefs, not the groups’ own self-understanding.