('Pierced by Bronze Needles": Anti-Montanist Charges of Ritual Stigmatization in Their Fourth-Century Context SUSANNA ELM For Christ is like a sing/e body with its many links and organs, which, many as they are, together make up one body. ... Now you are Christ's body, and each ofyo u a limb or organ of it. (l Cor 12.12, 27) You sha/1 not make gashes in your flesh for the dead or tattoo any marks (rpaJlJ.wmmina) upon you: I am the Lord. (Lev 19.28) Priests sha/1 not ... gash their bodies . ... No man among your descen­ dants for a/1 time who has any physical de(ects sha/1 come and present the food of his God. (Lev 21.5, 17.) I bear the marks (ra arryJlam) o(j esus branded to my body. (Ga/6.1 7) ln the 350's Cyril of Jerusalem delivered a series of catechctical lectures on a variety ofissues he considered crucial to those about tobe baptized. 1 Cyril 1. An earlier version of this paperwas first given at the AAR/SBL mceting in Wash­ ington DC, 1993. I would like to thank the many people who have inspired and helped me, especially the authors assemblcd in this collection, and P. Brown, M. Maas, E. A. Clark, and W. Tabbernee. Jou rnal ofEarly Christian Studies 4:4,409- 439 © 1996 The johns Hopkins Univcrsity Press. ) 410 JOURNAL OF EARLY CHRISTIAN STUDIES devored the sixteenth of these Ieerures to the nature and agency ofthe Holy Spirit, which he explained in part through a display of irs heretical mis~ constructions. One of the heresies that had falsified the Holy Spirit was par­ ticu!arly reprehensible. Not only bad rheir founderclaimed tobe in fact the Holy Spirit, even worse, his followers, "on rhe pretext of rheir so-called mysteries ... cut rhe throats of wretched little children and chopped them into pieces for their unholy banquets. " 2 They were the Montanists, a well-known heresy of long standing.3 Even though the heresy itself was not new, Cyril inaugurates here an inrriguing deve[opment: he is the first in our sources to accuse Monranists of ritual child murder. Our earlier sources know the heresy of Montanus by the movement's own description, namely as the "New Prophecy," and they attack it pre­ cisely because of the form and content of its founders' (Montanus, Priscilla and Maximilla's) prophetic utterances.4 It was the early opponents' prin­ cipai concern to demoostrate that the ecstatic "New Prophecy" was false, rhe prophets' visions satanic in origin, and therefore all their claims to spir­ itual leadership illegitimate and gravely injurious to their followers. The fourth-cemury sources, drawing on the earlier authorities, continue and intensify this line of ittack. Yet, in addition to their condemnation of Montanist prophecy, fourth-century authors now also levelled the charge of ritual child murder,5 even though rhe heresy of Montanus had already 2. Cyr. ]er. Cat. 16 De spiritu sancto 1.8, held in 348. Trans. by L. P. McCau!ey and A. A. Stephenson, The Works of Saint Cyril of Jerusalem, vol. 2, The Fathers of rhe Church, no. 64 (Washington D.C.: The Carholic University Press, 1970), 79-80; R. Ly­ man, "A Topography ofHeresy: Mapping rhe Rhetorical Crearion of Arianisrn," in Ar­ ianism after Arius: Essays on the Development of the Fourth Century Trinitarian Con­ (iicts, ed. by M. R. Barnes and D. H. Wllliams (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1993), 45-62, here 48-53; W. Telfer, Cyril of ]erusalem and Nemesius o(Emesa, Library of Christian Classics, no. 4 (London: SCM Press, 1955), 19-63,36-39 for dates. 3. ln rhis lecrure, Cyril actually coins the term "Montanists" in line with the anri­ heretical rradition of naming secrs afrer rheir founder. 4. They are Eus. HE 5.14-19; an unidentified ear!y source in Epiph. Haer. 48.4-13; inc!uding some 14 aurhentic oracles preserved here, and sources concerning Rome and North Africa; trans. by R. E. Heine, The Montanist Oracles and Testimonia, PMS, no. 14 (Macon: Mercer University Press, 1989), 2-9, 53-93. K. Aland, "Bemerkungen zum Montaoismus und zur frühchristlichen Eschatologie," in Kirchengeschichtliche Entwürfe (Gütersloh: Gerd Mohn, 1960), 105-148, here 111 n. 58, 143-48. S. Ritual child murder accusations will not be rhe focus of rhe following discussion; r shal! insread concentrare on one specific aspect, rhough human sacrifice rernains rel­ evant for its connotations. For scholarly Iirerature on this subjecr and its anrhropo­ logical significance, see, e.g., mosr recendy, ]. Rives, "Human Sacrifice among Pagans and Christi ans," ]RS 85 (1995): 65-85; A. McGowan, "Eating People: Accusarions of Cannibaiism Against Christians in the Second Century," ]ECS 2 (1994 ): 413-442; and ELM/PIERCED BY BRONZENEEDLES 411 all but disappeared in the Westernpart of the Romanempire and had un­ dergone a nurober of transformations in the East.6 Most of the fourth-century authors who repeat Cyril's initial accusa­ tion, for example, Filastrius of Brescia, Jerome, the author of the Homily on the Ps.