Originally Posted by
presidente
You mean like the numerous references to miracles and visions and such long after the Twelve had passed away? Especially in the second century, there is plenty of evidence that the church accepted miracle. Even during the time of the Montanists and later, the mainstream 'orthodox' or 'catholic' church accepted prophecy as a genuine gift.
no they didn't.
Have you actually sat down and read any writings from this time period, searching for this particular topic? Isn't it kind of disingenuous to make your pronouncements when you haven't studied it out? If you want a lot of this kind of information all in one place, there was a fellow named Burgess who published three volumes on it. I've perused the first volume I believe it was _The Spirit and the Church. Volume I: Antiquities_. This is chock full of quotes from the men who are called 'church fathers' on the issue. I'll let you look up the quotes. I'll share a little information with you.
The Didache affirms the existence of both true and false prophets. It may have been written right at the end of the first century or the beginning of the second. Of course, Justin Martyr argues with Trypho that the Jews used to have prophets, but that the prophetic gifts continued with the church. He lived in the second century. I'm thinking the dialogue with Trypho was around 120 ish or later. Irenaeus was later in the 200's. The Shepherd of Hermas was popular and was read in churches. It definitely affirmed prophecy and prophets and discusses the issue in some detail.
but Eusebius' Ecclastical history contains certain quotes about this. He preserves some of Irenaeus' writings on the topic. He lived well into the second century and wrote of various gifts including tongues, foreknowledge, raising the dead that occurred among the brethren. I'm really just scratching the surface here. I recall reading that Athanasias had the gift of prophecy as well. If you could get a hold of the Burgess book you'd have a lot of the quotes from the 'mainstream' sources of the east and west. (Maybe not all of the Armenian or Coptic stuff.)
Originally Posted by
presidente
There were other churches that believed in or practiced spiritual gifts, apparently, before Parham's Bible college.
list them.
How broad and how far back do you want me to go. I won't vouch for the orthodoxy of every group of course. But there were the 'gift people' or 'gift adventists' of main at least as early as the 1870's I've read about. There is not too much information on them except references to their speaking in tongues and practicing other gifts before Azusa Street. There were also the Fire Baptized Holiness people and the movement that became known as the Church of God (Cleveland). There were also the Catholic Apostolic Church Movement in the 1800's starting around the 1830's or so. Some Methodists were known to speak in tongues. I read of it occurring around the University of Georgia at a Methodist revival around 1801. Again, I'm not vouching for orthodoxy, but there were some claims of speaking in tongues among early Quakers, and of course they believed in the gift of prophecy and miracles and that sort of thing.
As far as healing goes in the mid to late 1800's there was a huge movement toward divine healing. Of course there were colorful people like Dowie, but also plenty of Baptists and Holiness people who operated in healing before the Pentecostal movement. In the 1800's, of Spurgeon was known to get specific words of knowledge during his sermons, telling one man who kept his shop open how much money he collected that day while he looked at him and things of that nature.
There were also many accounts of prophecy and other supernatural things during the Scottish Reformation and the Covenanter movement after that. There what we would call words of knowledge attributed to George Wishart, and I've read that Knox and another reformer attributed to Wishart the prophecy of the death of the Cardinal who persecuted the Reformation there. Skipping ahead a bit in history to the Covenanters, the preacher known as Prophet Peden wasn't called a prophet just because of his great preaching. He made predictive prophecies. Here is a quote from Wikipedia:
In 1682, Peden performed the wedding ceremony of
John Brown and Isabel Weir. He told Isabel after the ceremony, “You have a good man to be your husband, but you will not enjoy him long; prize his company, and keep linen by you to be his winding sheet, for you will need it when ye are not looking for it, and it will be a bloody one"
Peden was miles away at John Muirhead's house when John Brown died, but knew supernaturally of it happening, and prayed "Lord, when wilt Thou avenge Brown's blood? O, let Brown's blood be precious in Thy sight."
The Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox churches accept the possibility of miracles. So do those other national 'orthodox' churches. Was there every a whole cessationist national or city church before the Reformation? It's a relatively new doctrine. There have been some arguments made by individuals throughout history, but historically, no church was cessationist before the Reformation. And even the Scotts had some miracles, though apparently some of the Scottish Presbyterians don't know about that now.
If you start digging through haliographies and historical accounts, plenty of miracles are attributed to saints, especially saints who did evangelistic work. Patrick of Ireland is a prime example, said to have raised maybe 30 or so people from the dead, healed many, and performed many miracles. There are accounts of St. Patrick of Tours. I recall a miracle attributed to Gregory of Armenia, and they say the Armenians got their alphabet in a vision, not by Gregory, but by some monk. I don't think every account in every haliography is true, but I believe there is some truth to some of the haliographies.
Originally Posted by
presidente
Parham did not have experience with the gift at that time. Maybe he hadn't dug deeply enough into I Corinthians 14.
dug deeply into 1 Corinthians?
they were occultists and spiritists and necromancers, bud.
read the history.
There is that quote by Alexander Pope that a little knowledge is a dangerous thing. Drink deep or taste not at all. The Azusa Street Revival drew a lot of people, and they did have some spiritists going in there, and it caused some concern with the leaders. They ended up handling it by praying about it until God solved the problem. The LA newspaper was dead set against the revival from the beginning if that's your source.
were tongues known human languages at Pentecost?
of course they were.
I think that question was yours and I forgot to delete it.
The languages in I Corinthians are languages, but no one present understands. It was still speaking in tongues. As you did with the apostles being with Christ from the time of John, you seem to taking one bit of scripture and interpreting it in a way that actually contradicts other scripture.
you got something else going on.
gibbering in nonsense isn't of God. but have fun.[/QUOTE]
