Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, and have not charity, I am become as sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal.
Ver. 1. Though I speak with the tongues] The Corinthians gloried much in this gift of tongues; but this a man may have, and yet perish, as Mithridates, who is said to have spoken two and twenty languages. And Cleopatra was a great linguist, she could give answers to Ethiopian, Hebrew, Arabic, Syrian, Median, and Parthian ambassadors, saith Plutarch; yea, she could turn and tune her tongue as an instrument of many strings to what dialect she pleased, την γλωτταν ωσπερ οργανον τι πολυχορδον ευπετως τρεπουσα ..
And of angels] Not that angels have tongues; as neither have they wings, though they are said to fly, and even unto weariness of fight, Daniel 9:21. A certain friar undertook to show to the people a feather of the angel Gabriel's wing, and so verified the old proverb, "a friar, a liar." But the apostle here useth a high kind of expression, such as is used Acts 6:15; Psalms 78:25. Unless, perhaps, saith Chrysostom here, the angels have suo modo sua colloquia. The schoolmen have great disputes about it, and tell us that when an angel hath a conceit in his mind of anything, with a desire that another should understand it, it is enough, it is done immediately. But are not these they that intrude into those things that they have not seen? Colossians 2:18, understanding neither what they say nor whereof they affirm, 1 Timothy 1:7. Like unto these are our new millenaries, that upon a mistake of some high expressions in Scripture, which describe the judgments poured out upon God's enemies in making a way to the Jews' conversion by the pattern of the last judgment, think that Jesus Christ shall come from heaven again, and reign here upon earth a thousand years. (See Mr Cotton's Sixth Vial.)
Or a tinkling cymbal] Sounding only for pleasure, but signifying nothing. Tiberius the emperor was wont to call Apion the grammarian cymbalum orbis, the cymbal of the world, for his much prattle. (Sueton.) And Jerome inveighs against some in his time, qui verbis tinnulis et emendicath utebantur, that used only tinkling and tickling words, without weight or worth.