While doing some research on Paul’s Epistles, I came across the Latin writings of a Catholic monk named Haimo, who lived between 790 – 855 AD, at the Benedictine Abbey of Saint-Germain in the cathedral town of Auxerre, in central France on the Yonne River, who was also the abbot at the commune, Cessy-les-Bois, as well as the founder and prestigious master of a Carolingian School.

In commenting on Galatians 3:2: “Are you so foolish that, while you began with the Spirit, you are now being made perfect with the flesh?¹” here is what Haimo writes: “Paul means that, although you had begun to be converted spiritually, or had begun to speak through the Holy Spirit in other tongues, you are now wearied by rites and rituals, disregarding all things spiritual as you start using man-made ceremonies. Here Paul is referring to the circumcision of the flesh and all such sacrifices prescribed by the Law.”

Then Haimo goes on to make Paul’s statement relevant to his day. He says: “Put another way, in the beginning of the faith, all those who believed in Christ received the Holy Spirit just as they do now. What is more, they received speaking in other tongues through which they demonstrated that they possessed the Holy Spirit. There is no better example by which to prove this than the account in the Acts of the Apostles where Paul said to some of the believers, who had been baptized into John’s baptism, ‘Did you receive the Holy Spirit when becoming believers?’ They responded, ‘No, none of us have heard of a Holy Spirit: for we are unable to speak in other tongues. When Paul baptized them in Jesus’s name, however, they began to speak in other tongues.”²

Haimo then concludes: “Those Galatians did not receive the Holy Spirit and speaking in other tongues through works of the Law. Rather, it was because they believed in Christ as a result of hearing the faith of the Lord preached by the Apostle. By the hearing of faith Paul means that a person hears what they must believe, and later will be asked about this belief before being baptized.”

I found this a very interesting insight into church doctrine during the early medieval period of church history. I guess the question now is, had this emphasis on belief in Jesus Christ and the baptism in the Holy Spirit been continued at this level, what a difference it would have made in the history and development of the church as we know it today.