historical meaning has no reference to it whatever: "In the Law it is written, that with men of other tongues and with the lips of others will I speak unto this people; and yet for all that they will not hear me, saith the Lord." The Apostle continues with singular logic: "So that [———] the tongues are for a sign [———] not to those who believe but to the unbelieving; but prophecy is not for the unbelieving but for those who believe. If, therefore, the whole church be come into one place, and all speak with tongues, and there come in unlearned or unbelieving persons, will they not say that ye are mad? But if all prophesy and there come in an unbeliever... he is convicted by all... and so falling on his face he will worship God, reporting that God is indeed in you." The Apostle himself shows that the tongues cannot be considered a sign by unbelievers, upon whom, apparently, they produce no other impression than that the speakers are mad or drunken. Under any circumstances, the "kinds of tongues" described by the Apostle are a very sorry specimen of the "signs and wonders and powers" of which we have heard so much. It is not surprising that the Apostle prefers exhortation in a familiar tongue. In an ecstatic state, men are incapable of edifying others: we shall presently see how far they can edify themselves. Paul utters the pith of the whole matter at the very outset of his homily, when he prefers exhortation to kinds of tongues: v. 2. "For he that speaketh with a tongue speaketh not unto men but unto God: for no one under-standeth, but in Spirit he speaketh mysteries" [———]. It is not possible to read his words without the impression that the Apostle treats the whole subject with suppressed impatience. His mind was too prone to believe in spiritual mysteries, and his nervous
nature too susceptible to religious emotion and enthusiasm to permit him clearly to recognize the true character of the gift of "tongues;" but his good sense asserted itself and, after protesting that he would rather speak five words with his understanding than ten thousand words in a tongue, he breaks off with the characteristic exclamation (v. 20): "Brethren, become not children in your minds" [———]. The advice is not yet out of place.
What was the private utility or advantage of the supernatural gift? How did he who spoke with a tongue edify himself? (v. 4.) Paul clearly states that he does not edify the church (vv. 2 ff.). In the passage just quoted the Apostle, however, says that the speaker "with a tongue" "speaketh to God"; and further on (vv. 18, 19) he implies that, although he himself does not use the gift in public, he does so in private. He admonishes (v. 28) any one gifted with tongues, if there be no interpreter present, to "keep silence in a church, but let him speak to himself and to God." But in what does the personal edification of the individual consist? In employing language, which he does not comprehend, in private prayer and praise? In addressing God in some unintelligible jargon, in the utterance of which his understanding has no part? Many strange purposes and proceedings have been attributed to the Supreme Being, but probably none has been imagined more incongruous than a gift of tongues unsuitable for the edification of others, and not intelligible to the recipient, but considered an edifying substitute in private devotion for his own language. This was certainly not the form of prayer which Jesus taught his disciples.(1) And this gift was valued
more highly in the Corinthian Church than all the rest! Do we not get an instructive insight into the nature of the other Charismata from this suggestive fact? The reality of miracles does not seem to be demonstrated by these chapters.(1)
We have already stated that the vast majority of critics explain [———] as speech in an ecstatic condition;(2) and all the phenomena described by Paul closely correspond with the utterance of persons in a state of extreme religious enthusiasm, and excitement, of which many illustrations might be given from other religions before and since the commencement of our era, as well as in the history of Christianity in early and recent times. Every one knows of the proceedings of the heathen oracles, the wild writhings and cries of the Pythoness and the mystic utterances of the Sibyl. In the Old Testament there is allusion to the ecstatic emotion of the prophets in the account of Saul, 1 Sara. xix. 24; cf. Isaiah viii. 19, xxix. 4. The Montanists exhibited similar phenomena, and Tertullian has recorded several instances of such religious excitement, to which we have elsewhere referred. Chrysostora had to repress paroxysms of pious excitement closely resembling these in the fourth century;(3) and even down to our own times instances have never been wanting of this form of hysterical religion. Into none of this can we enter here. Enough, we trust, has been said to show the true character of the supposed supernatural Charismata of Paul from his own account of them, and the information contained in his epistles.
Although we have been forced to examine in considerable detail the passages in the writings of Paul cited by apologists in support of miracles, the study is one of great value to our inquiry. These are the only passages which we possess in which a contemporary and eye-witness describes what he considers supernatural phenomena, and conveys to us his impression of miraculous agency. Instead of traditional reports of miracles narrated by writers who are unknown, and who did not witness the occurrences in question, we have here a trustworthy witness dealing with matters in which he was personally interested, and writing a didactic homily upon the nature and operation of Charismata, which he believed to be miraculous and conferred upon the Church by the immediate agency of the Holy Spirit. The nineteenth century here comes into direct contact with the age of miracles, but at the touch the miracles vanish, and that which, seen through the golden mist of pious tradition, seems to possess unearthly power and beauty, on closer examination dwindles into the prose of every day life. The more minutely reported miracles are scanned, the more unreal they are recognized to be. The point to which we now desire to call attention, however, is the belief and the mental constitution of Paul. We have seen something of the nature and operation of the gift of tongues. That the phenomena described proceeded from an ecstatic state, into which persons of highly excitable nervous organization are very liable to fall under the operation of strong religious impressions, can scarcely be doubted. Eminent apologists(1) have gravely illustrated the phenomena by the analogy of mesmerism,