STUDY NOTES ON GIFTS OF THE SPIRIT

1Co 12:1 Now¹¹⁶¹ concerning⁴⁰¹² spiritual⁴¹⁵² gifts, brethren,⁸⁰ I would²³⁰⁹ not³⁷⁵⁶ have you⁵²⁰⁹ ignorant.⁵⁰

1Co 12:2 Ye know¹⁴⁹² that³⁷⁵⁴ ye were²²⁵⁸ Gentiles,¹⁴⁸⁴ carried away⁵²⁰ unto⁴³¹⁴ these dumb⁸⁸⁰ idols,¹⁴⁹⁷ even as⁵⁶¹³ ye were led.^{71,
302}

1Co 12:3 Wherefore¹³⁵² I give you to understand,^{1107, 5213} that³⁷⁵⁴ no man³⁷⁶² speaking²⁹⁸⁰ by¹⁷²² the Spirit⁴¹⁵¹ of God²³¹⁶ calleth³⁰⁰⁴ Jesus²⁴²⁴ accursed:³³¹ and²⁵³² that no man³⁷⁶² can¹⁴¹⁰ say²⁰³⁶ that Jesus²⁴²⁴ is the Lord,²⁹⁶² but¹⁵⁰⁸ by¹⁷²² the Holy⁴⁰ Ghost.⁴¹⁵¹

1Co 12:4 Now¹¹⁶¹ there are¹⁵²⁶ diversities¹²⁴³ of gifts,⁵⁴⁸⁶ but¹¹⁶¹ the³⁵⁸⁸ same⁸⁴⁶ Spirit.⁴¹⁵¹

1Co 12:5 And²⁵³² there are¹⁵²⁶ differences¹²⁴³ of administrations,¹²⁴⁸ but²⁵³² the³⁵⁸⁸ same⁸⁴⁶ Lord.²⁹⁶²

1Co 12:6 And²⁵³² there are¹⁵²⁶ diversities¹²⁴³ of operations,¹⁷⁵⁵ but¹¹⁶¹ it is²⁰⁷⁶ the³⁵⁸⁸ same⁸⁴⁶ God²³¹⁶ which worketh¹⁷⁵⁴ all³⁹⁵⁶ in¹⁷²² all.³⁹⁵⁶

1Co 12:7 But¹¹⁶¹ the³⁵⁸⁸ manifestation⁵³²¹ of the³⁵⁸⁸ Spirit⁴¹⁵¹ is given¹³²⁵ to every man¹⁵³⁸ to⁴³¹⁴ profit⁴⁸⁵¹ withal.

1Co 12:8 For¹⁰⁶³ to one^{3739,
3303} is given¹³²⁵ by¹²²³ the³⁵⁸⁸ Spirit⁴¹⁵¹ the word³⁰⁵⁶ of wisdom;⁴⁶⁷⁸ to⁽¹¹⁶¹⁾ another²⁴³ the word³⁰⁵⁶ of knowledge¹¹⁰⁸ by²⁵⁹⁶ the³⁵⁸⁸ same⁸⁴⁶ Spirit;⁴¹⁵¹

1Co 12:9 To⁽¹¹⁶¹⁾ another²⁰⁸⁷ faith⁴¹⁰² by¹⁷²² the³⁵⁸⁸ same⁸⁴⁶ Spirit;⁴¹⁵¹ to⁽¹¹⁶¹⁾ another²⁴³ the gifts⁵⁴⁸⁶ of healing²³⁸⁶ by¹⁷²² the³⁵⁸⁸ same⁸⁴⁶ Spirit;⁴¹⁵¹

1Co 12:10 To⁽¹¹⁶¹⁾ another²⁴³ the working¹⁷⁵⁵ of miracles;¹⁴¹¹ to⁽¹¹⁶¹⁾ another²⁴³ prophecy;⁴³⁹⁴ to⁽¹¹⁶¹⁾ another²⁴³ discerning¹²⁵³ of spirits;⁴¹⁵¹ to⁽¹¹⁶¹⁾ another²⁰⁸⁷ divers kinds¹⁰⁸⁵ of tongues;¹¹⁰⁰ to⁽¹¹⁶¹⁾ another²⁴³ the interpretation²⁰⁵⁸ of tongues:¹¹⁰⁰

1Co 12:11 But¹¹⁶¹ all³⁹⁵⁶ these⁵⁰²³ worketh¹⁷⁵⁴ that one¹⁵²⁰ and²⁵³² the³⁵⁸⁸ selfsame⁸⁴⁶ Spirit,⁴¹⁵¹ dividing¹²⁴⁴ to every man¹⁵³⁸ severally²³⁹⁸ as²⁵³¹ he will.¹⁰¹⁴

1Co 12:12 For¹⁰⁶³ as²⁵⁰⁹ the³⁵⁸⁸ body⁴⁹⁸³ is²⁰⁷⁶ one,¹⁵²⁰ and²⁵³² hath²¹⁹² many⁴¹⁸³ members,³¹⁹⁶ and¹¹⁶¹ all³⁹⁵⁶ the³⁵⁸⁸ members³¹⁹⁶ of that one¹⁵²⁰ body,⁴⁹⁸³ being⁵⁶⁰⁷ many,⁴¹⁸³ are²⁰⁷⁶ one¹⁵²⁰ body:⁴⁹⁸³ so³⁷⁷⁹ also²⁵³² is Christ.⁵⁵⁴⁷

1Co 12:13 For¹⁰⁶³ by¹⁷²² one¹⁵²⁰ Spirit⁴¹⁵¹ are we²²⁴⁹ all³⁹⁵⁶ baptized⁹⁰⁷ into¹⁵¹⁹ one¹⁵²⁰ body,⁴⁹⁸³ whether¹⁵³⁵ we be Jews²⁴⁵³ or¹⁵³⁵ Gentiles,¹⁶⁷² whether¹⁵³⁵ we be bond¹⁴⁰¹ or¹⁵³⁵ free;¹⁶⁵⁸ and²⁵³² have been all³⁹⁵⁶ made to drink⁴²²² into¹⁵¹⁹ one¹⁵²⁰ Spirit.⁴¹⁵¹

DEFINITIONS OF THE WORD "GIFTS" AND ATTENDANT INFORMATION ON THE HOLY SPIRIT:

From G5463; graciousness (as gratifying), of manner or act (abstract or concrete; literal, figurative or spiritual; especially the divine influence upon the heart, and its reflection in the life; including gratitude): - acceptable, benefit, favour, gift, grace (-ious), joy liberality, pleasure, thank (-s, -worthy).

From G5483; a (divine) gratuity, that is, deliverance (from danger or passion); (specifically) a (spiritual) endowment, that is, (subjectively) religious qualification, or (objectively) miraculous faculty: - (free) gift.

1d1) as gift, preserved by God, God’s spirit, departing at death, disembodied being

1g) Spirit of God, the third person of the triune God, the Holy Spirit, coequal, coeternal with the Father and the Son

A person sent by another; a messenger; envoy. This word is once used as a descriptive designation of Jesus Christ, the Sent of the Father (Heb_3:1; Joh_20:21). It is, however, generally used as designating the body of disciples to whom he entrusted the organization of his church and the dissemination of his gospel, “the twelve,” as they are called (Mat_10:1-5; Mar_3:14; Mar_6:7; Luk_6:13; Luk_9:1). We have four lists of the apostles, one by each of the synoptic evangelists (Mat_10:2-4; Mar_3:16; Luk_6:14), and one in the Acts (Act_1:13). No two of these lists, however, perfectly coincide.

Our Lord gave them the “keys of the kingdom,” and by the gift of his Spirit fitted them to be the founders and governors of his church (Joh_14:16, Joh_14:17, Joh_14:26; Joh_15:26, Joh_15:27; Joh_16:7-15). To them, as representing his church, he gave the commission to “preach the gospel to every creature” (Mat_28:18-20). After his ascension he communicated to them, according to his promise, supernatural gifts to qualify them for the discharge of their duties (Act_2:4; 1Co_2:16; 1Co_2:7, 1Co_2:10, 1Co_2:13; 2Co_5:20; 1Co_11:2). Judas Iscariot, one of “the twelve,” fell by transgression, and Matthias was substituted in his place (Act_1:21). Saul of Tarsus was afterwards added to their number (Acts 9:3-20; Act_20:4; Act_26:15-18; 1Ti_1:12; 1Ti_2:7; 2Ti_1:11).

Luke has given some account of Peter, John, and the two Jameses (Act_12:2, Act_12:17; Act_15:13; Act_21:18), but beyond this we know nothing from authentic history of the rest of the original twelve. After the martyrdom of James the Greater (Act_12:2), James the Less usually resided at Jerusalem, while Paul, “the apostle of the uncircumcision,” usually traveled as a missionary among the Gentiles (Gal_2:8). It was characteristic of the apostles and necessary

(1.) that they should have seen the Lord, and been able to testify of him and of his resurrection from personal knowledge (Joh_15:27; Act_1:21, Act_1:22; 1Co_9:1; Act_22:14, Act_22:15).

(2.) They must have been immediately called to that office by Christ (Luk_6:13; Gal_1:1).

(3.) It was essential that they should be infallibly inspired, and thus secured against all error and mistake in their public teaching, whether by word or by writing (Joh_14:26; Joh_16:13; 1Th_2:13). (4.) Another qualification was the power of working miracles (Mar_16:20; Act_2:43; 1Co_12:8-11).

The apostles therefore could have had no successors. They are the only authoritative teachers of the Christian doctrines. The office of an apostle ceased with its first holders.

In 2Co_8:23 and Phi_2:25 the word “messenger” is the rendering of the same Greek word, elsewhere rendered “apostle.”

(Gr. charismata), gifts supernaturally bestowed on the early Christians, each having his own proper gift or gifts for the edification of the body of Christ. These were the result of the extraordinary operation of the Spirit, as on the day of Pentecost. They were the gifts of speaking with tongues, casting out devils, healing, etc. (Mar_16:17, Mar_16:18), usually communicated by the medium of the laying on of the hands of the apostles (Act_8:17; Act_19:6; 1Ti_4:14). These charismata were enjoyed only for a time. They could not continue always in the Church. They were suited to its infancy and to the necessities of those times.

Granted on the day of Pentecost (Act_2:4), in fulfillment of a promise Christ had made to his disciples (Mar_16:17). What this gift actually was has been a subject of much discussion. Some have argued that it was merely an outward sign of the presence of the Holy Spirit among the disciples, typifying his manifold gifts, and showing that salvation was to be extended to all nations. But the words of Luke (Act_2:9) clearly show that the various peoples in Jerusalem at the time of Pentecost did really hear themselves addressed in their own special language with which they were naturally acquainted (compare Joe_2:28, Joe_2:29).

Among the gifts of the Spirit the apostle enumerates in 1 Cor. 12:10 - 14:30, “divers kinds of tongues” and the “interpretation of tongues.” This “gift” was a different manifestation of the Spirit from that on Pentecost, although it resembled it in many particulars. Tongues were to be “a sign to them that believe not.”

A spiritual gift mentioned in Act_10:44-46; Act_11:15; Act_19:6; Mar_16:17, and described in Act_2:1-13 and at length in 1 Cor 12 through 14, especially chapter 14. In fact, 1 Cor 14 contains such a full and clear account that this passage is basic. The speaker in a tongue addressed God (1Co_14:2, 1Co_14:28) in prayer (1Co_14:14), principally in the prayer of thanksgiving (1Co_14:15-17). The words so uttered were incomprehensible to the congregation (1Co_14:2, 1Co_14:5, 1Co_14:9, etc.), and even to the speaker himself (1Co_14:14). Edification, indeed, was gained by the speaker (1Co_14:4), but this was the edification of emotional experience only (1Co_14:14). The words were spoken “in the spirit” (1Co_14:2); i.e. the ordinary faculties were suspended and the divine, specifically Christian, element in the man took control, so that a condition of ecstasy was produced. This immediate (mystical) contact with the divine enabled the utterance of “mysteries” (1Co_14:2) - things hidden from the ordinary human understanding (see MYSTERY). In order to make the utterances comprehensible to the congregation, the services of an “interpreter” were needed. Such a man was one who had received from God a special gift as extraordinary as the gifts of miracles, healings, or the tongues themselves (1Co_12:10, 1Co_12:30); i.e. the ability to interpret did not rest at all on natural knowledge, and acquisition of it might be given in answer to prayer (1Co_14:13). Those who had this gift were known, and Paul allowed the public exercise of “tongues” only when one of the interpreters was present (1Co_14:28). As the presence of an interpreter was determined before anyone spoke, and as there was to be only one interpreter for the “two or three” speakers (1Co_14:28), any interpreter must have been competent to explain any tongue. But different interpreters did not always agree (1Co_14:26), whence the limitation to one.

These characteristics of an interpreter make it clear that “speaking in a tongue” at Corinth was not normally felt to be speaking in a foreign language. In 1Co_14:10 English Versions of the Bible are misleading with “there are, it may be, so many kinds of voices in the world,” which suggests that Paul is referring directly to the tongues. But tosaúta there should be rendered “very many,” “ever so many,” and the verse is as purely illustrative as is 1Co_14:7. Hence, foreign languages are to be barred out. (Still, this need not mean that foreign phrases may not occasionally have been employed by the speakers, or that at times individuals may not have made elaborate use of foreign languages. But such cases were not normative at Corinth.) Consequently, if “tongues” means “languages,” entirely new languages must be thought of. Such might have been of many kinds (1Co_12:28), have been regarded as a fit creation for the conveyance of new truths, and may even at times have been thought to be celestial languages - the “tongues of angels” (1Co_13:1). On the other hand, the word for “tongue” (glṓssa) is of fairly common use in Greek to designate obsolete or incomprehensible words, and, specifically, for the obscure phrases uttered by an oracle. This use is closely parallel to the use in Corinth and may be its source, although then it would be more natural if the “ten thousand words in a tongue” of 1Co_14:19 had read “ten thousand glōssai.” In no case, however, can “tongue” mean simply the physical organ, for 1Co_14:18, 1Co_14:19 speaks of articulated words and uses the plural “tongues” for a single speaker (compare 1Co_14:5, 1Co_14:6).

A complete explanation of the tongues is given by the phenomena of ecstatic utterances, especially when taken in connection with the history of New Testament times. In ecstasy the soul feels itself so suffused with the divine that the man is drawn above all natural modes of perception (the understanding becomes “unfruitful”), and the religious nature alone is felt to be active. Utterances at such times naturally become altogether abnormal. If the words remain coherent, the speaker may profess to be uttering revelations, or to be the mere organ of the divine voice. Very frequently, however, what is said is quite incomprehensible, although the speaker seems to be endeavoring to convey something. In a still more extreme case the voice will be inarticulate, uttering only groans or outcries. At the termination of the experience the subject is generally unconscious of all that has transpired.

For the state, compare Philo, Quis rerum. divin., li-liii. 249-66: “The best (ecstasy) of all is a divinely-infused rapture and 'mania,' to which the race of the prophets is subject.... The wise man is a sounding instrument of God's voice, being struck and played upon invisibly by Him.... As long as our mind still shines (is active)...we are not possessed (by God)...but ... when the divine light shines, the human light sets.... The prophet ... is passive, and another (God) makes use of his vocal organs.” Compare, further, the descriptions of Celsus (Origen, Contra Celsus, vii. 9), who describes the Christian “prophets” of his day as preaching as if God or Christ were speaking through them, closing their words with “strange, fanatical, and quite unintelligible words of which no rational person can find the meaning.” The Greek papyri furnish us with an abundance of magical formulas couched in unintelligible terms (e.g. Pap. Lond., 121, “Iao, eloai, marmarachada, menepho, mermai, ieor, aeio, erephie, pherephio,” etc.), which are not infrequently connected with an ecstatic state (e.g. Reitzenstein, Poimandres, 53-58).

