Tongues, Gift of
Tongues Gift Of
The chief authority in apostolic literature for the gift of speaking with tongues () is 1 Corinthians 14. What happened on the day of Pentecost is described (Act 2:4) as speaking with other tongues ( ). The emphasis lies on the distinguishing . The speakers spoke in languages other than their own: under the stress of spiritual emotion they lapsed into a foreign tongue; it was a special phenomenon peculiar to a special occasion. In Act 10:46; Act 19:6 the same phenomenon according to some authorities re-appears; but, as the distinguishing is absent, it is open to us to regard these passages as parallel to 1 Corinthians 14 and as indicating a phenomenon other than the Pentecostal.
What are the chief features of glossolalia in the Corinthian church? (1) Like prophecy, speaking with tongues was one of the gifts of the : it was reckoned among the charisms as an inspiration or endowment originating with the Holy Spirit. (2) It was unintelligible to others (1Co 14:2, no man understandeth). (3) It was personal to the speaker, who edified himself and not the church (1Co 14:4). (4) It is described in the case of an individual as (1Co 14:5) and again in the singular (1Co 14:13; 1Co 14:27) or (1Co 14:19) ( , 1Co 14:9, refers to the instrument of speech). It is evident that tongue in this connexion is used of a specific utterance. It is an open question whether it was deliberate, on the ground that ordinary language was unsuitable for prayer or fellowship or testimony regarding the spiritual life, or was produced apart from the volition of the speaker under the influence of spiritual excitement or emotion. The evidence is in favour of the latter view: in other words, that the speaker was the subject of a Spirit-possession which moved him to speak with the tongues of men and of angels (1Co 13:1). The distinction in the latter passage points to an ecstasy which on occasions appeared to be more than human, as if the Spirit used a human medium for angelic speech (cf. 2Co 12:4). It was used only in prayer (1Co 14:2; 1Co 14:14). It was speech not unto men, but unto God. To the outsider it appeared a species of soliloquy. Intellect or was passive or (1Co 14:14). There were many types of tongues ( 1Co 12:10; 1Co 12:28).
Undoubtedly St. Paul recognized it as a spiritual gift, but inferior, as, e.g., compared with prophecy. It was of no value to an unbeliever, because it could not lead to faith: cf. St. Pauls application of Isa 28:11 f. in 1Co 14:21. Indeed, to both the outsider and the unbeliever (1Co 14:23) it would appear a kind of madness. Nor to the believer was it of real benefit unless there was an interpretation (1Co 14:13); and the speaker-with-tongues was counselled to pray for such an interpretation, as if his utterance per se were of little value. St. Paul was no believer in unintelligibility (1Co 14:11): hence his emphasis on a (capable of being expounded) (1Co 14:9). He claimed the gift as one of his own (1Co 14:18), but preferred five instructive words spoken with the understanding to ten thousand in a tongue (1Co 14:19). If his words were not understood, it was like pouring words into the empty air (1Co 14:9). Hence an interpretation was essential, though this was a gift by itself and was not necessarily exercised by the speaker-with-tongues himself.
It is obvious that the Corinthians were specially susceptible to such abnormal powers; with a considerable section of the church was more popular than teaching and prophecy, in spite of the fact that as a purely subjective phenomenon it was of no value to the outsider (), who could not even say Amen to the formula of thanksgiving (1Co 14:16). The common sense of St. Paul was undoubtedly tried by its ineffectuality (your thanksgiving may be all right, but then-the other man is not edified 1 [1Co 14:17 in J. Moffatt, The New Testament: A New Translation3, London, 1914]).
There is no need to look for the origin of this experience among contemporary ethnic cults. That the atmosphere of the Hellenistic world of St. Paul was full of the phenomena of mysticism and ecstasy is clear to all students of the mystery-religions. But the ecstatic manifestations of the Corybantic or Dionysiac devotee or the worshipper of Isis and Osiris are simply parallels with the Corinthian Christian phenomena; they are not sources of it. (to use Philos word, Quis Rer. Div. Heres, 69, quoted by Kennedy, St. Paul and the Mystery-Religions, p. 66) is a convenient generic term for Divine possession as found in the revivals of ancient and modern religions. To Huxley the Salvation Army appeared to be a kind of Corybantic Christianity, judged by its external phenomena of religious excitement and enthusiasm. At the same time, the phenomena that have accompanied revivals such as early Methodism, the Salvation Army, and the recent Welsh revival have rarely been of the type of : there have been sobs and ejaculations, but not unintelligible continuous speech. In a valuable appendix to his Earlier Epistles of St. Paul2 (London, 1914) K. Lake (Glossolalia and Psychology, ch. iv. Appendix ii.) finds traces of glossolalia in the Testament of Job and in the magical papyri, e.g. the Leiden papyrus, where Hermes is invoked in unintelligible symbols. The use of strange words in magical formulas or charms which is to be found in circles alien to the apostolic communities may properly be adduced as parallels to glossolalia; but it would appear that glossolalia speedily vanished from apostolic Christianity. There is no reference to it in the Apostolic Fathers. The passages quoted from Irenaeus (Haer. V. vi. 1) and Tertullian (c. Marc. v. 8) are not convincing proofs that the practice was in vogue in their own times, while Chrysostom in the 4th cent. is unable to explain what its real nature was. Lake notes the case of the Camisards, a sect of French Protestants in the early 18th cent., who are known under stress of religious emotion to have uttered exhortations in good French, although, in their ordinary state of consciousness, they were incapable of speaking anything but the Romance patois of the Cvennes (loc. cit., p. 245). A clearer parallel to glossolalia is the more familiar case of the Irvingites, whose ecstatic utterances were an unintelligible jargon. Lakes examination of the phenomena as a whole demonstrates that from the standpoint of psychology there is nothing in itself unreasonable in uncontrolled or uncontrollable speech. When the subliminal consciousness is called into play or energy by religious emotion, there results a paraphasia which may take the form of speaking languages previously not known by the speaker, or uttering speech unintelligible to the hearer. The whole subject is invested with renewed interest by the modern study of religious pathology and psychology. It would now appear that speaking with tongues, like so many other phenomena of the spiritual consciousness, whether in the records of the Scriptures or in non-canonical writings or in the general annals of the Christian life in all ages, is capable of reasonable explanation on psychological lines, even if all the data fail to yield a satisfactory meaning to the inquirer.
Literature.-In addition to the works named under Gifts and Prophecy, the following may be consulted: K. Lake, The Earlier Epistles of St. Paul2, London, 1914; H. A. A. Kennedy, St. Paul and the Mystery-Religions, London, 1913; J. Weiss, Der erste Korintherbrief, Gttingen, 1910; F. G. Hencke, The Gift of Tongues and Related Phenomena at the Present Day, in AJTh [Note: JTh American Journal of Theology.] xiii. [1909] 193-206; W. James, The Varieties of Religious Experience5, London, 1903, lects. ix. and x.; E. Mosiman, Das Zungenreden, geschichtlich und psychologisch untersucht, Tbingen, 1911 (contains an excellent bibliography).
R. Martin Pope.
Fuente: Dictionary of the Apostolic Church
Tongues, gift of
One of the preternatural gifts mentioned by Saint Paul; the gift of speaking so as to be understood by all, and the corresponding ability of the hearers to understand one who is speaking in a foreign tongue. Acts, 2, tells how, men of every nation under heaven, 18 being specified, understood the Apostles in Jerusalem the first Pentecost as they spoke in diverse tongues. Saint Francis Xavier and other Apostolic men had this gift.
Fuente: New Catholic Dictionary
Tongues, Gift of
(Glossolaly, glossolalia).
A supernatural gift of the class gratiae gratis datae, designed to aid in the outer development of the primitive Church. The theological bearing of the subject is treated in the article CHARISMATA. The present article deals with its exegetical and historical phases.
St. Luke relates (Acts 2:1-15) that on the feast of Pentecost following the Ascension of Christ into heaven one hundred and twenty disciples of Galilean origin were heard speaking “with divers tongues, according as the Holy Ghost gave them to speak.” Devout Jews then dwelling at Jerusalem, the scene of the incident, were quickly drawn together to the number of approximately three thousand. The multitude embraced two religious classes, Jews and proselytes, from fifteen distinct lands so distributed geographically as to represent “every nation under heaven”. All were “confounded in mind” because every man heard the disciples speaking the “wonderful things of God” in his own tongue, namely, that in which he was born. To many the disciples appeared to be in a state of inebriation, wherefore St. Peter undertook to justify the anomaly by explaining it in the light of prophecy as a sign of the last times.
The glossolaly thus described was historic, articulate, and intelligible. Jerusalem was then as now a polyglottal region and could easily have produced one hundred and twenty persons who, in the presence of a cosmopolitan assemblage, might express themselves in fifteen different tongues. Since the variety of tongues is attributed to the group and not to individuals, particular disciples may not have used more than their native Aramaic, though it is difficult to picture any of them historically and socially without at least a smattering of other tongues. The linguistic conditions of the country were far more diverse than those of Switzerland today. The number of languages spoken equalled the number of those in which the listeners “were born”. But for these Greek and Aramaic would suffice with a possible admixture of Latin. The distinction of “tongues” (v. 6, dialektos; v. 11, glossa) was largely one of dialects and the cause of astonishment was that so many of them should be heard simultaneously and from Galileans whose linguistic capacities were presumably underrated. It was the Holy Ghost who impelled the disciples “to speak”, without perhaps being obliged to infuse a knowledge of tongues unknown. The physical and psychic condition of the auditors was one of ecstasy and rapture in which “the wonderful things of God” would naturally find utterance in acclamations, prayers or hymns, conned, if not already known, during the preceding week, when they were “always in the temple”, side by side with the strangers from afar, “praising and blessing God” (Luke 24:52-53).
Subsequent manifestations occurred at Caesarea, Palaestina, Ephesus, and Corinth, all polyglottal regions. St. Peter identifies that of Caesarea with what befell the disciples “in the beginning” (Acts 11:15). There, as at Ephesus and Jerusalem, the strange incident marked the baptism of several converts, who operated in groups. Corinth, standing apart in this and other respects, is reserved for special study.
In post-Biblical times St. Irenaeus tells us that “many” of his contemporaries were heard “speaking through the Spirit in all kinds (pantodapais) of tongues” (“Contra haer.”, V, vii; Eusebius, “Hist. eccl.”, V, vii). St. Francis Xavier is said to have preached in tongues unknown to him and St. Vincent Ferrer while using his native tongue was understood in others. From this last phenomenon Biblical glossolaly differs in being what St. Gregory Nazianzen points out as a marvel of speaking and not of hearing. Exegetes observe too that it was never used for preaching, although Sts. Augustine and Thomas seem to have overlooked this detail.
St. Paul’s Concept (I Corinthians 12-14).—For the Biblical data thus far examined we are indebted to the bosom friend and companion of St. Paul—St. Luke. That being true, the views of St. Paul on supernatural glossolaly must have coincided with those of St. Luke.
