CYBERJOURNAL FOR PENTECOSTAL-CHARISMATIC RESEARCH #17

Orphans or Widows? Seeing Through A Glass Darkly

by Dr. Harold D. Hunter

Abstract

Scholars seeking to map the antecedents of Pentecostal distinctives in early Christendom turn to standard reference works expecting to find objective summaries of the writings of Church Fathers and Mothers. Apparently dismissing the diversity of the biblical canon itself, the writers of these reference works can be found manipulating patristic texts in ways which reinforce the notion that the Classical Pentecostal Movement is a historical aberration. This prejudice is evident in the selection of texts and how they are translated and indexed as well as the surgical removal of pertinent sections of the original texts. This problem can be set right only by extensive reading of the original sources in the original languages. The writings of Irenaeus shed considerable light on the place of Pentecostal thought for histories that seek to be international and ecumenical.

                                                       Introduction

I began advanced study of classical Pentecostal distinctives at Fuller Theological Seminary in the early 1970s.  Among those offering good advice was the then academic dean of Vanguard University in nearby Costa Mesa, California, Russell P. Spittler.  While working on a patristic project, Spittler emphasized the need for me to engage J. Quasten and like scholars.  More recently I utilized Quasten et al in dialogue with William Henn in a paper presented to the International Roman Catholic - Pentecostal Dialogue which convened July 23-29, 1999 in Venice, Italy.  What follows is the substance of the paper delivered at that meeting.[i]

The most influential editions of Church Fathers and Mothers available in the 20^th Century suffered from inadequate translation of key passages.  Further, the Ante-Nicene Fathers and Apostolic Fathers edited by J.B. Lightfoot in addition to the Loeb Classical series have inadequate indices.  More ominously, Henry Bettenson=s Early Christian Fathers and Later Christian Fathers along with Cyril Richardson=s Early Christian Fathers and the Library of Christian Classics uniformly remove many sections that have a direct bearing on Pentecostal distinctives.  Predictably, such subjects are simply ignored in Quasten=s Patrology, Henry Chadwick=s Early Church, G.B. Caird=s Apostolic Age and Leonhard Goppelt=s Apostolic and Post-Apostolic Times.

Influential professors at major universities in the West seemingly managed to miss or simply dismissed Emile Lombard, De Le Glossolalia et des Phenomoenees Similaires (Lausanne: George Bridel and Co., 1910), J.J. Gorres, Die christliche mystik (Regensburgz: Manz, 1836-42), and Eddison Mosiman, Das Zungenreden geschichtlich und psychologisch untersucht (Tübingen: Mohr, 1911).

A number of early Pentecostal periodicals quickly began a search for Pentecostalism=s lineage in church history: Apostolic Faith 1:1 (Sept 1906) 3; V.P. Simmons, "A History of Tongues," Bridegroom's Messenger 1:3 (Dec 1907) 2; "The Gifts of the Spirit in the Light of History," The Apostolic Evangel 1:1 (Feb 15, 1909) 7; Upper Room (1909).  Simmons= workBmotivated by exposure to those who spoke in tongues 40 years before the Azusa St.  RevivalBwas extensive.  In an article entitled "Historians Dodging Tongues," Bridegroom's Messenger 3:7 (June 1, 1909), Simmons praised Schaff and Bushnell as exceptions and drew from the familiar text of Irenaeus, "Contrary to Heresies" 2:73-75.[ii]  Although these articles evidence a desire to connect to historic Christianity and some leaders benefitted from university training, too many early Pentecostals were largely ineffective because their publications were often filled with inaccuracies driven by their theological convictions.

