Page:Catholic Encyclopedia, volume 14.djvu/855

 TONICA

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TONICA

Bumably underrated. It was the Holy Ghost who impelled the disciples "to speak", without perhaps being obhged to infuse a knowledge of tongues un- known. The physical and psychic coniiition of the auditors was one of ecstasy and rapture in which "the wonderful tilings of God" would naturally find utterance in acclamations, praj'ers or hymns, conned, if not already known, during the preceding week, when they were "always in the temple", side by side with the strangers from afar, "praising and blessing God" (Luke, .\.xiv, 52, 53).

Subsequent manifestations occurred at Caesarea, Palsstina, Ephesus, and Corinth, all polyglottal regions. St. Peter identifies that of Caesarea with what befell the disciples "in the beginning" (Acts, .xi, 15). There, as at J^phesus and Jerusalem, the strange incident marked the baptism of several converts, who operated in groups. Corinth, standing apart in this and other respects, is reserved for special study. In post-Bibhcal times St. Irenjcus tells that "many" of his contemporaries were heard "speaking through the Spirit in all kinds {TramoSairaTs) of tongues " ("Contra hser.", V, vii; Eusebius, "Hist, eccl.", V, vii). St. Francis Xavier is said to have preached in tongues imknown to him and St. Vincent Ferrer while using his native tongue was understood in others. From this last phenomenon Biblical glosso- laly differs in being what St. Gregorj- Nazianzen points out as a marvel of speaking and not of hearing. Exegetos observe too that it was never used for preaching, although Sts. .\ugustine and Thomas seem to have overlo<jked this detail.

St. Paul's Concept (I Cor., xii-xiv). — For the Biblical data thus far examined we are indebted to the bosom friend and companion of St. Paul — St. Luke. That being true, the views of St. Paul on superna- tural glossolaly must have coincided with those of St. Luke. Now St. Paul had seen the gift conferred at Ephesus and St. Luke does not distinguish Ephe- sian glossolalj' from that of Jerusalem. They must therefore have been alike and St. Paul seems to have had both in mind when he commanded the Corin- thians (xiv, 37) to employ none but articulate and "plain speech" in their use of the gift (9), and to refrain from such use in church unless even the un- learned could grasp what was said (16). No tongue could be genuine "without voice" and to use such a tongue would be the act of a barbarian (10, 11). For him the impulse to praise God in one or more strange tongues should proceed from the Holy Ghost. It was even then an inferior gift which he ranked next to last in a Ust of eight charismata. It was a mere "sign" and as such was intended not for behevers but for un believers (22).

Corinthian Abuses (I Cor., xiv passim). — Medieval and modern writers wrongly take it for granted that the charism existed permanently at Corinth — as it did nowhere else — and that St. Paul, in commending the gift to the Corinthians, therewith gave his guaranty that the characteristics of Corinthian glossolaly were those of the gift itself. Traditional writers in over- looking this point place St. Luke at variance with St. Paul, and attribute to the charism properties so con- trary as to make it inexplicable and prohibitively mysterious. There is enough in St. Paul to show us that the Corinthian peculiarities were ignoble ac- cretions and abuses. They made of "tongties" a source of schism in the Church and of scandal with- out (xiv, 23). The charism had deteriorated into a mixture of meaningless inarticulate gabble (9, 10) with an element of uncertain sounds (7, 8), which sometimes might be construed as little short of blas- phemous fxii. 3). The Divine praises were recognized now and then, but the general effect was one of con- fusion and disedification for the very imbelievers for whom the normal gift was intended (xiv, 22, 23, 26). The Corinthians, misled not by insincerity but by

simplicity and ignorance (20), were actuated by an undisciplined religious spirit iirveSiui), or rather by frenzied emotions and not by the understanding (roCs) or the Spirit of God (1.5). What to-day pur- ports to be the "gift of tongues" at certain Protes- tant revivals is a fair reproduction of Corinthian glossolaly, and shows the need there was in the primi- tive Church of the .\postle's counsel to do all things "decently, and according to order" (40).

Faithful adherence to the text of Sacred Scripture makes it obligatory to reject those opinions which turn the charism of tongues into little more than infantile babbling (Eichhoni, Schmidt, Neander), incoherent exclamations (Meyer I, i)ylhonic utterances (Wiseler), or prophetic demonstrations of the archaic kind (see I Kings, xix, 20, 24). The unalloyed charism was as much an exercise of the intelligence as of the emotions. Languages or dialects, now Koiraf! (Mark, .v\i, 17) for their present purpose, and now sponta- neously borrowed by the conservative Hebrew from Gentile foreigners (erepoyXdijaois, x*'^"''"' ir^pav, I Cor., xiv, 21), were used as never before. But they were understood even by those who used them. Most Latin commentators have believed the contrary, but the ancient Greeks, St. Cyril of Alexandria, Theodoret, and others who were nearer the scene, agree to it and the testimony of the texts as above studied seems to bear them out. (See Ch.\rismata.)

CoRLUT in Jauget, Did. npoloaelique (Paris, 1889); Melville, Observationes th€ologico-ext!• ■iuun linguarum etc. (Ba-sle, 1816); HiLQENFELD, Dit (, alien Kirche (Leipzig.

1850); FouARD, St. Paul, ■ i I". 1892); Bleek, Ueber

die Gabe etc. in Theolo^' Kritiken. II (1829);

Reuss, La glossolalie [a K', .. Ill (Strasburg, 1851):

Sheppard. The Gtft of Tonguix ,„ ihr Early Church in Amer. Eccl. Rev., XLII (Philadelphia, May, 1910), 513-22; Reilly, The Gift of Tongues, What was ilf in Amer. Eccl. Rev XLIII (Philadelphia. July, 1910), 3-25.

Thos. a K. Reilly.

Tonica Indians (or Tunica). — A small tribe con- stituting a distinct linguistic stock hving. when first known to the French, in small villages on the lower Yazoo river, Mississippi, in alliance with the Yazoo and Ofogula, and numbering perhaps 700. Their tribal name signifies "the people". They may be identical with the people of "Tanico", encountered by the De Soto ex-pedition in 1.540, apparently about north-eastern Louisiana. Their definite history begins in the summer of 1698 with the visit of the missionary priests of the Quebec Seminary of Foreign Missions, Fathers Montigny, Davion, and La Source. They had been decimated just before by a smallpox epi- demic, which had ravaged the whole lower Mississippi countrj', and numbers were still dying, of whom several, including a chief, received baptism. In the next year Fr. .\ntoine Davion established a mission among them, studying their language and ministering to the allied tribes. In this year the French com- mander Iberville visited them, and in 1700 the Jesuit, Father Jacques Gravier, descending the Mississippi, stopped off to wait upon Davion, who wa.s prostrated by fever. The Tonica were noted for their affection and loyalty toward the French. This may have been due in part to their lack of kin.ship with any of the surrounding tribes. In the fall of 1702 Fr. Nicholas Foucault, of the same order, who had arrived in the ])revioug year to assist Davion, was murdered with three other Frenchmen, while a.sleep, by treach- erous Koroa guides in collusion with the Yazoo. In consequence of these murders Father Davion retired to the French fort at Mobile until, at the urgent request of a delegation of Tonica chiefs, who promised full reparation upon the guilty ones, he returned, probably in 1705. In 1706, in consequence of Chick- a-saw raids instigated by the Carolina slave-traders, the Tonica fled across the Mississippi and settled near the mouth of Red River, Fr. Davion accom- panying them. Their neighbours, the Taensa, were hkcwise compelled to remove bj' the same enemy.