Now St. Paul had seen the gift conferred at Ephesus and St. Luke does not distinguish Ephesian glossolaly from that of Jerusalem. They must therefore have been alike and St. Paul seems to have had both in mind when he commanded the Corinthians (14:37) to employ none but articulate and “plain speech” in their use of the gift (9), and to refrain from such use in church unless even the unlearned could grasp what was said (16). No tongue could be genuine “without voice” and to use such a tongue would be the act of a barbarian (10, 11). For him the impulse to praise God in one or more strange tongues should proceed from the Holy Ghost. It was even then an inferior gift which he ranked next to last in a list of eight charismata. It was a mere “sign” and as such was intended not for believers but for unbelievers (22).
Corinthian Abuses (I Corinthians 14 passim).—Medieval and modern writers wrongly take it for granted that the charism existed permanently at Corinth—as it did nowhere else—and that St. Paul, in commending the gift to the Corinthians, therewith gave his guaranty that the characteristics of Corinthian glossolaly were those of the gift itself. Traditional writers in overlooking this point place St. Luke at variance with St. Paul, and attribute to the charism properties so contrary as to make it inexplicable and prohibitively mysterious. There is enough in St. Paul to show us that the Corinthian peculiarities were ignoble accretions and abuses. They made of “tongues” a source of schism in the Church and of scandal without (14:23). The charism had deteriorated into a mixture of meaningless inarticulate gabble (9, 10) with an element of uncertain sounds (7, 8), which sometimes might be construed as little short of blasphemous (12:3). The Divine praises were recognized now and then, but the general effect was one of confusion and disedification for the very unbelievers for whom the normal gift was intended (14:22, 23, 26). The Corinthians, misled not by insincerity but by simplicity and ignorance (20), were actuated by an undisciplined religious spirit (pneuma), or rather by frenzied emotions and not by the understanding (nous) of the Spirit of God (15). What today purports to be the “gift of tongues” at certain Protestant revivals is a fair reproduction of Corinthian glossolaly, and shows the need there was in the primitive Church of the Apostle’s counsel to do all things “decently, and according to order” (40).
Faithful adherence to the text of Sacred Scripture makes it obligatory to reject those opinions which turn the charism of tongues into little more than infantile babbling (Eichhorn, Schmidt, Neander), incoherent exclamations (Meyer), pythonic utterances (Wiseler), or prophetic demonstrations of the archaic kind (see 1 Samuel 19:20, 24). The unalloyed charism was as much an exercise of the intelligence as of the emotions. Languages or dialects, now kainais (Mark 16:17) for their present purpose, and now spontaneously borrowed by the conservative Hebrew from Gentile foreigners (eteroglossois, cheilesin eteron, 1 Corinthians 14:21), were used as never before. But they were understood even by those who used them. Most Latin commentators have believed the contrary, but the ancient Greeks, St. Cyril of Alexandria, Theodoret, and others who were nearer the scene, agree to it and the testimony of the texts as above studied seems to bear them out.
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CORLUY in JAUGEY, Dict. apolegetique (Paris, 1889); MELVILLE, Observationes theologico-exegeticae de dono linguarum etc. (Basle, 1816); HILGENFELD, Die Glossolalie in der alten Kirche (Leipzig, 1850); FOUARD, St. Paul, ses missions (Paris, 1892); BLEEK, Ueber die Gabe etc. in Theologische Studien und Kritiken, II (1829); REUSS, La glossolalie in Revue de theologie, III (Strasburg, 1851); SHEPPARD, The Gift of Tongues in the Early Church in Amer. Eccl. Rev., XLII (Philadelphia, May, 1910), 513-22; REILLY, The Gift of Tongues, What was it? in Amer. Eccl. Rev XLIII (Philadelphia, July, 1910), 3-25.
THOS. A’ K. REILLY Transcribed by Thomas M. Barrett Dedicated to Elizabeth Brown Knight
The Catholic Encyclopedia, Volume XIVCopyright © 1912 by Robert Appleton CompanyOnline Edition Copyright © 2003 by K. KnightNihil Obstat, July 1, 1912. Remy Lafort, S.T.D., CensorImprimatur. +John Cardinal Farley, Archbishop of New York
Fuente: Catholic Encyclopedia
Tongues, Gift Of
This was an endowment first imparted to the apostles, anti apparently to all the assembled disciples, on the day of Pentecost, and afterwards continued to the Christians during the apostolic age. John the Baptist, himself a burning and a shining light. had testified of Christ, He that cometh after me is mightier than I, whose shoes I am not worthy to bear he shall baptize you with the Holy Ghost and with fire. After Jesus had been crucified, and before he ascended, he breathed on his disciples and said, Receive ye the Holy Ghost. The influence so communicated must have been precious, but it was only the earnest of the inheritance, and not the entire fulfillment of John’s prediction. By their secular views of the Messiah’s sovereignty the disciples showed that they had not yet been favored with the full baptism of the Spirit. When they were come together, they asked of him, saying, Wilt thou at this time restore again the kingdom to Israel? This question implied entire confidence in the power of Christ, but it evinced no clear conceptions of the spirituality of his reign. Fifty days after the crucifixion the promise of the Father had its accomplishment, and the disciples received a special power when the Holy Ghost came upon them. Why was hope so long deferred? There was wisdom in this delay, as indicating divine presidency and direction in the ordering of the event. If the apostles were to be excited and bestirred merely by the dire experience they had passed through, the effect on natural principles should have been speedily consequent on the cause. Procrastination was calculated to sober tumultuous passion, and to restrain imperiling enterprise. In this view the descent of the Spirit received confirmation from occurring after a considerable interval of tranquility and inaction. The specific day had also its significance.
Pentecost was the feast of first-fruits, the commencement and the consecration of the harvest: and it formed, therefore, the fitting moment for the formal introduction of that work of the Spirit by which was to be secured the spiritual harvest of Christ’s finished work. It had also come to be regarded as commemorative of the giving of the law from Sinai-the magnificent initiation of the Mosaic economy and the period of the latter event must certainly have coincided very nearly, if not absolutely, with that of the other (Exo 19:11). Then God spake, and the mountain burned with fire. The season so regarded was suitable for the introduction of another and related era, the inauguration of the Gospel economy and anew God reveals himself by analogous manifestations. Suddenly there came a sound from heaven as of a rushing mighty wind, and it filled all the house where they were sitting. This sound resembled the roar of the tempest; but instead of proceeding from any point of the compass, it descended from heaven. Here, as in the wilderness, was the voice of God, a voice full of majesty. And there appeared unto them cloven tongues like as of fire, and it sat upon each of them. Here we have the fiery attribute of Sinai. But now it takes the form of tongues, to denote that God while speaking was endowing with speech, and that his voice like echoing thunder would multiply itself through the reverberating media on which it fell. The tongues were cloven, but into what number of divisions we are not informed. As happens with the variable flames of a furnace, the gleaming points may have been unequally numerous. No one had all tongues in his gift; perhaps no two the same tongues, but in every case there was a plurality. The general subject has already been considered under SEE HOLY SPIRIT, BAPTISM OF, and certain aspects of it under the foregoing heading, and under SEE SPIRITUAL GIFTS. We here give (in addition to particulars elsewhere treated) a more detailed view of the linguistic phenomenon involved.
I. Philological Interpretations of the Term. , or , the word employed throughout the, New Test. for the gift now under consideration, is used in three senses, SEE TONGUE, each of which might be the starting-point for the application of the word to the gift of tongues, and each accordingly has found those who have maintained that it is so.
1. It primarily and literally signifies the bodily organ of speech. Eichhorn and Bardili (cited by Bleek, Stud. u. Krit. 1829, p. 8 sq.), and to some extent Bunsen (Hyppolytus, 1, 9), starting from this signification, see in the so-called gift an inarticulate utterance, the cry as of a brute creature, in which the tongue moves while the lips refuse their office in making the sounds definite and distinct. This interpretation, it is believed, does not meet the condition of answering any of the facts of the New Test., and errs in ignoring the more prominent meaning of the word in later Greek.
2. The term may stand for the use of foreign words, imported and half naturalized in Greek (Aristotle, Rhet. 3, 2, 14), a meaning which the words gloss and glossary preserve for us. Bleek himself (ut sup. p. 33) adopts this second meaning, and gives an interesting collection of passages to prove that it was, in the time of the New Test., the received sense. He infers from this that to speak in tongues was to use unusual, poetic language; that the speakers were in a high-wrought excitement which showed itself in mystic, figurative terms.: In this view he had been preceded by Ernesti (Opusc. Theolog.; see Morning Watch, 4:101) and Herdelr (Die Gabe der Spirache, p. 47, 70), the latter of whom extends the meaning to special mystical interpretations-of the Old Test.
This interpretation, however, though true in some of its conclusions, and able, so far as they are concerned, to support itself by the authority of Augustine (comp. De Genesis ad lit. 12:8, Linguam esse cum quis loquatur obscuras et mysticas significationes) appears faulty, as failing (1) to recognize the fact that the sense of the word in the New Test. was more likely to be determined by that which it bore in the Sept. than by its meaning in Greek historians or rhetoricians and (2) to meet the phenomena of Acts 2.
3. The word , in Hellenistic Greek, after the pattern of the corresponding Hebrew word (), stands for speech or language (Gen 10:5; Dan 1:4, etc.). The received traditional view starts from this meaning, and sees in the gift of tongues a distinctly linguistic power. It commends itself, as in this respect starting at least from the right point, and likely to lead us to the truth (comp. Olshausen, Stud. u. Krit. 1829, p. 538). Variations as well as objections and difficulties arising from this interpretation will be considered below.
II. History and Explanation of the Biblical Occurrences. The principal passages from which we have to draw our conclusion as to the nature and purpose of the gift in question are (1) Mar 16:17; (2) Act 2:1-13; Act 10:46; Act 19:6; (3) 1Co 12:14. Besides these, we may derive some light from later allusions incidentally made to these phenomena. We here consider them in their chronological order, with such inferences as are suggested by them.
1. The promise of a new power coming from the Divine Spirit, giving not only comfort and insight into truth, but fresh powers of utterance of some kind, appears once and again in our Lord’s teaching. The disciples are to take no thought what they shall speak, for the Spirit of their Father shall speak in them (Mat 10:19-20; Mar 13:11). The lips of Galilaean peasants are to speak freely and boldly before kings. The only condition is that they are not to premeditate to yield themselves altogether to the power that works on them. Thus they shall have given to them a mouth and wisdom which no adversary shall be able to gainsay or resist. In Mar 16:17 we have a more definite term employed: They shall speak with new tongues ( ). It can hardly be questioned that the obvious meaning of the promise, is that the disciples should speak in new languages which they had not learned as other men learn them. The promise itself, however, determines little definite as to the nature of the gift or the purpose for which it was to be employed. It was to be a sign. It was not to belong to a chosen few only to apostles and evangelists. It was to follow them that believed to be among the fruits of the living intense faith which raised men above the common level of their lives, and brought them within the kingdom of God.