Although Classical Pentecostals cannot see their likeness in influential yet prejudiced histories, in fact they are neither orphans nor widows.  A thoughtful analysis has to reckon with a number of groups throughout church history that looked back to the Montanists, often with some appreciation of their positive contributions.  The first relevant scheme relevant brought to my attention was that developed by the eminent historian Reinhold Seeberg.  The single most important advance in this for me was the exhausting yet magnificent Enthusiasm by R.A. Knox.  Knox's collection of pertinent dataBif not always his interpretationsBis second to none known in English.  Clarke Garrett speaks for many when he commends the book for today's audience, but judges it to be Awrongheaded.@  Garrett describes Knox's "insistence that religious enthusiasm represents a persistent irrational deviation from the path of orthodoxy@ as Anot very useful for a historical understanding of religious developments."[iii]  Yves Congar can describe Knox's treatment of the Quakers as "mainly anecdotes" which stress "eccentricities."[iv]  Meanwhile, Lovelace quotes J.S. Whale's snappy anecdote that "the inner light is often the shortest pathway to the outer darkness.@[v]  Garrett casts groups of this nature as "the religious 'underside' of the sacred theater of trance and possession."[vi]

Perhaps encouraged by Hans von Campenhausen=s Kirchliches Amt und geistliche Vollmacht (1953),[vii] it cannot be accidental that the findings on Montanism by Pentecostal scholars trained since 1970 often parallel the work of the 19^th Century Cambridge scholar John DeSoyres.  Here is a sampling.  Classical Pentecostals: George H. Williams and Edith Waldvogel [Blumhofer], "A History of Speaking in Tongues and Related Gifts," The Charismatic Movement, ed. by Michael H. Hamilton[viii] (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1975); Harold D. Hunter, "Tongues-Speech: A Patristic Analysis," Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society 23:2 (June, 1980), 125-137, which was originally read to the Society for Pentecostal Studies in 1975; Ronald A.N. Kydd, Charismatic Gifts in the Early Church (Peabody: Hendrickson, 1984), a Ph.D. dissertation; Stanley Burgess, The Spirit and the Church (Peabody: Hendrickson, 1984, 1989) 2 volumes; Cecil M. Robeck, Jr., Prophetic Gifts at Carthage (Pilgrim Press, 1992), a 1985 Ph.D. dissertation.  Protestant Charismatics: Arthur Adams Lovekin, AGlossolalia: A Critical Study of Alleged Origins, the New Testament and the Early Church,@ unpublished master=s thesis, Graduate School of Theology, University of the South, Sewanee, Tennessee, 1962; Morton Kelsey, Tongue Speaking (New York: Doubleday, 1968); Theodore Jungkuntz, Confirmation and the Charismata (Lanham: University Press of America, 1983).  Roman Catholic Charismatics: Yves Congar, I Believe in the Holy Spirit (New York: Seabury Press, 1983) 3 volumes; Kilian McDonnell and George T. Montague, Christian Initiation and Baptism in the Holy Spirit (Collegeville: Liturgical Press, 1991).  Related Contributions: Warren Lewis, Witnesses to the Holy Spirit: An Anthology (Valley Forge: Judson Press, 1978); J. Patout Burns and Gerald M. Fagin, Message of the Fathers of the Church: The Holy Spirit (Wilmington: Michael Glazier, 1984); F.X. Durrwell, Holy Spirit of God (London: Geoffrey Chapman, 1986); Ronald E. Heine, The Montanist Oracles and Testimonia, Patristic Monograph Series #14 (Macon: Mercer University Press, 1989); David Rankin, Tertullian and the Church (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995); Christine Trevett, Montanism: Gender, Authority and the New Prophecy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996).

On the other hand, Thomas Edgar's treatment of the Montanists represents a view still found among some Evangelicals.  Reminiscent of Dale Bruner=s doubts about Classical Pentecostals, Edgar denies Christian status to the Montanists.[ix]  In making this judgment, Edgar did not engage any contemporary Pentecostal scholarship.  He provides ample proof of his theological conviction that contemporary manifestations of tongues‑speech are not Christian phenomena.  Still others incline to the view expressed by J.S. Whale.  Whale reduces Montanism to a troubled sect destined to reappear throughout church history.  Speaking in Tongues (Adventist Theological Society, 1991) by Gerhard F. Hasel jumped over B.B. Warfield's cessationism and snapped quotations from my own patristic study[x] to dismiss Irenaeus and other early Church Fathers and Mothers when they seemed too friendly to Pentecostal distinctives.

