TONGERLOO
776
TONGUES
Tongerloo, Abbey of, near Antwerp, Belgium,
founded in 1128 in honour of the Blessed Virgin, by de
Giselbert, who not only gave the land, but also him-
self became a lay brother in it. The first religious
were sent from St. Michael's Abbey, Antwerp, under
Henry, who had come with St. Norbert to Antwerp
to extirpate the Tanchelmite heresies. The charter
of its foundation was signed, amongst others, by St.
Bernard of Clairvau.x and by the Blessed Waltraan,
first Abbot of Antwerp. The Bishop of Cambrai
granted synodal rights to the abbots. From very
small beginnings the abbey grew to be in time one of
the most important in Belgium, making its spiritual
and social influence felt in a large district called Cam-
pine, now in north-east Belgium and south Holland,
then a wild district in which but scanty provision was
found for the spiritual and social needs of its scattered
inhabitants. Considering the scarcity of priests and
the good done by the
religious of Tonger-
loo, the bishops of
Cambrai, the chap-
ters of Liege and
Maastricht, and sev-
eral landowners con-
fided the charge of
parishes, with the
right of patronage, to
the abbey; thus it
came to pass that in
time the abbey had
to provide priests for
some forty parishes,
or small Norbertine
residences, in these
parts.
With the erection of new dioceses
(1559-60) in Belgium and Holland, heavy burdens were cast on the abbey, for not only had it to provide the funds, but the new Bishop of Bois- le-Duc was put at its head as abbot. This state of affairs lasted until 1590, when, to obtain its independence, the abbey had to give up much property in support of the new diocese. Mean- while the Calvinists had become very powerful in Hol- land and, in their hatred of the Catholic Church, had put many Catholics to death. Amongst those who received the crown of martyrdom are reckoned three religious of Tongerloo, viz. : Arnold Vessem and Henry Bosch in 1557, and Peter Janssens in 1572. The abbey has always promoted education. Bishop Ophovius says that its religious were educated in omni pietate el doc- trina and Mirjeus, that it was fcecundum pastorum Sem- inarium. It possessed one of the largest libraries, and was able to take up the work of the BoUandists. (See Backx; PrbmonstratensianCvngns, Bollandists.)
Spilbeeck, De Abdy van Tongerloo (Antwerp, 18SS). pp. xii- 652
F. M. Geudens
Tongerloo Abbet, fkom the SotrTH-wEST
he pubhshed in three volumes at Rome in 1861 and
at Brussels in 1862. Nine editions appeared diu-ing
the next eighteen years, some of them modified by
Claude Ramiere. A compendium of the same work
and a separate volume on ethics also came from his
pen. All his works are still used as text-books for
college or seminary. On some of the mooted ques-
tions in philosophy the author departed from Scholas-
tic traditions, rejecting the Peripatetic theory of
matter and form, denying the real distinction between
accidents and substance, and claiming that mere
resultants of mechanical and chemical forces could
produce the life-activity seen in the vegetable world.
These doctrines, though not widely accepted, yet
stimulated the Scholastics to make better use of the
researches carried on in the physical sciences.
SoMMEHVOGEL, Bibl. de la. c. de J., VIII, 96; Hurter, Nomen-
clatoT. John M. Fox.
Tong-king. See Indo-China.
Tongues, Gift of,
or G L O .S S O L A L Y (7Xu£rffoXaXfa), a su- pernatural gift of the class gratia: gratis datcr, designed to aid in the outer devel- opment of the primi- tive Church. The theological bearing of the subject is treated ill the article Cha- . I-MATA (11). The iMi'sent article deals with its exegetical and historic phases. St. Luke relates 1-15) that on the feast of Pentecost the Ascension of Christ info heaven
(Acts, ii,
following
one hundred and twenty disciples of Galilean origin were heard speaking "with divers tongues, ac- cording as the Holy Ghost gave them to speak". Devout Jews then dwelling at Jerusalem, the scene of the incident, were quickly drawn together to the number of approximately three thousand. The multitude embraced two religious classes, Jews and proselytes, from fifteen distinct lands so distributed geographically as to represent "every nation under heaven". All were "confounded in mind" because every man heard the disciples speaking the "wonder- ful things of God" in his own tongue, namely, that in which he was born. To many the disciples ap- peared to be in a state of inebriation, wherefore St. Peter undertook to justify the anomaly by explaining it in the light of prophecy as a sign of the last times. The glossolaly thus described was historic, articu- late, and intelligible. Jerusalem was then as now a polyglottal region and could easily have produced one hundred and twenty persons who, in the presence Tongiorgi, Salvator, philosopher, b. at Rome, of a cosmopolitan assemblage, might express them-
Italy, 25 Dec, 1820; d. there, 12 Nov., 1865. At
the age of seventeen he entered the Society of Jesus.
After the usual noviceship, literary and philosophical
studies, a half-decade was spent in teaching rhetoric
at Reggio and humanities at Forli. Then four years
were passed in the study of theology, under the emi-
nent professors Perrone, Passaglia, Ballerini, and
Patrizi. Immediately after this, in 18.5,3, the young
priest w^as assigned to the chair of philosophy in the
Roman College, and there during twelve years dis-
tinguished him.self as a teacher and author. Within
a few days of his forty-fourth birthday he was ap-
pointed assistant to the provincial of the Roman
Province; but his health gave way before a year had
elapsed. Father Tongiorgi wrote a well-known course
of philosophy, "Institutiones philosophica;", which
selves in fifteen different tongues. Since the variety
of tongues is attributed to the group and not to in-
dividuals, particular disciples may not have used more
than their native .\ramaic, though it is difficult to
picture any of them historically and socially without
at least a smattering of other tongues. The lin-
guistic conditions of the country were far more
diverse than those of Switzerland to-day. The num-
ber of languages spoken equalled the number of those
in which the listeners "were born". But for these
Greek and Aramaic would suffice with a possible
admixture of Latin. The distinction of "tongues"
(v. 6, 5i(t\«Tos; V. 11, 7\wiT<ro) was largely one of
dialects and the cause of astonishment was that so
many of them should be heard simultaneously arid
from Galileans whose linguistic capacities were pre-
