"How Did we Get here? The Roots of Pentecostalism: Gnostics" by Tim Naab

An interesting story by a long-time student and participant in the Pentecostalist frenzy.  Tim's roots are multi-generational, his experience with Pentecostalists long, and his critique worth considering.  Here's Tim's review.

http://www.seeking4truth.com/gnostic_roots.htm

How Did we Get here? The Roots of Pentecostalism: Gnostics

By Tim Naab

Experience:

This is the most difficult thing to overcome as humans. We base our understanding and truth on experience. You have heard the old saying, “experience is the best teacher”. This is not true, experience is the worst teacher when it comes to spiritual truth. It is only when we use Scripture that we can overcome those things we have learned by experience. If I could give you one thing to take away from this study, it would be this, EXPERIENCE IS NOT OUR SOURCE OF TRUTH, SCRIPTURE IS. Jeremiah 17:9 (KJV) The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it? The word for “experience” in the NT is dokime dok-ee-may’ it comes from the Greek word dokimos meaning to prove or to be acceptable as in a coin that is made must be proved acceptable, without flaw. So truth must be the experience not the other way around.

I know that this teaching will be accepted by some, rejected by some, and may anger or embarrass some. I know what the first EXPERIENCE is like when a person who speaks in tongues, realizes the truth of it, embarrassment.

Lastly, speaking in tongues is not a sign of a person’s intelligence or lack of it. Those who do not hold to tongues should not think of those who do as being less intelligent. Remember, those of you who do not hold to tongues, Jeremiah 17:9 describes you also.

Dositheus

Dositheus was a Samaritan who formed a Gnostic-Judaistic sect, previous to Simon Magus. Although the name of Dositheus is often coupled with that of Simon Magus as the first of all heretics, we possess but scant information concerning him. He claimed to be the Messiah.[1]

Matthew 24:5 (KJV) For many shall come in my name, saying, I am Christ; and shall deceive many.

Origen states that "Dositheus the Samaritan, after the time of Jesus, wished to persuade the Samaritans that he himself was the Messias prophesied by Moses" (Contra Celsum, VI, ii)

 Simon Magnus

Dositheus came on the scene after John the Baptist was killed. He had 13 disciples and one woman named “Luna”. Simon Magus was made one of the 13 when a vacancy occurred.[2] He also claimed to be born of a virgin and only appeared as a man.[3] Simon claimed to have created a man from air and other great miracles.[4] In the 2nd century a Simonian sect arose that viewed Simon Magus as the first God, or Father, and he was sometimes worshipped as the incarnation of the Greek god Zeus. His consort Helen was regarded by his followers as the earthly manifestation of Athena.[5]

Acts 8:18-24 (KJV) ¹⁸ And when Simon saw that through laying on of the apostles' hands the Holy Ghost was given, he offered them money, ¹⁹ Saying, Give me also this power, that on whomsoever I lay hands, he may receive the Holy Ghost. ²⁰ But Peter said unto him, Thy money perish with thee, because thou hast thought that the gift of God may be purchased with money. ²¹ Thou hast neither part nor lot in this matter: for thy heart is not right in the sight of God. ²² Repent therefore of this thy wickedness, and pray God, if perhaps the thought of thine heart may be forgiven thee. ²³ For I perceive that thou art in the gall of bitterness, and in the bond of iniquity. ²⁴ Then answered Simon, and said, Pray ye to the Lord for me, that none of these things which ye have spoken come upon me.

Cerdon

"Father" Simon was followed by "Father" Cerdon. Then, around AD 95-105, Sixtus, ordained by Alexander, the pastor of what used to be Clement's congregation, apostatized and became the Episcopal head of the Gnostic school. Cerdon took a back seat, though evidently an influential back seat, and claimed he had "joined the Church". Transformed into the leader of a heretical sect, Sixtus could still boast of his Episcopal succession from the Apostles.[6] Cerdon was the author of Marcion’s error.[7], "Marcion, the founder of the Marcionites, took his cue from Cerdon and emerged into the world as a great serpent himself. And because he deceived a large number of people he founded a school which has endured to the present day in a variety of different forms.[8]

“The vision seems to be exposing the activity of a particular false prophet in Rome, and is, most probably, a reference to the sorcerer Cerdon, who occupied the kathedra of the First Church of Rome at this time.”[9]

Cerdon, as did Marcion, held that the god of Christ, good and unknown god, were not that of the Law and of the Prophets which was right and known, Christ had not been born from a virgin and had only one appearance of body, and there was resurrection only heart not body.[10] Cerdon partially accepted the Gospel of Luke and only parts of the epistles of Paul. He rejected the Acts of the Apostles and The Revelation as false.[11]

Marcion 144ad born 115 years and 6 months after the crucifiction[12]

According to an early Church tradition, preserved by Epiphanius of Salamis, Marcion was an immigrant to Rome from Pontus in Turkey, who had once professed to be an ascetic a man eschewing the luxuries of the world in the service of Jesus but had failed to live up to his calling. He had been excommunicated from his own Bible believing Church in his homeland of Pontus, the pastor of which was his own father, because he had had an immoral relationship with an unmarried girl in the congregation. When he arrived in Rome, he first attempted to join the Bible believing assembly in the city. They discovered the skeleton in his cupboard and refused him communion. He then crossed over to Cerdon's sect. After Cerdon's death, he became head of Cerdon's school.[13]

According to Clement of Alexandria, Marcion preceded in time all the great Gnostic masters: "those that invented the heresies".[14] That educated scholar from Alexandria (Clement) represents Marcion as an "elder" predecessor to two early Gnostic teachers, Valentinus and Basilides. Another heresiarch, Simon Magus, who is often portrayed as the grand father of Gnosticism, also is described by Clement as succeeding Marcion. "This statement of Clement appears to make Marcion an old man while (Basilides and) Valentinus were still young, and to put Simon Magus posterior to them all in time".[15] Marcion taught dualism can refer to ditheism: the belief that there are two rival great gods, that work in polar opposition to each other. For example, one god is good, the other evil; or one god works for order, the other for chaos. Both the Zoroastrian religion, three millennia old and still surviving, and the extinct Christian, Gnostic religion (and its variations such as, Manichaeism, Bogomils, Catharism, etc.) are dualistic, as is Mandaeanism. The third-century Christian heretic Marcion of Sinope held that the Old and New Testaments were the work of two opposing gods. The Christian conflict between God the source of all good and Satan the source of all evil is also ditheistic.

Marcion Taught:

• The God of the Old Testament was NOT the God of the New Testament.
• The God of the New Testament was another “GOOD” God as opposed to, and creator of, the “BAD” God of the Old Testament.
• He resolutely cut out all texts that were contrary to his dogma; in fact, he created his own New Testament admitting but one gospel, a mutilation of St. Luke, and an Apostolicon containing ten epistles of St. Paul.
• The good God is all love, the inferior god gives way to fierce anger.
• Christ (not the same a Jesus) did not have a real fleshly body
• Christ was God Manifest not God Incarnate.
• Christ brought salvation to Cain, Core, Dathan and Abiron, Esau, and the Gentiles, but left in damnation all Old Testament saints.
• Ideas of Marcion's reappeared with Manichaean developments among the Bulgarian Bogomils of the 10th century and their Cathar heirs of southern France in the 13th century.

