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Bible Dictionaries
Tongues, Gift of
Hastings' Dictionary of the Bible
or TONGUES, GIFT OF
1. In NT we read of ‘speaking with tongues’ or ‘in a tongue’ as a remarkable sign of the outpouring of the Holy Spirit; but the exact meaning of the phenomenon described has been much disputed. We may take the passages in the chronological order of writing. ( a ) The Epistles . In 1Co 12:1-31; 1 Corinthians 13:1-13; 1 Corinthians 14:1-40 , among the charismata or (spiritual) gifts are ‘divers kinds of tongues’ and ‘the interpretation of tongues’ ( 1 Corinthians 12:10; 1 Corinthians 12:30 ). Yet St. Paul, who possessed the gift himself ( 1 Corinthians 14:18 ), considers it to be of little importance as compared with prophecy. In itself it is addressed to God, and unless interpreted it is useless to those assembled; it is a sign to believers, but will not edify, but rather excite the ridicule of, unlearned persons or heathens ( 1 Corinthians 14:23 ). Whatever the gift was, speaking with tongues was at Corinth ordinarily unintelligible to the hearers, and sometimes even to the speaker ( 1 Corinthians 14:14 ), though the English reader must note that the word ‘unknown’ in AV [Note: Authorized Version.] is an interpolation. The gift was not to be forbidden, but everything was to be done decently and in order ( 1 Corinthians 14:40 ). Indications of the gift are thought to be found in 1 Thessalonians 5:19 , Romans 8:15; Romans 8:26 , Galatians 4:6 , Ephesians 5:19 , but not at all in the Pastoral, Petrine, or Johannine Epistles. It seems to have belonged to the infancy of the Church ( 1 Corinthians 13:8 . ‘Tongues … shall cease’). [Irenæus, apparently speaking at second hand, says that the gift existed in the 2nd cent.; but this is very doubtful. Chrysostom says that it was non-existent in the 4th century.] ( b ) Acts . At Pentecost, in addition to the ‘mighty wind’ and the ‘tongues parting asunder like as of fire,’ we read that the assembled disciples spoke ‘with other tongues as the Spirit gave them utterance’ ( Acts 2:4 ). The multitudes from many countries, coming together, heard them speak in their tongues the mighty works of God ( Acts 2:11 ), while some thought that they were drunken ( Acts 2:13; cf. 1 Corinthians 14:23 ). We read again of the gift in the conversion of Cornelius and his household ( Acts 10:46 ) St. Peter expressly says that it was the same as at Pentecost ( Acts 11:15 ) and at Ephesus ( Acts 19:8 ); and probably the same is intended in the story of the Samaritan converts ( Acts 8:17 f.: ‘Simon saw that … the Holy Ghost was given’). ( c ) In the Appendix to Mark (which, even if Markan, is comparatively late) we have the promise that the disciples ‘shall speak with [new] tongues’ ( Acts 16:17 : ‘new’ is probably not of the best text).
2. Meaning of the gift . Relying chiefly on the passages of Acts, most of the Fathers (as Origen, Chrysostom, Theodoret, Gregory of Nyssa, Gregory of Nazianzus) understand the gift as being for purposes of evangelization, as if the disciples received a miraculous endowment of foreign languages to enable them to preach; Gregory of Nyssa and others take the gift as a miracle of hearing , the disciples speaking in their own language, but the people understanding their speech each in his own tongue. This view starts with the doubtless true idea that ‘tongue’ means ‘language’ here. But Acts says nothing, about preaching; the gift is never found in NT in connexion with evangelization; the passages in 1 Cor., where the utterances are often unintelligible even to the utterer, are clearly repugnant to this interpretation, and we have no proof that the Apostles ever preached in any language but Greek and Aramaic, even to the ‘barbarous’ heathen, such as the Lycaonians or Maltese. Indeed, Paul and Barnabas clearly did not know Lycaonian ( Acts 14:11; Acts 14:14 ). Peter probably did not know Greek well enough to preach in it, for Mark was his ‘interpreter’ (Papias, Irenæus). We cannot, then, follow the majority of the Fathers in their interpretation. Had it been the true one, St. Paul would have encouraged the Corinthians to use the gift to the utmost.
Unfortunately, we do not know how the earlier 2nd cent. Fathers understood the matter; but Tertullian apparently judged the gift to be an ecstatic utterance of praise ( adv. Marc . v. 8). This is much more probable than the other view. At Pentecost the disciples spoke the ‘mighty works of God.’ All the NT passages either suggest or agree with the idea of worship. This does not, indeed, exhaust all our difficulties; but perhaps the following considerations may solve at least some of them. ( a ) The disciples, at a critical period of the Church, were in a state of intense excitement. But St. Paul’s words do not mean that their utterances were mere gibberish; on the contrary, they were capable of interpretation if one who had that gift were present. And at Pentecost they were, as a matter of fact, understood. ( b ) It has been suggested that we are to understand ‘tongues,’ not as ‘languages,’ but as ‘poetic or symbolic speech,’ not readily understood by the unlearned. But this view does not satisfy Acts 2:1-47 , though in itself it may be true; in a word, this is an insufficient explanation. ( c ) The languages required by Acts 2:1-47 are actually only two Greek and Aramaic. For those present at Pentecost were Jews; the list in Acts 2:9 ff. is of countries, not of languages. All the Jews of these countries spoke either Greek or Aramaic. This is a difficulty in interpreting the narrative, which gives us the impression of a large number of different languages. But probably what is intended is a large number of dialects of Greek and Aramaic, especially of the latter; it would be as though a Somerset man heard one who habitually spoke broad Scots praising God in the Somerset dialect. And what would strike the pilgrim Jews present was that the speakers at Pentecost were mainly those who themselves spoke an uncouth Aramaic dialect, that of Galilee ( Matthew 26:73 ). ( d ) This consideration may lead us a step further. We may recognize in the Pentecostal wonder a stirring of memory, a recalling of utterances previously heard by the disciples at former feasts when a polyglot multitude of Jews (polyglot at least in dialects) was assembled, the speakers uttering what they had unconsciously already taken into their memories. This would account for their words being so readily understood; some of the speakers would be praising God in one dialect, some in another. ( e ) Something of this sort may have happened at Corinth, one of the most cosmopolitan of cities. Here the possession of the gift was not confined to those of Jewish birth. But naturally the resident Christian community at Corinth would ordinarily not understand the strange dialects given utterance to. The case is not the same as that of Pentecost, when many different peoples were gathered together.
To sum up, it seems probable that the gift of tongues was an ecstatic utterance of praise, not only in poetic and symbolic speech, but also in languages or dialects not ordinarily spoken by those who had the gift; a power given at a time of great enthusiasm and excitement, at a critical period of the world’s history, but not meant to be a permanent gift for the Church, and not ranking so high as other charismata , especially not so high as prophecy. That it survived the Apostolic age is hardly probable.
A. J. Maclean.
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Hastings, James. Entry for 'Tongues, Gift of'. Hastings' Dictionary of the Bible. https://www.studylight.org/dictionaries/eng/hdb/t/tongues-gift-of.html. 1909.