2. The wonder of the day of Pentecost (Act 2:1-13) is, in its broad features, familiar enough to us. The days since the ascension had been spent as in a ceaseless ecstasy of worship (Luk 24:53). The one hundred and twenty disciples were gathered together, waiting with eager expectation for the coming of power from on high of the Spirit that was to give them new gifts of utterance. The day of Pentecost had come, which they, like all other Israelites, looked upon as the witness of the revelation of the Divine Will given on Sinai. Suddenly there swept over them the sound as of a rushing mighty wind, such as Ezekiel had heard in the visions of God by Chebar (Eze 1:24; Eze 43:2), at all times the recognized symbol of a spiritual creative power (comp. 37:1-14; Gen 1:2; 1Ki 19:11; 2Ch 5:14; Psa 104:3-4). With this there was another sign associated even more closely with their thoughts of the day of Pentecost. There appeared unto them tongues like as of fire. Of old the brightness had been seen gleaming through the thick cloud (Exo 19:18) or enfolding the divine glory (Eze 1:4). Now the tongues were distributed (), lighting upon each of them. The outward symbol was accompanied by an inward change. They were filled with the Holy Spirit, as the Baptist and their Lord had been (Luk 1:15; Luk 4:1), though they themselves had as yet no experience of a like kind. They began to speak with other tongues as the Spirit gave them utterance. The narrative that follows leaves hardly any room for doubt that the writer meant to convey the, impression that the disciples were heard to speak in languages of which they had no colloquial knowledge previously. The direct statement, They heard them speaking, each man in his own dialect, the long list of nations, the words put into the lips of the hearers these can scarcely reconciled with the theories of Bleek, Herder, and Bunsen without a willful distortion of the evidence.
Having thus recited the facts in this case, we inquire, What view are we to take of a phenomenon so marvelous and exceptional? Let us first consider what views men have actually taken.
(1.) The prevalent belief of the Church has been that in the Pentecostal gift the disciples received a supernatural knowledge of all such languages, as they needed for their work as evangelists. The knowledge was permanent, and could be used at their own will, as if it had been acquired in the common order of things. With this they went forth to preach to the nations. Differences of opinion are found as to special points. Augustine thought that each disciple spoke in all languages (De Verb. Apost. 175, 3); Chrysostom that each had. a special language assigned to, him, and that this was the indication of the country which he was called to evangelize (Hom. in Acts 2). Some thought that the number of languages spoken was seventy or seventy-five, after, the number of the sons: of Noah (Genesis 10) or the sons of Jacob (ch. 46), or one hundred and twenty, after that of the disciples (comp. Baronius, Annul. 1, 97). Most were, agreed in seeing in the Pentecostal gift the antithesis to the confusion of tongues at Babel, the witness of a restored unity. Poena linguarum dispersit homines, donunm linguarum dispersos in unum populum collegit (Grotius, ad loc.).
We notice incidentally that parallels have been sought ill Israelitihhishtory. For example, there had been, it was said, tongues of fire on the original Pentecost (Schneckenburger, Beitrage, p. 8, referring to Buxtorf, De Synag., and Philo, De Decal.). The later rabbius were not without their legends of a like baptism of fire. Nicodemus ben-Gorion and Jochanan benZachai, men of great holiness and wisdom, went into an upper chamber to expound the law, and the house began to be full of fire (Lightfoot, flari. 3, 14; Schttgen, Hor. Heb. in Acts 2). Again, with regard to the more important phenomenon, it deserves notice that there are analogies in Jewish belief. Every word that went forth from the mouth of God on Sinai was said to have been divided into the seventy languages of the sons of men (Wettstein, On Acts 2); and the bath-kol, the echo of the voice of God, was heard by every man in his own tongue (Schneckenburger, Beitrige). So, as regards the power of speaking, there was a tradition that the great rabbins of the Sanhedrim could speak all the seventy languages of the world.
The following are some of the direct arguments urged in favor of a literal view of the Pentecostal endowment:
(a) The power in question was virtually promised to the apostles by the very duty assigned them. They were enjoined to go and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. They were to be witnesses for Christ in Jerusalem, and in all Judaea, and in Samaria, and to the uttermost parts of the earth.’ But how could they instruct remote tribes whose phraseology was a Babel to them, unless they were divinely qualified for the work?
(b) This power was in keeping with the occasion., The old economy was characteristically ritualistic. It addressed the eye, and made an impression by its superb ceremonial. The Christian dispensation was to be simple, and its strength would lie in the preaching of the word. To speak with other tongues was indeed a new thing on the earth, but so was the exigency, which rendered it appropriate. Judaism was local made purposely restrictive to preclude amalgamation with the heathen. Now there was to be catholicity, and what could better symbolize it in Christian agency than a competence to instruct the whole world, to be mouth and wisdom to all its inhabitants?
(c) We never read of foreign tongues creating any impediment to the spread of the Gospel, or requiring laborious application for the acquisition of them. If we look into modern missionary reports, we meet with a great deal about learning the languages of natives. Why is there nothing of the kind in the New Test., unless because they were acquired supernaturally?
(d) The account in Acts 2 is explicit, and allows of no uncertainty or evasion. The speakers were Galileans, capable at most of expressing themselves in Greek, Latin, and Hebrew; and a multitude of foreigners from a great many regions heard themselves accosted as in the land of their birth. If the apostles spoke just as they might have been expected to speak, and with no more compass of expression than suited their-condition and history, why should any astonishment have been produced by their attainments? But the multitudes were confounded, and they were all amazed and marveled, not merely at the doctrines propounded, but, specifically, because every man heard them speak in his own language. How came Galileans, they asked, to be such linguists? to be so familiar with languages alien to their annals? There is here an obviousness of meaning which no subtlety or sophistry can ever explain away.
Widely diffused as this view of the Pentecostal gift has been, it has been thought-by some, in some points at least, that it goes beyond the data with which the New Test. supplies us. Each instance of the gift recorded in the Acts connects it, not so much with the work of teaching as with that of praise and adoration; not with the normal order of men’s lives, but with exceptional epochs in them. (In the first instance, however, the gift certainly was largely instrumental in the conversion of hearers; and even among the Corinthians [1Co 14:16-17] the utterance, when properly interpreted, was a means of general edification.) It came and went as the Spirit gave men the power of utterance in this respect analogous to the other gift of prophecy with which it was so often associated (Act 2:16-17; Act 19:6) and was not possessed by them as a thing to be used this way or that, according as they chose. (It appears, however, that even the prophetic afflatus was amenable to the subject’s will [1Co 14:32], and the gift in question was to be voluntarily exercised or forborne [ 1Co 14:28-30 ].) The speech of Peter which follows, like most other speeches addressed to a Jerusalem audience, was spoken apparently in Aramraic. (But this does not prove that Peter always spoke in that language.) When Paul, who spake with tongues more than all, was at Lystra, there is no mention made of his using the language of Lycaonia. It is implied, however, that either he or Luke understood it (Act 14:11).
It is rarely implied in the discussion of spiritual gifts in 1 Corinthians 12-14 that the gift was of this nature, or given for this purpose. The objection that if it had been, the apostle would surely have told those who possessed it to go and preach to the outlying nations of the heathen world, instead of disturbing the Church by what, on this hypothesis, would have been a needless and offensive ostentation (comp. Stanley, Corinthians [2nd ed.], p. 261), may readily be met by the consideration that Corinth, as a seaport, was almost as much a polyglot community as Jerusalem. Without laying much stress on the tradition that Peter was followed in his work by Mark as an interpreter () (Papias, in Eusebius, II. E. 3, 30), that even Paul was accompanied by Titus in the same character Quia non potuit divinorum sensuum majestatem digno Graeci eloquii sermone explicare (Jerome, quoted by Estius on 2 Corinthians 2) they must at least be received as testimonies that the age which was nearest to the phenomena did not take the same view of them as those have done who lived at a greater distance. The testimony of Irenaeus (Adv. alcer. 6:6), sometimes urged in support of the common view, in reality decides nothing, and, so far as it goes, tends against it (infra). It is also affirmed that within the limits assigned by the providence of God to the working of the apostolic Church such a gift was unnecessary. Aramaic, Greek, Latin, the three languages of the inscription on the cross, were media of intercourse throughout the empire. Greek alone sufficed, as the New Test. shows us, for the churches of the West, for Macedonia and Achaia, for Pontus, Asia, Phrygia. The conquests of Alexander and of Rome had made men diglottic to an extent, which has no parallel in history. But it is one thing to speak in a language imperfectly acquired by speaker and hearer, yet foreign to them both, and a very different thing and one, we may add, highly important for the personal influence requisite to Gospel conviction to be able to converse fluently in the native tongue of the congregation. The objection that we have no evidence of any actual use of the voluntary power of foreign languages by the apostles in propagating the Gospel is merely negative, and cannot stand in the light of the facts recorded in the case under consideration. Equally inconclusive is the objection against the psychological character of the miracle of a sudden importation of a language not learned; for it lies with quite as much force against the communication of the knowledge of a future event, and indeed it would forbid not only all prophecy, but all inspiration itself. It is a suspicious circumstance connected with all this class of objections that their essence seems to lie in a crypto-rationalistic spirit, which really opposes the miraculous altogether, and seeks on every occasion to explain Scripture prodigies by natural causes. SEE MIRACLE.
(2.) Accordingly, some interpreters have advanced another solution of the difficulty by changing the character of the miracle. It lay not in any new power bestowed on the speakers, but in the impression produced on the hearers. Words which the Galilean disciples uttered in their own tongue were heard by those who listened as in their native speech. This view we find adopted by Gregory of Nyssa (De Spir. Sanct.), discussed, but not accepted, by Gregory of Nazianzum (Orat. c. 44), and reproduced by Erasmus (ad loc.). A modification of the same theory is presented by Schneckenburger (Beitrage), and in part adopted by Olshausen (loc. cit.) and Neander ( Pflanz. u. Leit. 1, 15). The phenomena of somnambulism, of the so-called mesmeric state, are referred to as analogous. The speaker was en rapport with his hearers; the latter shared the thoughts of the former, and so heard them, or seemed to hear them, in their own tongues. There are weighty reasons against this hypothesis.
(a) It is at variance with the distinct statement of Act 2:4, They began to speak with other tongues.
(b) It at once multiplies the miracle and degrades its character. Not the one hundred and twenty-disciples, but the whole multitude of many thousands, are in this case the subjects of it. The gift no longer connects itself with the work of the Divine Spirit, following on intense faith and earnest prayer, but is a mere physical prodigy wrought upon men who are altogether wanting in the conditions of capacity for such a supernatural power (Mar 16:17).
(c) It involves an element of falsehood. The miracle, on this view, was wrought to make men believe what was not actually the fact.
(d) It is altogether inapplicable to the phenomena of Corinthians 14.