Manichaeanism led to Albigenses (al”bi-jen’sëz), which flourished in southern France in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. This was the beginning of the Camisards, A sect of French fanatics who terrorized Dauphiné, Vivarais, and chiefly the Cévennes in the beginning of the eighteenth century. This led to Quakers and Shakers who rejected any form of organized worship service and depended entirely on what the Holy Spirit would say to each individual. They based their understanding of Scripture on their experiences and hearing the word of the Holy Spirit.

Mormonism, in order to prove its position has claimed theological partnership with Marcion and Montanus.

Valentinus (influenced by Marcion’s dualism and student of Theodas)

Valentinus had been a disciple of Theodas, who himself, it is very improbably said, knew St. Paul. Valentinus cannot have begun to disseminate his Gnostic doctrines till towards the end of the reign of Hadrian (117-138). Before this he is said to have been a Christian. It must have been, therefore, at most only shortly before his appearance as the head of a Gnostic sect that Valentinus became a hearer of Theodas and received, as he said, his doctrines from him. The Gnostics were fond of claiming for their secret doctrines apostolic tradition and tracing them back to disciples of the apostles. To this otherwise unknown Theodas the Valentinians appealed as an authority in much the same way as Basilides was said to have been a disciple of Glaucias, and he, in turn, an "interpreter of Peter."[16] From him was derived the parallel between the ideal world (the pleroma) and the lower world of phenomena (the kenoma). Valentinus drew freely on some books of the New Testament, but used a strange system of interpretation by which the sacred authors were made responsible for his own cosmological and pantheistic views. In working out his system he was thoroughly dominated by dualism.

Basilides (influenced by Marcion’s dualism and student of Theodas)

The earliest of the Alexandrian Gnostics and major opponent of Iranaeus. According to Irenaeus, Basilides was apparently a dualist and an emanationist. [17] According to Hippolytus, Basilides was a pantheistic evolutionist.[18] Basilides taught that Nous (Mind) was the first to be born from the Unborn Father. He stated “From Nous was born Logos (Reason); from Logos, Phronesis (Prudence); from Phronesis, Sophia (Wisdom) and Dynamis (Strength) and from Phronesis and Dynamis the Virtues, Principalities, and Archangels”[19]. “Basilides again, that he may appear to have discovered something more sublime and plausible, gives an immense development to his doctrines. He sets forth that Nous was first born of the unborn father, that from him, again, was born Logos, from Logos Phronesis, from Phronesis Sophia and Dynamis, and from Dynamis and Sophia the powers, and principalities, and angels, whom he also calls the first; and that by them the first heaven was made. Then other powers, being formed by emanation from these, created another heaven similar to the first; and in like manner, when others, again, had been formed by emanation from them, corresponding exactly to those above them, these, too, framed another third heaven; and then from this third, in downward order, there was a fourth succession of descendants; and so on, after the same fashion, they declare that more and more principalities and angels were formed, and three hundred and sixty-five heavens. Wherefore the year contains the same number of days in conformity with the number of the heavens.” [20]

Basilides was probably the first major Gnostic who viewed himself as a Christian theologian; but unlike his predecessor Simon Magus, he rejected the Old Testament. His system was probably an attempt to reconcile the Pauline Christianity, Egyptian Gnosticism, and popular Alexandrian Platonist philosophy of his day with his own mystical experiences. He claimed, by some accounts, to have been vested with secret revelations from Paul through his "interpreter" named Glaucius; by others from the disciple Matthias; by others from the now unknown and possibly fictitious prophets Barcoph and Barcabbas. He wrote 24 commentaries, called Exegetica, on the Gospels, only fragments of which now remain. Basilides is an Oriental through and through, who stands in closer relationship to Zoroaster than to Aristotle. Zoroastrianism: root of Islam and Bahá'í Faith.

Gnosticism was rampant and infiltrating the churches. The church was moving from its roots as common people of every race, and occupation to a church that ruled an empire. Many rejected this move and felt it should remain separate from all earthly things. One of these adherents was;

Montanus (A Priest of Cybele)

Jerome wrote that Montanus believed that God's supernatural revelations did not end with the apostles, but that even more wonderful manifestations of the divine energy might be expected under the dispensation of the Paraclete. It is asserted that Montanus claimed himself to be the Paraclete.[21] The Montanist book "The New Prophecy" teaches when God speaks through man a "grace ecstasy or rapture" is imparted whereby "he necessarily loses his sensation because he is overshadowed with the power of God".[22] Marcion and Montanus agree that gifts of the Spirit accompany "ecstasy or rapture" as it is called.[23] Montanus claimed to be a prophet and spoke in a kind of possession or ecstasy. He held that the relation between a prophet and the Divine Being Who inspired him was the same as between a musical instrument and he who played upon it; consequently the inspired words of a prophet were not to be regarded as those of the human speaker. In a fragment of his prophecy preserved by Epiphanius he says, "I have come, not an angel or ambassador, but God the Father." See also Didymus (u.s.).

Cybele's most ecstatic followers were males who ritually castrated themselves, after which they were given women's clothing and assumed female identities, who were referred to by the third century commentator Callimachus in the feminine Gallai, and who other contemporary commentators in ancient Greece and Rome referred to as Gallos or Galli. Her priestesses led the people in orgiastic ceremonies with wild music, drumming, dancing and drink. She was associated with the mystery religion concerning her son, Attis, who was castrated and resurrected. The dactyls were part of her retinue. Other followers of Cybele, Phrygian kurbantes or Corybantes, expressed her ecstatic and orgiastic cult in music, especially drumming, clashing of shields and spears, dancing, singing and shouts, all at night. Her cult had already been adopted in 5th century BC Greece, where she is often referred to euphemistically as Meter Theon Idaia ("The Mother of the Gods, the Savior who Hears our Prayers" and as "The Mother of the Gods, the Accessible One.") She/he was a hermaphroditic Daemon that the Gods decided that it must be stopped. Dionysus got it drunk by turning a spring into wine and it fell into a deep sleep. He tied its male parts to its legs or arms, and startled it, so that it woke and leapt up in fright, it tore off its own male genitals. Where the blood fell upon the ground, an almond tree sprung up. Deprived of its male parts, Agdistis was now a female divinity and became the great Mother Goddess Cybele.

Roman devotion to Cybele ran deep. Not coincidentally, when a RCC basilica was built over the site of a temple to Cybele, to occupy the site, it was dedicated as the Basilica di Santa Maria Maggiore. The name of the church reflects two ideas of greatness, both that of a major basilica as opposed to a minor basilica and also that of the Blessed Virgin Mary, the Mother of God. Santa Maria Maggiore is often personally used by the pope. Most notably, the pope presides over the annual Feast of the Assumption of Mary, celebrated each August 15 at the basilica.

