RELIGIOUS COMMUNITIESpostponed until resurrection.^161 There were others who were not will-
ing to wait that long. Montanists in Phrygia from the second until the
eighth century and Adoptionists at Antioch from the third until the
fifth century claimed that inspiration by the Holy Spirit or the Word
of God made their leaders a kind of Christ. Women were prominent
in both of these movements.1^62
The operation of the Holy Spirit was combined with a demonic
explanation of evil by the Me~allyane ("those who pray") or Euchites
who appeared among. the monks of Mesopotamia and Lesser Armenia
in the late fourth century. They were generally gnostic with Mani-
chaean ascetic overtones, but at the root of their doctrine was the
belief in an indwelling demon which each person inherited from his
parents at birth and which drove him to sin. The demon could only
be exorcised by unceasing prayer assisted by extreme asceticism. When
the struggle became violent "they were seen to make gestures as though
shooting arrows, or to jump into the air with enormous leaps, some-
times even beginning to dance. "163 Once a person was freed from his
demon, its place was taken by the Holy Spirit whose presence liberated
the body from slavery to passions. Those who had been freed regarded
themselves as beyond the need for sacraments, underwent an inner
progress towards spiritual perfection, experienced visions, and called
themselves Christ, a patriarch, or an angel. In such a state it was
impossible for them to sin and they could do as they liked. According
to Isaac of Nineveh, the Me~allyane said that the perfect were "exempt
from varying states and that they stay in one class, without liability
of deviation and without the impulse of the affections."164 He also
records their claim that the perfect were able to pray a spiritual prayer
when the mind passed from the psychic into the spiritual state, where
the soul was the image of the godhead through unification with the
incomprehensible, and dwelt in ecstasy.165
The antinomian rejection by the Me~allyane of fasting, prayer, and
161 W. F. Macomber, "The Theological Synthesis of Cyrus of Edessa," OCP 30 (1964),
6, 22-23, 35-36, 367-72; V66bus, "Theological Anthropology," pp. 117-18, 119,
121; idem, pp. 114-15.
162 Runciman, Manichee, pp. 18-20.
163 L. Duchesne, Early History of the Christian Church from its Foundation to the
End of the Fifth Century (New York, 1912-1924), I1, 461.
164 Isaac of Nineveh, "Mystic Treatises," p. 333.
165 Ibid., pp. 114-16. On the Me~allyane, see Chabot, Synodicon, pp. 115, 146,374-
75,407; Duchesne, Early History, I1, 461-62; Runciman, Manichee, pp. 22-24; Thomas
of Margha, Governors, I1, 91-93; V66bus, History of Asceticism, I1, 132-38.