Interpretation of the utterances in such a state would always be difficult and diversities of interpretation would be unavoidable. Still, with a fixed content, such as the Christian religion gave, and with the aid of gestures, etc., men who felt that they had an understanding of such conditions could undertake to explain them to the congregation. It is to be noted, however, that Paul apparently does not feel that the gift of interpretation is much to be relied on, for otherwise he would have appraised the utility of tongues more highly than he does. But the popularity of tongues in Corinth is easily understood. The speaker was felt to be taken into the closest of unions with God and hence, to be an especial object of God's favor. Indeed, the occurrence of the phenomenon in a neo-convert was irrefragable proof that the conversion was approved by God (Act_10:44-48; Act_11:15; Act_19:6). So in Mar_16:17 the gift is treated as an exceptional and miraculous divine blessing (in this verse “new” is textually uncertain, and the meaning of the word, if read, is uncertain also). Moreover, for the more selfish, the gift was very showy (1Co_13:1 suggests that it was vociferous), and its possession gratified any desire for personal prominence.

The account in Acts 2 differs from that of 1 Cor 14 in making the tongues foreign languages, although the ability to use such languages is not said to have become a permanent apostolic endowment. (Nor is it said that the speech of Acts 2:14-36 was delivered in more than one language.) When the descent of the Spirit occurred, those who were assembled together were seized with ecstasy and uttered praises to God. A crowd gathered and various persons recognized words and phrases in their own tongues; nothing more than this is said. That the occasion was one where a miracle would have had unusual evidential value is evident, and those who see a pure miracle in the account have ample justification for their position. But no more than a providential control of natural forces need be postulated, for similar phenomena are abundantly evidenced in the history of religious experience. At times of intense emotional stress the memory acquires abnormal power, and persons may repeat words and even long passages in a foreign language, although they may have heard them only once. Now the situation at Jerusalem at the time of the Feast gave exactly the conditions needed, for then there were gathered pilgrims from all countries, who recited in public liturgical passages (especially the Sh^emōneh ‛Esreh) in their own languages. These, in part, the apostles and the “brethren” simply reproduced. Incomprehensible words and phrases may well have been included also (Act_2:13), but for the dignity of the apostles and for the importance of Pentecost Luke naturally cared to emphasize only the more unusual side and that with the greatest evidential value. It is urged, to be sure, that this interpretation contradicts the account in 1 Cor 14. But it does so only on the assumption that the tongues were always uniform in their manifestation and appraisement everywhere - and the statement of this assumption is its own refutation. If the modern history of ecstatic utterances has any bearing on the Apostolic age, the speaking in foreign languages could not have been limited only to Pentecost. (That, however, it was as common as the speaking in new “languages” would be altogether unlikely.) But both varieties Luke may well have known in his own experience.

Paul's treatment of the tongues in 1 Cor 12 through 14 is a classical passage for the evaluation of religious emotionalism. Tongues are a divine gift, the exercise is not to be forbidden (1Co_14:39), and Paul himself is grateful that he has the gift in an uncommon degree (1Co_14:18). Indeed, to those who treat them simply with scorn they become a “sign” that hardening is taking place (1Co_14:21-23). Yet a love of them because they are showy is simply childish (1Co_14:20; 1Co_13:11), and the possessor of the gift is not to think that he has the only thing worth obtaining (1 Cor 12). The only gift that is utterly indispensable is love (1Co_13:1-13), and without it tongues are mere noise (1Co_13:1). The public evidential value of tongues, on which perhaps the Corinthians were inclined to lay stress, Paul rates very low (1Co_14:21-23). Indeed, when exercised in public they tend to promote only the self-glorification of the speaker (1Co_14:4), and so are forbidden when there is not an interpreter, and they are limited for public use at all times (1Co_14:27, 1Co_14:28). But the ideal place for their exercise is in private: “Let him speak to himself, and to God” (1Co_14:28). The applicability of all this to modern conditions needs no commentary. Ultra-emotionalistic outbreaks still cause the formation of eccentric sects among us, and every evangelist knows well-meaning but slightly weak individuals who make themselves a nuisance. On the other hand, a purely intellectual and ethical religion is rather a dreary thing. A man who has never allowed his religious emotions to carry him away may well be in a high state of grace - but he has missed something, and something of very great value. See also SPIRITUAL GIFTS; TONGUES OF FIRE.

Plumptre in DB is still useful. Wright, Some New Testament Problems (1898), and Walker, The Gift of Tongues and Other Essays (1906), have collections of material. Of the commentaries on 1 Corinthians those of Heinrici (latest edition, 1896), Lietzmann (1907) and J. Weiss (1910) are much the best, far surpassing Robertson and Plummer in ICC (1911). For the Greek material, see ἔκστασις, in the index of Rhode's Psyche. Gunkel, Die Wirkungen des heiligen Geistes (1888, 2nd reprint in 1909), was epoch-making. For the later period, see Weinel, Die Wirkungen des Gelstes und der Geister (1899); Lake, The Earlier Epistles of Paul (London, 1911); and see Inge in The Quarterly Review (London, 1914).

(γλῶσσαι ὡσεὶ πυρός, glṓssai hōsei purós): The reference in this topic is to the marvelous gift of the Holy Spirit on the Day of Pentecost (Act_2:1-13). After His resurrection the Lord bade His disciples to tarry in Jerusalem until He should fulfill to them the promise of the Father, and until they should be clothed with power from on high (Luk_24:49). Act_1:8 repeats the same gracious promise with additional particulars: “But ye shall receive power, when the Holy Spirit is come upon you: and ye shall be my witnesses both in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and unto the uttermost part of the earth.” These were probably the last words our Lord spoke on earth before He ascended to the right hand of God.

When the Day of Pentecost was fully come and the disciples, no doubt by previous arrangement and with one accord, were gathered together in one place, the promise was gloriously fulfilled. On that day, the 50th after the Passover, and so the first day of the week, the Lord's day, the Spirit of God descended upon them in marvelous copiousness and power. The gift of the Spirit was accompanied by extraordinary manifestations or phenomena. These were three and were supernatural. His coming first appealed to the ear. The disciples heard a “sound from heaven,” which rushed with mighty force into the house and filled it even as the storm rushes, but there was no wind. It was the sound that filled the house, not a wind. It was an invisible cause producing audible effects. Next, the eye was arrested by the appearance of tongues of fire which rested on each of the gathered company. Our the King James Version “cloven tongues” is somewhat misleading, for it is likely to suggest that each fire-like tongue was cloven or forked, as one sometimes sees in the pictures representing the scene. But this is not at all the meaning of Luke's expression; rather, tongues parting asunder, tongues distributed among them, each disciple sharing in the gift equally with the others. “Like as of fire,” or, more exactly, “as if of fire,” indicates the appearance of the tongues, not that they were actually aflame, but that they prefigured the marvelous gift with which the disciples were now endowed.

Finally, there was the impartation to them of a new strange power to speak in languages they had never learned. It was because they were filled with the Holy Spirit that this extraordinary gift was exhibited by them. Not only did the Spirit enable them thus to speak, but even the utterance of words depended on His divine influence - they spake “as the Spirit gave them utterance.”

Many attempts have been made by writers on the Acts to explain the phenomenon of Pentecost so as to exclude in whole or in part the supernatural element which Luke unquestionably recognizes. Some try to account for the gift of tongues by saying that it was a new style of speaking, or new forms of expression, or new and elevated thoughts, but this is both unnatural and wholly inconsistent with the narrative where a real difference of language is implied. Others imagine that the miracle was wrought upon the ears of the hearers, each of whom supposed what he heard to be uttered in his mother-tongue. But this view contradicts the distinct statement in Act_2:4 : they “began to speak with other tongues,” i.e. the disciples did. It contradicts what the multitude affirmed, namely, “How hear we, every man in our own language, wherein we were born?” (Act_2:8). Furthermore, the view contains an element of falsehood, for in this case the miracle was wrought to make men believe what was not actually the fact. The only reasonable explanation of the phenomena is that which the record bears on its face, and which Luke obviously meant his readers to believe, namely, that the Holy Spirit enabled the disciples to speak in the various languages represented by the multitude gathered together at the time.

The scenes witnessed at Pentecost were somewhat analogous to the events which occurred at the giving of the Law at Sinai, but the contrast between them is much more pronounced. We are told in Heb_12:18, Heb_12:19 that “tempest,” “fire,” and “the voice of words” attended the inauguration of the Mosaic dispensation. Something similar was witnessed at Pentecost. But the differences between the two are very marked. At Sinai there were also the blackness and darkness, the quaking earth, the thunderings and lightnings, the voice of the trumpet exceeding loud, the terror of the people, and the fear of Moses (Exo_19:16-18; Heb_12:18, Heb_12:19). Nothing of this was seen at Pentecost.

The phenomena characterize the two dispensations. That of Sinai was legal. Its substance was: Do and live; disobey and die. Law knows no mercy, extends no grace. Exact justice is its rule, perfect righteousness its requirement, and death its penalty. No wonder terrible things accompanied its proclamation, and Moses trembled with fear. No wonder it was called “a fiery law” (Deu_33:2).

With the advent of the Spirit came perfect grace, divine power and complete pardon for the worst of men. At Sinai God spoke in one language. At Pentecost the Spirit through the disciples spoke in many tongues (15 in all are mentioned in Acts 2). The Law was for one people alone; the gospel is for the whole race. The sound that accompanied the outpouring of the Spirit filled all the house and all the disciples likewise - token and pledge of the copiousness, the fullness of the gift. The tongues of flame signified the power of speech, boldness of utterance, and persuasiveness which from henceforth were to mark the testimony of the disciples.

The marvelous capabilities which the witnesses display after Pentecost are most noteworthy. It is common to admire their courage and zeal, to contrast their fearlessness in the presence of enemies and danger with their former timidity and cowardice. It is perhaps not so common to recognize in them the qualities that lie at the foundation of all effective work, that which gives to witness-bearing for Christ its real energy and potency. These qualities are such as: knowledge and wisdom, zeal and prudence, confidence and devotion, boldness and love. skill and tact. These and the like gifts appear in their discourses, in their behavior when difficulties arise and dangers impend, and in their conduct before the angry rulers. It is altogether remarkable with what skill and tact they defend themselves before the Sanhedrin, and with what effectiveness they preach the gospel of the grace of God to the multitude, often a scoffing and hostile multitude. In Peter's address on the Day of Pentecost there are the marks of the highest art, the most skillful logic, and the most, persuasive argument. Professor Stifler well says of it: “It is without a peer among the products of uninspired men. And yet it is the work of a Galilean fisherman, without culture or training, and his maiden effort.” The like distinguished traits are found in Peter's address recorded in Acts 3, in that to Cornelius and his friends, and in his defense when arraigned by the strict believers at Jerusalem for having gone into the company of men uncircumcised and having eaten with them. No less must be said of the equally wonderful reply of Stephen to the charge brought against him as recorded in Acts 7. It is quite true that Stephen did not share in the effusion of the Spirit on the Day of Pentecost, so far as we know, but he did share in the gift and power of the Spirit soon after, for we are told that he was full of faith and of the Holy Spirit, that he was also full of grace and power. Accordingly, it should be no surprise to read, as the effect of his discourse, that the high priest and all the rest who heard him “were cut to the heart, and they gnashed on him with their teeth” (Act_7:54). Stephen spoke with a tongue of fire.

In the management of the serious complaint made by the Grecian Jews against the Hebrews as to the neglect of their widows in the daily ministration (Act_6:1), and in their conduct and defense when brought before the council, as they were once and again (Acts 4; 5; 12), they exhibited a wisdom and prudence far enough removed from shrewdness and cunning. The qualities they possessed and displayed are uncommon, are more than human, they are the gift of the Holy Spirit with whom they were baptized on Pentecost. So the Lord Jesus had promised (Mar_13:11; Joh_16:13; Act_1:8).

The tongues of fire which we have been considering appear to have differed in one important aspect from the like gift bestowed on the Corinthians (1 Cor 12; 14). At Pentecost the disciples spoke in the languages of the various persons who heard them; there needed to be no interpreter, as was provided for at Corinth. Paul distinctly orders that if there be no one to explain or interpret the ecstatic utterance of a speaker, he shall keep silent (1Co_14:28). At Pentecost many spoke at the same time, for the Spirit had perfect control of the entire company and used each as it pleased Him. At Corinth Paul directed that not more than two or at most three should speak in a tongue, and that by course (one at a time). At Pentecost each one of the 15 nationalities there represented by the crowd heard in his own tongue wherein he was born the wonderful works of God. At Corinth no one understood the tongue, not even the speaker himself, for it seems to have been a rhapsody, an uncontrolled ecstatic outburst, and in case there was no one to interpret or explain it, the speaker was to hold his peace and speak to himself and to God, i.e. he must not disturb the worship by giving voice to his ecstasy unless the whole assembly should be edified thereby. Paul sets prophecy, or preaching the word of God, far above this gift of tongues.

It may not be out of place here to say that the so-called “gift of tongues,” so loudly proclaimed by certain excitable persons in our day, has nothing in common with the mighty action of the Spirit of God on the day of Pentecost, and hardly anything with that which the Corinthian Christians enjoyed, and which Paul regulated with a master-hand. See TONGUES, GIFT OF.

The word chárisma, with a single exception (1Pe_4:10), occurs in the New Testament only in the Pauline Epistles, and in the plural form is employed in a technical sense to denote extraordinary gifts of the Spirit bestowed upon Christians to equip them for the service of the church. Various lists of the charismata are given (Rom_12:6-8; 1Co_12:4-11, 1Co_12:28-30; compare Eph_4:7-12), none of which, it is evident, are exhaustive. Some of the gifts enumerated cannot be said to belong in any peculiar sense to the distinctive category. “Faith” (1Co_12:9), for example, is the essential condition of all Christian life; though there were, no doubt, those who were endowed with faith beyond their fellows. “Giving” and “mercy” (Rom_12:8) are among the ordinary graces of the Christian character; though some would possess them more than others. “Ministry” (Rom_12:7), again, i.e. service, was the function to which every Christian was called and the purpose to which every one of the special gifts was to be devoted (Eph_4:12). The term is applied to any spiritual benefit, as the confirmation of Christians in the faith by Paul (Rom_1:11). And as the general function of ministry appears from the first in two great forms as a ministry of word and deed (Act_6:1-4; 1Co_1:17), so the peculiar charismatic gifts which Paul mentions fall into two great classes - those which qualify their possessors for a ministry of the word, and those which prepare them to render services of a practical nature.

(1Co_12:28 f; compare Eph_4:11) The name “apostle” is used in the New Testament in a narrower and a wider sense. It was the peculiar title and privilege of the Twelve (Mat_10:2; Luk_6:13; Act_1:25 f), but was claimed by Paul on special grounds (Rom_1:1; 1Co_9:1, etc.); it was probably conceded to James the Lord's brother (1Co_15:7; Gal_1:19), and in a freer use of the term is applied to Barnabas (Act_14:4, Act_14:14; compare 1Co_9:5, 1Co_9:6), Andronicus and Junias (Rom_16:7). From the Didache (xi. 4 ff) we learn that the ministry of apostles was continued in the church into the sub-apostolic age (see LITERATURE, SUB-APOSTOLIC). The special gift and function of apostleship, taken in the widest sense, was to proclaim the word of the gospel (Act_6:2; 1Co_1:17, etc.), and in particular to proclaim it to the world outside of the church, whether Jewish or Gentile (Gal_2:7, Gal_2:8). See APOSTLE.

