St. Paul on Glossolalia and Interpreting
In chapter 14 of his first letter to the Corinthians, the Apostle Paul takes an strong stand on glossolalia that also became the emerging Christian church's first policy statement on translation--and specifically, and most interestingly for my purposes, on translation as spirit-channeling. To be sure, Paul does not explicitly state that the glossolalists in the early churches are channeling individual discarnate spirits, the usual meaning of spirit-channeling. But their ability to speak in tongues that they do not know is traditionally attributed to possession by the Holy Spirit; glossolalia is considered one of the "gifts of the spirit" or charisms. And clearly the ability to speak a foreign language that you've never studied--perhaps to which you've never even been exposed--is only imaginable within the larger mystical context of psychic or spiritual communication. The glossolalists trance-channel, as it were, the Holy Spirit; we are never told whether they do so in a light, medium, or deep trance. In any case the Third Person of the Trinity, who elsewhere appears in the form of a dove (Luke 3:21-22, John 1:32-34), here appears in the form of "unearned" foreign language fluency in the bodies and voices of devout monolinguals who submit their wills to divine guidance.
Here are the relevant passages from 1 Corinthians 14:
1 Follow after charity, and desire spiritual gifts, but rather that ye may prophesy.
2 For he that speaketh in an unknown tongue speakeath not unto men, but unto God: for no man understandeth him; howbeit in the spirit he speakeath mysteries.
3 But he that prophesieth speaketh unto men to edification, and exhortation, and comfort.
4 He that speakeath in an unknown tongue edifieth himself; but he that prophesieth edifieth the church.
5 I would that ye all spake with tongues, but rather that he prophesied: for greater is he that prophesieth than he that speaketh with tongues, except he interpret, that the church may receive edifying.
6 Now, brethren, if I come unto you speaking with tongues, what shall I profit you, except I shall speak to you either by revelation, or by knowledge, or by prophesying, or by doctrine? ...
9 So likewise ye, except ye utter by the tongue words easy to be understood, how shall it be known what is spoken? for ye shall speak into the air. ...
13 Wherefore let him that speakeath in an unknown tongue pray that he may interpret.
14 For if I pray in an unknown tongue, my spirit prayeth, but my understanding is unfruitful.
15 What is it then? I will pray with the spirit, and I will pray with the understanding also: I will sing with the spirit, and I will sing with the understanding also. ...
23 If therefore the whole church be come together into one place, and there come in those with tongues, and there come in those that are unlearned, or unbelievers, will they not say that ye are mad? ...
26 How is it then, brethren? when ye come together, every one of you hath a psalm, hath a tongue, hath a revelation, hath an interpretation. Let all things be done unto edifying.
27 If any man speak in an unknown tongue, let it be by two, or at the most by three, and that by course; and let one interpret.
28 But if there be no interpreter, let him keep silence in the church; and let him speak to himself, and to God.
Glossolalia is wonderful, Paul admits; it is a powerful sign of God's presence and favor. But it is mainly beneficial for the glossolalist, not for the congregation that cannot understand the foreign speech. This is a crucial watershed moment for Christianity in at least two ways:
(a) Paul introduces a radical pragmatism into the ancient mystery cults from which Christianity borrowed so much, a growing sense that mystical experience is not and should not be allowed to become an end in itself, that we must constantly ask cui bono, who benefits, and how we can maximize the benefit to the group.
(b) Paul also edges mystical Christianity from esoteric toward exoteric religiosity, from a closed in-group of priests and initiates who possess the sacred knowledge and closely guard it against the prying eyes of the profane, to an ever-expanding inclusive group including "those that are unlearned, or unbelievers," who are to be welcomed into Christian gatherings. (See chapter two of my Translation and Taboo.)
Paul still sees glossolalia as an important gift of the spirit, but it is too private ("He that speaketh in an unknown tongue edifieth himself", "let him speak to himself, and to God") for his exoteric and pragmatic vision of the church. For Paul the issue is not even one between benefit to a small exclusive group and benefit to a larger group, as the esoteric/exoteric opposition implies; it is rather between benefit to the individual and benefit to the group, and even between "benefit" and "profit" on the one hand, the cornerstones of his ecclesiastical pragmatism, and the ancient mystical ideal of absolute oneness of being with the spirit, an ideal that lies beyond all utilitarian concerns.
