John Chrysostom, on 1Cor 14:2

“For he that speaketh in a tongue, speaketh not unto men, but unto God: for no man heareth. Yet by the Spirit he speaketh mysteries.”

“At this point he makes a comparison between the gifts, and lowers that of the tongues, showing it to be neither altogether useless, nor very profitable by itself. For in fact they were greatly puffed up on account of this, because the gift was considered to be a great one. And time of building the tower the one tongue was divided into many; so then the many tongues frequently met in one man, and the same person used to discourse both in the Persian, and the Roman, and the Indian, and many other tongues, the Spirit sounding within him: and the gift was called the gift of tongues because he could all at once speak divers languages. See accordingly how he both depresses and elevates it. Thus, by saying, "He that speaketh with tongues, speaketh not unto men, but unto God, for no man understandeth," he depressed it, implying that the profit of it was not great; but by adding, "but in the Spirit he speaketh mysteries" he again elevated it, that it might not seem to be superfluous and useless and given in vain.”

Imported from an open dataset — not yet checked against the printed edition.