Prophecy (Rom_12:6; 1Co_12:10, 1Co_12:28, 1Co_12:29), under which may be included exhortation (Rom_12:8; compare 1Co_14:3). The gift of prophecy was bestowed at Pentecost upon the church as a whole (Act_2:16 ff), but in particular measure upon certain individuals who were distinctively known as prophets. Only a few of the Christian prophets are directly referred to - Judas and Silas (Act_15:32), the prophets at Antioch (Act_13:1), Agabus and the prophets from Jerusalem (Act_11:27 f), the four daughters of Philip the evangelist (Act_11:9). But 1 Corinthians shows that there were several of them in the Corinthian church; and probably they were to be found in every Christian community. Some of them moved about from church to church (Act_11:27 f; Act_21:10); and in the Didache we find that even at the celebration of the Eucharist the itinerant prophet still takes precedence of the local ministry of bishops and deacons (Didache x.7).

It is evident that the functions of the prophet must sometimes have crossed those of the apostle, and so we find Paul himself described as a prophet long after he had been called to the apostleship (Act_13:1). And yet there was a fundamental distinction. While the apostle, as we have seen, was one “sent forth” to the unbelieving world, the prophet was a minister to the believing church (1Co_14:4, 1Co_14:22). Ordinarily his message was one of “edification, and exhortation, and consolation” (1Co_14:3). Occasionally he was empowered to make an authoritative announcement of the divine will in a particular case (Act_13:1 ff). In rare instances we find him uttering a prediction of a future event (Act_11:28; Act_21:10 f).

With prophecy must be associated the discernings of spirits (1Co_12:10; 1Co_14:29; 1Th_5:20 f; compare 1Jo_4:1). The one was a gift for the speaker, the other for those who listened to his words. The prophet claimed to be the medium of divine revelations (1Co_14:30); and by the spiritual discernment of his hearers the truth of his claim was to be judged (1Co_14:29). There were false prophets as well as genuine prophets, spirits of error as well as spirits of truth (1Jo_4:1-6; compare 2Th_2:2; Didache xi). And while prophesyings were never to be despised, the utterances of the prophets were to be “proved” (1Th_5:20 f), and that in them which came from the Spirit of God spiritually judged (1Co_2:14), and so discriminated from anything that might be inspired by evil spirits. See DISCERNINGS OF SPIRITS.

(Rom_12:7; 1Co_12:28 f) As distinguished from the prophet, who had the gift of uttering fresh truths that came to him by way of vision and revelation, the teacher was one who explained and applied established Christian doctrine - the rudiments and first principles of the oracles of God (Heb_5:12).

Possibly the word of knowledge (gnṓsis) and the word of wisdom (sophı́a) (1Co_12:8) are to be distinguished, the first as the utterance of a prophetic and ecstatic intuition, the second as the product of study and reflective thought; and so are to be related respectively to the functions of the prophet and the teacher. See TEACHER, TEACHING.

(1Co_12:10, 1Co_12:28, 1Co_12:30) What Paul means by this he explains fully in 1 Corinthians 14. The gift was not a faculty of speaking in unknown foreign languages, for the tongues (glṓssai) are differentiated from the “voices” or languages (phōnaı́) by which men of one nation are distinguished from those of another (1Co_14:10, 1Co_14:11). And when the apostle says that the speaker in an unknown tongue addressed himself to God and not to men (1Co_14:2, 1Co_14:14) and was not understood by those who heard him (1Co_14:2), that he edified himself (1Co_14:4) and yet lost the power of conscious thought while praying with the spirit (1Co_14:14 f), it would appear that the “tongues” must have been of the nature of devout ejaculations and broken and disjointed words, uttered almost unconsciously under the stress of high ecstatic feeling.

Parallel to this gift was that of the interpretation of tongues (1Co_12:10, 1Co_12:30). If the gift of tongues had been a power of speaking unknown foreign languages, the interpretation of tongues would necessarily have meant the faculty of interpreting a language unknown to the interpreter; for translation from a familiar language could hardly be described as a charisma. But the principle of economy makes it improbable that the edification of the church was accomplished in this round-about way by means of a double miracle - a miracle of foreign speech followed by a miracle of interpretation. If, on the other hand, the gift of tongues was such as has been described, the gift of interpretation would consist in turning what seemed a meaningless utterance into words easy to be understood (1Co_12:9). The interpretation might be given by the speaker in tongues himself (1Co_12:5, 1Co_12:13) after his mood of ecstasy was over, as he translated his exalted experiences and broken cries into plain intelligible language. Or, if he lacked the power of self-interpretation, the task might be undertaken by another possessed of this special gift (1Co_12:27, 1Co_12:28). The ability of a critic gifted with sympathy and insight to interpret the meaning of a picture or a piece of music, as the genius who produced it might be quite unable to do (e.g. Ruskin and Turner), will help us to understand how the ecstatic half-conscious utterances of one who had the gift of tongues might be put into clear and edifying form by another who had the gift of interpretation. See TONGUES, GIFT OF.

(1Co_12:10, 1Co_12:28, 1Co_12:29) The word used for miracles in this chapter (dúnameis, literally, “powers”) is employed in Acts (Act_8:7, Act_8:13; Act_19:11, Act_19:12) so as to cover those cases of exorcism and the cure of disease which in Paul's list are placed under the separate category of “gifts of healing.” As distinguished from the ordinary healing gift, which might be possessed by persons not otherwise remarkable, the “powers” point to a higher faculty more properly to be described as miraculous, and bestowed only upon certain leading men in the church. In 2Co_12:12 Paul speaks of the “powers” he wrought in Corinth as among “the signs of an apostle.” In Heb_2:4 the writer mentions the “manifold powers” of the apostolic circle as part of the divine confirmation of their testimony. In Rom_15:18 ff Paul refers to his miraculous gifts as an instrument which Christ used for the furtherance of the gospel and the bringing of the Gentiles to obedience. The working of “powers,” accordingly, was a gift which linked itself to the ministry of the word in respect of its bearing upon the truth of the gospel and the mission of the apostle to declare it. And yet, like the wider and lower gift of healing, it must be regarded primarily as a gift of practical beneficence, and only secondarily as a means of confirming the truth and authenticating its messenger by way of a sign. The Book of Acts gives several examples of “powers” that are different from ordinary healings. The raising of Dorcas (Act_9:36 ff) and of Eutychus (Act_20:9 ff) clearly belong to this higher class, and also, perhaps, such remarkable cures as those of the life-long cripple at the Temple gate (Act_3:1 ff) and Aeneas of Lydda (Act_9:32 ff).

(Rom_12:8, 1Co_12:28) These were gifts of wise counsel and direction in the practical affairs of the church, such as by and by came to be formally entrusted to presbyters or bishops. When Paul wrote to the Corinthians, the ministry of office had not yet supplanted the ministry of inspiration, and Christian communities were guided and governed by those of their members whose wisdom in counsel proved that God through His Spirit had bestowed upon them the gift of ruling.

(1Co_12:28) This has sometimes been understood to denote the lowliest Christian function of all in Paul's list, the function of those who have no pronounced gifts of their own and can only employ themselves in services of a subordinate kind. But the usage of the Greek word (antı́lēmpsis) in the papyri as well as the Septuagint points to succor rendered to the weak by the strong; and this is confirmed for the New Testament when the same Greek word in its verbal form (antilambánō) is used in Act_20:35, when Paul exhorts the elders of the Ephesian church to follow his example in helping the weak. Thus, as the gift of government foreshadowed the official powers of the presbyter or bishop, the gift of helps appears to furnish the germ of the gracious office of the deacon - the “minister” par excellence, as the name diákonos denotes - which we find in existence at a later date in Philippi and Ephesus (Phi_1:1; 1Ti_3:1-13), and which was probably created, on the analogy of the diakonı́a of the Seven in Jerusalem (Act_6:1 ff), as a ministry, in the first place, to the poor. See, further, HELPS.

Hort, Christian Ecclesia, Lect X; Neander, Hist of the Planting of the Christian Church, I, 131 ff; Weizsacker, Apostolic Age, II, 255-75; Lindsay, Church and Ministry, passim; EB, IV, article “Spiritual Gifts”; ERE, III, article “Charismata”; PRE, VI, article “Geistesgaben.”

(τὰ πνευματικά, tá pneumatiká): Things proceeding from the Holy Spirit and pertaining to man's spiritual life, worship, service. Contrasted in 1Co_9:11 and in Rom_15:27 with τὰ σαρκικά, tá sarkiká, things fleshly, physical, which have to do with man's sensuous, corporeal nature, such as food, raiment, money. By “spiritual things” Paul signifies the benefits accompanying salvation, the gifts of the Spirit - faith, hope, love, justification, sanctification, peace - all the fruits and blessings and aids of the regenerate life.

Things pertaining to spiritual office, the ministry of the Word, or the service of the sanctuary.

Spiritual gifts were extraordinary powers bestowed in the first ages, to convince unbelievers, and to spread the gospel. Gifts and graces greatly differ. Both were freely given of God. But where grace is given, it is for the salvation of those who have it. Gifts are for the advantage and salvation of others; and there may be great gifts where there is no grace. The extraordinary gifts of the Holy Spirit were chiefly exercised in the public assemblies, where the Corinthians seem to have made displays of them, wanting in the spirit of piety, and of Christian love. While heathens, they had not been influenced by the Spirit of Christ. No man can call Christ Lord, with believing dependence upon him, unless that faith is wrought by the Holy Ghost. No man could believe with his heart, or prove by a miracle, that Jesus was Christ, unless by the Holy Ghost. There are various gifts, and various offices to perform, but all proceed from one God, one Lord, one Spirit; that is, from the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, the origin of all spiritual blessings. No man has them merely for himself. The more he profits others, the more will they turn to his own account. The gifts mentioned appear to mean exact understanding, and uttering the doctrines of the Christian religion; the knowledge of mysteries, and skill to give advice and counsel. Also the gift of healing the sick, the working of miracles, and to explain Scripture by a peculiar gift of the Spirit, and ability to speak and interpret languages. If we have any knowledge of the truth, or any power to make it known, we must give all the glory of God. The greater the gifts are, the more the possessor is exposed to temptations, and the larger is the measure of grace needed to keep him humble and spiritual; and he will meet with more painful experiences and humbling dispensations. We have little cause to glory in any gifts bestowed on us, or to despise those who have them not.

Spiritual gifts. The supernatural gifts bestowed in the early church by the Spirit. These were especially needful, before the church had the New Testament as a guide, and in the inauguration of Christianity.

1Co 12:1 - THE USE AND THE ABUSE OF SPIRITUAL GIFTS, ESPECIALLY PROPHESYING AND TONGUES. (1Co. 12:1-31)

spiritual gifts--the signs of the Spirit's continued efficacious presence in the Church, which is Christ's body, the complement of His incarnation, as the body is the complement of the head. By the love which pervades the whole, the gifts of the several members, forming reciprocal complements to each other, tend to the one object of perfecting the body of Christ. The ordinary and permanent gifts are comprehended together with the extraordinary, without distinction specified, as both alike flow from the divine indwelling Spirit of life. The extraordinary gifts, so far from making professors more peculiarly saints than in our day, did not always even prove that such persons were in a safe state at all (Mat_7:22). They were needed at first in the Church: (1) as a pledge to Christians themselves who had just passed over from Judaism or heathendom, that God was in the Church; (2) for the propagation of Christianity in the world; (3) for the edification of the Church. Now that we have the whole written New Testament (which they had not) and Christianity established as the result of the miracles, we need no further miracle to attest the truth. So the pillar of cloud which guided the Israelites was withdrawn when they were sufficiently assured of the Divine Presence, the manifestation of God's glory being thenceforward enclosed in the Most Holy Place [ARCHBISHOP WHATELY]. Paul sets forth in order: (1). The unity of the body (1Co. 12:1-27). (2). The variety of its members and functions (1Co_12:27-30). (3). The grand principle for the right exercise of the gifts, namely, love (1Co_12:31; 1Co_13:1-13). (4) The comparison of the gifts with one another (1Co. 14:1-40).

I would not have you ignorant--with all your boasts of "knowledge" at Corinth. If ignorant now, it will be your own fault, not mine (1Co_14:38).

The charismata, or special endowments of supernatural energy, such as prophecy and speaking with tongues. “Before this consciousness of a higher power than their own, the ordinary and natural faculties of the human mind seemed to retire, to make way for loftier aspirations, more immediate intimations of the divine will, more visible manifestations of the divine power.... It resembled in some degree the inspiration of the Jewish judges, psalmists, and prophets; it may be illustrated by the ecstasies and visions of prophets in all religions; but in its energy and universality it was peculiar to the christian society of the apostolic age” (Stanley).

1Co 12:1 - Now concerning spiritual gifts,.... Though the word "gifts" is not in the original text, it is rightly supplied by our translators, as it is in the Arabic version: for the apostle does not mean spiritual graces, nor spiritual words, or doctrines, nor spiritual meats and drinks, nor spiritual men, each of which are mentioned before in this epistle; though the latter is thought by some to be here intended, and that the apostle's view is to show the difference between those that are spiritual, and those that are not; but as spiritual gifts are the subject of the apostle's discourse throughout this chapter, and the two following, they seem very manifestly to be designed here. The apostle having gone through various heads of discourse, which he either of himself, or at the request of others, wrote upon, proceeds to a new subject, that of spiritual gifts, which he seems to have been desired to give his thoughts upon, and advice about; since there were some in this church who were discouraged, because they had not the gifts which some had; and others that had them were elated and puffed up with them, and treated those below them with neglect and contempt; and with a view to both these the apostle writes as follows,

brethren, I would not have you ignorant; neither of the author of these gifts, who is the Spirit of God, who dispenses them according to his sovereign will and pleasure, and not according to the deserts of men, and are not acquired by the industry, or through the merit of any, but are his free grace gifts; nor of the nature of them, for there are differences and diversities of them, some have one, and some another, but no man all; nor of the design and use of them, which is the edification of the whole body; and every gift, though ever so mean, is of service; and therefore as, on the one hand, none ought to be discouraged, so, on the other hand, none should be lifted up with pride, or give way to a boasting spirit.

Now concerning spiritual gifts (peri de tōn pneumatikōn). Clearly one of the items asked about in the letter to Paul (1Co_7:1) and introduced precisely as the problem of meats offered to idols (1Co_8:1). This question runs to the end of chapter 14. Plainly much trouble had arisen in Corinth in the exercise of these gifts.

Now concerning spiritual gifts - This was a subject about which they appear to have written to the apostle, and concerning which there were probably some contentions among them. The words περι των πνευματικων may as well be translated concerning spiritual persons, as spiritual gifts; and indeed the former agrees much better with the context.

I would not have you ignorant - I wish you fully to know whence all such gifts come, and for what end they are given, that each person may serve the Church in the capacity in which God has placed him, that there may be no misunderstandings and no schism in the body.