As I argued in Translation and Taboo, this division between esoterics and exoterics, mystics and pragmatists--those who want to experience and those who want to communicate, those who strive for the pure delight of spiritual being and those who strive to achieve transformative goals in the political realm--runs through the entire Western history of thinking about translation, almost always in the split between a cultural elite that wants either to enjoy a foreign text in the original language or to translate it in ways that defy communication and understanding among the masses (especially various literalisms) and a populist group that wants to make foreign texts readily and easily accessible to all and sundry (various paraphrases, sense-for-sense translation, Schleiermacher's "bringing the author to the reader," Venuti's domestication). The class differentiations should be clear as well:
the upper classes by and large constituted the in-group of the ancient mystery cults, and throughout the Middle Ages and modern era continued to set the key example for any group (the intelligentsia, especially) that wanted to hold itself aloof from debased popular tastes, for example by controlling access to education, and by championing the classical languages and literatures over easily accessible modern vernacular languages and national literatures and the Latin Mass and Latin Bible over what Paul calls "proselytizing" in the target audience's language;
the lower classes, including by the late Middle Ages the emergent middle class, were quintessentially the outsiders who wanted not only to break into the exclusive clubs but also to open them up to everyone, through universal education and literacy, democratic or free-market "elective" systems in universities, and "open" or assimilative translation.
Note, however, that Paul is not really talking about modern vernacular translation here. He is not, for example, calling for the formation of a professional Christian interpreter corps. He is pushing the early church, to be sure, in a direction that would later be adopted and advanced by Jerome and other Church Fathers, and picked up by the emergent middle classes in the late Middle Ages (the Lollards, for example--Wyclif's group) and Reformation--openness, easily accessible vernacular preaching and translation--but in Paul it is still only a potential, an anticipation of later historical developments, which seems like a "potential" or "anticipation" to us today because we see, two thousand years later, what has been done with it in the centuries since.
The interpreters Paul wants are not highly trained professionals who have studied the various languages in which the glossolalists are speaking and have extensive experience interpreting them into Greek. Rather, they are themselves charismatics who also pray, as a parallel gift of the spirit, for the ability to interpret. The split Paul is calling for is not, in other words, between charismatics who channel the spirit and what we would think of as modern professional interpreters who are in full possession of their reason and analytical skills. It is, rather, between different charismatic roles:
"Wherefore let him that speaketh in an unknown tongue pray that he may interpret" (the same person in a dual role as glossolalist and interpreter--perhaps consecutively, first speaking a sentence in an unknown tongue, then interpreting it into Greek); or
"If any man speak in an unknown tongue, let it be by two, or at the most by three, and that by course; and let one interpret" (charismatic teams that divide up the roles, one or more speaking in tongues, one interpreting).
Clearly, interpretation is a gift of the spirit just like speaking in tongues; the interpreter is as much a spirit-channeler as is the glossolalist. The glossolalist channels the speaking of the spirit into foreign speech; the interpreter channels the speaking of the spirit into local speech. Both, Paul says, are important; both roles or functions can coexist comfortably in the same person; indeed presumably the individual has little or no control over which role he will adopt ("he" because in this very chapter--1 Cor 14:34--Paul forbids women to speak in church), as Paul exhorts people to pray for the spiritual gift of interpretation, and hope for the best. You open your mouth and words come out; perhaps in an unknown tongue, perhaps in a local vernacular interpretation of your own or someone else's foreign words. The spirit speaks in tongues, using your tongue; or the spirit interprets, channeling its interpretations through you.
Accuracy
Presumably also the spiritual or charismatic nature of the interpreting Paul is calling for in 1 Corinthians 14 obviates the problem of errors and inaccuracies. If it is the Holy Spirit that allows a monolingual to interpret speech in an unknown tongue, if the interpreter interprets by trance-channeling the Holy Spirit, surely the Holy Spirit also guarantees the interpretation's accuracy? One would assume so, though Paul never takes a stand on this issue. Interpreting (and by extension written translation as well) in this charismatic mode is not primarily a human affair, in the derogatory sense of "human" that we hear in phrases like "human error" or "the human factor." (Note that those phrases typically contrast humans negatively with machines, which like the spirit in Christian thought are imagined as "above" human error. In important ways the dream of machine translation [see side bar] in the West is a technosecularization of translation as spirit-channeling.) The human interpreter or translator is merely a channel of the spirit for whom (which?) all languages are as one, all logoi are the translinguistic Logos. The true interpreter (Horace's fidus interpres, though in a sense that Horace himself would reject) interprets by surrendering all fallen human will and knowledge and planning and skill to the divine guidance of the suprahuman spirit.
