04 - Chapter 04

CHAPTER 4 FOURTH CENTURY GLOSSOLALIA

325 AD, The Nicene Council Against Oneness Pentecostals: According Thomas Weisser in his great work entitled, Jesus’ Name Baptism Through The Centuries, quoted from Robert Robinson’s book, Ecclesiastical Researches, in which he made the following statement about the Nicene Council. Robinson declared:

All the classes, who did not hold the doctrine of a Trinity of persons in God, whether called Aretemonites, Paulianists, Arians, Monarchians, Patripassians, Sabellians, or by any other name, [whom] administered baptism in the name of Christ, with a single immersion, these were the people whom the council of Nice required to be rebaptized. [68]

Blunt revealed that many Catholic writers during that time branded the tongue-talking Montanists as one God Jesus’ Name Christians. He says:

Socrates (I, 23), Sozomenus (ii, 18)... attribute Sabellianism to them. [69]

350 AD, Catholic Bishop Hilary of Poitiers on Glossolalia: Hilary of France also wrote of the gifts of the Spirit. He, like others, acknowledged that God ordained them to be in the Church. Even though He did not claim to have a personal experience or a firsthand knowledge of God’s great and holy gifts. The Catholic Church at this time was lamenting that the gifts of the Spirit were no more in their churches; and therefore taught them hoping that God would restore them to Catholicism. They taught that they should be the normal Christian experience. Hilary wrote:

God hath set same in the Church, first apostles, in whom is the word of wisdom; secondly prophets, in whom is the gift of knowledge thirdly teachers, in whom is the doctrine of faith; next mighty works, among which are the healing of diseases, the power to help, governments by the prophets, and gifts of either speaking or interpreting divers kinds of tongues. Clearly these are the Church’s agents of ministry and work of whom the body of Christ consists; and God has ordained them. [70]

370 AD, Catholic Bishop Ambrose on Glossolalia: This Catholic man was the bishop of Milan. He, like Hilary, taught about the gifts of the Spirit, but had no personal knowledge of them. He declares that God ordained speaking in tongues and quotes Mark 16:16-18, from the Greek Manuscript he had in his day, thereby confirming this passage as being part of the Bible. Ambrose declared:

You see the Father and Christ also set teachers in the Churches; and as the Father gives the gift of healings, so, too, does the Son give; as the Father gives the gift of tongues, so, too, has the Son also granted it…. [Jesus said] Go ye into all the world, and preach the Gospel to the whole creation. He that shall believe and be baptized shall be saved, but he that believeth not shall be damned. And these signs shall follow them that believe. In My Name shall they cast out devils, they shall speak with new tongues, they shall take up serpents, and if they shall drink any deadly thing, it shall not hurt them, they shall lay hands on the sick, and they shall recover. [71]

381 AD, The Ecumenical Council of Constantinople Against Oneness Pentecostals: Montanists were not only used in the gifts of the Spirit, but also baptized in Jesus’ Name. Schaff speaking of this council said they:

Rejected the baptism of the Eunomians, ‘who baptize with only one immersion,’ the Sabellians, ‘who teach the Son-Father,’ the Montanists - probably because they did not at that time use the [so-called] orthodox [Trinitarian] baptismal formula. [72]

390 AD, Catholic Patriarch John Chrysostom: Glossolalia Had Ceased in Catholicism: This Catholic Priest moaned the fact that the gifts of the Spirit were no long in operation in the Catholic Church. It was nothing more than a memory. He evidently accepted the literal interpretation of Acts 2:1-4 that the Holy Ghost was given with the Biblical evidence of speaking in tongues. In his exposition of 1 Corinthians 12:1-7, he declared:

‘Now concerning spiritual gifts, brethren, I would not have you ignorant….’ This whole passage is very obscure: but the obscurity is produced by our ignorance of the facts referred to and by their cessation [referring to the Gifts of the Spirit], being such as then used to occur but now no longer take place. And why do they not happen now? Why look now, the cause too of the obscurity hath produced us again another question: namely, why did they then happen, and now do so no more? This however let us defer to another time, but for the present let us state what things were occurring then. Well: what did happen then? Whoever was baptized he straightway spake with tongues….

They at once on their baptism received the Spirit, yet the Spirit they saw not, for it is invisible; therefore God’s grace bestowed some sensible proof of that energy. And one straightway spake in the Persian, another in the Roman, another in the Indian, another in some other such tongue: and this made manifest to them that were without that it is the Spirit in the very person speaking. Wherefore also he so calls it, saying, ‘But to each one the manifestation of the Spirit is given to profit withal. Chrysostom commenting on verse 7 said that Paul: called: The gifts ‘a manifestation of the Spirit.’ For as the Apostles themselves had received this sign first, so also the faithful went on receiving it, I mean, the gift of tongues. [73]

395 AD, Catholic Bishop Augustine: Glossolalia Had Ceased in Catholicism: Catholic Bishop Augustine of Hippo, clearly declared that the gifts of the Spirit did not exist in the Catholic Church any longer. Because the power of God or the gifts of Spirit had not been manifested in Catholic Churches for such a long period of time, Augustine believed it was only for the early church, but in other writings he declares that they will last until the resurrection.