The expression “baptism of the Holy Spirit” is based on a number of predictions found in our four Gospels and in connection with these the record of their fulfillment in the Book of Acts. The passages in the Gospels are as follows: Mat_3:11 : “I indeed baptize you in water unto repentance: but he that cometh after me is mightier than I, whose shoes I am not worthy to bear: he shall baptize you in the Holy Spirit and in fire.” The last clause is αυτός ὑμᾶς βαπτίσει ἐν πνεὺματι ἁγιῳ καὶ πυρί, autós humā́s baptı́sei en pneúmati hagı́ō kaı́ purı́. In Mar_1:8 and Luk_3:16 we have the declaration in a slightly modified form; and in Joh_1:33 John the Baptist declares that the descent of the Spirit upon Jesus at the baptism of the latter marked out Jesus as “he that baptizeth in the Holy Spirit.” Again in Joh_7:37, Joh_7:38 we read: “Now on the last day, the great day of the feast, Jesus stood and cried, saying, If any man thirst, let him come unto me and drink. He that believeth on me, as the scripture hath said, from within him shall flow rivers of living water.” Then the evangelist adds in Joh_7:39 : “But this spake he of the Spirit, which they that believed on him were to receive: for the Spirit was not yet given; because Jesus was not yet glorified.” These are the specific references in the four Gospels to the baptisms of the Holy Spirit. In Acts we find direct reference by Luke to the promised baptism in the Holy Spirit. In Act_1:5 Jesus, just before the ascension, contrasts John's baptism in water with the baptism in the Holy Spirit which the disciples are to receive “not many days hence,” and in Act_1:8 power in witnessing for Jesus is predicted as the result of the baptism in the Holy Spirit. On the evening of the resurrection day Jesus appeared to the disciples and “he breathed on them, and saith unto them, Receive ye the Holy Spirit” (Joh_20:22). This was probably not a wholly symbolic act but an actual communication to the disciples, in some measure, of the gift of the Spirit, preliminary to the later complete bestowal.

We observe next the fulfillment of these predictions as recorded in Acts. The gift of the Holy Spirit on the Day of Pentecost and the miraculous manifestations which followed are clearly the chief historical fulfillment of the prediction of the baptism of the Holy Spirit. Among the manifestations of the coming of the Spirit at Pentecost were first those which were physical, such as “a sound as of the rushing of a mighty wind, and it filled all the house where they were sitting” (Act_2:2), and the appearance of “tongues parting asunder, like as of fire; and it sat upon each one of them” (Act_2:3). Secondly, there were spiritual results: “And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit, and began to speak with other tongues, as the Spirit gave them utterance” (Act_2:4). In Act_2:16 Peter declares that this bestowment of the Holy Spirit is in fulfillment of the prediction made by the prophet Joel and he cites the words in Act_2:28 of Joel's prophecy.

There is one other important passage in Acts in which reference is made to the baptism of the Holy Spirit. While Peter was speaking to Cornelius (Act_10:44) the Holy Spirit fell on all that heard the word and they of the circumcision who were with Peter “were amazed” “because that on the Gentiles also was poured out the gift of the Holy Spirit.” When giving the brethren at Jerusalem an account of his visit to Cornelius, Peter dec]ares that this event which he had witnessed was a baptism of the Holy Spirit (Act_11:16): “And I remembered the word of the Lord, how he said, John indeed baptized with water; but ye shall be baptized in the Holy Spirit.”

We consider next the significance of the baptism of the Holy Spirit from various points of view.

(1) From the Point of View of Old Testament Teaching as to the Gift of The Spirit

The prophecy of Joel quoted by Peter indicates something extraordinary in the gift of the Spirit at Pentecost. The Spirit now comes in new forms of manifestation and with new power. The various classes mentioned as receiving the Spirit indicate the wide diffusion of the new power. In the Old Testament usually the Spirit was bestowed upon individuals; here the gift is to the group of disciples, the church. Here the gift is permanently bestowed, while in the Old Testament it was usually transient and for a special purpose. Here again the Spirit comes in fullness as contrasted with the partial bestowment in Old Testament times.

In Luk_24:49 Jesus commands the disciples to tarry in the city “until ye be clothed with power from on high,” and in Joh_15:26 He speaks of the Comforter “whom I will send unto you from the Father,” “he shall bear witness of me”; and in Joh_16:13 Jesus declares that the Spirit when He comes shall guide the disciples into all truth, and He shall show them things to come. In this verse the Spirit is called the Spirit of truth. It was fitting that the Spirit who was to interpret truth and guide into all truth should come in fullness after, rather than before, the completion of the life-task of the Messiah. The historical manifestation of Divine truth as Thus completed made necessary the gift of the Spirit in fullness. Christ Himself was the giver of the Spirit. The Spirit now takes the place of the ascended Christ, or rather takes the things of Christ and shows them to the disciples. The baptism of the Spirit at Pentecost Thus becomes the great historic event signalizing the beginning of a new era in the kingdom of God in which the whole movement is lifted to the spiritual plane, and the task of evangelizing the world is formally begun.

(3) The Significance of the Baptism of the Spirit from the Point of View of the Disciples

It can scarcely be said with truth that Pentecost was the birthday of the church. Jesus had spoken of His church during His earthly ministry. The spiritual relation to Christ which constitutes the basis of the church existed prior to the baptism of the Holy Spirit. But that baptism established the church in several ways. First in unity. The external bond of unity now gives place to an inner spiritual bond of profound significance. Secondly, the church now becomes conscious of a spiritual mission, and theocratic ideals of the kingdom disappear. Thirdly, the church is now endued with power for its work. Among the gifts bestowed were the gift of prophecy in the large sense of speaking for God, and the gift of tongues which enabled disciples to speak in foreign tongues. The account in the second chapter of Acts admits of no other construction. There was also bestowed power in witnessing for Christ. This was indeed one of the most prominent blessings named in connection with the promise of the baptism of the Spirit. The power of working miracles was also bestowed (Act_3:4; Act_5:12). Later in the epistles of Paul much emphasis is given to the Spirit as the sanctifying agency in the hearts of believers. In Acts the word of the Spirit is chiefly Messianic, that is, the Spirit's activity is all seen in relation to the extension of the Messianic kingdom. The occasion for the outpouring of the Spirit is Pentecost when men from all nations are assembled in Jerusalem. The symbolic representation of tongues of fire is suggestive of preaching, and the glossolalia, or speaking with tongues which followed, so that men of various nations heard the gospel in their own languages, indicates that the baptism of the Spirit had a very special relation to the task of world-wide evangelization for the bringing in of the kingdom of God.

The question is often raised whether or not the baptism of the Holy Spirit occurred once for all or is repeated in subsequent baptisms. The evidence seems to point to the former view to the extent at least of being limited to outpourings which took place in connection with events recorded in the early chapters of the Book of Acts. The following considerations favor this view:

(1) In the first chapter of Acts Jesus predicts, according to Luke's account, that the baptism of the Holy Spirit would take place, “not many days hence” (Act_1:5). This would seem to point to a definite and specific event rather than to a continuous process.

(2) Again, Peter's citation in Act_2:17-21 of Joel's prophecy shows that in Peter's mind the event which his hearers were then witnessing was the definite fulfillment of the words of Joel.

(3) Notice in the third place that only one other event in the New Testament is described as the baptism of the Holy Spirit, and for special reasons this may be regarded as the completion of the Pentecostal baptism. The passage is that contained in Acts 10:1 through 11:18 in which the record is given of the following events: (a) miraculous vision given to Peter on the housetop (Act_10:11-16) indicating that the things about to occur are of unique importance; (b) The speaking with tongues (Act_10:45, Act_10:46); (c) Peter declares to the brethren at Jerusalem that the Holy Ghost fell on the Gentiles in this instance of Cornelius and his household “as on us at the beginning” (Act_11:15); (d) Peter also declares that this was a fulfillment of the promise of the baptism of the Holy Spirit (Act_11:16, Act_11:17); (e) The Jewish Christians who heard Peter's account of the matter acknowledged this as proof that God had also extended the privileges of the gospel to the Gentiles (Act_11:18). The baptism of the Holy Spirit bestowed upon Cornelius and his household is Thus directly linked with the first outpouring at Pentecost, and as the event which signalized the opening of the door of the gospel formally to Gentiles it is in complete harmony with the missionary significance of the first great Pentecostal outpouring. It was a turning point or crisis in the Messianic kingdom and seems designed to complete the Pentecostal gift by showing that Gentiles as well as Jews are to be embraced in all the privileges of the new dispensation.

(4) We observe again that nowhere in the epistles do we find a repetition of the baptism of the Spirit. This would be remarkable if it had been understood by the writers of the epistles that the baptism of the Spirit was frequently to be repeated. There is no evidence outside the Book of Acts that the baptism of the Spirit ever occurred in the later New Testament times. In 1Co_12:13 Paul says, “For in one Spirit were we all baptized into one body,... and were all made to drink of one Spirit.” But here the reference is not to the baptism of the Spirit, but rather to a baptism into the church which is the body of Christ. We conclude, therefore, that the Pentecostal baptism taken in conjunction with the baptism of the Spirit in the case of Cornelius completes the baptism of the Holy Spirit according to the New Testament teaching. The baptism of the Spirit as Thus bestowed was, however, the definite gift of the Spirit in His fullness for every form of spiritual blessing necessary in the progress of the kingdom and as the permanent and abiding gift of God to His people. In all subsequent New Testament writings there is the assumption of this presence of the Spirit and of His availability for all believers. The various commands and exhortations of the epistles are based on the assumption that the baptism of the Spirit has already taken place, and that, according to the prediction of Jesus to the disciples, the Spirit was to abide with them forever (Joh_14:16). We should not therefore confound other forms of expression found in the New Testament with the baptism of the Holy Spirit. When Christians are enjoined to “walk by the Spirit” (Gal_5:16) and “be filled with the Spirit” (Eph_5:18), or when the Spirit is described as an anointing (χρίσμα, chrı́sma) as in 1Jo_2:20-27, and as the “earnest of our inheritance” (ἀρραβών, arrabō̇n). as in Eph_1:14, and when various other similar expressions are employed in the epistles of the New Testament, we are not to understand the baptism of the Holy Spirit. These expressions indicate aspects of the Spirit's work in believers or of the believer's appropriation of the gifts and blessings of the Spirit rather than the historical baptism of the Spirit.

Three final points require brief attention, namely, the relation of the baptism of the Spirit to the baptism in water, and to the baptism in fire, and to the laying on of hands.

(1) We note that the baptism in fire is coupled with the baptism in the Spirit in Mat_3:11 and in Luk_3:16. These passages give the word of John the Baptist. John speaks of the coming One who “shall baptize you in the Holy Spirit and in fire” (Luk_3:16). This baptism in fire is often taken as being parallel and synonymous with the baptism in the Spirit. The context however in both Matthew and Luke seems to favor another meaning. Jesus' Messianic work will be both cleansing and destructive. The “you” addressed by John included the people generally and might naturally embrace both classes, those whose attitude to Jesus would be believing and those who would refuse to believe. His action as Messiah would affect all men. Some He would regenerate and purify through the Holy Ghost. Others He would destroy through the fire of punishment. This view is favored by the context in both gospels. In both the destructive energy of Christ is coupled with His saving power in other terms which admit of no doubt. The wheat He gathers into the garner and the chaff He burns with unquenchable fire.

(2) The baptism of the Holy Spirit was not meant to supersede water baptism. This is clear from the whole of the history in the Book of Acts, where water baptism is uniformly administered to converts after the Pentecostal baptism of the Spirit, as well as from the numerous references to water baptisms in the epistles. The evidence here is so abundant that it is unnecessary to develop it in detail. See Rom_6:3; 1Co_1:14-17; 1Co_10:2; 1Co_12:13; 1Co_15:29; Gal_3:27; Eph_4:5; Col_2:12; 1Pe_3:21.

(3) In Act_8:17 and Act_19:6 the Holy Spirit is bestowed in connection with the laying on of the hands of apostles, but these are not to be regarded as instances of the baptism of the Spirit in the strict sense, but rather as instances of the reception by believers of the Spirit which had already been bestowed in fullness at Pentecost.

Arts. on Holy Spirit in Hastings, Dictionary of the Bible (five volumes) and Hastings, Dictionary of Christ and the Gospels; article on “Spiritual Gifts” in Encyclopedia Biblica; Moule, Veni Creator; Smeaton, The Doctrine of the Holy Spirit; Kuyper, The Work of the Holy Spirit. See also HOLY SPIRIT.

(χαρίσματα ἰαμάτων, charı́smata iamátōn): Among the “spiritual gifts” enumerated in 1Co_12:4-11, 1Co_12:28 are included “gifts of healings.” See SPIRITUAL GIFTS. The subject has risen into much prominence of recent years, and so calls for separate treatment. The points to be considered are: (1) The New Testament facts, (2) The nature of the gifts, (3) Their permanence in the church.

The Gospels abundantly show that the ministry of Christ Himself was one of healing no less than of teaching (compare Mar_1:14 f with Mar_1:32-34). When He sent forth the Twelve (Mar_6:7, Mar_6:13) and the Seventy (Luk_10:1, Luk_10:9), it was not only to preach the Kingdom of God but to heal the sick. The inauthentic conclusion of Mark's Gospel, if it does not preserve words actually used by Christ Himself, bears witness at all events to the traditional belief of the early church that after His departure from the world His disciples would still possess the gift of healing. The Book of Acts furnishes plentiful evidence of the exercise of this gift by apostles and other prominent men in the primitive church (Act_3:7 f; Act_5:12-16; Act_8:7; Act_19:12; Act_28:8 f), and the Epistle of James refers to a ministry of healing carried on by the elders of a local church acting in their collective capacity (Jam_5:14 f). But Paul in this passage speaks of “gifts of healings” (the plural “healings” apparently refers to the variety of ailments that were cured) as being distributed along with other spiritual gifts among the ordinary members of the church. There were men, it would seem, who occupied no official position in the community, and who might not otherwise be distinguished among their fellow-members, on whom this special cḥárisma of healing had been bestowed.

On this subject the New Testament furnishes no direct information, but it supplies evidence from which conclusions may be drawn. We notice that the exercise of the gift is ordinarily conditional on the faith of the recipient of the blessing (Mar_6:5, Mar_6:6; Mar_10:52; Act_14:9) - faith not only in God but in the human agent (Act_3:4; Act_5:15; Act_9:17). The healer himself is a person of great faith (Mat_17:19 f), while his power of inspiring the patient with confidence points to the possession of strong, magnetic personality. The diseases cured appear for the most part to have been not organic but functional; and many of them would now be classed as nervous disorders. The conclusion from these data is that the gifts of healing to which Paul alludes were not miraculous endowments, but natural therapeutic faculties raised to their highest power by Christian faith.

Modern psychology, by its revelation of the marvels of the subliminal self or subconscious mind and the power of “suggestion,” shows how it is possible for one man to lay his hand on the very springs of personal life in another, and so discloses the psychical basis of the gift of healing. The medical science of our time, by its recognition of the dependence of the physical upon the spiritual, of the control of the bodily functions by the subconscious self, and of the physician's ability by means of suggestion, whether waking or hypnotic, to influence the subconscious soul and set free the healing powers of Nature, provides the physiological basis. And may we not add that many incontestable cases of Christian faith-cure (take as a type the well-known instance in which Luther at Weimar “tore Melanchthon,” as the latter put it, “out of the very jaws of death”; see RE, XII, 520) furnish the religious basis, and prove that faith in God, working through the soul upon the body, is the mightiest of all healing influences, and that one who by his own faith and sympathy and force of personality can stir up faith in others may exercise by God's blessing the power of healing diseases?

There is abundant evidence that in the early centuries the gifts of healing were still claimed and practiced within the church (Justin, Apol. ii.6; Irenaeus, Adv. Haer. ii. 32, 4; Tertullian, Apol. xxiii; Origen, Contra Celsum, vii.4). The free exercise of these gifts gradually ceased, partly, no doubt, through loss of the early faith and spirituality, but partly through the growth of an ascetic temper which ignored Christ's gospel for the body and tended to the view that pain and sickness are the indispensable ministers of His gospel for the soul. All down the history of the church, however, there have been notable personalities (e.g. Francis of Assisi, Luther, Wesley) and little societies of earnest Christians (e.g. the Waldenses, the early Moravians and Quakers) who have reasserted Christ's gospel on its physical side as a gospel for sickness no less than for sin, and claimed for the gift of healing the place Paul assigned to it among the gifts of the Spirit. In recent years the subject of Christian healing has risen into importance outside of the regularly organized churches through the activity of various faith-healing movements. That the leaders of these movements have laid hold of a truth at once Scriptural and scientific there can be little doubt, though they have usually combined it with what we regard as a mistaken hostility to the ordinary practice of medicine. It is worth remembering that with all his faith in the spiritual gift of healing and personal experience of its power, Paul chose Luke the physician as the companion of his later journeys; and worth noticing that Luke shared with the apostle the honors showered upon the missionaries by the people of Melita whom they had cured of their diseases (Act_28:10). Upon the modern church there seems to lie the duty of reaffirming the reality and permanence of the primitive gift of healing, while relating it to the scientific practice of medicine as another power ordained of God, and its natural ally in the task of diffusing the Christian gospel of health.