Having taught and published internationally and ecumenically in the area of theology, I have long suggested that theological concepts revolve around three concentric circles.  The inner circle contains those things which are essential to Christian identity.  The second circle contains vital doctrines, but for which there are no universal agreements among Christians world-wide.  Finally, circle three encompasses those things that play out differently in various cultures.  Of profound relevance is the theological diversity contained in the biblical canonical record itself.  Ernst Käsemann brought to the 1963 Montreal conference on Faith and Order his widely publicized view that the New Testament canon does not dismiss but in fact contains "... the basis for the multiplicity of the confessions."[xi]  Coping with the additional realities of diverse cultural and social contexts strengthens the argument of Jürgen Moltmann that the church should not be seeking uniformity but should be working through the ecumenical movement to expand its range of unlikeness.  The reality of trying to be ecumenical and international in scope has meant that few things have been placed in my inner circle.  Henn=s emphasis on the Anoetic dimension@ of faith is in tension with not only Tertullian=s version of Montanism,[xii] but at least Holiness Classical Pentecostalism as well.  This can be illustrated by saying that Henn shows how Tertullian moves from viewing the church according to the first category in my chart below to the third category.

                                         Enthusiastic Pneumatomania

The designation by Bishop Lesslie Newbegin (1954) and Henry P. Van Dusen of Classical Pentecostalism being the Third Force in 20^th Century Christianity reflects Newbegin's paradigm[xiii] of order (Roman Catholic), faith (Protestant), and experience (Pentecostal).  Is this scheme in any way relevant to ecclesiastical history prior to the 20^th Century?  The following European-American-Pentecostal paradigm answers this question in the affirmative.

                                                                   APOSTOLIC

Succession                  Teaching                                Restoration[xiv]

Catholic                       Magisterial Reformation         Enthusiastic Pneumatomania[xv]

Orthodox                    Lutheran                                  Believer's Churches[xvi]

Anglican                      Presbyterian                                        Baptists

   Landmark, Missionary

American Baptists                               Wesleyanism[xvii]

Several eminent historians have acknowledged that not all groupings of Christians could be considered part of the Anglo-Catholic-Orthodox or Magisterial Protestantism streams. One group in particular has often drawn the label AEnthusiasts.@  It is true that most of the major groups dealt with in the classic by R.A. Knox are in view here.  Ultimately, it seems, there are significant points of divergences which warrant this particular appellation.  Some of this would be evident by comparing Knox to the material that follows.

Magisterial historians are most often inclined to use labels like heretics, sects, mystics, and revivalists to describe the groups treated here.  This reflects, first of all, the fact that Enthusiastic Pneumatomania are rarely identified with the mainstream of Christendom.  Not surprisingly, then, mainstream historians find it easy to blur the line between sects and cults. The groups classed here as Enthusiastic Pneumatomania can often be rightly labeled sects, but no cult is knowingly included.

Classical Pentecostalism in North America has rightly been described as an expression of popular religiosity.  A social history of Church of God (Cleveland, Tennessee) by Mickey Crews casts the populist shadow over the early years.  Specializing in various facets of turn of the century indigenous Appalachian religiosity, Deborah McCauley enumerates the particulars of oral religious tradition as worshipBpreaching, singing, and prayer, along with conversion narratives--testimonies, visions, dreams, and trances.

