So long as we bear these characteristics in mind, it matters little how we answer the question as to who it was that uttered the prophecies over Timothy at the time of his ordination. It may have been St. Paul and the presbyters who laid their hands upon him, and who on this occasion at any rate were endowed with the spirit of prophecy. Or it may have been that besides the presbyters there were prophets also present, who, at this solemn ceremony, exercised their gift of inspiration. The former seems more probable. It is clear from chap. iv. 14, that prophecy and imposition of hands were two concomitant acts by means of which spiritual grace was bestowed upon Timothy; and it is more reasonable to suppose that these two instrumental acts were performed by the same group of persons, than that one group prophesied, while another laid their hands on the young minister’s head.
This gift of prophecy, St. Paul tells the Corinthians (1 Cor. xiv.), was one specially to be desired; and evidently it was by no means a rare one in the primitive Church. As we might expect, it was most frequently exercised in the public services of the congregation. “When ye come together, each one hath a psalm, hath a teaching, hath a revelation, hath a tongue, hath an interpretation.... Let the prophets speak by two or three, and let the others discern. But if a revelation be made to another sitting by, let the first keep silence. For ye all can prophesy one by one, that all may learn and all may be comforted; and the spirits of the prophets are subject to the prophets.” The chief object of the gift, therefore, was instruction and consolation, for the conversion of unbelievers (24, 25), and for the building up of the faithful.
But we shall probably be right in making a distinction between the prophesying which frequently took place in the first Christian congregations, and those special interventions of the Holy Spirit of which we read occasionally. In these latter cases it is not so much spiritual instruction in an inspired form that is communicated, as a revelation of God’s will with regard to some particular course of action. Such was the case when Paul and Silas were “forbidden of the Holy Ghost to speak the word in Asia,” and when “they assayed to go into Bithynia, and the Spirit of Jesus suffered them not:” or when on his voyage to Rome Paul was assured that he would stand before Cæsar, and that God had given him the lives of all those who sailed with him.[29]
Some have supposed that the Revelation of St. John was intended to mark the close of New Testament prophecy and to protect the Church against unwarrantable attempts at prophecy until the return of Christ to judge the world. This view would be more probable if the later date for the Apocalypse could be established. But if, as is far more probable, the Revelation was written c. A.D. 68, it is hardly likely that St. John, during the lifetime of Apostles, would think of taking any such decisive step. In his First Epistle, written probably fifteen or twenty years after the Revelation, he gives a test for distinguishing true from false prophets (iv. 1–4); and this he would not have done, if he had believed that all true prophecy had ceased.
In the newly discovered “Doctrine of the Twelve Apostles” we find prophets among the ministers of the Church, just as in the Epistles to the Corinthians, Ephesians, and Philippians. The date of this interesting treatise has yet to be ascertained; but it seems to belong to the period between the Epistles of St. Paul and those of Ignatius. We may safely place it between the writings of St. Paul and those of Justin Martyr. In the Epistle to the Corinthians (1 Cor. xii. 28) we have “First apostles, secondly prophets, thirdly teachers, then” those who had special gifts, such as healing or speaking with tongues. In Ephes. iv. 11 we are told that Christ “gave some to be apostles; and some evangelists; and some, pastors and teachers.” The Epistle to the Philippians is addressed “to all the saints in Christ Jesus which are at Philippi, with the bishops and deacons,” where the plural shows that “bishop” cannot be used in the later diocesan sense; otherwise there would be only one bishop at Philippi. Prophets, therefore, in St. Paul’s time are a common and important branch of the ministry. They rank next to apostles, and a single congregation may possess several of them. In Ignatius and later writers the ministers who are so conspicuous in the Acts and in St. Paul’s Epistles disappear, and their place is taken by other ministers whose offices, at any rate in their later forms, are scarcely found in the New Testament at all. These are the bishops, presbyters, and deacons; to whom were soon added a number of subordinate officials, such as readers, exorcists, and the like. The ministry, as we find it in the “Doctrine of the Twelve Apostles,” is in a state of transition from the Apostolic to the latter stage. As in the time of St. Paul we have both itinerant and local ministers; the itinerant ministers being chiefly apostles and prophets, whose functions do not seem to be marked off from one another very distinctly; and the local ministry consisting of two orders only, bishops and deacons, as in the address to the Church of Philippi. When we reach the Epistles of Ignatius and other documents of a date later than A.D. 110, we lose distinct traces of these itinerant apostles and prophets. The title “Apostle” is becoming confined to St. Paul and the Twelve, and the title of “Prophet” to the Old Testament prophets.
The gradual cessation or discredit of the function of the Christian prophet is thoroughly intelligible. Possibly the spiritual gift which rendered it possible was withdrawn from the Church. In any case the extravagances of enthusiasts who deluded themselves into the belief that they possessed the gift, or of impostors who deliberately assumed it, would bring the office into suspicion and disrepute. Such things were possible even in Apostolic times, for both St. Paul and St. John give cautions about it, and directions for dealing with the abuse and the false assumption of prophecy. In the next century the eccentric delusions of Montanus and his followers, and their vehement attempts to force their supposed revelations upon the whole Church, completed the discredit of all profession to prophetical power. This discredit has been intensified from time to time whenever such professions have been renewed; as, for example, by the extravagances of the Zwickau Prophets or Abecedarians in Luther’s time, or of the Irvingites in our own day. Since the death of St. John and the close of the Canon, Christians have sought for illumination in the written word of Scripture rather than in the utterances of prophets. It is there that each one of us may find “the prophecies that went before on” us, exhorting us and enabling us to “war the good warfare, holding faith and a good conscience.” There will always be those who crave for something more definite and personal; who long for, and perhaps create for themselves and believe in, some living authority to whom they can perpetually appeal. Scripture seems to them unsatisfying, and they erect for themselves an infallible pope, or a spiritual director, whose word is to be to them as the inspired utterances of a prophet. But we have to fall back on our own consciences at last: and whether we take Scripture or some other authority as our infallible guide, the responsibility of the choice still rests with ourselves. If a man will not hear Christ and His Apostles, neither will he be persuaded though a prophet was granted to him. If we believe not their writings, how shall we believe his words?
FOOTNOTES:
[28] Chrysostom in loco. Hom. v. sub init.
[29] Acts xvi. 6, 7, xxvii. 24; comp. xviii. 9, xx. 23, xxi. 4, 11, xxii. 17–21.