-Prophets, Praedestinatus, Isidore of Pelusium and Timorhy of Constantinople, follow the pattern he established, i.e., they accuse Mon­ rarrists of killing children in a ritual context wirbout providing further the discussion between D. Frankfurter and S. A. Kem in Religion 23 (1993): 229-241, 355-367 and Religion 24 (1994): 353-360 and 361-378. See also S. Benko, Pagan Rome and the Early Christians (Bioomington: Indiana University Press, 1984}, esp. 54-78, and bibliography at 170-71; R. Grant, "Charges of 'Immorality' against Vari­ ous Religious Groups in Amiquity," in Studies in Gnosticism and Hellenistic Religion: Festschrift G. Quispel, ed. R. van den Broek and M.J. Vermaseren, ttudes pn~liminaires aux religions orientales dans !'Empire Romain, no. 81. (Leiden: E.]. Brill, 1981), 161-70; and chapter 7 in A. RousseHe, Pomeia: On Desire and the Body in Antiquity, trans. by E Pheasant {Oxford: Basi! Blackwell, 1988), 107-128. 6. Monranism emerged in the 160's or early 170's in Asia Minor, in the Phrygian vii­ Jage Ardabau. Eus. HE4.27; Epiph. Haer. 48. L2. Thechronology is uncertain since Eu­ sebius and Epiphanius disagree. Eusebius places the origins in ca. 171, whereas Epipha­ nius proposes "the 19th year of Antoninus Pius," i.e., 156/57; I am following most recent scholars who prefer Eusebius' dating, cf. T. D. Barnes, "The Chronology of Mon­ tanism," ]TS, n.s. 21 (1970): 403-408. Mostsources forM. are collected in P. de La­ briolle, Les sources et l'histoire du Montanisme, Collectanea Friburgensia, n.s. 15. (Fri­ bourg: Publications de l'Universire de Fribourg, 1913). Re-edired and trans. in selection by Heine, Montanist Oracles. Bibliography an Montanism is substantial; cf., e.g., Aland, "Bemerkungen," 105-148; A. Daunton-Fear, "The Ecstasies of Mon­ tanus," StP 17 (1982): 648-51; W. H. C. Frend, "Montanism: A Movemenr of Prophecy and Regional Idenriry in the Early Church," in Sects and New Religious Movements, ed. by A. Dyson, and E. Barker, Bulletin of the ]ahn Rylands Library, no. 70.3 (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1988), 25-34; F. C. Klawiter, The New Prophecy in Early Christianity: The Origin, Nature and Deuelopment of Mon­ tanism, A.D. 165-220 {Ph.D. Diss. Chicago, 1975); id., "The RoJe of Marryrdom and Persecurian in Developing the Priestly Authority of Women in Early Christianity: A Case Study of Montanism," CH 49 {1980): 251-61; R. Shepard Kraemer, Her Share of the Blessings: Warnen :S Religions among Pagans, Jews, and Christians in the Greco­ Roman World {New York: Oxford University Press, 1992); P. de Labriol!e, La crise Montaniste (Paris: Leroux, 1913 ); D. Powell, "Tertullianists and Cataphrygians," VC 29 (1975): 33-54; A. Strobel, Das heilige Land der Montanisten: Eine religionsgeo­ graphische Untersuchung, Religionsgeschichtliche Versuche und Vorarbeiten, Bd. 37 (Berlin: de Gruyter, 1980); D. H. Williams, "The Origins of the Montanist Movement: A Sociological Analysis," Religion 19 (1989): 331-51. As far as conrinuity is con­ cerned, K. Aland {"Augustin und der Montanismus,'' in Kirchengeschichtliche En­ twürfe [Gütersloh: Gerd Mohn, 1960], 149-64) argues for a de facto disappearance of Montanism in the West by the end of rhe fourrh century. However, irs continuity is at­ tested in the East unril the ninth century CE., see S. Gero, "Momanus and Montanism According to a Medieval Syriac Source," }TS, n.s. 28 (1977): 520-24; and Strobel, Das heilige Land, 10-29. 412 JOURNAL OF EARLY CHRISTIAN STUDIES specifics.-:- However, two of these accusations stand out: those made by EpiphJnius and rhen by Augusrine. In his Panarion Haereses, written berween 374-376, Epiphanius alleges rhar rhe l\1onranists, whom he acrually calls Quintillians, Priscillians and Pepuzians, in onc of rheir feasts ... pierce a very young boy in every part of his body wirh bras:> needles and rake his biood ro use at sacrifice ... They pierce rhrough rhe body of an innocent boy ... [prerending rhat?] rhis is an initiation into rhe name of Christ. 8 In 428, Augustirre accuses rhe Monrarrists in his Book on the Heresies9 with [prep:1ring] their eucharist, as it \vere, from the blood of a year old chi!d, \Vhich th-,;y draw off from irs whole body by means of minute puncture \VOunds, and ro mix it with rhe flour, and rhence make bread. If rhe chi!d die, rhey consider him ro be a martyr; if he live, he is considered ro be a high priest. In mher words, according to Epiphanius, Monrarrists sacrificed children by killing rhem through piercing or pricking with needles. Augustirrethen echoes Epiphanius' charges in his denunciation of the sect.