gIo
1 See xii. το. ! , ey we m See xi.20. προφητεία οὐ τοις n Rom. xvi.
23; Acts
22.
o See ver. 16.
p Acts xii. 15, XXVi. 24 f.; Jo. x. 20; Jer. xxxvi. 26; Wisd. xiv. 28.
, - ἀπίστοις, ἀλλὰ τοῖς πιστεύουσιν.
x: ) q See xi. 5. Jo. iii. 20, viii. 46, xvi. 8, etc.; -γμος, 2 Tim. iii. 16.
23. ἐὰν
οὖν ''συνέλθη] "Hh 3" ἐκκλησία "ὅλη " ἐπὶ τὸ "' αὐτὸ καὶ πάντες
v.11, xv. Ἀγλώσσαις ” "λαλῶσιν,” εἰσέλθωσι δὲ Οἰδιῶται ἢ }ἄπιστοι, οὐκ col @ ,
ἐροῦσιν ὅτι } µαίνεσθε; 24. ἐὰν δὲ πάντες Ἱπροφητεύωσιν, εἰσέλθῃ
κ» δέ τις " ἄπιστος ἢ "ἰδιώτης, " ἐλέγχεται ὑπὸ πάντων, " ἀνακρίνεται
τ Eph. ν. 11, 13; five times in Pastt.: s See ii. 14.
1ελθη: BGer. συν easily lost in foregoing ουν. Σλαλωσιν γλωσσαις (in this order): all uncc. but DKL. Πβδλαλησωσιν.
D puts παντες last.
the lips of foreign conquerors (11), i whose speech the despisers of the mild, plain teaching of His servants (12) shall painfully spell out their ruin. The ὅτι (ki) is part of the citation: ‘‘ For in men of alien tongue and in lips of aliens I will speak to this people; and not even thus will they hearken to me, saith the Lord’’.. God spoke to Israel through the strange Assyrian tongue in retribu- tion, not to confirm their faith but to consummate their unbelief. The Glos- solalia may serve a similar melancholy purpose in the Church. This analogy does not support, any more than that of vv. το f, (see notes), the notion that the Tongues of Corinth were foreign lan- guages.—eioaxotw, to hear with atten- tion, effect, shares the meaning of ὑπα- xovw (obedio) in the LXX and in cl. Gr.
Ver. 22. The real point of the above citation from Isaiah comes out in ὥστε αἱ γλῶσσαι eis σημεῖόν κ.τ.λ., “And so the tongues are for a sign not to the believing, but to the unbelievers ’’—sc. to **those who will not hear,’’ who hav- ing rejected other modes of instruction find their unbelief confirmed, and even justified (236), by thisphenomenon. This interpretation (cf. Matt. xvi. 4; and for εἰς σημεῖον in the judicial sense, Is. viii. 18) is dictated by the logical connexion of vv. 21, 22, which forbids the thought of a convincing and saving sign, read into this passage by Cm. and many others. P. desires to quench rather than stimu- late the Cor. ardour for Tongues.— ἡ δὲ προφητεία κ.τ.λ., “ while prophecy on the other hand” (δέ) serves the op- posite purpose—it “‘ (is for a sign) not to the unbelievers, but tothe believing’. of πιστεύοντες implies the act continued into a habit (cf. i. 21); of ἄπιστοι, the determinate character. For ὥστε with ind., see note on iii. 7.
Ver. 23 shows the disastrous impres- sion which the exercise of the Tongues,
cattied to its full extent, must make upon men outside—a result that follows (οὖν) from the aforesaid intention of the gift (22): ‘‘If then the entire Church should assemble together and all should be speaking with tongues, but there should enter uninstructed persons or unbelievers, will they not say that you are mad!” If the Tongues are, as many Cor. think, the highest manifestation of the Spirit, then to have the whole Church simul- taneously so speaking would be the πε plus ultra of spiritual power; but, in fact, the Church would then resemble nothing so much as a congregation of lunatics! A reductio ad absurvdum for the fanatical coveters of Tongues.—The ἰδιῶται (here unqualified: otherwise in 16; cf. note) are persons unacquainted with Christianity (altogether uninitiated) and receiving their first impression of it in this way, whereas the ἄπιστοι are rejectors of the faith. The impression made upon either party will be the same. The effect here imagined is altogether diff. from that of the Day of Pentecost, when the “other tongues” spoke in- telligibly to those religiously susceptible amongst non-believers (Acts ii. rz ff.). The imputation of madness from men of the world P. earnestly deprecates (Acts xxvi. 24 f.).—Ed. renders ἰδιῶται ‘“‘ separ- atists ’—unattached Christians; but this interpretation wants lexical support, and is out of keeping with ver. 16: did any such class of Christians then exist? Vv. 24, 25. How diff. (δέ) and how blessed the result, ‘‘if all should be pro- phesying and there should enter some unbeliever or stranger to Christianity ἀδιώτης: see previous note), he is con- victed by all, he is searched by all, the secret things of his heart become mani- fest; and so he will fall on his face and worship God, reporting that verily God is among you!” ‘This brings out two further notes of eminence in the charism of