01 Gift of Tongues in Apostolic Church

Chapter 1 The Gift of Tongues in the Apostolic Church

THERE is no wholly satisfactory solution of the problems raised by the accounts of the gift of tongues as those narratives appear in the New Testament. Any solution which we adopt involves difficulties. The most easy solution of all New Testament problems is, of course, the purely arbitrary but not unpopular one of regarding as textual interpolations such New Testament passages as involve difficulty in exegesis. But such a position in reference to the manifestations of the tongues in the New Testament record involves a multiplicity of contradictions and difficulties so great that we are obliged to look in another direction for the solution of our problem.

If we accept a late date for the writing of the Acts, and eliminate from our consideration the references to the tongues in the Corinthian Epistles, it is possible to recognize in the account of Pentecost a tradition, modified by an idealizing and myth-making tendency. Just as, according to Rabbinic tradition, the giving of the old law on Mt. Sinai was characterized by the speaking of Jehovah in a divine language, a language which could be understood in seventy different tongues, so the establishing of the new church and the beginning of a new spiritual order might fittingly and desirably be accompanied by a supernaturally-directed speaking in other tongues. Such an interpretation of the narrative of Pentecostal tongues has the merit of being well within the realm of psychological possibilities. It involves, however, the task not only of disproving an early date for Acts, and the interpreting of the later cases of glossolalia on some other basis than the basis adopted for interpreting the Pentecostal tongues, but it involves also all the gratuitous assumptions and arbitrary exegeses which are inextricably involved in a mythological interpretation of the New Testament, making the myth indeed the child of the wish, not in this case, however, the wish of the myth-maker, but the wish and even caprice of the New Testament interpreter and exegete. A third solution of the problem is to be found in regarding the narrative of Pentecost as history. But merely to say that we are dealing with history, with events which occurred, not with events which ought to have occurred to have afforded what is conceived to have been a proper setting for the early days of the Christian Church, does not by any means solve the problem. We are still obliged carefully to study our text in order to arrive at some conclusion as to what actually happened at Pentecost:

"And they were all filled with the Holy Ghost, and began to speak with other tongues, as the Spirit gave them utterance. And there were dwelling at Jerusalem Jews, devout men, out of every nation under heaven.

Now when this was noised abroad, the multitude came together, and were confounded, because that every man heard them speak in his own language. And they were all amazed, and marvelled, saying one to another, Behold, are not all these which speak Galileans? And how hear we every man in our own tongue, wherein we were born?

Parthians, and Medes and Elamites, and the dwellers in Mesopotamia, and in Judea, and Cappadocia, in Pontus, and Asia.

Phrygia, and Pamphylia, in Egypt, and in the parts of Libya about Cyrene, and strangers of Rome, Jews and proselytes.

Cretes and Arabians, we do hear them speak in our tongues the wonderful works of God."1 What is the real nature of the event that is thus described? The most common interpretation of the passage is found in the postulating of a miracle as a result of which all or some of the Christians present were enabled to speak in foreign languages which they had never studied and in which they had never before spoken. The question then arises as to whether this endowment was temporary or permanent. The theory of a permanent endowment with ability to speak heretofore unknown languages involves several objections. One is based on the tradition that the apostles in their missionary journeys were accompanied by men who acted for them as interpreters. The case of Mark acting as interpreter for Peter is particularly cited in this connection. 2 Another objection is based on the experience of Paul and Barnabas at Lystra, 3 where the missionaries were certainly unaware of what was being said "in the speech of Lycaonia," until their attention was attracted by the visible preparations for doing sacrifice in their honor. To avoid these difficulties, it has been suggested that the Pentecostal endowment was not permanent but temporary, that the gift was not to facilitate the preaching of the gospel to the heathen world, but as a demonstration of the power of God. We deal in this case, then, with an epideiktic miracle. For the world of to-day an epideiktic miracle can have little value. For the world of the apostles, with its exceedingly primitive mental traits in spite of its veneer of civilisation, it is altogether 1 Acts 2:4-11.
2 Cf. Eusebius: "Church History," III, xxxix, 15.
3 Acts 1:1-18. conceivable that an epideiktic miracle could possess an element of value. When we deal with the primitive church, it is well to remember, whether it be in matters ecclesiastical or psychological, we are dealing with primitive men. The theory that the Pentecostal gift of tongues was not a miracle of speaking but a miracle of hearing found among some of the thinkers of the Christian church, an early and ready acceptance. Stress was laid upon verse 8 and particularly upon the word "hear”:

