Pentecostal solutions to the missionary tongues and gibberish crisis. Early Pentecostal excitement and enthusiasm for missionary tongues in foreign nations failed. They also had a serious challenge on the home front. The general public mocked them for speaking gibberish. These circumstances created an urgent need to build a Pentecostal apologetic for their speaking in tongues. …
This five-part series (including the introduction) covers how the traditional definition of tongues all but died and replaced by a wider set of expressions; the language of adoration, singing and writing in tongues, and a private prayer language. This series was started to settle a mystery – why the doctrine of tongues had changed so …
A brief survey of books on speaking in tongues from the early 1900s on speaking in tongues from a holiness/pentecostal perspective Early Pentecostal Books These books were selected because the authors were either contributors or eyewitnesses to the Pentecostalism of the early 1900s. This fits in with the goals of the Gift of Tongues Project …
A Catholic history of speaking in tongues from the first Pentecost until the rule of Pope Benedict the XIV, 1748 AD.
The following are the results of a detailed study of early church, medieval and later medieval Catholic writers through seventeen-centuries of church life.
The following are quotes from the principal sources on the real Francis Xavier and the legend of his speaking in tongues. This is a quotes only document — a comparative analysis of all this information is in the final stages and will be posted as a separate article.
The debate and controversy that surrounded St. Francis Xavier’s alleged speaking in tongues was a source of internal friction within Catholicism, especially the among the Jesuits themselves, and a rallying point for Protestants. The real Francis Xavier did not speak in tongues, but the legend of Francis did.
How this legend began and grew is an interesting and complex story.
This leads into a journey about how Medieval Catholics viewed speaking in tongues; what it meant to them, how it was applied, and the politics that surrounded this practice.
The legend of Francis Xavier speaking in tongues ranks within the top five themes throughout the two-thousand-year history of the christian doctrine of tongues. There is no doubt that this legend is the most complex one out of any documents in the Gift of Tongues Project. There are numerous reasons why the mystery of Francis Xavier is difficult. The original documentation is multilingual; spanning Spanish, Portuguese, Italian, Latin, and French. The subject is wrapped in Medieval Catholicism, which has its own unique history, customs, personalities and procedures that outsiders such as myself have a difficult time to grasp. Xavier’s gift of tongues is deeply embedded with international and national politics. The topic is shrouded in religious symbols and shifts into the Protestant realm where Rationalists especially took critical aim. It spans across continents and new worlds that most Europeans hardly knew at the time. The maps, names and locations mentioned in the texts are far from the modern English mind.
This article is produced to meet a requirement of the Gift of Tongues Project which is the digital capturing of source texts. The following are actual quotes from testimonies, writers, and publications that highly influenced and perpetuated this myth. These are actual quotes with little or no commentary from myself relating to Xavier speaking in tongues. They are organized according to date; from the earliest publications shortly after Xavier’s death, all the way into the twentieth-century. The Italian, Spanish and Portuguese originals are not digitally captured because I have no knowledge of these languages or the ability to do data-entry in them. However, links to the original text along with an English translation is supplied where appropriate.
This file is designed for the researcher, not for the casual reader. This is the longest article found in the Gift of Tongues Project because of the amount of source material. It may take a few moments to load the full contents into the browser, please be patient.
The story of three sixth-century Welsh Christian Saints and their encounter with the gift of tongues. St. David, Padarn, and Teilo are important figures in the history of Wales. Who exactly were they and how do they fit in the history of tongues speaking? It is necessary to narrate the lives of these revered Welsh …
Translation and analysis of St. Norbert of Xanten. A 12th-century Christian who is claimed to have spoken in tongues. The medieval biography of the Saints called Acta Sanctorum only includes a brief reference to him and it is not clear whether it was a miraculous act. Perhaps it was a description of St. Norbert as …
St. Patiens was on a missionary trip to Metz and was supernaturally able to speak their language upon arrival – but there is a twist to this story.
The religious expressions of prophecy and especially speaking in tongues by the Camisards in 18th century France.
The Camisards have a special narrative in the annals of Christian history and it is a sad one. Their story would have been forgotten if their speaking in tongues and their habitual use of prophecy was their mark in history. However, these are mere expressions of a greater problem of political and religious persecutions that continually harassed and cost so many lives. It is estimated that 500,000 Camisards fled France or were killed.1 These pogroms are the more important story, but the persecutions opened new Protestant expressions of piety that were unique, especially the realms of speaking in tongues and prophecy.
A brief survey of Pentecostal and Charismatic books on the practice of speaking in tongues.