It is very significant that the only epistle that mentions tongues is 1 Corinthians. Why were tongues not present in any other church or city? To understand this we need to go back into the history of Corinth and find out how its particular history was intertwined with speaking in tongues. To do this we need to understand the Mystery Religions of the area.
In the ancient world the people personified their fears and hopes into gods, and then worshipped them. In the case of a god which portrayed something god that they wanted, they imitated these gods and did sacrifice to them because they wanted this god to give them something related to that good thing they personified. Some worshipped the sun because if it clouded over, stayed cold, etc. their crops would not grow. Many worshipped fertility gods because they wanted their crops to grow and be abundant. Others worshipped gods that they feared, like the gods of the underworld, in an attempt to bribe these gods so that things won't go so bad for them when they enter the underworld after death.
In a real sense this god worship was a projection of their own lives into their religion. When we worship the Only True God, it is important to understand that the moral principles that God gives us to live by are things which men do not normally understand, follow, nor see as moral good. This is a testimony that our God is the true God, and the reason being is that the moral character of our God is above anything man has devised.
In Greek mythology Aphrodite was born a fully mature adult woman out of the foam of the ocean (Aphros), which represents the passion and fury of the sea, coming ashore at Cytherea (center of her worship), and later moved to Cyprus which still has a large Aphrodite following. She is always pictured fully adult, and very sexy and desirable. She is known by the name of both of these places. She was supposedly the daughter of Zeus and Dione. She was supposedly the most beautiful of women. She is generally known as the Greek goddess of Love and Desire. She had her own festival which was known as the Aphrodisiac which was particularly in Athens and Corinth. Really, the "ecstasy" of intercourse was the very essence of the Aphrodite religion. It was a kind of extreme pleasure that is exalted into a spiritual world, deifying it to make it your god which you worship.
Some of her other names are "the Black One" (most love making is done in the dark), Scotia or the "Dark One", Androphonos, "Man-Slayer". She is known as the triple goddess (ruler of the sky, earth, underworld), and as the goddess that carries people into rebirth. She is the sea goddess, and her sign was the fish or the net, (thus the "fisher of men"). She is known as the concept of living water, which goes back 10,000 years ago. She is the mother goddess, the Queen of heaven. She is identified as Ishtar, the Hebrew name is Astarte. She is seen as the creator of the world in some mythologies. In general she is like the mother of all gods because she has elements and is named in many different religions as a principle god.
The character of Aphrodite is the most important element of her worship. From these stories of her character we find the moral principles that were desirable or sought after by the people who worshipped her. Her story is one of sexual infidelity to her husband, Hephaestus, and she accompanied and bore children to several other gods in her infidelity. This sexual freedom flowing from a wild and savage nature is what became her trademark. Note that her concept was not romance (which was Cupid), but lust. She is the goddess of uncontrolled passion that leads to rape, incest, lust, and sexual unrestraint (free sex). She represented the abandonment of sexual and social restraint. We find she was a hotbed of intense jealousy, rivalry, hatred, and she is one of the most conniving of the ancient gods. She represents a complete surrender to the sexual lusts of baser humanity, including adultery, complete sexual freedom, and going into extremes even of incest, lesbianism, and homosexuality. Being a lover, Aphrodite was known for her treacherous nature and betrayal of others. She had a very definite vanity problem in which she wanted to be known as the most beautiful woman in the world. Much of the stories of Aphrodite revolve around her ego which was tremendous.
Here we compare the "good" character according to the Aphrodite religion and the "problem" character which Paul deal with in his epistles to Corinth and we find the same jealous, backbiting, rage, and sexual "freedom" that within Corinth was accepted and exalted. But Paul went directly against these gross errors. For example, in 1 Corinthians 1 and 2, we find Paul rebuking them for their infighting and jealousy between themselves. In chapter 5 we find Paul having to rebuke them for a man having sex with his mother (incest). In chapter 7 Paul has to straighten out their screwed up thinking on sex. A man and a woman married is God's norm, and there is an obligation to have sexual relations in that marriage, and never outside of it. To read the history of Corinth and the practices and "moral virtues" taught in the Aphrodite religion is basically seeing what Paul dealt with in his epistles to the Corinthians "from the other side."
