Modern Charismatic Movement

Similar to Charismaticism in the

Early Church?
January 8, 2016 by Robert Arakaki 20 Comments

Charismatic Worship

by Hal Smith (Guest Contributor)

One of the main debates between the modern
Charismatic movement and traditional Orthodox
Christianity is over which better represents the
Christianity of the Apostles era. Further, both
Orthodox Christians and modern Rationalists see

the modern charismatic movement as unreliable in

its claims of miracles, because they see those claims
as originating in the witnesses psychological
phenomena, rather than as accurate depictions of
material phenomena. Yet pure Rationalism would
propose similar explanations for the miracles
claimed in the early Church. How close, then, was
the early Christian movement to the Charismatics of
today, and how would Christians respond to the
Rationalists claims about the early Church?
In this essay we will discuss four apparent key
similarities between the Charismatic movement and
the Early Church of the 1st to 2nd century that
distinguish them from subsequent Orthodox
Tradition: (1) expectations that the world would end
within their generational cycle, i.e., within 120
years, (2) the practice of speaking in tongues, (3)
spontaneous, improvised worship in their
gatherings, and (4) much more frequent alleged
gifts and miracles. These features represent major
trends among Charismatics and the early
Christians, however they are not necessary traits for
their members. For example, despite the Apostles
multilingualism at Pentecost, many early Christians
lacked the gift of tongues, as Paul noted (1 Co
12:30).
The Orthodox Churchs teachings are those of the
Ecumenical Councils, Scripture as understood by its
Tradition, the Church Fathers, and its saints. Its
beliefs include the plurality of views of modern
theologians and laity, but they receive less weight
than they would in Protestantism. Rationalism, on
the other hand, is a modern philosophical
movement that emphasizes skepticism and the
scientific method, not just rational or logical
thinking.1 According to the Encyclopedia Britannica
this philosophy regards reason as the chief source
and test of knowledge. In stressing the existence of

a natural light, rationalism has also been the rival

of systems claiming esoteric knowledge, whether
from mystical experience, revelation, or
intuition.2 So while the Orthodox Church
recognizes and justifies the proclaimed gifts of the
early Church, Rationalism attempts to debunk or
propose non-miraculous explanations for them.

I. Expectations that the world would end

within a generational cycle

Early Charismatics the Montanists

One of the main features of the Charismatic

movement is an expectation that Christs Second
Coming and the worlds end would occur within the
span of our current generation. Some early
Christians had this expectation about their
generation too. From a Rationalist perspective, this
expectation could be disproven were it put into an
explicit limited time frame that has passed.
Consequently, when Orthodox commentators meet
what could be failed, expired predictions for the
worlds end, they avoid interpreting them as
predictions whose chronologies can be measured
beforehand in years or decades.

For example when Jesus asked rhetorically about

John the Apostle If I will that he tarry till I come,
what is that to thee?, an alleged saying by Jesus
about John went abroad among the brethren, that
that disciple should not die: yet Jesus said not unto
him, He shall not die; but, If I will that he tarry till I
come, what is that to thee? (John 21:22-23). St.
Paul appeared to imply that he would not have yet
died by the time of Jesus Second Coming, when he
wrote:
For this we say unto you by the word of the Lord,
that we which are alive and remain unto the coming
of the Lord shall not prevent them which are asleep.
For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven
with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and
with the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall
rise first: Then we which are alive and remain shall
be caught up together with them in the clouds, to
meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be
with the Lord (1 Th 4:15-17; KJV). [Note: biblical
quotations are from the KJV unless noted
otherwise.]

St. Theophan the Recluse

According to the 19th century Orthodox

theologian St. Theophan the Recluse, some Church
fathers considered Pauls phrase we who are alive

