ABSTRACT
If glossolalia were ever a regular practice of the Christian Church, it soon disappeared. It may have survived under the name ‘prophecy’ which seems sometimes to have included speaking in tongues. Justin Martyr, a contemporary of Irenaeus, says that in his time spiritual gifts were active in the Church, but nowhere specifically mentions tongues. Although Pachomius’ exploits, recorded a hundred years later, were probably legendary, the account of them proves the acceptability of tongues in the fourth century. The sign of tongues for the individual believer had been replaced by the presence in him of Christian love. Protestants before Protestantism, some of the Waldenses, founded by Peter Waldo in 1170, are also said to have spoken in tongues. Tongues of angels’ meant ‘pure reason’, since angels are purely intellectual beings and their speech must be pure reason. Catholic teaching that tongues was normally a sign of devil-possession limited their appearance before the Reformation.
