In the subsequent development of western Christianity in the 6th through the 10th centuries, tongue-speaking came to be looked upon with grave suspicion. Evidence shows that the experience still occurred but it was preponderantly linked with demon possession. Around the year 1,000, the Catholic Church outlined various signs of demon possession in the Rituale Romanum. Among other proofs, signs of possession were the following: "...ability to speak with some facility in a strange tongue or to understand it when spoken by another; the faculty of divulging future and hidden events..." Catholic theologian Ronald Knox elaborates on this Middle Age view:

"I do not mean to deny the existence of glossolalia all through the period under discussion. To speak with tongues you had never learned was, and is, a recognized symptom in case of alleged diabolical possession. What does not appear is that it was ever claimed, at least on a large scale, as a symptom of divine inspiration, until the end of the seventeenth century." (Enthusiasm: A Chapter in the History of Religion, p. 551).

Still, isolated instance of tongues appeared before then. Around the twelfth century, a Benedictine abbess, Hildegard of Bingen (1098 - 1179) was reported to have sung unknown words in what she described as "concerts in the Spirit." Although it is believed that her songs contained a combination of the local German dialect and Latin, she felt strongly that the Holy Spirit guided her. Unpersuaded, she was pronounced as demon possessed by some of her contemporaries. About a hundred years later, Spanish born St. Dominic (d. 1221) was reported to have spoken German after much prayer. St. Anthony of Padua (d. 1231) wrote that "his tongue became the pen of the Holy Spirit."

In 1247, however, St. Thomas Aquinas, whose desire was to address every Christian belief in his renowned Summa Theologica, included a response to the phenomenon of tongues. He concluded that tongue-speaking had happened when God offered it, but it no longer happened. He writes:

" We are to understand, then, that the giving of the Holy Spirit was to be certain, after Christ's exaltation, in a way in which it was never before. It was to have a peculiarity at his coming, which it had not before. For we nowhere read of men under the influence of the Holy Spirit, speaking with tongues they had never known, as then took place, when it was necessary to evidence his coming by sensible miracles." (Commentary on the Gospel of John, ch 32).

After this, in conjunction with many reports of miraculous activity in the hundred years following Aquinas, in 1350, St Vincent Ferrer is reported to have spoken in tongues. While in Genoa, he spoke to a group of men and women of mixed language backgrounds, all of whom were said to have heard him in their own language. The story is as follows:

"It was at Genoa, that people first realized the existence of a daily miracle which had been worked continuously for four or five years...Everywhere he [St. Vincent] went he was understood by all...Once it was realized what was happening it was not long before this remarkable phenomenon was being discussed with enormous interest right through the town...What language was the preacher using, for all were ready to swear that he was using their native tongue? At last a deputation of the learned men of Genoa put the question to Vincent himself."

"You are all wrong and all right, my friends," said the friar with a smile, "I am speaking Valencian [a Spanish dialect], my mother tongue; for except for Latin and a little Hebrew, I know no other Spanish. It is the good God who has rendered this intelligible for you."

This fact was juridically attested at the process of the saint's canonization by more than a hundred witnesses; they say that it was not merely the general sense that they understood, but they could appreciate every turn of expression...Furthermore, distance made no difference to them, for those on the outskirts of the huge crowds could hear as distinctly as those who were close to the pulpit (Angel of the Judgment: A Life of St. Vincent Ferrer, 1953, p. 137-138).

In addition to tongues, Vincent healed the blind, deaf, lame, and those who were possessed. He raised some from the dead. His public miracles were in the thousands.

In the sixteenth century, similar occurrences, including speaking in tongues, were reported of two more Catholic saints, Francis Xavier and Louis Bertrand. (Kelsey, p. 50).

It is not hard to see that Catholic history has been filled with tension over the issue of tongue-speaking. As noted previously, it has been a continuous battle between the charismata and the institution of the Church. From the Desert Fathers to the Medieval monks, most of the new communities which sprang up, thousands of them, were more or less charismatic in their beliefs, and this went on despite church regulations forbidding the creation of new communities. The Fourth Lateran Council had curtailed the founding of new religious orders of any kind, yet the order of St. Francis (the Franciscans) and the order of St. Dominic (the Dominicans) were established nonetheless. The second Council of Lyons tried to renew the prohibition of the Lateran Council, but it also failed to stop the tide.