to be merely conditioned on Pauls presence among

the living at the time of Pauls writing. St.
Theophan, however, agreed with others view that
Paul meant this unconditionally, on the basis that
Christ said Be alert, as you do not know the day or
hour when the Son of Man will come (Lk
12:40).3 St. Theophan concluded that Thus
everyone must expect it, be ready, keep oneself as if
this minute he had reached his last day, holding in
ones heart the Lords future coming explains why
in the New Testament the Last Day is portrayed as
oncoming.
Alexander Lopukhin, another leading Orthodox
theologian, commented that he was inclined to the
opinion that the Apostle hoped to be a living
participant of the parousia. He would not have said
we the living if he was talking about a completely
distant event. One must remember that the Apostle
Paul kept the vividness of the expectation of the
parousia until the end of his life, about which Php
4:5 and 1 Co 16:22 serves as a witness.4 To those
verses may be added Hebrews 1:2, in which Paul
writes that God hath in these last days spoken unto
us by his Son.
While spiritual readiness, if not expectation, of the
End Times can be part of both biblical and
Orthodox thinking, they do not share the practice of
some Charismatics of proposing a date by which the
Second Coming would occur. For example, the
modern Adventist movements founder, William
Miller, predicted this Second Advent for 1843, the
non-occurrence of which caused the movements
Great Disappointment. The Evangelical writer Hal
Lindsey predicted the worlds likely end by 1989 in
his famous book: The Late Great Planet Earth.
Edgar Whisenants book: 88 Reasons Why the
Rapture Will Be in 1988 sold 4.5 million copies,

while the Trinity Broadcast Network televised

preparations for the Rapture date.5
On the other hand, St. Theophan noted that Paul
denied knowing a date for the worlds end and
considered this a reason to doubt that Paul was
absolutely certain that it would come in his lifetime.
Paul explained that while Christians must not be
caught unsurprised by the Second Coming, they
would not foreknow its date either:
Now, brothers, about times and dates we do not
need to write to you, for you know very well that the
day of the Lord will come like a thief in the night.
But you, brothers, are not in darkness so that this
day should surprise you like a thief (1 Th 5:1-4).

II. Glossolalia or speaking in tongues

Besides expectations about the End Times, another
distinction of the Charismatic movement is the
practice of speaking in tongues. Marks gospel
ends with the resurrected Christ predicting that
speaking in new tongues will be a sign that
accompanies believers (Mk 16:17). This prophecy
was apparently fulfilled at Pentecost, when the
Apostles were all filled with the Holy Ghost, and
began to speak with other tongues, as the Spirit
gave them utterance(Acts 2:4). Bystanders, who
came from many nations like Egypt, Parthia, and
Mesopotamia, recognized their languages being
spoken even though the Apostles were Galileans.
Some bystanders mocked them as if they were full
of new wine, but Peter denied it, saying that it was
still 9 am, or by biblical calculation, the third hour
of the day (Acts 2:15).
Its important to note that in this incident, the
Apostles were not babbling nonsense, but rather

speaking other languages coherently. This gift of

tongues was in accordance with their instructions
from Jesus to evangelize the world (Mk 16:15-17).
On the other hand, Acts presents the Pentecost
event as spontaneous and energetic, as some
bystanders portrayed it like drunkenness, and as it
was accompanied with visions of tongues of flames
on the Apostles. The Pentecost event is also
portrayed as a miracle, since the Apostles were
Galilean and presumably would have lacked natural
exposure so many languages. Granted, its not
inconceivable that they could have learned some
creedal statements in other languages and been
inspired to declare them collectively.
Accounts of miraculously speaking or being
understood in a language unknown to the speaker
exist in Orthodoxy, but they are very rare. One
Orthodox monk relates:
St. Ephraim the Syrian visited St. Basil the Great
(4th century) and the two communicated by this
means: each spoke his own language and the other
understood. In the actual life of Elder Porphyrios, it
is recorded that an atheist French woman visited
him in Greece and the two communicated in this
way: Elder Porphyrios spoke Greek; the woman
spoke French; and the two understood each other.
The French woman was later received into the
Orthodox Church. She is, as far as we know, still
alive. This event would have occurred within the
last 50 years.6
Although the Bible does not clearly record other
instances of miraculous speaking in national
tongues, it describes Christians in Corinth
practicing incomprehensible speech or glossolalia.
One possible instance is Pauls reference to the
language of angels in 1 Corinthians 13: If I speak
with the tongues of men and of angels, and have not
charity, I am become as sounding brass. This