(3.) Critics of a negative school have, as might be expected, adopted the easier course of rejecting the narrative either altogether or in part. The statements do not come from an eye-witness, and may be an exaggerated report of what actually took place a legend with or without a historical foundation. Those who recognize such a groundwork see in the rushing mighty wind, the hurricane of a thunder-storm, the fresh breeze of morning; in the tongues like as of fire, the flashings of the electric fluid; in the speaking with tongues, the loud screams of men, not all Galileans, but coming from many lands, overpowered by strong excitement, speaking in mystical, figurative, abrupt exclamations. They see in this the cry of the new-born Christendom (Bsen, Hippolytus, 2, 12; Ewald, Gesch. Is. 6:110; Bleek, loc. cit.; Herder, loc. cit.). From the position occupied by these writers such a view was perhaps natural enough. It is out of place here to discuss in detail a theory, which postulates the incredibility of any fact beyond the phenomenal laws of nature and the falsehood of Luke as a narrator.
(4.) What, then, we finally inquire under the case in question, are the facts actually brought before us? What inferences may be legitimately drawn from them?
(a) The utterance of words by the disciples in other languages than their own Galilean Aramaic is, as has been said, distinctly asserted.
(b) The words spoken appear to have been primarily determined, not by the will of the speakers, but by the Spirit, which gave them utterance. The outward tongue of flame was the symbol of the burning fire within, which, as in the case of the older prophets could not without internal violence be repressed (Jer 20:9).
(c) The word used, , not merely , has in the Sept. a special, though not an exclusive association with the oracular speech of true or false prophets, and appears to imply some peculiar and probably impassioned style (comp. 1Ch 25:1; Eze 13:9; Trommii Concordant. s.v.; Grotius and Wettstein, ad loc.; Andrews, Whitsunday Sermons, vol. 1).
(d) The tongues were used as an instrument, not simply of teaching, but also of praise. At first, indeed, there were none present to be taught. The disciples were by themselves, all sharing equally in the Spirit’s gifts. When they were heard by others, it was chiefly as proclaiming the praise, the mighty and great works of God (). What they uttered was not so much a warning or reproof or exhortation as a doxology (Stanley, loc. cit.; Baumgarten, Apostelgesch. 3). The assumption, however, appears unwarranted that when the work of teaching began it was in the language of the Jews, and that the utterance of tongues then ceased.
(e) Those who spoke them seemed to others to be under the influence of some strong excitement, full of new wine. They were not as other men, or as they themselves had been before. Some recognized, indeed, that they were in a higher state, but it was one, which, in some of its outward features, had a counterfeit likeness in the lower. When Paul uses in Eph 5:18-19 ( ) the all but self-same word which Luke uses here to describe the state of the disciples ( ) it is to contrast it with being drunk with wine, to associate it with psalms and hymns, and spiritual songs.
(f) Questions as to the mode of operation of a power above the common laws of bodily or mental life lead us to a region where our words should be wary and few. There is a risk of seeming to reduce to the known order of nature that which is by confession above and beyond it. In this and in other cases, however, it may be possible, without irreverence or doubt following the guidance which Scripture itself gives us to trace in what way the new power did its work, and brought about such wonderful results. It must be remembered, then, that in all likelihood similar words to those which they then uttered had been heard by the disciples before. At every feast which they had ever attended from their youth up, they must have been brought into contact with a crowd as varied as that which was present on the day of Pentecost, the pilgrims of each nation uttering their praises and doxologies. The difference was that, before, the Galilean peasants had stood in that crowd neither heeding nor understanding nor remembering what they heard, still less able to reproduce it; now, they had the power of speaking it clearly and freely.
(g) The gift of tongues, the ecstatic burst of praise, is definitely asserted to be a fulfillment of the prediction of Joe 2:28. The twice-repeated burden of that prediction is, I will pour out my Spirit, and the effect on those who receive it is that they shall prophesy. We may see, therefore, in this special gift that which is analogous to one element at least of the of the Old Test.; but the element of teaching is, as we have seen, not prominent. In 1 Corinthians 14 the gift of tongues and (in this the New-Test. sense of the word) are placed in direct contrast. We are led, therefore, to look for that which more peculiarly answers to the gift of tongues in the other element of prophecy which is included in the Old-Test. use of the word; and this is found in the ecstatic praise, the burst of song, which appears under that name in the two histories of Saul (1Sa 10:5-13; 1Sa 19:20-24), and in the services of the Temple (1Ch 25:3).
(h) The other instances in the Acts offer essentially the same phenomena. By implication in Act 14:15-19, by express statement in Act 10:47; Act 11:15; Act 11:17; Act 19:6, it belongs to special critical epochs, at which faith is at its highest, and the imposition of the apostles hands brought men into the same state, imparted to them the same gift, as they had themselves experienced. In this case, too, the exercise of the gift is at once connected with, and distinguished from, prophecy in its New Test. sense.
3. The first epistle to the Corinthians supplies fuller data. The spiritual gifts are classified and compared, arranged, apparently, according to their worth, placed under regulation. This fact is in itself significant. Though recognized as coming from the one Divine Spirit, they are not therefore exempted from the control of man’s reason and conscience. The Spirit acts through the calm judgment of the apostle or the Church, not less, but more, authoritatively than in the most rapturous and wonderful utterances. The facts which may be gathered in this case are briefly these:
(1.) The phenomena of the gift of tongues were not confined to one Church or section of a Church. If we find them at Jerusalem, Ephesus, Corinth, by implication at Thessalonica also (1Th 5:19),.we may well believe that they were frequently recurring wherever the spirits of men were passing through the same stages of experience.
(2.) The comparison of gifts in both the lists given by Paul (1Co 12:8-10; 1Co 12:28-30) places that of tongues, and the interpretation of tongues, lowest in the scale. They are not among the greater gifts, which men are to covet earnestly (1Co 12:31; 1Co 14:5). As signs of a life quickened into expression where before it had been dead and dumb, the apostle could wish that they all spake with tongues (ibid.), could rejoice that, he himself spake with tongues more than they all (1Co 12:18). It was good to have known the working of a power raising them above the common level of their consciousness. They belonged, however, to the childhood of the Christian life, not to its maturity (1Co 12:20). They brought with them the risk of disturbance (1Co 12:23). The only safe rule for the Church was not to forbid them (1Co 12:39) not to quench them (1Th 5:19), lest in so doing the spiritual life of which this was the first utterance should be crushed and extinguished too; but not in any way to covet or excite them.
(3.) The main characteristic of the tongue (now used, as it were, technically, without the epithet new or other) is that it is unintelligible unless interpreted ( to translate in course). The man speaks mysteries, prays, blesses, gives thanks, in the tongue ( as equivalent to , 1Co 14:15-16), but no one understands him (). He can hardly be said indeed, to understand himself. The in him is acting without the co-operation of the (1Co 14:14). He speaks not to men, but to himself and to God (comp. Chrysost. Hom. 35, in 1 Col.). In spite of this, however the gift might, and did, contribute to the building-up of a man’s own life (1Co 14:4). This might be the only way in which some natures could be roused out of the apathy of a sensual life or the dullness of a formal ritual. The ecstasy of adoration which seemed to men madness might be a refreshment unspeakable to one who was weary with the subtle questionings of the intellect, to whom all familiar and intelligible words were fraught with recollections of controversial bitterness or the wanderings of doubt (comp. a passage of wonderful power as to this use of the gift by Irving Morning Watch, 5, 78).
(4.) The peculiar nature of the gift leads the apostle into what appears at first a contradiction. Tongues are for a sign, not to believers, but to those who do not believe; yet the effect on unbelievers is not that of attracting, but repelling. A meeting in which the gift of tongues was exercised without restraint would seem to a heathen visitor, or even to the plain common-sense Christian (the , the man. without a ), to be an assembly of madmen. The history of the day of Pentecost may help us to explain the paradox. The tongues are a sign. They witness that the daily experience of men is not the limit of their spiritual powers. They disturb, startle, awaken, are given (Chrysost. Hom. 36, in 1 Cor.), but they are not, and cannot be, the grounds of conviction and belief (so Const. Apost. 8). They involve of necessity a disturbance of the equilibrium between the understanding and the feelings. Therefore it is that, for those who believe already, prophecy is the greater gift. Five clear words spoken from the mind of one man to the mind and conscience of another are better than ten thousand of these more startling and wonderful phenomena.
(5.) There remains the question whether these also were tongues in the sense of being languages, of which the speakers had little or no previous knowledge, or whether we are to admit here, though not in Acts 2, the theories which see in them only unusual forms of speech (Bleek), or inarticulate cries (Bunsen), or all but inaudible whisperings (Wiieseler, in, Olshausen, ad loc.). The question is not one for a dogmatic assertion but it is believed that there is a preponderance of evidence leading us to look on the phenomena of Pentecost as representative. It must have been from them that the word tongue derived its new and special meaning. The companion of Paul and Pami; himself were likely to use the same word in the same sense. In the absence of a distinct notice to the contrary, it is probable that the gift would manifest itself in the same form at Corinth as at Jerusalem. The divers kind of tongues (1Co 12:28), the tongues of men (1Co 13:1), point to differences of some kind, and it is at least easier to conceive of these as differences of language than as belonging to utterances all equally wild and inarticulate. The position maintained by Lightfoot (Harm. of Gosp. on Acts 2), that the gift of tongues consisted in the power of speaking and understanding the true Hebrew of the Old Test., may appear somewhat extravagant, but there seems ground for believing that Hebrew and Aramaic words had over the minds of Greek converts at Corinth a power which they failed to exercise when translated, and that there the utterances of the tongues were probably, in whole or in part, in that language. Thus the Maranatha of 1Co 16:22, compared with 1Co 12:3, leads to the inference that the word had been spoken under a real or counterfeit inspiration, It was the Spirit that led men to cry Abba as their recognition of the fatherhood of God (Rom 8:15; Gal 4:6). If we are to attach any definite meaning to the tongues of angels in 1Co 13:1, it must be by connecting it with the words surpassing human utterance which Paul heard as in Paradise (2Co 12:4), and these, again, with the great Hallelujah hymns of which we read in the Apocalypse (Rev 19:16; Stanley, loc. cit.; Ewald, Gesch. Isr. 6:117). The retention of other words like Hosanna and Sabaoth in the worship of the Church, of the Greek formula of the Kyrie Eleison in that of the nations of the West, is an. exemplification of the same feeling operating in other ways after the special power had ceased.