There is no evidence of tongues after the first century until the mid second century by Montanus. Shortly after Montanus' baptism in to Christianity, he began travelling among the rural settlements of Asia Minor, preaching and testifying. Montanus was accompanied by two women, Prisca, sometimes called Priscilla, and Maximilla, who also purported to be the embodiments of the Holy Spirit that moved and inspired them. He claimed to have received a series of direct revelations from the Holy Spirit and to be the paraclete of the Gospel of John 14:16 (KJV) And I will pray the Father, and he shall give you another Comforter, that he may abide with you for ever;. As they went, "the Three" as they were called, spoke in ecstatic visions and tongues. All his followers, not merely the priests, were discouraged from marriage. The Christian church prevailed against this calling it a heresy and it eventually died out. The movement continued until the sixth century when emperor Justinian vehemently suppressed it. Loyal to their creed, as well as fanatical, the montanists of Constantinople rather committed suicide than surrender. They gathered in their churches and then set light to them, perishing in the flames.

The beliefs of Montanism contrasted with orthodox Christianity in the following ways:

• The belief that the prophecies of the Montanists superseded and fulfilled the doctrines proclaimed by the Apostles.
• The encouragement of ecstatic prophesying and speaking in tongues, contrasting with the more sober and disciplined approach to theology dominant in orthodox Christianity at the time and since.
• The view that Christians who fell from grace could not be redeemed, also in contrast to the orthodox Christian view that contrition could lead to a sinner's restoration to the church.
• The prophets of Montanism did not speak as messengers of God: "Thus saith the Lord," but rather described themselves as possessed by God, and spoke in his person. "I am the Father, the Word, and the Paraclete," said Montanus.[24] This possession by a spirit, which spoke while the prophet was incapable of resisting, is described by the spirit of Montanus: "Behold the man is like a lyre, and I dart like the plectrum. The man sleeps, and I am awake".[25]
• A stronger emphasis on the avoidance of sin, church discipline, and apocalyptic living than in orthodox Christianity. They emphasized chastity, including forbidding remarriage.
• The teachings of Montanism also stated that the Father was the Son. (oneness)
• According to Philastrius (Hær., xlix) they baptized the dead. Sozomen (xviii) tells us that they observed Easter on 6 April or on the following Sunday. Germanus of Constantinople (P.G., XCVIII, 44) says they taught eight heavens and eight degrees of damnation.

Tertullian (155-230)

Tertullian denounced Christian doctrines he considered heretical, but later in life adopted views that came to be regarded as heretical themselves. He was the first great writer of Latin Christianity, thus sometimes known as the "father of the Latin Church". He was a follower of Montanism.

In 388 a group known as the Tertullianistae appear in the literary record. They came from Carthage. The sect gained rapid conversions at Rome and was patronized by a supporter of the usurper Magnus Maximus. Soon, however, the group vanished again, when its surviving members in Carthage rejoined the Catholics and surrendered their basilica to bishop Aurelius.This information is supplied by Augustine¹ in De haeresibus ch. 86, and the anonymous 'Praedestinatus' (ca 435 AD) who partly copies him. These writers claim that Tertullian founded the sect after quarrelling with the Montanists.

'Praedestinatus' or 'Praedestinatorum Haeresis' Augustine ch.26. The Cataphrygians came into being as the 26th heresy, and take their name from the province they came from, not from their dogma. The authors were Montanus, Prisca and Maximilla.

They therefore claim the arrival of the holy spirit promised by the Lord to be in themselves rather than in the apostles. They consider second marriages to be fornication, and say the apostle Paul permitted them for the reason that he knew only in part and prophesied only in part. For that which is perfect had not yet come. But this perfection had arrived in Montanus and in his prophetesses.

Theodotus

Theodotus, " the first steward of the New Prophecy," was a fellow-worker with Montanus. Later on, Firmilian, writing to Cyprian, mentions a prophetess who appeared in Cappadocia about A.D. 236, and Epiphanius (Haer. 49) tells of another called Quintilla. - (ED.) Meanwhile in Phrygia and its neighbourhood - especially in Galatia, and also in Thrace - a controversy was raging between the adherents and the opponents of the new prophecy. Theodotus claimed that Jesus was born of the Virgin Mary and the Holy Spirit as a mortal man, and though later adopted by God upon baptism, was not himself God until after his resurrection.

Montanism also lead to Novatian, the Donatists (Donatism), the Cathari, and even Emanuel Swedenborg and Edward Irving.

Cathari (The union of Marcion and Montanus…duelism)[26]

Cathari is the name for members of the widespread dualistic religious movement of the Middle Ages. Carried from the Balkans to Western Europe, Catharism flourished in the 12th and 13th cent. as far north as England. It was known by various names and in various forms Bogomils; Albigenses). Catharism was descended from Gnosticism and Manichaeism and echoed many of the ideas of Marcion. The Cathari tended to reject not only the outward symbols of the Christian church, such as the sacraments and the hierarchy, but also the basic relationship between God and humanity as taught by orthodox Christianity. Instead, the Cathari believed in a dualistic universe, in which the God of the New Testament, who reigned over spiritual things, was in conflict with the evil god (or Satan), who ruled over matter. Asceticism, absolute surrender of the flesh to the spirit, was to be cultivated as the means to perfection. There were two classes of the Cathari, the believers and the Perfect. The believers passed to the ranks of the Perfect on acceptance of the consolamentum, a sort of sacrament that was a laying on of hands. The Catharist concept of Jesus resembled modalistic Monarchianism in the West and adoptionism in the East. Before their deaths they would receive a baptism of the Spirit, the ceremony that converted a believer into a Perfect or Elder. This ceremony convenenza, is known as the consolamentum. Cathars did not involve water, only words, the laying on of hands, and the placing of the Gospel attributed to St-John upon the head of the consoled. According to the Albigenses and other Cathars, the consolamentum was the baptism of the Holy Spirit, reception of all the spiritual gifts, power to bind and loose, absolution, baptismal regeneration, and Ordination all in one. As in other strands of early Christianity with no central authority over the religion, the ritual took many forms. There were some that used the entire New Testament and as stated above some only used the book of John while consoling. There were even some remote cases where water was used during consolamentum being profusely poured over the recipients head until he/she was completely wet (as opposed to sprinkling) while the name of Christ was mentioned in place of the mention of the members of the Trinity which was a doctrine Albigenses and Cathars did not profess (their Christology resembled modalistic monarchism in the West and adoptionism in the East). Laying on of hands were always part of the ceremony. Some historians have stated that incidences of estatic utterances during Consolamentum was actually glossalia, speaking in tongues, which demanded that the rite be even more secretly guarded since this phenomena occurring outside of the Church was considered witchcraft which was punishable by death. The Cathari also held to the belief in reincarnation.

