For if I pray in an unknown tongue, my spirit prays, but my understanding is unfruitful.
All Commentaries on 1 Corinthians 14:14 Go To 1 Corinthians 14
Cornelius a Lapide
AD 1637
For if I pray in an unknown tongue my spirit prayeth. (1.) My spirit is refreshed; (2.) according to S. Chrysostom, the gift of the Holy Spirit which is in me prayeth, makes me pray and utter my prayer in public. (3.) Theophylact and Erasmus, following S. Basil, understand breath by spirit; in other words, My voice, produced by the vital and vocal breath, prays; but my mind is unfruitful, because it does not understand the meaning of the words uttered. Primasius, too, says that the word "spirit" here is to be understood of prayers uttered sometimes while the mind is thinking of something else. But the first is the true sense, and best fits in with what follows. S. Thomas, commenting on this clause, gives three other meanings, but they are not those in the Apostle"s mind.
But my understanding is unfruitful. S. Chrysostom, Theophylact, Ambrose, S. Thomas, and Cajetan think that the Apostle is speaking here of those who had received the gift of tongues, but who, like Balaam"s ass, did not understand what they said, or at all events did not enter into the mysteries contained in their words. S. Augustine says the same (de Gen. ad Litt. lib. xii. c8,9), and it is gathered from ver28. For these prayed without fruit in such tongues; for, though their spirit fed on God in pious devotion, yet their mind was not fed on any understanding, of the words of the prayer.
But I say that the Greek νοΰς here is the same as "meaning." It is so rendered in the Latin in ver19 , and in chap. ii16 , and in Rev. xvii9 , where we read, "Here is the meaning" (of the vision of the beast) "which hath wisdom." S. Paul makes the same distinction between the tongue and the mind, or the letter and the spirit, which is so common amongst rhetoricians. "Sense" or meaning here is passive understanding, that by which I am understood by all—not active, by which I understand things. This "mind," or signification of tongues, is without fruit, because no one takes it in, and no one is aroused to devotion. This is the natural meaning, and S. Basil seems to hold it (in Reg. Brev. Interrog278).
Secondly, Å’cumenius and Theodoret give an explanation which is not improbable: My mind, or my aim and object, is without fruit, not on the part of the speaker but the hearer, whom the speaker strives to excite to piety. It is certain, from vers14 , 16,19 , that S. Paul is speaking of fruit on the side of the hearers; for he is speaking of the prayers and spiritual songs which some of the laity composed under the influence of the Holy Spirit, and uttered in public, or sang in the church at the time of their spiritual feasts, for the comfort, instruction, or exhortation of the people. He wishes them to be said in the vulgar tongue, so as to be understood by all; otherwise, he says, they would be fruitless.
You will perhaps say that the Mass and Canonical Hours ought then to be said now in the vulgar tongue. I deny that this follows, for the Apostle is speaking of the prayers which any lay person might compose for the edification or quickening of the people, not of the public Divine offices, which the clergy now perform with the approbation, not to say at the command, and in the name of the whole Church, to worship and praise God with a solemn and uniform majesty in Latin. For if the vernacular tongue were used, it would come to pass (1.) that the uneducated would not understand Divine mysteries, or rather they would misunderstand them, and accept heretical opinions; (2.) the language would have to vary with the countries, or even with the cities. Although all the Germans speak the same language, yet each province has a different idiom: the Westphalians have one, the Swiss another, the Hessians another, and so on. And so if the Divine office were said in the vernacular, in such a difference of dialects division would arise, and sacred things would be ridiculed and despised.
You will urge, secondly, perhaps that the people do not understand Latin: what fruit then have they from the Latin Mass? I answer, (1.) They participate in the sacrifice and also the sacrament if they wish to; (2.) in all the prayers which the priest offers for all men, and especially for those present; (3.) they are inflamed by the decent rites and ceremonies to devotion and elevation of their souls to God in private prayer, especially since parish priests are bound, by the Council of Trent (sess. xxii. c8), to explain the service to the people in their sermons. See Bellarmine (de Verbo. Dei. lib. ii. c16).