(6.) Here also as in Acts 2, we have to think of some peculiar style of enunciation as frequently characterizing the exercise of the tongues. The analogies which suggest themselves to Paul’s mind are those of the pipe, the harp the trumpet (1Co 14:7-8). In the case of one singing in the spirit (1Co 14:15), but not with the understanding also, the strain of ecstatic melody must have been all that the listeners could perceive. To sing and make melody is especially characteristic of those who are filled with the Spirit (Eph 5:19). Other forms of utterance less distinctly musical, yet not less mighty to stir the minds of men, we may trace in the cry (Rom 8:15; Gal 4:6) and the ineffable groanings (Rom 8:26), which are distinctly ascribed to the work of the Divine Spirit. To those who know the wonderful power of man’s voice, as the organ of his spirit, the strange, unearthly charm which belongs to some of its less normal states, the influence even of individual words thus uttered, especially of words belonging to a language which is not that of our common life (comp. Hilar. Diac. Comm. in 1 Corinthians 14), it will not seem strange that, even in the absence of a distinct intellectual consciousness, the gift should take its place among the means by which a man built up his own life, and might contribute, if one were present: to expound his utterances, to edify others also. Neander (Pflanz. u. Leit. 1, 15) refers to the effect produced by the preaching of St. Bernard upon hearers who did not understand one word of the Latin in which he preached (Opp. 2, 119, ed. Mabillon) as an instance of this.’ Like phenomena are related of St. Anthony of Padua and St. Vincent Ferrer (Acta Sanctorum, June 24 and April 5), of which this is probably the explanation. (Comp. also Wolff, Curie Philolog. in Nov. Test., Acts 2.)
(7.) Connected with the tongues, there was, as the words just used remind us, the corresponding power of interpretation. It might belong to any listener (1Co 14:27). It might belong’ to the speaker himself when he returned to the ordinary level of conscious thought (1Co 14:13). Its function, according to the view that has been here taken, must have been twofold. The interpreter had first to catch the foreign words, Aramaic or others, which had mingled, more or less largely; with what was uttered, and then to find a meaning and an order in what seemed at first to be without either; to follow the loftiest fights and most intricate windings of the enraptured spirit; to trace the subtle associations Which linked together words and thoughts that seemed at first to have no point of contact. Under the action of one with this insight, the wild utterances of the tongues might become a treasure house of deep truths. Sometimes, it would appear, not even this was possible. The power might be simply that of sound. As the pipe or harp, played boldly, the hand struck at random over the strings, but with no , no musical interval, wanted the condition of distinguishable melody, so the tongues, in their extremest form, passed beyond the limits of interpretation. There might be a strange awfulness, of a strange sweetness as of the tongues of angels; but what it meant was known only to God (1Co 14:7; 1Co 14:11).
(8.) It is probable that, at this later period, and in the Corinthian Church (which appears, from other indications to have been a decidedly sensuous one), the gift in question had somewhat degenerated from its Pentecostal purity into a demonstrative form, in which the human fancy and nervous susceptibility had given a looser rein to the external manifestations of what was essentially and truly a divine impulse. The history of modern religious excitements affords abundant illustration of this tendency.
4. As to other indications in early times we may remark:
(I.) Traces of the gift are found, as has been said, in the epistles to the Romans, the Galatians, the Ephesians. From the Pastoral Epistles, from those of Peter and John, they are altogether absent, and this is in itself significant. The life of the apostle and of the Church has passed into a calmer, more normal state. Wide truths, abiding graces, these, are what he himself lives in and exhorts others to rest on, rather that exceptional , however marvelous, the tongues are already ceasing (1Co 13:8), as a thing belonging to the past. Love, which even when tongues were mightiest, he had seen to be above all gifts, has became more and more, all in all, to him.
(2.) It is probable, however, that the disappearance of the tongues was gradual. As it would have been impossible to draw the precise line’ of demarcation when the of the apostolic age passed into the that remained permanently in the Church, so there must have been a time when tongues were still heard, though less frequently, and with less striking results. The testimony of Irenaeus (Adv. Haer. 5, 6) that there were brethren in his time who had prophetic gifts, and spoke through the Spirit in all kinds of tongues, though it does not prove, what it has sometimes been alleged to prove, the permanence of the gift in the individual, or its use in the work of evangelizing (Wordsworth, On Acts 2), must be admitted as evidence of the existence of phenomena like those which we have met with in the Church of Corinth. For the most part, however, the part which they had filled in the worship of the Church was supplied by the hymns and spiritual songs of the succeeding age. In the earliest of these, distinct in character from either the Hebrew psalms or the later hymns of the Church, marked by a strange mixture of mystic names and half coherent thoughts (such, e.g., as the hymn with which Clement of Alexandria ends his , and the earliest Sibylline verses), some have seen the influence of the ecstatic utterances in which the strong feelings of adoration had originally shown themselves (Nitzsch, Christl. Lehre, 2, 268). After this, within the Church we lose nearly all traces of them. The mention of them by Eusebius (Comm. in Psalms 46) is vague and uncertain. The tone in which Chrysostom speaks of them (Comm. in 1 Corinthians 14) is that of one who feels the whole subject to be obscure, because there are no phenomena within his own experience at all answering to it. The whole tendency of the Church was to maintain reverence and order, and to repress all approaches to the ecstatic state. Those who yielded to it took refuge, as in the case of Tertullian (infra) insects outside the Church. Symptoms of what was then looked upon as an evil showed themselves in the 4th century at Constantinople wild, inarticulate cries, words passionate but of little meaning, almost convulsive gestures and were met by Chrysostom with the sternest possible reproof (Hom. in Isa 6:2 [ed. Migne, 6:100]).
It thus appears that the miraculous gifts of the first days bestowed upon the Church for a definite purpose were gradually but quickly withdrawn from men when the apostles and those who had learned Christ from their lips had fallen asleep. Among these supernatural powers we can well believe that the earliest withdrawn were those new tongues first head in their strange sweetness on that Pentecostal morning, needing then no interpreter; those tongues which during the birth throes of Christianity gave utterance to the rapturous joy and thankfulness of the first believers. They were a power, however, which, if misused might lead men as history has subsequently shown into confusion, feverish dreams, and morbid imaginings, a condition of thought which would utterly unfit men and women for the stern and earnest duties of their several callings in a word, a life unreal and unhealthy. Therefore that chapter of sacred history which tells’ of these communings of men with the unseen, that beautified with unearthly glory the lives of the brave witnesses who first gave up all for Christ, was closed up forever when the tongues had done their work (see De Wette, Apostelgesch. p. 23, 26).
III. Ancient and Modern Quasi Parallels. A wider question of deep interest presents itself. Can we find in the religious history of mankind any facts analogous to the manifestation of the tongues? Recognizing, as we do, the great gap which separates the work of the Spirit on the day of Pentecost from all others, both in its origin and its fruits, there is, it is believed, no reason for rejecting the thought that there might be like phenomena standing to it in the relation of foreshadowings, approximations, counterfeits. Other of the Spirit, wisdom, prophecy helps, governments, had, or have, analogies, in special states of men’s spiritual life, at other times and under other conditions, and so may these. The three characteristic phenomena are, especially in its Corinthian phase, as has been seen (a) an ecstatic state of partial or entire unconsciousness, the human will being, as it were, swayed by a power above itself; (b) the utterance of words in tones startling and impressive, but often conveying no distinct meaning; (c) the use of languages which the speaker was of himself unable to converse in.
1. The history of the Old, Test. presents us with some instances in which the gift of prophecy has accompaniments of this nature. The word includes something more than the utterance, of a distinct message of God. Saul and his messengers come under the power of the Spirit, and he lies on the ground all night, stripped of his kingly armor, and joining in the wild chant of the company of prophets, or pouring out his own utterances to the sound of their music (1Sa 19:24; comp. Stanley, loc. cit.).
2. We cannot exclude the false prophets and diviners of Israel from the range of our inquiry. As they, in their work, dress, pretensions, were counterfeits of those who truly bore the name, so we may venture to trace in other things that which resembled, more or, less closely, what had accompanied the exercise of the divine gift. And here we have distinct records of strange, mysterious intonations. The ventriloquist wizards ( , ) peep and mutter (Isa 8:19). The voice of one who has a familiar spirit comes low out of the ground (Isa 29:4. The false prophets simulate with their tongues (Sept. ) the low voice with which the true prophets announced that the Lord had spoken (Jer 23:31; comp. Gesenius, Thesaur s.v. ).
3. The quotation by Paul (1Co 14:21) from Isa 28:11 (With men of other tongues [ ] and other lips will I speak unto this people) has a significance of which we ought not to lose sight. The common interpretation sees in that passage only a declaration that, those who had refused to listen to the prophets should be taught a sharp lesson by the lips of alien conquerors. Ewald (Prophet. ad loc.), dissatisfied with this, sees in the new teaching the voice of thunder striking terror into men’s minds. Paul, with the phenomena of the tongues present to his mind, saw in them the fulfillment of the prophet’s words. Those who turned aside from the true prophetic message should be left to the darker, stammering, more mysterious utterances, which were in the older what the tongues were in the later Ecclesia. A remarkable parallel to the text thus interpreted is found in Hos 9:7. There also the people are threatened with the withdrawal of the true prophetic insight, and in its stead there is to be the wild delirium, the ecstatic madness of the counterfeit (comp. especially the Sept., , ).
4. The history of heathen oracles presents, it need hardly be said, examples of the orgiastic state, the condition of the as distinct from the , in which the wisest. of Greek thinkers recognized the lower type of inspiration (Plato, Timceus, 72 b; Bleek, loc. cit.). The Pythoness and the Sibyl are as if possessed by a power which they cannot resist. They labor under the afflatus of the god. The wild, unearthly sounds (nee mortale sonans), often hardly coherent, burst from their lips. It remained for interpreters to collect the scattered utterances, and to give them shape and meaning (Virgil, AEn. 6:45, 98 sq.).
5. More distinct parallels are found in the accounts of the wilder, more excited sects which have, from time to time, appeared in the history of Christendom. Tertullian (De Ania. c. 9), as a Montanist, claims the revelationum charismata as given to a sister of that sect. They came to her inter dominica solemnia; she was, per ecstasin, in spiritu, conversing with angels, and with the Lord himself, seeing and hearing mysteries (sacramenta), reading the hearts of men, prescribing remedies for those who needed them. The movement of the mendicant orders in the 13th century, the prophesyings of the 16th in England, the early history of the disciples of George Fox, that of the Jansenists in France, the revivals under Wesley and Whitefield, those of a later date in Sweden, America, and Ireland, have, in like manner, been fruitful in ecstatic phenomena more. or less closely resembling those which we are now considering.
