Faith, Healings, Miracles and Tongues

…the divine signs done through the saints, the same God accomplishes for us (1 Corinthians 12:6). For all things, as I said, are from the Father, through the Son, in the Spirit, and in everything that is well done the holy and consubstantial Trinity is glorified. For see how he begins from the Spirit, as the one who is in us and works the distribution of the divine gifts; then, raising his account to the Son, who is Son by nature, he goes up at last to the Father, ascribing to him, by way of the Son, the working done through the Spirit.

“To another, faith by the same Spirit” (1 Corinthians 12:9). Faith here would be, as I think, steadfastness toward every good thing whatever, and toward whatever God may will. For in this sense we say that Moses, the revealer of holy things, was faithful “in all his house” (Hebrews 3:2; Numbers 12:7). For faith would not be understood or spoken of as only the duty to believe that by nature and in truth there is one God of all, but as standing firm in soul, “and being ready to walk with the Lord God,” in the words of the prophet (Micah 6:8). And so the inspired disciples once came to Christ, saying plainly, “Increase our faith” (Luke 17:5).

Besides this, gifts of healing are also given by the one Spirit (1 Corinthians 12:9). And again, mark this closely, I ask you: though the Spirit is said to distribute the gifts of healing, it is Christ who gives them. For he gave the holy apostles “authority over unclean spirits, to cast them out” (Matthew 10:1); and indeed he said, “Heal the sick, raise the dead, cleanse lepers, cast out demons. You received without cost; give without cost” (Matthew 10:8).

The workings of miracles are certainly his as well, but in the one Spirit (1 Corinthians 12:10). For instance, Moses threw his staff on the ground and it became a serpent (Exodus 4:3); he turned the rivers into blood (Exodus 7:20); he brought water out of the rock (Exodus 17:6). And the blessed prophets performed a great many deeds beyond words and beyond wonder. These, we say, are the workings of miracles through the one Spirit. Another, again, prophesies, but not apart from the Spirit; and someone has the discernment of spirits, but in the Spirit himself (1 Corinthians 12:10). What kind of spirits are meant has been said earlier.

Paul also insists that to others it is given to know kinds of tongues, and indeed their interpretation (1 Corinthians 12:10). This we call a gift of its own kind, supplied to some in God’s plan, at a set time and for a need. But some spoke in the tongues though they had not known them before, while others understood and interpreted them, though some of them had never before had an ear trained in such languages or used to them. Yet the inspired Paul firmly states that speaking in tongues was given to the believers of that time not as counted among the gifts but as ranking as a sign. And he set beside it a prophetic oracle that runs thus: “By people of strange tongues and by the lips of others I will speak to this people, and not even so will they believe” (1 Corinthians 14:21; Isaiah 28:11–12).

The Spirit works the distribution of the gifts differently in each (1 Corinthians 12:11), so that, as he says, just as this coarse body from the earth is made up of parts, so too Christ, or rather his body, that is, the Church, has its most perfect structure through a great multitude of saints joined into a spiritual unity (1 Corinthians 12:12, 27). For this reason the inspired David too says that she is clothed “in a garment woven with gold,” embroidered in many colors (Psalm 45:9), signifying by this, I think, how many and how precious the gifts are.

Because, then, those who were to lead the world under the sun into the mysteries were to speak the saving proclamation of the Gospel to every tongue and every nation, he gave them the tongues as a sign. Men of Galilee they were, brought up in Judea, Hebrews born of Hebrews (Acts 2:7; Philippians 3:5), and yet to Medes and Parthians, and indeed to Elamites (Acts 2:9)…