Spirit Possession and Popular Religion by Clarke Garrett shows the prevailing mass appeal of the Great Awakening.  Paul Gritz from Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary outlines an overlap of Baptist and Pentecostal traditions which surfaces the popular religious perspective.  It is no small wonder that the World Council of Churches (WCC) would publish Juan Sepulveda's treatment of Pentecostalism as popular religion inasmuch as non-credalism has remained a constant agitation in putting together the Baptism, Eucharist, and  Ministry (BEM) document and the reinterpretation of the Nicene-Constantinopolitan Creed (e.g. Confessing The One Faith).[xviii]  The same dynamics are in play when Pentecostals enter bilateral and multilateral talks because the magisterial traditions cling to their theological tomes while Pentecostal scholars try to be faithful to their living, faith communities.

Enthusiastic Pneumatomania produce groups most likely to earn the title, "Sacred theater of the spirit possessed."[xix]  Further, 21^st century restorationists include Oneness Pentecostals who have a particular twist on the subject that requires a reshaping of most proposals put forward.[xx]   Enthusiastic Pneumatomania do not manifest the same kind of continuity known to the two principal traditions, and it is intrinsic to their nature that very little is known about any one of them.  Each new manifestation struggles to identify a heritage[xxi] and established historians usually are not willing to acknowledge any legitimate pedigree thus treating each new manifestation as a novelty if not a complete aberration.

It should not be surprising that from the Azusa St. Revival onwards, modern day Enthusiastic Pneumatomania have published lists of persons and groups considered predecessors, and the groups named most frequently do not belong to Magisterial Protestantism or the Anglo-Catholic-Orthodox stream.  When early North American Classical Pentecostals described their origins as "Suddenly From Heaven," they did not mean they were a historical novelty, but that no one individual masterminded the agenda.  This is not to suggest that some early Pentecostal historians did not think in a similar way.  More than one Pentecostal writer suggested that a founder was absent.  This was thought to give added credence to the claim that the movement was uniquely born of God and especially attached to the early church.  This theory was kept alive for some time, in part,  because Charles Parham and W.J. Seymour quickly lost their place of prominence.[xxii]

This point is not negated by the fact that many Pentecostal pioneers were drawn to a truncated version of church history.  Some light is shed on this subject by looking at the writings of A.J. Tomlinson, first general overseer of the Church of God (Cleveland, Tennessee).  A.J. Tomlinson demonstrated a thoroughgoing commitment to restorationism in many of his writings.[xxiii]  Yet he was among the first to publish a history of North American Pentecostalism.  Influenced by the canonical Acts of the Apostles and a Quaker orientation, he recorded then published the minutes of the January 26-27, 1906 meeting at Camp Creek, North Carolina that is reckoned to be the first General Assembly of the Church of God (Cleveland, Tennessee).  By this time, he redesigned his journals with a view to being used for a published history.  His own search in church history shows up in his published sermons and annual addresses delivered at general assemblies.

By 1913, Tomlinson published the Last Great Conflict which includes two chapters on Pentecostal history.  Although limited in scope, this anticipates, somewhat, B.F. Lawrence's 1916 The Apostolic Faith Restored.[xxiv]  Next an unsigned history of the Pentecostal Movement is published in The Faithful Standard (1922).  A.J. Tomlinson is listed as the editor of this periodical while much of the work was actually done by Homer Tomlinson.  Although various writers were used throughout the short life of the magazine, cumulative evidence suggests that A.J. Tomlinson had an editorial hand in the history.  In any event, his publication of this six part series in 1922 illustrates well the juxtaposition of restorationism and search for historical roots and parallels that was widespread in the movement.[xxv]

Tomlinson kept alive the restorationist impulse and a commitment to history throughout his life.  This shows that early Pentecostal restorationism was not ahistorical in the sense that history was not read, recorded and considered.  However, it would be true in the case of Tomlinson and many restorationists, that theological judgments were most influenced by their understanding of how to restore "the early church."  Tomlinson=s intimate reading of church history led him to conclude that Christendom lost its way after the Council of Nicea in 325 AD and started to find the right path with Luther, Wesley and Seymour.  Many Christian traditions  exhibit tendencies not unlike this.[xxvi]  Yet, it would obviously be more typical of restorationists to operate in a fashion that traditional church history meant little of substance to them.  When, however, one considers the indifference of Orthodox history displayed by several Protestant scholars in the West, the situation may be viewed somewhat differently.