6. The history of the French prophets at the commencement of the 18th century presents some facts of special interest. The terrible sufferings caused by the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes were pressing with intolerable severity on the Huguenots of the Cevennes. The persecuted flocks met together, with every feeling of faith and hope strung to its highest pitch. The accustomed order of worship was broken, and laboring men, children, and female servants spoke with rapturous eloquence as the messengers of God…. Beginning in 1686, then crushed for a time bursting forth with fresh violence in. 1700, it soon became a matter of almost European celebrity. Refugees arrived in London in 1706 claiming the character of prophets (Lacy, Cry from the Desert; Peyrat, Pastors: in the Wilderness). An, Englishman, John Lacy, became first a convert and then a leader. The convulsive ecstatic utterances of the sect drew down the ridicule of Shaftesbury (On Enthusiasm). Calamy thought it necessary to enter the lists against their pretensions (Caveat against the New Prophets). They gained a distinguished proselyte in Sir R. Bulkley, a pupil of Bishop Fell’s, with no inconsiderable learning, who occupied in their proceedings a position which reminds us of that of Henry Drummond among the followers of Irving (Bulkley, Defence of the Prophets), here, also, there was a strong contagious excitement. Nicholson, the Baxter of the sect, published a confession that he had found himself unable to resist it (Falsehood of the New Prophets), though he afterwards came to kook upon his companions as enthusiastic impostors, What is specially noticeable is that the gift of tongues was claimed by them. Sir R. Bulkley declares that he had heard Lacy repeat long sentences in Latin, and another speak Hebrew, though, when not in the Spirit, they were quite incapable of it (Narrative, p. 92). The characteristic thought of all the revelations was that they were the true children of God. Almost every oracle began with My child! as its characteristic word (Peyrat, 1, 235-313). It is remarkable that a strange revivalist movement was spreading nearly at the same time through Silesia, the chief feature of which was that boys and girls of tender age were almost the only subjects of it, and that they too spoke and prayed with a wonderful power (Lacy, Relation, etc., p. 31; Bulkley, Narrative, p. 46).
7. The so called Unknown Tongues, which manifested themselves first in the west of Scotland, and afterwards in the Caledonian Church: in Regent Square, present a more striking phenomenon, and the data for judging of its nature are more copious. Here, more than in most other cases, there were the conditions of long, eager expectation fixed brooding over one central thought, the mind strained to a preternatural tension. Suddenly, now from one, now from another, chiefly from women, devout but illiterate, mysterious sounds were heard. Voices which at other times were harsh and unpleasing became, when singing in the Spirit, perfectly harmonious (Cardale, Narrative, in Morning Watch, 2, 871, 872). See the independent testimony of archdeacon Stopford. He had listened to the unknown tongue, and had found it a sound such as I never heard before, unearthly and unaccountable. He recognized precisely the same sounds in the Irish revivals of 1859 (Work and Counterwork, p. 11). Those who spoke, men of known devotion and acuteness, bore witness to their inability to control themselves (Baxter, Narrative, p. 5, 9, 12), to their being led, they knew not how, to speak in a triumphant chant (ibid. p. 46, 81). The man over whom they exercised so strange a power has left on record his testimony, that to him they seemed to embody a more than earthly music, leading to the belief that the tongues of the apostolic age had been as the archetypal melody of which all the Church’s chants and hymns were but faint, poor echoes (Oliphant, Life of Irving, 2, 208). To those who were without, on the other hind, they seemed but an unintelligible gibberish, the yells and groans of madmen (newspapers of 1831; passim): Sometimes it was asserted that fragments of known languages Spanish, Italian, Greek, Hebrew were mingled together in the utterances of those who spoke in the power (Baxter, Narrative, p. 133,134). Sometimes it was but a jargon of mere sounds (ibid.). The speaker was commonly unable to interpret what he uttered; sometimes the office was undertaken by another. A clear and interesting summary of the history of the whole movement is given in Mrs. Oliphanlt’s Life of Irving, vol. 2. Those who wish to trace it through all its stages must be referred to the seven volumes of the Morning Watch, and especially to Irving’s series of papers on the Gifts of he Spirit in vols. 3, 4:and 6; Whatever other explanation may be given of the facts there exists no ground for imputing: a deliberate imposture to any of the persons who were most conspicuous in the movement.
8. In certain exceptional states of mind and body the powers of memory are known to receive a wonderful and abnormal strength. In the delirium of fever, in the ecstasy of a trance, men speak in their old age languages, which they have never heard or spoken since their earliest youth. The accent of their common speech is altered; Women, ignorant and untaught, repeat long sentences in Greek, Latin, and Hebrew, which they had once heard, without in any degree understanding or intending to remember them; In all such cases the marvelous power is the accompaniment of disease, and passes away when the patient returns to his usual state, to the; healthy equilibrium and interdependence of the life of sensation and of thought (Abercrombie, Intellectual Powers, p. 140-143; Winslow, Obscure Diseases of the Brain, p; 337, 360, 374; Watson, Principles and Practice of Physic, 1, 128). . The medieval belief that this power of speaking in tongues belonged to those who were possessed by evil spirits rests, obviously, upon like psychological phenomena (Peter Martyr, Loci Communes, 1, 10; Bayle, Dict. s.v. Grandier).
We refer to the above singular phenomena of modern times not as genuine samples of the scriptural glossolalia, but as illustrating some of the physical and mental symptoms with which they were accompanied. In many instances, no doubt, the Biblical facts have been merely imitated, and in others they have exercised unconsciously a reproductive power. See Wieseler. in the Stud. u. Krit. 1838, 3, 703; 1839, 2, 483; 3. 752; 1843, 3, 659 sq.; 1847, 1, 55; also the monographs cited by Volbelding, Index Programmatum, p. 73.
IV. This subject is not merely curious and interesting, but full of practical moment.
1. It shows how well the Gospel message was accredited in its first promulgation. It fixes attention on the high consequence of preaching the Gospel; of declaring its message with a glowing, burning earnestness, anti of obtaining the live coal which is to kindle the heart from off God’s altar.
2. Inasmuch as the tongues of fire appear to have rested on private Christians as well as apostles, and on women as well as men for no distinction, no exception, is made in the narrative we are admonished that all are bound in the measure of their ability to speak for God, to let no corrupt communication proceed out of their mouth, but that which is good to the use of edifying, that it may minister grace unto the hearers.
3. At the same time we are warned that the tongue might be had in its integrity while the fire was wanting or feeble Paul himself; though avowing that he could speak with tongues more than they all, felt the need of being prayed for by saints, with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit, that utterance might be given him, that he might open his mouth boldly to make known the mystery of the Gospel.
4. We learn, finally, from the apostle that faith, hope, and charity were better than this physical endowment, as having a more abiding character.
Fuente: Cyclopedia of Biblical, Theological and Ecclesiastical Literature
Tongues, Gift of
granted on the day of Pentecost (Acts 2:4), in fulfilment of a promise Christ had made to his disciples (Mark 16:17). What this gift actually was has been a subject of much discussion. Some have argued that it was merely an outward sign of the presence of the Holy Spirit among the disciples, typifying his manifold gifts, and showing that salvation was to be extended to all nations. But the words of Luke (Acts 2:9) clearly show that the various peoples in Jerusalem at the time of Pentecost did really hear themselves addressed in their own special language with which they were naturally acquainted (comp. Joel 2:28, 29).
Among the gifts of the Spirit the apostle enumerates in 1 Cor. 12:10-14:30, “divers kinds of tongues” and the “interpretation of tongues.” This “gift” was a different manifestation of the Spirit from that on Pentecost, although it resembled it in many particulars. Tongues were to be “a sign to them that believe not.”
Fuente: Easton’s Bible Dictionary
Tongues, Gift of
Mar 16:17; Act 2:1-13; Act 10:46; Act 19:6; Act 19:1 Corinthians 12,14. The Alexandrinus manuscript confirms Mar 16:9-20; The Sinaiticus and Vaticanus manuscripts, omit it; “they shall speak with “new” (“not known before”, kainais) tongues”; this promise is not restricted to apostles; “these signs shall follow them that believe.” a proof to the unbelieving that believers were under a higher power than mere enthusiasm or imagination. The “rushing mighty wind” on Pentecost is paralleled in Eze 1:24; Eze 37:1-14; Eze 43:2; Gen 1:2; 1Ki 19:11; 2Ch 5:14; Psa 104:3-4. The “tongues like as of fire” in the establishing of the New Testament church answer to Exo 19:18, at the giving of the Old Testament law on Sinai, and Eze 1:4 “a fire enfolding itself”; compare Jer 23:29; Luk 24:32.
They were “cloven” (diamerizomenai), rather distributed to them severally. The disciples were “filled with the Holy Spirit”; as John the Baptist and our Lord (Luk 1:15; Luk 4:1). “They began to speak with “other” (heterais, different from their ordinary) tongues as the Spirit gave them utterance.” Then “the multitude were confounded, because that every man heard them speak in his own language; and they marveled saying, Behold are not all these which speak Galileans? and how hear we every man in our own tongue wherein we were born, the wonderful works of God?” This proves that as Babel brought as its penalty the confusion of tongues, so the Pentecostal gift of tongues symbolizes the reunion of the scattered nations. Still praise, not teaching, was the invariable use made of the gift. The places where tongues were exercised were just where there was least need of preaching in foreign tongues (Act 2:1-4; Act 10:46; Act 19:6; Act 19:1 Corinthians 14).
Tongues were not at their command whenever they pleased to teach those of different languages. The gift came, like prophesying, only in God’s way and time (Act 2:1-18; Act 10:46; Act 19:6). No express mention is made of any apostle or evangelist preaching in any tongue save Greek or Hebrew (Aramaic). Probably Paul did so in Lycaonia (Act 14:11; Act 14:15; he says (1Co 14:18) “I speak with tongues (the Vaticanus manuscript, but the Sinaiticus and the Alexandrinus manuscripts ‘with a tongue’) more than ye all.” Throughout his long notice of tongues in 1 Corinthians 14 he never alludes to their use for making one’s self intelligible to foreigners. This would have been the natural use for him to have urged their possessors to put them to, instead of interrupting church worship at home by their unmeaning display.
Papias (in Eusebius, H. E. iii. 30) says Mark accompanied Peter as an “interpreter,” i.e. to express in appropriate language Peter’s thought, so that the gift of tongues cannot have been in Papias’ view a continuous gift with that apostle. Aramaic Hebrew, Greek, and Latin (the three languages over the cross) were the general media of converse throughout the civilised world, owing to Alexander’s empire first, then the Roman. The epistles are all in Greek, not only to Corinth, but to Thessalonica, Philippi, Rome. Ephesus, and Colosse. The term used of “tongues” (apofthengesthai, not only lalein) implies a solemn utterance as of prophets or inspired musicians (Septuagint 1Ch 25:1; Eze 13:9). In the first instance (Acts 2) the tongues were used in doxology; but when teaching followed it was in ordinary language, understood by the Jews, that Peter spoke.
Those who spoke with tongues seemed to beholders as if “full of new wide,” namely, excited and enthusiastic (Act 2:13; Act 2:15-18), in a state raised out of themselves. Hence, Paul contrasts the being “drunk with wine” with being “filled with the Spirit, speaking in psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs” (Eph 5:18-19). The ecstatic songs of praise in the Old Testament, poured out by the prophets and their disciples, and the inspired musicians of the sanctuary, correspond (1Sa 10:5-13; 1Sa 19:20-24; 1Ch 25:3). In 1 Corinthians 12 and 1 Corinthians 14 tongues are placed lowest in the scale of gifts (1Co 12:31; 1Co 14:5). Their three characteristics were:
(1) all ecstatic state of comparative rapt unconsciousness, the will being acted on by a power from above;
(2) words uttered, often unintelligible;
(3) languages spoken which ordinarily the speaker could not speak.
