11. I shall be to him that speaketh a barbarian (822) The tongue ought to be an index of the mind — not merely in the sense of the proverb, but in the sense that is explained by Aristotle in the commencement of his book — “On Interpretation.” (823) How foolish then it is and preposterous in a man, to utter in an assembly a voice of which the hearer understands nothing — in which he perceives no token from which he may learn what the person means! It is not without good reason, therefore, that Paul views it as the height of absurdity, that a man should be a barbarian to the hearers, by chattering in an unknown tongue, and at the same time he elegantly treats with derision the foolish ambition of the Corinthians, who were eager to obtain praise and fame by this means. “This reward,” says he, “you will earn — that you will be a barbarian.” For the term barbarian, whether it be an artificial one, (as Strabo thinks, (824)) or derived from some other origin, is taken in a bad sense. Hence the Greeks, who looked upon themselves as the only persons who were good speakers, and had a polished language, gave to all others the name of barbarians, from their rude and rustic dialect. No language, however, is so cultivated as not to be reckoned barbarous, when it is not understood. “ He that heareth,” says Paul, “ will be unto me a barbarian, and I will be so to him in return.” By these words he intimates, that to speak in an unknown tongue, is not to hold fellowship with the Church, but rather to keep aloof from it, and that he who will act this part, will be deservedly despised by others, because he first despises them.
(822) “The Greeks, after the custom of the Egyptians, mentioned by; Herodotus, (lib. 2,) called all those barbarians who did not speak their language. In process of time, however, the Romans having subdued the Greeks, delivered themselves by the force of arms from that opprobrious appellation; and joined the Greeks in calling all barbarians who did not speak either the Greek or the Latin language. Afterwards, barbarian signified any one who spoke a language which another did not understand. Thus the Scythian philosopher, Anacharsis, said, that among the Athenians the Scythians were barbarians; and among the Scythians the Athenians were barbarians. In like manner Ovid. Trist. 5. 10, ‘ Barbarus hic ego sum, quia non intelligor ulli;’ — ‘I am a barbarian here, because I am not understood by any one.’ This is the sense which the Apostle affixes to the word barbarian, in the present passage. McKnight. — Ed.
(823) “ La langue doit estre comme vn image, pour expimer et representer ce qui est en l’entendement;” — “The tongue should be like an image, to express and represent what is in the understanding.”
(824) He considers the term βάρβαρος, (barbarian,) to be a term constructed in imitation of the sense — to convey the idea of one that speaks with difficulty and harshness. See Strabo, Book 14. Bloomfield considers the term barbarian to be derived — “not” as some think, “from the Arabic berber, to murmur, but from the Punic berber, a shepherd — having been originally appropriated to the indigenous and pastoral inhabitants of Africa; who, to their more civilized fellow-men on the other side of the Mediterranean, appeared rustics and barbarians. Hence the term βάρβαρος came at length to mean a rustic or clown. ” — Ed