“Miracle” is the general term for the wonderful phenomena which accompanied the Jewish and Christian revelation, especially at critical moments, and which are alleged to have been continued, under certain conditions, in the history of the Christian church. The miracle proper is a work of God (Exo_7:3 ff; Deu_4:34, Deu_4:35, etc.; Joh_3:2; Joh_9:32, Joh_9:33; Joh_10:38; Act_10:38, etc.); but as supernatural acts miracles are recognized as possible to evil agencies (Mat_24:24; 2Th_2:9; Rev_13:14; Rev_16:14, etc.).

The Biblical idea of miracle as an extraordinary work of God, generally though not invariably (“providential” miracles - see below, II, 6), transcending the ordinary powers of Nature, wrought in connection with the ends of revelation, is illustrated by the terms used to describe miracles in the Old Testament and New Testament. One class of terms brings out the unusual, exceptional, and striking character of the works, as פּלא, pele', נפלאות, niphlā'ōth (Exo_3:20; Exo_15:11, etc.), τέρας, téras, literally, “a portent” (in plural Mat_24:24; Act_2:22, Act_2:43, etc.); another lays stress on the power displayed in them, as גּבוּרה, g^ebhūrāh, δύναμις, dúnamis (in plural “mighty works,” the Revised Version margin “powers,” Mat_11:20, Mat_11:21, Mat_11:23; Mat_13:54; Mat_14:2; 2Co_12:12, etc.); a third gives prominence to their teleological significance - their character as “signs,” as אות, 'ōth (plural the Revised Version (British and American) “signs,” Num_14:22; Deu_11:3, etc.), σημεῖον, sēmeı́on (plural the Revised Version (British and American) “signs,” Joh_2:11, Joh_2:23, and frequently; Act_4:16, Act_4:22; Act_6:8; Rev_13:14, etc.). Another Old Testament word for “wonder” or “miracle” is מופת, mōphēth (Exo_7:9; Deu_29:3). See, further, below, III, 4.

The subject of miracles has given rise to much abstract discussion; but it is best approached by considering the actual facts involved, and it is best to begin with the facts nearest to us: those which are recorded in the New Testament. Our Lord's ministry was attended from first to last by events entirely beyond the ordinary course of Nature. He was born of a Virgin, and His birth was announced by angels, both to His mother, and to the man to whom she was betrothed (Matthew and Luke). He suffered death on the cross as an ordinary man, but on the third day after His crucifixion He rose from the tomb in which He was buried, and lived with His disciples for 40 days (Act_1:3), eating and drinking with them, but with a body superior to ordinary physical conditions. At length He ascended to the heavens, and a cloud received Him out of their sight. But besides these two great miracles of His birth and His resurrection, Jesus was continually performing miracles during His ministry. His own words furnish the best description of the facts. In reply to the question of John the Baptist, His predecessor, He said, “Go and tell John the things which ye hear and see: the blind receive their sight, and the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, and the deaf hear, and the dead are raised up, and the poor have good tidings preached to them” (Mat_11:4, Mat_11:5). Specimens of these miracles are given in detail in the Gospel narratives; but it is a mistake to consider the matter, as is too often done, as though these particular miracles were the only ones in question. Even if they could be explained away, as has often been attempted, there would remain reiterated statements of the evangelists, such as Matthew's that He “went about in all Galilee, teaching in their synagogues, and preaching the gospel of the kingdom, and healing all manner of disease and all manner of sickness among the people” (Mat_4:23), or Luke's “And a great number of the people from all Judea and Jerusalem, and the seacoast of Tyre and Sidon, who came to hear him, and to be healed of their diseases; and they that were troubled with unclean spirits were healed. And all the multitude sought to touch him; for power came forth from him, and healed them all” (Luk_6:17-19).

It must be borne in mind that if there is any assured result of modern criticism, it is that these accounts proceed from contemporaries and eyewitnesses, and with respect to the third evangelist there is one unique consideration of great import. The researches of Dr. Hobart have proved to the satisfaction of a scholar like Harnack, that Luke was a trained physician. His testimony to the miracles is therefore the nearest thing possible to the evidence which has often been desired - that of a man of science. When Luke, e.g., tells us of the healing of a fever (Luk_4:38, Luk_4:39), he uses the technical term for a violent fever recognized in his time (compare Meyer, in the place cited); his testimony is therefore that of One who knew what fevers and the healing of them meant. This consideration is especially valuable in reference to the miracles recorded of Paul in the latter part of Acts. it should always be borne in mind that they are recorded by a physician, who was an eyewitness of them.

It seems to follow from these considerations that the working of miracles by our Lord, and by Paul in innumerable cases, cannot be questioned without attributing to the evangelists a wholesale untrustworthiness, due either to willful, or to superstitious misrepresentation, and this is a supposition which will certainly never commend itself to a fair and competent judgment. It would involve, in fact, such a sweeping condemnation of the evangelists, that it could never be entertained at all except under one presupposition, namely, that such miraculous occurrences, as being incompatible with the established laws of Nature, could not possibly have happened, and that consequently any allegations of them must of necessity be attributed to illusion or fraud.

This, in fact, is the prejudgment or prejudice which has prompted, either avowedly or tacitly, the great mass of negative criticism on this subject, and if it could be substantiated, we should be confronted, in the Gospels, with a problem of portentous difficulty. On this question of the abstract possibility of miracles, it seems sufficient to quote the following passage from the Gifford Lectures for 1891 of the late eminent man of science, Professor Sir George Stokes.

On page 23 Professor Stokes says: “We know very well that a man may in general act uniformly according to a certain rule, and yet for a special reason may on a particular occasion act quite differently. We cannot refuse to admit the possibility of something analogous taking place as regards the action of the Supreme Being. If we think of the laws of Nature as self-existent and uncaused, then we cannot admit any deviation from them. But if we think of them as designed by a Supreme Will, then we must allow the possibility of their being on some particular occasion suspended. Nor is it even necessary, in order that some result out of the ordinary course of Nature should be brought about, that they should even be suspended; it may be that some different law is brought into action, whereby the result in question is brought about, without any suspension whatever of the laws by which the ordinary course of Nature is regulated.... It may be that the event which we call a miracle was brought about, not by any suspension of the laws in ordinary operation, but by the superaddition of something not ordinarily in operation, or, if in operation, of such a nature that its operation is not perceived.”

Only one consideration need be added to this decisive scientific statement, namely, that if there be agencies and forces in existence outside the ordinary world of Nature, and if they can under certain circumstances interpose in it, they must necessarily produce effects inconsistent with the processes of that world when left to itself. Life under the surface of the water has a certain course of its own when undisturbed; but if a man standing on the bank of a river throws a stone into it, effects are produced which must be as unexpected and as unaccountable as a miracle to the creatures who live in the stream. The nearness of two worlds which are absolutely distinct from one another receives, indeed, a striking illustration from the juxtaposition of the world above the water and the world below its surface. There is no barrier between them; they are actually in contact; yet the life in them is perfectly distinct. The spiritual world may be as close to us as the air is to the water, and the angels, or other ministers of God's will, may as easily, at His word, interpose in it as a man can throw a stone into the water. When a stone is thus thrown, there is no suspension or modification of any law; it is simply that, as Sir George Stokes supposes in the case of a miracle, a new agency has interposed.

This, indeed, is the main fact of which miracles are irresistible evidence. They show that some power outside Nature, some super-natural power, has intervened. They are exactly described by the three words in the New Testament already mentioned. They are terata, “prodigies” or “wonders”; they are also dunameis, virtutes, “powers,” or “manifestation of powers”; and finally they are sēmeia, “signs.” The three conceptions are combined, and the source of such manifestations stated with them, in a pregnant verse of Hebrews: “God also bearing witness with them, both by signs and wonders, and by manifold powers, and by gifts of the Holy Spirit, according to his own will” (Heb_2:4).

The words of J. S. Mill on the question of the possibility of miracles may also be quoted. Dealing with the objection of Hume in his Essay on Miracles, Mill observes: “In order that any alleged fact should be contradictory to a law of causation, the allegation must be, not simply that the cause existed without being followed by the effect, for that would be no uncommon occurrence; but that this happened in the absence of any adequate counteracting cause. Now in the case of an alleged miracle, the assertion is the exact opposite of this. It is that the effect was defeated, not in the absence, but in consequence, of a counteracting cause, namely, a direct interposition of an act of the will of some being who has power over Nature; and in particular of a Being, whose will being assumed to have endowed all the causes with the powers by which they produce their effects, may well be supposed able to counteract them. A miracle (as was justly remarked by Brown) is no contradiction to the law of cause and effect; it is a new effect, supposed to be produced by the introduction of a new cause. Of the adequacy of that cause, if present; there can be no doubt; and the only antecedent improbability which can be ascribed to the miracle is the improbability that any such cause existed” (System of Logic, II, 161-62).

There is, however, one other important characteristic of miracles - of those at least with which we are concerned - namely, that they occur at the command, or at the prayer, of the person to whom they are attributed. This is really their most significant feature, and the one upon which their whole evidential value depends. One critic has compared the fall of the fortifications of Jellalabad, on a critical occasion, with the fall of the walls of Jericho, as though the one was no more a miracle than the other. But the fall of the walls of Jericho, though it may well have been produced by some natural force such as an earthquake, bears the character of a miracle because it was predicted, and was thus commanded by God to occur in pursuance of the acts prescribed to Joshua. Similarly the whole significance of our Lord's miracles is that they occur at His word and in obedience to Him. “What manner of man is this,” exclaimed the disciples, “that even the winds and the sea obey him?” (Mat_8:27).

This leads us to the true view of the value of miracles as proofs of a revelation. This is one of the points which has been discussed in far too abstract a manner. Arguments have been, and still are, constructed to show that there can be no real revelation without miracles, that miracles are the proper proof of a revelation, and so on. It is always a perilous method of argument, perhaps a presumptuous one, to attempt to determine whether God could produce a given result in any other way than the one which He has actually adopted. The only safe, and the sufficient, method of proceeding is to consider whether as a matter of fact, and in what way, the miracles which are actually recorded do guarantee the particular revelation in question.

Consider our Lord's miracles in this light. Assuming, on the grounds already indicated, that they actually occurred, they prove beyond doubt that He had supreme command over Nature; that not only the winds and the sea, but the human soul and body obeyed him, and in the striking words of the English service for the Visitation of the Sick, that He was “Lord of life and death, and of all things thereto pertaining, as youth, strength, health, age, weakness and sickness.” This is the grand fact which the miracles establish. They are not like external evidence, performed in attestation of a doctrine. They are direct and eloquent evidence of the cardinal truth of our faith, that our Lord possessed powers which belong to God Himself. But they are not less direct evidence of the special office He claimed toward the human race - that of a Saviour. He did not merely work wonders in order that men might believe His assertions about Himself, but His wonderful works, His powers - virtutes - were direct evidence of their truth. He proved that He was a Saviour by doing the works of a Saviour, by healing men and women from their diseases of both body and soul. It is well known that salvation in the true sense, namely, saving men out of evils and corruptions into which they have fallen, is an idea which was actually introduced into the world by the gospel. There was no word for it in the Roman language. The ancients know of a servator, but not of a salvator. The essential message of the miracles is that they exhibit our Lord in this character - that of one who has alike the will and the power to save. Such is our Lord's own application of them in His answer, already quoted, to the disciples of John the Baptist (Mat_11:4, Mat_11:5).

It is therefore an extraordinary mistake to suppose that the evidence for our faith would not be damaged if the miracles were set aside. We should lose the positive evidence we now possess of our Lord's saving power. In this view, the miracles are not the mere proofs of a revelation; they are themselves the revelation. They reveal a Saviour from all human ills, and there has been no other revelation in the world of such a power. The miracles recorded of the apostles have a like effect. They are wrought, like Peter's of the impotent man, as evidence of the living power of the Saviour (Acts 3; 4). “Be it known unto you all, and to all the people of Israel, that in the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, whom ye crucified, whom God raised from the dead, even in him doth this man stand here before you whole.... And in none other is there salvation: for neither is there any other name under heaven, that is given among men, wherein we must be saved” (Act_4:10, Act_4:12). In a word, the miracles of the New Testament, whether wrought by our Lord or by His apostles, reveal a new source of power, in the person of our Lord, for the salvation of men. Whatever interference they involve with the usual order of Nature is due, not to any modification of that order, but to the intervention of a new force in it. The nature of that force is revealed by them, and can only be ascertained by observation of them. A man is known by his words and by his deeds, and to these two sources of revelation, respecting His person and character, our Lord expressly appealed. “If I do not the works of my Father, believe me not. But if I do them, though ye believe not me, believe the works: that ye may know and understand that the Father is in me, and I in the Father” (Joh_10:37, Joh_10:38).

It is therefore a mistake to try to put the evidence of the miracles into a logically demonstrative argument. Paley stated the case too much in this almost anathematized form.

“It is idle,” he said, “to say that a future state had been discovered already. It had been discovered as the Copernican system was; it was one guess among many. He alone discovers who proves; and no man can prove this point but the teacher who testifies by miracles that his doctrine comes from God” (Moral and Polit. Philosophy, book V, chapter ix, close).

Coleridge, in the Aids to Reflection, criticizes the above and puts the argument in a more just and more human form.

“Most fervently do I contend, that the miracles worked by Christ, both as miracles and as fulfillments of prophecy, both as signs and as wonders, made plain discovery, and gave unquestionable proof, of His Divine character and authority; that they were to the whole Jewish nation true and appropriate evidences, that He was indeed come who had promised and declared to their forefathers, Behold your God will come with vengeance, even God, with a recompense! He will come and save you. I receive them as proofs, therefore, of the truth of every word which He taught who was Himself the Word: and as sure evidences of the final victory over death and of the life to come, in that they were manifestations of Him who said: I am the resurrection and the life!” (note prefatory to Aphorism CXXIII).

This seems the fittest manner in which to contemplate the evidence afforded by miracles.

If the miracles ascribed to our Lord and His apostles are established on the grounds now stated, and are of the value just explained, there can be little difficulty in principle in accepting as credible and applying the miracles of the Old Testament. They also are obviously wrought as manifestations of a Divine Being, and as evidences of His character and will.

This, e.g., was the great purpose of the miracles wrought for the deliverance of the people of Israel out of Egypt. The critical theories which treat the narrative of those events as “unhistorical” are, I am convinced, unsound. If they could be established, they would deprive us of some of the most precious evidences we possess of the character of God. But, in any case, the purpose to which the alleged miracles are ascribed is of the same character as in the case of the New Testament miracles. “For ask now,” says Moses, “of the days that are past ... whether there hath been any such thing as this great thing is, or hath been heard like it? Did ever a people hear the voice of God speaking out of the midst of the fire, as thou hast heard, and live? Or hath God assayed to go and take him a nation from the midst of another nation, by trials, by signs, and by wonders, and by war, and by a mighty hand, and by an outstretched arm, and by great terrors, according to all that Yahweh your God did for you in Egypt before your eyes? Unto thee it was showed, that thou mightest know that Yahweh he is God; there is none else besides him” (Deu_4:32-35). The God of the Jews was, and is, the God manifested in those miraculous acts of deliverance. Accordingly, the Ten Commandments are introduced with the declaration: “I am Yahweh thy God, who brought thee out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage,” and on this follows: “Thou shalt have no other gods before me” (Exo_20:2, Exo_20:3). Without these miracles, the God of the Jews would be an abstraction. As manifested in them, He is the living God, with a known character, “a just God and a Saviour” (Isa_45:21), who can be loved with all the heart, and soul, and mind, and strength.