During this time, Joachim of Fiore (1132 -1202) initiated a spiritual revival that influenced the whole of the later medieval period. Joachim attacked the Scholasticism of the period and accused its adherents of denying the gifts of the Holy Spirit. A subsequent group called the Joachimites became the source for most of the mysticism of the 13th and 14th centuries. In the 15th and 16th centuries, groups under the name of Illuminati, which included such mystics as John of Avila (1500 - 1569), Teresa of Avila (1515 - 1582); John of the Cross (1542 - 1591), and Ignatius Loyola (1491 - 1556), write of many miraculous phenomena occurring in their lives, including tongues (Laurentin, pp. 138-142). In his work Spiritual Journal, Ignatius makes daily mention of "loquela" (ecstatic speech) that came to him in prayer. Yet he also writes that he was not sure whether the experience was caused by God or a demon (Ibid., pp 84-85).

With only scattered records of tongue-speaking in the Middle Ages, there was little reason for the Protestant Reformers to consider a case for tongues. There exists, however, one biography of Luther which claims that he himself spoke in tongues. This might not be surprising considering that Luther often dabbled in the mystical side of Christianity and wrote several books on his experiences. In the writings of his contemporary John Calvin, however, there is no reference to the mystical or to speaking in tongues. A little more lenient, yet maintaining the unlikelihood of tongues, Francis Bacon concluded that speech between the celestial and the physical would not be contrary to any laws of nature, yet it must be against God's special law for man (Kelsey, p. 53).

Among the Anabaptists, who were known as the radical wing of the Reformation, its adherents were not content with the emphasis on the sola scriptura of Luther and Calvin. They claimed that the inward voice of the Holy Spirit takes precedence over the external word of Scripture. Many reports of highly-charged gatherings, which included tongue-speaking, are recorded in Anabaptist literature. The Anabaptist's stress on the Holy Spirit's activity coincided with the another reactionary movement to the Reformation, Pietism. Like the Anabaptists, the Pietists gave primacy to emotion in Christian experience. It was a philosophy that could not be undone. Pietism set in motion the forces which continued to exercise influence long after the movement itself had spent its force.

In 1685, Louis XIV of France rescinded the Edict of Nantes, which had formally given Protestant denominations religious liberty. One group, the Hugenots, were pressured with persecution to return to the Catholic Church. Clement XI referred to them as the "ancient Albigensians," since they sprang from the same culture. The group was well-known for its ecstatic prophecies, prodigies, voices, preternatural lights in the sky, and was stirred by the publication of Pierre Jurieu's L'accomplissement des propheties in 1689 (Ferm, p. 115). In this group, little children were reported to experience ecstatic manifestations, including tongues-speaking. Some reports indicate thousands of occurrences in one province. These episodes continued until 1711, twenty-six years after the rescission of Louis XIV. The children became known as the "little prophets of Cevennes." (Kildahl, p. 16). Other French Hugenots, however, deplored what they termed as the excesses of the Cevennes Hugenots.

The Jansenists, led by Cornelius Jansen, a reactionary element of the Catholic Church in the 17th century, were the next group to advocate and practice tongue-speaking. Similar to such reactionary groups as the Anabaptists and Pietists from Protestantism, the Jansenists emphasized experience in the Christian life. Curiously, the Jansenists held to the same views of absolute predestination as the Protestant Calvinist's of the 16th century, yet the latter showed no penchant for tongue-speaking.

In the latter half of the 17th century Quaker communities sprang up in England, and their emphasis was also on experiencing the movement of the Holy Spirit in visible and internal signs. Candidates for the Quaker ministry were not formally ordained as in other Protestant denominations, rather, they waited for the "inner light" of the Spirit to prompt one of their members to begin each Quaker gathering. Tongues-speaking was a usual part of these impromtu services. Ann Lee (1736 - 1784) started a separate group called the Shakers. A well-organized and productive group, Shaker services were noted for emphasis on the movement of the Holy Spirit, which at times would become so enthusiastic that the members would have uncontrollable "shakes" in the aisles. These incidents often included tongue-speaking, as well as other manifestations (Gromacki, p. 21).

