and then into seventy tongues, and every people heard the Law in its own mother-tongue."(1) The same explanation is given of Ps. lxviii. 11, and the separation of the voice into seven voices and seventy tongues is likened to the sparks beaten by a hammer from molten metal on the anvil.(2) Philo expresses the same ideas in several places. We can only extract one passage in which, speaking of the giving of the law on Sinai, and discussing the manner in which God proclaimed the decalogue, he says: "For God is not like a man in need of a voice and of a tongue... but it seems to me that at that time he performed a most holy and beseeming wonder, commanding an invisible voice to be created in air, more wonderful than all instruments,.... not lifeless, but neither a form of living creature composed of body and soul, but a reasonable soul full of clearness and distinctness, which formed and excited the air and transformed it into flaming fire, and sounded forth such an articulated voice, like breath through a trumpet, that it seemed to be equally heard by those who were near and those furthest off."(3) A little further on he says: "But from the midst of the fire streaming from heaven, a most awful voice sounded forth, the flame being articulated to language familiar to the hearers, which made that which was said so vividly clear, as to seem rather seeing than
hearing it."(1) It requires no elaborate explanation to show how this grew into the miracle at Pentecost at the inauguration of the Christian dispensation, when suddenly there came a sound from heaven as of a rushing mighty wind which filled all the house where the disciples were, and there appeared to them tongues as of fire parting asunder which sat upon each of them, and they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak with other tongues, even as the Spirit gave them utterance, so that devout men from every nation under heaven heard them speaking, everyone in his own language wherein he was born, the great works of God.(2)
When we turn to the other passages in the Acts where the gift of tongues is mentioned, we find that the interpretation of foreign languages supernaturally imparted is quite out of place. When Peter is sent to Cornelius, as he is addressing the centurion and his household, and even before they are baptized (x. 44), "the Holy Spirit fell on all them who hear the word;" and the sign of it is (v. 46) that they are heard "speaking with tongues and magnifying God" [———], precisely like the disciples at Pentecost (cf ii. 11, xi. 15f.). Now as this gift fell on all who heard the word (x. 44), it could not be a sign to unbelievers; and the idea that Cornelius and his house immediately began to speak in foreign languages, which, as in the case
of the Corinthians, probably no one understood, instead of simply "magnifying God" in their own tongue, which everyone understood, is almost ludicrous, if without offence we may venture to say so. The same remarks apply to xix. 6. We must again allow an eminent apologist, who will not be accused of irreverence, to characterise such a representation. "Now in such positions and such company, speech in foreign tongues would be something altogether without object and without meaning. Where the consciousness of the grace of salvation, and of a heavenly life springing from it, is first aroused in man, his own mother tongue verily, not a foreign language, will be the natural expression of his feelings. Or we must imagine a magical power which, taking possession of men, like instruments without volition, forces them to utter strange tones—a thing contradicting all analogy in the operations of Christianity."(1) The good sense of the critic revolts against the natural submission of the apologist.
We have diverged so far in order prominently to bring before the reader the nature and source of the hypothesis that the gift of "tongues" signifies instantaneous power to speak unlearnt foreign languages. Such an interpretation is derived almost entirely from the mythical narrative in the Acts of the Apostles. We shall now proceed to consider the statements of the Apostle Paul, and endeavour to ascertain what the supposed miraculous Charisma really is. That it is something very different from what the unknown writer represents it in the episode of Pentecost cannot be doubted. "Whoever has, even once, read with attention what Paul writes of the speaking with tongues in the Corinthian community," writes Thiersch, "knows that the difference between that gift of tongues
and this (of Acts ii.) could scarcely be greater. There, a speech which no mortal can understand without interpretation, and also no philologist, but the Holy Spirit alone can interpret; here, a speech which requires no interpretation. That gift serves only for the edification of the speaker, this clearly also for that of the hearer. The one is of no avail for the instruction of the ignorant; the other, clearly, is imparted wholly for that purpose."(1)