Tongues, gift of (Hastings' Dictionary)

i. The Bihlical Evi- dence.— [a) Acts of the Apostles. On the lirst day of Pentecost alter tlie liesurrection and Ascension (Ac 2'^-), the disciples, about 120 in number (1"), were assembled together. 'Suddenly there came from heaven a sovmd as of the rushing of a mighty wind, and it lilled all the house where they were sitting. And there appeared unto them tongues parting asunder, like as of lire ; and it [sc. 7Xu.'crcra] sat upon each one of them.

And they were all lilled with the Holy Spirit, and began to speak with other tongues as tlie Spirit gave them utter- ance.' Two wonders are here described — the vision of the fiery tongues, aiiparent to all in the house, but, as it seems, to them only ; and the speaking ' with other tongues,' which was, as the sequel shows, apparent to others also. The latter (v.") consisted in 'speaking the mighty works of God.' It was not, at lirst at any rate, addressed to those outside.

But ' when tliis sound was heard, the multitude came together,' and Jews, then present at Jerusalem from every nation under heaven, beard to their astonishment the brethren speaking in their own respective languages (vv. "■''-). Some, however, ' mocking, said. They are tilled with new wine.' In reply to these latter, St.

I'eter inter- prets the phenomenon by recalling the prophecy of Joel, which speaks of an outpouring of the Spirit in the latter days, which shall cause the servants and lianduiaidens of the Lord to see visions and to projjhesy(vv. '■'■"'), and deduces it from the Messianic olhee of Jesus, in whose exaltation this promise of the Holy Spirit is fuUilleil (v.**). The phenomenon of the liery tongues reappears no more in the s.

acred narrative ; but that ot speaking with tongues is repeated (Ac 10"- '"') upon the conversion of the Gentile household of Cornelius, who with a sudden inspiration of the Holy Spirit 'speak with tongues and glorify God.' This is clearly the same pheno- menon as is described in Ac 2", and the iilentity is expressly asserted by St.

Peter (11'°) Cia-wtp lai iip' j;/xds tv dpxi- The ' speaking with other tongues ' is therefore a recurrent phenomenon in the Apos- tolic Church ; and a<;cordinglv w'e read of the twelve disciples at Ephesus (11)''), that ' when Paul had laid his hands upon them, the Holy Ghost came on them ; and they spake with tongues and lirophesied.' In this pa.ssage tlie phenomenon is for the first time expressly associated with the exercise of the prophetic gift.

(On Spitta's analysis of the sources of Ac 2^"- see Knowling, p. luo). (6) G(jspel of St. Mark. — In the doubtful appen- dix to this Gospel (IG"), among the wonders wliich are to follow tliose who believe, it is said ' they shall speak with [new] tongues.' The word 'new' is of verj' questionable genuineness ; if it be rejected, the passage is a bare reference to ' speaking with tongues,' and throws little light upon the nature of the utterances. (c) First Epuitle to the Corinthians. — In clis.

12-14, especially the last-named chapter, we have the most circumstantial reference to the iihenom- enon. In 1'2''" St. Paul eiiuiiierates iliUcri'iit gifts, which in their diversity proceed from the self-same Spirit. I'irst come gifts of ordin.iry tea<:hing (Xcryos (ro^t'as, X.

yvihonidi), then faith, healings, and other miracles, then at the end |iroiiliecy and the discerning of spirits, followed, in the last place of all, by 'kinds of tongues' (yif-n), a new (lualilication, and 'interpretation of tongues,' whicli al.so ajipears in these chapters alone. The enumeration of oiSces and gifts in 794 TONGUES, GIFT OF TONGUES, GIFT OF w.'"' corresponds to that of gifts in vv.''""

The teaching otlices come lirst (apostles, prophets, teachers), tlicn miracles and healings, then 'helps' and 'guidances,' then, again last of all, ' kinds of tongues.' Prophecy and ' discernings of spirits' are evidently omitted here because of the insertion of 'prophets' after 'apostles.'

Then, in the in- terrogative clauses that follow, the 'tongues,' this time with the added mention of ' interpreta- tion,' but without the mention of yivri, again bring up the rear : ' Do all speak with tongues ? do all interpret?' In ch. 13 the tongues, which St. Paul has put last in the order of jjrecedence, come first in the order of depreciation. ' Tongues of men and of angels' may be taken as a climax, for this purpose, upon the less rhetorical yivr] ■y\wiT- aCiv (see below, § iii. (6)).

