PROPHECY AND PROPHETS

The experience of the Corinthian church gives evidence that abuse and misuse can creep into the operation of the gifts of the Spirit if the vessel is not wholly submissive to the guidance and control of the Holy Spirit. That is why Paul said the message of the prophet spoken in the New Testament church should be judged by all who were hearing the message. The judging most likely was to ask how the prophecy conformed to the whole of Scripture.

This was a change from the function of the Old Testament prophet. There is no indication that the message of the Old Testament prophet was to be judged. However, if the prophecy did not come to pass, or urged the people to follow other gods, the prophet was declared a false prophet and killed.

Yet, we do not believe it is necessary to use the titles of apostles and prophets in order for those functions to be active in the world and the church today.

Of course, just naming a person an evangelist, pastor, or teacher also does not say that God has made such a call and appointment of a particular person. Prophets in the New Testament are never described as holding a recognized office or position as in the case of pastors and evangelists. They spoke prophetically to the Body for edification and admonition. It is not necessary for him to learn them from God, just as if he had been entirely ignorant of them. It suffices if the Divine illumination places them in a new light, strengthens his judgment and preserves it from error concerning these facts, and if a supernatural impulse determines his will to make them the object of his message.

This oral inspiration of the Prophets bears an analogy to the Scriptural inspiration, in virtue of which the Prophets and hagiographers composed our canonical books. The entire contents of the prophetic message is not, therefore, within the compass of the natural faculties of the divine messenger. The object of all strictly so-called prediction requires a new manifestation and illumination; unaided the Prophet would remain in more or less absolute obscurity.

This, then, is revelation in the full sense of the term.

John of The Cross -- and the doctors of mysticism have a special right to be heard in this matter -- " God multiplies the means of transmitting these revelations; at one time he makes use of words, at another of signs, figures, images, similitudes; and again, of both words and symbols together" The Ascent of Carmel, II, xxvii: To grasp accurately the meaning of the Prophets and judge of the fulfilment of their predictions, these words must be remembered and completed: The material element perceived in the vision may have a strictly literal meaning and simply signify itself. When Micheas, the son of Jemla, beholds "all Israel scattered upon the hills, like sheep that have no shepherd", and hears Yahweh say "These have no master; let every man of them return to his house in peace" 1 Kings Again, the meaning may be entirely symbolic.

The almond branch shown to Jeremias i, 11 sq. Between these two extremes there exists a whole series of intermediary possibilities, of significations imbued with varying degrees of reality or symbolism. In the last verse of Aggeus Zorobabel signifies himself and also the Messias. Neither the Prophets nor their clear-sighted, sensible hearers were ever misled. It is wronging Isaias to say he believed that at the end of time the hill of Sion would physically surpass all the mountains and hills on the earth ii, 2.

Examples might be multiplied indefinitely. Yet we are not forced to believe that the Prophets were always able to distinguish between the literal and the symbolical significations of their visions. It was sufficient for them not to give, and to be unable to give, in the name of God any erroneous interpretation. It has likewise been long known that the vision very frequently disregards distances of time and place, and that the Messias or the Messianic era almost always appears on the immediate horizon of contemporary history.

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If to this we add the frequently conditional character of the oracles cf. Jeremiah 18 ; Dreams, of which the false Prophets made ill use, are scarcely ever mentioned in the case of true Prophets. Much has been said about the ecstatic state of the latter. Possibly the soul of the Prophet may have been at times, as happened to the mystics, so absorbed by the activity of the spiritual faculties that the activity of the senses was suspended, though no definite instance can be cited. In any case, we must remember what St. Jerome In Isaiam, Prolog. John Chrysostom In I Cor. To this they often added symbolical acts which accorded with Oriental tastes and caught the attention of their hearers.

Jeremias, for instance, wandered through Jerusalem under a wooden yoke, symbolizing the approaching subjugation of the nations by the King of Babylon. The false Prophet Hananias, having taken this yoke and broken it on the ground, receives this answer, in the name of Yahweh "Thou hast broken chains of wood, and thou shalt make for them chains of iron" xxviii, Jeremias and Ezechiel make frequent use of this method of instruction.

Amos was probably the first who was inspired to unite the written to the spoken word. His example was followed.

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The Prophets thus exercised wider and more lasting influence, and left moreover an indisputable proof that God had spoken by them cf. Some prophecies seem to have been made exclusively in writing, for instance, probably the second part of Isaias and all Daniel. The greater part of the prophetic books is couched in rhythmic language perfectly adapted to the popular and, at the same time, sublime character of the oracles. Hardly any kind of Hebrew poesy is absent; epithalamia and lamentations; little satirical songs; odes of wonderful lyrism etc.

