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The Azusa revival started in 1906, and went through 1909. Research revealed that Pentecostal manifestations were a commonplace occurrence in numbers of Churches in different parts of Europe and in the Western Hemisphere. [1]From Europe to Jamaica, to Barbados, to Canada and America, there are records that document the continued experience of receiving the Holy Ghost and glossolalia. Additionally, there are records which disclose the continuity of the Jesus Christ water baptism and accompanying one-God-ism. "God left not Himself without witness" Acts 14:17).
THERE WERE MANY HOLY GHOST OUTPOURINGS BETWEEN PENTECOST AND AZUSA.
Tongues-speaking was often reported in the sweeping Kentucky Revival of the 1800's. In the foothills of the Unicoi Mountains in North Carolina in 1896 there was an outpouring, tongues aflame.[2]
The long lasting doctrine of tongues-speaking as the initial evidence of Holy Spirit baptism, ideally signifying that an intensity of the holy rite has been attained, was known in Sabellian, Noetian, Modalistic Monarchian, and Patripassian organizations between AD 175 and 550. Pious glossolalic Montanists, AD 157, made theological history. Most Manichaeans, Donatists, Samosatenes, Malabar Apostolics, North African Apostolics, Marcionites, and the famed Desposyni were glossolalic practitioners. NOTE: These were doctrinally all about the same. Among those slandered as Gnostics—those who wanted religious knowledge—glossolalia of the type requiring interpretation was common. There are existing several transcribed Gnostic prayers in the Coptic tongue and several lines of ejaculated flossolalic syllables or single vowels and consonants. (M. Hamilton, The Charismatic Movement, Eerdmans, 1975, p.64). There was abundant glossolalia in Christian antiquity and the Early Middle Ages. Apostolic Albigensians and many of those slandered as Anabaptist engaged in tongues-speaking. Tongues-speakers were all around Luther. (M. Luther, Lectures on Isaiah, ed. Jaroslov Pelikan, XVI, 302; Hamilton, p. 71).
Between AD 150 and 325 Catholic bishops had cast glossolalia out of that specific system. O'Dea[3] wrote:". . .Free expression of emotion characteristic of earlier meetings, such as prophesyings, speaking with tongues and interpretation of tongues, had disappeared." This applied only to Catholicism.
Even John Wesley went to the Moravian tongues-speakers in 1738 for consolation and healing.
Glossolalia broke out at Glastonbury, England, in AD 37-42. Oneness Christians dominated as of AD 663. From 1727 to 1830 glossolalia yet rocked the British Isles. (Hamilton, pp. (77) 64-92; E.T. Thompson, Through the ages, CLC, Virginia, 1962, pp. 107-109; Bede, Historia Ecc. Gentis Anglorum, pp. 148, 731.
R.A. Knox[4] spoke of tongues-speaking in England. In 1750-1830 there were Moravians, Camisards, Plymouth Brethren, Welsh Brethren, Quakers, and all preached the "born-again" rite. Knox tells on p. 464 that the whole of England was a place of Spirit glossolalia. Christian organizations had turned the British Isles into a "Pentecostal Babel" as Knox put it. Even John Wesley went to the Moravian tongues-speakers in 1738 for consolation and healing. (Knox. P. 469).
Many congregations of Moravians were Apostolic tongues-speakers and held the Acts 2:38 water baptism. According to Knox, p. 402, there were settlements of these glossolalists. As late as 1909—and they knew nothing about Azusa—twelve out of the twenty-six Moravian congregations on the continent of Europe were settlements. (About Moravian Christians see Williams, p. 697).
At St. Gall, and from appenzell to Moravia in 1525, there were streams of glossolalists. (Alluded to by Williams, p. 133). In 1528 masses of Christians in the territory of Fulda experienced healings and glossolalia. In 1532 many of them were martyred by Lutherans and Catholics. At this time Luther vigorously opposed Muntzer and Schwenckfeld. Thomas Muntzer knew oracular exaltation of tongues. And in 1521 he, along with other tongues-speaking clergymen, some were Jesus Name ones, went to confer with Martin Luther, at Wittenberg. (Carlton Hayes, Modern Europe to 1870, Macmillian, 1970, p. 161; knox, pp. 134, 135). Luther would have none of their glossolalic doctrine. He forcibly expelled them from Wittenberg in 1521. Martin Luther thus encountered an argument concerning baptism in the Name of Jesus Christ as well as glossolalia. (Synan, p. 158; G.T. Stokes, The Acts of the Apostles, Vol. 1, Vol. 17, The Expositor's Bible, Nicoll-Armstrong, NY, 1903, p. 140).
Footnotes:
J.H. Blunt, Dict. Of Sects, heresies, Ecc. Parties, Gale, Detroit, 1974, p. 465; E.D. Andrews, The People called Shakers, Dover, NY, 1963, pp. 12-20. C.W. Conn, Like A Mighty Army, Cleveland, TN, 1955, p. 25. Thomas O'Dea, The Sociology of Religion, Printice-Hall, NJ, 1966, p. 40. (R.A. Knox, Enthusiasm, Oxfored Uni. Press, NY, 1950, pp. 402-470; Relatedly, G.H. Williams, The Radical Reformation, Pa., 1952, p. 697). |
