The Gifts of the Holy Spirit: - Vital Christianity

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Many church leaders, however, continued to advocate the whole range of spiritual gifts.
Presbyter Novation (A.D. 257), wrote concerning the Holy Spirit:
"This is He who places prophets in the Church, instructs teachers, directs tongues,
gives powers and healings, does wonderful works, offers discrimination of spirits,
affords powers of government, suggests counsels, and orders and arranges whatever
gifts there are of charismata, and thus the Lord's church everywhere, and in all,
perfected and completed." 20
He was a witness that they were operative in the church in his time.
A century later Bishop Hilary (A.D. 367), gave a list of all the gifts in I Corinthians 12:4-10
and witnessed that these were the effects of the Holy Spirit in the Christian. 21
Most of Chrysostom's writings were toward the end of the fourth century. His attitude toward
the charismata (gifts) is not easy to ascertain. In his Homily XXXII he speaks of prophecy as
though they only occurred in the past. But later he suggests that the gifts in general have
continued. In Homily XIV he maintains that raising the dead, exorcising and performing miracles
still existed in the church, and adds: "We work signs by the power of the Spirit." 22
Augustine (A.D. 354-430), influential theologian and Bishop of Hippo, originally disputed the
existence of the gifts of the Spirit in his day, as did the Western church in general, teaching that
the gifts were given for the founding of the church and then withdrawn because they were no
longer necessary. On the whole Augustine really did not have much to say about the gifts. But in
his volume 2 of The City of God he recounts his experience as a witness to a number of
miraculous manifestations like exorcism and healing. 23
In the sixth century, Pope Gregory wrote his "dialogues." In it he endeavors to show the
Italians what great saints they have produced. His evidence is primarily a case history of the
miracles performed by these saints. 24
Middle Ages
Important Medieval writers became rare until Thomas Aquinas in the thirteenth century. He
wrote about the gifts of the Spirit in Summa Theologica. In volume 24 he contrasts them with
love in the same way as Paul does in I Corinthians 13. Thomas suggests that all the gifts fall into
three general categories: gifts of knowledge, gifts of demonstration and gifts of expression. As
regards demonstration, he argued that in matters of divine revelation, which is above human
reasoning, ordinary proof will not do. Confirmation has to be provided in ways that are proper to
divine power.