Charisms in the testimonies of the Church Fathers in the second half of the 2nd century

Abstract

This article is dedicated to the phenomenon of charisms in early Christianity. In the second half of the second century, Christianity began to institutionalize, but charis­matic gifts were still present. This can be seen especially in evangelization and missionary activity. The two great Church Fathers of this period, Justin and Irenaeus, emphasize the value of Christian exorcisms for the development of Christianity and draw attention to the universality of spiritual gifts, citing a whole list of charisms in their writings such as the gift of knowledge, counsel, power, teaching, visions, miracles, speaking in other tongues, prophecy, foreseeing the future, presenting divine mysteries, healing, raising the dead, as well as the charismatic offices of prophets and exorcists. On the other hand, Montanus, Priscilla, and Maximian perpetuated the tendency to use charisms without following the established order of the liturgy, against which Eusebius made his first ob­jection. In Montanism, one can see an attempt to restore prophets to a central role in the ekklesia, although they seem to have achieved the opposite.