languages, instantaneously and without previous study, is as great as to receive the power to speak them. The anomaly in the miracle, merely to point out a suggestive discrepancy where all is anomalous, is that the gift of tongues should ever have been separated from the gift of interpretation. If a man understand the foreign language he speaks he can interpret it; if he cannot interpret it, he cannot understand it; and if he cannot understand it, can he possibly speak it? Certainly not, without his having been made a perfectly mechanical instrument through which, apart from the understanding and the will, sounds are involuntarily produced, which is not to be entertained. Still pursuing the same hypothesis,—the one gift is to speak languages which no one understands, the other to understand languages which no one speaks. Paul never even assumes the probability that the "tongue" spoken is understood by any one except the interpreter. The interpretation of such obscure tongues must have been a gift very little used,—never, indeed, except as the complement to the gift of tongues. The natural and useful facility in languages is apparently divided into two supernatural and useless halves. The idea is irresistibly suggested, as apparently it was to the Apostle himself, whether it would not have been more for the good of mankind and for the honour of Christianity, if, instead of these two miraculously incomplete gifts, a little natural good sense, five words even, to be spoken in the vernacular tongue and requiring no interpretation had been imparted. If, instead of foreign languages, we substitute the utterance of ecstatic religious excitement, the anomaly of speaking a language without understanding it or being understood becomes intelligible; and equally so the interpretation,
unaccompanied by the power of speaking. It is obvious in both cases that, as no one understands the tongue, no one can determine whether the interpretation of it be accurate or not. But it is easily conceivable that a sympathetic nervous listener might suppose that he understood the broken and incoherent speech of ecstasy and might interpret it according to his own stimulated imagination. The mysterious and unknown are suggestive texts, and there is nothing more infectious than religious excitement. In all this, however, is there anything miraculous?
We need not further demonstrate that the chief and general characteristic of "kinds of tongues" was that they were unintelligible (cf. 1 Cor. xiv. 2, 6-11, 13-19). Speaking with the spirit [———] is opposed to speaking with the understanding [———] (cf. vv. 14-16, &c). They were not only unintelligible to others, but the speaker himself did not understand what he uttered: v. 14. "For if I pray with a tongue [———] my spirit [———] prayeth, but my understanding [———] is unfruitful" (cf. 15 f. 19). We have already pointed out that Paul speaks of these Charismata in general, and not as affecting the Corinthians only; and we must now add that he obviously does not even insinuate that the "kinds of tongues" possessed by that community was a spurious Charisma, or that any attempt had been made to simulate the gift; for nothing could have been more simple than for the Apostle to denounce such phenomena as false, and to distinguish the genuine from the imitated speech with tongues. The most convincing proof that his remarks refer to the genuine Charisma is that the Apostle applies to himself the very same restrictions in the use of "tongues" as he enforces upon the Corinthians
(vv. 18-19, 6, &c), and characterises his own gift precisely as he does theirs (vv. 6, 11, 14, 15, 19).
Now what was the actual operation of this singular miraculous gift, and its utility whether as regards the community or the gifted individual? Paul restricts the speaking of "tongues" in church because, being unintelligible, it is not for edification (xiv. 2 ff. 18 f. 23, 27, 28). He himself does not make use of his gift for the assemblies of believers (vv. 6, 18). Another ground upon which he objects to the use of "kinds of tongues" in public is that all the gifted apparently speak at once (vv. 23, 27 f. 33). It will be remembered that all the Charismata and their operations are described as due to the direct agency of the Holy Spirit (xii. 4 ff.); and immediately following their enumeration, ending with "kinds of tongues" and "interpretation of tongues," the Apostle resumes: v. 11. "but all these worketh the one and the same Spirit, dividing to each severally as he wills;" and in Acts ii. 4 the brethren are represented as speaking with tongues "as the Spirit gave them utterance." Now the first thought which presents itself is: How can a gift which is due to the direct working of the Holy Spirit possibly be abused? We must remember clearly that the speech is not expressive of the understanding of the speaker. The [———] spoke under the inspiration of the supernatural Agent, what neither they nor others understood. Is it permissible to suppose that the Holy Spirit could inspire speech with tongues at an unfitting time? Can we imagine that this Spirit can actually have prompted many people to speak at one and the same time to the utter disturbance of order? Is not such a gift of tongues more like the confusion of tongues in Babel(1)
than a christian Charisma? "And the Lord said:...Go to, let us go down and there confound their language, that they may not understand one another's speech."(1) In spite of his abstract belief in the divine origin of the Charisma, Paul's language unconsciously betrays practical doubt as to its character. Does not such sarcasm as the following seem extremely indecorous when criticising a result produced directly by the Holy Spirit? (xiv. 23) "If, therefore, the whole church be come into one place and all speak with tongues, and there come in unlearned and unbelieving persons will they not say that ye are mad?" At Pentecost such an assembly was supposed to be drunken.(2) The whole of the counsel of the Apostle upon this occasion really amounts to an injunction to quench the Spirit. It is quite what might be expected in the case of the excitement of ecstatic religion, that the strong emotion should principally find vent in the form of prayer and praise (vv. 15 ff.), equally so that it should be unintelligible and that no one should know when to say "Amen" (v. 16), and that all should speak at once, and still more so that the practical result should be tumult (vv. 23, 33). All this, it might appear, could be produced without the intervention of the Holy Spirit. So far, is there and utility in the miracle?
But we are told that it is "for a sign." Paul argues upon this point in a highly eccentric manner. He quotes (v. 21) Isaiah xxviii. 11, 12, in a form neither agreeing with the Septuagint nor with the Hebrew, a passage which has merely a superficial and verbal analogy with the gift of tongues, but whose real