16. See Gn 41: 1-32.
Book XII 473 mysteries ( 1 Cor 14:2). This is sufficient indication that what he calls a tongue in this place is an utterance whose significance is wrapped up in images and like nesses of things, which need the penetrating glance of the mind in order to be understood. But when they are not understood, he says they are in the spirit, not in the mind. Thus he says more plainly: lfyou bless in the spirit, how will the one who occupies the place of the outsider say "Amen " to your blessing, seeing that he does not know what you are saying ?(1 Cor 14: 16).
So then, it is because when we speak with the tongue, that is, with the bit of the body we move around in the mouth, we are of course presenting signs or signals of things, not the things themselves, that by a transferred application of the word he called any presentation of signs before they are understood a tongue. When under standing dawns, which is the speciality of the mind, revelation is achieved, or recognition or prophecy or teaching. Accordingly he says: lf l come to you speaking in tongues, what do lprofit you, unless l speak to you with some revela tion or with some recognition, or with some prophecy or with some teaching? (1 Cor 14:6); which means, when understanding is added to the signs, that is to the tongue, so that what is going on may go on not only in the spirit but also in the mind.
The point illustrated by the stories ofJoseph and Pharaoh, and Daniel and Nebuchadnezzar
9, 20. Accordingly, for those people to whom signs were shown in spirit through the likenesses of bodily things, it was not yet prophecy, unless the mind lent its services for these signs to be understood; the one who could interpret what the other had seen was more ofa prophet than the one who had seen it. From this it is evident that prophecy belongs more to the mind than to this spirit, which is called spirit in a special sense of its own, being a power of the soul lower than the mind in which likenesses ofbodily things are imprinted. And so Joseph, who understood what the seven ears of corn and the seven oxen signified, was more of a prophet than Pharaoh, who saw them in dreams.16 While his spirit indeed was molded for him to see, the other's mind was enlightened for him to under stand. And thus Pharaoh had "a tongue," Joseph prophecy, because Pharaoh imagined the things, Joseph interpreted what he had imagined.
So then the one who sees in spirit only the signs of the things being signified through the images of bodily things is less of a prophet, and the one who is favored only with the understanding of them is more of a prophet; but most completely a prophet is the one who excels in both respects, so that he both sees in spirit the significant likenesses of bodily things and also understands them by the liveliness of his mind. This is how Daniel's pre-eminence was both tested and proved, when he not only told the king the dream he had seen but also
16. See Gn 41: 1-32.