Much of these teachings were becoming more and more popular in the RCC. Christianity today has forgotten the reason for the reformation. Roman Catholicism had been ruling with an iron fist. Gnostics and superstition had filled the “church”. Faith had been buried in tradition. Martin Luther, tried to correct the “church” without destroying it but eventually he had to separate from it. Eventually Luther began to refer to Papal Rome as the anti-christ. Grattan Guinness wrote these memorable words: “From the first, and throughout, that movement [the Reformation] was energized and guided by the prophetic word. Luther never felt strong and free to war against the Papal apostasy till he recognized the pope as antichrist. It was then that he burned the Papal bull. Knox’s first sermon, the sermon that launched him on his mission as a reformer, was on the prophecies concerning the Papacy. The reformers embodied their interpretations of prophecy in their confessions of faith, and Calvin in his ‘Institutes.’ All of the reformers were unanimous in the matter, even the mild and cautious Melanchthon was as assured of the antipapal meaning of these prophecies as was Luther himself. And their interpretation of these prophecies determined their reforming action. It led them to protest against Rome with extraordinary strength and undaunted courage. It nerved them to resist the claims of the apostate Church to the utmost. It made them martyrs; it sustained them at the stake. And the views of the Reformers were shared by thousands, by hundreds of thousands. They were adopted by princes and peoples. Under their influence nations abjured their allegiance to the false priest of Rome. In the reaction that followed, all the powers of hell seemed to be let loose upon the adherents of the Reformation. War followed war: tortures, burnings, and massacres were multiplied. Yet the Reformation stood undefeated and unconquerable. God’s word upheld it, and the energies of His Almighty Spirit. It was the work of Christ as truly as the founding of the Church eighteen centuries ago; and the revelation of the future which he gave from heaven - that prophetic book with which the Scripture closes - was one of the mightiest instruments employed in its accomplishment.” Romanism and the Reformation, pp. 136, 137

The Counter Reformation, Council of Trent, was convened to address the issues of the Reformation. One major issue was the term used by Luther and other Reformers in comparing the Pope to the anti-Christ. On August 15, 1534, Ignatius Loyola founded a Roman Catholic order called the Society of Jesus, also called Jesuits. The Jesuits have a dark and violent history. Some were expelled from Portugal in 1759, France in 1764, Spain in 1767, Naples in 1767, and Russia in 1820. The Roman Catholic Church commissioned the Jesuits, at the Council of Trent, the task of countering the anti-Christ reference to the Papacy. They attempted to destroy this through inquisition, and by re-writing the understanding of eschatology. They were commissioned by the Pope to devise a new eschatology. Three members are known for their work in this matter. They are; Francisco Ribera (1537-1591), Jesuit priest and doctor of theology from Spain (futurism), Manuel de Lacunza (1731-1801) Jesuit priest and doctor of theology from Chilean and Spain (Futurist Millinanarianism), and Luis De Alcazar (1554-1613) Jesuit priest and doctor of theology from Spain (preterism).

Manuel de Lacunza wrote a book entitled 'The Coming of Messiah in Glory and Majesty', and in its pages taught that Christ returns in a 2 part coming. First part to rapture the Church out of the world to mis the revealing of the anti-Christ. After all if the Church is gone before the anti-Christ is revealed, the Papacy can’t possibly be the anti-Christ. Lacunza published his book under the pen name, Rabbi Ben Ezra, a supposedly converted Jew. Lacunza's book was found in the library of the Archbishop of Canterbury, in 1826 and made its way via parts translated and read by Edward Irving, to the public. The “Romeward movement was already arising, destined to sweep away the old Protestant landmarks, as with a flood.”[27]

Then we come to Edward Irving a Scottish Presbyterian that held to the future anti-christ ideas of the Counter Reformation. In his study he read Manuel de Lacunza’s book and translated it into English. Many began to accept these teachings of future prophecies and began prophesying them selves. Two families, the McDonalds and the Campbells were drawn to this through their own practice of psychic readings, fortune telling and auto-writings. This lead to prophetic utterances of Margaret McDonald, a Scottish girl that influenced Irving’s eschatology of a pre-trib rapture and proof that the “experience” was still alive. Soon after we see the ecstatic utterances. McDonald and Irving both “prophecied” that the coming would be in 1864. McDonald actually named the anti-Christ. She named Robert Owen, a utopian socialist of the day. Robert Owen was against all religions and was one of the founders of socialism in Wales. Owen's philosophy was based on three intellectual pillars:

First, no one was responsible for his will and his own actions, because his whole character is formed independently of himself; people are products of their environment, hence his support for education and labour reform, rendering him a pioneer in human capital investment.

Second, all religions are based on the same absurd imagination, that make man a weak, imbecile animal; a furious bigot and fanatic; or a miserable hypocrite; (though in his later years he embraced Spiritualism).[28]

"During the middle ages speaking in tongues were reported in monasteries of the Orthodox church. In the seventeenth century it seems to have been practiced in France amongst the Huguenots (Protestants) and the Jansenists (pietistic Catholics). In the nineteenth century glossolalia was practiced in America amongst the Shakers and Mormons, and in Scotland and London amongst the followers of Edward Irving, who saw this as the latter-rain outpouring of the Holy Spirit prior to the pre-millennial return of the Lord."[29] (Quote taken form Millard Erickson's Christian Theology and Walter Elwell's Evangelical Dictionary of Theology, s.v. "Montanists," "Pentecostalism," and "Tongues, Speaking in.")

Edward Irving 1792-1834 (A product of Jesuit Papal defense, Marcion, Montanus, and Manichaeism)

Edward Irving entered the University of Edinburgh at the age of thirteen and graduated with an MA at the age of sixteen in 1809. Irving devoted his leisure time to mathematics, physical science, and English literature. His favorite works were Arabian Nights and Ossian. The Persian story of the Arabian Nights was a mixture of mythological stories of gods and prophecies. Ossian was a book based on Irish mythology full of prophetic tales and deeds which Irving quoted from often. Irving was a very charismatic man and impressed people with his eloquent in speech. Irving was comfortable among the poltical, legal, and scientific men. He would win them over with ancient poetry, and his opinionated views of modern man instead of “worn out theological discourse”. His church membership began to fade as he replaced theological discourse for poetry, political and mythological sermons. Being at odds with the main current of the thought of his time, the failure of the commission he had undertaken was sooner or later inevitable; and shortly after the opening of his new church in Regent Square in 1827, he found that he was no longer popular with the common man, and the church, though always well filled, was no longer crowded. Because of this his self-esteem, one of his strongest passions, was damaged. But the wound inflicted was of a deeper and deadlier kind, because it confirmed his despair of the worlds gradual decline, and established his tendency towards supernaturalism. Prophecy began to take over his thinking and he began reading the works of a Jesuit priest, Manuel Lacunza, writing under the assumed Jewish name of Juan Josafat Ben-Ezra, then in 1827 he published a translation of it, accompanied with an eloquent preface. This was his initiation into the doctrine of millenarianism. The book was titled The Coming of the Messiah. It was influential in the development of 19th century beliefs in an imminent Millennium. Millenarianism is the belief by a religious, social, or political group or movement in a coming major transformation of society after which all things will be changed in a positive direction. To make a long story short, Irving began to see the Church as a period of time before this great Millennium event that was soon to take place. Since the Church is still in the “age of the Church”, all the gifts should be in effect also. Irving began to look for these gifts and started a denomination known as the Catholic Apostolic Church. One of the founders of this church was a friend of Irving named Henry Drummond an English banker, politician and writer. Drummond greatly influenced Irving due to his curiosity into prophetic writings. Irving began teaching on the gifts and prophecy. Soon tongues were being taught in conferences by those taught of Irving. After working as a mathematics teacher and studying theology part time, Irving was called in 1822 to the Caledonian chapel in London as a preacher. His chapel congregation grew so rapidly that in 1827 a new and larger church was built for him in Regent Square. His popularity waned, however, because of his increasing stress on apocalypticism and eschatology, including his prediction in 1825 that the Second Coming of Christ would occur in 1864. The following is a letter from Edward Irving, note the reference to the Campbells and the McDonalds;

"13 Judd Place, East
June 2nd, 1830.