The Advantages of Aphrodite Worship
Of course Aphrodite is not a real person and never really lived, was never a real person, but the religious worship of her was very much for reasons that the people of that day wanted. In Aphrodite they deified the concepts of love and beauty, life (birth), joy, and passion into the goddess Aphrodite. She is presented as being inescapable, that every human must come to worship her at some time or another. All her female followers followed her sexual behavior of having relations outside of a marriage commitment when and how they so wished at the moment. In this she becomes a symbol of sexual freedom, and freedom from restraints of society. She is highly involved in the female super warriors, the Amazonian women, as well a lesbian elements.
The Amazonians (women warriors who lived without men around) as a concept was eventually accepted by the Greeks when at Sparta were under attack, and Telesilla organized and led a female army to win the day. In concession to them, they were honored and accepted. This Amazon element also had a ritual ecstatic dance in honor to Aphrodite, the Mother God.
In the ancient world, women had no rights, and they could not even handle their own financial affairs. The only exception was the hetairai, a group of essentially prostitutes. This class of women had total control over their own lives, and most especially finances. They owned property and were powerful forces in the culture, which caused many women to want to follow in their paths.
The worship of Aphrodite was basically by women who wanted sexual and cultural freedom from the culture of their day. Men worshipped at this religion because of the freedom of having sex with the temple prostitutes. The formation was such that marriage and any cultural "restrictions" (marital loyalty) was seen as being extremely bad. The temple in the Acropolis (overlooking Corinth) was said to have 1000 temple priestesses. These men "worshipped" Aphrodite by having sexual relations with the temple priestesses. They taught that in the sex act, the man passed his sins into the woman.
The worship Aphrodite was so extreme that they taught that marriage was undesirable and bad. But if one did get married (some women could only find economic security in surrendering herself to a man in matrimony), then she had to first lose her virginity to some other man before getting marriage. In one case a certain ugly woman was betrothed and went to the Aphrodite temple to sit in a special bench of the priestesses. This is where the priestesses would come and sit and the worshippers would come by and pick one and enter a chamber like a bedroom, have sex, and then leave their offering to Aphrodite. This particular woman sat on the bench for month and nobody would touch her!
It is very important to understand that in the ancient world, the different nations saw the gods as being essentially the same for all nations, and what changed was not the gods, but their names which were used to identify them to one nation or another. What guided these people to accept and worship other gods when they were in a different country was their character and practices associated with them.
We need to review a little history of life at Corinth when the Aphrodite cult was at its height. Corinth was a diverse city of many different cultures, and being in the crossroads of both the camel caravan trade as well as being situated near a narrow strip of land that divided two great bodies of water which the sailors would actually pull their boats over this strip of land, the city was diverse. Some groups decided to situated soldiers there and charge taxes on all that passed by, and it became a mixture of soldiers, sailors, politicians, merchants, slave trade, etc.
Aphrodite supposed came from the foam of the sea, and is often related to the sea. But most worship of sea gods were done in caves on hills because caves in the seashore were very difficult to find and dangerous. So overlooking the city of Corinth was a temple to Aphrodite called the Acrocorinth. The tall columns that made up the temple were phallic in their representation.
Since the Aphrodite religion was essentially about worshipping sex, the temple had priests and priestesses. Before its destruction it was said that there were 1000 female temple prostitutes. These women were priestesses dedicated to the Aphrodite temple worship. In their religion, worship meant sexual activity. This included provocative music and dances, parades, alcohol, feasting, etc. (a regular modern pagan party). All of this was to provoke the worshippers into a sexual frenzy. The men were the primary objective in this, so there were principally women priestesses. The word "sodomite" in the Old Testament comes from this concept, because there were male prostitutes which were homosexuals. Women in general did not have control of finances nor did they have businesses, worked to gain money etc. Most women were under the control of some man (father, husband, brother, etc), and even widows were likewise assigned to a male relative for her care (like the story of Ruth and Boaz). All of this made women unimportant as worshippers, but very important as priestesses.
