that they had learnt it like other people, by early training and practice. Moreover there is no trace
of such a miraculous knowledge, nor any such use of it after Pentecost.^281 On the contrary, we must
infer that Paul did not understand the Lycaonian dialect (Acts 14:11–14), and we learn from early
ecclesiastical tradition that Peter used Mark as an interpreter (ἑρμηνεύς orἑρμηνευτής, interpres,
according to Papias, Irenaeus, and Tertullian). God does not supersede by miracle the learning of
foreign languages and other kinds of knowledge which can be attained by the ordinary use of our
mental faculties and opportunities.
(f) It was a temporary speaking in foreign languages confined to the day of Pentecost and
passing away with the flame-like tongues. The exception was justified by the object, namely, to
attest the divine mission of the apostles and to foreshadow the universalness of the gospel. This
view is taken by most modern commentators who accept the account of Luke, as Olshausen (who
combines with it the theory b), Baumgarten, Thiersch, Rossteuscher, Lechler, Hackett, Gloag,
Plumptre (in his Com. on Acts), and myself (in H. Ap. Ch.), and accords best with the plain sense
of the narrative. But it likewise makes an essential distinction between the Pentecostal and the
Corinthian glossolalia, which is extremely improbable. A temporary endowment with the knowledge
of foreign languages unknown before is as great if not a greater miracle than a permanent endowment,
and was just as superfluous at that time in Jerusalem as afterwards at Corinth; for the missionary
sermon of Peter, which was in one language only, was intelligible to all.
(g) The Pentecostal glossolalia was essentially the same as the Corinthian glossolalia,
namely, an act of worship, and not of teaching; with only a slight difference in the medium of
interpretation: it was at once internally interpreted and applied by the Holy Spirit himself to those
hearers who believed and were converted, to each in his own vernacular dialect; while in Corinth
the interpretation was made either by the speaker in tongues, or by one endowed with the gift of
interpretation.
I can find no authority for this theory, and therefore suggest it with modesty, but it seems
to me to avoid most of the difficulties of the other theories, and it brings Luke into harmony with
himself and with Paul. It is certain that the Holy Spirit moved the hearts of the hearers as well as
the tongues of the speakers on that first day of the new creation in Christ. In a natural form the
Pentecostal heteroglossolalia is continued in the preaching of the gospel in all tongues, and in more
than three hundred translations of the Bible.
II. False interpretations of the Pentecostal miracle.
(1) The older rationalistic interpretation resolves the wind into a thunderstorm or a hurricane
surcharged with electricity, the tongues of fire into flashes of lightning falling into the assembly,(^281) What may be claimed for St. Bernard, St. Vincent Ferrer, and St. Francis Xavier is not a miraculous heteroglossolalia, but
an eloquence so ardent, earnest, and intense, that the rude nations which they addressed in Latin or Spanish imagined they heard
them in their mother tongue. St. Bernard (d. 1153) fired the Germans in Latin to the second crusade, and made a greater impression
on them by his very appearance than the translation of the same speech by his interpreter. See Neander, Der heil. Bernhard, p.
338 (2d ed.). Alban Butler (Lives of the Saints, sub April 5) reports of St. Vincent Ferrer (died 1419) "Spondanus and many
others say, the saint was honored with the gift of tongues, and that, preaching in his own, he was understood by men of different
languages; which is also affirmed by Lanzano, who says, that Greeks, Germans, Sardes, Hungarians, and people of other nations,
declared they understood every word he spoke, though he preached in Latin, or in his mother-tongue, as spoken at Valentia."
This account clearly implies that Ferrer did not understand Greek, German, and Hungarian. As to Francis Xavier (d. 1552),
Alban Butler says (sub Dec. 3) that the gift of tongues was "a transient favor," and that he learned the Malabar tongue and the
Japanese "by unwearied application;" from which we may infer that his impression upon the heathen was independent of the
language, Not one of these saints claimed the gift of tongues or other miraculous powers, but only their disciples or later writers.
A.D. 1-100.