It seems imperative, not only in light of the historical reality but also in view of the growing influence of current Enthusiastic Pneumatomania, for some histories to be rewritten.[xxvii]  A few historians have drawn considerable attention to this stream.  The most detailed account is that given in the classic work by a Roman Catholic prelate, R.A. Knox, titled simply Enthusiasm.  Knox connects the following groups: Montanists, Circumcellions, Waldensians, Catharists, Fraticelli, Beguins, Apostolics, Brotherhood of the Free Spirit, Anabaptists, Quakers, Jansenism, Quietism, Prophets of the Cevennes, Convulsionaries, Moravians, Cathari, Shakers.  Another classic, authored by a 19^th Century Cambridge professor, focused on the very first Enthusiastic Pneumatomania.  John DeSoyres' Montanism connected the following groups: Novatians, Donatists, Cathari, Waldenses, Fraticelli, Brothers of the Free Spirit, Flagellants, Joan of Arc, Savonarola, Anabaptists, Boehue, Petersen, Quakers, Labadie, Quietism, Quirinus Kuhlmann, Zinzendorf, E. Von Butler, Swedenborg, Schonherr, Mormonism, Irving, Simmons.  The esteemed historian Philip Schaff observed first hand Enthusiastic Pneumatomania of the 19^th Century.  His list of like groups included: Novatians, Donatism, Franciscans, Anabaptists, Camisards, Puritanism, Quakerism, Quietism, Pietism, Second Adventism, Irvingism, etc.[xxviii]

When looking at the records of related activity prior to the 20^th Century, it is evident that this was widespread in many Christian communities into the Fourth Century and especially crystallized in the Montanists.  In sketching the subsequent centuries, the following persons and groups would come under the category of Catholic Enthusiastic Pneumatomania: St. Hildegard; Elizabeth of Schonau; St. Dominic; Franciscans; Richard Rolle; St. Vincent Ferrer; Spiritual Franciscans; Beguines; Francis Xavier; St. Louis Betrand; Jansenists.  In the lineage of what is today referred to as Protestant with one or more Orthodox groups would be the following: Cathari/Albigenses; Waldensians; Apostolic Brethren; Brethren of the Free Spirit; some Anabaptists; Camisards; Kylysty; Ranters; Convulsionaries; Shakers; Catholic Apostolic church; the Readers; Russian and Armenian Molokans; Gift People.  More persons and groups could be noted and additional categories utilized.

The records pertaining to these things call upon the master skills of any researcher in deciphering the unwieldy, complex data available, while trying to reckon with materials no longer extant.  Yet it must be said that pertinent sources are no less useful than most those utilized in traditional church histories. This does not, however, suggest that everything that is reported actually happened as recorded.  The eccentric stories that abound in this lineage are more intelligible when studied in their historical contexts.  This includes socioeconomic, ethnic, national, etc., elements that make up the multiplex reality of life.  It is hardly accidental that church historians of various periods have treated these groups as though they were meaningless, when in fact they were then most visible.  These groups have also illustrated that some scholars of all generations are given to propaganda.  If these scholars would apply the same kind of historiography to their own tradition, they would be less inclined to publish their findings and less likely to secure influential publishing venues.

When judging the quality and contents of the sources related to Enthusiastic Pneumatomania, it is helpful to remember that the participating historians did not establish a continuous lineage.  The numerous gaps raises several questions.  A primary problem is determining the accuracy of the assorted claims.  For now, we often have to be content with the fact that something reported to have happened must be processed even if the story is fictional.  Those inclined to unilaterally condemn these exaggerations might do well to remember that such is not absent from an ecclesiastical lineage including those called 'the mainstream.'