They, like prophesyings, were under control of their possessors (1Co 14:32), and needed to be kept in due order, else confusion in church meetings would ensue (1Co 14:23; 1Co 14:39). The tongues, as evidencing a divine power raising them above themselves, were valued by Paul; but they suited the childhood (1Co 14:20; 1Co 13:11), as prophesying or inspired preaching the manhood, of the Christian life. The possessor of the tongue “spoke mysteries,” praying, blessing, and giving thanks, but no one understood him; the “spirit” (pneuma) but not “understanding” (nous) was active (1Co 14:14-19). Yet he might edify himself (1Co 14:4) with a tongue which to bystanders seemed a madman’s ravings, but to himself was the expression of ecstatic adoration. “Five words” spoken “with the understanding” so as to “teach others” are preferable to “ten thousand in an unknown tongue.”
In Isa 28:9-12 God virtually says of Israel, “this people hear Me not though I speak to them in their familiar tongue, I will therefore speak to them in other tongues, namely, that of the foes whom I will send against them, yet even then they will not hearken to Me.” Paul thus applies it: ye see it is a penalty to encouuter men of a strange tongue, yet this you impose on the church by abusing instead of using the tongue intelligibly. Speakers in foreign tongues speak like “children weaned from the milk, with stammering lips,” ridiculous because unintelligible to the hearers (Isa 28:14), or like babbling drunkards (Act 2:13), or madmen (1Co 14:20-23).
Thus, Isaiah (Isa 28:9-14) shows that “tongues are for a sign, not to them that believe, but to them that believe not.” Tongues either awaken to spiritual attention the unconverted or, if despised, condemn (compare “sign” in a condemnatory sense, Eze 4:3-4; Mat 12:39-42), those who, like Israel, reject the sign and the accompanying message; compare Act 2:8; Act 2:13; 1Co 14:22; “yet, for all that will they not hear Me,” even such miraculous signs fail to arouse them; therefore since they will not understand they shall not understand. “Tongues of men” and “divers kinds of tongues” (1Co 12:10; 1Co 12:28; 1Co 13:1) imply diversity, which applies certainly to languages, and includes also the kind of tongues which was a spiritual language unknown to man, uttered in ecstasy (1Co 14:2). It was only by “interpreting” that the “understanding” accompanied the tongues.
He who spoke (praying) in a tongue should pray that he might (be able to) interpret for edification of the church (1Co 14:13; 1Co 14:26-27). Hebrew and Aramaic words spoken in the spirit or quoted from the Old Testament often produced a more solemn effect upon Greeks than the corresponding Greek terms; Compare 1Co 16:22, Maranatha, 1Co 12:3; Lord of sabaoth, Jam 5:4; Abba, the adoption cry, Rom 8:15; Gal 4:6; Alleluia, Rev 19:1; Rev 19:6; Hosannah, Mat 21:9; Mat 21:15. “Tongues of angels” (1Co 13:1) are such as Daniel and John in Revelation heard; and Paul, when caught up to paradise (2Co 12:4).
An intonation in speaking with tongues is implied in Paul’s comparison to the tones of the harp and pipe, which however he insists have distinction of sounds, and therefore so ought possessors of tongues to speak intelligibly by interpreting their sense afterward, or after awakening spiritual attention by the mysterious tongue they ought then to follow with “revelation, knowledge, prophesying or doctrine” (1Co 14:6-11); otherwise the speaker with a tongue will be “a barbarian,” i.e. a foreigner in language to the hearer. A musical tone would also be likely in uttering hymns and doxologies, which were the subject matter of the utterance by tongues (Act 2:11). The “groanings which cannot be uttered” (Rom 8:26) and the “melody in the heart” (Eph 5:19) show us how even inarticulate speech like the tongues may edify, though less edifying than articulate and intelligible prophesying or preaching.
Either the speaker with a tongue or a listener might have the gift of interpreting, so he might bring forth deep truths from the seemingly incoherent utterances of foreign, and Aramaic, and strange words (1Co 14:7; 1Co 14:11; 1Co 14:13; 1Co 14:27). When the age of miracle passed (1Co 13:8) the tongues ceased with it; the scaffolding was removed, when the building was complete as regards its first stage; hymns and spiritual snugs took the place of tongues, as preaching took the place of prophesying. Like all God’s gifts, tongues had their counterfeit. The latter are morbid, the forerunners or results of disease. The true tongues were given to men in full vigour, preceded by no fanatic madness, and followed by no prostration as the reaction. Practical, healthy religion marked the daily walk of the churches in which the tongues were manifested. Not these, but the confession of Jesus as Lord with heart and tongue was the declared test of real discipleship (1Co 12:3; 1Jo 4:2-3).
Fuente: Fausset’s Bible Dictionary
Tongues, Gift Of
TONGUES, GIFT OF
1. In NT we read of speaking with tongues or in a tongue as a remarkable sign of the outpouring of the Holy Spirit; but the exact meaning of the phenomenon described has been much disputed. We may take the passages in the chronological order of writing.(a) The Epistles. In 1Co 12:1-31; 1Co 13:1-13; 1Co 14:1-40, among the charismata or (spiritual) gifts are divers kinds of tongues and the interpretation of tongues (1Co 12:10; 1Co 12:30). Yet St. Paul, who possessed the gift himself (1Co 14:18), considers it to be of little importance as compared with prophecy. In itself it is addressed to God, and unless interpreted it is useless to those assembled; it is a sign to believers, but will not edify, but rather excite the ridicule of, unlearned persons or heathens (1Co 14:23). Whatever the gift was, speaking with tongues was at Corinth ordinarily unintelligible to the hearers, and sometimes even to the speaker (1Co 14:14), though the English reader must note that the word unknown in AV [Note: Authorized Version.] is an interpolation. The gift was not to be forbidden, but everything was to be done decently and in order (1Co 14:40).Indications of the gift are thought to be found in 1Th 5:19, Rom 8:15; Rom 8:26, Gal 4:6, Eph 5:19, but not at all in the Pastoral, Petrine, or Johannine Epistles. It seems to have belonged to the infancy of the Church (1Co 13:8. Tongues shall cease). [Irenus, apparently speaking at second hand, says that the gift existed in the 2nd cent.; but this is very doubtful. Chrysostom says that it was non-existent in the 4th century.](b) Acts. At Pentecost, in addition to the mighty wind and the tongues parting asunder like as of fire, we read that the assembled disciples spoke with other tongues as the Spirit gave them utterance (Act 2:4). The multitudes from many countries, coming together, heard them speak in their tongues the mighty works of God (Act 2:11), while some thought that they were drunken (Act 2:13; cf. 1Co 14:23). We read again of the gift in the conversion of Cornelius and his household (Act 10:46)St. Peter expressly says that it was the same as at Pentecost (Act 11:15)and at Ephesus (Act 19:8); and probably the same is intended in the story of the Samaritan converts (Act 8:17 f.: Simon saw that the Holy Ghost was given).(c) In the Appendix to Mark (which, even if Markan, is comparatively late) we have the promise that the disciples shall speak with [new] tongues (Act 16:17 : new is probably not of the best text).
2. Meaning of the gift.Relying chiefly on the passages of Acts, most of the Fathers (as Origen, Chrysostom, Theodoret, Gregory of Nyssa, Gregory of Nazianzus) understand the gift as being for purposes of evangelization, as if the disciples received a miraculous endowment of foreign languages to enable them to preach; Gregory of Nyssa and others take the gift as a miracle of hearing, the disciples speaking in their own language, but the people understanding their speech each in his own tongue. This view starts with the doubtless true idea that tongue means language here. But Acts says nothing, about preaching; the gift is never found in NT in connexion with evangelization; the passages in 1 Cor., where the utterances are often unintelligible even to the utterer, are clearly repugnant to this interpretation, and we have no proof that the Apostles ever preached in any language but Greek and Aramaic, even to the barbarous heathen, such as the Lycaonians or Maltese. Indeed, Paul and Barnabas clearly did not know Lycaonian (Act 14:11; Act 14:14). Peter probably did not know Greek well enough to preach in it, for Mark was his interpreter (Papias, Irenus). We cannot, then, follow the majority of the Fathers in their interpretation. Had it been the true one, St. Paul would have encouraged the Corinthians to use the gift to the utmost.
Unfortunately, we do not know how the earlier 2nd cent. Fathers understood the matter; but Tertullian apparently judged the gift to be an ecstatic utterance of praise (adv. Marc. v. 8). This is much more probable than the other view. At Pentecost the disciples spoke the mighty works of God. All the NT passages either suggest or agree with the idea of worship. This does not, indeed, exhaust all our difficulties; but perhaps the following considerations may solve at least some of them.(a) The disciples, at a critical period of the Church, were in a state of intense excitement. But St. Pauls words do not mean that their utterances were mere gibberish; on the contrary, they were capable of interpretation if one who had that gift were present. And at Pentecost they were, as a matter of fact, understood.(b) It has been suggested that we are to understand tongues, not as languages, but as poetic or symbolic speech, not readily understood by the unlearned. But this view does not satisfy Act 2:1-47, though in itself it may be true; in a word, this is an insufficient explanation.(c) The languages required by Act 2:1-47 are actually only twoGreek and Aramaic. For those present at Pentecost were Jews; the list in Act 2:9 ff. is of countries, not of languages. All the Jews of these countries spoke either Greek or Aramaic. This is a difficulty in interpreting the narrative, which gives us the impression of a large number of different languages. But probably what is intended is a large number of dialects of Greek and Aramaic, especially of the latter; it would be as though a Somerset man heard one who habitually spoke broad Scots praising God in the Somerset dialect. And what would strike the pilgrim Jews present was that the speakers at Pentecost were mainly those who themselves spoke an uncouth Aramaic dialect, that of Galilee (Mat 26:73).(d) This consideration may lead us a step further. We may recognize in the Pentecostal wonder a stirring of memory, a recalling of utterances previously heard by the disciples at former feasts when a polyglot multitude of Jews (polyglot at least in dialects) was assembled, the speakers uttering what they had unconsciously already taken into their memories. This would account for their words being so readily understood; some of the speakers would be praising God in one dialect, some in another.(e) Something of this sort may have happened at Corinth, one of the most cosmopolitan of cities. Here the possession of the gift was not confined to those of Jewish birth. But naturally the resident Christian community at Corinth would ordinarily not understand the strange dialects given utterance to. The case is not the same as that of Pentecost, when many different peoples were gathered together.
To sum up, it seems probable that the gift of tongues was an ecstatic utterance of praise, not only in poetic and symbolic speech, but also in languages or dialects not ordinarily spoken by those who had the gift; a power given at a time of great enthusiasm and excitement, at a critical period of the worlds history, but not meant to be a permanent gift for the Church, and not ranking so high as other charismata, especially not so high as prophecy. That it survived the Apostolic age is hardly probable.