reference does not specify if the angelic language

is incomprehensible glossolalia. But in the next
chapter, Paul calls glossolalia speaking in tongues
and a spiritual gift that he is thankful to have
himself (1 Co 14:1, 18). He regards it as a sign
predicted by the prophets:
In the law it is written, With men of other tongues
and other lips will I speak unto this people
Wherefore tongues are for a sign, not to them that
believe, but to them that believe not (1 Co 14:2122) [cf. Isaiah 28:11: For with stammering lips and
another tongue will [God] speak to this people.]
Nonetheless, Paul considers glossolalia inferior to
the gift of prophecy because the latter is
comprehensible (1 Co 14:2-5):
For he that speaketh in an unknown tongue
speaketh not unto men, but unto God: for no man
understandeth him; howbeit in the spirit he
speaketh mysteries He that speaketh in an
unknown tongue edifieth himself; but he that
prophesieth edifieth the church. I would that ye all
spake with tongues but rather that ye prophesied:
for greater is he that prophesieth than he that
speaketh with tongues, except he interpret, that the
church may receive edifying.
The Orthodox theologian Lopukhin comments
about Pauls phrase no man understandeth the
glossolalia:
This expression no one is a very important proof
against the proposition that the speech of the
speaker of tongues was speech in a foreign
language. If the Apostle understood such speech, he
could not say that no one understands it, since in
Corinth there were not a few newcomers from
various countries of the world.7
St. John Chrysostom, however, may have thought
that the Corinthians spoke foreign human

languages like the Apostles in Acts 2, since he

commented that the Corinthians considered it a
great gift because the Apostles received it first of
all and with such ceremony.8
In any case, Paul instructs the Corinthians to always
use an interpreter for their glossolalia and to allow
at most three at a time to speak it, because If the
whole church be come together into one place, and
all speak with tongues, and there come in those that
are unlearned, or unbelievers, will they not say that
ye are mad? God is not the author of confusion,
but of peace (1 Co 4:23,33).
In his essay Speaking in Tongues: An Orthodox
Perspective, Fr. George Nicozisin accepted the
glossolalia of the Corinthians as a real gift with
which they praised God. He wrote that The Greek
Orthodox Church does not preclude the use of
Glossolalia, but regards it was one of the minor gifts
of the Holy Spirit Better to speak five words that
can be understood than speak thousands of
words in strange tongues. (1 Cor. 14:19) This is the
Orthodox Christian viewpoint.9
An Orthodox monk remarked that:
In the Epistles of Paul it is recorded that a person
might speak a new or even angelic language.
However, the question arises, did a Church service
that St Paul attended sound like an Assemblies of
God service today? We really do not have any way
to know However, there is no recorded case that
we are aware of that following voluntary Orthodox
Baptism and Chrismation of an adult, that person
spoke in tongues in the way people who have been
baptized in the Spirit do in the Assemblies of God
or any other Pentecostalist or charismatic church or
group. It just doesnt happen in the Orthodox
Church.

The Rationalist criticism of glossolalia is that it is

fundamentally a psychological phenomenon. Fr.
Seraphim Rose, a well-known Orthodox theologian,
used Rationalist criticism to explain modern
glossolalia in his bookCharismatic Revival As a
Sign of the Times:
Far from being given freely and spontaneously,
without mans interferenceas are the true gifts of
the Holy Spiritspeaking in tongues can be caused
to occur quite predictably by a regular technique of
concentrated group prayer accompanied by
psychologically suggestive Protestant hymns (He
comes! He comes!), culminating in a laying on of
hands, and sometimes involving such purely
physical efforts as repeating a given phrase over and
over again (Koch p. 24), or just making sounds with
the mouth. One person admits that, like many
others, after speaking in tongues, I often did
mouth nonsense syllables in an effort to start the
flow of prayer-in-tongues (Sherrill p. 127); and
such efforts, far from being discouraged, are
actually advocated by Pentecostals. Making sounds
with the mouth is not speaking-in-tongues, but it
may signify an honest act of faith, which the Holy
Spirit will honor by giving that person the power to
speak in another language (Harper p. 11) A Jesuit
theologian tells how he put such advice into
practice: After breakfast I felt almost physically
drawn to the chapel where I sat down to pray.
Following Jims description of his own reception of
the gift of tongues, I began to say quietly to myself
la, la, la, la. To my immense consternation there
ensued a rapid movement of tongue and lips
accompanied by a tremendous feeling of inner
devotion (Gelpi p. 1).
Can any sober Orthodox Christian possibly confuse
these dangerous psychic games with the gifts of the
Holy Spirit?! This is the realm, rather, of psychic