The Acrocorinth was on a hill overseeing Corinth, and each night there was a call to worship by a gong and bell. In Greek, the actual words of Paul in 1 Corinthians 13:1 ("I am become as sounding brass or a tinkling cymbal") are what the Aphrodite temple used to call the men to "worship". At this time the priestesses would go out in the city and finding any males, they would "compel" them to come in to worship. The term to "Corinthianize" was coined to mean to prostitute. It is hard to tell, but probably there were pretty close to one female priestess for every one or two males in Corinth. It is important to see what is happening here. Paul wrote 1 Corinthians to clarify what was wrong in their city and culture. Paul does not praise them for their cultural distinctive but attacks these pagan practices and politely shows them to be wrong, unbiblical.
Paul wrote a lengthy passage of instruction about women using a head piece (hat or covering) which was very important in Corinth. The way the Corinthians differentiated between the temple priestesses and normal woman not involved in the temple prostitution was by a head covering. This cultural distinctive made a very clear principle, while in Corinth, every good Christian woman should wear something on her head. But Paul's point is that outside of Corinth in other cities which does not have this cultural "problem", the head covering is not important.
In general the worship of Aphrodite was very destructive to the moral values of any society. With the control of the Romans over the Mediterranean world, the Romans did not like this religion one bit. In 187 B.C. it was proposed in the Roman senate to make the religion of Aphrodite illegal. The law was not passed, but this is the attitude of being aggressively against this religion for the cultural damage it did on the people. Even so, Rome did send an army to destroy the temple of Aphrodite at the Acrocorinth at Corinth in 146 B.C. to end the cult. The soldiers destroyed and disbanded the city of Corinth completely at that time. Even so the people were driven away to other cities around the area, but they continued with their fertility cults.
In 44 B.C. Roman reestablished the city of Corinth, but the temple of Aphrodite was not rebuilt by the Romans nor did they permit others to rebuild it. As a result of the "persecution" of this cult, some changes were made in the new version of it. If there were secrets involved in their religion before, much more was going to become secret to protect the cult. This idea of secret knowledge that leads to communication with God, happiness, "salvation" (going to a place of paradise after death), etc all was a great theme in religions of the ancient world. This was essentially the Gnosticism that the New Testament writers fought. (It is essentially the position of the Jehovah's Witnesses today.)
So we see a movement or thread from century to century of these similar concepts. The earlier religions here were the Cybele-Attis, Baco, Dionysus, and the cult of Apolos.
This cult began about 1000 years before Christ, and Cybele is the mother of Attis. By the fifth century before Christ it was a strong cult. She had the title "Mother of the gods, the Savior that hears our prayers", and "the Mother of the Gods, the Accessible One". This is a historical basis for the cult around the Madonna and child of Catholicism. Cybele is seen as "mother earth", who is lord over the cycle of birth, death, and rebirth, and in their view, she had the keys of salvation and eternity. Attis was her son, who was also her lover (the concept of incest). Her male worshippers castrated themselves and then dressed up as women. This is where the idea of eunuchs (castrated priests) came from. The idea of being androgynous (having both male and female sex organs) is very strong in this cult.
Cybele took Attis to be her lover and husband (incest). But Attis castrated himself when he was in an ecstasy, and subsequently died. She asked the father of gods to not let him die, so his body never decomposed. All of this was focused on the agricultural cycle of winter-spring, life-death and rebirth again.
Here we note that a man named Montanus from Phrygia (150 AD) was priest in this religion before converting to Christianity. We will return to him around because he is the only example of speaking in tongues between the close of the New Testament and 1900s.
Bacchus was the god of insanity (excessive passion as in sexual passion with women). This god was associated with Dionysus, Bacchus was his Roman name, and Dionysus was the Greek name. Technically Bacchus is the concept of insanity or passion, and Dionysus is the god of wine, the both being essentially the same thing. Alcohol has a mental, spiritual, and social effect of releasing moral and social restraints, and the resulting do anything or do things that you normally wouldn't do is essentially the idea.
