What did the Early Church Believe about Speaking in Tongues?

- I have made a number of presentations on the subject of "Tongues" and authored a book where I work through every passage in the Bible on this subject and ask all the hard questions. The book is available on Amazon.This presententation like all my other presentations on this subject is not about the Cessation versus Continuation argument. I am not convinced that this argument is well framed. There are those who claim that the modern sign & wonders movement predominantly in the Pentecostal community is a replica of the miracles in Christ's and his apostles ministries, they claim they have the same power to work miracles, heal the sick, prophecy the future and many other signs. An honest onlooker from the outside very quickly realises that these claims are false, people like Benny Hinn who claims to heal the sick, does not, the prophets who claim to foretell the future either make claims that are so vague they cannot be verified, or they make downright false claims and then bork at ministries like this one who challenges their claims. Then there are those who claim God stopped working miracles altogher once the canon of the Bible was completed. Humbly said both of these views are extremes that should be rejected on the evidence.My view is that miracles were never "normative" i.e. every day occurences for all people. An honest student of the Bible will find miracles throughout the Old and New Testament periods, but only when a particular chosen minister was to be authenticateddid God work the extraordinary. We see this in the miracles of Christ, and to a lesser degree in the ministry of the apostles, but already in the writings of the epistles of the New Testament we can see a fading of the miraculous, people are sick and pastoral advice is given how to handle this. The general picture given by the early church patristics is one of gradual lessening of the miraculous, over the course of the first 3-5 centuries. Nonetheless we see miracles do continue to occur throughout the history of the church, but to a far lesser degree. Miracles and the supernatural are simply not normative and one has to close ones mind and rational thinking capacity not to recognise this.My view on the topic of tongues is that in the New Testament they are always "natural, real languages" like Latin, Spanish or French.As I said I have a whole series of presentations working through every New Testament passage on this subject.Given that I hold to the protestant axiom called "Sola Scriptura", you might be wondering "why am I concerned with what the Early Church Fathers say on this topic"? 1. Sola Scriptura does not mean the Bible is the ONLY authority, but the FINAL authority.2. It is therefore really important to see what the Early Church believed, especially those who were literally only one or a few generations away from the actual apostles themselves3. If they all agree with our own interpretation of scripture then this should give us more confidence that we have not misunderstood or dare I say misinterpreted the texts under reviewThis presentation is basically me giving you readings of quotes by many early church fathers. I will give references for each quote in the presentation description so you can read up and also read all the context, which I would always recommend.I was actually surprised just how many theological giants of the early church period, the men who fought against the many christological heresies the church battled with during that period, actually took the time to comment on Acts and 1 Corinthiansand give us a window into what they believed on this important subject. The findings might surprise you.This session is may be a little "dry" because my aim here is just to bring up a line of very early church fathers and simply find out what they believed on the topic of Speaking in Tongues.I have already made a series of presentations on pretty much every single passage of scripture on this topic. I have written a book which is available on Amazon. For those who can't afford the book, or who are unsure whether investing in the price of the book is a good investment, I have actually published most the book chapter by chapter on this substack. You can read it there for free, and I hope that if you are edified by the content that you might support my work by buying a copy.For the sake of brevity I am only giving you the quotes with just enough information to be able to see what their firm beliefs were on this subject. In the presentation notes I will list all the source material where you can do your own due dilligence and readall the context of these quotes, so you know I have not taken them out of context or made them say what they did not intend.First up let's look at the 1st few centuries, AD 100-300Irenaus. c. 120-200 AD (his writings date to this time)Irenaus was the bishop of the Ro