"My dear and kind friend, - I have at last found the document I referred to. You will find it in the printed Acts of the year 1704, Act xxviii., and from the 6th of certain 'Overtures concerning Schools and Bursaries, and for instructing youth in the principles of religion;' and is as follows*:-"

(A footnote here indicates the following: "* It is unnecessary to quote the extract made by Irving, which bears reference to Chalmers's idea of making theology one of the branches of liberal education.")

"There are very many Acts of the Church scattered through these years following the Restoration concerning the advancement of learning, which would, I think, strengthen your hands very much in any undertaking to that effect.

"I had thought to see you to thank you in person for your great kindness to me and my church on this occasion; but the state of my poor boy's health prevents me from leaving home for a night. Accept of them now, and be assured of my willingness to repay unto Christ and His Church the kindness which by you He hath shown unto me; and whenever any opportunity occurs of serving you personally, be assured of my readiness.

"I perceive two things in Scotland of the most fearful omen: First, self-sufficient ignorance of theological truth, and a readiness to pride themselves in and boast of it, and to call everything speculation which proposes to advance the bounds, or rather narrow the limits, of theological knowledge. My doctrine on our Lord's human nature is as literally the doctrine of the Confessions of the Church as can be - viz., That He took the human nature of the Virgin, that it was thoroughly and completely sanctified in the generation by the work of the Holy Ghost, and underwent no process or progress of sanctification. Yet, through ignorance of the person and office of the Holy Ghost, I perceive the greatest horror to prevail against this truth, and a readiness to adopt one or other of the errors - either that His nature was intrinsically better than ours, or that it underwent a physical change before its assumption into the person of the Son. If you would see, within a short compass, the three opinions brought to the test of the Confessions of Faith, I recommend to you a short anonymous tract, entitled The Opinions circulating concerning the Human Nature of our Lord brought to trial before the Westminster Confessions of Faith. You ought to give some study to this point, and stand in the breach for the truth. I have thoroughly gone through the subject of the Incarnation; and if it served you, could at any time give you the history from the beginning of the controversies on this subject, and of its present form. The second thing which grieves and oppresses my heart with respect to poor Scotland, is the hardness of heart manifest in the levity and cruelty with which they speak of others; the zeal and readiness with which they rush to overthrow such men of God as John Campbell; the union of all parties to this end; the scorn with which they regard the signs of the Holy Ghost beginning to be again vouchsafed to the Church; and, if not scorn, the mere juryman way of considering them, as the House of Commons might, without any respect to any existing promise, or probability, or doctrine of any kind upon the subject, - also without any regard to the discernment of the Holy Ghost in us, and even as if the Holy Ghost were merely a sharpener of our natural faculties to detect imposture or to know sincere persons. The substance of Mary Campbell's and Margaret Macdonald's visions or revelations, given in their papers, carry to me a spiritual conviction and a spiritual reproof which I cannot express. Mr. Cunningham, of Lainshaw, said to me the other day, that he had seen nothing since the Apostles' days worthy to be compared with a letter of Mary Dunlop's which is written to the person of this city. Thomas Erskine and other persons express themselves more overpowered by the love, and assurance, and unity seen in their prayers and conversations than by the works. Oh, my friend! oh, my dear master! there are works of the Spirit and communications of the Spirit which few of us ever dream of! Let us not resist them when we see them in another. Mind my words when I say, 'The Evangelical party in the Church of Scotland will lay all flat if they be not prevented.' I desire my true love to Mrs Chalmers and Miss Anne. May God give you a prosperous journey!

Your faithful friend and brother
"Edwd Irving." [30]

During this time a man named John Darby came into prominence; he was a founder of the Plymouth Brethren movement and influenced many famous men as his followers, including C.I. Scofield. Until the time of John Darby there was no dispensational teaching as we know it today other than what was taught by Marcion in the middle of the second century A.D. This was also dealt with as a heresy by the early church.

Darby is the acknowledged father of modem dispensational premillennialism. Darby is remembered especially for his recalling the church to expectancy for its rapture at the return of the Lord before Daniel's Seventieth Week. The doctrine of a secret rapture was first conceived by John Nelson Darby of the Plymouth Brethren in 1830. Darby invented the doctrine claiming there were not one, but two "second comings." This teaching was viewed as unbiblical by other members of the Brethren. Samuel Tregelles, a biblical scholar, said that Darby’s two comings teachings was the "height of speculative nonsense." Another member of the Plymouth Brethren, B.W. Newton, disputed Darby's new doctrine claiming such a conclusion was only possible if one declared certain passages to be "renounced as not properly ours." (This is eventually what Darby DID). "This is precisely what Darby was prepared to do. Too traditional to admit that biblical authors might have contradicted each other, and too rationalist to admit that the prophetic maze defied penetration, Darby attempted a resolution of his exegetical dilemma by distinguishing between Scripture intended for the Church and Scripture intended for Israel. . . . Darby's difficulty was solved by assuming that the Gospels were addressed partly to Jews and partly to Christians."[31] The doctrine of the separation of Israel and the Church, Dispensationalism, was formed out of Darby's attempt to justify his new rapture theory with the Bible.

To a large degree, his eschatology flows out of his ecclesiology which underwent radical change between 1827 and 1831 due to the influence of Edward Irving’s teachings on Millenarianism. In 1830 Margaret McDonald's "word of prophecy" which, for the first time in church history, divided the second advent of Christ into two parts: the "rapture of the church" (her vision has since become known as the "Pre-trib rapture of the church"). Margaret's friend, Mary Campbell, was the first person to speak in unknown tongues, Sunday evening, March 28, 1830, and Margaret's brothers spoke in unknown tongues on Friday, April 6, 1830. Then Margaret herself spoke in unknown tongues from her sick bed, "With her word of prophecy". Later, one of Margaret's older sisters wrote to Robert Norton of Margaret undergoing another "outpouring of the spirit" followed the same day by her brother James' Baptism of the spirit and Margaret's "supernatural" healing from her illness. Her recovery caused her to be sought after for speaking engagements.