A. J. Maclean.
Fuente: Hastings’ Dictionary of the Bible
Tongues, Gift of
1. Basic Character of 1 Corinthians 14:
A spiritual gift mentioned in Act 10:44-46; Act 11:15; Act 19:6; Mar 16:17, and described in Act 2:1-13 and at length in 1 Cor 12 through 14, especially chapter 14. In fact, 1 Cor 14 contains such a full and clear account that this passage is basic. The speaker in a tongue addressed God (1Co 14:2, 1Co 14:28) in prayer (1Co 14:14), principally in the prayer of thanksgiving (1Co 14:15-17). The words so uttered were incomprehensible to the congregation (1Co 14:2, 1Co 14:5, 1Co 14:9, etc.), and even to the speaker himself (1Co 14:14). Edification, indeed, was gained by the speaker (1Co 14:4), but this was the edification of emotional experience only (1Co 14:14). The words were spoken in the spirit (1Co 14:2); i.e. the ordinary faculties were suspended and the divine, specifically Christian, element in the man took control, so that a condition of ecstasy was produced. This immediate (mystical) contact with the divine enabled the utterance of mysteries (1Co 14:2) – things hidden from the ordinary human understanding (see MYSTERY). In order to make the utterances comprehensible to the congregation, the services of an interpreter were needed. Such a man was one who had received from God a special gift as extraordinary as the gifts of miracles, healings, or the tongues themselves (1Co 12:10, 1Co 12:30); i.e. the ability to interpret did not rest at all on natural knowledge, and acquisition of it might be given in answer to prayer (1Co 14:13). Those who had this gift were known, and Paul allowed the public exercise of tongues only when one of the interpreters was present (1Co 14:28). As the presence of an interpreter was determined before anyone spoke, and as there was to be only one interpreter for the two or three speakers (1Co 14:28), any interpreter must have been competent to explain any tongue. But different interpreters did not always agree (1Co 14:26), whence the limitation to one.
2. Foreign Languages Barred out:
These characteristics of an interpreter make it clear that speaking in a tongue at Corinth was not normally felt to be speaking in a foreign language. In 1Co 14:10 English Versions of the Bible are misleading with there are, it may be, so many kinds of voices in the world, which suggests that Paul is referring directly to the tongues. But tosauta there should be rendered very many, ever so many, and the verse is as purely illustrative as is 1Co 14:7. Hence, foreign languages are to be barred out. (Still, this need not mean that foreign phrases may not occasionally have been employed by the speakers, or that at times individuals may not have made elaborate use of foreign languages. But such cases were not normative at Corinth.) Consequently, if tongues means languages, entirely new languages must be thought of. Such might have been of many kinds (1Co 12:28), have been regarded as a fit creation for the conveyance of new truths, and may even at times have been thought to be celestial languages – the tongues of angels (1Co 13:1). On the other hand, the word for tongue (glossa) is of fairly common use in Greek to designate obsolete or incomprehensible words, and, specifically, for the obscure phrases uttered by an oracle. This use is closely parallel to the use in Corinth and may be its source, although then it would be more natural if the ten thousand words in a tongue of 1Co 14:19 had read ten thousand glossai. In no case, however, can tongue mean simply the physical organ, for 1Co 14:18, 1Co 14:19 speaks of articulated words and uses the plural tongues for a single speaker (compare 1Co 14:5, 1Co 14:6).
3. A State of Ecstasy:
A complete explanation of the tongues is given by the phenomena of ecstatic utterances, especially when taken in connection with the history of New Testament times. In ecstasy the soul feels itself so suffused with the divine that the man is drawn above all natural modes of perception (the understanding becomes unfruitful), and the religious nature alone is felt to be active. Utterances at such times naturally become altogether abnormal. If the words remain coherent, the speaker may profess to be uttering revelations, or to be the mere organ of the divine voice. Very frequently, however, what is said is quite incomprehensible, although the speaker seems to be endeavoring to convey something. In a still more extreme case the voice will be inarticulate, uttering only groans or outcries. At the termination of the experience the subject is generally unconscious of all that has transpired.
For the state, compare Philo, Quis rerum. divin., li-liii. 249-66: The best (ecstasy) of all is a divinely-infused rapture and ‘mania,’ to which the race of the prophets is subject…. The wise man is a sounding instrument of God’s voice, being struck and played upon invisibly by Him…. As long as our mind still shines (is active)…we are not possessed (by God)…but … when the divine light shines, the human light sets…. The prophet … is passive, and another (God) makes use of his vocal organs. Compare, further, the descriptions of Celsus (Origen, Contra Celsus, vii. 9), who describes the Christian prophets of his day as preaching as if God or Christ were speaking through them, closing their words with strange, fanatical, and quite unintelligible words of which no rational person can find the meaning. The Greek papyri furnish us with an abundance of magical formulas couched in unintelligible terms (e.g. Pap. Lond., 121, Iao, eloai, marmarachada, menepho, mermai, ieor, aeio, erephie, pherephio, etc.), which are not infrequently connected with an ecstatic state (e.g. Reitzenstein, Poimandres, 53-58).
Interpretation of the utterances in such a state would always be difficult and diversities of interpretation would be unavoidable. Still, with a fixed content, such as the Christian religion gave, and with the aid of gestures, etc., men who felt that they had an understanding of such conditions could undertake to explain them to the congregation. It is to be noted, however, that Paul apparently does not feel that the gift of interpretation is much to be relied on, for otherwise he would have appraised the utility of tongues more highly than he does. But the popularity of tongues in Corinth is easily understood. The speaker was felt to be taken into the closest of unions with God and hence, to be an especial object of God’s favor. Indeed, the occurrence of the phenomenon in a neo-convert was irrefragable proof that the conversion was approved by God (Act 10:44-48; Act 11:15; Act 19:6). So in Mar 16:17 the gift is treated as an exceptional and miraculous divine blessing (in this verse new is textually uncertain, and the meaning of the word, if read, is uncertain also). Moreover, for the more selfish, the gift was very showy (1Co 13:1 suggests that it was vociferous), and its possession gratified any desire for personal prominence.
4. The Account in Acts 2:
The account in Acts 2 differs from that of 1 Cor 14 in making the tongues foreign languages, although the ability to use such languages is not said to have become a permanent apostolic endowment. (Nor is it said that the speech of Acts 2:14-36 was delivered in more than one language.) When the descent of the Spirit occurred, those who were assembled together were seized with ecstasy and uttered praises to God. A crowd gathered and various persons recognized words and phrases in their own tongues; nothing more than this is said. That the occasion was one where a miracle would have had unusual evidential value is evident, and those who see a pure miracle in the account have ample justification for their position. But no more than a providential control of natural forces need be postulated, for similar phenomena are abundantly evidenced in the history of religious experience. At times of intense emotional stress the memory acquires abnormal power, and persons may repeat words and even long passages in a foreign language, although they may have heard them only once. Now the situation at Jerusalem at the time of the Feast gave exactly the conditions needed, for then there were gathered pilgrims from all countries, who recited in public liturgical passages (especially the Shemoneh Esreh) in their own languages. These, in part, the apostles and the brethren simply reproduced. Incomprehensible words and phrases may well have been included also (Act 2:13), but for the dignity of the apostles and for the importance of Pentecost Luke naturally cared to emphasize only the more unusual side and that with the greatest evidential value. It is urged, to be sure, that this interpretation contradicts the account in 1 Cor 14. But it does so only on the assumption that the tongues were always uniform in their manifestation and appraisement everywhere – and the statement of this assumption is its own refutation. If the modern history of ecstatic utterances has any bearing on the Apostolic age, the speaking in foreign languages could not have been limited only to Pentecost. (That, however, it was as common as the speaking in new languages would be altogether unlikely.) But both varieties Luke may well have known in his own experience.
5. Religious Emotionalism:
Paul’s treatment of the tongues in 1 Cor 12 through 14 is a classical passage for the evaluation of religious emotionalism. Tongues are a divine gift, the exercise is not to be forbidden (1Co 14:39), and Paul himself is grateful that he has the gift in an uncommon degree (1Co 14:18). Indeed, to those who treat them simply with scorn they become a sign that hardening is taking place (1Co 14:21-23). Yet a love of them because they are showy is simply childish (1Co 14:20; 1Co 13:11), and the possessor of the gift is not to think that he has the only thing worth obtaining (1 Cor 12). The only gift that is utterly indispensable is love (1Co 13:1-13), and without it tongues are mere noise (1Co 13:1). The public evidential value of tongues, on which perhaps the Corinthians were inclined to lay stress, Paul rates very low (1Co 14:21-23). Indeed, when exercised in public they tend to promote only the self-glorification of the speaker (1Co 14:4), and so are forbidden when there is not an interpreter, and they are limited for public use at all times (1Co 14:27, 1Co 14:28). But the ideal place for their exercise is in private: Let him speak to himself, and to God (1Co 14:28). The applicability of all this to modern conditions needs no commentary. Ultra-emotionalistic outbreaks still cause the formation of eccentric sects among us, and every evangelist knows well-meaning but slightly weak individuals who make themselves a nuisance. On the other hand, a purely intellectual and ethical religion is rather a dreary thing. A man who has never allowed his religious emotions to carry him away may well be in a high state of grace – but he has missed something, and something of very great value. See also SPIRITUAL GIFTS; TONGUES OF FIRE.
Literature.
Plumptre in DB is still useful. Wright, Some New Testament Problems (1898), and Walker, The Gift of Tongues and Other Essays (1906), have collections of material. Of the commentaries on 1 Corinthians those of Heinrici (latest edition, 1896), Lietzmann (1907) and J. Weiss (1910) are much the best, far surpassing Robertson and Plummer in ICC (1911). For the Greek material, see , in the index of Rhode’s Psyche. Gunkel, Die Wirkungen des heiligen Geistes (1888, 2nd reprint in 1909), was epoch-making. For the later period, see Weinel, Die Wirkungen des Gelstes und der Geister (1899); Lake, The Earlier Epistles of Paul (London, 1911); and see Inge in The Quarterly Review (London, 1914).
Fuente: International Standard Bible Encyclopedia
Tongues, Gift of
This gift was in the early church, and was a sign ‘to them that believed not,’ in fulfilment of Isa 28:11-12: cf. 1Co 14:21. The gift was exhibited in a special way on the day of Pentecost, when people of many lands heard the wonderful things of God each in his own language. In the assembly these gifts were not to be exercised unless there was present an interpreter, that the saints might be edified. Paul thanked God that he spake with tongues more than all at Corinth; but in the assembly he would rather speak five words through his understanding, that he might teach others, than ten thousand words in a tongue. 1Co 12:10; 1Co 12:28; 1Co 12:30; 1Co 13:1; 1Co 13:8; 1Co 14:2-39.
The expression ‘unknown tongue’ is unhappy, because it has led some to think that the gift of tongues consisted of a sort of unintelligible gibberish. The word ‘unknown’ has been added in the A.V., where it should read simply ‘tongue.’ At Pentecost it was shown that the gift of ‘tongues’ was in a person speaking a language which he had never learnt, but which was at once understood by those who knew it.