The chapter analyzes the remarks on the use of languages in hagiographical narratives, including episodes that describe the mundane and miraculous linguistic skills of holy men as well as demons and demoniacs speaking in foreign tongues. References to knowing or speaking foreign languages in the hagiographical tradition were closely connected to expressions of holiness in late antique Christianity, both in social practice and in the realm of rhetoric. The use of language is a performative act that is closely related to issues of social differentiation, power, and control in any society, and even more so in multilingual communities. The appearance of Christian hagiographical narratives that depict miraculous linguistic events and abilities of holy men and demons reveals that symbolic power and authority started to manifest themselves through remarks on one’s multilingual competence or the use of specific languages.

The roles language played in shaping and articulating one’s identity in Greco-Roman and Jewish antiquity constitute a backdrop against which the new developments attested in early Christianity can be measured. The ways in which foreign language speakers appeared in the Jewish Bible and Classical literature provided tropes, references, and allusions widely employed by early Christian authors. The chapter starts with an analysis of ancient Greek literary, historical, and philosophical compositions, from Homer to Aristotle, and investigates why the thought universe of the Classical Greek literati was virtually monolingual. It then proceeds to an overview of developments in the Hellenistic and early Roman eras and traces how the monolingual antiquity of Classical Greece gradually became the bilingual universe of the Roman empire, where Latin always shared its prestigious status as a vehicle of culture with Greek. The final section focuses on how early Jewish traditions depicted foreign languages and their speakers and how this culture adapted multilingual self-expression. In the conclusion, we discuss why language was rarely a decisive factor of group identity in these cultures and problematize the idea that the presence of linguistic differences by itself is a sufficient factor to trigger the processes of identity consolidation and objectification.

The book’s concluding chapter summarizes its content and contextualizes the ideas in a broader historical and cultural perspective. It is the story about the transformation of the ways in which the increasingly Christianized elites of the late antique Mediterranean experienced and conceptualized linguistic differences. Confessional and linguistic identities of the time overlapped in ways that produced an astonishing variety of dynamic combinations, hybrid loyalties, and local peculiarities. The chapter raises the question of what we do with language when we speak and how references to a linguistic code through which communication happens can be no less informative than the content of communication itself. It problematizes the concept of “other languages” and different ways in which different cultures, including early Christianity, imagine their principal alloglottic Other. We introduce the concept of “communities of linguistic sensitivities” – a group that share similar language-related socio-cultural stereotypes and subscribe to approximately the same views and ideas about linguistic history and linguistic diversity. The history of Christianity in Late Antiquity could be described in terms of the formation of several such related communities around the Mediterranean – communities that developed dynamically, constantly readjusted, and mutually influenced each other.

The chapter begins with the discussion of the story about the tower of Babel and the confusion of tongues (Gen 11.1–9), the event which was usually but not always understood as the start of linguistic diversification. The chapter explores early Christian ideas about the primordial language, usually identified with Hebrew. The history of Hebrew and the attempts of late antique Christians to define their relations to this would-be original tongue occupy the larger part of the chapter. Fourth- and fifth-century writers discussed whether the original tongue ceased or continued to exist after Babel, and who – Heber or Abraham – was instrumental in preserving the original tongue. These biblical figures and various scenarios of language history they represented were claimed by competing Christian and Jewish historical discourses. These linguistic discussions contributed to consolidating their corresponding religious identities. The alternatives to the idea of Hebrew’s primordiality were also attested; they bear witness to the continuous debates about originality, ontological power, and the relative prestige of languages in Late Antiquity. The chapter attempts to reconstruct Christian attitudes to the linguistic diversity, their views on the history and evolution of other (non-Hebrew) languages, and to contextualize ideas about the language of God in Jewish–Christian polemics.

The chapter focuses on the early Christian interpretations of “speaking in tongues” (glōssais lalein), the most spectacular linguistic phenomenon attested in the New Testament. The description of the Pentecostal events (Acts 2) and Paul’s exhortations (1 Cor. 12–14) became an important point of reference in Christian discussions about languages and religious identity. The second- and third-century authors either presented the phenomenon as ecstatic speaking with an uncertain degree of intelligibility or simply quoted biblical passages without any explanation. Explicit statements that the gift of tongues was a miraculous ability to talk in foreign languages that enabled apostles to preach abroad (xenolalia) are dated to the fourth century and attested in Greek, Syriac, and Latin texts. Simultaneously, in the fourth century, the alternative idea that “speaking in tongues” refers to angelic languages decreased in popularity. As time passed, different Christian traditions and authors developed their own peculiarities in interpreting “speaking in tongues.” The chapter demonstrates various ways in which otherness of tongues may have been understood; and that xenolalia is not so much a default interpretation, but a way to channel the growing concerns about foreign languages and their speakers – a way that became especially needed in fourth-century Christianity.

The chapter explores language ideologies and various solutions to which Greek, Latin, and Syriac intellectuals resorted when they needed to articulate their attitudes to the alloglottic Other, while forging their distinctly Christian and specific confessional identities. The discussion starts with the views of early Christian apologists on foreign languages and continues by inquiring into further transformations that their initial universalist views underwent in the post-Constantinian era. The chapter highlights the main points of the cultural dialogue between the “Christian universalists” and “cultural isolationists” and analyzes the formation of a distinct rhetoric of alienation of foreign language speakers in Christian discourse. The trend was most visible in the Greek milieu, where the feeling of cultural superiority over “barbarians” had been especially deep-rooted. Then, the chapter explores how representatives of different literary traditions – this especially concerns Latin writers – attempted to promote the status of their own tongues as legitimate and authoritative vehicles for Christian self-expression. The final section analyzes metalinguistic remarks in Syriac literature – remarks that bear witness to acute linguistic awareness among local writers and their ability to resist the major cultural biases of their colleagues from the Classical tradition.

The Introduction explains the purpose and scope of the book, and the research questions it addresses, as well as its place within recent scholarship – both in relation to works focusing on languages in Late Antiquity and to more theoretical studies of various forms of group identity and its attributes. We open with a discussion on changes in the linguistic views of the increasingly Christianized elites in the late antique Mediterranean and the ways they experienced and conceptualized linguistic differences. The chapter defines such important concepts as “metalinguistic comments,” “the alloglottic Other,” “communities of linguistic sensitivities,” “objectification of language,” “linguistic awareness,” and “a different language”; clarifies the linguistic and religious terminology to be used; outlines the geographical scope, chronological limits, and the range of primary sources analyzed; and describes the book structure. The Introduction also explicates possible methodological problems in research like this and suggests the ways in which one could overcome them –avenues this book further explores.

The purpose of the chapter is: first, to provide an overview of the socio-linguistic landscape of the late antique Mediterranean as a historical setting in which early Christian writers lived, worked, and developed their ideas on languages and religious identities; the linguistic and social practices they observed and experienced everyday set up an important context, even though their theoretical speculations may not directly reflect realities on the ground. Second, to briefly account for Christian encounters with foreign cultures and languages as the religion took off and to inquire into how the socio-linguistic situation in the ancient Mediterranean influenced the development of Christianity in its nascent stage and how Christianity in turn affected linguistic processes in the region. The spread of Christianity among various peoples and ethnic groups within and without the gradually disintegrating Roman empire was concurrent with complex formative processes within Christianity itself and took place amidst Trinitarian and Christological debates. The survey problematizes the role languages and linguistic distinctions played in these controversies and indicates several loci of potential tensions to be discussed further in the book (the alleged links between Punic speakers and Donatists, Germanic speakers and Arians, Syriac speakers and followers of non-Chalcedonian doctrines).