There are weighty reasons against this hypothesis. («) It is at variance with the distinct statement of Acts ii, 4, "They began to siieak with other tongues." (6) It at once niuliiidies the miracle and degrades its character. Not the one hundred and twenty disciples, but the whole multitude of many thousands, are in this case the sul)jects of it. Tlie gift no longer connects it- self witli the work of the Divine Spirit, following on in- tense faitli and earnest prayer, but is a mere physical prodigy wrought upon men who are altogether wanting in the conditions of capacity for such a supernatural power (Mark xvi, 17). (c) It involves an element of falsehood. The miracle, on this view, was wrought to make men believe what was not actually the fact. (</) It is altogether inapplicable to the phenomena of 1 Cor. xiv.
(3.) Critics of a negative school have, as might be expected, adopted the easier course of rejecting the narrative either altogether or in part. The statements do not come from an eye-witness, and may be an exag- gerated report of what actually took place — a legend wirh or without a historical foundation. Those who recognise such a groundwork see in "the rushing mighty wind," the hurricane of a thunder-storm, the fresh breeze of morning; in the "tongues like as of tire," the flashings of the electric fluid; in the " speak- ing with tongues," the loud screams of men, not all (Jaliheans, but coming from many lands, overpowered by strong excitement, speaking in mystical, figurative, abrupt exclamalions. They see in this "the cry of the new-born Christendom" (Runsen, Hippolytus,i\, 12; Ewald, Gesch. fsr. vi, 110; Bleek, loc. cit.; Herder, loc. cit.). From the position occupied by these writers such a view was perhaps natural enough. It is out of place here to <lisciiss in detail a theory which postulates the incredibility of any fact beyond tlie phenomenal laws of nature and the falsehood of Luke as a narrator.
(4.) What, then, we finally inipiire under the case in question, are the facts actually brought before us? What inferences may be legitimately drawn from them?
(a) The utterance of words by the disciples in oth- er languages than their own GaliUcan Aramaic is, as has been said, distinctly asserted.
(b) The words spoken appear to have been primari- ly determined, not by the will of the speakers, but by the .Spirit which "gave them utterance." The outward tongue of flame was the symbol of the " burning fire" within, which, as in the case of the older prophets, could not without internal violence be repressed (Jer. XX, 9).
(c) The word used, aTro^Jeyytrt^at, not merely Xa- Xhv, has in the .Sept. a special, though not an exclu- sive, association with the oracular speech of true or
false prophets, and appears to imply some peculiar and probably impassioned style (comp. I Chron. xxv, 1; Ezek. xiii, 9; Trommii Concordant, fi.y.; Grotius and Wettstein, ad loc; Audrewes, Wliitsundai/ Sermons, vol. i).
(d) The "tongues" were used as an instrument, not simjily of teaching, but also of praise. At first, indeed, there were none present to be taught. The disciples were by themselves, all sharing eipially in the Spirit's gifts. When they were heard by others, it was chiefly as proclaiming the praise, the mighty and great works of God {ntyaXtia). AV'hat they uttered was not so much a warning or reproof or exhortation as a doxol- ogy (Stanley, loc. cit.; Baumgarten, .•lyjo,s7<'//y('*eA. § 3). The assumption, however, appears unwarranted that when the work of teaching began it was in the lan- guage of the Jews, and that the utterance of tongues then ceased.
(e) Those who spoke them seemed to others to be under the influence of some strong excitement, " full of new wine." They were not as other men, or as they themselves had been before. Some recognised, indeed, that they were in a higher state, but it was one which, in some of its outward features, had a counterfeit like- ness in the lower. When Paul uses — in Eph. v, 18, 19 {jTXi)povtj^f Trvtufiarog) — the all but self-same woril which Luke uses here to describe the state of the dis- ciples (tTrX/'jff^/jrrn)' irvivparoQ ayiov), it is to contrast it with "being drunk with wine," to associate it with " psalms and hymns, and spiritual songs."
(J) Questions as to the mode of operation of a pov>-er above the common laws of bodily or mental life lead us to a region where our words should be " wary and few." There is a risk of seeming to reduce to the known or- der of nature that which is by confession above and be- yond it. In this and in other cases, however, it may be possible, without irreverence or doubt — following the guidance which Scripture itself gives us — to trace in what way the new power did its work, and brought about such wonderful results. It must be remembered, then, that in all likelihood similar words to those which they then uttered had been heard by the disciples be- fore. At every feast which they had ever attended from their youth up, they must have been brought into contact with a crowd as varied as that which w.as pres- ent on the day of Pentecost, the pilgrims of each nation uttering their praises and doxologies. The difference was that, before, the Galilaian peasants had stood in that crowd neither heeding nor understanding nor remem- bering what they heard, still less able to reproduce it ; now, they had the power of speaking it clearly and freely.