Texts in Conversation
In the Didache, an early church manual, a false prophet is told apart from a true one by his conduct. In the Shepherd of Hermas, an early Christian book of visions, anyone claiming the Spirit is also tested by their life and deeds.
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2500 BCE
1000+ CE
Didache 11:8
Early Christian
7 Do not test or judge any prophet who is speaking under inspiration, for every sin may be forgiven, but this sin will not. 8 Not everyone who speaks under inspiration is a prophet, but only one who has the ways of the Lord. You can distinguish a false prophet from a true one by his actions. 9 No prophet who orders a meal while in a state of inspiration should eat from it; if he does, he is a false prophet. 10 Any prophet who teaches the truth but does not practice what he preaches is a false prophet.
Shepherd of Hermas 43:16
Early Christian
12 First, the one who seems to have a spirit exalts themself and wants to have the leading seat, and right away is bold and shameless and talkative, and indulges in many luxuries and in many other deceits, and takes money for prophesying, and if they do not get paid, they do not prophesy. Now can a divine Spirit take money and prophesy? It cannot be that a prophet of God would do this; rather, the spirit of such people is earthly. 13 Moreover, it never approaches a gathering of righteous people, but avoids them, and joins with the double-minded and the empty, and prophesies to them in corners, deceiving them, speaking all things in emptiness to please their desires; for they too are empty, whom it answers. For an empty vessel placed together with empties is not broken, but they match each other. 14 But when it comes into an assembly full of righteous people who have a Spirit of God, and they make intercession, that person is emptied, and the earthly spirit flees from them in fear, and that person is left speechless and entirely undone, being unable to say a word. 15 For if you put wine or oil into a storeroom and place an empty jar among them, and again want to empty the storeroom, the jar which you placed there empty, you find empty in the same way. So also with the empty prophets—whenever they come in among righteous spirits, they are found as empty as when they arrived. 16 I have given you the way of life for both kinds of prophets. So test the person who says they are moved by the Spirit by their life and their deeds.
Date: 90-140 C.E. (based on scholarly estimates)
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Notes and References
“... Besides this text, the other best discussions of the discernment of prophecy in early Christianity are: Matt 7:15–23; 1 John 4:1–3; Didache 11; Act. Thom. 79. With the exception of 1 John for whom the criterion is christological orthodoxy (and perhaps already 1 Cor 12:3), all others hold ethical responsibility as the major criterion of the true prophet. Discussion of these texts in Aune, Prophecy, 222–29. ...”
* The use of references are not endorsements of their contents. Please read the entirety of the provided reference(s) to understand the author's full intentions regarding the use of these texts.
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