More information about the History of this “Renewal”. Please click the link to read it in its’ entirety. I posted below only a few paragraphs…
unitypublishing.com/Hist-of-Char.html
"HISTORY OF CHARISMATIC MOVEMENT
Brian Hughes
Historical Antecedents
The Catholic Church, the enduring light of all nations, has throughout her
history been no stranger to individuals and movements which make the
presumptuous claim to possess a unique and exclusive relationship with the
Holy Spirit.
As the late Monsignor Ronald Knox, in his masterful and authoritative work
entitled “Enthusiasm: A Chapter in the History of Religion” observed:
There is, I would say, a recurrent situation in Church History-using the word
‘church’ in the widest sense-where an excess of charity threatens unity. You
have a clique, an elite, of Christian men and (more importantly) women, who
are trying to live a less worldly life than their neighbors; to be more
attentive to the guidance (directly felt, they would tell you) of the Holy
Spirit. More and more, by a kind of fatality, you see them drawn apart from
their co-religionists, a hive ready to swarm…There is provocation on both
sides; on the one part, cheap jokes at the expense of over godliness…on the
other, contempt of the half-Christians, ominous references to old wine and
new bottles, to the kernel and the husk.
Then, while you hold your breath and turn your eyes away in fear, the break
comes, condemnation or secession, what difference does it make? A fresh name
has been added to the list of Christianities.
The pattern is always repeating itself, not in outline merely, but in detail.
(R.A. Knox, “Enthusiasm: A Chapter in the History of Religion” pge. 1
University of Notre Dame Press, Notre Dame, Indiana, 1994)
Were he alive today, I believe that Knox would clearly discern this same
“pattern always repeating itself” within the ranks of the Catholic
Charismatic Renewal movement; not necessarily among most of those faithful
Catholics who participate in some peripheral fashion within the general
context of the “official” Charismatic movement, which is under the watchful
eye and guiding hand of the Church’s Magisterium, but rather of that hardened
nucleus of true believers who, at the fringes of this movement style
themselves messengers of a “New Pentecost” and of a so called “full gospel”,
which under the aegis of a “latter rain of the Spirit’s blessings”
encompasses, and is not contained within, the Holy Catholic Church founded by
Jesus Christ and which, as the Second Vatican Council clearly teaches,
subsists in its fullness within the Roman Catholic Church.
For these self styled “Catholic neo-pentecostals”, who attempt mightily to
reconcile the essence of their Pentecostalism with the plenitude of truth as
possessed and proclaimed unceasingly and indefectibly by the Catholic Church,
must in the end come to terms with the history and origins of pentecostalism
and of the so called “ecumenical Charismatic movement” (which is, after all,
their indubitable point of origin), and its erroneous notions with regard to
the true nature of the “charismata” and their true place in the life of the
Church. They must also ultimately recognize the false irenicism practiced by
the movement’s leaders, which is based upon a so called “unity in the Spirit”
which is in reality the subordination of the truths of revelation, of the
Divine Truths contained in Scripture and Tradition and taught authoritatively
by the Church throughout her history, to a shared, subjective and spiritually
dubious experience generally referred to as “Baptism in the Spirit,” along
with all the concomitant phenomena which it implies. Lest these words sound
harsh, harsher still to Catholic truth is what is implied by many leaders in
the radical Charismatic movement- a claim that this generation possesses, by
virtue of the “outpouring” or “latter rain”, a fullness of the Spirit’s power
which was somehow mitigated or hidden (subsequent to the Apostolic Church) in
previous epochs of Church history- only to manifest itself anew as a “New
Pentecost” as articulated by the Pentecostal and Charismatic movements of the
twentieth century.
The Holy Spirit is eminently the Spirit of Truth, and it is His abiding
solicitude as Advocate and Guide which has been the hope and assurance of
Christians for these two thousand years. To affirm that His presence in the
Church was somehow insufficient or truncated throughout many centuries of her
life, and that it is in this century alone that believers can truly
experience the full fruit of His outpouring, is the grossest caricature of
the reality, the shallowest of insults to His perpetual and loving indwelling
of the Mystical Body of Christ.