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The fundamental law of Hebrew poetry, the parallelism of the stichs, is usually observed. The metric seems to be based essentially on the number of accents marking a raised intonation. Most exhaustive researches upon the construction of the strophes have been made, but without many definitely accepted conclusions. Samuel teaches that the idols are vanity and nothingness 1 Samuel For Elias also Yahweh alone is God, Baal is nothing. Yahweh chastises all iniquity and punishes the injustices of the powerful for the feeble.

These are the fundamental points emphasized more and more by the prophetic writers. Their doctrine is based on the existence of one God alone, possessing all the attributes of the true Divinity -- sanctity and justice, mercy and fidelity, supreme dominion over the material and moral world, the control of the cosmic phenomena and of the course of history.

The worship desired by God does not consist in the profusion of sacrifices and offerings. They are nauseous to Yahweh unless accompanied by adoration in spirit and in truth. With what greater indignation and disgust will He not turn away from the cruel and unclean practice of human sacrifice and the prostitution of sacred things so common among the neighbouring nations. On being asked with what one should approach and kneel before the Most High God, He replies by the mouth of Micheas: So religion joins morality, and formulates and imposes its dictates.

Yahweh will call the nations to account for violating the natural law, and Israel, in addition, for not observing the Mosaic legislation cf. Amos , etc. And He will do this, so as to conciliate in a Divine manner the rights of justice with the realization of the promises made to Israel and mankind.

The Day of Yahweh ; the Saved; Messianism; Eschatology -- The constant subjects of the great prophetic predictions of Israel, the punishment of the guilty nations, and the realization for all of the ancient promises. Directly or indirectly all the prophecies are concerned with the obstacles to be removed before the coming of the new kingdom or with the preparation of the New and final Covenant.

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From the days of Amos, and clearly it was not even then a new expectation, Israel was awaiting a great day of Yahweh, a day, which it deemed one of extraordinary triumph for it and its God. The Prophets do not deny, but rather declare with absolute certainty that the day must come. They dispel the illusions concerning its nature.

For Israel, faithless and burdened with crimes, the day of Yahweh will be "darkness and not light" Amos 5: The bulk will perish. A remnant alone will be saved, a holy germ from which the Messianic kingdom will arise. The pagan nations will serve as sievers for Israel. But as they have wandered still further from the right path, the day of Yahweh will come for them in turn; finally the remnant of Israel and the converts of the nations will unite to form a single people under the great king, the Son of David.

The remnant of Ephraem or of Juda remaining in Palestine at the time of the Exile, the remnant returning from the Captivity to form the post-Exilic community, the Messianic kingdom in its militant state and its final consummation- all these stages of the history of salvation are mingled here and there in one prophetic view. The future life looms up but little, the oracles being addressed principally to the body of the nation, for which there is no future life.

However, Ezechiel xxxvii alludes to the resurrection of the dead ; the apocalypse of Isaias xxvi, 19 sqq. The broad daylight of the Christian Revelation is coming. The classical prophets did not reject all cults, per se; rather, they wanted a cultus ritually correct, dedicated solely to Yahweh, and productive of ethical conduct. Amos, whose oracles against the northern kingdom of Israel have been misunderstood as reflecting a negative attitude toward cultus per se, simply did not consider the royal cult of the northern kingdom at Bethel to be a legitimate Yahweh cult.

Rather, like the prophet Hosea after him, Amos considered the Bethel cult to be Canaanite. Prophets of the ancient Middle East generally interjected their opinions and advice into the political arena of their countries, but in that regard the classical Hebrew prophets were perhaps more advanced than other prophetic movements.

In that situation, the prophets preached doom and judgment, and even the complete destruction of Israel. Usually, however, the prophets allowed some basis for hope in that a remnant would be left. The future of that remnant Israel lay in the reign of an ideal king as described in Isaiah , indicating that the prophets were not antiroyalists.

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Though they could and did oppose individual kings, the prophets could not make a separation between Yahweh and the reign of his chosen king or dynasty. Their messianic ideology , referring to the messiah , or anointed one, is based on old royal ideology, and the ideal king is not an eschatological figure one who appears at the end of history. In that respect, the prophets were nationalistic. They believed that the ideal kingdom would be in the promised land, and its centre would be Jerusalem.

With the Exile of the Judaeans to Babylon of bce , prophecy entered a new era. The prophecies of what is called Deutero- Isaiah Isaiah 40—45 , for instance, were aimed at preserving Yahwism in Babylonia. That tone of optimism is continued in the prophetic activity late 6th century bce of Haggai and Zechariah , prophets who announced that Yahweh would restore the kingdom and the messianic vision would come to pass. Prerequisite to that messianic age was the rebuilding of the Temple which was viewed as heaven on earth. When, however, the Temple had been rebuilt and long years had passed with neither the kingdom being restored nor the messianic age initiated, Israelite prophecy declined.