There is a certain irony in the scholarly disdain heaped on the myths that are part of the fabric of Enthusiastic Pneumatomania.  Many of these same scholars esteem highly sections of biblical canonical materials they judge to be mythical.  The inconsistency of valuing one set of myths while unilaterally condemning all such things when associated with Enthusiastic Pneumatomania may at times reflect a socioeconomic bias.  Further, it may demonstrate a highly ethnocentric view of reality.  The scholarly study of popular religion is gaining ground in some academic circles.  However, the analysis of the belief systems of ordinary people has often been held in disrepute by intellectuals and always provided an easy target for ridicule.  On the other hand, a remaining peril of the affirmation of the extraordinary by Roman Catholicism and Enthusiastic Pneumatomania is being riddled with unbelievable stories.[xxix]

The label Enthusiastic Pneumatomania is not intended to be value laden.  That is, this does not assume that all persons placed in this grouping were Christians much less "orthodox" Christians. If tongues‑speech was the only criterion the lineage would be quite crooked.[xxx]  This point has been pressed by Richard Lovelace, among others.  Lovelace advances the view that the truest ancestral line for contemporary Pentecostals and Charismatics is found in those who acknowledge "the manifest presence of the Holy Spirit in renewing power ..."[xxxi]  In his view, the lineage that best fits this criterion is the Evangelical awakenings.

The convergences and divergences of Enthusiastic Pneumatomania and Renewal Movements can be noted by comparing my list which follows shortly with the marks of Renewal Movements as embodied in Pietism, Moravanism, Brethren and early Methodism.  According to Howard A. Snyder: a dynamic of the Christian faith is rediscovered; an ecclesiola is formed; small-group structures are utilized; a structural link exists with the institutional church; the renewal structure is committed to the unity, vitality, and wholeness of the larger church; mission orientation; distinct, covenant-based community emerge; new forms of ministry and leadership are formed and exercised; close daily contact is maintained with society; emphasis is placed on the Spirit and Word as the basis of authority.

The priority of oral tradition and focus on praxis in the Classical Pentecostal Movement illustrates well the problem any manifestation of Enthusiastic Pneumatomania encounters in defining their own identity.  Most of the scholarly work published in the first half of the 20^th  Century relative to Pentecostalism was generated by those who did not participate in such things.  This becomes increasingly problematic because from at least the time of G.B. Cutten, the treatments are almost uniformly negative and semi-informed at best.[xxxii]

This sort of thing is not difficult to document.  It takes little more than quick scans of commentaries and church histories produced in the 19^th Century to realize the great divide from later commentators and historians relative to Pentecostal distinctives.  Consider first the Gospel of Luke as dealt with in the following series: International Critical Commentary (1896), New International Commentary on the New Testament (1951), and the Word Biblical Commentary (1989).  Problems with various commentaries were evident to emerging Pentecostal scholars in the 1970s who looked for help in dealing with the Lucan preoccupation of their communities.  In Spirit Baptism: A Pentecostal Alternative (Lanham, MD: University Press of America, 1983), I argued that the Pentecostal emphasis on Lucan literature was attributable, in part, to their missionary/evangelistic orientation.[xxxiii]  This parallels Emil Brunner's insight[xxxiv] that the phrase "repent and believe" is the missionary order while the reverse is of a theological nature.  Brunner notes that both approaches are utilized in the Romans epistle.