Those who worship this god will arrange their worship around provoking a release of moral and social restraints. This cult used alcohol and drug to achieve this effect with some other elements. These other elements were nudity, magic enchantments, free sex, spinning dances, and strong music with a heavy beat or rhyme. These ceremonies were ended by the killing of animals by breaking their legs while they are still alive, very similar to modern Voodoo.
Let's jump to the far eastern Hindu cults for a minute. They have a similar ritual where the group has a long period of shouting, jumping, dancing, spinning, etc. which gets their blood flowing and their heart beating extremely rapidly. At a certain point, they stop and become very still. The trick is done among school kids by getting the heart rate and breathing very accelerated and then falling to your knees (compressing your lungs by pulling your knees into your stomach) and it cuts off oxygen to the brain. You pass out. This causes a similar state to that of deep meditation, narcotic drugs, and others methods that lower the barrier between the consciousness and the spirit world. This is when the mystics and the great "wise men" of many far eastern religions make contact with the gods, and they have religious or mystical experiences.
One of the key focuses of this cult was what they called an "ecstasy", where the person entered an altered state of mind. The word "ecstasy" comes from the Greek words "ek" (out of) and "stasis" or being, and the idea was that one was out of his mind. This is the principle objective of the entire cultic worship, to produce ecstasies in the worshippers. They considered an ecstasy as being in communion with the god(s). This altered state of mind was very similar to the state of a drunk person, someone under the influence of strong narcotic drugs, or being what we consider "mentally ill". This ecstasy is nothing new.
Another concept they focused heavily on was that of "enthusiasm". Both enthusiasm and ecstasy are terms which were coined by this cult. If ecstasy was when a person "left their body" to be with god, then "enthusiasm" was when the god entered your body. It caused a state of excessive activity, passion, and control by the god. They defined this "enthusiasm" as also being when a person's body is taken over by the god, and they lose control, and their tongue begins to make sounds that they cannot be understood (ecstatic tongues). This is where the concept comes from.
One of the distinctive elements of their ceremonies was the use of women to shout. This shouting was not any recognizable words, and served to cause an atmosphere of confusion and "craziness" which helped promote the frenzy they sought to invoke "communion with their god". They understood that this uncontrollable expression of meaningless words was the result of a supernatural power (their god) which entered their body to control them and cause this phenomena. It was seen as a mark of the god being in them.
Because of the secretive nature of their festivals, some used these festivals to plan opposition to the Roman government, and they were later outlawed.
This sect was very popular or known because of the Oracle at Delphi which was very famous point of reference. The priest at the oracle would enter a trance and then sit in a chair attached to a strong post which would be placed over the open crack of a volcano. The fumes would cause them to enter into another state of mind, and they would speak unintelligible speech which was interpreted by other priests (in their right mind). This form of prophecy was very famous and well known some 400 years before Christ.
See Mystery Religions - Christianity Revealed
These different religions eventually merged into a single "mystery religion". The practices of one against another was copied and eventually they became identical except in their name or the names of their deities, and they simply merged into one. It is important to see that this is basically what Paul (and the leaders of the Corinthian church) faced, and Paul's epistles to Corinth attacked these practices and beliefs of the people coming into their church from the Corinthian population.
When we speak of the Mystery Religions (because even though they were almost identical in belief and practice, they still retained their different names), we need to identify their belief system and practices. They had their initiation ceremony of baptism, their dedications, their holy "love feasts".
One of the clearest identifying marks of these groups was the position of speaking in unintelligible tongues (the ecstasy) that was essential in their belief and practice. What makes a person a Christian in the Bible? Their faith in Jesus Christ as their Savior. Some would say the experience of having accepted Jesus as their Savior and this is just wrong. Our salvation is not an experience we have but a faith we live. For these Mystery Religions, what made you "in" or "out" of their religion was the experience of speaking in tongues (god in you). This is identical with the modern Pentecostal movement.