Augustine in his Homilies on the First Epistle of John, like Chrysostom, accepted the literal sense of Acts 2:1-4, Acts 10:44-48, and Acts 19:1-5, as the fulfillment of Isaiah 28:9-12. He believed: “speaking in tongues was the evidence of being born again, for those who were in the early Church.” He believed that this sign was done away in the Catholic Church. Therefore, he told his people that the fruit of the Spirit, especially love is now the evidence of being born of the Spirit. Augustine proclaimed: In the earliest times, ‘the Holy Ghost fell upon them that believed: and they spake with tongues,’ which they had not learned, ‘as the Spirit gave them utterance.’ These were signs adapted to the time…. That thing was done for a betokening, and it passed away. In the laying on of hands now, that persons may receive the Holy Ghost, do we look that they should speak with tongues…? If then the witness of the presence of the Holy Ghost be not now given through these miracles, by what is it given, by what does one get to know that he has received the Holy Ghost? Let him question his own heart. If he loves his brother the Spirit of God dwelleth in him. [74]

It is very obvious that Augustin anticipated a negative reply to his question! Augustine writing against the Donatist, on baptism wrote:

We are right in understanding that the Holy Spirit may be said not to be received except in the Catholic Church. For the Holy Spirit is not only given by the laying on of hands amid the testimony of temporal sensible miracles [meaning speaking in tongues], as He was given in former days to be the credentials of a rudimentary faith, and for the extension of the first beginnings of the Church. For who expects in these days that those on whom hands are laid that they may receive the Holy Spirit should forthwith begin to speak with tongues? [75]

Augustine, writing against Faustus the Manichaean, without realizing it declared that tongues could not be done away with, for the resurrection has not come. Commenting on 1 Corinthians 13:8-13 he wrote:

We show, too, that in the words, ‘when that which is perfect is come,’ Paul spoke of the perfection in the enjoyment of eternal life. For in the same place he says: ‘Now we see through a glass darkly, but then face to face.’ You cannot reasonably maintain that we see God face to face here. Therefore that which is perfect has not come to you. It is thus clear what the apostle thought on this subject. This perfection will not come to the saints till the accomplishment of what John speaks of: ‘Now we are the sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be; but we know that when it shall appear we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is [1 John 3:2].’ Then we shall be led into all truth by the Holy Spirit, of which we have now received the pledge. [76]

Augustine, in his commentary of the Gospel Of John, speaking of 1 Corinthians 13:8-13, again without realizing it, declared that speaking in tongues would not ceased until the resurrection, when saints are clothed with immortal bodies. Augustine wrote: The apostle says, ‘But when that which is perfect is come, then that which is in part shall be done away.’ For in the same place he adds: ‘Now I know in part, but then shall I know, even as also I am known; and now through a glass in a riddle, but then face to face….’ Not only the redemption of our body, whereof the Apostle Paul speaketh, but also the salvation of our souls…. Accordingly, while we are waiting for the immortality of the flesh and salvation of our souls in the future. [77]

AD 395, Catholic Bishop Jerome: Glossolalia Ceased in Catholicism, But Reveals the Oneness Montanists Still Practice It: According to the New Catholic Encyclopedia:

Jerome in describing Montanism lists the errors already mentioned and says that members of the sect were infected with Sabellianism. [78] This Catholic Bishop wrote a letter to Marcella against the One God Montanists in his day. Evidentially these Pentecostals still believed in glossolalia and were trying to convert Marcella to the truth. She obviously became confused and sadly wrote to Jerome for advice. Jerome indicated in his letter to her that speaking in tongues, like that which took place at Pentecost and there after, should not be expected to recur. Jerome wrote: As regards the passages brought together from the gospel of John with which a certain votary [referring to the oneness Pentecostal devotees] of Montanus has assailed you, passages in which our Savior promises that He will go to the Father, and that He will send the Paraclete…. The Holy Spirit came down, and the tongues of the believers were cloven, so that each spoke every language…. If, then, the apostle Peter, upon whom the Lord has founded the Church, has expressly said that the prophecy and promise of the Lord were then and there fulfilled, how can we claim another fulfillment for ourselves…. In the first place we differ from the Montanists regarding the rule of faith. We distinguish the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit as three persons, but unite them as one substance. They, on the other hand, following the doctrine of Sabellius, force the Trinity into the narrow limits of a single personality. [79] This last statement of Jerome is not true, for oneness believers teach that there is only one person in the godhead, who is Jesus Christ. Jesus has two separate and distinct natures. He is all God and He is all man, therefore, in His nature as man, He has a human personality, and in His nature as God, He has a Divine personality. In other words: “God was in Christ” (1 Corinthians 5:19), or the “Father in Me [Christ]” (John 14:10-11). “God is a Spirit” Being (John 4:24); and His human personality referred to “God’s Soul” (Matthew 26:38, Leviticus 26:11, Leviticus 26:30). Oneness people do not confuse Jesus’ two natures as Trinitarians do. They do not believe that Jesus is part man and part God with one personality. By now my dear readers, you should know why the Spirit of God departed from Catholicism. The Nicolaitan Monarchian Bishop, who was the one and only divine interpreter of God’s will and Word, over each local Catholic Church did not want the laity in his church, who had the Spirit of God in them, standing up and say, “Thus says the Spirit of the Lord.” No one was going to tell him God’s will; so he drove the Spirit of God out.