The subsequent miracles of Jewish history, like those wrought by Elijah, serve the same great end, and reveal more and more both of the will and the power of God. They are not mere portents, wrought as an external testimony to a doctrine. They are the acts of a living Being wrought through His ministers, or with their cooperation, and He is revealed by them. If the miracles of the New Testament were possible, those of the Old Testament were possible, and as those of the New Testament reveal the nature and will of Christ, by word and deed, so those of the Old Testament reveal the existence, the nature, and the will of God. Nature, indeed, reveals God, but the miracles reveal new and momentous acts of God; and the whole religious life of the Jews, as the Psalms show, is indissolubly bound up with them. The evidence for them is, in fact, the historic consciousness of a great and tenacious nation.

It should be added that the Jewish Scriptures embody one of the greatest of miracles - that of prophecy. It is obvious that the destiny of the Jewish people is predicted from the commencement, in the narrative of the life of Abraham and onward. There can, moreover, be no question that the office of the Christ had been so distinctly foreshadowed in the Scriptures of the Old Testament that the people, as a whole, expected a Messiah before He appeared. our Lord did not, like Buddha or Mohammed, create a new office; He came to fill an office which had been described by the prophets, and of which they had predicted the functions and powers. We are told of the Saviour, “And beginning from Moses and from all the prophets, he interpreted to them in all the scriptures the things concerning himself” (Luk_24:27). That, again, is a revelation of God's nature, for it reveals Him as “knowing the end from the beginning,” and as the Ruler of human life and history.

Some notice, finally, must be taken of the question of what are called ecclesiastical miracles. There seems no sufficient reason for assuming that miracles ceased with the apostles, and there is much evidence that in the early church miraculous cures, both of body and soul, were sometimes vouchsafed. There were occasions and circumstances when the manifestation of such miraculous power was as appropriate as testimony of the living power of Christ, as in the scenes in the Acts. But they were not recorded under inspired guidance, like the miracles of the Apostolic Age, and they have in many cases been overlaid by legend.

The observation in Pascal's Thoughts eminently applies to this class of miracles: “It has appeared to me that the real cause (that there are so many false miracles, false revelations, etc.) is that there are true ones, for it would not be possible that there should be so many false miracles unless there were true, nor so many false religions unless there were one that is true. For if all this had never been, it is impossible that so many others should have believed it.... Thus instead of concluding that there are no true miracles since there are so many false, we must on the contrary say that there are true miracles since there are so many false, and that false miracles exist only for the reason that there are true; so also that there are false religions only because there is one that is true” (On Miracles).

It has lately been argued with much earnestness and force in Germany, particularly by J. Wendland, in his Miracles and Christianity, that belief in miracles is indispensable to our apprehension of a real living God, and to our trust in His saving work in our own souls. The work of grace and salvation, indeed, is all so far miraculous that it requires the influence upon our nature of a living power above that nature. It is not strictly correct to call it miraculous, as these operations of God's Spirit are now an established part of His kingdom of grace. But they none the less involve the exercise of a like supernatural power to that exhibited in our Lord's miracles of healing and casting out of demons; and in proportion to the depths of man's Christian life will he be compelled to believe in the gracious operation on his soul of this Divine interposition.

On the whole, it is perhaps increasingly realized that miracles, so far from being an excrescence on Christian faith, are indissolubly bound up with it, and that there is a complete unity in the manifestation of the Divine nature, which is recorded in the Scriptures.

Trench, Notes on the Miracles; Mozley, Bampton Lectures (Mozley's argument is perhaps somewhat marred by its too positive and controversial tone, but, if the notes be read as well as the Lectures, the reader will obtain a comprehensive view of the main controversies on the subject); A.B. Bruce, The Miraculous Element in the Gospels. For modern German views see J. Wendland, Miracles and Christianity; Christlieb, Modern Doubt and Christian Belief. Paley's Evidences and Butler's Analogy may profitably be consulted. On continuance of miracles, see Bushnell, Nature and the Supernatural, chapter xiv, and Christlieb, as above, Lecture V.

According to the uniform teaching of the Bible the prophet is a speaker of or for God. His words are not the production of his own spirit, but come from a higher source. For he is at the same time, also, a seer, who sees things that do not lie in the domain of natural sight, or who hears things which human ears do not ordinarily receive; compare 1Sa_9:9, where nābhı̄', “speaker,” and rō'eh, “seer,” are used as synonymous terms. Jer_23:16 and Eze_13:2 f are particularly instructive in this regard. In these passages a sharp distinction is made between those persons who only claim to be prophets but who prophesy “out of their own heart,” and the true prophets who declare the word which the Lord has spoken to them. In the latter case the contents of the prophecy have not originated in their own reflection or calculation; and just as little is this prophecy the product of their own feelings, fears or hopes, but, as something extraneous to man and independent of him, it has with a divine certainty entered the soul of the prophet. The prophet has seen that which he prophesies, although he need not have seen it in the form of a real vision. He can also “see” words with his inner eyes (Isa_2:1, and often). It is only another expression for this when it is frequently said that God has spoken to the prophet. In this case too it is not necessary that there must have been a voice which he could hear phonetically through his natural ear. The main thing is that he must have been able sharply to distinguish the contents of this voice from his own heart, i.e. from his personal consciousness. Only in this way is he capable of speaking to the people in the name of God and able to publish his word as that of Yahweh. In this case he is the speaker of Yahweh (nābhı̄'), or the mouth of the Lord (compare Eze_7:1 with Eze_4:16). Under these conditions he then regards it as absolute compulsion to speak, just as a person must be filled with fear when he hears a lion roar nearby (Amo_3:8). The words burn in his soul until he utters them (Jer_20:7, Jer_20:9).

The divine power, which comes over a human being and compels him to see or to hear things which otherwise would be hidden from him, is called by various terms expressive of inspiration. It is said that the Spirit of God has come over someone (Num_24:2); or has fallen upon him (Eze_11:5); or that the hand of Yahweh has come over him and laid hold of him (2Ki_3:15; Eze_1:3; Eze_3:14, Eze_3:22, and often); or that the Holy Spirit has been put on him as a garment, i.e. has been incorporated in him (1Ch_12:18; 2Ch_24:20); or that the Spirit of revelation has permanently descended upon him (Num_11:25 f; 2Ki_2:15; Isa_11:2; Isa_61:1); or that God has given this Spirit of His (Num_11:29; Isa_42:1); or pours Him out upon man (Joe_2:28 f (Hebrew 3:1 f)). But this inspiration is not such that it suppresses the human consciousness of the recipient, so that he would receive the word of God in the state of sleep or trance. But rather the recipient is in possession of his full consciousness, and is able afterward to give a clear account of what happened. Nor is the individuality of the prophet eliminated by this divine inspiration; unconsciously this individuality cooperates in the formal shaping of that which has been seen and heard. In accordance with the natural peculiarity of the prophet and with the contents of the message, the psychological condition of the recipient may be that of intense excitement or of calmness. As a rule the inspiration that takes possession of the prophets is evidenced also by an exalted and poetical language, which assumes a certain rhythmical character, but is not bound to a narrow and mechanical meter. It is, however, also possible that prophetical utterances find their expression in plain prose. The individual peculiarity of the prophet is a prime factor also in the form in which the revelation comes to him. In the one prophet we find a preponderance of visions; another prophet has no visions. But the visions of the future which he sees are given in the forms and the color which have been furnished by his own consciousness. All the more the form in which the prophet gives expression to his word of God is determined by his personal talents and gifts as also by his experiences.

In a certain respect the dream can be cited as an analogous phenomenon, in which also the ideas that are slumbering in the soul uninvited put in their appearance without being controlled by consciousness and reason. On the other hand, prophecy differs pecifically from dreams, first, because the genuine prophetical utterance is received when the prophet is clearly conscious, and, secondly, because such an utterance brings with it a much greater degree of certainty and a greater guaranty of its higher origin than is done even by a dream that seems to be prophetical. In Jer_23:25 ff it is declared that these two are entirely dissimilar, and the relation between the two is compared to straw and wheat. The Moslem Arabs also put a much lower estimate on the visionary dream than on the prophetic vision in a waking condition.

Because this Spirit of God acts with full freedom, He can select His organs at will from among every station, age, or sex. The Spirit is not confined to any priestly class or organization. It indeed was the case at times that a prophet gathered disciples around himself, who could themselves in turn also be seized by his spirit, although the transmission of this spirit was a difficult matter (2Ki_2:10). Yet genuine prophecies continued to be at all times a free gift of the sovereign God. Amos (Amo_7:14 f) appeals expressly to this fact, that he did not himself choose the prophet's calling nor was the pupil of a prophetic school, but that he had been directly called by Yahweh from his daily occupation as a shepherd and workman. In the same way we indeed find prophets who belonged to the priestly order (Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and others), but equally great is the number of those who certainly did not so belong. Further, age made no difference in the call to the prophetic office. Even in his earliest youth Samuel was called to be a prophet (1Sa_3:1 ff), and it did not avail Jeremiah anything when he excused himself because of his youth (Jer_1:6). Then, too, a woman could be seized by this Spirit. From time to time prophetesses appeared, although the female sex is by no means so prominent here as it is in the sorcery of the heathen. See PROPHETESS. As an exceptional case the Spirit of God could lay hold even of a person who inwardly was entirely estranged from Him and could make an utterance through him (compare Saul, 1Sa_10:11; 1Sa_19:24; Balaam, Nu 23 f; Caiaphas, Joh_11:51). As a rule, however, God has selected such prophetic organs for a longer service. These persons are called and dedicated for this purpose by Him through a special act (compare Moses Exo_3:1 ff; 1Ki_19:16, 1Ki_19:19 ff; Isa_6:1-13; Jer 1; Ezek 1). This moment was decisive for their whole lives and constituted their authorization as far as they themselves and others were concerned. Yet for each prophetic appearance these men receive a special enlightenment. The prophet does not at all times speak in an inspired state; compare Nathan (2Sa_7:3 ff), who afterward was compelled to take back a word which he had spoken on his own authority. Characteristic data on the mental state of the prophets in the reception and in the declaration of the divine word are found in Jer_15:16 f; Jer_20:7 ff. Originally Jeremiah felt it as a joy that Yahweh spoke to him (compare Eze_3:3), but then he lost all pleasure in life and would have preferred not to have uttered this word, but he could not do as he desired.

The attempt has often been made to explain prophecy as a natural product of purely human factors. Rationalistic theologians regarded the prophets as enthusiastic teachers of religion and morals, as warm patriots and politicians, to whom they ascribed nothing but a certain ability of guessing the future. But this was no explanation of the facts in the case. The prophets were themselves conscious of this, that they were not the intellectual authors of their higher knowledge. This consciousness is justified by the fact that they were in a condition to make known things which lay beyond their natural horizon and which were contrary to all probability. Those cases are particularly instructive in this respect which beyond a doubt were recorded by the prophets themselves. Ezekiel could indeed, on the basis of moral and religious reflections, reach the conviction that Zedekiah of Jerusalem would not escape his punishment for his political treachery and for his disobedience to the word of Yahweh; but he could never from this source have reached the certainty that this king, as the prophet describes the case in Eze_12:8 ff, was to be taken captive while trying to escape from the besieged city and was then to be blinded and taken to Babylon. Just as little could he in Babylon know the exact day when the siege of Jerusalem began (Eze_24:2). If this prophet had learned of these things in a natural way and had afterward clothed them in the form of prophecy, he would have been guilty of a deception, something unthinkable in the case of so conscientious a preacher of morality. But such cases are frequently met with. Jeremiah predicts to Hananiah that he would die during the year (Jer_28:16), but it is not only such matters of detail that presuppose an extraordinary vision of the prophet. The whole way also in which Jeremiah predicts the destruction of Jerusalem as inevitable, in direct contrast to the hopes of the Jerusalemites and to the desires of his own heart, shows that he was speaking under divine compulsion, which was more powerful than his own reflections and sympathies. On any other presupposition his conduct would have been reprehensible cowardice. The case of Isaiah is exactly the same. When he gives to Ahaz the word of God as a guaranty that the Syrians and the Ephraimites would not capture Jerusalem (Isa_7:4 ff), and when he promises Hezekiah that the Assyrians would not shoot an arrow into the city, but would return without having accomplished their purpose (Isa_37:22, Isa_37:33), these things were so much in contradiction to all the probabilities of the course events would take that he would have been a frivolous adventurer had he not received his information from higher sources. Doubtless it was just these predictions which established and upheld the influence of the prophets. Thus in the case of Amos it was his prediction of a great earthquake, which did occur two years later (Amo_1:1); in the case of Elijah, the prediction of the long dearth (1Ki_17:1); in the case of Elisha the undertakings of the enemies (2Ki_6:12), and in other cases. It is indeed true that the contents of the prophetic discourses are not at all confined to the future. Everything that God has to announce to mankind, revelations concerning His will, admonitions, warnings, He is able to announce through the mouth of the prophet. But His determinations with reference to the future as a rule are connected with prophetical utterances of the latter kind. The prophets are watchmen, guardians of the people, who are to warn the nation, because they see the dangers and the judgments approaching, which must put in their appearance if the divine will is disregarded. The prophets interpret also for the people that which is happening and that which has occurred, e.g. the defeats which they have suffered at the hands of their enemies, or the grasshopper plague (Joel), or a famine. They lay bare the inner reason for external occurrences and explain such events in their connection with the providential government of God. This gives to prophecy a powerful inner unity, notwithstanding the great differences of times and surrounding circumstances. It is prophecy which the Hebrew people must thank for their higher conception of history. This people know of a Highest Author of all things and of a positive end, which all things that transpire must serve. God's plan has for its purpose to bring about the complete supremacy of His will among the children of men.

In genuine prophecy, according to Biblical conceptions, the fulfillment constitutes an integral part. This is set up by Deu_18:21 f as a proof of the genuineness of a prophetic utterance. The prophetic word “falls to the ground” (1Sa_3:19) if it is not “raised up” (הקים, hēḳı̄m, “fulfil,” for which we more rarely find מלּא, millē', but regularly in the New Testament πληροῦσθαι, plēroústhai “being fulfilled”) by the course of events. It would remain an empty word if it did not attain to its full content through its realization. In fact, in the word spoken by the prophet itself there dwells a divine power, so that at the moment when he speaks the event takes place, even if it is not yet visible to man. This realization is also not infrequently represented symbolically by the prophet in confirmation of his prediction. Thus in a certain sense it is the prophet himself who through his word builds up and pulls down, plants and roots out (Jer_1:10; Jer_25:15 ff). But the fulfillment can be judged by the contemporaries in the sense of Deu_18:22 only when this fulfillment refers to the near future and when special emphasis is laid on external events. In these cases the prediction of certain events assumes the significance of a “sign” (compare Jer_28:16; Isa_8:1 ff; Isa_37:30, and elsewhere). In other cases it is only later generations who can judge of the correctness of a prediction or of a threat. In this way in Zec_1:6 the fulfillment of a threat is declared, and in the New Testament often the fulfillment of a promise is after a long time pointed out. But it is not the case that a genuine prophecy must be fulfilled like an edict of fate. Such prophecy is not an inevitable decree of fate, but is a word of the living God to mankind, and therefore conditioned ethically, and God can, if repentance has followed, withdraw a threat (Jer_18:2 ff; case of Jonah), or the punishment can be mitigated (1Ki_21:29). A prediction, too, Yahweh can recall if the people prove unworthy (Jer_18:9 f) . A favorable or an unfavorable prediction can also be postponed, as far as its realization is concerned, to later times, if it belongs to the ultimate counsels of God, as e.g. the final judgment and deliverance on the last day. This counsel also may be realized successively. In this case the prophet already collects into one picture what is realized gradually in a longer historical development. The prophet in general spoke to his hearers in such a way as could be understood by them and could be impressed on them. It is therefore not correct to demand a fulfillment pedantically exact in the form of the historical garb of the prophecy. The main thing is that the divine thought contained in the prophecy be entirely and completely realized. But not infrequently the finger of God can be seen in the entirely literal fulfillment of certain prophecies. This is especially the case in the New Testament in the appearance of the Son of Man, in whom all the rays of Old Testament prophecy have found their common center.

