TONGUES, GIFT OF, a faculty of abnormal and inarticu late vocal utterance, under stress of religious excitement, which was widely developed in the early Christian circles, and has its parallels in other religions. It is also called Glossolalia (Gr. tongue, XaXely, speak). In the New Testament such experiences are recorded in Caesarea (Acts x. 46), at Corinth (Acts xix. 6; I Cor. xii., xiv.), Thessalonica (I Thess. v. 19), Ephesus (Eph. v. 18), and universally (Mark xvi. 17). From the epistles of Paul, who thanked God that he spake with tongues more than all or any of his Corinthian converts, we can gather a just idea of how he regarded this gift and of what it really was.
Paul discriminates between the Spirit which during these paroxysms both talks and prays to God and the nous or under standing which informs a believer's psalm, teaching, revelation or prophesy, and renders them intelligible, edifying and profitable to the assembly. Accordingly Paul lays down rules which he regarded as embodying the Lord's commandment. A man "that speaketh in a tongue speaketh not unto men, but unto God; for no man understandeth" ; and therefore it is expedient that he keep this gift for his private chamber and there pour out the mysteries. In church it is best that he should confine himself to prophesying, for that brings to others "edification and comfort and consolation." If, however, tongues must be heard in the public assembly, then let not more than three of the saints ex hibit the gift, and they only in succession. Nor let them exhibit it at all, unless there is some one present who can interpret the tongues and tell the meeting what it all means. If the whole con gregation be talking with tongues all at once, and an unbeliever or one with no experience of pneumatic gifts come in, what will he think, asks Paul. Surely that "you are mad." So at Pentecost on the occasion of the first outpouring of the Spirit the saints were by the bystanders accused of being drunk (Acts ii. I s). In the church meeting, says Paul, "I had rather speak five words with my understanding, that I might instruct others also, than ten thousand words in a tongue."
Paul on the whole discouraged glossolaly. "Desire earnestly the greater gifts," he wrote to the Corinthians. The gift of tongues was suitable rather to children in the faith than to the mature. Tongues were, he felt, to cease whenever the perfect should come; and the believer who spoke with the tongues of men and of angels, if he had not love, was no better than the sounding brass and clanging cymbal of the noisy heathen mysteries. It was clearly a gift productive of much disturbance in the Church (I Cor. xiv. 23). He would not, however, entirely forbid and quench it (I Thess. v. 19), so long as decency was preserved.
It is not then surprising that we hear little of it after the apostolic age. It faded away in the great Church, and probably Celsus was describing Montanist circles (though Origen assumed that they were ordinary believers) when he wrote (Origen, Contra Celsum, vii. g) of the many Christians of no repute who at the least provocation, whether within or without their temples, threw themselves about like inspired persons ; while others did the same in cities or among armies in order to collect alms.
Tertullian in the century testifies that glossolaly still went on in the Montanist Church which he had joined ; for we must so interpret the following passage in his De anima, cap. ix.: "There is among us at the present time a sister who is endowed with the charismatic gift of revelations, which she suffers through ecstasy in the spirit during the Sunday service in church. She converses with angels, sometimes even with the Lord, and both hears and sees mysteries." The magical papyri teem with strings of senseless and barbaric words which probably answer to what certain of the Fathers called the language of demons. It has been suggested that we here have recorded the utterances of glossolalists.