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Thus the Ancients did not distinguish speech from conception.

The problem of the origin of speech, treated in antiquity with as much depth as calmness, profoundly agitated the minds in the Middle Ages, and the theologians naturally introduced this variant in their exposition of the subject: Has language a divine or human origin? The Christian philosopher replies: “The intellect of God created the world, and the human soul, made in the likeness of the mind of God, has in itself the source of all knowledge: thought and language are of divine origin; left to himself, with only the help of his own powers, man would never have found a means of expressing his thoughts.” Such was the belief of the greatest thinkers of the Middle Ages; and they accepted the fact of a primordial language which men must have received directly from the Creator; this opinion was perpetuated until the most recent times. But from the earliest Christian centuries there were certain philosophers such as Gregory of Nyssa, who, whilst acknowledging the existence of a primitive universal language, considered that it redounded more to the glory of the Almighty Creator to endow man simply with the power of speech, and they deny that this language with its grammar and orthography was divinely revealed.