mechanisms which can be set in operation by

means of definite psychological or physical
techniquesit certainly bears no resemblance
whatever to the spiritual gift described in the New
Testament, and if anything is much closer to
shamanistic speaking in tongues as practiced in
primitive religions, where the shaman or witch
doctor has a regular technique for going into a
trance and then giving a message to or from a god
in a tongue he has not learned.
Fr. Seraphim denied that the New Testament gift of
tongues was basically an unusual self-induced
psychological phenomenon. However, Acts 2 notes
that bystanders who heard the Apostles at Pentecost
concluded that the Apostles were drunk, and Paul in
1 Corinthians warned that witnesses of the
Corinthians collective, simultaneous glossolalia
could think them mad. Therefore, it appears that
rationalists of that time might also have considered
the Christians speaking in tongues to be a mentally
confused practice. Further, if as Paul says no man
understandeth the unknown tongues of glossolalia,
then how could Pauls instruction for someone to
interpret it be reasonable?
The Orthodox response to this criticism can be that
the Pentecost event and the early Christians
speaking in tongues were not deliberate and
artificial. Rather, at the Pentecost, the Apostles
claimed to see flames and spoke comprehensible
languages, which do not correspond to deliberately
prompted garbling. Nor do we have a record of the
Corinthians using mental techniques to
intentionally prompt their glossolalia. As for the
unexpected ability to interpret incomprehensible
glossolalia, this too could be received as a spiritual
gift, as Paul wrote: Wherefore let him that
speaketh in an unknown tongue pray that he may
interpret (1 Co 14:13).

III. Inclusion of free or informal styles of

worship
In his first letter to the Corinthians, Paul suggested
that their gatherings included an unprogrammed
part for their members creativity, noting: How is it
then, brethren? when ye come together, every one
of you hath a psalm, hath a doctrine, hath a tongue,
hath a revelation, hath an interpretation. Let all
things be done unto edifying (1 Co 14:26). His own
instructions allowed them to speak in tongues and
give prophecies a few speakers at a time: If any
man speak in an unknown tongue, let it be by two,
or at the most by three, and that by course; and let
one interpret Let the prophets speak two or three,
and let the other judge (1 Co 14:26, 29). The
theologian Lopukhin commented: The apostle lists
further five kinds of inspired Christian art: a psalm
or song, which the Christian composed, under the
influence of special inspiration. This was an
improvisation, as the very expression (has a
Psalm) used by the Apostle here shows.11
Paul did demand that they give their individual
prophecies in an orderly way, remarking that the
spirits of the prophets are subject to the prophets.
For God is not the author of confusion, but of
peace (1 Co 14:32-33). He also demanded that
although they might give their own songs and
prophecies, they must be united in their faith and
avoid factionalism (1 Co 1:10-13).
The Anglican theologian John Drane reflects an
occasional Protestant perception that early
Christian worship was informal, claiming:
At the very beginning the Christians met together
every day, and their worship was spontaneous. This

seems to have been regarded as the ideal, for Paul

describes a Spirit-led participation in worship (1
Corinthians 14:26-33). No doubt this was the
natural way for things to happen at a time when the
church generally met in someones house.
Drane wrote that as the Church grew, its worship
developed a more structured form because:
At a time when there were significant debates about
the nature of Christian faith there was the constant
danger that those who were out of harmony with
the churchs accepted beliefs and outlook would use
this freedom to undermine the faith of the
community. Because of this it became necessary to
ensure that those who led the churchs worship
could be relied upon to be faithful to the gospel By
the end of the first century a fixed form of service
was in existence for the celebration of the Eucharist,
and other forms of Christian worship were also
becoming less open and spontaneous than they had
been. Not everyone welcomed this, and even the [1st
century] Didache (itself a handbook of church
order) asserts that the ministry of Spirit-inspired
speakers should not be curtailed in the interests of a
formal church order.12
Dranes claim that informal worship was initially
ideally open and unstructured is a doubtful
simplification. The Corinthians inclusion of
individuals improvisation in the gatherings does
not exclude that other parts of their worship was
structured. That the Didache, with its instructions
on worship structure, came from the late first
century does not exclude the possibility of previous
worship structures, detailed records of which have
not survived. Early worship certainly included basic
ritual elements like the Eucharist, scripture
readings, sermons, and Psalms.
In his essay From Evangelical to Orthodox, Fr.
Gregory Rogers related the experience of those like