It is a characteristic peculiarity of the religion of the Old Testament that its very elementary beginnings are of a prophetical nature. The fathers, above all Abraham, but also Isaac and Jacob, are the recipients of visions and of divine revelations. Especially is this true of Abraham, who appeared to the foreigners, to whom he was neither kith or kin, to be indeed a prophet (nābhı̄') (Gen_20:7; compare Psa_105:15), although in his case the command to preach the word was yet absent.

Above all, the creative founder of the Israelite national religion, Moses, is a prophet in the eminent sense of the word. His influence among the people is owing neither to his official position, nor to any military prowess, but solely and alone to the one circumstance, that since his call at the burning bush God has spoken to him. This intercourse between God and Moses was ever of a particularly intimate character. While other men of God received certain individual messages only from time to time and through the mediation of dreams and visions, Yahweh spoke directly and “face to face” with Moses (Num_12:6 ff; Deu_34:10; compare Exo_33:11). Moses was the permanent organ through whom Yahweh brought about the Egyptian plagues and through whom He explained what these meant to His people, as also through whom He led and ruled them. The voice of Moses too had to explain to them the divine signs in the desert and communicate to them the commandments of God. The legislation of Moses shows that he was not only filled with the Spirit of God occasionally, but that he abode with God for longer periods of time and produced something that is a well-ordered whole. A production such as the Law is the result of a continuous association with God.

Since that time revelation through prophecy was probably never entirely wanting in Israel (Deu_18:15). But this fountain did not always flow with the same fullness or clearness. During the period of the Judges the Spirit of God urged the heroes who served Yahweh rather to deeds than to words. Yet Deborah enjoyed a high rank as a prophetess, and for a long time pronounced decisions of justice in the name of the Lord before she, through her prophetical utterances, aroused the people to rise up against their oppressors. What is said in 1Sa_3:1 concerning the times of Eli can be applied to this whole period, namely that the word and vision of the prophet had become rare in the land. All the more epoch-making was the activity of Samuel, who while yet a boy received divine revelations (1Sa_3:1 ff). He was by the whole people regarded as a “seer” whose prophecies were always fulfilled (1Sa_3:19 f). The passage 1Sa_9:6 ff shows that the people expected of such a man of God that he should also as a clairvoyant come to the assistance of the people in the troubles of life. Such a professional clairvoyant, indeed, Samuel was not, as he was devoted entirely to the service of his God and of his people and obeyed the Divine Spirit, even in those cases when he was compelled to act contrary to his personal inclinations, as was the case when the kingdom was established in Israel (1Sa_8:6 ff).

Since the days of Samuel we hear of schools of prophets, or “sons of prophets.” These associations probably originated in this way, that an experienced prophet attracted to himself bands of youths, who sought to receive a measure of his spirit. These disciples of the prophets, together with their families, lived in colonies around the master. Possibly Samuel was the first who founded such a school of prophets. For in or near the city of Ramah we first find nāyōth, or colonies of such disciples (1Sa_19:18 f; 1Sa_20:1). Among these pupils is found to a much greater extent than among the teachers a certain ecstatic feature. They arouse their feelings through music and induce a frantic condition which also affects others in the same way, in which state they “prophesy” and, throwing off their garments, fall to the ground. In later times too we find traces of such ecstatic phenomena. Thus e.g. in Zec_13:6; 1Ki_20:37, 1Ki_20:38, the “wounds” on the breast or on the forehead recall the self-mutilation of the priests of Baal (1Ki_18:28). The deeds, suggestive of what the dervishes of our own day do, probably were phenomena quite similar to the action of the prophets of the surrounding tribes. But that prophecy in Israel was not, as is now not infrequently claimed, merely a less crude form of the heathen prophetic institution, is proved by such men as Moses and Samuel, who even in their times represent something much higher. Also in the colonies of prophets there was assuredly not to be found merely an enthusiasm without the Spirit of God. Proof for this is Samuel, the spiritual father of this colony, as Elijah was for the later colonies of this kind. These places were rather the centers of a religious life, where communion with God was sought by prayer and meditation, and where the recollection of the great deeds of God in the past seemed to prepare for the reception of new revelations. From such centers of theocratic ideas and ideals without a doubt there came forth also corresponding influences that affected the people. Perhaps not only was sacred music cultivated at these places but also sacred traditions, which were handed down orally and in writing. Certain it is that at these colonies the religion of Yahweh prevailed.

During the period of the kings prophetically inspired men frequently appeared, who demanded even of the kings that they should submit to their divinely-inspired word. Saul, who refused such submission, perished as the result of this conflict. David owed much to the support of the prophets Samuel, Nathan, Gad (1Sa_16:1 ff; 2 Sam 7; 2Ch_29:25, and elsewhere). But David also bowed in submission when these prophets rebuked him because of his transgression of the divine commands (2 Sam 12; 24). His son Solomon was educated by the prophet Nathan. But the destruction of his kingdom was predicted by the prophet Abijah, the Shilonite (1Ki_11:29 ff). Since Yahweh, as the supreme Sovereign, has the right to enthrone or to dethrone kings, this is often done through the mouths of the prophets (compare 1Ki_14:7 ff; 1Ki_16:1 ff). After the division of the kingdom we find Shemaiah forbidding Rehoboam to begin a war with his brethren of Israel (1Ki_12:21; compare 2Ch_11:2 ff; compare another mission of the same prophet, 2Ch_12:5 ff). On the other hand in the Northern Kingdom the prophetic word is soon turned against the untheocratic rule of Jeroboam (1 Ki 13; 14). It is in this very same Northern Kingdom that the prophets unfolded their full activity and generally in opposition to the secular rulers, although there was no lack of accommodating “prophets,” who were willing to sanction everything that the king wanted. The opposition of the true prophets to these false representatives of prophecy is illustrated in the story of Micaiah, the son of Imlah (1 Ki 22). But a still higher type of prophecy above the ordinary is found in Elijah, whose historic mission it was to fight to the finish the battle between the followers of Yahweh and the worship of the Tyrian Baal. He was entirely a man of action; every one of his words is a deed on a grand scale (compare concerning Elijah and Elisha the article RELIGION OF ISRAEL). His successor Elisha inherited from him not only his mantle, but also a double measure of his spiritual gifts. He exhibits the prophetic office more from its loving side. He is accustomed to visit the schools of prophets found scattered throughout the land, calls the faithful together around himself on the Sabbaths and the new moons (2Ki_4:23), and in this way establishes centers of a more spiritual culture than was common elsewhere among the people. We read that first-fruits were brought to him as to the priests (2Ki_4:42). But while the activity of Elijah was entirely in antagonism to the ruling house in the kingdom, this feature is not entirely lacking in the work of Elisha also. He has even been charged with wicked conspiracies against the dynasty of Omri and the king of Syria (2 Ki 8; 9). His conduct in connection with these events can be excused only on the ground that he was really acting in the name of a higher Master. But in general it was possible for Elisha, after the radical change in public sentiment that had followed upon the work of Elijah, in later time to assume a more friendly attitude toward the government and the people. He often assisted the kings in their arduous contests with the Syrians (compare 2Ki_6:8 ff; 2Ki_13:14 ff). His deeds are generally of a benevolent character. In connection with these he exhibits to a remarkable degree the gift of prophetic foresight (2Ki_4:16; 2Ki_5:26; 2Ki_6:8 ff; 2Ki_7:1 ff; 2Ki_8:10, 2Ki_8:12; 2Ki_9:6 ff; 2Ki_13:19). Jonah, too, the son of Amittai, had at that time a favorable message for the Northern Kingdom (2Ki_14:25).

However, the flourishing condition of the kingdom under Jeroboam II had an unfavorable influence on its spiritual development. Soon Amos and Hosea were compelled to announce to this kingdom its impending destruction through a great world-power. These two prophets have left us books. To put prophetic utterances into written form had already been introduced before this. At any rate, many scholars are of the conviction that the prophecies of Obadiah and Joel belong to an earlier period, although others place them in the post-exilic period. In any case, the expectation of a day of settlement by Yahweh with His people was already in the days of Amos common and current (Amo_5:18 ff). As the writing of individual prophecies (Isa_8:1 f; Isa_30:8; Hab_2:2 f) had for its purpose the preserving of these words in permanent authentic form and later to convince the reader of their wonderful fulfillment, thus too the writing down of larger collections of prophecies had for its purpose to intensify the power of the prophetic word and to secure this as a permanent possession of the people (Jer_30:2; Jer_36:1 ff). Pupils of the prophets assisted them in this writing and in preserving their books (compare Jer_36:4; Isa_8:16).

It is to this custom that we owe our knowledge of the very words of the utterances of many of the prophets of a later period. In addition to the larger books of Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, we have a number of smaller prophetical books, which have been united into the Book of the Twelve Prophets. These utterances as a rule exhibited an elevated form of language and are more or less poetical. However, in modern times some scholars are inclined to go too far in claiming that these addresses are given in a carefully systematized metrical form. Hebrew meter as such is a freer form of expression than is Arabic or Sanskrit meter, and this is all the more the case with the discourses of the prophets, which were not intended for musical rendering, and which are expressed in a rhythmically-constructed rhetoric, which appears now in one and then in another form of melody, and often changes into prose.

In the kingdom of Judah the status of the prophets was somewhat more favorable than it was in Ephraim. They were indeed forced in Jerusalem also to contend against the injustice on the part of the ruling classes and against immorality of all kinds. But in this kingdom there were at any rate from time to time found kings who walked more in the footsteps of David. Thus Asa followed the directions of the prophet Azariah (2Ch_15:1 ff). It is true that the prophet Hanani censured this king, but it was done for a different reason. Jehoshaphat also regularly consulted the prophets. Among those who had dealings with him Elisha is also mentioned (2Ki_3:14), as also some other prophets (compare 2Ch_19:2; 20:14-37). The greatest among the prophets during the period of the Assyrian invasions was Isaiah, who performed the duties of his office for more than 40 years, and under the kings Jotham, Ahaz, Hezekiah, and possibly too under Manasseh, through his word exercised a powerful influence upon the king and the nation. Although a preacher of judgments, he at critical times appeared also as a prophet of consolation. Nor did he despise external evidences of his prophetic office (compare Isa_7:11; Isa_38:22, Isa_38:8). His contemporary Micah is in full agreement with him, although he was not called to deal with the great of the land, with kings, or statesmen, as was the mission of Isaiah. Nahum, Zephaniah and Habakkuk belong rather to the period of transition from the Assyrian to the Chaldean periods. In the days of Josiah the prophetess Huldah had great influence in Jerusalem (2Ki_22:14). Much more important under this same king was the prophet Jeremiah, who was called by God for a great mission. This prophet during the siege and destruction of Jerusalem and after that time spoke as an unyielding yet deeply feeling exponent of God, and was compelled again and again to dash to the ground the false hopes of the patriots, whenever these arose. Not so firm was his contemporary and fellow-sufferer Uriah (Jer_26:20).

In the time of the exile itself we find the period of the activity of Ezekiel. It was significant that this prophet became the recipient of divine revelations while on Babylonian territory. His work was, in accordance with the condition of affairs, more that of a pastor and literary man. He seems also to have been a bodily sufferer. His abnormal conditions became symbolical signs of that which he had to proclaim. Deutero-Isaiah, too (Isa 40 ff), spoke during the Babylonian period, namely at its close, and prepared for the return. The peculiar prophecies of Daniel are also accorded to a prophet living during the exile, who occupied a distinguished position at the court of the heathen rulers, and whose apocalyptic utterances are of a kind different from the discourses of the other prophets, as they deal more with the political condition of the world and the drama of history, in so far as this tends toward the establishment of the supremacy of Yahweh. These prophecies were collected in later times and did not receive their final and present form until the Greek period at the beginning of the 2nd century BC.

After the return from Babylon the Jews were exhorted by Haggai and Zechariah to rebuild their temple (about 520 BC). At that time there were still to be found prophets who took a hostile attitude to the men of God. Thus Nehemiah (Neh_6:6-14) was opposed by hostile prophets as also by a prophetess, Noadiah. In contrast with these, Malachi is at all times in accord with the canonical prophets, as he was an ardent advocate for the temple cult of Yahweh, not in the sense of a spiritless and senseless external worship, but as against the current indifference to Yahweh. His style and his language, too, evidence a late age. The lyrical form has given way to the didactic. This is also probably the time when the present Book of Jonah was written, a didactic work treating of an older tradition.

Malachi is regarded by the Jews as the last really canonical prophet. While doubtless there was not a total lack of prophetically endowed seers and speakers of God also in the closing centuries of the pre-Christian era, nevertheless the general conviction prevailed that the Spirit of God was no longer present, e.g. in the times of the Maccabees (compare 1 Macc 4:46; 9:27; 14:41). It is true that certain modern critics ascribe some large sections of the Book of Isa, as well as of other prophets, even to a period as late as the Greek. But this is refuted by the fact mentioned in Ecclesiasticus (beginning of the 2nd century BC) that in the writer's time the prophetical Canon appeared already as a closed collection. Daniel is not found in this collection, but the Book of the Twelve Minor Prophets is. It was during this period that apocalyptic literature began to flourish, many specimens of which are foundamong the Apocrypha and the Pseudepigrapha. These books consist of eschatological speculations, not the product of original inspiration, but emanating from the study of the prophetic word. The very name Pseudepigrapha shows that the author issued his work, not under his own name, but under the pseudonym of some man of God from older times, such as Enoch, Ezra, Moses, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Baruch, and others. This fact alone proves the secondary character of this class of literature. See APOCALYPTIC LITERATURE.

