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The Messalians first appeared in Mesopotamia circa 360 A.D. "Messalians" is derived from a Syrian word meaning  "those who pray." Our primary sources of information on the Messalian beliefs are authors who denounced them as heretics: Theodoret, Timothy Constantinople, and John of Damascus.



According to the pious authorities, Messalians believe prayer is the best way to salvation. Messalian doctrine specifies that zealous prayer will root out the indwelling demon who urges people to evil deeds. The demon is inborn into every person descended from Adam - even the Apostles of Jesus were born with the demon within. Constant praying also has the benefit of keeping the Messalians from talking wildly, which they are otherwise wont to do. When praying casts out the demon, they achieve Apatheia (apathy), making room for the reception of and marriage to the heavenly Bridegroom. Once a Messalian has achieved Apatheia, his body is freed from passion, his soul released from bondage. He needs no further restraint or teaching. Any wantoness or licentiousness thereafter is no longer sinful because it is done apathetically, that is, without passion.



For Messalians, jumping over demons or shooting demons with pointed fingers is a handy way to destroy them after they are cast out. Since demons are known to reside in snot and spittle, Messalians jump over same after blowing their noses or spitting. Demons may also appear in fire, in smoke, and in serpents, providing many good occasions for jumping and finger-shooting.



The Messalians are prophets: "they see things to come." They can actually see the invisible Trinity as One. The Cross of Light is also visible to them. But beware, we are forwarned, Messalians have been known to engage in fortune-telling frauds.



Manual labor and charity are anathema to Messalians for they believe they are the authentic "poor in spirit", the true "spiritual" beings. We are informed they sleep most of the day, believing their sleep is a form of prayer. They sleep to dream, dream to prophecy, and, being deceived by dreams, prophecy to deceive.



Messalians might go along with the Christian sacraments from time to time as an hypocritical expression of Christian faith. They make such outward displays in all good conscience because they believe the conduct itself is harmless. Nonetheless, according to John of Damascus,



"Among them they have contempt for the churches and their altars, as it were fitting for ecclesiastical ascetics not to attend synaxes, and yet to hold prayers in their oratories: for they say that such is the power of their praying that the Holy Ghost appears perceptually to them and those instructed by them... Those who come to them without any fruit of repentance from various sins, without authority of priests, without the stages which are prescribed in the ecclesiastical canons, they promise to take away every sin immediately, only if someone undertakes the prayer which is much spoken among them, and thoughtlessly becomes an initiate of their trickery." (De Haeresibus)



We are not absolutely certain the Messalians were a distinct group, but there are ancient references to their existence in Mesopotamia during the 360s and in Asia Minor during the 420s and 430s. The term "Messalians" was eventually applied to religious people who loathed manual labor and sacrificial ordinance, who placed emphasis on the experiential, emotional aspects of religion, and who believed prayer could make the soul divine and immortal. They reportedly wandered from place to place, slept in the streets and resorted to fervent praying. The Council of Ephesus condemned Messalians in 431. Many of those who were called Messalians were persecuted: many of them were put to death by Christian magistrates. Letoius, Bishop of Militene, for example, burned monasteries where "Messalian" quietism was found, "driving the wolves from the sheepfold." Writings about Messalians circulated widely thereafter, playing a key role in the Byzantine monastic revival of the 8th and 9th centuries, and in the Hesychast movement of the 14th century.

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References:



THE CATHOLIC ENCYCLOPEDIA, New York: Encyclopedia Press 1911



Columba Stewart, WORKING THE EARTH OF THE HEART, The Messalian Controversy in History, Texts, and Language to AD 431, Oxford: Clarendon: 1991