46. The use to which this opinion, become traditional, is put, may be illustrated by its employment by Charles Herman Lea, A Plea . . . for Christian Science, 191 5, p. 58, and its similar em- ployment by Samuel McComb, Religion and Medicine, 1908, pp. 295 ff. The former writes: "In the early years of the Christian Church, this command to heal the sick appears to have been fulfilled to a considerable degree, and history records that Christian healing was practiced until the end of the third century. Then it appears to have been gradually discontinued, as the spiritual life of the church declined, until the power was entirely lost sight of in the gross materialism that culminated in the union of Church and State. That the power to heal is not generally possessed by the ' Christian' Church to-day is certain; nor could anything be more misleading than the idea, sometimes propounded from the pulpits, that the abil- ity to heal was withdrawn because it became no longer necessary for the church to give such evidence of God's power, and of their under- standing of Him. For this very power was the evidence that Jesus Christ himself gave as proof of the truth of his teaching. Hence, one of the questions that the churches of Christendom need to face to-day is, 'Why are we unable to fulfil our Lord's clear and express command?' Is it because they do not correctly under- stand his teaching, or because they do not consider obedience to him, in this respect, necessary? Or has the church not yet risen above the materialism that marked its decadence in the early cen- turies of its history?" "Perhaps nowhere in history," writes McComb, "can we find the power of faith to heal disorders of a semi-moral and semi-nervous character so strikingly illustrated as in the early centuries of the church's existence. The literature of the ante-Nicene period is permeated with a sense of conquest over sickness, disease, and moral ills of every kind. . . . Gibbon, in his famous fifteenth chapter, mentions as the third cause of the spread of Christianity, 'the miraculous powers of the primitive church,' among which he names the expulsion of demons, but he dismisses the whole matter with a scoff as a product of superstition. Wider knowledge now shows that the historian's skepticism was quite unjustified. There is abundant testimony that one of the most important factors of the early propaganda of the Christian faith was an especial power which Christians seemed to have over various psychical disturbances. . . . Even so late as the time of Augustine, we find a belief in the healing power of faith still exist- ent. In his City of God he describes various healing -wonders of
CESSATION OF THE CHARISMATA 245
which he was an eye-witness, and which were done in the name of Christ." The entire angle of vision here is unhistorical.
47. John Lightfoot (Works, Pittman's 8 vol. ed., vol. Ill, p. 204) suggests as the reason for these two exceptions: "The Holy Ghost at this its first bestowing upon the Gentiles is given in the like manner as it was at its first bestowing on the Jewish nation, — namely, by immediate infusion; at all other times you find mention, of it, you find mention of imposition of hands used for it."
48. Acts 9 : 12-17 is no exception, as is sometimes said; Ana- nias worked a miracle on Paul but did not confer miracle-working powers. Paul's own power of miracle-working was original with him as an Apostle, and not conferred by any one.
49. Schaff-Herzog, Encyclopedia of Religious Knowledge, 1st edition, vol. II, p. 873.
50. The connection of the "signs and wonders and manifold powers of the Holy Ghost" in some particular fashion with the first generation of Christians — "them that heard" the Lord, that is to say, at least the Apostolic generation, possibly specifically the Apostles — seems to be implied in Heb. 2 : 4. That Paul regards the charismata as "credentials of the Apostolic mission" (possibly even Rom. 1 : 1 1 may be cited here) is clear even to J. A. MacCul- loch (Hastings's ERE., VIII, p. 683 b), although he himself doubts the soundness of this view. A. Schlatter (Hastings's Dictionary of the Apostolic Church, I, 577 a) says with great distinctness: "The Gospels, the Book of Acts, and the utterances of St. Paul regarding his 'signs' (II Cor. 12 : 12), all show distinctly that miracles were intimately related to the Apostolic function."
51. The Ecclesiastical History of the Second and Third Centuries, Illustrated from the Writings of Terlullian, 1825; 2d ed., 1826; 3d ed., 1845, pp. 98 ff.