Apart from charity, not only tongues (however wonderful), but even pro- phecy, even works of charity, are worthless. Com- paretl with it, prophecy, tongues, knowledge itself, all belong to our childhood, to our ignorance, to the sphere of things temporal. Then in ch. 14, after a closing reminder of the subordinate place which Tvev/j-aTiKo. are to occupy in our desires as compared with charity, the apostle enters in detail upon a comparison between the two most con- spicuous irveviJ.aTi.Ka.

, viz. prophecy and tongues. Prophecy is the more desirable of the two, because it is addressed to men, and benefits them, whereas ' tonnes ' are addressed to God, and beneft the speaker only (vv.'"'') The only exception to this is when the speaker (or some other person, v.""-) can interpret his utterances. This would enable the rest of those present to join in with their ' Amen ' (v.'*), and so derive some benefit from the prayer.

Without going into details of exegesis, which in this chapter are full of difficulty, it is sufficient to emphasize certain points upon which the apostle speaks without anj' obscurity. Firstly, as already remarked, the speaker with tongues speaks to God only ; his utterance is not a sermon but a prayer or 2)srdm (w."- '^^ "• "), or a thanksgiving (v.'°). Secondly, the utterance is unintelligible to the hearers, and even to the speaker.

The spirit is in prayer, but the mind takes no part, it is unfruitful (vv."-") ; the speaker 'edifies himself apparently by his attitude of ecstatic devotion, not by con- scious expression or reception of ideas. Thirdly, while ' interpretation ' is thought of as possible, its absence seems to have been the rule, its presence the exception (w.°- ''). Accordingly (fourthly), the impression which ' tongues ' pro- duce upon a visitor, especially on a non-believer (v.''

^), is that of an assembly of madmen (cf. Ac 2") ; whereas, in the case of prophecy, the non- believer, or at any rate the visitor, will be pro- foundly stirred, probably to conversion (vv.**- ^). The closing section of the chapter (v.

*"') shows the iKaraaraala, which had resulted at Corinth from the childish (r2'»-=» 13" 14'-', "») desire of too many of the members of the Church to excel in the exercise of abnormal gifts, and from their dangerous tendency to value spiritual gifts in pro- [lortion to their abnormal features. The apostle exactly inverts this principle. ii. Classification- of the Data.

— There is no possible doubt that the phenomena of the Church of Corinth are homogeneous with those which meet us at Ca-sarea (Ac 10") and at Ephesus (Ac 19"). These two passages are linked together by the reference to baptism, and the close relation of the tongues to projihecy connects the latter pas- sage with the phenomena of Corinth.

We may therefore conclude that one feature of the life of the Apostolic Churches was the correlation be- tween the perceptible presence of the Holy Spirit, which bei'an at baptism, but was continued in the assem'ilies and corporate acts of the Churches (see vol. ii. pp. 407'', 409'), and certain ntterancei on the part of members of the Churches, some- times intelligible and less ecstatic (prophecy), some- times more ecstatic and not intelligible (tongues).

On the border-line between the two classes of utter- ance would come the interpretation of tongues, a gift apparently known to St. Paul, but assumed by him to be exceptional, and passed over in the more occasional notices of the Acts of the Apostles. With these data we can without difficulty class the reference in St. Mark 16 (above, i. (6)).

It has been not infrequently laid down, that whUe these passages refer to one homogeneous group of phenom- ena, tliat group is separated from the phenomena of Ac 2 by a dili'erence in kind. This assumption, however, is in too direct conflict with the words of St. Peter (Ac 11") to be admitted. The homo- geneity of the later phenomenon with that of Pentecost, here asserted, can be denied only by undermining the credit of the Acts as a source.

But, while we are thus obliged to class the phenom- ena of Ac 2 with those of the other passages of the NT, it must be recognized that with the features common to all passages certain peculiari- ties are combined in the narrative of Pentecost. First, there is the sound of the rushing wind ; second, the vision of the fiery tongues ; thirilly, the intelligibility of the utterances without t/ie 'interpretation,' which to St. Paul \a necessary if the ' tongues ' are to be understood.

But in Ac 2, as in 1 Co 14, the 'tongues' are utterances of worship, not of a didactic character, not addressed to the Jews (whose attention is attracted by the utterances only after they have begun) ; the association with prophecy, implied in the quota- tion from Joel, is, to St. Peter apparently, as to St. Paul, due simply to identity of origin ; and in both passages (Ac 2'^ 1 Co U'^) the impres- sion produced upon less sympathetic hearers is similar.

In the attempt, therefore, to interpret correctly the data of the NT relating to the subject of 'tongues,' the only sound method to adopt will be to begin from the most circumstan- tial account we have,— that of St. Paul, — but, in applying the results to other passages, to bear in mind any peculiar features which distinguish their account of what is certainly in substance the same phenomenon. iii. Interpretation of the Evidence. — (o) St.