There is a tendency in prophetic preaching to spiritualize those aspects of religion that remain unfulfilled; therein lie the roots of eschatology , which is concerned with the last times, and apocalyptic literature , which describes the intervention of God in history to the accompaniment of dramatic, cataclysmic events. Since the predictions of the classical prophets were not fulfilled in a messianic age within history, those visions were translated into a historical apocalypse , such as the Book of Daniel. Prophets did appear, but after Malachi none gained the status of the classical prophets.

With the advent of post-Exilic Judaism Ezra and after , including its emphasis on law and cult, there was not much room left for prophecy. The prophetic heritage was channelled through the teaching of their words. What remained of prophetic activity was expressed in various literary works that claimed esoteric knowledge of the divine purpose.

The apocalyptic writers saw themselves as taking over and carrying on the prophetic task, but they went beyond the prophets in their use of old mythological motifs. The events they described had usually occurred long ago, but their recounting of those events was for the purpose of hinting and even predicting the events of the future.

There was a far greater emphasis upon predictive speculation about the future than on the prophetic analysis and insight into history. The apocalyptic authors wrote pseudonymously, using the names of ancient worthies such as Adam, Enoch, Abraham, Daniel, and Ezra. The literature is predominantly prose, but that of the classical prophets was predominantly poetry.

Apocalyptic language is lavish in its use of fantastic imagery, frequently using riddles and numerical speculations. In apocalyptic literature angelology came into full blossom, with accounts of fallen angels fallen stars caught up in the forces opposed to God, frequently pictured in the old mythological motif of the struggle between darkness and light. Wild beasts symbolized peoples and nations, and there were esoteric calculations and speculations about the different eras through which history was passing as the world approached the eschaton the consummation of history.

The message of the apocalyptic writers is one of both warning, of the doom to come at the end of history, and hope in the new age beyond history under the rule of God, when the righteous will be vindicated. Though prophecy did not cease functioning in early Judaism, rabbinical Judaism —that influenced by rabbis, scholars, and commentators of the Bible—sought to limit it by advocating the pre-Exilic era as the classical time of prophecy.

Thus, rabbinical Judaism gave prophecy its place of importance, but only as a phenomenon of the past. Such a theological stricture could not restrain the charismatic, eschatologically oriented patriots who arose during the time of Roman hegemony mid-1st century bce —4th century ce. One rabbi, Akiba ben Joseph , joined with a messianic pretender, Bar Kokhba originally Simeon ben Koziba in a revolt — and functioned as a prophet within that movement.

Some prophets are known from the period of Hellenistic Judaism. Josephus also mentions some Zealots Jewish revolutionaries as prophets and also one Jesus, son of Ananias, who in 62 ce predicted the destruction of the Temple and the defeat of the Jews. Josephus also mentions the seer Simon, a prophet leader Antiquities , and Menahem, who prophesied in the 1st century bce.

Among the followers of Judas Maccabeus , the leader of the 2nd-century- bce revolt, there apparently were persons who divined knowledge of the future. Those and other notations indicate that seers and prophets played an important role in the intertestamental and postbiblical periods. Jewish theology in Alexandria Egypt took up early rabbinical ideas and postulated that the will of God was to be discerned in the Torah and affirmed that the interpretation of law succeeded both the prophetic office and the role of sages. The law was thus considered to be superior to prophetic teaching.

The Jewish philosopher Philo Judaeus flourished 1st century ce affirmed that the Jews are a people of prophets. He also asserted that when a prophet has reached the fourth and final stage of ecstasy, he is ready to become an instrument of divine power. Though Philo was influenced by Hellenistic concepts of prophecy, his basic foundation was still the Hebrew Bible. Later rabbis believed that prophecy, though it was a gift from the world beyond, still required some knowledge. In rabbinic discussions of the nature of truth, it was generally held that reason alone was necessary but insufficient; prophecy could supply what was missing.

The medieval Jewish philosopher Moses Maimonides — understood prophecy as an emanation from God to the intellect of man. Thus, prophecy could not be acquired by human effort. The divine gift of prophecy was bestowed upon those with both mental and moral perfection, combined with the presence of superior imagination. We welcome suggested improvements to any of our articles. You can make it easier for us to review and, hopefully, publish your contribution by keeping a few points in mind. Your contribution may be further edited by our staff, and its publication is subject to our final approval.

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Learn More in these related Britannica articles: In fact, it has been said that the apocalyptic was really an attempt to rationalize and systematize the predictive side of prophecy.