Before we commence an examination of this interesting and important passage, it is essential that we should endeavour to disabuse our minds of preconceived ideas. Commentators are too prone to apply to the Apostle's remarks a system of interpretation based upon statements made by later and less informed writers, and warped by belief in the reality of a miraculous element pervading all apostolic times, which have been derived mainly from post-apostolic narratives. What do we really know of the phenomena supposed to have characterized the Apostolic age, and which were later, and are now, described as miraculous? With the exception of what we glean from the writings of Paul, we know absolutely nothing from any contemporary writer and eye-witness. In the Gospels and in the Acts of the Apostles, we have detailed accounts of many miracles said {346} to have been performed by the Apostles and others; but these narratives were all written at a much later period, and by persons who are unknown, and most of whom are not even affirmed to have been eye-witnesses.(1) In the Acts of the Apostles, we have an account of some of the very Charismata referred to by Paul in the passage above quoted, and we shall thus have the advantage of presently comparing the two accounts. We must, however, altogether resist any attempt to insert between the lines of the apostle's writing ideas and explanations derived from the Author of the Acts and from patristic literature, and endeavour to understand what it is he himself says and intends to say. It must not be supposed that we in the slightest degree question the fact that the Apostle Paul believed in the reality of supernatural intervention in mundane affairs, or that he asserted the actual occurrence of certain miracles. Our desire is as far as possible to ascertain what Paul himself has to say upon specific phenomena, now generally explained as miraculous, and thus, descending from vague generalities to more distinct statements, to ascertain the value of his opinion regarding the character of such phenomena. It cannot fail to be instructive to determine something of the nature of Charismata from an eye-witness who believed them to have been supernatural. His account, as we have seen, is the most precious evidence of the Church to the reality of the miraculous. The first point which must be observed in connection with the Charismata referred to by Paul in the passage before us is that, whilst there are diversities amongst them, all the phenomena described are ascribed to 1 It is suggestive that the curious passage Mk. xvi. 17--18 is not even by the author of the second Gospel, but a later addition. {347}