Many did not claim gifts at all because they believed that not every Christian was so gifted.
Hippolytus of Rome, 2nd century AD: “It is not necessary that every one of the faithful should cast out demons, raise the dead, or speak with tongues.”
Ambrose, bishop of Milan, 4th century: “The whole of the divine gifts cannot exist in each man.”
Others like Irenaeus warned against such claimants! "The greater the display with which they are said to perform miracles, the more carefully should we watch them, as having been endowed with a greater spirit of wickedness."
Tertullian, writing about the same time warned against all claimants! “He declared that many would come and ‘display great signs and wonders,’ so as to turn aside the very elect. Yet, despite that, Christ would not receive them. So He showed how rash it was to believe in signs and wonders, for they would be very easy to accomplish, even by false christs.”
Yet, others had a fondness for the gift of predictive prophecy. There were the so-called Montanists or New Prophecy Movement of the 2nd century who believed that they alone were spiritually gifted.
Irenaeus described them as “Wretched men indeed! Who wish to be pseudo-prophets…who set aside the gift of prophecy from the Church [holding] themselves aloof from the communion of the brethren.”
The Apollinarians, an early heretical group, said that their leader, Montanus “supposes he might at first act by the operation of God; but whether it were so, or by that of the devil transformed, it was in such a manner that nobody was able to discern, because both his life and doctrine were holy and blameless.”
The Church historian Eusebius described Montanus’ spiritual experience as a sudden “frenzy and ecstasy, he raved, and began to babble and utter strange things, prophesying in a manner contrary to the constant custom of the Church handed down by tradition from the beginning.”
Origen quotes a pagan writer called Celsus who described Montanist prophets with “incomprehensible, incoherent, and utterly obscure utterances, the meaning of which no intelligent person could discover; For they are meaningless and nonsensical, and give a chance for any fool or sorcerer to take the words in whatever sense he likes.”
Then there was St. Gregory, bishop of New Caesarea a former student of Origen, who was dubbed “the wonderworker” (213-70).
Historian Jeff Oliver records that “Besides his normal regiment of prophesying, healing the sick, and casting out demons, Gregory reportedly moved mountains, dried up lakes, redirected rivers, and banished pagan gods.”
“Where shall I rank the great Gregory, and the words uttered by him?” Asked Basil of Caesarea, one of the Cappadocian Fathers. “Shall we not place among apostles and prophets a man who walked by the same Spirit as they? By the superabundance of gifts, wrought in him by the Spirit in all power and in signs and in marvels, he was styled a second Moses by the very enemies of the church.”
Hippolytus of Rome, 2nd century AD: “It is not necessary that every one of the faithful should cast out demons, raise the dead, or speak with tongues.”
Ambrose, bishop of Milan, 4th century: “The whole of the divine gifts cannot exist in each man.”
Others like Irenaeus warned against such claimants! "The greater the display with which they are said to perform miracles, the more carefully should we watch them, as having been endowed with a greater spirit of wickedness."
Tertullian, writing about the same time warned against all claimants! “He declared that many would come and ‘display great signs and wonders,’ so as to turn aside the very elect. Yet, despite that, Christ would not receive them. So He showed how rash it was to believe in signs and wonders, for they would be very easy to accomplish, even by false christs.”
Yet, others had a fondness for the gift of predictive prophecy. There were the so-called Montanists or New Prophecy Movement of the 2nd century who believed that they alone were spiritually gifted.
Irenaeus described them as “Wretched men indeed! Who wish to be pseudo-prophets…who set aside the gift of prophecy from the Church [holding] themselves aloof from the communion of the brethren.”
The Apollinarians, an early heretical group, said that their leader, Montanus “supposes he might at first act by the operation of God; but whether it were so, or by that of the devil transformed, it was in such a manner that nobody was able to discern, because both his life and doctrine were holy and blameless.”
The Church historian Eusebius described Montanus’ spiritual experience as a sudden “frenzy and ecstasy, he raved, and began to babble and utter strange things, prophesying in a manner contrary to the constant custom of the Church handed down by tradition from the beginning.”
Origen quotes a pagan writer called Celsus who described Montanist prophets with “incomprehensible, incoherent, and utterly obscure utterances, the meaning of which no intelligent person could discover; For they are meaningless and nonsensical, and give a chance for any fool or sorcerer to take the words in whatever sense he likes.”
Then there was St. Gregory, bishop of New Caesarea a former student of Origen, who was dubbed “the wonderworker” (213-70).
Historian Jeff Oliver records that “Besides his normal regiment of prophesying, healing the sick, and casting out demons, Gregory reportedly moved mountains, dried up lakes, redirected rivers, and banished pagan gods.”
“Where shall I rank the great Gregory, and the words uttered by him?” Asked Basil of Caesarea, one of the Cappadocian Fathers. “Shall we not place among apostles and prophets a man who walked by the same Spirit as they? By the superabundance of gifts, wrought in him by the Spirit in all power and in signs and in marvels, he was styled a second Moses by the very enemies of the church.”