Before entering on the consideration of these views, it may be well to state articulately the vari ous peculiarities of this gift. These may be gathered from the statements of the apostle. From these we learn that it was a gift of the Spirit (1 Cor. xii. t, 28, 3o) ; that it belonged only to some in the church (xii. 3o) ; that it stood in some relation to the gift of prophesying—was in ferior to it in point of utility, but afforded greater scope for display (xiv. 5, 6, 18, 19) ; that it was exercised in acts of prayer and praise (xiv. z, t4, 13, 16, r7) ; that it was not exercised through the medium of the intelligence (Poi's), and so was un intelligible without an interpretation, which the party exercising it might not be capable of supply ing, as it was the result of a distinct gift, which might or might not accompany the other (xiv. 5, 6, t3, 16, 23) ; that it might appear to one unac. customed to it a frenzy (xiv. 23) ; that it had the effect of an instrument giving an uncertain sound, or was no better than the speaking of a barbarian, or the clang of a cymbal, when not interpreted (xiv. 7-9 ; xiii. 1) ; and that its use was to serve as a sign (or evidence of God's presence] to those who did not believe (iciv. 22).
Let us now turrt to the former of the two opinions above noticed : those who hold this to be 7Xacraa in the sense of languag e; and they support their opinion by an appeal to our Lord's promise to his disciples that, as a sign of his presence with them, they should spealc with new tongues (Kaivais 7NE3crcracs, Mark xvi. 17), and to the occurrences of the day of Pentecost when the apostles spake with other tongues Orlpats ; Acts ii. 4, ff.) This argument, it must be admitted, is not without force. It seems altogether probable that the event. of the day of Pentecost was a fulfilment of the promise of Christ to his disciples, and if we assume (as the narrative seems to intimate) that on that occasion the apostles did receive the faculty of speaking foreign tongues through the agency of the Spirit, there is great plausibility in the conclu sion that the gift of tongues bestovved on the pri mitive church consisted in the possession of this faculty. It is frivolous to object to this, as De Wette and Meyer do, that the speaking of a lan guage one has never learned is psychologically im possible, for, if divine interposition be admitted, it is idle to set limits to its operation : with God all things are possible ;' and He who caused 'the dumb ass to speak with man's voice,' could surely employ the organs of a man to utter a foreign tongue of which he was ignorant. In the way of the conclusion, however, above stated, that the gift of which the apostle treats in writing to the Corinthians is the same as that promised by our Lord, and received by the apostles on the day of Pentecost, there are many serious difficulties. For one thing, it must strike every one that if the apostles possessed the power of speaking foreign tong,ues mimculously, they appear to have made very little use of it for the purposes of their mission ; for, with the exception of the instance of the day of Pentecost, we do not read of their ever using this gift for the purpose of addressing foreigners. The most serious objections, how ever, to the opinion that the Glossolalia Af the Corinthians was a speaking in foreign tongues, are derived from what the apostle says about it in writing to them. 1. The use of the phrase XaXeiv is not in accordance with this view ; this phrase cannot mean • to speak a foreign language.' 2. The Glossolalia was unintelligible to every one till interpreted (xiv. 2), which could not be said of a foreign tongue actually vernacular to certain people. 3. When the apostle (xiv. 9) specifies a speaking &a, rip ylujaans, he cannot be understood as referring to the tongue as the instrument of speech, which would give a most insipid turn to his words ; he must refer to the Glossolalia as a gift, and in this case his statement becomes exceedingly vapid if we understand that gift to have consisted in the power of speaking foreign tongues. 4. This gift was used in indivi
dual pmyer to God ; and St. Paul, who possessed this gift above others, used it chiefly in secret • can we understand this of a speaking to God in foreign tongues ? 5. The apostle places the Glossolalia in "opposition, not to spedking in the vemacular tongue, but to speaking intelligibly, or er diroKaWec ^ypthcrei, Iv rpoipnrelci, ev Mein (xiv. 4,15, 16, 6). 6. The apostle conz• pares the glossai with foreign tongues, which as sumes that they were not the same (xiv. to, ff.) And 7. Had the apostle had the speaking of foreign tongues in view, he would have made the exercise of them dependent on the presence of those by whom they were understood, not on their bearing on the edification of the church.
On these grounds we are constrained to believe on the assumption that the Kacval of our Lord's promise, and the grepac 7Xcaccrac of the day of Pentecost, mean foreign languages ; that the speaking with tongues of the Epistle to the Corinthians was a gift of a different kind. There are, however, some difficulties connected with that assumption which it is only fair to state. In pro ceeding to this we may remark in amine, that the terms Katpal and irepac by no means necessarily indi cate foreign existing tongues ; they merely character ise the tongues in question as new and different com pared with those with which the parties were already familiar. We are not, therefore, obliged to under stand our Lord's promise as referring to the faculty of spealcing foreign tongues. There seems also an a priori improbability that such a faculty would 'de miraculously conferred when it was one for which no special need existed, the Greek tongue being so widely diffused that the first preachers of Chris tianity were not likely to go where it was not known. This consideration is heightened by the fact already referred to, that, excepting on the day of Pentecost, there is no hint that they ever used this faculty in preaching to heathens. As to the day of Pentecost, it strikes one as noticeable that the gift of tongues came upon the disciples when they were alone, and when, therefore, there was not only no need to speak with foreign tongues, but very strong reasons why, even if they knew such tongues, they should refrain from using them. It is singular also that such a gift should be called into exercise in addressing persons all of whom understood a common language, and to all of whom at once Peter apparently spoke on the same day without an interpreter. Moreover, one can not refrain from asking, How was this speaking in different foreign tongues conducted ? Did the gifted persons all speak at once ? or did they speak one after the other ? If the former, would not the confusion of sounds be such as to render their speaking a mere babel ? if the latter, would not a longer time have been requisite for the whole to speak than the conditions of the narrative allow us to suppose ? In fine, supposing the disciples to have spoken intelligibly to these people in their respective languages, why should they have ap peared to any of the bystanders as men filled with new wine ? Does not this imply an excited utter ance and gesticulation altogether foreign to the case of men who had simply to tell their fellow men such truths as those which these disciples had to publish ? To these difficulties in the way of the common understanding of this narrative, we do not attach so much importance as to suppose that they impugn its authenticity ; now are we induced by them to accept the hypothesis of some that the disciples spoke in Greek or Aramaic, but were miraculously understood by the hearers each in his own language. But they do seem to lead to the conclusion that, though the spealcing of foreig,n lan guages might sometimes attend the gift of tong-ues, this was neither its invariable nor its peculiarly distinctive peculiarity.