This seems to me an argument abundantly sufficient to upset all that has ever been
said in favor of the location of this upper apartment within the temple; and my only
wonder is, that so many learned critics should have perplexed themselves and others
with various notions about the matter, when this single fact is so perfectly conclusive.
The upper room, then, must have been in some private house, belonging to some wealthy friend of Christ, who gladly received the apostles within his walls. Every Jewish house had in its upper story a large room of this sort, which served as a dining-room, (Mark xiv. 15: Luke xxii. 12,) a parlor, or an oratory for private or social worship. (See Bloomfield's Annot. Acts i. 13.) Some have very foolishly supposed this to have been the house of Simon the leper, (Matt. xxvi, 6,) but his house was in Bethany, and therefore by no means answers the description of their entering it after their return to Jerusalem from Bethany. Others, with more probability, the house of Nicodemus, the wealthy Pharisee; but the most reasonable supposition, perhaps, is that of Beza, who concludes this to have been the house of Mary, the mother of John Mark, which we know to have been afterwards used as a place of religious assembly. (Acts xii. 12.) Others have also, with some reason, suggested that this was no doubt the same "upper room furnished," in which Jesus had eaten the last supper with his disciples. These two last suppositions are not inconsistent with each other.
Tongues of fire.—This is a classic Hebrew expression for "a lambent flame," and is
the same used by Isaiah, (v. 24,) where the Hebrew is (
Hebrew characters) (leshon esh,) "a tongue
of fire;"—com. trans., simply "fire." In that passage there seems to be a sort of poetical
reference to the tongue, as an organ used in devouring food, ("as the tongue
of fire devoureth the stubble,") but there is abundant reason to believe that the expression
was originally deduced from the natural similitude of a rising flame to a tongue,
being pointed and flexible, as well as waving in its outlines, and playing about with
a motion like that of licking, whence the Latin expression of "a lambent flame,"—from
lambo, "lick." Wetstein aptly observes, that a flame of fire, in the form of a
divided tongue, was a sign of the gift of tongues, corresponding to the Latin expression
bilinguis, and the Greek [Greek: diglôssos], (diglossos,) "two-tongued," as applied
to persons skilled in a plurality of languages. He also with his usual classic richness,
gives a splendid series of quotations illustrative of this idea of a lambent flame denoting
the presence of divine favor, or inspiration imparted to the person about whom
the symbol appeared. Bloomfield copies these quotations, and also draws illustrations
in point, from other sources.
My own opinion of the nature of this whole phenomenon is that of Michaelis, Rosenmueller, Paulus and Kuinoel,—that a tremendous tempest actually descended at the time, bringing down clouds highly charged with electricity, which was not discharged in the usual mode, by thunder and lightning, but quietly streamed from the air to the earth, and wherever it passed from the air upon any tolerable conductor, it made itself manifest in the darkness occasioned by the thick clouds, in the form of those pencils of rays, with which every one is familiar who has seen electrical experiments in a dark room; and which are well described by the expression, "cloven tongues of fire." The temple itself being covered and spiked with gold, the best of all conductors, would quietly draw off a vast quantity of electricity, which, passing through the building, would thus manifest itself on those within the chambers of the temple, if we may suppose the apostles to have been there assembled. These appearances are very common in peculiar electrical conditions of the air, and there are many of my readers, no doubt, who have seen them. At sea, they are often seen at night on the ends of the masts and yards, and are well known to sailors by the name which the Portuguese give them, "corpos santos,"—"holy bodies,"—connecting them with some popish superstitions. A reference to the large quotations given by Wetstein and Bloomfield, will show that this display at the pentecost is not the only occasion on which these electric phenomena were connected with spiritual mysteries. No one would have the slightest hesitation in explaining these passages in other credible historians, by this physical view; and I know no rule in logic or common sense,—no religious doctrine or theological principle, which compels me to explain two precisely similar phenomena of this character, in two totally different ways, because one of them is found in a heathen history, and the other in a sacred and inspired record. The vehicle thus chosen was not unworthy of making the peculiar manifestation of the presence of God, and of the outpouring of his spirit;—nor was it an unprecedented mode of his display. The awful thunder which shook old Sinai, and the lightnings which dazzled the eyes of the amazed Israelites, were real thunder and lightning,
