Chrysostom (347-407):
1) “This whole place [i.e., I Corinthians 14 and its treatment of tongues] is very obscure; but the obscurity is produced by our ignorance of the facts referred to and by their cessation, being such as then used to occur but now no longer take place. And why do they not happen now? Why look now, the cause too of the obscurity hath produced us again another question: namely, why did they then happen, and now do so no more?” (Homilies on I Corinthians, 29).
2) “The Corinthians thought that speaking in tongues was a great gift because it was the one which the apostles received first, and with a great display. But this was no reason to think it was the greatest gift of all. The reason the apostles got it first was because it was a sign that they were to go everywhere, preaching the gospel.” (Homilies on I Corinthians, 35.1).
Augustine (354-430): “In the earliest times, ‘the Holy Ghost fell upon them that believed; and they spake with tongues,’ which they had not learned, ‘as the Spirit gave them utterance’ [Acts 2:4]. These were signs adapted to the time. For there behooved to be that betokening of the Holy Spirit in all tongues, to shew that the Gospel of God was to run through all tongues over the whole earth. That thing was done for a betokening, and it passed away” (Homilies on the First Epistle of John 6.10).
