Homilies on First Corinthians

“But if there be no interpreter, let him keep silence in the Church; and let him speak to himself, and to God.”

What do you say, tell me? Having spoken so much of tongues, that the gift is a thing unprofitable, a thing superfluous, if it have no interpreter, do you command again to speak with tongues? I do not command, says he, neither do I forbid; as when he says, “if any of them that believe not bid you to a feast and you be disposed to go,” he says it not laying down a law for them to go, but not hindering them: so likewise here. “And let him speak to himself and to God.” If he endure not to be silent, says he, but is so ambitious and vain-glorious, “let him speak by himself.” And thus, by the very fact of so permitting, he greatly checked and put them to shame. Which he does also elsewhere, discoursing of converse with a wife and saying, “But this I say because of your incontinency.” But not so did he speak, when he was discoursing of prophecy. How then? In a tone of command and legislation: “Let the prophets speak, two or three.” And he no where here seeks the interpreter, nor does he stop the mouth of him that prophesies as under the former head, saying, “If there be no interpreter, let him keep silence;” because in fact he who speaks in a tongue is not sufficient of himself. Wherefore if any has both gifts, let him speak. But if he has not, yet wish to speak, let him do so with the interpreter's aid. For the prophet is an interpreter, but of God; whereas you are of man. “But if there be no interpreter, let him keep silence:” for nothing ought to be done superfluously, nothing for ambition. Only “let him speak to himself and to God;” i.e., mentally, or quietly and without noise: at least, if he will speak. For this is surely not the tone of one making a law, but it may be of one who shames them more even by his permission; as when he says, “but if any hunger, let him eat at home:” and seeming to give permission, he touches them hereby the more sharply. “For you come not together for this purpose,” says he, “that you may show that you have a gift, but that you may edify the hearers;” which also he before said, “Let all things be done unto edifying.”