"And how hear we every man in our own tongue, wherein we were born?" The miracle, according to this view, was wrought in the hearers, not in the speakers. This interpretation has nothing about it which either specially commends or condemns it. It does away with the historical difficulty involved in the theory of a permanent endowment with an ability to speak foreign languages. It involves, however, the vague objection that it may seem to be both artificial and contrary to the general sense of the entire passage.

Stress is laid by other students of the phenomenon upon the fact that the element of praise seems to be conspicuous in the account of the tongues at Pentecost:

"We do hear them speak in our tongues the wonderful works of God."

It is praise which forms the content of the tongues. It has even been suggested that definite ascriptions of praise might have constituted that which was said.

"We most naturally, I believe," writes Chase, 1 "picture the Apostles, like Zacharias in much earlier days when he was ’filled with the Holy Ghost’ (Luke 1:67 ff), 1 Chase, Frederic Henry: "The Credibility of the Book of the Acts of the Apostles," London, 1902, pp. 38-40. as bursting forth into ’benedictions’ drawn from the rich liturgical store of the Jewish Church such as we find, for example, in that most ancient service of praise and prayer, the Eighteen Benedictions. But the Apostles spoke the praises of God in different languages. That is, plainly, the writer’s meaning. Now there is evidence that the authorities in Palestine sanctioned the use of any language whatever in repeating the Shema, the Eighteen Benedictions, and the Grace at Meals. At other, feasts, then, the Apostles had heard strangers of the Dispersion reciting these doxologies in the various languages most familiar to them. Now they in turn themselves, seeing before them Jewish worshippers from many countries, with memories supernaturally quickened, recall and rehearse in the different languages the accustomed words of praise.

"Here, too, St. Luke discerned a symbolical meaning. The new spiritual endowment of the Church inaugurates a reversal of the curse of separation. What we may term the very accidents accompanying the advent of the Spirit are a pledge of the catholicity of the Church a sign that the Church should be the one home of men of every language and race (comp. Colossians 3:11). The historian recalls the language of the ancient story which told of the confusion of tongues (Genesis 11:7 ff); and it is plain that his language in recording the events of Pentecost is moulded by the remembrance."

Similar to such a theory is the general notion frequently expressed that the words spoken were archaic, figurative and unusual, and for that reason might be called "other tongues."

Another interpretation has been found in regarding the eteraij glwssaij as figurative. The tongues are other tongues because they are now controlled by the Spirit of God. Before the bestowing of the gift, each man controlled his own tongue. After the bestowal, God controls the tongue directly. The tongue is independent of the will of man and is directly dependent upon the will of God. So far, we have tended to ignore the fact that the New Testament contains references to the appearance of the gift of tongues, not only at Pentecost, but in connection with the conversion of Cornelius, in connection with the advent of the Holy Ghost at Ephesus, and in connection with the church at Corinth. If we eliminate the account of the tongues at Pentecost on the ground of a textual interpolation, or if we treat the Pentecostal narrative as the expression of a myth-making tendency, we have still failed to deal with the subsequent appearances of the same phenomena. We are forced then to a second explanation and a second theory for the interpreting of our data.