himself who shifted from an Evangelical perception

of early Church worship to an Orthodox one:
I was partial to a loose, spontaneous, charismatic
kind of approach toward worship, and expected to
find that in the Scriptures and in history. To our
surprise, our spontaneity itself began to lead us to
order in worship, everything taking on a familiar
pattern. Our study of the writings of Justin Martyr
(about 150 A.D.) showed us that the Church has
always had some kind of liturgical form to its
worship. Even the New Testament showed
evidences of this in the use of hymns and in the
description of the meetings.13
Consequently, some Protestants like Charismatic
Anglican Rev. Charles Alexander claim that early
Christian worship included both set forms and
moments for spontaneous worship: Clearly, with
Jewish backgrounds, the Apostles were used to
some liturgical form of worship. Obviously, as we
see in the Gentile context of Corinth (and in
churches to middle of the second century), form
plus informality became the norm.14 So Alexander
proposed arranging services with worship singing
that may lead to singing in the spirit, and then
silence followed perhaps by words of revelation or
immediate ministry.15
Eventually though, the Church did arrange its
liturgies without space for individuals personal
prophecies or doctrines. For example the Council of
Laodicea in Phrygia (c. 365 AD) in its 59th canon
banned privately composed psalms from being read
in church. One of the Councils motivations was
likely to address the Phrygian-based Montanist
movement, mentioned in Canon 8, who based its
unorthodox teachings on private revelations. In
any case, while improvised spontaneous prayers
and prophesying were part of early Christian

worship, their exact nature and role in early

Christian gatherings is not clear.

IV. The belief that charismatic gifts are

widespread
A fourth major trait of the Charismatic movement is
its belief that gifts from the Holy Spirit like healing,
speaking in tongues, visions, and prophesying are
common, like they were in the Apostles time. At
Pentecost, Peter described the sudden ability of the
many Apostles gathered to speak in foreign tongues
as an outpouring of Gods Spirit widely across
genders, ages, and social castes (Acts 2:16-19):
[T]his is that which was spoken by the prophet Joel;
And it shall come to pass in the last days, saith
God, I will pour out of my Spirit upon all flesh: and
your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, and
your young men shall see visions, and your old men
shall dream dreams: And on my servants and on my
handmaidens I will pour out in those days of my
Spirit; and they shall prophesy.
Furthermore, Charismatics point to Pauls advice to
the Corinthians to desire these gifts: Pursue love,
and zealously16 desire spiritual gifts, but especially
that you may prophesy. I wish you all spoke with
tongues, but even more that you prophesied. (1 Co
14:1, 5) Jerry Munk, former editor of the Orthodox
newsletterTheosis and a rare Orthodox sympathizer
of the Charismatic movement, wrote that the gifts
spread beyond holy ascetics:
In the Old Testament we see many examples of the
Holy Spirit coming upon people with little evidence
of ascetic perfection: Samson, David, and Balaams
ass come to mind. In the New Testament, the
pattern continues: in Acts 11, the Spirit falls upon

un-baptized Gentiles, while the book of I

Corinthians is addressed to people who exercise the
gifts of the Holy Spirit apart from the fruit of that
same Spirit. After the New Testament period, we
read in the Didache instructions for dealing with
people exercising charismatic gifts while at the
same time indulging the flesh. In none of these
situations is it automatically assumed that the
spirit behind the gift is from the devil. Just as one
can receive Holy Communion unworthily, so one
who is unworthy can exercise the gifts of the Spirit
but there is danger in doing so.17

Icon of St. Irenaeus of Lyons

St. Irenaeus, a 2nd century bishop, wrote as if the

gifts were still frequent in his time:
In like manner do we also hear many brethren in
the church who possess prophetic gifts, and who
through the Spirit speak all kinds of languages, and
bring to light, for the general benefit, the hidden
things of men and declare the mysteries of God.18
He also wrote:
Those who are in truth His disciples, receiving
grace from Him, do in His name perform
[miracles], so as to promote the welfare of other
men, according to the gift which each one has

received from Him. For some do certainly and truly

drive out devils.19
A common view in Orthodox tradition about the
gifts is that they were frequent in the Apostles time,
but then became severely restricted. Commenting
on Pauls reference to the spiritual gifts (1 Co 12:12), the famous 5th century theologian St. John
Chrysostom noted their earlier frequency:
Well: what did happen then? Whoever was baptized
he straightway spake with tongues and not with
tongues only, but many also prophesied, and some
also performed many other wonderful works 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 [the Spirit] that it is the Spirit in
the very person speaking.20

St. John Chrysostom

St. John Chrysostom remarked here:

