Tongues, Love, and Perfect Knowledge

Those gifts are given to the unworthy for the building up of the church, but the achievement of love belongs to the pious man. Therefore he says: lay hold of the better gifts. And I show you a way that leads you to the enjoyment of the superior gifts, namely the way of love; for the one loving fulfills the law. And the one fulfilling the law is well-pleasing. And the one being well-pleasing receives a spiritual gift.

Because he saw them desiring those who possess the gifts, but not warming the love, he teaches that love is the most supreme good; for those gifts are such that even to the unworthy they were given for the building up of the church, but the achievement of love is the own property of the pious man. So he says the way of love leads us to the enjoyment of the superior gifts; for what is higher than the gift of love which fulfills all the law?

And what tongue of angels, with whom there is no chest, no larynx, no tongue, no voice? But rather, as Moses says in Deuteronomy, God set limits of nations according to the number of the angels of God—and clearly He set them when He divided into tongues those attempting to build the tower—because they no longer guarded a common concord but, as if they were made strangers to one another by the changes of language, angels were set, so that each might guard the nation to which he was entrusted, and nothing might be consumed or perish. Because of this, he calls the difference of languages the tongues of angels.

And it must be known that just as David says 'bread of angels' not as something for eating, so also 'tongues of angels' is not for speaking; for this too is as ministering to the decree of God. Human language is that which is trained—for this is acquired, unlike the natural kind—but the language of angels is that which is divided into many by nature. I have become a sounding bronze or a clanging cymbal.

From here it appears that he calls the alternation and difference of languages the tongues of angels; for the one speaking in other tongues to those who do not know them is like a cymbal producing only a sound, without any meaning being shown. He calls human language rhetorical, grammatical, philosophical, intellectual, compositional, technical, and dialectical. But what tongue is it among angels, with whom there is no chest, no larynx, no voice, nor anything else bodily?

Regarding the tongues, he speaks of the differences of languages which the angels established according to the dispersion at the tower, so that each might guard what was entrusted to a nation. Just as we understand a bread of angels to be that which is provided through the command of the angels—not that the angels were eating, but that the angels were commanded to provide—so also the tongues of angels are the differences of languages which angels established. He spoke of the differences of languages as the clanging of a bronze trumpet and a cymbal; for when someone does not know what is being spoken in another language, the speaker is to him like a meaningless cymbal, and the meaning is not made manifest.

Everything that is unknown is called a mystery, but it is revealed by the power of the Spirit. This is one mystery, as he says elsewhere: 'For I do not want you to be ignorant of this mystery,' and again, 'Behold, I say a mystery to us.' After a little while he teaches what love is, where he says: 'Love is patient' and the following. Therefore, to show mercy is one thing and to love is another, yet even to give one's substance to the poor and to give oneself up for martyrdom—if this happens through word alone regarding love, it falls into vanity and empty ambition. Therefore, whether we give because of love for the receiver, or because we are giving on behalf of the God who commanded, and whether we bear witness because of love for the Lord, this we must endure. Love never fails, that is, it never slips into sin. The partial is done away when the whole knowledge is given; for we know but a little of the many things still hidden.

As he says, when I was a child, I had the thoughts of an infant, but having passed into a mature man, I have the mind; no longer merely knowing the father as father, but also what kind of father he is. In the same way, that I know now in part, this I shall learn in the perfect time. And what now is as if in a dim mirror, this I shall know clearly in the time. He did not say 'I will know the mysteries then,' which would follow, but 'I shall be known'; for the one who is known by God and made His own, such a one attains the direct sight of the mysteries. Lest all knowledge being revealed to us, there remains to us the believing that all knowledge shall be revealed to us.