                                                    The Vanishing Ink of Irenaeus

Early Methodists, especially in North England, were so closely identified with elements of enthusiasm that critics found it quite easy to dismiss them.  These Anoisy and emotionally charged sacred theaters@[xxxv] had John Wesley's public approval.  The Moravians had convinced Wesley that conversion came instantaneously infused by the power of the Holy Spirit.  Although these elements were less likely to be found in Wesley's meetings after twenty years, his published journals and Arminian Magazine did not lack references to related phenomena.  A telling exchange is the response of Wesley to Dr. Conyers Middleton.  Middleton attempted to discredit miracle claims of his day and extended his argument to say that the charism of tongues-speech had not been known since apostolic times.  Middleton's A Free Inquiry Into The Miraculous (London: Manby & Cox, 1749) was primarily directed against various Roman Catholics.  Whenever Middleton ran into a charisma reference in patristic literature, he offered some kind of  rational explanation.  Wesley's response[xxxvi] included citing the occurrence of tongues-speech among the Camisards.  The French Prophets in England, however, were never accepted by Wesley or his societies.  Their behavior was condemned as inappropriate enthusiasm, while emotional outbreaks in his own meetings were judged to be the result of divine inspiration.  A story frequently circulated to illustrate the posturing of John and Charles Wesley centers around Charles spending the night with a French Prophet who reportedly spoke in tongues.  Charles described Isaac Hollis as having "gobbled like a turkey‑cock," and "began excorsising him with 'Thou deaf and dumb devil!'"  Charles rested poorly that nightBor as he put it, "nor did I sleep very sound with Satan so near me."[xxxvii]  John Wesley called Montanists "real, scriptural Christians,"[xxxviii] but he once explained that God had not deemed it best to bestow tongues-speech on John Wesley.

In responding to Middleton, Wesley used the first 300 years of church history to show that various giftsBincluding tonguesBsurvived the apostles.  He said one reason these gifts did not extend as normal past the first 300 years was because of "general corruption of faith and morals" among Christians.  The faith of many grew cold as dry, formal people took over and belittled the gifts.[xxxix]

Wesley is quick to point out these were not "fools or scoundrels" who were involved with the gifts.  He is especially sensitive to the fact that tongues are often discredited.  Notice what he says about the significant charge that no early church father directly claimed to speak in tongues:

Perhaps this is true of those whose writings are in existence . . .  But what are these in

comparison to those which are lost?  And how many saints of the first 300 years of the

church left no written account at all?[xl]

Wesley had already quoted Irenaeus showing that such things did continue.  Noted also is what Tertullian and the Apostle Paul said, so he was convinced that the gift was there.  There is a well known account of tongues‑speech among one of Wesley's preachers of repute.  This record is from the diary (8 March 1750) of Thomas Walsh who says, "This morning, the Lord gave me a language that I knew not of, raising my soul to him in a wonderful manner."[xli]  While there is reason to believe that this is not the only such case, it is not likely that such was widespread or that it lasted for any significant length of time.

A book entitled Spiritual Gifts and Graces by W.B. Godbey was published by God's Revivalist Office in 1895.  This office was the Mount of Blessings in Cincinnati that housed also the periodical God's Revivalist and Bible Advocate and the emerging campus for God's Bible.   Seth Rees, once a neighbor of A.J. Tomlinson in Westfield, Indiana, helped launch God=s Bible School.  It is known that A.J. Tomlinson spent time at this location and read this periodical.  Attention is drawn to Godbey's prediction that the gift of tongues was "destined to play a conspicuous part in the evangelization of the heathen world ..."[xlii]  Methodist Bishop Taylor reported missionaries in Africa with xenolalia.  Although Godbey later repudiated the Pentecostal movement, his opinion about xenolalia was initially shared by various leaders including A.B. Simpson.[xliii]

The Rev. Dr. W. H. Lewis, rector of the Church of the Holy Trinity, Brooklyn, judged that permanent xenolalia was known in the day of apostles.  Without specifying the group(s) in view, he published the following comments in 1871:

We cannot but remark how different was this gift of tongues [permanent xenolalia]

from all modern pretenses to the like miracles.  Some over‑heated enthusiast professes

to be able to speak in divers languages, enabled so to do by the power of God, but

when scholars versed in all the tongues of a polyglot are summoned, they can make

nothing of the jargon.  Or, again, in the midst of the solemnities of public worship

some individual, after great heaving and agitation of frame, pours forth in one wild,

unearthly screams, never to be forgotten by those who hear it, a few rapid sentences,

and then sinks down in a state of utter exhaustion, from which it is a long time ere he

can be roused.  And this is called the gift of tongues, like that which the disciples

received on the day of Pentecost![xliv]