Paul, in common with all to whom the Chris- tian religion is a revelation from God, assumes that the gift of tongues is an energy of the Holy Spirit. No doubt he places it lower in value than any other spiritual gilt enumerated by him. No doubt, also, like other gifts of the Spirit, it was capable of being simulated by phenomena not due to genuine inspiration. There was room here for Sid^piffis (1 Co 12'").

But the main criterion to be applied by the discerner of spirits was the sub- stance of what was said (1 Co 2*, cf. 1 Jn 4', the apostle luis no sympathy with the heathenish idea that an utterance, apart from its intrinsic value, could be accredited by its abnormal circum- stances). Now, in the case of an unintelligible utterance, like that of ^x yXwiraji, no such criterion was ajiplicable.

The apostle therefore assumes, in the case of tongues, tliat he has to do in each instance with the spiritual reality, not with a merely natural phenomenon (14- '"). We must be content with the same assumption, however mind- ful that where there is the need of self-control (14-) there is the possibility of self-will. The Spirit is doubtless really at work, even upon a psychical background of obscure, easily perversible, mental exaltation.

(6) If the phenomena of the NT are essentially homogeneous, we may safely reject some explana- tions which are applicable at most to a limited TONGUES, GIFT OF TONGUES, GIFT OF 79j number of the passages under review. First among those may be set aside that based upon the strictly literal and phj'sical sense of vXiiaira, understooJ of ' the tongue ' or organ of speech (Eichhorn, Meyer, etc.) This mi"ht at first sight be thought applicable to Ac 2. The di.

sciples, as the liery tongues appear to settle upon each of them, begin to speak iripait y\uaaait (compare the prolmbly spurious Koivais of Mk 16"), i.e. with (literal) tongues other than tlieir own, identilied with, or symbolized by, tlie tongues of llanie. But it cannot be seriously argued that the 'tongues' of this passage are diflerent from the 'dialects' of vv.*- " ; this identification is quite clear in v." rah rineTcpais y\wcr<Tais.

And this carries with it (by Ac II") the interpretation of Ac lo" 19", where XaXeiv yXJijaaa is equivalent to X. Mpait y. in Ac 2. The literal sense claimed for y\. in these latter passages has no support in I's 38* LXX iXiXticra ii> yXuxrffjj fiov, where the use of the posses.sive indicates the literal sense. Hut it is argued that the literal sense is applicable in 1 Co 12. 14 (but 13"), where (14'^') 7rpo«i'Xfo9<u yXuxxffrj is contrasted with irp. ti?

vot, the tongue (so it is urjjed) being conceived as the passive instru- ment ot the Vffvua, and the plural yXQaaai (surely a rcductio ad absurdum) referring ' to tlie various motions of the tongue ' (so Thayer-Grimra, s.v. ; see also Meyer-Heinrici on 12'"). rXiia-o-a must mean an utterance, not merely the moving tongue ; this latter sense breaks down in the pi.

yXHaaaa, and still more conspicuously in the phrivse yifri yXuiaaCif, which clearly (loints to various kinds of utterance, whether foreign languages or not. (c) Another sense of yXCiaaa which fails of general ai)plicability is that (exemplified in Aris- totle, Puct. il f.) of ' unusual word,' e.g. expressions borrowed from the Aramaic, like ' Amen, ' Maran Atlia,' or 'Abba' (Ernesti, Uleek, etc.)

The use of such expressions would not be improbable in a state of high spiritual tension, and in fact the last- named word was regarded by St. Paul as si)ecially characteristic of the Spirit (Ro 8", Gal 4'') ; but there is nothing in his language to connect it specifically with ' tongues,' which possibly may be referred to, though even this is uncertain, in the vTtvayiJLoi dXdXijToi of Ro 8"°.

Moreover, this sense of yXCxraa fits ill with the data of Ac 2, and still worse with those of 1 Co 14 ; for these occasional borrowed words had a well-recognized meaning, and in their use the vots was not dKapwos. {d) The same principle, to .say nothing of other considerations, absolutely excludes the idea, which has some traditional support in Christian oiiinion from Origen {in Mom.

1") downwards, that the apostles, at any rate, if not all those present, received at Pentecost the more or less permanent power of preaching in foreign languages. To Begin \vith (above, § ii.), the speaking with tongues is an utterance of worship, not of instruction. It has been argued that we never read of the apostles needing the services of an interpreter. But neither do we read of their 'speaking with tongues' on any cy:casion subsequent to Pentecost. St.