Darby then traveled to America where one of his converts, Southern Baptist preacher in N.C. Richard Sparling, said the first century gifts were now back in the world. Out of Sparling's revival came the Thomplison Brothers, founders of the Southern Church of God whose college is now on the old Bob Jones campus, Lee College.

John Alexander Dowie 1848-1907

Dowie was born in Edinburgh and moved to Australia as a boy but returned to Edinburgh to study theology. Founded the Christian Catholic Apostolic Church in America in 1896. Dowie was from the same area as Irving (founder of the Catholic Apostolic Church) and attended the same university in Edinberg. Dowie claimed to be Elijah.

Though Dowie himself did not accept the Spirit-baptism with tongues theology, he is called "the father of healing revivalism in America" (Harrell, All Things Are Possible, p. 13). His latter days miracle theology helped pave the way for Pentecostalism, and Pentecostal theology did quickly permeate his institutions even before his death. Many influential Pentecostal leaders came out of his movement. His magazine, Leaves of Healing, had a worldwide distribution and a vast influence. Dowie taught that healing is promised in the atonement and insisted that those who sought faith healing give up all medical care.

He viewed druggists and physicians as instruments of the devil. When his own daughter was severely burned after accidentally knocking over an alcohol lamp, he banished one of his followers for trying to alleviate her pain with Vaseline. He refused to allow her any medical treatment and she died in that condition. Many others who came to his faith cure homes died of their illnesses without any medical attention. In 1895 he was charged with manslaughter and neglect by the city of Chicago and convicted, but the higher courts ruled that the conviction was unconstitutional. He required that his followers give up the use of all pork products. He ruled his City of Zion with an iron hand and was noted for financial irresponsibility and a love for personal luxury. In 1901 he claimed that he was Elijah the Restorer, and in 1904 he "told his followers to anticipate the full restoration of apostolic Christianity and revealed that he had been divinely commissioned as the first apostle of a renewed end-times church" (Dictionary of Pentecostal and Charismatic Movements, p. 249). In the last few years of his life he was accused of sexual irregularities, he suffered a crippling stroke, and his Zion City was declared bankrupt. For six months before his death he lay in a state of total despondency.

In spite of Dowie's heretical doctrines and unscriptural ministry, he prepared the way for Charles Parham and his equally unscriptural Pentecostalism. Many of the most famous Pentecostal evangelists went out from Zion, meaning Zion, IL the town that Dowie founded.[32] Dozens of Parham's followers at Zion joined the Assemblies of God at its formation in 1914. In fact, three of the original eight members of the AOG general council were from Zion City (p. 370). Those who arose from Zion City to become influential in the Pentecostal movement included F.F. Bosworth, John Lake, J. Rosewell Flower, Daniel Opperman, Cyrus Fockler, Fred Vogler, Marie Burgess Brown, William Piper, F.A. Graves, Lemuel Hall, Martha Robinson, Gordon Lindsay, and Raymond Richey. Influential Assemblies of God minister Gordon Lindsay, editor of Voice of Healing, wrote Dowie's biography and gave him credit for influencing "a host of men of faith who have had powerful ministries," referring to generations of Pentecostal preachers.

Charles Parham

1896 Charles Parham begins a ministry of healing, One year after Dowie begins his movement. A successful ministry of healing, plus Bible classes and training sessions for workers resulted in requests for a full college. This led to the opening, in October, 1900, of Bethel Bible College, patterned along lines Parham had encountered during a summer’s visit to Eastern schools, "such as Dowie’s work who was then in Chicago; the Eye-Opener work of the same city; Malone’s work in Cleveland; Dr. Simpson’s work in Nyack, New York; Sanford’s ‘Holy Ghost and Us’ work at Shiloh, Maine and many others."[33] He opened his college in 1901, the Bible college in Topeka, Kansas, named Bethel Bible College. Parham assigned his students to search the Scriptures and find "if there is not some evidence given of the baptism [of the Holy Ghost] so there may be no doubt on the subject".[34] Jan. 1, 1901, For the rest of the day (the last day of 1900), leading up to the Watch Night service, "There was a holy hush over the entire building" and "all felt the influence of a mighty presence in our midst" and "such a spirit of unity prevailed that even the children (were) at peace".[35] It is not surprising then that the night service (New Year’s Eve) "was especially spiritual" and sometime after midnight (she remembers it as being next day), Agnes Ozman asked Parham to lay his hands on her. When he did so, she began to speak with other tongues and her English was taken away for three days[36]; He called the group together (the 40 students now augmented by 75 visitors from the area, including some from Kansas City), and was supposedly amazed by the unanimity of the answer that "speaking in tongues" was the Biblical evidence of the Baptism of the Holy Spirit.[37] Almost immediately, still in January, he took a party of seven students (more correctly referred to as "workers" because all were adults, many seasoned Gospel workers, and a few even ordained ministers) to Kansas City.[38] First there were ten days of meetings, starting Jan. 21, 1901, in the Academy of Music, and then in a tent in Shelly Park where a six-hour daytime prayer meeting, with over a hundred participating, amazed the newspaper writer.[39]

Parham, the founder of Pentecostalism, was riddled with doctrinal heresies. He believed in annihilation of the unsaved and denied the Bible doctrine of eternal torment. He believed in the unscriptural doctrine of anglo-Israelism. He taught that there were two separate creations, and that Adam and Eve were of a different race than people who allegedly lived outside of the Garden of Eden. The first race of men did not have souls, he claimed, and this race of unsouled people was destroyed in the flood. Parham believed that those who received the latter days spirit baptism and spoke in tongues would make up the bride of Christ and would have a special place of authority at Christ's return. He believed in a partial rapture composed of tongues speakers. This “gift” spread rapidly through the school and soon the whole student body became involved and began to spread this EXPERIENCE across the country. The word spread to Houston, TX, to a black Nazarene evangelist named W.J. Seymore, who in 1903, attended Charles Parham's Bible school where he received the “experience”. There he became committed to another false doctrine, that the Christian MUST be subsequently "baptized in the Holy Spirit with the initial evidence of tongues." In early 1906 Seymour was invited to Los Angeles to pastor a small holiness group which, at the time of the invitation, was pastored by a woman, Julie Hutchins. The group was formed of people who had been disciplined out of the Second Baptist Church for the "second blessing" sinless perfection heresy. On the way to Los Angeles, Seymour visited Alma White's Pillar of Fire movement in Denver, Colorado. This group taught sinless sanctification and believed the evidence of the same was dancing. Alma White was not impressed with Seymour. She later described him as follows: "I had met all kinds of religious fakers and tramps, but I felt he excelled them all." Seymore went to Los Angeles to Pastor a Nazarene church on Bonny Bray Street where he opened his meeting by giving the testimony of his “experience”. The elders of the Nazarene church closed the meeting, hoping to silence this heresy but many in the congregation became interested. Seymore and few people went down the street to a closed up stable on Azusa Street, opened it, and he preached his “experience”. This is known as the "Azusa Street Revival." The meeting went on for years, people came from all over the world to receive the “experience”. The movement has not changed much since then. The movement grew rapidly from the Azusa Street “experience” in 1907 to the 1940s Some believed that one must receive Christ then tarry until baptized with the Holy Spirit; others believed one is saved first then must be entirely sanctified because the Holy Spirit would never indwell a life not entirely sanctified; still others believed that one must be saved and then baptized in the name of Jesus in order to be fully saved, and then later, one could be sanctified and then ready for baptism in the Holy Spirit.

