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Speaking with Tlon Spear. Robert El liott THE NEW SCHAFF-HERZOG

Plutarch (De pythi&, oraculis) brings out the complete passivity of the pythia, Heraclitus (Sermo, Ixxix.) notes the necessity of elucidation of the oracle, Dio Chrysostom (Oratio, x.) remarks upon the use of rather uncommon, poetic, strange, and circumlocutory expressions. Very illustrative for this class of phenomena is the description which Plato gives in the Timaus of the mantis or prophet. He says that the inspired and true seer's art is not practised under full consciousness, but that the vision comes when the understanding is under constraint, or in sleep, sickness, or ecstasy, and what he sees or says under such circumstances is to be interpreted by one who has his reason. The last is the gift of the prophet. This representation is analogous to that of Paul, except that the latter does not make the prophet interpret the utterances, but speaks of an interpreter of the same. In post-Homeric times the cult of the Dionysiac orgies made their entrance into the Greek world. According to this, music, the whirling dance, and means of intoxication had power to make men " full of deity," to produce a condition in which the normal state was left behind and the inspired perceived what was external to himself and to sense. The soul was supposed to leave the body, hence the word " ecstasy," a being out of oneself, while other expressions used were " to rave " and " to be in the divinity," the latter expressing the thought that in its absence from the body the soul was united with deity, and so the deity spoke in and from the person in that condition. At such times the ecstatic person had no consciousness of his own. It was to this quality that Philo attributed the prophet's power (De spec. leg., IV., viii.), while Plato regarded true poetry as the result of divine inspiration through the poet's being entheoi = ` in the divinity." Out of the Dionysiac rites, then, developed a species of prophesying which through ecstasy put itself into connection with the divine and spirit world and so foretold the future. Cicero (Pro Sexto, x.) joins prophesying and madness, and in De divinatione, L, lxvii., asserts that it was not Cassandra who spoke, but the divinity inclosed in the human body. A prophetess officiated in a Thracian temple of Dionysus as did the pythia in Delphi. And this same frenzy spread into Italy (Livy, XXXIX., viii. sqq.). Origen (Contra Celsum, VIL, ix., Eng. transl, in A NF, iv. 614) quotes Celsus to the effect that both in and outside the sanctuaries people exhibited ecstatic phenomena and uttered unknown, unintelligible speech. In modern times, such demonstrations are not entirely unknown, as in the case of the dervishes (see DERVISH).

Consideration of these examples enables one to arrive at a decision regarding the New-Testament speaking with tongues. It is significant in this connection that the two places, Jerusalem and Corinth, where the phenomenon in question appeared recall the Old-Testament phenomena and the

practise in the Greek world. Accordq. The New- ing to the opening verses of T Cor. xii.

Testament it appears that the Corinthians had Phenomena,. asked Paul how one could recognize

the working of the Spirit of God. They had learned that the demonstrations of demons were like the operations of the Christian charismata,

but they had no means of discriminating. Paul then recalls for them that they had had experience of the power of demons, but that now they were ruled by the Spirit of God; no one so ruled could call Jesus accursed, nor could one call Jesus Lord except in the Holy Spirit (I Cor. xii. 2-3). Paul then made the distinction rest upon the content of spiritual qualification ('I Cor. xiv.). While the physiological basis of the phenomena was the same in the two classes, Paul saw a distinct difference; the Corinthians were in danger of putting undue stress upon this one gift, perhaps because it was connected with memories of their old life; but as a matter of fact it was of value solely to the one who experienced it unless it were interpreted to others. Hence Paul would regulate its employment; it was to be used only when an interpreter was present, and not by more than two or three at a time even then, that no confusion might result. Indeed, prophecy was a far more desirable gift than speaking with tongues. A slightly different condition is that of Pentecost, where the events resemble the ecstasy of the Old Testament and of the Greeks; but a new force is at work in that it makes them rejoicingly speak of the wonderful works of God, and have new knowledge, inner illumination, and firmness in propagating the news of the Gospel.

In considering the meaning of glossy, " tongue," in the various combinations in which it appears in referring to the phenomena in question, it may be said that this word is used in general to designate

g. Meaning of speech (in which it has various of Glossy. significations), and also speech itself.

But in the passages in the New Testament under discussion it is best to take glossy in the metaphorical sense as a technical term denoting a strange and unwonted form of words. With this meaning it occurs not only in the literary monuments but as employed by the common people especially in referring to phenomena which seemed supernatural or unordinary, like the utterances of the pythia, of poets, or of the muses. This could then easily be taken over by Christianity to express something different from " teaching " and from prophecy, something which impressed one as being of the nature of secrets or as inspired. No insuperable difficulties inhere in this meaning. The most important arises from the fact that the term seems to have been used in Jerusalem before it was in Corinth, and could not have derived directly from the Greek world. The explanation may be offered, however, that in TV Mace. x. 21, and often in the Psalms (e.g., Ps. cxxvi. 2) the tongue is used to mean the instrument of the praise of God. The Jews also thought of the tongue as the unconditioned instrument of God and of his Spirit, and from this " to speak with tongues " could easily come to mean an ecstatic and jubilant method of speech in praise of God. So that if glossy means " tongue," " to speak with other tongues " or " with new tongues " would be analogous to the expression in T Cor. xiii. 1, " Though T speak with the tongues of men and of angels." On Greek soil glossy was employed to express an unusual, poetic, or unintelligible

method of expression. Whether Paul as a Hellenist