This Pauline conception of interpretation as spirit-channeling clearly informs and steers Augustine's enthusiastic embracing of the Philo Judaeus legend of the translating of the Septuagint as well:
And in emending Latin translations, Greek translations are to be consulted, of which the Septuagint carries most authority in so far as the Old Testament is concerned. In all the more learned churches it is now said that this translation was so inspired by the Holy Spirit that many men spoke as if with the mouth of one. It is said and attested by many of not unworthy faith that, although the translators were separated in various cells while they worked, nothing was to be found in any version that was not found in the very same words and with the same order of words in all of the others. Who would compare any other authority with this, or, much less, prefer another? But even if they conferred and arrived at a single opinion on the basis of common judgment and consent, it is not right or proper for any man, no matter how learned, to seek to emend the consensus of so many older and more learned men. Therefore, even though something is found in Hebrew versions different from what they have set down, I think we should cede to the divine dispensation by which they worked. (49)
For Augustine, what makes the Septuagint superior to the original Hebrew texts is that all 72 translators surrendered their wills to the speaking (or the writing) of the spirit, surely the exact same process as described by George Anderson, or by Paul in 1 Corinthians 14. Humans wrote the Hebrew Bible; humans also sat in those cells on an island off the coast of Alexandria, translating it into Greek. Humans are subject to error, lapses of memory and judgment, deliberate distortions, personal predilections, etc. And all of those humans, both the original Hebrew writers and the Alexandrian translators, lived before Jesus and so were subject to the additional burden of not being Christians, not having been saved from sin. The only way that the Hebrew Bible can lay claim to being God's Word, therefore, is if its writers wrote not as their human selves but as the channels of God's spirit; and the only way that the Septuagint can lay claim to being God's Word is if its translators channeled that same spirit also. For Augustine, proof that the 72 did in fact channel that spirit lies in the legend (for him the historical fact) that all 72 translators were kept sequestered in separate cells and still managed to produce 72 verbatim identical translations. Humans could never achieve this sort of result on their own; hence the legend must be true.
Something like this circular logic survives today in similar pronouncements about translational accuracy and the translator's willingness to submit to the guidance of the "spirit" or sense of the original author or text. For Augustine, perfect translation can only be achieved through total surrender to the spirit of God, which uses the translator's body as its channel, therefore the 72 translators at Alexandria must have channeled God's spirit, and the legend must be true that they generated 72 identical translations while sequestered in separate cells; and the 72 can only have generated 72 identical translations if they were channeling God's spirit, therefore their translation must be perfect, even better than the original. Perfect translation, hence divine inspiration; divine inspiration, hence perfect translation. The modern version, slightly secularized but still immediately recognizable, goes something like this: the translator's personal subjectivity always leads to distortions of the original and thus to nontranslation, hence the only way to produce an accurate (equivalent, professional, ethical) translation is to renounce all personal subjectivity and let the source author or text speak through you; because translation is total surrender to the spirit of the source text, or of the source author's intended meaning, any survival of the translator's personal subjectivity distorts that spirit, gets in the way of its channeling directly and immediately from the source author to the target reader, and thus leads to nontranslation. Surrender to the spirit of the original, hence accurate translation; accurate translation, hence surrender to the spirit of the original.
In a sense, however, analyzing this circular logic is unfair, since Augustine and modern "charismatic" translation theorists do not actually derive their premises from their conclusions; they inherit them from previous generations. In fact they "channel" them from previous generations, in the broad sense of receiving and transmitting ideological norms--a process that I want to return to in a moment, in the ninth reading. The logic is only circular in an artificial synchrony, a falsely dehistoricized present moment in which no reference to repressed historical origins is permitted. In fact the logic is thoroughly historical. In the following tabulation, I imagine point zero as someone like Philo Judaeus or Augustine for the Septuagint:
-6. Translation X (the Septuagint, the Vulgate, the King James Version) is created by a translator or group of translators.
-5. Translation X is taken up by an increasingly influential group in society, who find in it a center around which to organize the group's cohesion, social and political justification, and eventual triumph.
-4. Translation X assumes great social and/or political significance.
-3. Ideological forces in society invest Translation X with the somatics of awe, taboo, the solemn power of the alien word.
-2. Ideological forces in society mandate that I read and respect (perhaps even worship) Translation X.
-1. I channel those forces, so that I feel what they want me to feel.
0. Translation X feels holy to me.
1. I sense that I could never on my own create anything that holy; nor could anyone else I know. It exceeds the bounds of "fallen" human achievement.
2. Those earlier translators must therefore have been angels on earth, or the channels of divine inspiration..
3. Divine inspiration must somehow transform human translators, so that they are more than human.
4. For that transformation to work as powerfully as it obviously did in translation X, human translators must have to be willing to surrender fully to it.
5. Translators who are not willing to surrender to that transformation will not produce holy translations.
6. Because their translations will not be holy, they will also not be perfectly accurate (they will be full of human errors), hence they will be no translations at all, or only very bad ones.
7. Translators who are unwilling to surrender utterly to the spirit of the original are no translators at all, or only very bad ones.
8. They are not only bad translators; they are bad people. The unwillingness to surrender utterly to the spirit of the original stems from sinful pride and presumption, from a desire to advance oneself at the expense of the holy original.