Antecedents in Church History
As previously stated, the Church has witnessed the coming and going of many
movements, sects, and individuals who have claimed a unique and revelatory
relationship with the Holy Spirit, and what I wish to do within the rather
modest parameters of this work is list in a somewhat cursory fashion, certain
movements and sects within Church history which bear striking similarities to
the contemporary “Pentecostal/Charismatic movement”, in its radical
expression. Such a list can hardly be comprehensive, and some such groups
will not be included-such as the Messalians, Quietists, and the Spanish
Illuminati or Alumbrados-not because they do not themselves possess many
elements in common with the “radical” Charismatics, but because to do so in
my mind would be excessively redundant.
For the same reason, I have chosen to include only the Camisards or “French
Prophets” among the groups which originated within the context of historical
Protestantism prior to the nineteenth century, and will not further elaborate
upon others such as the Brethren of the Free Spirit, Ranters, Quakers, nor
upon the Shakers and the Mormons. However, anybody taking the time to study
these groups in depth will undoubtedly be surprised at the many
characteristics they share in common with the modern day Pentecostals and
Charismatics.
Montanism
One of the first, and certainly the most notorious of the early “enthusiast”
challenges to Church authority, originated in Phrygia in the last years of
the second century, and centered around the self styled prophet Montanus, who
claimed to be the voice of the newly descended Paraclete, along with his two
“prophetesses” Prisca (or Priscilla) and Maxilla. Montanism’s most famous
convert was the great (previously) Catholic apologist Tertullian, who was
apparently swept away by the great eloquence of the prophecies and the
putative holiness of the sect. Tertullian went so far as to write a defense
of the “prophet’s” ecstasies, (which has since been lost) entitled “De
Ecstasi”, and also described the manner in which the sect differentiated its
own adherents (the “Pneumatoi”, “the spiritual” - spirit filled?) from the
Catholics, who were considered as mere “psychici”, fleshly minded or
benighted. A rather illuminating thumbnail sketch of Montanus and the
“Cata-Phrygians” (out of Phrygia) as the sect was also known can be gleaned
from the following passage taken from the “Ecclesiastical History” of
Eusebius. (Bk. V, ch. 14. Eusebius is quoting an anonymous writer of the
second century.)
“Their opposition and their recent heresy which has separated them from the
Church arose on the following account…a recent convert, Montanus by name,
through his unquenchable desire for leadership, gave the adversary
opportunity against him. And he became beside himself…in a sort of frenzy
and ecstasy, he raved and began to babble and utter strange things,
prophesying in a manner contrary to the custom of the Church handed down by
tradition from the beginning. Some of those who heard his spurious utterances
at that time were indignant, and they rebuked him as one…that was under the
control of a demon…But others imagining themselves possessed of the Holy
Spirit and of prophetic gifts…Thus, by artifice…the devil, devising
destruction for the disobedient…secretly excited and inflamed their
understandings which had already become estranged from the true faith. And he
stirred up besides two women, and filled them with the false spirit, so that
they talked wildly and unreasonable and strangely, like the person already
mentioned. And the spirit pronounced them blessed as they rejoiced and
gloried in him, and puffed them up by the magnitude of his promises.”
It is apparent, as our anonymous writer has stated, that there was a
traditional way of prophesying recognized by the traditions Church “from the
beginning”, and that Montanism’s ecstatic babbling, or “talking wildly and
unreasonably” (the reader is reffered to the published accounts of the
happenings at Azusa Street, below) paroxysms, or trance like utterances had
nothing to do with the manner of prophesying approved by the Church.
Although the Montanists were condemned by the Bishops of Phrygia, they
actually gained a foothold at Rome and were apparently at the point of being
recognized by Pope Eleutherius, when, according to Tertullian, a certain
Praxeas, “uttering lies” convinced the Pope to withhold such approval.
The last remaining adherents of the sect were reconciled to the Catholic
Church by St. Augustine in the fourth century."
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