Here are a few quotes from notable theologians who were eye witnesses of the Azusa St. “experience”

G. Campbell Morgan described the Azusa Street activities as, "the last vomit of Satan." R.A. Torrey declared that this new Pentecostal movement was, "emphatically not of God, and founded by a Sodomite.” H. A. Ironside said in 1912 AD both the holiness and Pentecostal movements were, "disgusting. . .delusions and insanities." ... "pandemonium's where exhibitions worthy of a madhouse or a collection of howling dervishes," were causing a "heavy toll of lunacy and infidelity." W.B. Godbey said of the Azusa Street participants and he claimed the movement was the result of spiritualism. "Satan's preachers, jugglers, necromancers, enchanters, magicians, and all sorts or mendicants,"

Clarence Larkin "But the conduct of those possessed, in which they fall to the ground and writhe in contortions, causing disarrangement's of the clothing and disgraceful scenes, is more a characteristic of demon possession, than a work of the Holy Spirit. From what has been said we see that we are living in "Perilous Times," and that all about us are "Seducing Spirits," and that they will become more active as the Dispensation draws to its close, and that we must exert the greatest care lest we be led astray." [40]

Example of the spread of the “experience”

Out of this came a man named Oral Roberts who was a struggling preacher and finding no church that would accept his experience. He met a man named Demos Shakarian, whom I have met, that was a wealthy business man whose family had been a part of the Azusa Street “experience”. Demos Shakarian approached Oral Roberts with a marketing idea. His idea was to circumvent the established churches and go directly to the members of the churches. Oral Roberts and Demos worked out the plan to erect a large tent in a city and hold services on the off nights of normal church activities. Demos began an organization to manage events which is known today as, The Full Gospel Businessmen Association through which much of the beginning of tent meetings and televangelism was financed.

Note: A.J. Tomlinson is said to be the founder of the “latter rain movement” and founded the Church of God….According to “Last Great Conflict”, A.J. Tomlinson and M.S. Lemons met with M.M. Pinson who was then under the influence of G.B. Cashwell, in Birmingham, Alabama, in June, 1907. Cashwell was member of the Fire-Baptized Holiness Church of North Carolina. He got his Spirit-baptism theology from a personal visit to the Azusa Street Mission in December, 1906. The meeting between Tomlinson, Lemons, and Pinson is also recounted in the aforementioned “The Apostolic Faith” by B.F. Lawrence. G.B. Cashwell personally came to Cleveland, Tennessee, in January, 1908, and it was then that A.J. Tomlinson spoke in tongues. Tomlinson had begun to preach on Spirit-baptism as early as one year previous, but now he had the experience for himself. He recounts this experience in his 1913 “Last Great Conflict”. He combines his typical picturesque manner of expression and his interest in ecclesiology to suggest that W.J. Seymour was the recent originator of this crucial doctrine.

Some would ask how John Neslon Darby and his dispensational view and Pentecostalism are related. Darby rejected the “experience” (Pentecostalism). Darby rejected the charismatic aspects of the experience but accepted the theological aspects of the doctrine. Darby did not deny the spiritual gifts to the Church but taught they were for the Apostolic age only. "He felt that in the early Church the sign gifts- including healing, miracles, and speaking in tongues- were given so that the world could see a demonstration of God's power and blessing upon Christianity (I Corinthians 14:22). Miracles were linked to the original establishment of a new testimony of God, and were meant to be temporary."[41] However, due to Darby’s dispensational teachings and Irving’s millenarianism and the “gifts”, a new revelation had come, the later rain movement. If we are still in the “church age” (dispensational view) then the “gifts” must still be present. Irving viewed this pre-mil dispensational teaching as needing a church without spot or wrinkle, a holy body of believers. This could only be possible with the sanctification of the spirit. He viewed the baptism of the Holy Spirit as a means of this sanctification and ecstatic utterances and prophecies were the evidence.

Summary:

• Dositheus Claims to be the Messiah
• Simon Magnus a false prophet and magician, becomes a disciple of Dositheus
• Cerdon (Cerdo) a disciple of Simon Magnus.
• Marcion learns from Cerdo and denied the God of the Old Testament stating it was only for the Jews.
• Montanus, claimed spiritual understanding including ecstatic utterances, which was used in the pagan worship. Also taught oneness. Jesus was another God.
• Cathari (the union of Marcion and Montanus)
• Mormonism, in order to prove its position has claimed theological partnership with Marcion and Montanus.
• Montanus and Marcion influenced Manichaeanism
• Manichaeanism led to what is called Albigensesism, which flourished in southern France in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries.
• This was the beginning of the Camisards, A sect of French fanatics who terrorized Dauphiné, Vivarais, and chiefly the Cévennes in the beginning of the eighteenth century.
• This led to Quakers and Shakers. (ecstatic utterances continue)
• The Reformation view of the papacy as the anti-christ causes the instigation of the Jesuits
• Manuel Lacunza, a Jesuit, began what is known as Millenarianism, a belief by a religious, social, or political group or movement in a coming major transformation of society after which all things will be changed in a positive direction.
• Lacunza is recognized by the Adventist movement as a prophet.
• Adventist movement led to Jehovah Witnesses and 7^th day Adventist.
• Edward Irving was greatly influenced by (the Jesuit defense of the papacy, (Lacunza), Montanus, Marcion, and Manichaeanism (combines all these thoughts into a new revelation) Relies on ecstatic utterances and prophecies to form his theology.
• Darby influenced by Edward Irving’s millenarianism forms modern dispensational teachings.
• C. I. Scofield is influenced by Darbyism.
• Darby travels to America and converts N.C. Richard Sparling, Southern Baptist preacher.
• Out of Sparling's revival came the Thomplison Brothers, founders of the Southern Church of God whose college is now on the old Bob Jones campus, Lee College.
• John Alexander Dowie (influenced by Irving) moves to America and begins the Christian Catholic Apostolic Church and promotes divine healing.
• Charles Parham influenced by Dowie marries a Quaker (ecstatic utterances practiced by her)
• The “fire” had began in America and Parham was caught up in it from within his family and from without.
• Parham goes to Texas to evangelize and meets W.J. Seymore.
• Parham was charged with sodomy with two young males in San Antonio, Texas.
• Parham starts the Bethel Bible College in Kansas.
• Parham and and his students AGREE on the new theology and to pursue the “experience”, per his wife’s account. and on January 1, 1901 after teaching on the the baptism of the Holy Spirit, a woman by the name of Angus Ausman was praying and around midnight she said that she had received the first century gift of the baptism of the Holy Spirit and had spoken in tongues.
• Parham informs his friend, W.J. Seymore in Huston, TX. of the “experience”
• W.J. Seymore attends Parham’s teachings in school but must set in the hall way because he is a black man
• W.J. Seymore is invited to Pastor in Los Angeles at the Nazarene Church.
• The Nazarene Church rejects the “experience” and stops W.J. Seymore from continuing.
• People in the church that heard W.J. Seymore ask him to continue teaching.
• W.J. Seymore rents an old stable on Azusa St. and teaches for a few years.
• Parham visited Seymour there, he denounced the revival as a "darky camp meeting," saying, "God is sick at His stomach!" and "what good can come from a self-appointed Negro prophet?”.
• Parham joins the Ku Klux Klan
• G.B. Cashwell visits Azusa St.
• G.B. Cashwell meets A.J. Tomlinson (a Quaker) in Alabama
• A.J. Tomlinson receives the “experience” Church of God, Charlston TN
• Death of A.J. Tomlinson caused a split and have now formed 24 denominations
• Charles Harrison Mason founds the Church of God in Christ in 1897 due to being expelled from the Missionary Baptist Church for teaching holiness.
• Charles Harrison Mason visits Azusa St. and has the “experience”
• Church of God in Christ changes its name to Church of God and is now teaching the “experience” (mostly Black Church)
• The White pentecosatls separate from the Black due to racial tensions and forms the Assemblies of God in 1914
• Forerunners to the Assemblies of God forming, Apostolic Faith Movement, Church of God (not Mason) Holiness Baptist Churches of Southwestern Arkansas, United Pentecostal (Jesus only)
• By this time the “experience” has spread across the country and the family of Demos Shakarian is involved in Azusa St.
• Demos Shakarian is a wealthy business man who meets Oral Roberts.
• Demos Shakarian sets Oral Roberts up with other business men to market the “experience”
• Demos Shakarian founder of the Full Gospel Businessmen Association.
• FGBA finances the movement.