This whole [phenomenon of gifts] is very obscure:
but the obscurity is produced by our ignorance of
the facts referred to and by their cessation, being
such as then used to occur but now no longer take
place. 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?21
St. John Chrysostom answered this in his
commentary on 1 Corinthians 2:5 (That your faith
should not stand in the wisdom of men, but in the
power of God.). He explained that the Apostles
lacked a scholarly education and used wonders and
insight from God to evangelize, rather than using
human wisdom. Further, Christians of his time did
not invent teachings, but rather relied on what they
received from the Apostles, on the Divine
Scriptures, and on the Apostles miracles. Secondly,
the more evident and overpowering events had
ceased because the greater such events are, the
more they abridge the role of faith.22 If Jesus
simply returned as God with His angels, then the
event would drag its audiences mind along and not
be accounted for faith. Instead, Jesus told Thomas:
Blessed are they who have not seen, and yet have
believed (John 20:29). St. John Chrysostom also
cited Pauls words: For now we walk by faith, not
by sight (2 Co 5:7).
Thirdly, he answered that miracles are continuing,
but of a different kind, such as the conversion of
the world and the change from savage customs.
He asked rhetorically: How did the gates of hell
not prevail against the Church? Dost thou not
see the whole world coming in; error extinguished;
the austere wisdom of the old monks shining
brighter than the sun the piety among
Barbarians?23 Fourthly, St. John Chrysostom
commented that our upright living seems to be a
more trustworthy argument than obvious
miracles, because if the miracle-workers sins were
prevalent, nobody would admire them or their
miracles. However, a pure life will have abundant
power to stop the mouth of the devil himself.24

Augustine of Hippo

St. Augustine also proposed that miracles had

become far less frequent. In his Homily on John
6:10, he wrote:
In the earliest times the Holy Spirit fell upon them
that believed, and they spake with
tongues(paraphrasing Acts 2:4) which they had not
learned, as the Spirit gave them utterance. These
were signs adapted to the time. For it was fitting
that there be this sign of the Holy Spirit in all
tongues to show that the Gospel of God was to run
through all tongues over the whole earth. That was
done for a sign, and it passed away.25
While the Orthodox Church considers the gifts less
widespread, according to Bishop Ignatius, they exist
in Orthodox Christians who have attained
Christian perfection, purified and prepared
beforehand by repentance.26 They are given to
the Saints of God solely at Gods good will and
Gods action, and not by the will of men and not by
ones own power. They are given unexpectedly,
extremely rarely, in cases of extreme need, by Gods
wondrous providence, and not just at
random.27 Fr. Seraphim Rose included among the
great miracle workers in the Orthodox Church St.
Seraphim of Sarov in the 19th century, and St. John
Kronstadt, Elder Paisios, and Elder Porphyrios in

the 20th. He noted that before all these miracle

workers either received the charisms or publicly
exercised them they went through the preparation
of a long and arduous asceticism so that they might
be spiritually cleansed from their tendencies to sin.
Such Elders and Saints are characterized by their
rareness.28
Fr. Seraphim continued:
This is different from Pentecostalist circles where
the charisms are acquired quickly (sometimes it
seems that all it takes is to go to a revival). The
charisms are also quite common (how many
persons are claiming to be Apostles and Prophets
today?) These charisms are often exercised by
persons who might not only lack distinction for
their holiness but might even be involved in serious
sin. Theres nothing odder than a great miracle
worker who gets a divorce on account of his
adultery.29

Illegal power lines

If the gifts are no longer widespread, how does

Orthodoxy explain the miracles that modern
Charismatics claim to perform? Fr. Paisius of St.
Hermans Monastery in California considered the
possibility that some of them may be real
phenomena, but not necessarily done in the spirit
of our Meek and Lowly Lord Jesus Christ.30 As
such, they may cause harm by increasing the
miracle workers pride. He noted that in Matthew
7:22-23, Jesus considered some who claimed to

perform miracles in His name to be working

lawlessness. Fr. Paisius gave as an analogy the
practice of illegally using an electric cable to steal
power from a power line.

Another Orthodox explanation for some of the

Charismatics frequent miracles is that they could
be illusory. St. Seraphim of Sarov warned against a
sickness called prelest [in Russian], or spiritual
delusion, imagining oneself to be near to God and to
the realm of the divine and supernatural. Even
zealous ascetics in monasteries are sometimes
subject to this delusion, but of course, laymen who
are zealous in external struggles called podvigi [in
Russian], undergo it much more frequently.
Surpassing their acquaintances in struggles of
prayer and fasting, they imagine that they are seers
of divine visions, or at least of dreams inspired by
grace. In every event of their lives, they see special
intentional directions from God or their guardian
angel. And then they start imagining that they are
Gods elect, and often try to foretell the future. The
Holy Fathers armed themselves against nothing else
so fiercely as against this sickness prelest.31
The Rationalist response to the claims of
widespread gifts in the early Church would be that
such gifts were just as illusory as they are among
Charismatics today. From the Rationalist viewpoint,
with its skeptical view of miracles, such gifts would
not have been even initially widespread in reality;
thus they would not have undergone Cessation
either. Rather, those gifts would have been
delusions whose later appearances received less
attention as the Church became institutionalized,
and brought more educated people into its
leadership.

