1 Corinthians 13:1

“Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, and have not charity, I am only a sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal.”

Hitherto the apostle had put the gift of tongues at the end of each of his lists (1 Corinthians 12:10; 1 Corinthians 12:28; 1 Corinthians 12:30). Here he puts it foremost, because now he rises from the least valuable to the most useful gift. To give assurance of his perfect impartiality in the valuation he proceeds to make, he supposes himself exercising this gift, as indeed he really possessed it in a rare degree (1 Corinthians 14:18). And to express its insufficiency more forcibly, he does not consider it only as it appeared in the Church of Corinth, and was an object of ambition to its members; he raises it hypothetically to the most magnificent realization of it possible. Paul supposes himself in possession of the languages of all thinking and speaking beings, terrestrial and celestial. Some, Thiersch for example, refer the term tongues of men to the various tongues spoken by the apostles on the day of Pentecost, and tongues of angels to the gift of tongues as it flourished at Corinth. The former of these terms would thus designate the real tongues spoken by different nations: Arabic, Latin, etc. But independently of the question relating to the nature of the gift of tongues on the day of Pentecost, a question which we shall afterwards treat (chap. 14 end), by thus identifying the gift of tongues at Corinth with the tongues of angels, the apostle would have raised it even above that gift in the form in which it appeared at Pentecost, which is impossible. For the gift in its original form remains of course the perfect type of that kind of spiritual manifestation. Paul therefore simply means: “Imagine a man endowed with all the powers of terrestrial and celestial language....” It is inconceivable how Meyer, with this passage before him, can persist in applying the term tongue to the physical organ of speech, which would lead to the meaning: “Though I had in my mouth, I, Paul, the tongues of millions of men and of angels.”

In translating I have rendered the word ἀγάπη by the term charity, rather than by love. And for this reason: our word love combines two notions which are expressed in Greek by two different words: ἀγάπη and ἔρως. The second denotes the love of desire, which seeks its own satisfaction in the being loved, love as it appears to us in Plato's beautiful myth (in the Symposium), where it is represented as the son of poverty and wealth; it is this shade of meaning particularly which attaches in French to the word love (amour). But the Greek language knows another love, the love of complacency, which is much more disinterested, which contemplates, approves, and yields itself: this is ἀγάπη, a word which is certainly related to the verb ἄγαμαι, to admire. To this term it seems to me the word charity better corresponds. In our passage the feeling expressed by ἀγάπη is mainly love of our neighbour (1 Corinthians 13:4-7); now this love, being according to Paul an emanation from the love of God, takes the character of disinterestedness, purity, and freeness which distinguishes Divine love.

But how are we to suppose speaking in tongues apart from faith, and faith divorced from charity which is its fruit? Is not the apostle's supposition merely a threat fitted to alarm his readers? Experience proves that a man, after opening his heart with faith to the joy of salvation, may very soon cease to walk in the way of sanctification, shrink from complete self-surrender, and, while making progress in mystical feeling, become more full of self and devoid of love than he ever was. Such is the issue of the religious sybaritism of which revivals furnish so many examples. Christianity, instead of acting as a principle of devotion, turns into poetry, sentimentality, and fine speaking. It may even happen that, after a real and serious conversion, love may be at first developed in the heart and life, but afterwards, in consequence of some practical unfaithfulness, and through a want of vigilance, leading to spiritual pride, charity may be gradually chilled. The gifts originally received remain in some measure, but the inner life has disappeared. In this second case, the perfect γέγονα, “ I have become and am for the future,” is still more easily explained than in the first. The apostle's thought might therefore be rendered thus: “If, after giving myself to Christ, I became the most eminent Christian poet the Church had, and my heart were void of charity...”

The two terms brass and cymbal, which denote, the one a piece of unwrought metal, struck to produce sound, the other the concave plate, used so frequently in the East as a musical instrument, perfectly describe the inflation of an exalted imagination, and an over-excited sensibility. Religious language is then no longer the natural over-flowing of a heart filled with love; it resembles the resonant sound of a dead and hollow instrument. We might apply the word χαλκός, brass, as we sometimes do in French, to the trumpet; but, as Meyer says, Paul begins with a vague expression to pass to one more specific. Suidas says that the expression δωδωναῖον χαλκεῖον was a proverbial name for those who speak much and do nothing (Heinrici). The word ἀλαλάζον denotes in general what makes a great noise, such as a war-cry.