If you read the testimonies of these people mentioned, along with all the leaders and members of this movement, you will notice a common thread. That thread is EXPERIENCE. Anytime you allow an experience to dictate what scripture says, you are in deep error. This is exactly what has happened in the Pentecostal and Charismatic movement and the Word of Faith. They are Gnostic from the root.

And so here we are………………

Ecstatic utterances are/were practiced by:

· The prophets of Aphrodite (female and male prostitutes whose influence infiltrated the church in Corinth.)

· Priestesses at Delphi

· "In ancient times the practice of speaking in unintelligible languages during religious ecstasy was not unknown. From eleventh-century B.C. Egypt come reports of ecstatic speech, and later in the Greek world the prophetess of Delphi and the Sibylline priestess spoke in unknown tongues. Amongst the Roman mystery religions, the Dionysian Cult was known for this practice.” Millard Erickson's Christian Theology and Walter Elwell's Evangelical Dictionary of Theology

· Virgil in his Aeneid stated that the pagan sibylline oracles on the island of Delos spoke in ecstatic utterances

· Shakers - established in the US in 1776, by mother Ann Lee, who claimed she was the embodiment of God. Declared that all sex is evil. To purge the sexual desire she instituted the practice of dancing around naked while speaking in tongues. They also had séances to call up Indian guides.

· Irvingites - founded by Edward Irving. Irving taught Christ was a sinner and the second coming would be in 1864.

· Joseph Smith stated "arise upon your feet speak or make some sound, continue to make sounds of some kind and the Lord will make a tongue or language of it."

· Sects of Buddhists

· Sects of Hindus

· Sects of Muslims

· Pentecostals

· Charismatics

· Word of Faith

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[1] Contra Celsus, Book VI

[2] Recognitions of Clement, Book II, VIII, by Unknown in 370-380. | translated by Rev. Thomas Smith, D.d

[3] Recognitions of Clement, Book II, XIV, by Unknown in 370-380. | translated by Rev. Thomas Smith, D.d

[4] Recognitions of Clement, Book II, XV, by Unknown in 370-380. | translated by Rev. Thomas Smith, D.d

[5] Recognitions of Clement, Book II, Commentary, by Unknown in 370-380. | translated by Rev. Thomas Smith, D.d

[6] The Church History of Eusebius, Book IV, Chapter IV , The Bishops of Rome and of Alexandria under the Same Emperor.

[7] The Church History of Eusebius, Book IV, Chapter X, The Bishops of Rome and of Alexandria during the Reign of Antoninus.

[8] EPIPHANIUS Panarion (about AD 375), Haer. XLII (XXII). i-ii., ed. Migne PG XLI, 696-7, probably drawing on the lost Syntagma of Hippolytus

[9] The Shepherd of Hermas, VIS. II. ii. 6

[10] Tertullian (Cont. heresies. CH VI)

[11] Marcion and the New Testament: An Essay in the Early History of the Canon ISBN 0-404-16183-9

[12] Tertullian's reckoning in Adversus Marcionem, xv

[13] Epiphanius (Haeres., XLII, ii)

[14] The Miscellanies, Book 7, ch. 17. 106f.

[15] Robert Smith Wilson. Marcion: A Study of a Second-Century Heretic. James Clarke and Co. Ltd. 1932. p. 56

[16] Clemens Alexandrinus (Strom. vii. 17, 106, p. 898, Potter

[17] Irenaeus, Against Heresies: Book III, Chapter II. The heretics follow neither Scripture nor tradition

[18] Hippolytus of Rome, Philosophumena, VII, written about 225

[19] Irenaeus, Against Heresies: Book III, Chapter II. The heretics follow neither Scripture nor tradition

[20] Irenaeus Against Heresies, Book I, Chapter 24, sections 3-7.

[21] Ep. ad Marcellam, vol. i. 186

[22] Tertullian: Marcion 4.22

[23] Tertullian: Marcion 5.8

[24] Didymus, De Trinitate, III, xli

[25] Epiphanius, "Hæreses", xlviii, 4

[26] Steven Runciman, The Medieval Manichee: A Study of the Christian Dualist Heresy (Cambridge University Press, 1982).

[27] H. Grattan Guinness, History Unveiling Prophecy or Time as an Interpreter, New York: Fleming H. Revell Co., 1905, p. 289.

[28] Robert Owen. Life of Robert Owen by himself (London, 1857)

[29] Millard Erickson's Christian Theology and Walter Elwell's Evangelical Dictionary of Theology, s.v. "Montanists," "Pentecostalism," and "Tongues, Speaking in.")

[30] "The Life of Edward Irving" by Mrs. Oliphant (published by Hurst and Blackett, London)

[31] Ernest R. Sandeen in The Roots of Fundamentalism

[32] The Dictionary of Pentecostal and Charismatic Movements notes that many of the most famous Pentecostal evangelists went out from Zion (p. 368)

[33] Sarah Parham, The Life of Charles F. Parham, Joplin, MO: Tri-state Printing, 1930, p.48)

[34] ibid, p.58

[35] ibid, p.59

[36] ibid, pp.52, 61-63

[37] ibid, p.51

[38] ibid, p.70

[39] ibid, p.72

[40] Holy Laughter to Holy Fire" by Michael L. Brown, pages 197&198