While Drane proposed that the Church began to

avoid spontaneous worship because dissidents
could use it to undermine its teachings,32 one
could also use Dranes practical explanation to
understand the Churchs reduced focus on
individuals ongoing visions and prophecies more
broadly. For example, in the late 2nd century the
Church disputed with the Montanists, a Christian
group that: gave special salaries to their own
preachers,33 forbade women from wearing
ornaments,34 claimed that their headquarters of
Phrygia was the New Jerusalem, and justified their
unorthodox claims by ecstatic states, visions, and
spontaneous utterances. The debate with the
Montanists was also one of the primary instances
when the Church began to oppose an emphasis on
ongoing independent prophecies for church
decisions.
A Rationalist would propose that if genuine
miraculous gifts after the first century became
rare and the alleged ones were usually illusions,
then this suggests that the same was true in the first
century as well. While St. John Chrysostom claimed
that Christianitys ongoing spread far around the
world was miraculous, a Rationalist could propose
that it spread naturally because its beliefs and
teachings were extremely appealing.
St. John Chrysostom responded to the claim that
miracles were absent even in the times of the
Apostles by noting the intense challenges the
evangelists overcame:
If signs were not done at that time, how did they,
chased, and persecuted, and trembling, and in
chains, and having become the common enemies of
the world, and exposed to all as a mark for ill usage,
and with nothing of their own to allure, neither
speech, nor show, nor wealth, nor city, nor nation,

nor family, nor pursuit, nor glory, nor any such like
thing; but with all things contrary, ignorance,
meanness, poverty, hatred, enmity, and setting
themselves against whole commonwealths, and
with such a message to declare; how, I say, did they
work conviction? For both the precepts brought
much labor, and the doctrines many dangers. And
they that heard and were to obey, had been brought
up in luxury and drunkenness, and in great
wickedness. Tell me then, how did they convince?
For If without signs they wrought conviction, far
greater does the wonder appear.35

V. Conclusion
In review, the 1st century Christians shared
common elements with modern Charismatics at
first glance, but there are important differences.
Many early Christians lived in expectation that
some of them would live to see Jesus Second
Coming and the worlds end. Their worship
included speaking in incomprehensible tongues and
moments for free, independent creative
prophesying. And they portrayed such gifts of the
Spirit as widespread and frequent in their church
gatherings.
Rationalists tend to see premature expectations of
the Second Coming as failures, and glossolalia as a
fundamentally psychological phenomenon.
Rationalism is irrelevant as to whether Christians
include time for individualistic creativity, like
spontaneous praises, in their services. However,
Rationalism would be skeptical of the early
Christians claims of widespread miracles, since it is
skeptical of miracles in general.
For its part, the Orthodox Church avoids
interpreting New Testament writings as

categorically predicting that the Second Coming

would occur in the 1st-2nd centuries. For example,
it interprets Pauls reference to we which are alive
and remain unto the Second Coming as conditional
or as reflecting Christian strong, healthy
preparedness for Jesus return. The Church often
agrees with the Rationalists that glossolalia and
other gifts are psychological when the claim is
made about the modern Charismatic movement.
Otherwise, the Church claims that Charismatics
experience are real phenomena, but that their gifts
are frequently flawed as not in accordance with
Gods preferences, like meekness, deep morality,
deep contemplation, etc. Orthodox Christians like
Fr. Seraphim Rose distinguish speaking in tongues
in the early Church from that of modern
Charismatics by portraying the former as either
intelligible foreign languages or a spontaneous gift,
while portraying the latter as spouting gibberish
intentionally learned through psychological
mechanisms. However, the degree of similarity
between the Corinthians and Charismatics
glossolalia remains an open question.
Orthodoxy does not deny that some early Christian
gatherings included special moments for
performing gifts like glossolalia. But while the exact
role of those moments in early Christian worship is
not clear, the Orthodox Church emphasizes that
early services involved the same basic ritual
elements as traditional Christian worship, like
prayers, psalms, songs, Scripture readings,
homilies, and the Eucharist.
Finally, the Church considers gifts like healings,
visions, and speaking in tongues to have been far
more common in the era of the Apostles. However,
Church Fathers like St. John Chrysostom attributed
their reduction or cessation to Christianitys
greater spiritual value placed on faith to generate

acceptance, rather than on overpowering evidence

to compel belief. Once Jesus and the Apostles
revealed and supported their teachings with
widespread, impressive miracles, then it became
less necessary to rely on further miracles to
motivate faith.

