I Am Supposed to Be Working Right Now, But I Have Dozens of Emails I Want to Share

Here's one about my previous post regarding the 'Kata-Phrygian sect.' It comes from my friend Professor Boid, one of the leading experts on the Samaritan tradition:

Your observation that Afriqi means both north African and Phrygian is VERY important.

Montanus means “connected with a mountain” or “found on a mountain." This to my mind means expecting the Tabernacle to reappear on Mt. Gerizim which means Dosithean.

This is exactly what I thought the implication of Afriqi (although I was trying to develop the same argument through some unworkable line of reasoning). The point is that so many people just regurgitate what is written in the Church Fathers without enough critical analysis.

Can I prove that the term 'Kata-Phrygians' original only described the north African tradition. No I cannot. But I have been watching scholars falling on themselves trying to locate Ardabau, Pepuzza, and Tymion (all places connected to Montanus and Montanism).

Now I have not read Tabernee's recent claims to have found some of these sites in Phrygia but already at the outset I have my suspicions.

This isn't Troy for God's sake.

In any event what I am suggesting as a possibility now is that since the group was first known as Phrygians, or "those among the Phrygians" (oi kata Phrygas), then as Montanists that what we are dealing with is something akin to the Priscillianists of Spain (i.e. the 'fossilized' remain of an early form of Christianity in north Africa). In other words, that as Christianity developed from Dositheanism those of north Africa (owing to their proximity to Alexandria) somehow retained a link to the original formulation.

Just a thought.