To the Mystery Religions, they can be no real worship of their god without an emotional agitation and frenzy. This emotional agitation and frenzy has to be provoked by the elements of the service. This frenzy ends in the speaking in tongues phenomena. Music and emotional elements (parades on stage, moving stories, dramas, and even disrobing by the leaders and people up front) were what caused this emotional and spiritual frenzy that they so much desired.
It is important to understand that in their concept, there is always a stage where performers provoke the frenzy by some means. This is achieved by two forms, chemical (alcohol, drugs, etc) or emotional and sexual means.
This goes directly to the heart of the matter. There were two primary interests of the Mystery Religions, to provoke a "I feel good" feeling, and a wow factor from the supernatural. This goes back to the very heart of the Aphrodite sect, the goddess of passion and froth and foam. This religion based itself on feeling, emotions, and this is one of its principles characteristics and problems. Feelings never last. They are always temporary, transitory. That being the case, people who live in this structure of things must have a constant almost daily "pump up" of emotions. This is why speaking in tongues is broadened by the movement to be a private experience as well as a church experience. The people simply go into deep depression if they do not have a daily "pick me upper".
The supernatural element is also very important. This element is important because they truly do experience things that cannot be explained. The Pentecostal movement has a fascination on miracles, signs, and the supernatural. They want to interpret and drag this element into anything done in the Christian life. Talk about morality, and that is boring, but talk about miracles and everybody perks up and is interested. Christ did not present a Christianity that is first miraculous, but first is moral. Even so that being the case, this supernatural element always has a question mark over it. Satan has power just like God, and in Moses confrontation with the magicians of Egypt, they copied most everything Moses did. So supernatural power is a given on both sides of the equation. The question we have to ask is what is origin of a supernatural event? God or Satan? Divine or demonic?
All of this attacks the very basis of the revelation of God. We do not guide our lives by what feels good to us, or by what impresses us as being supernatural, but by the authority of God's word given to us in the Bible. This is nowhere seen more clearly than when you should a Pentecostal tongues speaker the error of his doctrine and practice. He will always answer with the same response, and this reveals his authority.
Exalted Authority of Experiences: "You have to try it to know it is true."
This response shows that the authority structure of the person is experiences and feelings over the authority of "Thus saith the Lord". With a different authority that what Christians have, and should have, you are talking apples and oranges with them. They simply will not accept what they don't intensely "feel" or are "impressed" with. All of their thinking revolves exactly around a mysterious experience or feeling.
These Mystery Religions had a fascination with demonism. One of Satan's great tactics is to boldly denounce what he himself is. Here we find demon possessed spiritual leaders denouncing demons, exorcising people of demons, etc. The tactic is a good one for convincing the simple public that you are on the side of good and against the demons, even though you actually cause demonic influence, control, and even possession. Here the idea is what Christ told us in the example of the demon that was cast out and returned with 7 worse than he was.
The modern Pentecostal movement has a fixation on liberation from demons. But note that in Matthew 16:23 Christ calls Peter "Satan" (much stronger than demonic controlled, he called him Satan himself!). Yet we do not see Christ performing an exorcism on Peter, nor casting out any demons from Peter.
The point here is that there are demons, and they can even influence believers, but the issue is not liberation (casting out) but returning control to the person. Every time Christ cast out a demon out of somebody, it was to return control of the person's body to his spirit and mind. Christ healed people, and some showed saving faith while others did not.
When the Pentecostal movement sees demons behind every corner, it is a bad sign.
Prominent Use of Women in the Leadership and Ministry
The ancient world treated women very harshly. It is only in the Judea-Christian ethic that we see liberty, protection, equality, and elevation of women. Women are different from men, and in the biblical concept of things, they enjoy a protected possession where the man protects his woman from the evil and harsh forces of the world.
Within religious contexts, the Bible since Eve has always placed the woman in subjection to the man. God created the woman to serve man, and God created man to serve God. Neither is to the liking of some, but that is simple spiritual rebellion and nothing more.
In these mystery religions, they merged the liberty of prostitutes to take control of their own life with the religious aspect of the religion. These women began "priestesses" and gained a control and "equality" that were not normally available to them in their day. The only other women living "the good life" were the escorts of politicians and the rich.