Almost one hundred years passed from the time of Ann Lee till the next recorded evidence of tongues. Edward Irving (1792 - 1834), who created the Catholic Apostolic Church, never spoke in tongues himself but became a prominent figure in religious circles teaching others to speak in tongues. This movement was partially due to the French Revolution which had provoked in England an interest in apocalyptic thought. Irving's over-bearing spiritual excitement, accompanied by equally strong opinions about the state of the Protestant churches, caused him to be excommunicated from the church of Scotland. His "twelve apostles" continued their tongue-speaking until 1879 (Kelsey, p. 57).

After these smaller communities exhausted their influence, the Moravian missionary movement and the Methodist revival continued the trend of personal religious experience in Protestant denominations. Charles Wesley (1707 - 1788) made no claim to have received the gift of tongues, but he gave no doubt that the gift was manifested in some of his contemporaries (Culpepper, pp. 41-43). In his 1777 book, A Plain Account of Christian Perfection, Wesley's doctrine of the second blessing, a view which taught that one became instantaneously sanctified, was the central emphasis of Methodism in its early days. Wesley taught that sanctification is based on faith but God gives such faith only to those who seek it. Tongue-speaking had to be sought in order to obtain the full blessing. Neither infidelity from within nor great opposition from without was able to turn Methodism away from this emphasis (Ibid., p. 44). John Fletcher (1729-1785), who called Wesley the "holiest man he had ever met, or expected to meet, this side of eternity," furthered the movement by assigning the biblical name "Baptism of the Spirit" to the experience of tongues-speaking.

American revivalism, under leadership of Charles Finney (1792 - 1875), added to Wesley's doctrine by emphasizing the role of the emotions in changing the life of the individual. As part of his methodology he deliberately sought to produce a state of emotional excitement in his audiences, which would then sweep away opposing inhibitions in his revival meetings (Ibid., p. 45). But as Methodism began to suffer from the onslaught of liberal theology from Europe, many began to leave the mainline church to form separate groups. These groups carried along the Wesleyan second blessing theology and became known as the Holiness and Pentecostal churches (Ibid., p. 46).

In Mormonism, tongue-speaking was practiced from the beginning of the movement. In referring to tongues Joseph Smith wrote: "We believe in the gift of tongues, prophecy, revelation, visions, healing, and interpretation of tongues..." (Book of Mormon, Article 7). At the dedication of the temple in Salt Lake City, hundreds of elders were reported to have spoken in tongues. Soon, however, the practice was discouraged by the leaders because it brought ridicule and disrespect from those unsympathetic to Mormonism, a religion that had suffered much persecution prior to their eventual settlement in Utah. The attitude of the Mormons in those times may well give a clue as to why the practice of tongues dropped from sight in the first centuries of the church (Kelsey, p. 58).

A significant advancement in the cause of tongue-speaking came with Charles Parham, who has been called the father of the modern Pentecostal movement. He opened a Bible college in Topeka, Kansas, where he taught his students that the sign of the baptism of the Holy Spirit was speaking in tongues. On January 1, 1900, his student, Agnes Ozman, received the so-called baptism. The rest of the students shortly followed suit. Outside of John Fletcher in the late 1700's, this was the first occurrence in modern times when speaking in tongues was associated with the Holy Spirit's baptism (Dillow, p. 9). Much of the enthusiasm generated by Parham soon dissipated, however, after he was arrested for various immoralities (Bauman, p. 34).

In light of the above experience of a female tongues-speaker, it is worthy to note that as instances of tongues-speaking have been meticulously reported in the twentieth century, the documentation shows that 85% of all tongue-speakers are women (Goodman, p. 74). For those who base their experience on biblical directives, such evidence presents a curious anomaly, since in 1 Cor. 14:34, immediately after his directives concerning tongues, Paul commands women to be silent in the assembly. Indeed, the New Testament gives no evidence of a woman speaking in tongues. In a similar vein, in 1 Timothy 2:12-15 Paul commands that women are not to rule in the Church, but it is a fact that in many Protestant denominations, of which a significant percentage foster tongue-speaking, women serve as pastors (Ibid). In Catholic Churches, though women are barred from the priesthood, nevertheless many are put in positions of lay leadership with control over the instruction on charismatic gifts.

1 2 3 4 5 6 7