Genesis 11:4

But though these nations are said to have been dispersed according to their languages, yet the narrator recurs to that time when all had but one language, and explains how it came to pass that a diversity of languages was introduced. “The whole earth,” he says, “was of one lip, and all had one speech. And it came to pass, as they journeyed from the east, that they found a plain in the land of Shinar, and dwelt there. And they said one to another, Come, and let us make bricks, and burn them thoroughly. And they had bricks for stone, and slime for mortar. And they said, Come, and let us build for ourselves a city, and a tower whose top shall reach the sky; and let us make us a name, before we be scattered abroad on the face of all the earth. And the Lord came down to see the city and the tower, which the children of men builded. …

10. But lo, say the disciples to the Lord, we are told in what name we are to baptize; Thou hast made us ministers, and hast said to us, “Go, baptize in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost.” Whither shall we go? Whither? Have you not heard? To Mine inheritance. You ask, Whither shall we go? To that which I bought with my blood. Whither then? To the nations, saith He. I fancied that He said, Go, baptize the Africans in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Thanks be to God, the Lord has solved the question the dove has taught us. Thanks be to God, it was to the nations the apostles were sent; if to the nations, then to all tongues. The Holy Spirit signified this, being divided in the tongues, united in the dove. Here the tongues are divided, there the dove unites them. …

10. “Sink, O Lord, and divide the tongues of them” ( ver. 9 ). He is referring to men troubling him and shadowing him, and he hath wished this thing not of anger, brethren. They that have wickedly lifted up themselves, for them it is expedient that they be sunk. They that have wickedly conspired, it is expedient for them that their tongues should be divided: to good let them consent, and let their tongues agree together. But if to one purpose there were a whispering against me, he saith, all mine ene mies, let them lose their “one purpose” in evil, divided be the tongues of them, let them not with themselves agree together. “Sink, O Lord, and divide the tongues of them.” Wherefore “sink”? Because themselves they have lifted up. Wherefore “divide”? Because for an evil thing they have united. …

“There was therefore a division among them.” This division first began among the people, then later among the rulers also, and some said, “He is a good man”; others, “Nay, but he deceiveth the people.” ( c. vii. 12 .) Seest thou that the rulers were more void of understanding than the many, since they were divided later than they? and after they were divided, they did not exhibit any noble feeling, when they saw the Pharisees pressing upon them. Since had they been entirely separated from them, they would soon have known the truth. For it is possible to do well in separating. Wherefore also Himself hath said, “I am come not to bring peace upon the earth but a sword.” ( Matt. x. 34 .) For there is an evil concord, and there is a good disagreement. Thus they who built the tower ( Gen. xi. …

What are God’s first words to Abraham? “Get thee out of thy country and from thy kindred unto a land that I will show thee.” The patriarch, the first to receive a promise of Christ, is here told to leave the Chaldees, to leave the city of confusion and its rehoboth or broad places; to leave also the plain of Shinar, where the tower of pride had been raised to heaven. He has to pass through the waves of this world, and to ford its rivers; those by which the saints sat down and wept when they remembered Zion, and Chebar’s flood, whence Ezekiel was carried to Jerusalem by the hair of his head. All this Abraham undergoes that he may dwell in a land of promise watered from above, and not like Egypt, from below, no producer of herbs for the weak and ailing, but a land that looks for the early and the latter rain from heaven. It is a land of hills and valleys, and stands high above the sea. …

22. The crowning feat of this faction was the council which sat first at Seleucia, the city of the holy and illustrious virgin Thekla, and afterwards at this mighty city, thus connecting their names, no longer with noble associations, but with these of deepest disgrace; whether we must call that council, which subverted and disturbed everything, a tower of Chalane, which deservedly confounded the tongues, would that theirs had been confounded for their harmony in evil! or a Sanhedrim of Caiaphas where Christ was condemned, or some other like name. The ancient and pious doctrine which defended the Trinity was abolished, by setting up a palisade and battering down the Consubstantial: opening the door to impiety by means of what is written, using as their pretext, their reverence for Scripture and for the use of approved terms, but really introducing unscriptural Arianism. …

67. I will only say this of him. Whenever I handle his Hexaemeron, and take its words on my lips, I am brought into the presence of the Creator, and understand the words of creation, and admire the Creator more than before, using my teacher as my only means of sight. Whenever I take up his polemical works, I see the fire of Sodom, by which the wicked and rebellious tongues are reduced to ashes, or the tower of Chalane, impiously built, and righteously destroyed. Whenever I read his writings on the Spirit, I find the God Whom I possess, and grow bold in my utterance of the truth, from the support of his theology and contemplation. …