Paul, it IS true, claims to possess the gift, but in a con- text (I Co 14") which excludes any reference to preaching. With one exception, incleed, wo do not read of any apostolic preaching in lands whore Greek or Aramaic would not be a sullicient medium. The partial exception is in the bilingual district of Lystia (Ac M), and here the apostles clearly do not follow what is said Ai/<cooj'i<rT/, Ocular evidence at last enables them to realize that they are regarded as gods.

But though the sacred text says nothing oi preaching, permanently or even temporarily, in foreign tongues, it cer- tainly suggests at lirst sight that a great number of foreign languages were superuaturally spoken. if onlj- in adoration, on the occasion of the first Pentecost. (<•) This interpretation is not so wholly excluded as might appear at first sight bj' the language of 1 Co 14.

tor although the yXQaaai are, without one to interpret tlieni, unintelligible even to the speaker, the possibility of interpretation, clearly contemplated by St. Paul, suggests that he re- garded tlie utterances as having a meaning, though as a rule not ascertainable (riji' 5vt>aij.iv t^s ^ui-iit, v.") If so, the only dillerence in Ac 2 would be that the interpreter was on that occasion un- necessary. What, then, is really described in Ac 2? The view has been held bj- both ancient (Greg. Naz.

Or. 41. XV, Bode, etc.) and modern writers, that while the disciples spoke in some one language, , each group of hearers understood the words as spoken in his o\vn ; just as St. Vincent Ferrer, preaching in Spanish, was said to have been understood by English, Flemish, French, and Italian hearers, etc. But this is not what the narrative describes : we have a miracle of speech, not of hearing only, they began (before the hearers had come) to speak iripaa y\u(r<rat^.

But the more difficult question is in wliat precisely does the miracle described consist? The hearers are not Gentiles, but Jews (2'). Proselytes are in- cluded among the Roman visitors (-J'", it is con- ceivable that "louS. Tc K. irpoiT. applies to all the countries enumerated, but the mention of 'lovSalmi (v.*) is rather adver.se to this) ; but clearly we have to do with the assembly of Jewish pilgrims, including perhaps some more permanent visitors (KoroiKoCires, V.')

, whom a great festival would (ind gathered in the Holy City. Now the list (w.""^') is one of countries, not of languages. Of the fifteen nationalities or regions enumerated, Juda'a (even if here used by Luke as in Lk i** for Pales- tine generally) and probably Arabia (see Aretas) belong to the domain of Palestinian Judaism whose language was West Aramaic. The Jews of the Eujihrates region, Parthians, Medes, Elam- ites (i.e.

of Persia, Elam had ceased to exist as a kingdom since the days of Assurbanipal), and Mes(jpotamians represent the Babylonian group of Jews, who used an East-Aramaic dialect. This leaves us with nine countries, of which five fall within Asia Minor, where the Jews, as their inscrijjtions show, spoke Greek (Schurer, IIJP §§ 2, 31 ; this was the case as far north as the Crimea).

Of the remaining four, Egypt is the mother of Hellenistic Judaism, Cyrene was Greek, Greek was the language of the Jews in Crete, and, as their inscriptions show, of the Jews of Rome. Accordingly, the narrative does not appear to carry us beyond the area of Greek and Aramaic-speaking Judaism. That the Jews of the diflerent countries enumerated spoke these langiiages with dialectical differences, is of course more than probable.

It might therefore sujjgest itself that the oljstacle overcome by the inspiration of Pentecijst was diversity not of language but of dialect only. But we cannot appeal, for confirmation of this, to the use of the word 5(dXfA.T0! (in vv.'"*), for the word means lanquage {e.g. Aramaic as con- trasted with Greok,"Ac 1'" 2i'"' 20"). A stronger point is that the surprise of the hearers turned on the fact that the speakers were Galila'aiis (Ac 2', cf. Mt 20"'), i.e.

not merely men of Palestinian language {'Kjipatot), hut men of a marked pro- vincial dialect. But, quite apart from the result of the above analysis of the list, there is no evidence that Jews outside Palestine used any language but Greek or Aramaic. The conclu.sion, then, as to the exact implications of the narrative is very obscure. We must jirobably be content with a timi liijuet ; possibly the language of St.

796 TOXGUES, GIFT OF TOOLS Peter (2"- "■ 33^ note iKxeu, ^f^x"") maj' permit the conjecture that the narrative eonihines the two elements, afterwards treated as distinct, of tongues and prophecy. Common to all the NT descriptions of the tongues is the feature of utterances not in the common language of the sjjfakers ; but whereas in 1 Cor. the hearers are, as a rule {i.e.

without an interpreter), in the dark as to the meaninjj, in Ac 2 the meaning is clear to both Greek-speaking and Aramaic-speaking Jews \\ithout any such aid : they hear the praises of God each in the tongue vherein lie was born.