Hal Smith

About the author. Hal Smith converted to

Orthodoxy at age 17. He works as a RussianEnglish translator and attends an OCA parish in
Eastern Pennsylvania. He
administers Rakovskii a website about Old
Testament prophecies.

1 BBC Religions Atheism: Rationalism,

http://www.bbc.co.uk/religion/religions/atheism
/types/rationalism.shtml
2 Rationalism, Encyclopedia Britannica,
http://www.britannica.com/topic/rationalism
3 St. Theophan the Recluse, quoted in
Tolkovanie Svyatogo Pisaniya,
http://bible.optina.ru/new:1sol:04:15
4 Alexander P. Lopukin, Id.
5 Mark Jeffries, The Last Daze: The Truth
About End-Times Theology, Lulu.com, p. 4.
6 Orthodox Monk, The Gift of Tongues,
October 7, 2010,
http://orthodoxmonk.blogspot.com/2010_10_0
1_archive.html
7 Alexander Lopukhin, Interpretation Bible:

Interpretation of the first epistle of the apostle

Paul to the Corinthians,
http://azbyka.ru/otechnik/Lopuhin/tolkovaja_bi
blija_64/14
8 Commentaries on 1 Corinthians 14:1,
http://bible.optina.ru/new:1kor:14:01
9 Fr. George Nicozisin, Speaking in Tongues:
An Orthodox Perspective,
http://orkut.google.com/c111009td0acc91d040b3ec0.html
10 Corduroy, Did Eastern Fathers Pray in the
Spirit?, July 11, 2009,
http://mistercorduroy.blogspot.com/2009/07/di
d-eastern-fathers-prayer-in-spirit.html
11 Id.
12 Orthodox Monk, supra Note 6.
13 Alexander Lopukhin, Interpretation Bible:
Interpretation of the first epistle of the apostle
Paul to the Corinthians, Supra note 7.
14 John Drane, Introducing the New
Testament, Lion Books, 2010, pp. 431-432.
15 Fr. Gregory Rogers, From Evangelical to
Orthodox,
http://www.pravmir.com/article_400.html
16 Charles Alexander, The Church I Couldnt
Find, WestBow Press, 2013, p. 112.
17 Id. at 130.
18 The Greek word used here is ,
pronounced zlo.
19 Jerry Munk, Reply to Fr. Seraphim Roses
The Charismatic Revival, December 4, 1997,
http://www.workofchrist.com/Theosis/reply.ht
m
20 Irenaeus, Against Heresies, Book V, vi.
21 Id. at Book II, xxxii, section 4.
22 John Chrysostom Homily XXIX ,
http://www.piney.com/FathChrysHomXXIX.ht
ml
23 Id.
24 St. John Chrysostom Homily VI on 1st
Corinthians,
http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/220106.htm
25 Id.
26 Id.
27 St. Augustine, Homily on John 6:10,
quoted in: Hieromonk Seraphim Rose of
Platina, Charismatic Revival As a Sign of the
Times,
http://orthodoxinfo.com/inquirers/frseraphim_c
harismatics.aspx

28 Bishop Ignatius, quoted in Fr. Seraphim,

The New Outpouring of the Holy Spirit,
http://www.orthodoxphotos.com/readings/sign/
outpouring.shtml
29 St. Isaac the Syrian, quoted in Fr.
Seraphim, The New Outpouring of the Holy
Spirit, supra note 28.
30 Fr. Seraphim, The New Outpouring of the
Holy Spirit, supra note 28.
31 Id.
32 Correspondence with Fr. Paisius of St.
Hermans monastery, October-November
2015.
33 St. Seraphim of Sarov, Gleanings from
Orthodox Christian Authors and the Holy
Fathers,
http://www.orthodox.net/gleanings/prelest.html
34 Drane, Supra note 14.
35 Eusebius of Caesarea, Ecclesiastical
History, 5, 18
36 Montanism. Colliers New Encyclopedia.
1921.
37 St. John Chrysostom Homily VI on 1st
Corinthians, Supra note 24.