xiv. 13, 27, 28), but was at least often a separate gift possessed

without the kinds of tongues (cf. xii. 10, 28, xiv. 26, 28). Nothing can be more specific than xii. 10"... to another kinds of tongues; and to another interpretation of tongues;" and again, v. 30: "do all speak with tongues? do all interpret?" This is indeed presaged by the "diversities of gifts," &c, of xii. 4 ff. Upon the hypothesis of foreign languages, this would presuppose that some spoke languages which they could not interpret, and consequently could not understand, and that others understood languages which they could not speak. The latter point is common enough in ordinary life; but, in this instance, the miracle of supernaturally receiving a perfect knowledge of

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languages, instantaneously and without previous study, is as great as to receive the power to speak them. The anomaly in the miracle, merely to point out a suggestive discrepancy where all is anomalous, is that the gift of tongues should ever have been separated from the gift of interpretation. If a man understand the foreign language he speaks he can interpret it; if he cannot interpret it, he cannot understand it; and if he cannot understand it, can he possibly speak it? Certainly not, without his having been made a perfectly mechanical instrument through which, apart from the understanding and the will, sounds are involuntarily produced, which is not to be entertained. Still pursuing the same hypothesis,--the one gift is to speak languages which no one understands, the other to understand languages which no one speaks. Paul never even assumes the probability that the "tongue" spoken is understood by any one except the interpreter. The interpretation of such obscure tongues must have been a gift very little used,--never, indeed, except as the complement to the gift of tongues. The natural and useful facility in languages is apparently divided into two supernatural and useless halves. The idea is irresistibly suggested, as apparently it was to the Apostle himself, whether it would not have been more for the good of mankind and for the honour of Christianity, if, instead of these two miraculously incomplete gifts, a little natural good sense, five words even, to be spoken in the vernacular tongue and requiring no interpretation had been imparted. If, instead of foreign languages, we substitute the utterance of ecstatic religious excitement, the anomaly of speaking a language without understanding it or being understood becomes intelligible; and equally so the interpretation,

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unaccompanied by the power of speaking. It is obvious in both cases that, as no one understands the tongue, no one can determine whether the interpretation of it be accurate or not. But it is easily conceivable that a sympathetic nervous listener might suppose that he understood the broken and incoherent speech of ecstasy and might interpret it according to his own stimulated imagination. The mysterious and unknown are suggestive texts, and there is nothing more infectious than religious excitement. In all this, however, is there anything miraculous?

We need not further demonstrate that the chief and general characteristic of "kinds of tongues" was that they were unintelligible (cf. 1 Cor. xiv. 2, 6-11, 13-19). Speaking with the spirit [------] is opposed to speaking with the understanding [------] (cf. vv. 14-16, &c). They were not only unintelligible to others, but the speaker himself did not understand what he uttered: v. 14. "For if I pray with a tongue [------] my spirit [------] prayeth, but my understanding [------] is unfruitful" (cf. 15 f. 19). We have already pointed out that Paul speaks of these Charismata in general, and not as affecting the Corinthians only; and we must now add that he obviously does not even insinuate that the "kinds of tongues" possessed by that community was a spurious Charisma, or that any attempt had been made to simulate the gift; for nothing could have been more simple than for the Apostle to denounce such phenomena as false, and to distinguish the genuine from the imitated speech with tongues. The most convincing proof that his remarks refer to the genuine Charisma is that the Apostle applies to himself the very same restrictions in the use of "tongues" as he enforces upon the Corinthians

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(vv. 18-19, 6, &c), and characterises his own gift precisely as he does theirs (vv. 6, 11, 14, 15, 19).

Now what was the actual operation of this singular miraculous gift, and its utility whether as regards the community or the gifted individual? Paul restricts the speaking of "tongues" in church because, being unintelligible, it is not for edification (xiv. 2 ff. 18 f. 23, 27, 28). He himself does not make use of his gift for the assemblies of believers (vv. 6, 18). Another ground upon which he objects to the use of "kinds of tongues" in public is that all the gifted apparently speak at once (vv. 23, 27 f. 33). It will be remembered that all the Charismata and their operations are described as due to the direct agency of the Holy Spirit (xii. 4 ff.); and immediately following their enumeration, ending with "kinds of tongues" and "interpretation of tongues," the Apostle resumes: v. 11. "but all these worketh the one and the same Spirit, dividing to each severally as he wills;" and in Acts ii. 4 the brethren are represented as speaking with tongues "as the Spirit gave them utterance." Now the first thought which presents itself is: How can a gift which is due to the direct working of the Holy Spirit possibly be abused? We must remember clearly that the speech is not expressive of the understanding of the speaker. The [------] spoke under the inspiration of the supernatural Agent, what neither they nor others understood. Is it permissible to suppose that the Holy Spirit could inspire speech with tongues at an unfitting time? Can we imagine that this Spirit can actually have prompted many people to speak at one and the same time to the utter disturbance of order? Is not such a gift of tongues more like the confusion of tongues in Babel(1)