There is, however, very good reason to believe that the phenomena described as tongues in the New Testament are in their general nature everywhere substantially the same. By his express statement: ,

"And as I began to speak, the Holy Ghost fell on them, Its on us at the beginning," 1 St. Peter seems to identify the manifestations at Cassarea with the Pentecostal occurrences. It requires a very arbitrary and artificial exegesis of Acts 19:6 to suppose that except from the point o view of grammatical construction elaloun glwssaij in that passage means something different from lalaountwg n lisjaws in Acts 10:46. In like manner also, we are guilty of an arbitrary and artificial exegesis, for which there is no foundation in the text or in logic, and no foundation in psychology, except the a priori desire on our part to substantiate a theory, when we insist that

1 Acts 11:15. lalwn glwsh or laelin glwssaij or glwssaij lalwn in 1 Corinthians 14:2, 1 Corinthians 14:4-5, means anything fundamentally different from the accepted meaning of similar terms when they are used in the Acts. In the Corinthian account, two definite characteristics of the tongues stand out clearly. The first is that the tongues are not a known or understandable language and require, that they may be used for edification, the gift of the interpretation of tongues. The second is that to the person not familiar with these phenomena and therefore not inclined to interpret the tongues on the basis of a theory that the tongues are spiritual in their nature, those speaking in the tongues seem to be mad. The word used by St. Paul and translated as meaning mad is a form of a verb used frequently to signify Bacchic or prophetic frenzy. To the observer, unprejudiced by notions which had grown up in the Christian church as to the nature of the tongues, the behaviour of a person speaking with tongues was no different from the familiar conduct of the mantij. It is of further significance that it was only in Corinth, a centre of Greek religious influence, that the tongues attained to so great a degree of prominence in the Christian church, as to demand extended discussion in an apostolic epistle. The association of ecstasy and immorality in the Corinthian church might here also be justly remarked.

Let us turn back to the account of events at Pentecost. The opening words of St. Peter’s sermon are the familiar ones, “For these are not drunken as ye suppose.” 1 The verb mequskw here used in its passive voice to denote drunkenness, is a verb of connotations not unrelated to Bacchic frenzy. The charge of drunkenness at

1 Acts 2:15.

Pentecost may justly be regarded as of the same nature as the charge of madness at Corinth.

Consideration also must be given to the use of the verb lalein in describing the speaking with tongues in connection with the Pentecostal phenomena at Caesarea, at Ephesus and at Corinth. lalein is an onomatopoetic word, the primary significance of which is found in the English equivalent "lalling." It is a word sometimes applied to birds, and may mean to chirp, or to twitter. It may be taken to mean to babble, or to chatter. The suggestion that the word glwssa might be taken in the sense of an archaic language has already been noted. It has also been suggested that the use of the word connotes a special stress upon the organ of speech itself rather than upon speaking. The phrase lalein glwssaij, using this latter sense of glwssa, may well be taken therefore to involve the notion of the disconnected, unmeaning use of the tongue for the making of sounds. The word fwnh used in Acts 2:6, is also to be taken into consideration, and the possibility of translating the phrase in which it occurs as "when this became a noise," to be reckoned with. In other words, the terms used in the accounts of the tongues are words such as would suggest disorderly, rather than orderly speaking, and the uttering of sounds rather than words, or at best words which were not connected with other words in such a manner as to express coherent thought. A further difficulty may here present itself, in the interpretation of the phenomenon at Pentecost and at Corinth on the same basis of a disorderly ecstasy. In the account of the Pentecostal gift, stress is laid upon the speaking in the languages of a number of countries. It has been suggested that some one of three languages, the East Aramaic, the West Aramaic, and the Greek would have been understandable in each of the countries named. It is not unreasonable psychologically to suppose that the disorderly speaking at Pentecost included fragments of all three of these languages released by the subconscious minds of men speaking in a state of great excitement. In view of considerations which will appear in our further discussion of the gift of tongues, and in accord also with such evidence as we have concerning the phenomena in New Testament times, it is possible to defend the position that the gift of tongues was and is similar to the ecstasies associated with the Greek mystery religions. It is possible to suggest that at the very beginning of the life of the Christian church, it was face to face with the struggle which it still must wage the struggle against pagan ideas and pagan practices within its own doors.