In his 1868 commentary on the Acts of the Apostles, Isaac M.  Wise repudiated much that Luke recorded, but made this note in passing:

This mode of expression was called afterwards "glossology," and was practiced in the

church down to the third century.  It is practiced also by many mystics even in our days.[xlv]

Philip Schaff said the Irvingites made a distinction between xenolalia of Pentecost and glossolalia at Corinth with the latter common among them.  In referring to perhaps the 1870s he writes:

Several years ago I witnessed this phenomenon in an Irvingite congregation in New

York; the words were broken, ejaculatory and unintelligible, but uttered in abnormal,

startling, impressive sounds, in a state of apparent unconsciousness and rapture, and

without any control over the tongue, which was seized as it were by a foreign power. 

A friend and colleague ‑‑ Dr. Briggs ‑‑ who witnessed it in 1879 in the principal

Irvingite church at London, received the same impression."[xlvi]

Modern mainstream historians have been shown in error when extracting two well known passages from Irenaeus as condemning Montanism.  In an 1985 article entitled "Irenaeus and 'Prophetic Gifts,'" Cecil M. Robeck, Jr. exposed this misapplication of sources when scholars advance the view that the false prophet in Irenaeus' Ad Her 1:13:3 and 3:11:9 are the Montanists.  In actuality, these references are to Marcus then Alogi.[xlvii]  On the other hand, Latourette and Schaff are among those who assume that the Montanists spoke in tongues.[xlviii]  In reality, however, there is no explicit indication in the extant sources that Montanus and/or his immediate followers spoke in tonguesBglossolalic or xenolalic.  Passio Felicitatis et Perpetuae, may have been edited by a Montanist, perhaps even by Tertullian himself.[xlix] The work speaks of visions and unusual courage while noting that Perpetua (Passio 2:3) gave utterance to a name unknown to her while she was under the influence of the Spirit.  It should also be noted that no record exists which names any early church Father or MotherBincluding those who wrote about the contemporary practice of speaking in tonguesBas having personally spoken in tongues.[l]

                                                                   Three Cycles?

No Enthusiastic Pneumatomania prior to this century has survived in anything but distant echoes of the original sound.  Current groups like the Waldensians, Molokans, and Irvingites may trace their ancestry to their respective founders, but they are theologically distant heirs at best.[li]  No one formula encapsulates adequately this reality but among the pertinent attempts are the following schemes:  pilgrims, settlers, landed aristocracy; man, men, movement, machine, monument; born, complex issues, hated sect, toleration to acceptance, popularity, increasing centralization, institutionalization.[lii]  These are helpful, but perhaps the most useful categories may be the following:  experience, reflection, integration.[liii]

There may be some difference relative to whether a given movement is in the Apostolic Succession tradition and/or whether it is centered in a church environment like that currently found in Europe as opposed to North America.  Although not limited to Roman Catholics, it is possible that Catholic oriented Enthusiastic Pneumatomania may have had fewer groups which have broken away completely.  On the other hand, it seems that environments similar to the church fragmentation which characterizes the United States of America is most conducive to eventual schism.  However, even if a particular manifestation of Enthusiastic Pneumatomania does not break fellowship with its tradition, none to my knowledge have outlasted a third phase.

Among the factors which could account for an unexpected longevity of the Classical Pentecostal Movement in the USA are the following.  First, the Pentecostal message is going through an early stage in many countries around the world and combined with global miniaturization, this strengthens and sometimes renews the movement in North America.  Second, the Charismatic movement in the Protestant tradition and Roman Catholic Church serves as a revitalizing influence on Classical Pentecostalism.

Those who deny a further eruption repeat the folly of Hegel, the philosopher who thought his was the greatest synthesis at all.  He did not foresee his cycleBthesis, antithesis, synthesisBgoing past him, but it did.  Classical Pentecostals have not been able to embrace all Charismatics and Charismatics will not be able to endorse many like groups who will follow them.