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than a christian Charisma? "And the Lord said:...Go to, let us go down and there confound their language, that they may not understand one another's speech."(1) In spite of his abstract belief in the divine origin of the Charisma, Paul's language unconsciously betrays practical doubt as to its character. Does not such sarcasm as the following seem extremely indecorous when criticising a result produced directly by the Holy Spirit? (xiv. 23) "If, therefore, the whole church be come into one place and all speak with tongues, and there come in unlearned and unbelieving persons will they not say that ye are mad?" At Pentecost such an assembly was supposed to be drunken.(2) The whole of the counsel of the Apostle upon this occasion really amounts to an injunction to quench the Spirit. It is quite what might be expected in the case of the excitement of ecstatic religion, that the strong emotion should principally find vent in the form of prayer and praise (vv. 15 ff.), equally so that it should be unintelligible and that no one should know when to say "Amen" (v. 16), and that all should speak at once, and still more so that the practical result should be tumult (vv. 23, 33). All this, it might appear, could be produced without the intervention of the Holy Spirit. So far, is there and utility in the miracle?

But we are told that it is "for a sign." Paul argues upon this point in a highly eccentric manner. He quotes (v. 21) Isaiah xxviii. 11, 12, in a form neither agreeing with the Septuagint nor with the Hebrew, a passage which has merely a superficial and verbal analogy with the gift of tongues, but whose real

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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

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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

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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.

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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,

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somnambulism and the effects of magnetism. Paul asserts that he was subject to the influence, whatever it was, more than anyone, and there is nothing which is more credible than the statement, or more characteristic of the Apostle. We desire to speak of him with the profoundest respect and admiration. We know more, from his epistles, of the intimate life and feelings of the great Apostle of the Gentiles than of any other man of the apostolic age, and it is impossible not to feel warm sympathy with his noble and generous character. The history of Christianity, after the death of its Founder, would sink almost into common-place if the grand figure of Paul were blotted from its pages. But it is no detraction to recognize that his nervous temperament rendered him peculiarly susceptible of those religious impressions which result in conditions of ecstatic trance, to which, as we actually learn from himself, he was exceptionally subject. The effects of this temperament probably first made him a Christian; and to his enthusiastic imagination we owe most of the supernatural dogmas of the religion which he adopted and transformed.

One of these trances the Apostle himself recounts,(1) always with the cautious reserve: "whether in the body or out of the body I know not, God knoweth," how he was caught up to the third heaven, and in Paradise heard unutterable words which it is not lawful for a man to speak; in immediate connection with which he continues: "And lest I should be exalted above measure by the excess of the revelations, there was given to me a stake [------] in the flesh, an angel of Satan to buffet me"(2) This was one of

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the "visions [------] and revelations [------] of the Lord" of which he speaks, and of which he had such an excess to boast. Can any one doubt that this was nearly akin to the state of ecstatic trance in which he spoke with tongues more than all the Corinthians? Does any one suppose that Paul, "whether in the body or out of the body," was ever actually caught up into "the third heaven," wherever that may be? or doubt that this was simply one of the pious hallucinations which visit those who are in such a state? If we are seriously to discuss the point,--it is clear that evidence of such a thing is out of the question; that Paul himself admits that he cannot definitely describe what happened; that we have no other ground for considering the matter than the Apostle's own mysterious utterance; that it is impossible for a person subject to such visions and hallucinations to distinguish between reality and seeming; that this narrative has not only all the character of hallucination, but no feature of sober fact; and finally that, whilst it accords with all experiences of visionary hallucination, it contradicts all experience of practical life. We have seen that Paul believes in the genuineness and supernatural origin of the divine Charismata, and he in like manner believes in the reality of his visions and revelations. He has equal reason, or want of reason, in both cases.

What, however, was the nature of the "stake in the flesh" which, upon the theory of the diabolical origin of disease, he calls "an angel of Satan to buffet me"? There have been many conjectures offered, but one explanation which has been advanced by able critics has special force and probability. It is suggested that this "stake in the flesh," which almost all now at

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least recognise to have been some physical malady, and very many suppose to have been headache or some other similar periodical and painful affection, was in reality a form of epilepsy.(1) It has been ably argued that the representation of the malady as "an angel of Satan" to buffet him, directly connects it with nervous disorders like epilepsy, which the Jews especially ascribed to diabolical influence; and the mention of this [------] in immediate continuation of his remarks on "visions" and "revelations," which a tendency to this very malady would so materially assist in producing, further confirms the conjecture.(2) No one can deny, and medical and psychological annals prove, that many men have been subject to visions and hallucinations which have never been seriously attributed to supernatural causes. There is not one single valid reason removing the ecstatic visions and trances of the Apostle Paul from this class.

We do not yet discuss the supposed vision in which he saw the risen Jesus, though it is no exception to the rest, but reserve it for the next chapter. At present, it suffices that we point out the bearing of our examination of Paul's general testimony to miracles upon our future consideration of his evidence for the Resurrection. If it be admitted that his judgment as to the miraculous character of the Charismata is fallacious, and that what he considered miraculous were simply natural phenomena, the theory of the reality of miracles

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becomes less tenable than ever. And if, further, it be recognized, as we think it necessarily must be, that Paul was subject to natural ecstatic trances, with all their accompanying forms of nervous excitement: "kinds of tongues," visions, and religious hallucinations, a strong and clear light will fall upon his further testimony for miraculous occurrences which we shall shortly have before us.