Wednesday, October 12, 2022

The Gifts of Healing in Chapter 14 of The Apostolic Tradition

  

Sahidic

Arabic

Ethiopic

(δε) If one says, "I received gifts of healing through a revelation," hand shall not be laid on him, for (γαρ) the work itself will reveal if he speaks [the] truth

If anyone says, "I have received the grace of healing by a revelation," hands are not laid on him because events will show whether he is telling the truth.

Concerning the grace of healing, if someone says, "I have obtained the gift of healing through prophetic means," they are not to place a hand on him until his action shows whether he is trustworthy.

. . .

"Gifts of healing" are mentioned among the list of charisms bestowed by the Holy Spirit in 1 Cor 12:9, and there is abundant testimony in the Christian literature of the first few centuries for the expectation that any member of the church might possess these gifts.  In the West a specific group of exorcists (whose work was closely related to the ancient understanding of healing) first makes an appearance in the mid-third century, in the list of offices of the church at Rome in the letter of Cornelius written in 251. In the East the power of healing was later associated with ordination, and features in the ordination prayer for a bishop in the Canons of Hippolytus and that for a presbyter in the Apostolic Constitutions (see above in chaps. 3 and 7). See also Apostolic Tradition 34 below, where visiting the sick is the responsibility of the bishop.

 

It would seem that this chapter is resisting the creation of a specific class or order of "healers" who are officially appointed by the church, preferring to allow the results themselves to verify any claim to possess the power of healing. (Paul F. Bradshaw, Maxwell E. Johnson, and L. Edward Phillips, The Apostolic Tradition: A Commentary [Hermeneia—A Critical and Historical Commentary on the Bible; Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2002], 80)

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