Malachi finds a successor in John the Baptist, whose coming the former had predicted. John is the greatest of the prophets, because he could directly point to Him who completed the old covenant and fulfilled its promises. All that we know in addition concerning the times of Jesus shows that the prophetical gift was yet thought of as possibly dwelling in many, but that prophecy was no longer the chief spiritual guide of the people (compare e.g. Josephus, Ant., XIII, xi, 2; XV, x, 5, among the Essenes, or in the case of Hyrcanus, op. cit., XIII, x, 7). Josephus himself claims to have had prophetic gifts at times (compare BJ, III, viii, 9). He is thinking in this connection chiefly of the prediction of some details. Such “prophets” and “prophetesses” are reported also in the New Testament. In Jesus Christ Himself the prophetic office reached its highest stage of development, as He stood in a more intimate relation than any other being to His Heavenly Father and spoke His word entirely and at all times. In the Christian congregation the office of prophecy is again found, differing from the proclamation of the gospel by the apostles, evangelists, and teachers. In the New Testament the terms προφήτης, prophḗtēs, προφητεία, prophēteı́a, προφητεύω, prophēteúō, signify speaking under the extraordinary influence of the Holy Ghost. Thus in Act_11:27 f (prophecy of a famine by Agabus); Act_21:10 f (prediction of the sufferings of Paul); Act_13:1 f (exhortation to mission work); Act_21:9 ff (prophetical gift of the daughters of Philip). Paul himself also had this gift (Act_16:6 ff; Act_18:9; Act_22:17 ff; Act_27:23 f). In the public services of the church, prophecy occupied a prominent position (see especially 1 Cor 14). A prophetical book in a special sense is the Apocalypse of John. The gift of prophecy was claimed by many also in later times. But this gift ceased more and more, as the Christian church more and more developed on the historical basis of revelation as completed in Christ. Especially in spiritually aroused eras in the history of the church, prophecy again puts in its appearance. It has never ceased altogether, but on account of its frequent misuse the gift has become discredited. Jesus Himself warned against false prophets, and during the apostolic times it was often found necessary to urge the importance of trying spirits (1Jo_4:1; 1Co_12:10; 1Co_14:29).

The contents of prophecy are by no means merely predictions concerning the future. That which is given by the Spirit to the prophet can refer to the past and to the present as well as to the future. However, that which is revealed to the prophet finds its inner unity in this, that it all aims to establish the supremacy of Yahweh. Prophecy views also the detailed events in their relation to the divine plan, and this latter has for its purpose the absolute establishment of the supremacy of Yahweh in Israel and eventually on the entire earth. We are accustomed to call those utterances that predict this final purpose the Messianic prophecies. However, not only those that speak of the person of the Messiah belong to this class, but all that treat of the coming of the kingdom of God.

The beginnings of the religion of Israel, as also the chief epoch in its development, emanated from prophetical revelations. The prophet Moses elevated the tribal religion into a national religion, and at the same time taught the people to regard the religion of the fathers more ethically, spiritually and vitally. Samuel crowned the earthly form of the concrete theocracy by introducing an “Anointed of Yahweh” in whom the covenant relation between Yahweh and Israel was concentrated personally. The Anointed of the Lord entered into a much more intimate relationship to Yahweh as His Son or Servant than it was possible for the whole people of Israel to do, although as a people they were also called the servant or the son of God (compare Psa_2:7 f; 110). The Psalms of David are a proof of this, that this high destiny of the kingdom was recognized. David himself became a prophet in those hymns in which he describes his own unique relation to Yahweh. But the actual kings of history as a rule corresponded too imperfectly to this idea. For this reason the word “prophetic” already in David's time directs to the future, when this relationship shall be more perfectly realized (2Sa_7:12 ff; compare David's own words, 2Sa_23:4 ff). See MESSIAH.

Solomon completed the external equipment of theocracy by the erection of the temple. But it was just his reign that constituted the turning-point, from which time on the prophets begin to emphasize the judgment to come, i.e. the dissolution of the external existence of the kingdom of Yahweh. Yet prophecy at all times does this in such a manner, that a kernel of the divine establishment on Zion remains intact. The divine establishment of the sanctuary and the kingdom cannot be destroyed; all that is necessary is that they be restored in greater purity and dignity. This can be seen also in Amos, who predicts that the fallen tabernacle of David shall be raised up again (Amo_9:11 ff), which shall then be followed by a condition of undisturbed blessing. The same is found in Hosea, who sees how all Israel is again united under “David” the king of the last times, when between God and the people, between heaven and earth, an unbroken covenant of love shall be made (Hos_2:1 f, 18 ff); and also in Isaiah, who predicts that during the time of the conquest and subjection of the country by the Gentiles a Son of David shall be born in a miraculous manner and attain supremacy (Isa_7:14; Isa_9:2 ff; Isa_11:1 ff), and who speaks constantly of that divine establishment on Zion (compare the quiet waters of Shiloah, Isa_8:6), the foundation stone that has been laid by Yahweh (Isa_28:16, etc.). Micah, his contemporary, does the same, and in an entirely similar manner predicts that the radical judgment of destruction which shall come over the temple and the royal palace shall be followed by the wondrous King of Peace from Bethlehem (Mic_5:1 ff). Possibly even at a somewhat earlier date Zec_9:9 described this future ruler in similar terms. In general it is not probable that Isaiah and Micah were the first to speak so personally of this King. They seem to presuppose that their contemporaries were acquainted with this idea.

In recent times scholars have pointed to the fact that in the old Orient, among the Egyptians, the Babylonians and elsewhere, the expectation of a miraculously-born King of the future, who was to bring to His own people and to all nations salvation and peace, was entertained at an early period. Yet so much is certain, that Isaiah and Micah did not base their hopes on the vague dreams of the Gentileworld, but upon the prophetic establishment of a divine sanctuary and kingdom of Zion. The personal figure of this Son of David is not so much in the foreground in the other prophets down to the period of the exile. These prophets mention only casually the Good Shepherd, as e.g. Jer_23:1 ff; Jer_33:12 ff; Eze_34:23 f. But after that time this Messianic expectation became a permanent element in the hopes of Israel.

In the meanwhile, prophecy had thrown much light on the ways of God, which prepare for His kingdom on earth. Even long before Amos (Amo_5:18 ff) the idea of a “day of Yahweh,” which was to be a day of revelation, on which God makes a settlement with the nations, must have been generally known, since Amos is already compelled to protest against the abuse of this expectation. But hand in hand with this settlement we find also and at all times the expectation of the exaltation and of the salvation of Israel. Yet the prophets have all emphasized that Israel and Judah must first be thoroughly purified by a judgment, before the land could, through God's grace, be glorified and richly blessed. The judgment which the preexilic prophets are continually predicting is, however, only a means to an end. This judgment is not the final word of the Lord, as Amos, Hosea, Isaiah, Micah and Habakkuk constantly teach. They announce that return to Yahweh and obedience to His commandments is the way to salvation (Hos_6:1; Isa_1:18; Jer_4:1, and often). However, the prophets know that the people will not turn again to God, but that first the Jewish state must be entirely overthrown (Isa_6:1-13). It is particularly deserving of notice, that believing trust in Yahweh is regarded as the positive means for deliverance (Isa_7:9; Isa_30:15; Hab_2:4). It is through this that the “remnant” of the faithful, “the kernel” of the people, is saved. Also in the case of Jeremiah, whose work it was to predict the immediate destruction of Judah, there is not absent a kind of an esoteric book of consolation. His battle cry for the future is “Yahweh our righteousness” (Jer_23:6; Jer_33:16). In his case we find a rich spiritualization of religion. The external customs, circumcision and the like, he declares, do no good, if the true state of the heart is lacking. Even the ark of the covenant is unnecessary and is discarded in the enlargement of the sanctuary. Ezekiel, who lays more stress on the external ordinances, nevertheless agrees with Jeremiah in this, that Jerusalem together with the temple must fall. Only after this destruction the prophet in his spirit builds the sanctuary again; notwithstanding the external character of his restoration, there is yet found in his picture a further development of its spiritual character. The ethical rights and the responsibility of the individual are strongly emphasized (Ezekiel 18; 33). The land becomes transformed; the Gentiles are received into the covenant of God.

Deutero-Isaiah (Isa 40 through 66), during the time of the Babylonian captivity, enriches prophecy in an extraordinary manner, through the figure of the true “Servant of Yahweh,” who in a peaceful way, through his words of instruction and especially through his innocent sufferings and his vicarious deeds, converts Israel, the undeserving servant, and also wins over the Gentileworld to Yahweh. It was not possible that the picture of a suffering man of God, who through his death as a martyr attains to exaltation, should be suggested to the Jews by the altogether different figure of a death and resurrection of a Babylonian god (Thammuz-Adonis!). Since the unjust persecutions of Joseph and David they were acquainted with the sufferings of the just, and Jeremiah's life as a prophet was a continuous martyrdom. But the writer of the second part of Isaiah had before his eyes a vision that far excelled all of these types in purity and in greatness to such a degree as did David's Son in Isaiah and Micah surpass His great ancestor. He brings to a completion the kingdom of God through teaching, suffering and death, and attains to the glory of rulership. In this way He unites the offices of prophet, priest and king.

After the exile prophecy continues its work. The Messianic expectations, too, are developed further by Haggai, and still more by Zechariah. Malachi announces the advent of the Day of Yahweh, but expects before this a complete purification of the people of God. God Himself will come, and His angel will prepare the way for Him. The visions of Daniel picture the transformation of the world into a kingdom of God. The latter will mark the end of the history of the world. It comes from above; the earthly kingdoms are from below, and are pictured as beasts; the Ruler of the kingdom of God is a Son of man. The latter comes with the clouds of the heaven to take possession of His kingdom (Dan_7:13 ff). Then the judgment of the world will take place and include also each human being, who before this will bodily arise from the dead, in order to enter upon blessedness or condemnation. Here we find indicated a universal expansion of the kingdom of God extending over the whole world and all mankind.

If we survey this prophecy of the kingdom of God and its divinely-blessed Ruler, the Messiah, from a Christian standpoint, we find that a grand divine unity connects its different elements. The form of this prophecy is indeed conditioned by the views and ideas of the time of utterance. The prophets were compelled to speak so that their hearers could understand them. Only gradually these limitations and forms become spiritualized, e.g. the kingdom of God is still pictured by the prophets as established around the local center of Zion. Mt. Zion is in a concrete manner exalted, in order to give expression to its importance, etc. It is the New Testament fulfillment that for the first time gives adequate form to divine revelation. At least in the person of Jesus Christ this perfection is given, although the full unfolding of this kingdom is yet a matter of the future.

A second characteristic feature of prophecy is the partial nature of the individual prophetical utterances and prophetical pictures. One picture must be supplemented by the others, in order not to be misunderstood. Thus, e.g. according to Isa_11:14; Zec_9:13 ff, we might expect that the kingdom of God was to be established by force of arms. But the same prophets show in other utterances (Isa_9:6 f; Zec_9:9 f) that these warlike expressions are to be understood figuratively, since the Messianic King is more than all others a Prince of Peace.

A third feature that deserves attention is the perspective character of prophecy. The prophet sees together and at once upon the surface of the pictures things which are to be fulfilled only successively and gradually. Thus, e.g. Deutero-Isaiah sees in the near future the return from captivity, and directly connected with this a miraculous glorification of the city of God. The return did as a matter of fact take place soon afterward, but the glorification of the city in which Yahweh Himself had promised to dwell was yet in the distant future. The succeeding prophets, Haggai and Zechariah, predict that this consummation shall take place in the future.

Also in the predictions concerning the future made by Jesus and in the Apocalypse of John these characteristics of prophecy, its contemporaneous and perspective and at times symbolical features, are not disregarded. The firm prophetic word is intended to give the congregation certain directive lines and distinctive work. But an adequate idea of what is to come the Christian church will become compelled to form for itself, when the fulfillment and completion shall have taken place.

The uniqueness of Biblical prophecy is grasped fully only when we try to find analogies among the Gentile peoples. Here we find everywhere indeed the art of sooth-saying, the headquarters for which was Babylon. But with this art the prophecy of the Old Testament stands out in bold contrast (compare the prohibitions in Lev_19:26, Lev_19:31; Lev_20:6, Lev_20:27; Deu_18:10 ff, prohibitions that refer to necromancy for the purpose of discovering the future). This art was practiced through a medium, a person who had an 'ōbh (Babylonian, ubi), i.e. a spirit that brought forth the dead in order to question them. The spirits were thought to speak in murmurings or piping sounds (Isa_8:19), which could be imitated by the medium (ventriloquist). According to the Law, which forbade this under penalty of death, Saul had tried to destroy those who practiced incantations, who generally were women (1Sa_28:9). This practice, however, continued to flourish. In addition, the Babylonians and other peoples had also a developed art of interpretation in order to find omens for the future. Especially was the examination of intestines practiced by them. The liver of sacrificial animals particularly was carefully examined, and, from this, predictions, good or bad, were inferred (compare Eze_21:21). See DIVINATION. This art passed over from the Babylonions to the seafaring Etruscans, and through these came to the Romans. But other phenomena also were by the different nations interpreted as prophetically significant and were by those skilled in this art interpreted accordingly. Among these were miscarriages by human beings and animals, the actions of hens, horses, the flight of birds, earthquakes, forms of the clouds, lightning, and the like. Further, mechanical contrivances were used, such as casting of lots, stones, sticks, etc.

More spiritual and popular was the interpretation of dreams. It also was the case that mediums intentionally would convert themselves into a semi-waking trance. In this way the suitable mediums attained to a certain kind of clairvoyance, found among various peoples. This approaches the condition of an ecstatically aroused pseudo-prophet, of whom mention is made above. In Greece, too, oracles were pronounced by the Pythian prophetess, who by vapors and the like was aroused to a practice of the mantic article In Dodona it was the voice of the divinity in Nature, which they sought to read in the rustling of the trees and the murmuring of the water. How uncertain these sources were was well known to heathen antiquity. The ancients complain of the enigmatical character of the Sibylline utterances and the doubtful nature of what was said. See GREECE, RELIGION OF. In contrast to this, Israel knows that it possesses in prophecy a clear word (Num_23:23).

But the contents also of the Biblical prophecies are unique through their spiritual uniformity and greatness. The oracle at Delphi, too, at times showed a certain moral elevation and could be regarded as the conscience of the nation. But how insignificant and meager was that which it offered to those who questioned it, in comparison with the spontaneous utterances of the prophets of Israel! Also what has in recent times been said concerning the “prophetical texts” from ancient Egypt (Gressmann, Texte und Bilder, I, 20 ff) may indeed show some external similarity to the prophecies of Israel; but they lack the spiritual and religious depth and the strictly ethical dignity of the prophets of the Scriptures, as also the consistency with which these from century to century reveal the thoughts of God and make known with constantly increasing clearness their purposes and goal.

Witsius, De prophetis et prophetia, 1731; Chr. A. Crusius, Hypomnemata ad theologiam propheticam, Part I, 1764; A. Knobel, Der Prophetismus der Hebraer, 1837; F. B. Koester, Die Propheten des Altes Testament und New Testament, 1838; B. Duhm, Die Theologie der Propheten; Kuenen, The Prophets and Prophecy in Israel; F. E. Koenig, Der Offenbarungsbegriff des Altes Testament, 1882; C. von Orelli, Die alttestamentliche Weissagung von der Vollendung des Gottesreiches, 1882; W. Robertson Smith, The Prophets of Israel and Their Place in History, 1882; E. Riehm, Die messianische Weissagung, English translation, 1885; Delitzsch, Messianic Prophecy, 1891; A. T. Kirkpatrick, The Doctrine of the Prophets, 1892; G. French Oehler, Theologie des A T, 1891; Ed. Koenig, Dos Berufungsbewusstsein der alttestamentlichen Propheten, 1900; F. H. Woods, The Hope of Israel, 1896; R. Kraetzschmar, Prophet und Seher im alten Israel, 1902; A. B. Davidson, Old Testament Prophecy, 1903; Eb. Schrader, Die Keilinschriften und dos A T, 1902; C. von Orelli, Allgemeine Religionsgeschichte; M. Jastrow, Die Religion Babyloniens und Assyriens, 1903; Gressmann, Ursprung der israelitisch-judischen Eschatologie, 1905; W. J. Beecher, The Prophets and the Promise, 1905; C. S. Macfarland, Jesus and the Prophets, 1905; G. G. Findlay, The Books of the Prophets in Their Historical Succession, 1906-7; Gressmann, Alt-orientalische Texte und Bilder zum A T, 1909; Selwyn, Christian Prophets.

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