(/) It has been necessary, in order to test the possibility of a definite interpretation of the data, to reduce the narrative of the first Christian Pente- cost to its framework of definite prose statement, so far as the nature of the yXwaaat, our special subject of inquiry, is concerned.

If our conclusion on this point is necessarily indefinite, we must re- mind ourselves that the yXuiacat are but one element in an event of momentous significance, the baptism (Ac 1°) of the Christian Society for its mission to mankind.

The baptism of Pentecost takes its place, in intimate context with the Resurrection and Exaltation of Christ, as the experience which lies behind, and is needed to render conceivable, the abrupt psychological transition which trans- formed the cowed, perplexed, scattered disciples of a few weeks before into the band that in the suc- ceeding narrative sets out upon its march with joyous swing, conquering and to conquer.

That the Spirit was then really given is impossible for believers in the Kesurrection of Christ to doubt. That His coming was overwhelming in its sudden- ness and intensity, and was attended by phj'sical signs not repeated in their fulness on any later occasion, is not less credible than the reality of the ' promise of the Father ' and of its fulfilment.

That these signs should be not only unaccount- able by ordinary causes, but in some details in- capable of precise definition, is a small thing, and antecedently probable. Beyond this it is hardly possible to go. iv. Later History. — There is no clear eridence of tongues as a religious phenomenon anterior to 1S"T times, nor of their survival in the early Church after the apostolic age. Ecstatic utterances appear to liave occurred in some forms of OT prophecy (2 S 19-° etc.)

, but no mention is made of ' tongues ' as a feature of them. Even in heathen religions, as St. Paul hints (1 Co 12"^), there were analogous phenomena which it was necessary to remember in the attempt to ' discern ' the true work of the Holy Spirit. This suggests that profound religious ex- citement, to whatever cause it may be due, tends to find expression in abnormal utterance.

In the XT this tendency gradually gives way to more normal forms ; in Eph S"*- " we catch, as it were, the last echoes of glossolalic speech ; in the later Epistles we hear no more of it. Irenteus (Hmr. V. vi.) can still tell us, speaking apparently from hearsay, of brethren who prophesied, and spoke through the Spirit in all Kinds {iravToSairah) of tongues ; but Chrysostom (on 1 Co 14) frankly de- clares that the gifts described by St. Paul were unknown in the Church of his day.

That the gift of tongues really survived even down to the time of Iremuus is, in the absence of corroborating evidence, difficult to believe. His rather vague statement may rest on some report as to the Mon- tanists of Asia Minor, but in their case again the definite evidence we possess points to ' prophecy ' rather than ' tongues as the distinctive form of their ecstatic speech. Of more modem examples of such utterances among the Franciscans of the 13th cent.

, the earlj' Quakers, Jansenists, Methodists, the French Pro- phets of the Cevennes, and particularly the Irving- ites whose 'tongues' (1S32-3) have been described by several competent observers, we will only observe that it would be harsh and unjust to ascribe all such phenomena to the studied attempt to reproduce those of the apostolic Church.

In whatever way we may explain these utterances, and however good reason there may be to suspect occasional simulation, the spontaneity of the phenomena in general must be freely admitted. But, for reasons suggested above, great caution is necessary in appljing them to the interpretation of the NT data. Literature. — On the last-named class of phenomena, Plumptre's excellent article in Smith's DB ^'ives useful refer- ences ; see also stiller, Irvingism.

On the N'T data the litera- ture is considerable. The Commentaries, crj. those of Meyer- Wendt and Knowling on Ac 2, of Meyer-Heinrici, Godet, Edwarxls on 1 Co 12. 14, sum up and discuss the various explanations. Among many separate essa\'s we may mention those of Schneck- enburper (Britr. 1S32) ; \\ieseler (in SK, 1838); Hilgenteld, Glossolalic^ Leipzipf, 1850; Zeller, Acts of the Ap., Eng. tr. vol. i. p.

171 (the ablest anti-miraculous discussion ; denies any historical foundation for Ac 2) ; Rossteuscher, Gabe d. Sprachen im Apost. Ztltr. (Marb. 1855, Irvingite); P. Schaff, Church Bistont, vol. i. § 24 ; Weizsiicker, Apost. Ztltr. p. 689 a ; A. Wright, Some HT Problems, 277 S. In these works references will be found to many other discussions, an enumera- tion of which is beyond the limits of this article. A. liOBERTSON.