ACC ~ Acts 2 v4

THE CHURCH: A GATHERING OF LANGUAGES. LEO THE GREAT: O how swift is the speech of wisdom! Where God is the teacher, how quickly is that learned which is being taught! No interpretation is used in order to understand, no practice is needed in order to use it. No time is needed to study, but, with the “Spirit” of truth “blowing wherever he pleases,” the particular voices of each distinct people become familiar in the mouth of the church.

From this day the trumpet of the gospel teaching resounds. From this day showers of graces and streams of benedictions water all the desert and every wasteland, to “renew the face of the earth,” “God’s Spirit hovered over the water.”To take away the old darkness, beams of new light flash out, when by the splendor of those glowing tongues, the Word of the Lord becomes “clear” and “speech takes fire.” Both the force of giving light and the power of burning were present for this reason, to create knowledge and to destroy sin. SERMON 75.2.

TONGUES SIGNIFY A VARIETY OF GRACES. BEDE: The church’s humility recovers the unity of languages that the pride of Babylon had shattered. Spiritually, however, the variety of languages signifies gifts of a variety of graces. Truly therefore, it is not inconsistent to understand that the Holy Spirit first gave to human beings the gift of languages, by which human wisdom is both learned and taught extrinsically, so that he might thereby show how easily he can make people wise through the wisdom of God, which is within them. COMMENTARY ON THE ACTS OF THE APOSTLES 2.4.

SINAI AND PENTECOST: THE CONTRAST. AUGUSTINE: Now, amid this admirable correspondence, there is at least this very considerable difference in the cases, in that the people in the earlier instance were deterred by a horrible dread from approaching the place where the law was given; whereas in the other case the Holy Spirit came upon them who were gathered together in expectation of his promised gift. There it was on tables of stone that the finger of God operated; here it was on the hearts of people. There the law was given outwardly, so that the unrighteous might be terrified; here it was given inwardly, so that they might be justified. For this, “Thou shalt not commit adultery, Thou shalt not kill, Thou shalt not covet; and if there be any other commandment”—such, of course, as was written on those tables—“it is briefly comprehended,” says he, “in this saying, namely, Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. Love works no ill to his neighbor: therefore love is the fulfilling of the law.” Now this was not written on the tables of stone but “is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Spirit, who is given to us.” God’s law, therefore, is love. “To it the carnal mind is not subject, neither indeed can be;”but when the works of love are written on tables to alarm the carnal mind, there arises the law of works and “the letter which kills” the transgressor; but when love itself is shed abroad in the hearts of believers, then we have the law of faith and the Spirit which gives life to one who loves. ON THE SPIRIT AND THE LETTER 17.29.

TWO BESTOWALS OF THE SPIRIT? AUGUSTINE: For the Lord has transacted even this explicit imparting of the Holy Spirit not once but twice. For later when he arose from the dead, breathing on them, he said, “Receive the Holy Spirit.” Then because he gave him at that time, did he therefore not also later send him whom he promised? Or is this not the same Holy Spirit who was both breathed by him then and later sent by him from heaven? Therefore, why his giving, which clearly was done, was done twice is another question. Perhaps this double giving of him was done in manifestation of the two commandments of love, that is of neighbor and of God, in order that love might be shown to belong to the Holy Spirit. And if another reason must be sought, this discourse must not now by an inquiry into it be expanded to greater length than it ought, yet let it be established that without the Holy Spirit we cannot love Christ and keep his commandments. We can and do keep his commandments less as we receive him less, but so much the more as we receive him more.

Accordingly, not only to one who does not have him but also to one who does, he is not promised to no purpose: to the one not having, that he may be had, but to the one having, that he may be had more. For if he were not had less by the one, more by the other, the holy Elisha would not say to the holy Elijah, “May the spirit who is in you be in me in double measure.” TRACTATES ON THE GOSPEL OF JOHN 74.2.2-3.

THE SPEECH OF BABYLON AND PENTECOST. CYRIL OF JERUSALEM: The Galilean Peter or Andrew spoke Persian or Median. John and the other apostles spoke all the tongues of various nations, for the thronging of multitudes of strangers from all parts is not something new in Jerusalem, but this was true in apostolic times. What teacher can be found so proficient as to teach people in a moment what they have not learned? So many years are required through grammar and other arts merely to speak Greek well; and all do not speak it equally well. The rhetorician may succeed in speaking it well, the grammarian sometimes less well; and one who is skilled in grammar is ignorant of philosophical studies. But the Spirit taught them at once many languages, which they do not know in a whole lifetime. This is truly lofty wisdom. This is divine power. What a contrast between their long ignorance in the past and this sudden, comprehensive, varied and unaccustomed use of languages. The multitude of those listening was confounded; it was a second confusion, in contrast to the first evil confusion at Babylon. In that former confusion of tongues there was a division of purpose, for the intention was impious. Here there was a restoration and union of minds, since the object of their zeal was righteous. Through what occasioned the fall came the recovery. CATECHETICAL LECTURE 17.16-17.

THE ELOQUENCE THAT COMES FROM UNITY. CASSIODORUS: “He heard a tongue which he knew not.” We must interpret tongue here as the precepts of the New Testament, for if you understand it as “language,” how did the Jewish people hear a tongue that they did not know, when we are sure that the Lord Christ spoke in Hebrew? So the passage means that in the gospel they heard a tongue or precepts that their earlier knowledge did not embrace; alternatively it refers to the time when the apostles were filled with the Holy Spirit and spoke in unknown and varied tongues. EXPOSITION OF THE PSALMS 80.6.