1. W. Yorke Fausset, for example, unduly restricts the number of our Lord’s miracles, speaking of the severe economy with which He exercised such supernatural, or extranatural, powers.” (Medicine and the Modern Church, edited by Geoffrey Rhodes, 1910, pp. 175 fi.)
2. Xaplopatz, or more rarely mvevpatix, I Cor. 12:1, or dépata, Eph. 4: 8.
3. Charismata: it is a distinctively Pauline term, occurring elsewhere than in Paul’s writings only once in Philo (De Alleg. Leg., 2: 75) and once in the First Epistle of Peter (4: 10), an epistle which, both in doctrine and language, is of quite Pauline character.
4. Cf. C. F. G. Heinrici, Das erste Sendschreiben des Apostel Paulus an die Korinther, 1880, p. 452: “ Mosheim says that Paul sketches in this section a kind of Church Directory. That goes too far: but it at least contains the outlines of a Directory of Worship in his community, for which it was at once made clear that in all matters which concern the value and effect of the worshipping assemblages, caprice and confusion are excluded.” W. Bous-set, Kyrios Christos, 1913, p. 106, describes very vividly, though on the naturalistic hypothesis explained in note 6 below, what their assemblies were for the Christians of the Apostolic times. “Herein the assemblies of the fellowship,” he writes, ‘“there arose for the believers in Christ the consciousness of their unity and peculiar sociological individuality. Scattered during the day in pursuit of their daily callings, subject in an alien world to derision and scorn, they came together in the evening (no doubt as often as possible) for the common sacred meal. They then experienced the miracle of fellowship, the glow of the enthusiasm of a common faith and a common hope, when the Spirit flamed up and encompassed them with a miracle-filled world: prophets and tongues, visionaries and ecstatics began to speak, psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs soared through the room, the forces of brotherly charity awoke in an unsuspected fashion, an unheard of new life pulsated through the crowd of Christians. And over this whole surging enthusiasm the Lord Jesus reigned as the head of His community, immediately present in His power with a tangibility and a certainty which takes the breath away.”
5. J. H. Bernard, in an essay on The Miraculous in Early Christian Literature,” published in the volume called Te Literature of the Second Century, by F. R. Wynne, J. H. Bernard, and S. Hemphill (New York, James Pott & Co., 1892), p. 1435, gives a useful but incomplete exhibit of the references to the exercise of these gifts in the Acts and Epistles: (1) Tongues: Pentecost (Acts 2) and frequently alluded to by Paul in his epistles; (2) Prophecy: frequently called a “sign” of an Apostle, and also alluded to in the cases of Agabus (Acts 11: 28, 21: 10), the twelve Ephesian disciples on whom Paul laid his hands (Acts 19: 6), and the four daughters of Philip (Acts 21: 9); (3) Poison: Paul’s viper (Acts 28: 3); (4) Exorcism: by Paul (Acts 16: 18); (5) Healing: by Paul in the case of Publius (Acts 28: 8), by Peter in that of Aneas (Acts g: 33), by Peter’s shadow (Acts 5: 135), by Paul’s clothing (Acts 19: 12), by Peter and John (Acts 3: 7); (6) Raising the dead: by Paul, in the case of Eutychus (Acts 20: 9), by Peter, in the case of Dorcas (Acts 9: 36); (7) Punitive: in the cases of Ananias and Sapphira (Acts 5: 5), and Elymas (Acts 13: 8); (8) General references to signs and wonders: attesting Paul and Barnabas (Acts 14: 3), Stephen (Acts 6: 8) and Philip (Acts 8: 6).
6. Theologians of the “Liberal” school, of course, deny the miraculous character of the charisms on principle, and are prone to represent them as the natural manifestations of primitive enthusiasm. We, for our part,” says P. W. Schmiedel (Encyclopedia Biblica, col. 4776), “are constrained to” deny the miraculous character of the charisms,” “and to account for everything in the phenomena to which a miraculous character has been attributed by the known psychological laws which can be observed in crises of great mental exaltation, whether in persons who deem themselves inspired, or in persons who simply require medical treatment.” From this point of view the charismata belong to the primitive church as such, to the church not merely of the Apostolic age, but of the first two centuries. This church is spoken of in contrast to the staid, organized church which succeeded it, as a Charismatic Church, that is to say, in the old sense of the word, as an Enthusiastic Church, a church swept along by an exalted state of mind and feeling which we should look upon to-day as mere fanaticism. “Tt is easily intelligible,” says Schmiedel (col. 4775), “that the joy of enthusiasm over the possession of a new redeeming religion should have expressed itself in an exuberant way, which, according to the ideas of the time, could only be regarded as the miraculous operation of the Holy Spirit.” Or, as Adolf Harnack (The Expansion of Christianity in the First Three Centuries, E. T. 1., pp. 250 ff.), puts it, Christianity came into being as “the religion of Spirit and power,” and only lost this character and became the religion of form and order toward the end of the second century. A rather sharp expression of this view is given in an (inaugural) address delivered in 1893 by A. C. McGiffert, on Primitive and Catholic Christianity. The spirit of primitive Christianity,” he says (p. 19), “is the spirit of individualism, based on the felt presence of the Holy Ghost. It was the universal conviction of the primitive church that every Christian believer enjoys the immediate presence of the Holy Spirit, through whom he communes with Godand receives illumination, inspiration and strength for his daily needs. The presence of the Spirit was realized by these primitive Christians in a most vivid way. It meant the power to work miracles, to speak with tongues, to utter prophecies (f. Mark 16: 17- 18, and Acts 2: 16 ff.).”” McGiffert is not describing here some Christians, but all Christians; and all Christians not of the Apostolic age, but of the first two centuries: “By the opening of the third century all these conceptions had practically disappeared.” An attempt to give this general view a less naturalistic expression may be read at the close of R. Martin Pope’s article, “Gifts,” in Hastings’s Dictionary of the Apostolic Church. To sum up,” he writes (vol. I, p. 451), “an examination of the passages in apostolic literature which treat of spiritual gifts inevitably brings us to the conclusion that the life of the early church was characterized by glowing enthusiasm, simple faith, and intensity of joy and wonder, all resulting from the consciousness of the power of the Holy Spirit; also that this phase of Spirit-effected ministries and service was temporary, as such tides of the Spirit have since often proved, and gave way to a more rigid and disciplined Church Order, in which the official tended more and more to supersede the charismatic ministries.”